Shadows Came to Stay

Harry had never considered Hagrid to be a particularly quiet man, but he learned just how quiet he could be on their way back to the Gryffindor common room; he imagined he could barely hear the stamp of his feet, the heavy rasp of his breathing, a fancy that only compounded his guilt. "You think I did the wrong thing, just like everyone else up there?" he ventured quietly as they passed the elaborate tapestry of Percival the Proud Pureblood being tortured by his mudblooded interrogators hanging on the fifth floor.

"Of course not, Harry!" Hagrid reassured him, but Harry felt the half-giant's response had come too quickly to be sincere, and he looked over at the tapestry, wishing his professor didn't feel the need to hide the truth from him. "Besides, you're -- you're being given a second chance!"

The slow torture of Percival was incredibly realistic; red thread gleamed like fresh blood on the innards the mudbloods slowly extracted from the blood traitor's body. Harry watched the sight, mesmerized as the pureblood lay bleeding and dying, turning away only when the torturers did something unspeakable to his organs. "You don't even think I was wrong a little, then?" he asked, his green gaze level with Hagrid's chest.

Hagrid sighed, obviously not wanting to tarry in the hallway with Harry, but the expression on his face was serious rather than impatient. "I shouldn't even be telling you this," he hedged. "The headmistress wants you back in Gryffindor Tower -- and she'd probably sack me if she knew I'd told you anything." He was looking at the tapestry rather than Harry as he said, "I was there, Harry. Watching, I mean."

"Watching? The torture?" Harry looked over his shoulder in time to see the bad death of Percival the Proud Pureblood begin anew, but that was all he saw: the pureblood and his interrogators, no observers...and definitely no half-giants. He was ready to dismiss Hagrid's claim when he looked at the robes the mudbloods wore, and realized with a horrified jolt that Percival's death couldn't have come much more than fifty years ago. "Shouldn't you be in the tapestry, Hagrid?"

Hagrid made a sort of dismissive gesture with a hand the size of a ham. "Nah, it was a class. Headmaster Dumbledore just wanted a tapestry that showed that purebloods have blood as red as everyone else's. It was the very first time a pureblood had been formally executed...in Hogwarts, at least."

"What sort of class was this?" Harry had certainly never attended anything of the like. He wondered how it had been with Hagrid as one of Percival's interrogators made a delicate surgeon's cut with his wand that slit the pureblood open from navel to throat.

"N.E.W.T. level Offense Against the Dark Arts -- but don't worry, they don't teach the class like that anymore." Hagrid patted Harry's closest shoulder so firmly he nearly forced him to sit down. "Dumbledore was still gathering recruits for the army that helped him storm the Ministry of Magic and overthrow Minister Grindelwald, and he felt examples were necessary -- but Binns told you all that in History of Magic, didn't he?"

"Yeah," Harry muttered, tearing his eyes from the tapestry. "Hagrid, what classroom did you do this in?" He knew he'd have spied a large blood stain on the floor of the Offense Against the Dark Arts classroom if there'd been one there, and if not, Professor Quirrell would certainly have fainted at its presence. He was faintly amused at that, knowing how Ron would love that jab at the stuttering professor they'd had for five years.

"Not all the staff agreed with Dumbledore about what should be done about Grindelwald and his pet purebloods, not back then," Hagrid said after a pause, apparently carefully choosing his words. "He had to be careful about who he trusted with stuff...and where he let them teach. The Defense -- that's what they called it -- Against the Dark Arts teacher back in those days was a Parselmouth. He agreed to help out in any way he could. And, well, Dumbledore knew a fair amount about the school, so when he formed his first N.E.W.T. level class for offense, not defense -- and we all knew what we were enlisting in, Harry -- he requested that the professor use a certain location as a meeting place.

"Back when the school was formed, Harry, there were four founders instead of three, and one of them was Salazar Slytherin -- Binns might've mentioned him once or twice--"

"There was a question about him on the O.W.L.," Harry said eagerly. His suddenly painful excitement drowned away his dismal certainty that he had gotten the question about Salazar Slytherin wrong. "I wrote that exam this morning."

