“Crookshanks,” said Ginny unblushingly. “He loves playing with them.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Weasley, “I thought it might have been Kreacher, he keeps doing odd things like that. Now don’t forget to keep your voices down in the hall. Ginny, your hands are filthy, what have you been doing? Go and wash them before dinner, please . . .”
Ginny grimaced at the others and followed her mother out of the room, leaving Harry alone with Ron and Hermione again. Both of them were watching him apprehensively, as though they feared that he would start shouting again now that everyone else had gone. The sight of them looking so nervous made him feel slightly ashamed.
“Look . . .” he muttered, but Ron shook his head, and Hermione said quietly, “We knew you’d be angry, Harry, we really don’t blame you, but you’ve got to understand, we did try and persuade Dumbledore —”
“Yeah, I know,” said Harry grudgingly.
He cast around for a topic to change the subject from Dumbledore — the very thought of him made Harry’s insides burn with anger again.
“Who’s Kreacher?” he asked.
“The house-elf who lives here,” said Ron. “Nutter. Never met one like him.”
Hermione frowned at Ron.
“He’s not a nutter, Ron —”
“His life’s ambition is to have his head cut off and stuck up on a plaque just like his mother,” said Ron irritably. “Is that normal, Hermione?”
“Well — well, if he is a bit strange, it’s not his fault —”
Ron rolled his eyes at Harry.
“Hermione still hasn’t given up on spew —”
“It’s not ‘spew’!” said Hermione heatedly. “It’s the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, and it’s not just me, Dumbledore says we should be kind to Kreacher too —”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Ron. “C’mon, I’m starving.”
He led the way out of the door and onto the landing, but before they could descend the stairs — “Hold it!” Ron breathed, flinging out an arm to stop Harry and Hermione walking any farther. “They’re still in the hall, we might be able to hear something —”
The three of them looked cautiously over the banisters. The gloomy hallway below was packed with witches and wizards, including all of Harry’s guard. They were whispering excitedly together. In the very center of the group Harry saw the dark, greasy-haired head and prominent nose of his least favorite teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Snape. Harry leaned farther over the banisters. He was very interested in what Snape was doing for the Order of the Phoenix. . . .
A thin piece of flesh-colored string descended in front of Harry’s eyes. Looking up he saw Fred and George on the landing above, cautiously lowering the Extendable Ear toward the dark knot of people below. A moment later, however, they began to move toward the front door and out of sight.
“Dammit,” Harry heard Fred whisper, as he hoisted the Extendable Ear back up again.
They heard the front door open and then close.
“Snape never eats here,” Ron told Harry quietly. “Thank God. C’mon.”
“And don’t forget to keep your voice down in the hall, Harry,” Hermione whispered.
As they passed the row of house-elf heads on the wall they saw Lupin, Mrs. Weasley, and Tonks at the front door, magically sealing its many locks and bolts behind those who had just left.
“We’re eating down in the kitchen,” Mrs. Weasley whispered, meeting them at the bottom of the stairs. “Harry, dear, if you’ll just tiptoe across the hall, it’s through this door here —”
CRASH.
“Tonks!” cried Mrs. Weasley exasperatedly, turning to look behind her.
“I’m sorry!” wailed Tonks, who was lying flat on the floor. “It’s that stupid umbrella stand, that’s the second time I’ve tripped over —”
But the rest of her words were drowned by a horrible, earsplitting, bloodcurdling screech.
The moth-eaten velvet curtains Harry had passed earlier had flown apart, but there was no door behind them. For a split second, Harry thought he was looking through a window, a window behind which an old woman in a black cap was screaming and screaming as though she was being tortured — then he realized it was simply a life-size portrait, but the most realistic, and the most unpleasant, he had ever seen in his life.
The old woman was drooling, her eyes were rolling, the yellowing skin of her face stretched taut as she screamed, and all along the hall behind them, the other portraits awoke and began to yell too, so that Harry actually screwed up his eyes at the noise and clapped his hands over his ears.
Lupin and Mrs. Weasley darted forward and tried to tug the curtains shut over the old woman, but they would not close and she screeched louder than ever, brandishing clawed hands as though trying to tear at their faces.
“Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers —”
Tonks apologized over and over again, at the same time dragging the huge, heavy troll’s leg back off the floor. Mrs. Weasley abandoned the attempt to close the curtains and hurried up and down the hall, Stunning all the other portraits with her wand. Then a man with long black hair came charging out of a door facing Harry.
“Shut up, you horrible old hag, shut UP!” he roared, seizing the curtain Mrs. Weasley had abandoned.
The old woman’s face blanched.
“Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. “Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!”
“I said — shut — UP!” roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.
The old woman’s screeches died and an echoing silence fell.
Panting slightly and sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes, Harry’s godfather, Sirius, turned to face him.
“Hello, Harry,” he said grimly, “I see you’ve met my mother.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX