Harry Potter 06 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

out of the stripy collar of his pyjamas looked oddly disembodied, his mouth gaping in astonishment and fear. Dumbledore waited a moment or two, apparently to see whether any of the Dursleys were going to say anything, but as the silence stretched on he smiled.
    ‘Shall we assume that you have invited me into your sitting room?’
    Dudley scrambled out of the way as Dumbledore passed him. Harry, still clutching the telescope and trainers, jumped the last few stairs and followed Dumbledore, who had settled himself in the armchair nearest the fire and was taking in the surroundings with an expression of benign interest. He looked quite extraordinarily out of place.
    ‘Aren’t – aren’t we leaving, sir?’ Harry asked anxiously.
    ‘Yes, indeed we are, but there are a few matters we need to discuss first,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And I would prefer not to do so in the open. We shall trespass upon your aunt and uncle’s hospitality only a little longer.’
    ‘You will, will you?’
    Vernon Dursley had entered the room, Petunia at his shoulder and Dudley skulking behind them both.
    ‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore simply, ‘I shall.’
    He drew his wand so rapidly that Harry barely saw it; with a casual flick, the sofa zoomed forwards and knocked the knees out from under all three of the Dursleys so that they collapsed upon it in a heap. Another flick of the wand and the sofa zoomed back to its original position.
    ‘We may as well be comfortable,’ said Dumbledore pleasantly.
    As he replaced his wand in his pocket, Harry saw that his hand was blackened and shrivelled; it looked as though his flesh had been burned away.
    ‘Sir – what happened to your –?’
    ‘Later, Harry,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Please sit down.’
    Harry took the remaining armchair, choosing not to look at the Dursleys, who seemed stunned into silence.
    ‘I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment,’ Dumbledore said to Uncle Vernon, ‘but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness.’
    A third twitch of the wand and a dusty bottle and five glasses appeared in midair. The bottle tipped and poured a generous measure of honey-coloured liquid into each of the glasses, which then floated to each person in the room.
    ‘Madam Rosmerta’s finest, oak-matured mead,’ said Dumbledore, raising his glass to Harry, who caught hold of his own and sipped. He had never tasted anything like it before, but enjoyed it immensely. The Dursleys, after quick, scared looks at each other, tried to ignore their glasses completely, a difficult feat, as they were nudging them gently on the sides of their heads. Harry could not suppress a suspicion that Dumbledore was rather enjoying himself.
    ‘Well, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, turning towards him, ‘a difficulty has arisen which I hope you will be able to solve for us. By us, I mean the Order of the Phoenix. But first of all I must tell you that Sirius’s will was discovered a week ago and that he left you everything he owned.’
    Over on the sofa, Uncle Vernon’s head turned, but Harry did not look at him, nor could he think of anything to say except, ‘Oh. Right.’
    ‘This is, in the main, fairly straightforward,’ Dumbledore went on. ‘You add a reasonable amount of gold to your account at Gringotts and you inherit all of Sirius’s personal possessions. The slightly problematic part of the legacy –’
    ‘His godfather’s dead?’ said Uncle Vernon loudly from the sofa. Dumbledore and Harry both turned to look at him. The glass of mead was now knocking quite insistently on the side of Vernon’s head; he attempted to beat it away. ‘He’s dead? His godfather?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore. He did not ask Harry why he had not confided in the Dursleys. ‘Our problem,’ he continued to Harry, as if there had been no interruption, ‘is that Sirius also left you number twelve, Grimmauld Place.’
    ‘He’s been left a house?’ said Uncle Vernon greedily, his small eyes narrowing, but nobody answered him.
    ‘You can keep using it as Headquarters,’ said Harry. ‘I don’t care. You can have it, I don’t really want it.’ Harry never wanted to set foot in number twelve, Grimmauld Place again if he could help it. He thought he would be haunted for ever by the memory of Sirius prowling its dark musty rooms alone, imprisoned within the place he had wanted so desperately to leave.
    ‘That is generous,’ said Dumbledore. ‘We have, however,