Harry jumped to his feet too. Scrimgeour limped toward Harry and jabbed him hard in the chest with the point of his wand; It singed a hole in Harry’s T-shirt like a lit cigarette.

“Oi!” said Ron, jumping up and raising his own wand, but Harry said,

“No! D’you want to give him an excuse to arrest us?”

“Remembered you’re not at school, have you?” said Scrimgeour breathing hard into Harry’s face. “Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It’s time you learned some respect!”

“It’s time you earned it,” said Harry.

The floor trembled; there was a sound of running footsteps, then the door to the sitting room burst open and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley ran in.

“We—we thought we heard—” began Mr. Weasley, looking thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Harry and the Minister virtually nose to nose.

“—raised voices,” panted Mrs. Weasley.

Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had made in Harry’s T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper.

“It—it was nothing,” he growled. “I… regret your attitude,” he said, looking Harry full in the face once more. “You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire what you—what Dumbledore—desired. We ought to work together.”

“I don’t like your methods, Minister,” said Harry. “Remember?”

For the second time, he raised his right fist and displayed to Scrimgeour the scar that still showed white on the back of it, spelling I must not tell lies. Scrimgeour’s expression hardened. He turned away without another word and limped from the room. Mrs. Weasley hurried after him; Harry heard her stop at the back door. After a minute or so she called, “He’s gone!”

“What did he want?” Mr. Weasley asked, looking around at Harry, Ron, and Hermione as Mrs. Weasley came hurrying back to them.

“To give us what Dumbledore left us,” said Harry. “They’ve only just released the content of his will.”

Outside in the garden, over the dinner tables, the three objects Scrimgeour had given them were passed from hand to hand. Everyone exclaimed over the Deluminator and The Tales of Beedle the Bard and lamented the fact that Scrimgeour had refused to pass on the sword, but none of them could offer any suggestion as to why Dumbledore would have left Harry an old Snitch. As Mr. Weasley examined the Deluminator for the third of fourth time, Mrs. Weasley said tentatively, “Harry, dear, everyone’s awfully hungry we didn’t like to start without you… Shall I serve dinner now?”

They all ate rather hurriedly and then after a hasty chorus of “Happy Birthday” and much gulping of cake, the party broke up. Hagrid, who was invited to the wedding the following day, but was far too bulky to sleep in the overstretched Burrow, left to set up a tent for himself in a neighboring field.

“Meet us upstairs,” Harry whispered to Hermione, while they helped Mrs. Weasley restore the garden to its normal state. “After everyone’s gone to bed.”

Up in the attic room, Ron examined his Deluminator, and Harry filled Hagrid’s mokeskin purse, not with gold, but with those items he most prized, apparently worthless though some of them were the Marauder’s Map, the shard of Sirius’s enchanted mirror, and R. A. B.’s locket. He pulled the string tight and slipped the purse around his neck, then sat holding the old Snitch and watching its wings flutter feebly. At last, Hermione tapped on the door and tiptoed inside.

“Muffiato,” she whispered, waving her wand in the direction of the stairs.

“Thought you didn’t approve of that spell?” said Ron.

“Times change,” said Hermione. “Now, show us that Deluminator.”

Читайте також:

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Hermione laughed derisively.	\|	Ron obliged at once. Holding it up in front of him, he clicked it. The solitary lamp they had lit went out at once.

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.005 сек.