“Where are we going? The Burrow?” Harry asked hopefully.
“Not the Burrow, no,” said Lupin, motioning Harry toward the kitchen; the little knot of wizards followed, all still eyeing Harry curiously. “Too risky. We’ve set up headquarters somewhere undetectable. It’s taken a while . . .”
Mad-Eye Moody was now sitting at the kitchen table swigging from a hip flask, his magical eye spinning in all directions, taking in the Dursleys’ many labor-saving appliances.
“This is Alastor Moody, Harry,” Lupin continued, pointing toward Moody.
“Yeah, I know,” said Harry uncomfortably; it felt odd to be introduced to somebody he’d thought he’d known for a year.
“And this is Nymphadora —”
“Don’t call me Nymphadora, Remus,” said the young witch with a shudder. “It’s Tonks.”
“— Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only,” finished Lupin.
“So would you if your fool of a mother had called you ‘Nymphadora,’” muttered Tonks.
“And this is Kingsley Shacklebolt” — he indicated the tall black wizard, who bowed — “Elphias Doge” — the wheezy-voiced wizard nodded — “Dedalus Diggle —”
“We’ve met before,” squeaked the excitable Diggle, dropping his top hat.
“— Emmeline Vance” — a stately looking witch in an emerald-green shawl inclined her head — “Sturgis Podmore” — a square-jawed wizard with thick, straw-colored hair winked — “and Hestia Jones.” A pink-cheeked, black-haired witch waved from next to the toaster.
Harry inclined his head awkwardly at each of them as they were introduced. He wished they would look at something other than him; it was as though he had suddenly been ushered onstage. He also wondered why so many of them were there.
“A surprising number of people volunteered to come and get you,” said Lupin, as though he had read Harry’s mind; the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.
“Yeah, well, the more the better,” said Moody darkly. “We’re your guard, Potter.”
“We’re just waiting for the signal to tell us it’s safe to set off,” said Lupin, glancing out of the kitchen window. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes.”
“Very clean, aren’t they, these Muggles?” said the witch called Tonks, who was looking around the kitchen with great interest. “My dad’s Muggle-born and he’s a right old slob. I suppose it varies, just like with wizards?”
“Er — yeah,” said Harry. “Look” — he turned back to Lupin — “what’s going on, I haven’t heard anything from anyone, what’s Vol — ?”
Several of the witches and wizards made odd hissing noises; Dedalus Diggle dropped his hat again, and Moody growled, “Shut up!”
“What?” said Harry.
“We’re not discussing anything here, it’s too risky,” said Moody, turning his normal eye on Harry; his magical eye remained pointing up at the ceiling. “Damn it,” he added angrily, putting a hand up to the magical eye, “it keeps sticking — ever since that scum wore it —”
And with a nasty squelching sound much like a plunger being pulled from a sink, he popped out his eye.
“Mad-Eye, you do know that’s disgusting, don’t you?” said Tonks conversationally.
“Get me a glass of water, would you, Harry?” asked Moody.
Harry crossed to the dishwasher, took out a clean glass, and filled it with water at the sink, still watched eagerly by the band of wizards. Their relentless staring was starting to annoy him.
“Cheers,” said Moody, when Harry handed him the glass. He dropped the magical eyeball into the water and prodded it up and down; the eye whizzed around, staring at them all in turn. “I want three-hundred-and-sixty degrees visibility on the return journey.”
“How’re we getting — wherever we’re going?” Harry asked.
“Brooms,” said Lupin. “Only way. You’re too young to Apparate, they’ll be watching the Floo Network, and it’s more than our life’s worth to set up an unauthorized Portkey.”
“Remus says you’re a good flier,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep voice.
“He’s excellent,” said Lupin, who was checking his watch. “Anyway, you’d better go and get packed, Harry, we want to be ready to go when the signal comes.”
“I’ll come and help you,” said Tonks brightly.
She followed Harry back into the hall and up the stairs, looking around with much curiosity and interest.
“Funny place,” she said, “it’s a bit too clean, d’you know what I mean? Bit unnatural. Oh, this is better,” she added, as they entered Harry’s bedroom and he turned on the light.
His room was certainly much messier than the rest of the house. Confined to it for four days in a very bad mood, Harry had not bothered tidying up after himself. Most of the books he owned were strewn over the floor where he’d tried to distract himself with each in turn and thrown it aside. Hedwig’s cage needed cleaning out and was starting to smell, and his trunk lay open, revealing a jumbled mixture of Muggle clothes and wizard’s robes that had spilled onto the floor around it.
Harry started picking up books and throwing them hastily into his trunk. Tonks paused at his open wardrobe to look critically at her reflection in the mirror on the inside of the door.
“You know, I don’t think purple’s really my color,” she said pensively, tugging at a lock of spiky hair. “D’you think it makes me look a bit peaky?”
“Er —” said Harry, looking up at her over the top of Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland.
“Yeah, it does,” said Tonks decisively. She screwed up her eyes in a strained expression as though she were struggling to remember something. A second later, her hair had turned bubble-gum pink.