“But it would’ve shown confidence in him. It’s what I’d’ve done,” persisted Kingsley, “’specially with the Daily Prophet having a go at him every few days . . .”
Harry did not look around; he did not want Lupin or Kingsley to know he had heard. He followed Mundungus back toward the table, though not remotely hungry. His pleasure in the party had evaporated as quickly as it had come; he wished he were upstairs in bed.
Mad-Eye Moody was sniffing at a chicken leg with what remained of his nose; evidently he could not detect any trace of poison, because he then tore a strip off it with his teeth.
“. . . the handle’s made of Spanish oak with anti-jinx varnish and in-built vibration control —” Ron was saying to Tonks.
Mrs. Weasley yawned widely.
“Well, I think I’ll sort out that boggart before I turn in. . . . Arthur, I don’t want this lot up too late, all right? ’Night, Harry, dear.”
She left the kitchen. Harry set down his plate and wondered whether he could follow her without attracting attention.
“You all right, Potter?” grunted Moody.
“Yeah, fine,” lied Harry.
Moody took a swig from his hip flask, his electric blue eye staring sideways at Harry.
“Come here, I’ve got something that might interest you,” he said.
From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old Wizarding photograph.
“Original Order of the Phoenix,” growled Moody. “Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn’t had the manners to return my best one. . . . Thought people might like to see it.”
Harry took the photograph. A small crowd of people, some waving at him, others lifting their glasses, looked back up at him.
“There’s me,” said Moody unnecessarily, pointing at himself. The Moody in the picture was unmistakable, though his hair was slightly less gray and his nose was intact. “And there’s Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side . . . That’s Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That’s Frank and Alice Longbottom —”
Harry’s stomach, already uncomfortable, clenched as he looked at Alice Longbottom; he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville.
“Poor devils,” growled Moody. “Better dead than what happened to them . . . and that’s Emmeline Vance, you’ve met her, and that there’s Lupin, obviously . . . Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him . . . shift aside there,” he added, poking the picture, and the little photographic people edged sideways, so that those who were partially obscured could move to the front.
“That’s Edgar Bones . . . brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family too, he was a great wizard . . . Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young . . . Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body . . . Hagrid, of course, looks exactly the same as ever . . . Elphias Doge, you’ve met him, I’d forgotten he used to wear that stupid hat . . . Gideon Prewett, it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian, they fought like heroes . . . budge along, budge along . . .”
The little people in the photograph jostled among themselves, and those hidden right at the back appeared at the forefront of the picture.
“That’s Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke . . . That’s Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally . . . Sirius, when he still had short hair . . . and . . . there you go, thought that would interest you!”
Harry’s heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Harry recognized at once as Wormtail: He was the one who had betrayed their whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped bring about their deaths.
“Eh?” said Moody.
Harry looked up into Moody’s heavily scarred and pitted face. Evidently Moody was under the impression he had just given Harry a bit of a treat.
“Yeah,” said Harry, attempting to grin again. “Er . . . listen, I’ve just remembered, I haven’t packed my . . .”
He was spared the trouble of inventing an object he had not packed; Sirius had just said, “What’s that you’ve got there, Mad-Eye?” and Moody had turned toward him. Harry crossed the kitchen, slipped through the door and up the stairs before anyone could call him back.
He did not know why he had received such a shock; he had seen his parents’ pictures before, after all, and he had met Wormtail . . . but to have them sprung on him like that, when he was least expecting it . . . No one would like that, he thought angrily. . . .
And then, to see them surrounded by all those other happy faces . . . Benjy Fenwick, who had been found in bits, and Gideon Prewett, who had died like a hero, and the Longbottoms, who had been tortured into madness . . . all waving happily out of the photograph forevermore, not knowing that they were doomed. . . . Well, Moody might find that interesting . . . he, Harry, found it disturbing. . . .
Harry tiptoed up the stairs in the hall past the stuffed elf heads, glad to be on his own again, but as he approached the first landing he heard noises. Someone was sobbing in the drawing room.
“Hello?” Harry said.
There was no answer but the sobbing continued. He climbed the remaining stairs two at a time, walked across the landing, and opened the drawing-room door.
Someone was cowering against the dark wall, her wand in her hand, her whole body shaking with sobs. Sprawled on the dusty old carpet in a patch of moonlight, clearly dead, was Ron.
All the air seemed to vanish from Harry’s lungs; he felt as though he were falling through the floor; his brain turned icy cold — Ron dead, no, it couldn’t be —
But wait a moment, it couldn’t be — Ron was downstairs —
“Mrs. Weasley?” Harry croaked.
“R-r-riddikulus!” Mrs. Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron’s body.