"Right," said Hagrid, looking disconcerted at Harry's sudden interest but pleased. "Well, the four founders decided they wanted to teach students according to their own likes, like the Sorting Hat says every year, so they divided into four Houses. Now Slytherin, he said publicly that he wanted to teach mudbloods, which surprised everyone, as he'd always spoken against them before. None of the other founders knew he had built a special chamber under the school that only he could get into, since he was the only wizard in those days who could speak Parseltongue. The other three only found out when Slytherin's first years started turning up dead that he'd built the chamber as a torture chamber for...for mudbloods. And, well, you know the rest. Gryffindor chucked him out after that, and Dumbledore eventually abolished his House."

"You used that torture chamber!" exclaimed Harry, aghast.

"Well, yeah," Hagrid said, looking not at all abashed. "There was no other place as secure...not even the Room of Requirement. We didn't want to, but we had to. It was nearing the days where you were either for the Ministry or for Dumbledore, so we found a wizard for our first lesson easy. His name was Percival."

Harry looked as the Percival in the tapestry stretched open his mouth in a silent scream, writhed in what must have been exquisite agony, and then moved no more. "What did he do?"

"Our professor claimed he tried to divorce his mudblood wife because she was, well, a mudblood. And she was pregnant."

This was so similar to Harry's own story that he almost laughed, but the look in Hagrid's eyes and the look in Percival's eyes was enough to sober him quickly. "Was that the real reason?"

"It seemed like it at the time -- I was just taking notes while three of Dumbledore's oldest soldiers went to work on him, while the professor discussed proper wand position and technique and...and all that. You're supposed to demonstrate the ability to interrogate and torture at N.E.W.T. level, you know, and by the time we were done with him...there wasn't much left. Percival's family sent an owl to the headmaster requesting his body for burial, but Dumbledore sent some hired wands after them and they didn't send anything else.

"It came out over Christmas that Percival requested a divorce from his wife because she'd had an -- er--"

It took Harry a few moments to realize what Hagrid was trying to keep from saying, and then he smiled. "You can say 'affair' if you need to, Hagrid. I've heard the word before."

"Oh -- er, all right, Harry. Well, he requested a divorce because his wife had been having an affair and was pregnant with the other man's child. He had reason to believe this because he'd spent the last year in Romania slaying vampires. It didn't really matter if he was innocent or not by that point, since Dumbledore's Army was already slaughtering purebloods too stupid to run and too corrupt to live in their beds."

How many others have died because of lies, I wonder? the Malfoy boy's voice drawled mockingly in his mind. Harry suppressed the voice quickly and angrily. "What're you trying to get at, Hagrid?"

Hagrid shook his head and took Harry by the shoulders, so hard that for one frightened moment he thought his arm bones might crumble to dust. Then his Head of House stooped so their gazes were almost level. His black eyes were not glittering. "If the boy was another Percival, off slaying vampires...then yeah, you did the right thing. Yeah, I don't think you were wrong at all."

"I hope you're not going around saying that to people, though," said Harry, looking pleased despite his best efforts not to. "You might really get sacked. I really liked that Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L., by the way."

The sudden change in subject seemed to make Hagrid uneasy. "What? Oh, yeah, it was pretty easy, wasn't it? I heard you might've gotten full marks...one judge was very impressed by your knowledge of Blast-Ended Skrewts."

His mind did not seem to be on what he was saying at all, but Harry managed to ignore it; he even smiled faintly, remembering the brief and explosive encounter his class had with the creatures late in his fourth year. "Bet it wasn't Snape. Listen, we should probably go up to Gryffindor Tower now."

"Yeah," Hagrid said. He straightened quickly and led the way up to the seventh floor. Harry meant to ask him what had kept him from actually following through with his N.E.W.T. level class, joining the army, and capturing glory along with the rest of Dumbledore's wizard army in the coup of the Ministry of Magic. Had he found the course too hard? Did he think it would be too difficult to rise in rank in the army as a half-giant, even in Dumbledore-controlled England? Or had Percival the Proud and Eviscerated Pureblood come to visit him, late at night? Harry thought about these things, and the more he thought the more frustrated he got...and then he was before the Fat Lady all alone, and it was too late to ask any questions.

"Death's cup," Harry mumbled under his breath to the lady in pink. As he climbed through the portrait hole, he was assaulted by a roar of sound. The squashy couches and armchairs of the common room were hidden underneath scarlet and gold streamers, a large banner (most likely done by Dean Thomas) hung from the ceiling, celebrating the end of the O.W.L.s for the fifth years, and Fred and George -- resplendent in the white robes of Dumbledore's Army that they weren't allowed to wear until they finished their N.E.W.T.s -- stood on a nearby table, singing a loud version of the school song.

