ThereТ s still so much to do.”
“No Ц I Ц of course not,” said Harry, disco n certed by this sudden change of subject.
“Sweet of you,” she replied, and she smiled as she left the scullery.
From that moment on, Mrs. Weasley kept Harry, Ron and Hermione so busy with prepar a
tions for the wedding that they hardly had any time to think. The kindest explanation of this beha v
ior would have been that Mrs. Weasley wanted to distract them all from thoughts of Mad-Eye and the terrors of their recent journey. After two days of nonstop cu t
lery cleaning, of color-matching favors, ribbons, and flo w
ers, of de-gnoming the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley cook vast batches of canapйs, however, Harry started to suspect her of a di
f
ferent motive. All the jobs she handed out seemed to keep him, Ron, and Hermione away from one another; he had not had a chance to speak to the
two of them alone since the first night, when he had told them about Voldemort to r
turing Ollivander.
“I think Mum thinks that if she can stop the three of you getting together and planning, sheТ ll be able to delay you leaving,” Ginny told Harry in an undertone, as they laid the table for dinner on the third night of his stay.
“And then what does she thinkТ s going to ha p pen?” Harry muttered. “
Someone else might kill off Voldemort while sheТ s holding us here making vol-au-vents?”
He had spoken without thinking, and saw GinnyТ s face whiten.
“So itТ s true?” she said. “ThatТ s what youТ re tr y ing to do?”
“I Ц not Ц I was joking,” said Harry ev a sively.
They stared at each other, and there was som e thing more than shock in GinnyТ s expression. Su
d denly Harry became aware that this was the first time that he had been alone with her since those stolen hours in s
e
cluded corners of the Hogwarts grounds. He was sure she was remembering them too. Both of them jumped as the door opened, and Mr. Weasley, Kingsley, and Bill walked in.
They were often joined by other Order members for
dinner now, because the Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as the headquarters. Mr. Weasley had explained that after the death of Dumbledore, their Secret-Keeper, each of the people to whom Dumbledore had co
n fided Grimmauld PlaceТ s location had become a Secret-Keeper in turn.
“And as there are around twenty of us, that greatly dilutes the power of the Fidelius Charm. Twenty times as many opportunities for the Death Eaters to get the secret out of som e
body. We canТ t expect it to hold much longer.”
“But surely Snape will have told the Death Eaters the address by now?” asked Harry.
“Well, Mad-Eye set up a couple of curses against Snape in case he turns up there again. We hope theyТ ll be strong enough both to keep him out and to bind his tongue if he tries to talk about the place, but we canТ
t be sure. It would have been insane to keep using the place as headquarters now that its protection has b e
come so shaky.”
The kitchen was so crowded that evening it was difficult to maneuver knives and forks. Harry found himself crammed beside Ginny; the unsaid things that had just passed between them made him wish they had been separated by a few more people. He was tr
y ing so hard to avoid brushing her arm he could barely cut his chicken.
“No news about Mad-Eye?” Harry asked Bill.
“Nothing,” replied Bill.
They had not been able to hold a funeral for Moody, because Bill and Lupin had failed to recover his body. It had been diff i
cult to know where he might have fallen, given the darkness and the confusion of the battle.
“The Daily Prophet hasnТ t said a word about him dying or about finding the body,” Bill went on. “
But that doesnТ t mean much. ItТ s keeping a lot quiet these days.”
“And they still havenТ t called a hearing about all the underage magic I used escaping the Death Ea t ers?
” Harry called across the table to Mr. Weasley, who shook his head.
“Because they know I had no choice or because they donТ t want me to tell the world Voldemort a t tacked me?
”
“The latter, I think. Scrimgeour doesnТ t want to admit that You-Know-Who is as powe
r ful as he is, nor that AzkabanТ s seen a mass breakout.”
“Yeah, why tell the public the truth?” said Harry, clenching his knife so tightly that the faint scars on the back of his right hand stood out, white against his skin: I must n
ot tell lies .
“IsnТ t anyone at the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?” asked Ron angrily.
“Of course, Ron, but people are terrified,” Mr. Weasley replied, “terrified that they will be next to disappear, their children the next to be attacked! There are nasty rumors going around; I for one donТ
t believe the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts r e signed. She hasnТ
t been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile Scrimgeour remains shut up in his office all day; I just hope heТ s working on a plan.”
