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Harry approached him.

“May I sit down?”

“Of course, of course,” said Doge; he had a rather high-pitched, wheezy voice.

Harry leaned in.

“Mr. Doge, I’m Harry Potter.”

Doge gasped.

“My dear boy! Arthur told me you were here, disguised… I am so glad, so honored!”

In a flutter of nervous pleasure Doge poured Harry a goblet of champagne.

“I thought of writing to you,” he whispered, “after Dumbledore… the shock… and for you, I am sure…”

Doge’s tiny eyes filled with sudden tears.

“I saw the obituary you wrote for the Daily Prophet,” said Harry. “I didn’t realize you knew Professor Dumbledore so well.”

“As well as anyone,” said Doge, dabbing his eyes with a napkin. “Certainly I knew him longest, if you don’t count Aberforth—and somehow, people never do seem to count Aberforth.”

“Speaking of the Daily Prophet… I don’t know whether you saw, Mr. Doge—?”

“Oh, please call me Elphias, dear boy.”

“Elphias, I don’t know whether you saw the interview Rita Skeeter gave about Dumbledore?”

Doge’s face flooded with angry color.

“Oh yes, Harry, I saw it. That woman, or vulture might be a more accurate term, positively pestered me to talk to her, I am ashamed to say that I became rather rude, called her an interfering trout, which resulted, as you my have seen, in aspersions cast upon my sanity.”

“Well, in that interview,” Harry went on, “Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young.”

“Don’t believe a word of it!” said Doge at once. “Not a word, Harry! Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!”

Harry looked into Doge’s earnest, pained face, and felt, not reassured, but frustrated. Did Doge really think it was that easy, that Harry could simply choose not to believe? Didn’t Doge understand Harry’s need to be sure, to know everything?

Perhaps Doge suspected Harry’s feelings, for he looked concerned and hurried on, “Harry, Rita Skeeter is a dreadful—”

But he was interrupted by a shrill cackle.

“Rita Skeeter? Oh, I love her, always read her!”

Harry and Doge looked up to see Auntie Muriel standing there, the plumes dancing on her hair, a goblet of champagne in her hand. “She’s written a book about Dumbledore, you know!”

“Hello, Muriel,” said Doge, “Yes, we were just discussing—”

“You there! Give me your chair, I’m a hundred and seven!”

Another redheaded Weasley cousin jumped off his seat, looking alarmed, and Auntie Muriel swung it around with surprising strength and plopped herself down upon it between Doge and Harry.

“Hello again, Barry or whatever your name is,” she said to Harry, “Now what were you saying about Rita Skeeter, Elphias? You know, she’s written a biography of Dumbledore? I can’t wait to read it. I must remember to place an order at Flourish and Blotts!”

Doge looked stiff and solemn at this but Auntie Muriel drained her goblet and clicked her bony fingers at a passing waiter for a replacement. She took another large gulp of champagne, belched and then said, “There’s no need to look like a pair of stuffed frogs! Before he became so respected and respectable and all that tosh, there were some mighty funny rumors about Albus!”

“Ill-informed sniping,” said Doge, turning radish-colored again.

“You would say that, Elphias,” cackled Auntie Muriel. “I noticed how you skated over the sticky patches in that obituary of yours!”

“I’m sorry you think so,” said Doge, more coldly still. “I assure you I was writing from the heart.”

“Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore; I daresay you’ll still think he was a saint even if it does turn out that he did away with his Squib sister!”

“Muriel!” exclaimed Doge.

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 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?
4. A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at Harry and the others.
5. A paralyzing terror filled Harry so that he couldn’t move or speak. His Patronus flickered and died.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. A young witch with short blonde hair poked her head around the curtain; Harry saw that she too was wearing magenta staff robes.
10. After a few minutes’ progress up the dark tunnel, a distant sound of slowly shifting rock reached Harry’s ears.
11. After a good night’s sleep, Harry felt nearly back to normal.
12. After glancing once at this portrait, Professor McGonagall made an odd movement as though steeling herself, then rounded the desk to look at Harry, her face taut and lined.

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