Frowning, he made to take the letter from the owl, but before he could do so, three, four, five more owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter and knocking over the salt as each one attempted to give him their letter first.
“What’s going on?” Ron asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forwards to watch and another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting and flapping their wings.
“Harry!” said Hermione breathlessly, plunging her hands into the feathery mass and pulling out a screech owl bearing a long, cylindrical package. “I think I know what this means—open this one first!”
Harry ripped off the brown packaging. Out rolled a tightly furled copy of the March edition of The Quibbler. He unrolled it to see his own face grinning sheepishly at him from the front cover. In large red letters across this picture were the words:
...
HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN
“It’s good, isn’t it?” said Luna, who had drifted over to the Gryffindor table and now squeezed herself on to the bench between Fred and Ron. “It came out yesterday, I asked Dad to send you a free copy. I expect all these,” she waved a hand at the assembled owls still scrabbling around on the table in front of Harry, “are letters from readers.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Hermione eagerly. “Harry, d’you mind if we—?”
“Help yourself,” said Harry, feeling slightly bemused.