Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

she yawned. ‘I was up until one o’clock making more hats. They’re disappearing like mad!’
    And sure enough, now that he looked, Harry saw that there were woolly hats concealed all around the room where unwary elves might accidentally pick them up.
    ‘Great,’ said Harry distractedly; if he did not tell somebody soon, he would burst. ‘Listen, Hermione, I was just up in Umbridge’s office and she touched my arm …’
    Hermione listened closely. When Harry had finished, she said slowly, ‘You’re worried You-Know-Who’s controlling her like he controlled Quirrell?’
    ‘Well,’ said Harry, dropping his voice, ‘it’s a possibility, isn’t it?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ said Hermione, though she sounded unconvinced. ‘But I don’t think he can be possessing her the way he possessed Quirrell, I mean, he’s properly alive again now, isn’t he, he’s got his own body, he wouldn’t need to share someone else’s. He could have her under the Imperius Curse, I suppose …’
    Harry watched Fred, George and Lee Jordan juggling empty Butterbeer bottles for a moment. Then Hermione said, ‘But last year your scar hurt when nobody was touching you, and didn’t Dumbledore say it had to do with what You-Know-Who was feeling at the time? I mean, maybe this hasn’t got anything to do with Umbridge at all, maybe it’s just coincidence it happened while you were with her?’
    ‘She’s evil,’ said Harry flatly. ‘Twisted.’
    ‘She’s horrible, yes, but … Harry, I think you ought to tell Dumbledore your scar hurt.’
    It was the second time in two days he had been advised to go to Dumbledore and his answer to Hermione was just the same as his answer to Ron.
    ‘I’m not bothering him with this. Like you just said, it’s not a big deal. It’s been hurting on and off all summer – it was just a bit worse tonight, that’s all –’
    ‘Harry, I’m sure Dumbledore would want to be bothered by this –’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Harry, before he could stop himself, ‘that’s the only bit of me Dumbledore cares about, isn’t it, my scar?’
    ‘Don’t say that, it’s not true!’
    ‘I think I’ll write and tell Sirius about it, see what he thinks –’
    ‘Harry, you can’t put something like that in a letter!’ said Hermione, looking alarmed. ‘Don’t you remember, Moody told us to be careful what we put in writing! We just can’t guarantee owls aren’t being intercepted any more!’
    ‘All right, all right, I won’t tell him, then!’ said Harry irritably. He got to his feet. ‘I’m going to bed. Tell Ron for me, will you?’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Hermione, looking relieved, ‘if you’re going that means I can go too, without being rude. I’m absolutely exhausted and I want to make some more hats tomorrow. Listen, you can help me if you like, it’s quite fun, I’m getting better, I can do patterns and bobbles and all sorts of things now.’
    Harry looked into her face, which was shining with glee, and tried to look as though he was vaguely tempted by this offer.
    ‘Er … no, I don’t think I will, thanks,’ he said. ‘Er – not tomorrow. I’ve got loads of homework to do …’
    And he traipsed off to the boys’ stairs, leaving her looking slightly disappointed.

 
     
— CHAPTER FOURTEEN —
     
Percy and Padfoot
    Harry was first to wake up in his dormitory next morning. He lay for a moment watching dust swirl in the ray of sunlight coming through the gap in his four-poster’s hangings, and savoured the thought that it was Saturday. The first week of term seemed to have dragged on for ever, like one gigantic History of Magic lesson.
    Judging by the sleepy silence and the freshly minted look of that beam of sunlight, it was just after daybreak. He pulled open the curtains around his bed, got up and started to dress. The only sound apart from the distant twittering of birds was the slow, deep breathing of his fellow Gryffindors. He opened his schoolbag carefully, pulled out parchment and quill and headed out of the dormitory for the common room.
    Making straight for his favourite squashy old armchair beside the now extinct fire, Harry settled himself down comfortably and unrolled his parchment while looking around the room. The detritus of crumpled-up bits of parchment, old Gobstones, empty ingredient jars and sweet wrappers that usually covered the common room at the end of each day was gone, as were all Hermione’s elf hats. Wondering vaguely how many elves had now been