Seeing everyone in the upper years looking so happy and relieved at having passed something he was not yet done with did wonders in evaporating whatever remained of Harry's good mood. Someone he didn't see shoved an open bottle of butterbeer into his hand. He quickly discarded it and went in search of Ron and Hermione.

He found them sitting on a couch by the fire, talking to Ron's younger sister, Ginny, in urgent hushed voices. As he approached, he noticed -- to his confusion -- that Hermione was looking pale and very scared, Ron incensed, and Ginny anxious. They stopped talking abruptly when he stopped before them.

"Where've you been, Harry?" the youngest Weasley said first, meeting his gaze boldly. There'd been a time when she could not so much as speak to him without blushing -- a time when she'd been overwhelmed by his 'dark good looks,' by the fact that he'd had a blood traitor for a father, that he had a curse of a scar marring the skin of his forehead. He'd been very surprised to meet her on the train this year to find she'd gotten over it.

"He was off -- on his Offense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.!" Hermione rose to her feet, her Prefect's badge gleaming in the firelight, her color returning as she looked at Harry expectantly. "Oh, Harry -- how was it? Did you let him die with honor?"

"Leave him alone, Hermione, he's probably tired," Ron said lazily, sounding far less angry than he'd looked when Harry first saw him, looking down at his own Prefect's badge for what appeared to be the fifteenth time that night. The unconcerned expression disappeared from his face when he saw the expression on Harry's. "Mate...?"

"Er..." Harry looked down at his shoes, unsure of what to say. Hagrid said he'd done the right thing -- even though he, Harry, wasn't sure whether or not the blood traitor was as innocent as he had claimed. But really, he'd just practically failed the easiest practical exam he was likely to have as a Hogwarts student -- despite the headmistress' decision, he knew he was now guaranteed nothing above an A when he retook it. And what if he couldn't kill who he was assigned, like before? How could he admit to his friends he had been weak enough to be swayed by the words of a boy sired of the purest blood? The answer was simple, he decided glumly: he couldn't. "I guess it went all right," he said at last, now looking at the ceiling, from which confetti fell. "I might've scraped by with an A."

"An A?" Ron echoed slowly. "You're the best in our year at Offense Against--" He stopped, looking guiltily at Hermione as she shot a withering glance at him.

Harry really wasn't expecting her to look at him in the same way, but she did, her cheeks high with color. "You're lying!" she said incredulously as the rest of the Gryffindors reveled all around them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny holding a butterbeer and slowly shaking her head at him.

"D'you really think so?" he asked Hermione quietly. Her flush immediately became more pronounced.

"Well -- it's just that --" Hermione looked at the floor, then sat back down next to Ron, almost as if she sensed danger in Harry's intense green stare. She kept looking up at him as she continued, "Ron's right you know, you're the best, you got the Killing Curse to work in Curses and in Offense Against the Dark Arts before any of us -- it was a great first try, even though you did make Quirrell scream--"

"Like a girl," Ron pointed out helpfully, plainly not believing a word Hermione said and sending Harry a sly glance.

"--and I simply refuse to believe you got an A on the practical part of your favorite subject...was he tough to kill?" She paused, taking a breath and looking at him thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Harry said. He felt even more guilty making up more things to add credence to his first lie, but there was no getting around it, not now, not with the shame and regret still so fresh in his mind. "I had to cast the Killing Curse three times, he kept moving. I know you're going to say I should have put the Body Bind Curse on him, but I kind of lost my head." Harry gave her a good hard look, and knowing she'd remember, said, "That tends to happen to people, when they're under pressure."

"I never meant to imply you weren't under pressure, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed desperately. The two Weasleys must have decided they didn't want to interrupt this; Ron was looking worried and was keeping his mouth shut, and Ginny was looking bored. "I remember third year as clearly as you do. No one's thinking that you were supposed to be completely under control when you found the old Transfiguration teacher, Professor Lupin, in the Shrieking Shack meeting with the blood traitor Sirius Black. Everyone's grateful you turned him in to Dumbledore's Army. I would have been the same way if I had the chance to turn in someone who'd been helping a fugitive trying to kill me and my mum."

