Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Oh, why don’t we have a night off?” said Hermione brightly, as a silver-tailed Weasley rocket zoomed past the window. “After all, the Easter holidays start on Friday, we’ll have plenty of time then.”

“Are you feeling all right?” Ron asked, staring at her in disbelief.

“Now you mention it,” said Hermione happily, “d’you know… I think I’m feeling a bit… rebellious.”

Harry could still hear the distant bangs of escaped firecrackers when he and Ron went up to bed an hour later; and as he got undressed a sparkler floated past the tower, still resolutely spelling out the word “TOO.”

He got into bed, yawning. With his glasses off, the occasional firework passing the window had become blurred, looking like sparkling clouds, beautiful and mysterious against the black sky. He turned on to his side, wondering how Umbridge was feeling about her first day in Dumbledore’s job, and how Fudge would react when he heard that the school had spent most of the day in a state of advanced disruption. Smiling to himself, Harry closed his eyes…

The whizzes and bangs of escaped fireworks in the grounds seemed to be growing more distant… or perhaps he was simply speeding away from them…

He had fallen right into the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries. He was speeding towards the plain black door… let it open… let it open…

It did. He was inside the circular room lined with doors… he crossed it, placed his hand on an identical door and it swung inwards…

Now he was in a long, rectangular room full of an odd mechanical clicking. There were dancing flecks of light on the walls but he did not pause to investigate… he had to go on…

There was a door at the far end… it, too, opened at his touch…

And now he was in a dimly lit room as high and wide as a church, full of nothing but rows and rows of towering shelves, each laden with small, dusty, spun-glass spheres… now Harry’s heart was beating fast with excitement… he knew where to go… he ran forwards, but his footsteps made no noise in the enormous, deserted room…

There was something in this room he wanted very, very much…

Something he wanted… or somebody else wanted…

His scar was hurting…

BANG!

Harry awoke instantly, confused and angry. The dark dormitory was full of the sound of laughter.

“Cool!” said Seamus, who was silhouetted against the window. “I think one of those Catherine wheels hit a rocket and it’s like they mated, come and see!”

Harry heard Ron and Dean scramble out of bed for a better look. He lay quite still and silent while the pain in his scar subsided and disappointment washed over him. He felt as though a wonderful treat had been snatched from him at the very last moment… he had got so close that time.

Glittering pink and silver winged piglets were now soaring past the windows of Gryffindor Tower. Harry lay and listened to the appreciative whoops of Gryffindors in the dormitories below them. His stomach gave a sickening jolt as he remembered that he had Occlumency the following evening.

* * *

Harry spent the whole of the next day dreading what Snape was going to say if he found out how much further into the Department of Mysteries Harry had penetrated during his last dream. With a surge of guilt he realised that he had not practised Occlumency once since their last lesson: there had been too much going on since Dumbledore had left; he was sure he would not have been able to empty his mind even if he had tried. He doubted, however, whether Snape would accept that excuse.

He attempted a little last-minute practice during classes that day, but it was no good. Hermione kept asking him what was wrong whenever he fell silent trying to rid himself of all thought and emotion and, after all, the best moment to empty his brain was not while teachers were firing revision questions at the class.

Resigned to the worst, he set off for Snape’s office after dinner. Halfway across the Entrance Hall, however, Cho came hurrying up to him.

“Over here,” said Harry, glad of a reason to postpone his meeting with Snape, and beckoning her across to the corner of the Entrance Hall where the giant hour-glasses stood. Gryffindor’s was now almost empty. “Are you OK? Umbridge hasn’t been asking you about the D.A., has she?”

“Oh, no,” said Cho hurriedly. “No, it was only… well, I just wanted to say… Harry, I never dreamed Marietta would tell…”

“Yeah, well,” said Harry moodily. He did feel Cho might have chosen her friends a bit more carefully; it was small consolation that the last he had heard, Marietta was still up in the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey had not been able to make the slightest improvement to her pimples.

“She’s a lovely person really,” said Cho. “She just made a mistake—”

Harry looked at her incredulously.

“A lovely person who made a mistake? She sold us all out, including you!”

“Well… we all got away, didn’t we?” said Cho pleadingly. “You know, her mum works for the Ministry, it’s really difficult for her—”