He sat bolt upright, listening intently. The Dursleys couldn’t be back, it was much too soon, and in any case he hadn’t heard their car.
There was silence for a few seconds, and then he heard voices.
Burglars, he thought, sliding off the bed onto his feet — but a split second later it occurred to him that burglars would keep their voices down, and whoever was moving around in the kitchen was certainly not troubling to do so.
He snatched up his wand from his bedside table and stood facing his bedroom door, listening with all his might. Next moment he jumped as the lock gave a loud click and his door swung open.
Harry stood motionless, staring through the open door at the dark upstairs landing, straining his ears for further sounds, but none came. He hesitated for a moment and then moved swiftly and silently out of his room to the head of the stairs.
His heart shot upward into his throat. There were people standing in the shadowy hall below, silhouetted against the streetlight glowing through the glass door; eight or nine of them, all, as far as he could see, looking up at him.
“Lower your wand, boy, before you take someone’s eye out,” said a low, growling voice.
Harry’s heart was thumping uncontrollably. He knew that voice, but he did not lower his wand.
“Professor Moody?” he said uncertainly.
“I don’t know so much about ‘Professor,’” growled the voice, “never got round to much teaching, did I? Get down here, we want to see you properly.”
Harry lowered his wand slightly but did not relax his grip on it, nor did he move. He had very good reason to be suspicious. He had recently spent nine months in what he had thought was Mad-Eye Moody’s company only to find out that it wasn’t Moody at all, but an impostor; an impostor, moreover, who had tried to kill Harry before being unmasked. But before he could make a decision about what to do next, a second, slightly hoarse voice floated upstairs.
“It’s all right, Harry. We’ve come to take you away.”
Harry’s heart leapt. He knew that voice too, though he hadn’t heard it for more than a year.
“P-Professor Lupin?” he said disbelievingly. “Is that you?”
“Why are we all standing in the dark?” said a third voice, this one completely unfamiliar, a woman’s. “Lumos.”
A wand-tip flared, illuminating the hall with magical light. Harry blinked. The people below were crowded around the foot of the stairs, gazing intently up at him, some craning their heads for a better look.
Remus Lupin stood nearest to him. Though still quite young, Lupin looked tired and rather ill; he had more gray hair than when Harry had said good-bye to him, and his robes were more patched and shabbier than ever. Nevertheless, he was smiling broadly at Harry, who tried to smile back through his shock.
“Oooh, he looks just like I thought he would,” said the witch who was holding her lit wand aloft. She looked the youngest there; she had a pale heart-shaped face, dark twinkling eyes, and short spiky hair that was a violent shade of violet. “Wotcher, Harry!”
“Yeah, I see what you mean, Remus,” said a bald black wizard standing farthest back; he had a deep, slow voice and wore a single gold hoop in his ear. “He looks exactly like James.”
“Except the eyes,” said a wheezy-voiced, silver-haired wizard at the back. “Lily’s eyes.”
Mad-Eye Moody, who had long grizzled gray hair and a large chunk missing from his nose, was squinting suspiciously at Harry through his mismatched eyes. One of the eyes was small, dark, and beady, the other large, round, and electric blue — the magical eye that could see through walls, doors, and the back of Moody’s own head.
“Are you quite sure it’s him, Lupin?” he growled. “It’d be a nice lookout if we bring back some Death Eater impersonating him. We ought to ask him something only the real Potter would know. Unless anyone brought any Veritaserum?”
“Harry, what form does your Patronus take?” said Lupin.
“A stag,” said Harry nervously.
“That’s him, Mad-Eye,” said Lupin.
Harry descended the stairs, very conscious of everybody still staring at him, stowing his wand into the back pocket of his jeans as he came.
“Don’t put your wand there, boy!” roared Moody. “What if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!”
“Who d’you know who’s lost a buttock?” the violet-haired woman asked Mad-Eye interestedly.
“Never you mind, you just keep your wand out of your back pocket!” growled Mad-Eye. “Elementary wand safety, nobody bothers about it anymore . . .” He stumped off toward the kitchen. “And I saw that,” he added irritably, as the woman rolled her eyes at the ceiling.
Lupin held out his hand and shook Harry’s.
“How are you?” he asked, looking at Harry closely.
“F-fine . . .”
Harry could hardly believe this was real. Four weeks with nothing, not the tiniest hint of a plan to remove him from Privet Drive, and suddenly a whole bunch of wizards was standing matter-of-factly in the house as though this were a long-standing arrangement. He glanced at the people surrounding Lupin; they were still gazing avidly at him. He felt very conscious of the fact that he had not combed his hair for four days.
“I’m — you’re really lucky the Dursleys are out . . .” he mumbled.
“Lucky, ha!” said the violet-haired woman. “It was me that lured them out of the way. Sent a letter by Muggle post telling them they’d been short-listed for the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition. They’re heading off to the prize-giving right now. . . . Or they think they are.”
Harry had a fleeting vision of Uncle Vernon’s face when he realized there was no All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition.
“We are leaving, aren’t we?” he asked. “Soon?”
“Almost at once,” said Lupin, “we’re just waiting for the all-clear.”