“Yeah,” said Harry. “Like Barty Crouch, turned into a bone and buried in Hagrid’s front garden. They probably transfigured Moody and stuffed him —”
“Don’t!” squealed Hermione. Startled, Harry looked over just in time to see her burst into tears over her copy of Spellman’s Syllabary.
“Oh no,” said Harry, struggling to get up from the old camp bed. “Hermione, I wasn’t trying to upset —”
But with a great creaking of rusty bedsprings, Ron bounded off the bed and got there first. One arm around Hermione, he fished in his jeans pocket and withdrew a revolting-looking handkerchief that he had used to clean out the oven earlier. Hastily pulling out his wand, he pointed it at the rag and said, “Tergeo.”
The wand siphoned off most of the grease. Looking rather pleased with himself, Ron handed the slightly smoking handkerchief to Hermione.
“Oh . . . thanks, Ron. . . . I’m sorry. . . .” She blew her nose and hiccuped. “It’s just so awf-ful, isn’t it? R-right after Dumbledore . . . I j-just n-never imagined Mad-Eye dying, somehow, he seemed so tough!”
“Yeah, I know,” said Ron, giving her a squeeze. “But you know what he’d say to us if he was here?”
“‘C-constant vigilance,’” said Hermione, mopping her eyes.
“That’s right,” said Ron, nodding. “He’d tell us to learn from what happened to him. And what I’ve learned is not to trust that cowardly little squit, Mundungus.”
Hermione gave a shaky laugh and leaned forward to pick up two more books. A second later, Ron had snatched his arm back from around her shoulders; she had dropped The Monster Book of Monsters on his foot. The book had broken free from its restraining belt and snapped viciously at Ron’s ankle.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Hermione cried as Harry wrenched the book from Ron’s leg and retied it shut.
“What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed.
“Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.”
“Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.”
“Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spellman’s Syllabary. “I wonder . . . will we need to translate runes? It’s possible. . . . I think we’d better take it, to be safe.”
She dropped the syllabary onto the larger of the two piles and picked up Hogwarts: A History.
“Listen,” said Harry.
He had sat up straight. Ron and Hermione looked at him with similar mixtures of resignation and defiance.
“I know you said after Dumbledore’s funeral that you wanted to come with me,” Harry began.
“Here he goes,” Ron said to Hermione, rolling his eyes.
“As we knew he would,” she sighed, turning back to the books. “You know, I think I will take Hogwarts: A History. Even if we’re not going back there, I don’t think I’d feel right if I didn’t have it with —”
“Listen!” said Harry again.
“No, Harry, you listen,” said Hermione. “We’re coming with you. That was decided months ago — years, really.”
“But —”
“Shut up,” Ron advised him.
“— are you sure you’ve thought this through?” Harry persisted.
“Let’s see,” said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls onto the discarded pile with a rather fierce look. “I’ve been packing for days, so we’re ready to leave at a moment’s notice, which for your information has included doing some pretty difficult magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-Eye’s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right under Ron’s mum’s nose.
“I’ve also modified my parents’ memories so that they’re convinced they’re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life’s ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me — or you, because unfortunately, I’ve told them quite a bit about you.
“Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lift the enchantment. If I don’t — well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter, you see.”
Hermione’s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproaching him for lack of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.
“I — Hermione, I’m sorry — I didn’t —”
“Didn’t realize that Ron and I know perfectly well what might happen if we come with you? Well, we do. Ron, show Harry what you’ve done.”
“Nah, he’s just eaten,” said Ron.
“Go on, he needs to know!”
“Oh, all right. Harry, come here.”
For the second time Ron withdrew his arm from around Hermione and stumped over to the door.
“C’mon.”
“Why?” Harry asked, following Ron out of the room onto the tiny landing.
“Descendo,” muttered Ron, pointing his wand at the low ceiling. A hatch opened right over their heads and a ladder slid down to their feet. A horrible, half-sucking, half-moaning sound came out of the square hole, along with an unpleasant smell like open drains.
“That’s your ghoul, isn’t it?” asked Harry, who had never actually met the creature that sometimes disrupted the nightly silence.
“Yeah, it is,” said Ron, climbing the ladder. “Come and have a look at him.”
Harry followed Ron up the few short steps into the tiny attic space. His head and shoulders were in the room before he caught sight of the creature curled up a few feet from him, fast asleep in the gloom with its large mouth wide open.
“But it . . . it looks . . . do ghouls normally wear pajamas?”