“I said illuminating, not enjoyable,” said Hermione. “It explained a lot.”
“Did it?” said Harry in surprise. “Sounded like a load of waffle to me.”
“There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle,” said Hermione grimly.
“Was there?” said Ron blankly.
“How about ‘progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged’? How about ‘pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited’?”
“Well, what does that mean?” said Ron impatiently.
“I’ll tell you what it means,” said Hermione ominously. “It means the Ministry’s interfering at Hogwarts.”
There was a great clattering and banging all around them; Dumbledore had obviously just dismissed the school, because everyone was standing up ready to leave the Hall. Hermione jumped up, looking flustered.
“Ron, we’re supposed to show the first years where to go!”
“Oh yeah,” said Ron, who had obviously forgotten. “Hey — hey you lot! Midgets!”
“Ron!”
“Well, they are, they’re titchy . . .”
“I know, but you can’t call them midgets. . . . First years!” Hermione called commandingly along the table. “This way, please!”
A group of new students walked shyly up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, all of them trying hard not to lead the group. They did indeed seem very small; Harry was sure he had not appeared that young when he had arrived here. He grinned at them. A blond boy next to Euan Abercrombie looked petrified, nudged Euan, and whispered something in his ear. Euan Abercrombie looked equally frightened and stole a horrified look at Harry, who felt the grin slide off his face like Stinksap.
“See you later,” he said to Ron and Hermione and he made his way out of the Great Hall alone, doing everything he could to ignore more whispering, staring, and pointing as he passed. He kept his eyes fixed ahead as he wove his way through the crowd in the entrance hall, then he hurried up the marble staircase, took a couple of concealed shortcuts, and had soon left most of the crowds behind.
He had been stupid not to expect this, he thought angrily, as he walked through much emptier upstairs corridors. Of course everyone was staring at him: He had emerged from the Triwizard maze two months ago clutching the dead body of a fellow student and claiming to have seen Lord Voldemort return to power. There had not been time last term to explain himself before everyone went home, even if he had felt up to giving the whole school a detailed account of the terrible events in that graveyard.
He had reached the end of the corridor to the Gryffindor common room and had come to a halt in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady before he realized that he did not know the new password.
“Er . . .” he said glumly, staring up at the Fat Lady, who smoothed the folds of her pink satin dress and looked sternly back at him.
“No password, no entrance,” she said loftily.
“Harry, I know it!” someone panted from behind him, and he turned to see Neville jogging toward him. “Guess what it is? I’m actually going to be able to remember it for once —” He waved the stunted little cactus he had shown them on the train. “Mimbulus mimbletonia!”
“Correct,” said the Fat Lady, and her portrait swung open toward them like a door, revealing a circular hole in the wall behind, through which Harry and Neville now climbed.
The Gryffindor common room looked as welcoming as ever, a cozy circular tower room full of dilapidated squashy armchairs and rickety old tables. A fire was crackling merrily in the grate and a few people were warming their hands before going up to their dormitories; on the other side of the room Fred and George Weasley were pinning something up on the notice board. Harry waved good night to them and headed straight for the door to the boys’ dormitories; he was not in much of a mood for talking at the moment. Neville followed him.
Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan had reached the dormitory first and were in the process of covering the walls beside their beds with posters and photographs. They had been talking as Harry pushed open the door but stopped abruptly the moment they saw him. Harry wondered whether they had been talking about him, then whether he was being paranoid.
“Hi,” he said, moving across to his own trunk and opening it.
“Hey, Harry,” said Dean, who was putting on a pair of pajamas in the West Ham colors. “Good holiday?”
“Not bad,” muttered Harry, as a true account of his holiday would have taken most of the night to relate and he could not face it. “You?”
“Yeah, it was okay,” chuckled Dean. “Better than Seamus’s anyway, he was just telling me.”
“Why, what happened, Seamus?” Neville asked as he placed his Mimbulus mimbletonia tenderly on his bedside cabinet.
Seamus did not answer immediately; he was making rather a meal of ensuring that his poster of the Kenmare Kestrels Quidditch team was quite straight. Then he said, with his back still turned to Harry, “Me mam didn’t want me to come back.”
“What?” said Harry, pausing in the act of pulling off his robes.
“She didn’t want me to come back to Hogwarts.”
Seamus turned away from his poster and pulled his own pajamas out of his trunk, still not looking at Harry.
“But — why?” said Harry, astonished. He knew that Seamus’s mother was a witch and could not understand, therefore, why she should have come over so Dursley-ish.
Seamus did not answer until he had finished buttoning his pajamas.
“Well,” he said in a measured voice, “I suppose . . . because of you.”
“What d’you mean?” said Harry quickly. His heart was beating rather fast. He felt vaguely as though something was closing in on him.
“Well,” said Seamus again, still avoiding Harry’s eyes, “she . . . er . . . well, it’s not just you, it’s Dumbledore too . . .”
“She believes the Daily Prophet?” said Harry. “She thinks I’m a liar and Dumbledore’s an old fool?”