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

but this time seemed to be hoping for a clue as to what to do next.
    ‘So,’ sneered Fudge, recovering himself, ‘you intend to take on Dawlish, Shacklebolt, Dolores and myself single-handed, do you, Dumbledore?’
    ‘Merlin’s beard, no,’ said Dumbledore, smiling, ‘not unless you are foolish enough to force me to.’
    ‘He will not be single-handed!’ said Professor McGonagall loudly, plunging her hand inside her robes.
    ‘Oh yes he will, Minerva!’ said Dumbledore sharply. ‘Hogwarts needs you!’
    ‘Enough of this rubbish!’ said Fudge, pulling out his own wand. ‘Dawlish! Shacklebolt! Take him! ’
    A streak of silver light flashed around the room; there was a bang like a gunshot and the floor trembled; a hand grabbed the scruff of Harry’s neck and forced him down on the floor as a second silver flash went off; several of the portraits yelled, Fawkes screeched and a cloud of dust filled the air. Coughing in the dust, Harry saw a dark figure fall to the ground with a crash in front of him; there was a shriek and a thud and somebody cried, ‘No!’; then there was the sound of breaking glass, frantically scuffling footsteps, a groan … and silence.
    Harry struggled around to see who was half-strangling him and saw Professor McGonagall crouched beside him; she had forced both him and Marietta out of harm’s way. Dust was still floating gently down through the air on to them. Panting slightly, Harry saw a very tall figure moving towards them.
    ‘Are you all right?’ Dumbledore asked.
    ‘Yes!’ said Professor McGonagall, getting up and dragging Harry and Marietta with her.
    The dust was clearing. The wreckage of the office loomed into view: Dumbledore’s desk had been overturned, all of the spindly tables had been knocked to the floor, their silver instruments in pieces. Fudge, Umbridge, Kingsley and Dawlish lay motionless on the floor. Fawkes the phoenix soared in wide circles above them, singing softly.
    ‘Unfortunately, I had to hex Kingsley too, or it would have looked very suspicious,’ said Dumbledore in a low voice. ‘He was remarkably quick on the uptake, modifying Miss Edgecombe’s memory like that while everyone was looking the other way – thank him, for me, won’t you, Minerva?
    ‘Now, they will all awake very soon and it will be best if they do not know that we had time to communicate – you must act as though no time has passed, as though they were merely knocked to the ground, they will not remember –’
    ‘Where will you go, Dumbledore?’ whispered Professor McGonagall. ‘Grimmauld Place?’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Dumbledore, with a grim smile, ‘I am not leaving to go into hiding. Fudge will soon wish he’d never dislodged me from Hogwarts, I promise you.’
    ‘Professor Dumbledore …’ Harry began.
    He did not know what to say first: how sorry he was that he had started the DA in the first place and caused all this trouble, or how terrible he felt that Dumbledore was leaving to save him from expulsion? But Dumbledore cut him off before he could say another word.
    ‘Listen to me, Harry,’ he said urgently. ‘You must study Occlumency as hard as you can, do you understand me? Do everything Professor Snape tells you and practise it particularly every night before sleeping so that you can close your mind to bad dreams – you will understand why soon enough, but you must promise me –’
    The man called Dawlish was stirring. Dumbledore seized Harry’s wrist.
    ‘Remember – close your mind –’
    But as Dumbledore’s fingers closed over Harry’s skin, a pain shot through the scar on his forehead and he felt again that terrible, snakelike longing to strike Dumbledore, to bite him, to hurt him –
    ‘– you will understand,’ whispered Dumbledore.
    Fawkes circled the office and swooped low over him. Dumbledore released Harry, raised his hand and grasped the phoenix’s long golden tail. There was a flash of fire and the pair of them were gone.
    ‘Where is he?’ yelled Fudge, pushing himself up from the floor. ‘Where is he?’
    ‘I don’t know!’ shouted Kingsley, also leaping to his feet.
    ‘Well, he can’t have Disapparated!’ cried Umbridge. ‘You can’t do it from inside this school –’
    ‘The stairs!’ cried Dawlish, and he flung himself upon the door, wrenched it open and disappeared, followed closely by Kingsley and Umbridge. Fudge hesitated, then got slowly to his feet, brushing dust from his front. There was a long and painful