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Harry swallowed a large amount of very hot soup and thought he could feel his throat blistering.

“That’s great!” he gasped.

“You are sweet,” beamed Mrs. Weasley, possibly taking his watering eyes for emotion at the news. “Yes, Rufus Scrimgeour has set up several new offices in response to the present situation, and Arthur’s heading the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects. It’s a big job, he’s got ten people reporting to him now!”

“What exactly?”

“Well, you see, in all the panic about You-Know-Who, odd things have been cropping up for sale everywhere, things that are supposed to guard against You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters. You can imagine the kind of thing… so-called protective potions that are really gravy with a bit of bubotuber pus added, or instructions for defensive jinxes that actually make your ears fall off… Well, in the main the perpetrators are just people like Mundungus Fletcher, who’ve never done an honest day’s work in their lives and are taking advantage of how frightened everybody is, but every now and then something really nasty turns up. The other day Arthur confiscated a box of cursed Sneakoscopes that were almost certainly planted by a Death Eater. So you see, it’s a very important job, and I tell him it’s just silly to miss dealing with spark plugs and toasters and all the rest of that Muggle rubbish.” Mrs. Weasley ended her speech with a stern look, as if it had been Harry suggesting that it was natural to miss spark plugs.

“Is Mr. Weasley still at work?” Harry asked.

“Yes, he is. As a matter of fact, he’s a tiny bit late… He said he’d be back around midnight…”

She turned to look at a large clock that was perched awkwardly on top of a pile of sheets in the washing basket at the end of the table. Harry recognized it at once: It had nine hands, each inscribed with the name of a family member, and usually hung on the Weasleys’ sitting room wall, though its current position suggested that Mrs. Weasley had taken to carrying it around the house with her. Every single one of its nine hands was now pointing at mortal peril.

“It’s been like that for a while now,” said Mrs. Weasley, in an unconvincingly casual voice, “ever since You-Know-Who came back into the open. I suppose everybody’s in mortal danger now… I don’t think it can be just our family… but I don’t know anyone else who’s got a clock like this, so I can’t check. Oh!”

With a sudden exclamation she pointed at the clock’s face. Mr. Weasley’s hand had switched to traveling.

“He’s coming!”

And sure enough, a moment later there was a knock on the back door. Mrs. Weasley jumped up and hurried to it; with one hand on the doorknob and her face pressed against the wood she called softly, “Arthur, is that you?”

“Yes,” came Mr. Weasley’s weary voice. “But I would say that even if I were a Death Eater, dear. Ask the question!”

“Oh, honestly…”

“Molly!”

“All right, all right… What is your dearest ambition?”

“To find out how airplanes stay up.”

Читайте також:

1. A chill that had nothing to do with the iced champagne was stealing through Harry’s chest.
2. A dark figure came bustling toward them, and Harry saw a glint of silver to the light of their wands. They had found Gryffindor’s sword.
3. A large group of people was bunched around the bulletin board when they returned to the common room.
4. A mixture of gratitude and shame welled up in Harry. Had Lupin forgiven him, then, for the terrible things he had said when they had last met?
5. A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at Harry and the others.
6. A paralyzing terror filled Harry so that he couldn’t move or speak. His Patronus flickered and died.
7. A roaring, billowing noise behind him gave him a moment’s warning. He turned and saw both Ron and Crabbe running as hard as they could up the aisle toward them.
8. A seam had split on Hermione’s bag. Harry wasn’t surprised; he could see that it was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books.
9. A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape’s throat.
10. A vivid image of the shrieking, spitting portrait of Sirius’s mother that hung in the hall of number twelve, Grimmauld Place flashed into Harry’s mind. “I bet there has,” he said.
11. A whistling in Harry’s ear told him the Bludger had just missed him again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction.
12. A young witch with short blonde hair poked her head around the curtain; Harry saw that she too was wearing magenta staff robes.

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