"I only wish I knew the words back then," Harry whispered thickly. "I only wish I knew the Killing Curse back then so I could've killed them both." For a moment the raucous sounds of the Gryffindors celebrating, the shadows of the flickering flames in the fireplace, and even his friends' concerned faces faded away to nothingness. He saw instead the velvety, twilight gloom of the Shrieking Shack from underneath his dead father's Invisibility Cloak, the forms of tall, handsome Sirius Black and less attractive Remus Lupin hidden in a corner. He heard instead the low, anxious voices of the two men, one of whom he'd been hoodwinked into trusting, talking of him and his father. He could still recall his painful anger and sense of betrayal, as vivid now as it had been then, a thousand years ago.

Ron and Hermione, who had killed grown wizards, looked disturbed at Harry's words, and Ginny looked only confused. He knew it was asking too much to hope they'd understand. How could they understand? None of them had ever known what it was like living with the knowledge that their father's best friend -- a member of Dumbledore's Army -- had been ordered to kill that friend, and then had made the mistake of trying to kill the rest of his family, too, only to have the spell absorbed by their sluggish, muddy blood. And then, later, to learn that the soldier who'd made that mistake had somehow kept out of Azkaban, spending the years on the run, and all the while concocting a plan with his shabby friend (who must have disappeared to meet him once a month) to kill them, eradicate the error, for reasons they could not fathom, nor want to fathom.

No. No one could understand that. He wasn't even sure he understood how someone seemingly so loyal to his pureblood heritage and to the others who embraced it could have done what Sirius Black did.

"Well, at least Lupin was kissed..." Ginny offered timidly, seeming to cringe at the mere mention of Azkaban's dementors. Hermione and Ron, however, were both looking guilty, as if they were hiding something. Harry was good at identifying that expression.

"What is it?" he demanded, ignoring what he judged as Ginny's poor attempt to identify with him.

His two best friends glanced at each other, and something seemed to pass between them. It was Ron who spoke. "Harry...the Evening Prophet came after you left to take your O.W.L. -- or maybe when they took you away to tell you about that bloke you were supposed to kill...oh, yeah, sorry, Hermione. Black's in Azkaban."

Harry was sure his mouth dropped open. It was entirely possible, but he felt disconnected from his body again, as he had up in the headmistress' office, this time out of explosive, vicious happiness. This was an announcement that he'd been waiting for, ever since he'd learned upon returning to Hogwarts for his third year that Black was after him. And despite the grin he now felt greasing his lips, a small part of him worried it was wrong to revel in another's misery like this. But if this is so wrong, he thought, why does it feel so good?

"Are they going to kiss him too?" he asked breathlessly. Ron's eyes grew wide and Hermione looked very uncomfortable, but Harry saw none of this. This must have been what they'd been talking about when he'd come in the common room, but why hadn't they told him immediately?

"Mate, I think you've got the wrong idea--" Ron began.

"Who caught him? Was it anyone we know? Can I see the article?" Harry could not recall a time when he'd asked so many questions, but his enthusiasm was dampened a bit by the looks on all three faces. "What is it? This is Sirius Black you're talking about, isn't it? You look like someone...someone's died."

"Harry...Sirius Black's taken Azkaban," Hermione said softly. Ginny chose this moment to excuse herself, doubtless going off in search of more cheerful company.

Harry's animal triumph disappeared in an instant -- but maybe that was because it had never been triumph, or even happiness, at all. But it didn't matter what he'd been feeling before, because now he was angry -- angry at the unfairness of the situation, angry at Ron for not being clear enough, angry at Ginny for leaving, angry at tall handsome stupid Sirius Black who wouldn't allow himself to be kissed. He glared down at his two friends, and they seemed to shrink away from him. "What!"

His voice was very loud. The deafening sound of celebration in the common room dimmed somewhat as revelers near the trio stopped talking and turned to look at the brewing argument curiously.

"You heard me, Harry! Black took Azkaban this afternoon, started freeing prisoners and dementors, and named himself Head Warden. You knew this was going on...he's been trying to overtake it for days, it's been in the papers, remember?" Hermione's voice started out vehement, defensive, but by the time she took in his expression her voice was a whisper. Part of Harry was relieved, the rest of him wanted her to keep yelling at him. He needed someone to yell in him, to convince him he'd been stupid to hopefully believe Black would be captured and kissed. "Sit down with us..."

"You should've told me as soon as I got back," Harry said woodenly, only pretending to harbor resentment against them as he sat on the arm of the couch. By this time, the few who'd heard his angry voice over the din grew bored and returned to swigging butterbeers.

