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Ron turned his back on the Burrow.

“Let’s try up here,” he said, leading the way over the top of the hill.

They walked for a few hours, Harry, at Hermione’s insistence, hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak. The cluster of low hills appeared to be uninhabited apart from one small cottage, which seemed deserted.

“Do you think it’s theirs, and they’ve gone away for Christmas?” said Hermione, peering through the window at a neat little kitchen with geraniums on the windowsill. Ron snorted.

“Listen, I’ve got a feeling you’d be able to tell who lived there if you looked through the Lovegoods’ window. Let’s try the next lot of hills.”

So they Disapparated a few miles farther north.

“Aha!” shouted Ron, as the wind whipped their hair and clothes. Ron was pointing upward, toward the top of the hill on which they had appeared, where a most strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky. “That’s got to be Luna’s house, who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!”

“It’s nothing like a bird,” said Hermione, frowning at the tower.

“I was talking about a chess rook,” said Ron. “A castle to you.”

Ron’s legs were the longest and he reached the top of the hill first. When Harry and Hermione caught up with him, panting and clutching stitches in their sides, they found him grinning broadly.

“It’s theirs,” said Ron. “Look.”

Three hand-painted signs had been tacked to a broke-down gate. The first read,

...

THE QUIBBLER. EDITOR, X. LOVEGOOD

The second,

...

PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE

The third,

...

KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS

The gate creaked as they opened it. The zigzagging path leading to the front door was overgrown with a variety of odd plants, including a bush covered in orange radishlike fruit Luna sometimes wore as earrings. Harry thought he recognized a Snargaluff and gave the wizened stump a wide berth. Two aged crab apple trees, bent with the wind, stripped of leaves but still heavy with berry-sized red fruits and bushy crowns of white beaded mistletoe, stood sentinel on either side of the front door. A little owl with a slightly flattened hawklike head peered down at them from one of the branches.

“You’d better take off the Invisibility Cloak, Harry,” said Hermione. “It’s you Mr. Lovegood wants to help, not us.”

He did as she suggested, handing her the Cloak to stow in the beaded bag. She then rapped three times on the thick black door, which was studded with iron nails and bore a knocker shaped like an eagle.

Barely ten seconds passed, then the door was flung open and there stood Xenophilius Lovegood, barefoot and wearing what appeared to be a stained nightshirt. His long white candyfloss hair was dirty and unkempt. Xenophilius had been positively dapper at Bill and Fleur’s wedding by comparison.

“What? What is it? Who are you? What do you want?” he cried in a high-pitched, querulous voice, looking first at Hermione, then at Ron, and finally at Harry, upon which his mouth fell open in a perfect, comical O.

“Hello, Mr. Lovegood,” said Harry, holding out his hand, “I’m Harry, Harry Potter.”

Читайте також:

1. A blank silence greeted Hermione’s words. She looked around at all the faces upturned to her, rather disconcerted.
2. A large group of people was bunched around the bulletin board when they returned to the common room.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. And he had turned the Prime Minister’s teacup into a gerbil.
6. And they turned a corner and saw the thing for which Harry had been prepared, but which still brought all of them to a halt.
7. As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.
8. As he pushed past Harry into the darkening corridor, Zabini shot him a filthy look that Harry returned with interest. He, Ginny, and Neville followed Zabini back along the train.
9. At the mention of Harry’s letter, Hermione and Ron both turned to stare at him.
10. Bellatrix still looked unhappy, though she appeared unsure how best to attack Snape next. Taking advantage of her silence, Snape turned to her sister.
11. Black’s wand arm rose, but Lupin seized him around the wrist, gave him a warning took, then turned again to Pettigrew, his voice light and casual.
12. But she wasn’t entirely right about that. As the girl crossed the Hall, many boys’ heads turned, and some of them seemed to have become temporarily speechless, just like Ron.

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