" said Harry.
"We know that," said Mr. Weasley qu i etly, but it would make our efforts tonight seem rather poin
t less if you left."
"Yer not goin' anywhere," growled Hagrid. "Bl i mey, Harry, after all we wen' through ter get you here?"
"Yeah, what about my bleeding ear?" said George, hoisting himself up on his cus h ions.
"I know that Ц "
"Mad-Eye wouldn't want Ц "
"I KNOW!" Harry bellowed.
He felt beleaguered and blackmailed: Did they think he did not know what they had done for him, did
n't they understand that it was for precisely that reason that he wanted to go now, before they had to suffer any more on his behalf? There was a long and awkward silence in which his scar continued to prickle and throb, and which was broken at last by Mr
s. Weasley.
"Where's Hedwig, Harry?" she said coaxingly. "We can put her up with Pidwidgeon and give her something to eat."
His insides clenched like a fist. He could not tell her the truth. He drank the last of his fir e
whisky to avoid answering.
"Wait till it gets out yeh did it again, Harry," said Hagrid. "Escaped him, fought him off when he was right on top of yeh!"
"It wasn't me," said Harry flatly. "It was my wand. My wand acted of its own a c cord."
After a few moments, Hermione said gently, "But that's impossible, Harry. You mean that you did magic without meaning to; you r e
acted instinctively."
"No," said Harry. "The bike was falling, I coul d n't have told you where Vold
e mort was, but my wand spun in my hand and found him and shot a spell at him, and it wa
s n't even a spell I recognized. I've never made gold flames a
p pear before."
"Often," said Mr. Weasley, "when you're in a pressured situation you can pr o
duce magic you never dreamed of. Small children often find, before they're trained Ц "
"It wasn't like that," said Harry through gritted teeth. His scar was burning. He felt angry and fru s
trated; he hated the idea that they were all imagining him to have power to match Vold e mort's.
No one said anything. He knew that they did not believe him. Now that he came to think of it, he had never heard of a wand pe r
forming magic on its own before.
His scar seared with pain, it was all he could do not to moan aloud. Muttering about fresh air, he set down his glass and left the room.
As he crossed the yard, the great skeletal thestral looked up Ц rustled its eno r
mous batlike wings, then resumed its grazing. Harry stopped at the gate into the garden, staring out at its overgrown plants, rubbing his pounding forehead and thinking of Du m
bledore.
Dumbledore would have believed him, he knew it. Dumbledore would have known how and why Harry's wand had acted independently, because Du m
bledore always had the a n
swers; he had known about wands, had explained to Harry the strange co n
nection that existed between his wand and Vold e mort's . . . . But Dumbledore, like Mad-Eye, like Si
r
ius, like his parents, like his poor owl, all were gone where Harry could never talk to them again. He felt a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with fir e
whisky. . . .
And then, out of nowhere, the pain in his scar peaked. As he clutched his forehead and closed his eyes, a voice screamed inside his head.
" You told me the problem would be solved by u s
ing another's wand! "
And into his mind burst the vision of an emac i ated old man lying in rags upon a stone floor, screa
m ing, a horrible drawn-out scream, a scream of une
n durable agony. . . .
"No! No! I beg you, I beg you. . . ."
"You lied to Lord Voldemort, Olliva n der!"
"I did not. . . . I swear I did not. . . ."
"You sought to help Potter, to help him escape me!"
"I swear I did not. . . . I believed a different wand would work. . . ."
"Explain, then, what happened. Lucius's wand is destroyed!"
"I cannot understand. . . . The connection . . . e x ists only . . between your two wands. . . ."
" Lies! "
"Please . . . I beg you. . . ."
And Harry saw the white hand raise its wand and felt Voldemort's surge of vicious a n
ger, saw the frail old main on the floor writhe in agony Ц
"Harry?"
It was over as quickly as it had come: Harry stood shaking in the darkness, clutching the gate into the garden, his heart racing, his scar still tingling. It was several moments before he rea
l ized that Ron and Hermione were at his side.
"Harry, come back in the house," Hermione whispered, "You aren't still thinking of lea v ing?"
"Yeah, you've got to stay, mate," said Ron, thumping Harry on the back.
"Are you all right?" Hermione asked, close enough now to look into Harry's face. "You look a w
ful!"
"Well," said Harry shakily, "I probably look be t ter than Ollivander. . . ."
When he had finished telling them what he had seen, Ron looked appalled, but Hermione dow n right terrified.
"But it was supposed to have stopped! Your scar Ц it wasn't supposed to do this an y
more! You mustn't let that connection open up again Ц Dumbl e dore wanted you to close your mind!"
When he did not reply, she gripped his arm.
"Harry, he's taking over the Ministry and the newspapers and half the Wizarding world! Don't let him inside your head too!"

