They strode off together, talking in low voices. Mr. Weasley did not let go of Harry’s shoulder until they had disappeared into the lift.

“Why wasn’t he waiting outside Fudge’s office if they’ve got business to do together?” Harry burst out furiously. “What was he doing down here?”

“Trying to sneak down to the courtroom, if you ask me,” said Mr. Weasley, looking extremely agitated and glancing over his shoulder as though making sure they could not be overheard. “Trying to find out whether you’d been expelled or not. I’ll leave a note for Dumbledore when I drop you off, he ought to know Malfoy’s been talking to Fudge again.”

“What private business have they got together, anyway?”

“Gold, I expect,” said Mr. Weasley angrily. “Malfoy’s been giving generously to all sorts of things for years… gets him in with the right people… then he can ask favours… delay laws he doesn’t want passed… oh, he’s very well-connected, Lucius Malfoy.”

The lift arrived; it was empty except for a flock of memos that flapped around Mr. Weasley’s head as he pressed the button for the Atrium and the doors clanged shut. He waved them away irritably.

“Mr. Weasley,” said Harry slowly, “if Fudge is meeting Death Eaters like Malfoy, if he’s seeing them alone, how do we know they haven’t put the Imperius Curse on him?”

“Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to us, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley quietly. “But Dumbledore thinks Fudge is acting of his own accord at the moment—which, as Dumbledore says, is not a lot of comfort. Best not talk about it any more just now, Harry.”

The doors slid open and they stepped out into the now almost-deserted Atrium. Eric the watchwizard was hidden behind his Daily Prophet again. They had walked straight past the golden fountain before Harry remembered.

“Wait…” he told Mr. Weasley, and, pulling his moneybag Irom his pocket, he turned back to the fountain.

He looked up into the handsome wizard’s face, but close-to Harry thought he looked rather weak and foolish. The witch was wearing a vapid smile like a beauty contestant, and from what Harry knew of goblins and centaurs, they were most unlikely to be caught staring so soppily at humans of any description. Only the house-elf’s attitude of creeping servility looked convincing. With a grin at the thought of what Hermione would say if she could see the statue of the elf, Harry turned his moneybag upside-down and emptied not just ten Galleons, but the whole contents into the pool.

* * *

“I knew it!” yelled Ron, punching the air. “You always get away with stuff!”

“They were bound to clear you,” said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety when Harry had entered the kitchen and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, “there was no case against you, none at all.”

“Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew I’d get off,” said Harry, smiling.

Mrs. Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, and Fred, George and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went: “He got off, he got off, he got off…”

“That’s enough! Settle down!” shouted Mr. Weasley, though he too was smiling. “Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry—”

“What?” said Sirius sharply.

“He got off, he got off, he got off…”

“Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on Level Nine, then they went up to Fudge’s office together. Dumbledore ought to know.”

“Absolutely,” said Sirius. “We’ll tell him, don’t worry.”

“Well, I’d better get going, there’s a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I’ll be late, I’m covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner—”

“He got off, he got off, he got off…”

“That’s enough—Fred—George—Ginny!” said Mrs. Weasley, as Mr. Weasley left the kitchen. “Harry, dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast.”

Ron and Hermione sat themselves down opposite him, looking happier than they had done since he had first arrived at Grimmauld Place, and Harry’s feeling of giddy relief, which had been somewhat dented by his encounter with Lucius Malfoy, swelled again. The gloomy house seemed warmer and more welcoming all of a sudden; even Kreacher looked less ugly as he poked his snoutlike nose into the kitchen to investigate the source of all the noise.

“Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you,” said Ron happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potato on to everyone’s plates.

“Yeah, he swung it for me,” said Harry. He felt it would sound highly ungrateful, not to mention childish, to say, “I wish he’d talked to me, though. Or even looked at me.”

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The second man turned at the sound of their footsteps. He, too, broke off in mid-conversation, his cold grey eyes narrowed and fixed upon Harry’s face.	\|	And as he thought this, the scar on his forehead burned so badly that he clapped his hand to it.

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