Ron strode away, his bright red hair visible right to the end of the passage. Meanwhile, Ginny’s equally vivid head bobbed between the jostling students surrounding them in the other direction, trailed by Luna’s blonde one.
“Get over here,” muttered Hermione, tugging at Harry’s wrist and pulling him back into a recess where the ugly stone head of a medieval wizard stood muttering to itself on a column. “Are — are you sure you’re okay, Harry? You’re still very pale . . .”
“I’m fine,” he said shortly, tugging the Invisibility Cloak from out of his bag. In truth, his scar was aching, but not so badly that he thought Voldemort had yet dealt Sirius a fatal blow. It had hurt much worse than this when Voldemort had been punishing Avery. . . .
“Here,” he said. He threw the Invisibility Cloak over both of them and they stood listening carefully over the Latin mumblings of the bust in front of them.
“You can’t come down here!” Ginny was calling to the crowd. “No, sorry, you’re going to have to go round by the swiveling staircase, someone’s let off Garroting Gas just along here —”
They could hear people complaining; one surly voice said, “I can’t see no gas . . .”
“That’s because it’s colorless,” said Ginny in a convincingly exasperated voice, “but if you want to walk through it, carry on, then we’ll have your body as proof for the next idiot who didn’t believe us . . .”
Slowly the crowd thinned. The news about the Garroting Gas seemed to have spread — people were not coming this way anymore. When at last the surrounding area was quite clear, Hermione said quietly, “I think that’s as good as we’re going to get, Harry — come on, let’s do it.”
Together they moved forward, covered by the Cloak. Luna was standing with her back to them at the far end of the corridor. As they passed Ginny, Hermione whispered, “Good one . . . don’t forget the signal . . .”
“What’s the signal?” muttered Harry, as they approached Umbridge’s door.
“A loud chorus of ‘Weasley Is Our King’ if they see Umbridge coming,” replied Hermione, as Harry inserted the blade of Sirius’s knife in the crack between door and wall. The lock clicked open, and they entered the office.
The garish kittens were basking in the late afternoon sunshine warming their plates, but otherwise the office was as still and empty as last time. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief.
“I thought she might have added extra security after the second niffler . . .”
They pulled off the Cloak. Hermione hurried over to the window and stood out of sight, peering down into the grounds with her wand out. Harry dashed over to the fireplace, seized the pot of Floo powder, and threw a pinch into the grate, causing emerald flames to burst into life there. He knelt down quickly, thrust his head into the dancing fire, and cried, “Number twelve, Grimmauld Place!”
His head began to spin as though he had just got off a fairground ride though his knees remained firmly planted upon the cold office floor. He kept his eyes screwed up against the whirling ash, and when the spinning stopped, he opened them to find himself looking out upon the long, cold kitchen of Grimmauld Place.
There was nobody there. He had expected this, yet was not prepared for the molten wave of dread and panic that seemed to burst through his stomach floor at the sight of the deserted room.
“Sirius?” he shouted. “Sirius, are you there?”
His voice echoed around the room, but there was no answer except a tiny scuffing sound to the right of the fire.
“Who’s there?” he called, wondering whether it was just a mouse.
Kreacher the house-elf came creeping into view. He looked highly delighted about something, though he seemed to have recently sustained a nasty injury to both hands, which were heavily bandaged.
“It’s the Potter boy’s head in the fire,” Kreacher informed the empty kitchen, stealing furtive, oddly triumphant glances at Harry. “What has he come for, Kreacher wonders?”
“Where’s Sirius, Kreacher?” Harry demanded.
The house-elf gave a wheezy chuckle. “Master has gone out, Harry Potter.”
“Where’s he gone? Where’s he gone, Kreacher?”
Kreacher merely cackled.
“I’m warning you!” said Harry, fully aware that his scope for inflicting punishment upon Kreacher was almost nonexistent in this position. “What about Lupin? Mad-Eye? Any of them, are any of them here?”
“Nobody here but Kreacher!” said the elf gleefully, and turning away from Harry he began to walk slowly toward the door at the end of the kitchen. “Kreacher thinks he will have a little chat with his Mistress now, yes, he hasn’t had a chance in a long time, Kreacher’s Master has been keeping him away from her —”
“Where has Sirius gone?” Harry yelled after the elf. “Kreacher, has he gone to the Department of Mysteries?”
Kreacher stopped in his tracks. Harry could just make out the back of his bald head through the forest of chair legs before him.
“Master does not tell poor Kreacher where he is going,” said the elf quietly.
“But you know!” shouted Harry. “Don’t you? You know where he is!”
There was a moment’s silence, then the elf let out his loudest cackle yet. “Master will not come back from the Department of Mysteries!” he said gleefully. “Kreacher and his Mistress are alone again!”
And he scurried forward and disappeared through the door to the hall.
“You — !”