Chapter Six
The Ghoul in Pajamas
The shock of losing Mad-Eye hung over the house in the days that followed; Harry kept e x
pecting to see him stumping in through the back door like the other Order members, who passed in and out to relay news. Harry felt that nothing but action would a s
suage his feelings of guilt and grief and that he ought to set out on his mission to find and destroy Ho r
cruxes as soon as possible.
“Well, you canТ t do anything about the” Ц Ron mouthed the word Horcruxes Ц “
till youТ re seventeen. YouТ ve still got the Trace on you. And we can plan here as well as anywhere, canТ t we? Or,” he dropped his voice to a whi s
per, “dТ you reckon you already know where the You-Know-Whats are?”
“No,” Harry admitted.
“I think HermioneТ s been doing a bit of r e search,” said Ron. “She said she was sa
v ing it for when you got here.”
They were sitting at the breakfast table; Mr. Weasley and Bill had just left for work. Mrs. Weasley had gone upstairs to wake Hermione and Ginny, while Fleur had drifted off to take a bath.
“The TraceТ ll break on the thirty-first,” said Harry. “That means I only need to stay here four days. Then I can Ц “
“Five days,” Ron corrected him firmly. “WeТ ve got to stay for the wedding. TheyТ ll kill us if we miss it.”
Harry understood “they” to mean Fleur and Mrs. Weasley.
“ItТ s one extra day,” said Ron, when Harry looked mutinous.
“DonТ t they realize how important Ц ?”
“Т Course they donТ t,” said Ron. “They havenТ t got a clue. And now you mention it, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Ron glanced toward the door into the hall to check that Mrs. Weasley was not retur n
ing yet, then leaned in closer to Harry.
“MumТ s been trying to get it out of Hermione and me. What weТ re off to do. SheТ ll try you next, so brace yourself. Dad and L u
pinТ ve both asked as well, but when we
said Dumbledore told you not to tell anyone except us, they dropped it. Not Mum, though. SheТ s determined.”
RonТ s prediction came true within hours. Shortly before lunch, Mrs. Weasley detached Harry from the others by asking him to help identify a lone manТ s sock that she thought might have come out of hi
s rucksack. Once she had him cornered in the tiny scu l lery off the kitchen, she started.
“Ron and Hermione seem to think that the three of you are dropping out of Ho g warts,”
she began in a light, casual tone.
“Oh,” said Harry. “Well, yeah. We are.”
The mangle turned of its own accord in a co r ner, wringing out what looked like one of Mr. WeasleyТ s vests.

“May I ask why you are abandoning your educ
a tion?” said Mrs. Weasley.
“Well, Dumbledore left me . . . stuff to do,” mumbled Harry. “Ron and Hermione know about it, and they want to come too.”
“What sort of С stuffТ ?”
“IТ m sorry, I canТ t Ц “
“Well, frankly, I think Arthur and I have a right to know, and IТ m sure Mr. And Mrs. Granger would agree!” said Mrs. Weasley. Harry had been afraid of the “co n
cerned parent” attack. He forced himself to look directly into her eyes, noticing as he did so that they were precisely the same shade of brown as GinnyТ s. This did not help.

“Dumbledore didnТ t want anyone else to know, Mrs. Weasley. IТ m sorry. Ron and Hermione donТ t have to come, itТ s their choice Ц “
“I donТ t see that you have to go either!” she snapped, dropping all pretense now. “YouТ
re barely of age, any of you! ItТ s utter nonsense, if Dumbledore needed work doing, he had the whole Order at his command! Harry, you must have misunderstood him. Probably he was telling you something he
wanted done, and you took it to mean that he wanted
you Ц “
“I didnТ t misunderstand,” said Harry flatly. “ItТ s got to be me.”
He handed her back the single sock he was su p posed to be identifying, which was pa
t terned with golden bulrushes.
“And thatТ s not mine. I donТ t support Pu d dlemere United.”
“Oh, of course not,” said Mrs. Weasley with a sudden and rather unnerving return to her casual tone. “I should have rea l
ized. Well, Harry, while weТ ve still got you here, you wonТ t mind helping with the prep a
rations for Bill and FleurТ s wedding, will you?
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