There was a pause in which Mrs. Weasley magicked the empty plates onto the work surface and served apple tart.
“We must decide С ow you will be disguised, С Arry,” said Fleur, once everyone had pudding. “For ze wedding,” she added, when he looked confused. “Of course, none of our guests are Death Eaters, but we cannot gua
r antee zat zey will not let something slip after zey С ave С ad champagne.”
From this, Harry gathered that she still su s pected Hagrid.
“Yes, good point,” said Mrs. Weasley from the top of the table where she sat, spect a
cles perched on the end of her nose, sca n
ning an immense list of jobs that she had scribbled on a very long piece of parc h ment. “
Now, Ron, have you cleaned out your room yet?”
“ Why? ” exclaimed Ron, slamming his spoon down and glaring at his mother. “W
hy does my room have to be cleaned out? Harry and I are fine with it the way it is!”
“We are holding your brotherТ s wedding here in a few daysТ time, young man Ц “
“And are they getting married in my bedroom?” asked Ron furiously. “No! So why in the name of MerlinТ s saggy left Ц “
“DonТ t talk to your mother like that,” said Mr. Weasley firmly. “And do as youТ re told.”
Ron scowled at both his parents, then picked up his spoon and attacked the last few mout h fuls of his apple tart.

“I can help, some of itТ s my mess.” Harry told Ron, but Mrs. Weasley cut across him.
“No, Harry, dear, IТ d much rather you helped A r thur much out the chickens, and Hermione, IТ
d be ever so grateful if youТ d change the sheets for Mo n sieur and Madame Delacour; you know theyТ
re arri v ing at eleven tomorrow morning.”
But as it turned out, there was very li t tle to do for the chickens. “ThereТ
s no need to, er, mention it to Molly,” Mr. Weasley told Harry, blocking his access to the coop, “but, er, Ted Tonks sent me most of what was left of SiriusТ s bike and, er, IТ m hiding Ц thatТ s to say, keeping Ц
it in here. Fantastic stuff: ThereТ s an exhaust gaskin, as I believe itТ s called, the most ma g
nificent ba t tery, and itТ ll be a great opportunity to find out how brakes work. IТ
m going to try and put it all back t o gether again when MollyТ s not Ц I mean, when IТ
ve got time.”
When they returned to the house, Mrs. Weasley was nowhere to be seen, so Harry slipped upstairs to RonТ s attic bedroom.
“IТ m doing it, IТ m doing Ц ! Oh, itТ s you,” said Ron in rel
ief, as Harry entered the room. Ron lay back down on the bed, which he had evidently just vacated. The room was just as messy as it had been all week; the only chance was that Hermione was now sitting in the far corner, her fluffy ginger cat, Croo
k shanks, at her feet, sorting books, some of which Harry reco
g nized as his own, into two enormous piles.
“Hi, Harry,” she said, as he sat down on his camp bed.
“And how did you manage to get away?”
“Oh, RonТ s mum forgot that she asked Ginny and me to change the sheets yeste r day,”
said Hermione. She threw Numerology and Grammatica onto one pile and
The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts onto the other.
“We were just talking about Mad-Eye,” Ron told Harry. “I reckon he might have su r vived.”
“But Bill saw him hit by the Killing Curse,” said Harry.
“Yeah, but Bill was under attack too,” said Ron. “How can he be sure what he saw?”
“Even if the Killing Curse missed, Mad-Eye still fell about a thousand feet,” said Hermione, now weight Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland
in her hand.
“He could have used a Shield Charm Ц “
“Fleur said his wand was blasted out of his hand,” said Harry.
“Well, all right, if you want him to be dead,” said Ron grumpily, punching his pillow into a more co m
fortable shape.
“Of course we donТ t want him to be dead!” said Hermione, looking shocked. “ItТ s dreadful that heТ s dead! But weТ re being reali s
tic!”
For the first time, Harry imagined Mad-EyeТ s body, broken as DumbledoreТ s had been, yet with that one eye still whizzing in its socket. He felt a stab of revulsion mixed with a bizarre desire to laugh.
“The Death Eaters probably tidied up after the m selves, thatТ s why no oneТ s found him,”
said Ron wisely.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Like Barty Crouch, turned into a bone and buried in HagridТ s front ga r
den.
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