Harry had slid off his chair on to his knees and was now crouching on the singed and threadbare hearthrug, gazing into the flames.
“Er—Harry?” said Ron uncertainly. “Why are you down there?”
“Because I’ve just seen Sirius’s head in the fire,” said Harry.
He spoke quite calmly; after all, he had seen Sirius’s head in this very fire the previous year and talked to it, too; nevertheless, he could not be sure that he had really seen it this time… it had vanished so quickly…
“Sirius’s head?” Hermione repeated. “You mean like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament? But he wouldn’t do that now, it would be too—Sirius!”
She gasped, gazing at the fire; Ron dropped his quill. There in the middle of the dancing flames sat Sirius’s head, long dark hair falling around his grinning face.
“I was starting to think you’d go to bed before everyone else had disappeared,” he said. “I’ve been checking every hour.”
“You’ve been popping into the fire every hour?” Harry said, half-laughing.
“Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear.”
“But what if you’d been seen?” said Hermione anxiously.
“Well, I think a girl—first-year, by the look of her—might’ve got a glimpse of me earlier, but don’t worry,” Sirius said hastily, as Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, “I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I’ll bet she just thought I was an oddly-shaped log or something.”
“But, Sirius, this is taking an awful risk—” Hermione began.
“You sound like Molly,” said Sirius. “This was the only way I could come up with of answering Harry’s letter without resorting to a code—and codes are breakable.”