Harry got to his feet, glaring at the pair of them. He had never seen Umbridge looking so happy. She seized his arm in a vice-like grip and turned, beaming broadly, to Malfoy.

“You hop along and see if you can round up any more of them, Draco,” she said. “Tell the others to look in the library—anybody out of breath—check the bathrooms, Miss Parkinson can do the girls’ ones—off you go—and you,” she added in her softest, most dangerous voice, as Malfoy walked away, “you can come with me to the Headmaster’s office, Potter.”

They were at the stone gargoyle within minutes. Harry wondered how many of the others had been caught. He thought of Ron—Mrs. Weasley would kill him—and of how Hermione would feel if she was expelled before she could take her O.W.L.s. And it had been Seamus’s very first meeting… and Neville had been getting so good…

“Fizzing Whizzbee,” sang Umbridge; the stone gargoyle jumped aside, the wall behind split open, and they ascended the moving stone staircase. They reached the polished door with the griffin knocker, but Umbridge did not bother to knock, she strode straight inside, still holding tight to Harry.

The office was full of people. Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, his expression serene, the tips of his long fingers together. Professor McGonagall stood rigidly beside him, her face extremely tense. Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, was rocking backwards and forwards on his toes beside the fire, apparently immensely pleased with the situation; Kingsley Shacklebolt and a tough-looking wizard with very short wiry hair whom Harry did not recognise, were positioned either side of the door like guards, and the freckled, bespectacled form of Percy Weasley hovered excitedly beside the wall, a quill and a heavy scroll of parchment in his hands, apparently poised to take notes.

The portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses were not shamming sleep tonight. All of them were alert and serious, watching what was happening below them. As Harry entered, a few flitted into neighbouring frames and whispered urgently into their neighbour’s ear.

Harry pulled himself free of Umbridge’s grasp as the door swung shut behind them. Cornelius Fudge was glaring at him with a kind of vicious satisfaction on his face.

“Well,” he said. “Well, well, well…”

Harry replied with the dirtiest look he could muster. His heart drummed madly inside him, but his brain was oddly cool and clear.

“He was heading back to Gryffindor Tower,” said Umbridge. There was an indecent excitement in her voice, the same callous pleasure Harry had heard as she watched Professor Trelawney dissolving with misery in the Entrance Hall. “The Malfoy boy cornered him.”

“Did he, did he?” said Fudge appreciatively. “I must remember to tell Lucius. Well, Potter… I expect you know why you are here?”

Harry fully intended to respond with a defiant “yes”: his mouth had opened and the word was half-formed when he caught sight of Dumbledore’s face. Dumbledore was not looking directly at Harry—his eyes were fixed on a point just over his shoulder—but as Harry stared at him, he shook his head a fraction of an inch to each side.

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Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf.	\|	Harry changed direction mid-word.

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