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

last time they were angling for a pay rise … Just round here, Harry.’
    They turned a corner, walked through a pair of heavy oak doors and emerged in a cluttered open area divided into cubicles, which was buzzing with talk and laughter. Memos were zooming in and out of cubicles like miniature rockets. A lopsided sign on the nearest cubicle read: Auror Headquarters.
    Harry looked surreptitiously through the doorways as they passed. The Aurors had covered their cubicle walls with everything from pictures of wanted wizards and photographs of their families, to posters of their favourite Quidditch teams and articles from the Daily Prophet . A scarlet-robed man with a ponytail longer than Bill’s was sitting with his boots up on his desk, dictating a report to his quill. A little further along, a witch with a patch over one eye was talking over the top of her cubicle wall to Kingsley Shacklebolt.
    ‘Morning, Weasley,’ said Kingsley carelessly, as they drew nearer. ‘I’ve been wanting a word with you, have you got a second?’
    ‘Yes, if it really is a second,’ said Mr Weasley, ‘I’m in rather a hurry.’
    They were talking as though they hardly knew each other and when Harry opened his mouth to say hello to Kingsley, Mr Weasley stood on his foot. They followed Kingsley along the row and into the very last cubicle.
    Harry received a slight shock; blinking down at him from every direction was Sirius’s face. Newspaper cuttings and old photographs – even the one of Sirius being best man at the Potters’ wedding – papered the walls. The only Sirius-free space was a map of the world in which little red pins were glowing like jewels.
    ‘Here,’ said Kingsley brusquely to Mr Weasley, shoving a sheaf of parchment into his hand. ‘I need as much information as possible on flying Muggle vehicles sighted in the last twelve months. We’ve received information that Black might still be using his old motorcycle.’
    Kingsley tipped Harry an enormous wink and added, in a whisper, ‘Give him the magazine, he might find it interesting.’ Then he said in normal tones, ‘And don’t take too long, Weasley, the delay on that firelegs report held our investigation up for a month.’
    ‘If you had read my report you would know that the term is firearms ,’ said Mr Weasley coolly. ‘And I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for information on motorcycles; we’re extremely busy at the moment.’ He dropped his voice and said, ‘If you can get away before seven, Molly’s making meatballs.’
    He beckoned to Harry and led him out of Kingsley’s cubicle, through a second set of oak doors, into another passage, turned left, marched along another corridor, turned right into a dimly lit and distinctly shabby corridor, and finally reached a dead end, where a door on the left stood ajar, revealing a broom cupboard, and a door on the right bore a tarnished brass plaque reading: Misuse of Muggle Artefacts.
    Mr Weasley’s dingy office seemed to be slightly smaller than the broom cupboard. Two desks had been crammed inside it and there was barely space to move around them because of all the overflowing filing cabinets lining the walls, on top of which were tottering piles of files. The little wall space available bore witness to Mr Weasley’s obsessions: several posters of cars, including one of a dismantled engine; two illustrations of postboxes he seemed to have cut out of Muggle children’s books; and a diagram showing how to wire a plug.
    Sitting on top of Mr Weasley’s overflowing in-tray was an old toaster that was hiccoughing in a disconsolate way and a pair of empty leather gloves that were twiddling their thumbs. A photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Harry noticed that Percy appeared to have walked out of it.
    ‘We haven’t got a window,’ said Mr Weasley apologetically, taking off his bomber jacket and placing it on the back of his chair. ‘We’ve asked, but they don’t seem to think we need one. Have a seat, Harry, doesn’t look as if Perkins is in yet.’
    Harry squeezed himself into the chair behind Perkins’s desk while Mr Weasley riffled through the sheaf of parchment Kingsley Shacklebolt had given him.
    ‘Ah,’ he said, grinning, as he extracted a copy of a magazine entitled The Quibbler from its midst, ‘yes …’ He flicked through it. ‘Yes, he’s right, I’m sure Sirius will find that very amusing – oh dear, what’s this now?’
    A memo had just zoomed in