She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.

“I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back—”

“I know,” Ron said, “Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really—”

“Oh, you’re sorry!”

She laughed a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry merely grimaced his helplessness.

“You came back after weeks—weeks—and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?”

“Well, what else can I say?” Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back.

“Oh, I don’t know!” yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. “Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds—”

“Hermione,” interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, “he just saved my—”

“I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew—”

“I knew you weren’t dead!” bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. “Harry’s all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead, you don’t know what it’s been like—”

“What it’s been like for you??”

Her voice was not so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity.

“I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!”

“A gang of what?” asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.

“Snatchers,” said Ron. “They’re everywhere—gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there’s a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry.”

“What did you say to them?”

“Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of.”

“And they believed that?”

“They weren’t the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell of him…”

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.	\|	Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.

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