Professor Umbridge left Hogwarts the day before the end of term. It seemed that she had crept out of the hospital wing during dinnertime, evidently hoping to depart undetected, but unfortunately for her, she met Peeves on the way, who seized his last chance to do as Fred had instructed and chased her gleefully from the premises, whacking her alternately with a walking stick and a sock full of chalk. Many students ran out into the entrance hall to watch her running away down the path, and the Heads of Houses tried only halfheartedly to restrain their pupils. Indeed, Professor McGonagall sank back into her chair at the staff table after a few feeble remonstrances and was clearly heard to express a regret that she could not run cheering after Umbridge herself, because Peeves had borrowed her walking stick.
Their last evening at school arrived; most people had finished packing and were already heading down to the end-of-term feast, but Harry had not even started.
“Just do it tomorrow!” said Ron, who was waiting by the door of their dormitory. “Come on, I’m starving . . .”
“I won’t be long. . . . Look, you go ahead . . .”
But when the dormitory door closed behind Ron, Harry made no effort to speed up his packing. The very last thing he wanted to do was to attend the end-of-term feast. He was worried that Dumbledore would make some reference to him in his speech. He was sure to mention Voldemort’s return; he had talked to them about it last year, after all. . . .
Harry pulled some crumpled robes out of the very bottom of his trunk to make way for folded ones and, as he did so, noticed a badly wrapped package lying in a corner of it. He could not think what it was doing there. He bent down, pulled it out from underneath his trainers, and examined it.
He realized what it was within seconds. Sirius had given it to him just inside the front door of twelve Grimmauld Place. Use it if you need me, all right?
Harry sank down onto his bed and unwrapped the package. Out fell a small, square mirror. It looked old; it was certainly dirty. Harry held it up to his face and saw his own reflection looking back at him.
He turned the mirror over. There on the reverse side was a scribbled note from Sirius.
This is a two-way mirror. I’ve got the other. If you need to speak to me, just say my name into it; you’ll appear in my mirror and I’ll be able to talk in yours. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions.
And Harry’s heart began to race. He remembered seeing his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised four years ago. He was going to be able to talk to Sirius again, right now, he knew it —
He looked around to make sure there was nobody else there; the dormitory was quite empty. He looked back at the mirror, raised it in front of his face with trembling hands, and said, loudly and clearly, “Sirius.”
His breath misted the surface of the glass. He held the mirror even closer, excitement flooding through him, but the eyes blinking back at him through the fog were definitely his own.
He wiped the mirror clear again and said, so that every syllable rang clearly through the room, “Sirius Black!”
Nothing happened. The frustrated face looking back out of the mirror was still, definitely, his own. . . .
Sirius didn’t have his mirror on him when he went through the archway, said a small voice in Harry’s head. That’s why it’s not working. . . .
Harry remained quite still for a moment, then hurled the mirror back into the trunk where it shattered. He had been convinced, for a whole, shining minute, that he was going to see Sirius, talk to him again. . . .
Disappointment was burning in his throat. He got up and began throwing his things pell-mell into the trunk on top of the broken mirror —
But then an idea struck him. . . . A better idea than a mirror . . . A much bigger, more important idea . . . How had he never thought of it before — why had he never asked?
He was sprinting out of the dormitory and down the spiral staircase, hitting the walls as he ran and barely noticing. He hurtled across the empty common room, through the portrait hole and off along the corridor, ignoring the Fat Lady, who called after him, “The feast is about to start, you know, you’re cutting it very fine!”
But Harry had no intention of going to the feast . . .
How could it be that the place was full of ghosts whenever you didn’t need one, yet now . . .
He ran down staircases and along corridors and met nobody either alive or dead. They were all, clearly, in the Great Hall. Outside his Charms classroom he came to a halt, panting and thinking disconsolately that he would have to wait until later, until after the end of the feast . . .
But just as he had given up hope he saw it — a translucent somebody drifting across the end of the corridor.
“Hey — hey Nick! NICK!”
The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.
“Good evening,” he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at Harry. “I am not the only one who is late, then? Though,” he sighed, “in rather different senses, of course . . .”
“Nick, can I ask you something?”
A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick’s face as he inserted a finger in the stiff ruff at his neck and tugged it a little straighter, apparently to give himself thinking time. He desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.
“Er — now, Harry?” said Nick, looking discomforted. “Can’t it wait until after the feast?”
“No — Nick — please,” said Harry, “I really need to talk to you. Can we go in here?”
Harry opened the door of the nearest classroom and Nearly Headless Nick sighed.
“Oh very well,” he said, looking resigned. “I can’t pretend I haven’t been expecting it.”
Harry was holding the door open for him, but he drifted through the wall instead.
“Expecting what?” Harry asked, as he closed the door.
“You to come and find me,” said Nick, now gliding over to the window and looking out at the darkening grounds. “It happens, sometimes . . . when somebody has suffered a . . . loss.”
“Well,” said Harry, refusing to be deflected. “You were right, I’ve — I’ve come to find you.”
Nick said nothing.
“It’s —” said Harry, who was finding this more awkward than he had anticipated, “it’s just — you’re dead. But you’re still here, aren’t you?”
Nick sighed and continued to gaze out at the grounds.