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

remained confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up the front drive, looking extremely angry.
    ‘Should we say something?’ said Hermione in a worried voice, pressing her cheek against the Charms window so that she could see Mr and Mrs Montague marching inside. ‘About what happened to him? In case it helps Madam Pomfrey cure him?’
    ‘Course not, he’ll recover,’ said Ron indifferently.
    ‘Anyway, more trouble for Umbridge, isn’t it?’ said Harry in a satisfied voice.
    He and Ron both tapped the teacups they were supposed to be charming with their wands. Harry’s spouted four very short legs that could not reach the desk and wriggled pointlessly in midair. Ron’s grew four very thin spindly legs that hoisted the cup off the desk with great difficulty, trembled for a few seconds, then folded, causing the cup to crack into two.
    ‘ Reparo ,’ said Hermione quickly, mending Ron’s cup with a wave of her wand. ‘That’s all very well, but what if Montague’s permanently injured?’
    ‘Who cares?’ said Ron irritably, while his teacup stood up drunkenly again, trembling violently at the knees. ‘Montague shouldn’t have tried to take all those points from Gryffindor, should he? If you want to worry about anyone, Hermione, worry about me!’
    ‘You?’ she said, catching her teacup as it scampered happily away across the desk on four sturdy little willow-patterned legs, and replacing it in front of her. ‘Why should I be worried about you?’
    ‘When Mum’s next letter finally gets through Umbridge’s screening process,’ said Ron bitterly, now holding his cup up while its frail legs tried feebly to support its weight, ‘I’m going to be in deep trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s sent another Howler.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘It’ll be my fault Fred and George left, you wait,’ said Ron darkly. ‘She’ll say I should’ve stopped them leaving, I should’ve grabbed the ends of their brooms and hung on or something … yeah, it’ll be all my fault.’
    ‘Well, if she does say that it’ll be very unfair, you couldn’t have done anything! But I’m sure she won’t, I mean, if it’s really true they’ve got premises in Diagon Alley, they must have been planning this for ages.’
    ‘Yeah, but that’s another thing, how did they get premises?’ said Ron, hitting his teacup so hard with his wand that its legs collapsed again and it lay twitching before him. ‘It’s a bit dodgy, isn’t it? They’ll need loads of Galleons to afford the rent on a place in Diagon Alley. She’ll want to know what they’ve been up to, to get their hands on that sort of gold.’
    ‘Well, yes, that occurred to me, too,’ said Hermione, allowing her teacup to jog in neat little circles around Harry’s, whose stubby little legs were still unable to touch the desktop, ‘I’ve been wondering whether Mundungus has persuaded them to sell stolen goods or something awful.’
    ‘He hasn’t,’ said Harry curtly.
    ‘How do you know?’ said Ron and Hermione together.
    ‘Because –’ Harry hesitated, but the moment to confess finally seemed to have come. There was no good to be gained in keeping silent if it meant anyone suspected that Fred and George were criminals. ‘Because they got the gold from me. I gave them my Triwizard winnings last June.’
    There was a shocked silence, then Hermione’s teacup jogged right over the edge of the desk and smashed on the floor.
    ‘Oh, Harry, you didn’t !’ she said.
    ‘Yes, I did,’ said Harry mutinously. ‘And I don’t regret it, either. I didn’t need the gold and they’ll be great at running a joke shop.’
    ‘But this is excellent!’ said Ron, looking thrilled. ‘It’s all your fault, Harry – Mum can’t blame me at all! Can I tell her?’
    ‘Yeah, I suppose you’d better,’ said Harry dully, ‘’specially if she thinks they’re receiving stolen cauldrons or something.’
    Hermione said nothing at all for the rest of the lesson, but Harry had a shrewd suspicion that her self-restraint was bound to crack before long. Sure enough, once they had left the castle for break and were standing around in the weak May sunshine, she fixed Harry with a beady eye and opened her mouth with a determined air.
    Harry interrupted her before she had even started.
    ‘It’s no good nagging me, it’s done,’ he said firmly. ‘Fred and George have got the gold – spent a good bit of it, too, by