"What good would that have done?" Hermione challenged. "D'you think you can go off and fight him all by yourself? You're not going to try, are you? We wanted to tell you tomorrow, when you were rested -- but you asked..."

"Glad to see you trust me not to fly off the handle!" Harry raged.

"That wasn't it at all!" Hermione said, obviously not liking the turn this conversation was taking. Ron stopped her from saying anything more.

"Believe me, mate, I want to see him captured and kissed as badly as you do...but we're not going to be the ones to do it. It's going to be people who've been members of Dumbledore's Army for a while who're going to get that honor. There's not even any use thinking about it." Ron stood. "You tired? We should go up to the dorm."

Had Hermione said the same thing, Harry might've gotten angry again, but Ron's rational thoughts helped calm him. There were bigger things to think about than what Sirius Black had seized -- such as the squeamishness that had stopped him from killing some pureblood. Black would become a factor again when the opportunity arose to kill him, surely. He stood. "Okay."

Hermione sprang to her feet, eagerly pulling a long roll of parchment from her robes. "I'm coming with you," she told them matter-of-factly. "We ought to go over the History of Magic O.W.L. from yesterday together. There are some questions I'm still not clear over..."

"Yeah, right," Ron muttered as he passed Harry. "Do we look like Binns to her? Honestly..."

Harry flexed his mouth. He was grateful that his friends were attempting to change the subject -- if he had to think about Sirius Black's afternoon victory and his own miserable failure before going to sleep he might go insane -- but annoyed with it as well. Did they always think they knew what was best for him?

It was easy for them to lose themselves in the tight-packed crowd, but not as easy to push their way past the crush of gold and scarlet up the stairs to the sixth year boys' dorms. Hermione led the way up the spiraling stairs and that annoyed Harry, too -- why were girls allowed in the boys' dorms, anyway?

The dorms were dark and cool. Harry and Ron spread themselves out on Harry's four-poster, and Hermione sat on the floor by the side of the bed, leaning against it. Harry spied Hermione carefully unrolling the parchment before he closed his eyes. Images of the blond Malfoy boy danced behind his lids.

"What color robes do members of Dumbledore's Army wear and why?" Hermione asked. Neither Ron nor Harry realized she expected them to answer until she loudly cleared her throat.

"Gee, Hermione -- couldn't answer that one," Ron said. "It wasn't like I saw Fred and George wearing their robes or anything..." Harry snickered without realizing it.

Hermione sniffed. "Bet you don't know why," she said loftily. "Dumbledore meant them to represent purity -- as the soldiers do purify wizarding kind of harmful purebloods. That's why they're white."

"Give us a harder one," Harry said. "Like the fifteenth one -- I know I missed that."

"What were the political and social changes brought on by Minister Dumbledore's overthrow of Minister Grindelwald in 1945?" Hermione said. "Honestly, Harry...if you and Ron took notes in History of Magic, you wouldn't miss easy questions like that!"

"Yeah, Harry," said Ron, sounding reproachful. "Even Dobby would know the answer to that one!"

Harry snickered again. Dobby was a house-elf that the three of them had found in Hogsmeade in third year, wandering aimlessly about as he clutched a black sock. They did not know who his masters had been, and Dobby had never mentioned them, for he was proud of his independence -- but eager to serve. They weren't sure what to do with him until Hermione, a fervent supporter of house-elf rights, suggested sending him to Harry's mother. Now, in Godric's Hollow, Dobby earned a Knut a week fixing meals and scrubbing floors. Dobby certainly wasn't the brightest house-elf any of them had ever met.

Hermione ignored all mention of poor Dobby. "The Ministry came under Dumbledore's control, of course...a new subdepartment was set up to classify purebloods as either belligerent or benevolent...the Army started to punish the purebloods who had oppressed those of lesser blood for centuries...wizarding governments in eastern Europe failed to recognize our new government until Dumbledore sent down hired wands...Hogwarts was changed into an institution designed to train new soldiers for the Army...and wizards and witches of lesser blood gained more respect."

Harry opened his eyes, but didn't see Ron's expression change with the last social change Hermione listed. He supposed that the fact that purebloods were now second-class citizens didn't bother Ron when it was phrased that way; that way, all three of them could pretend their government was a democracy.

"Definitely got that one wrong," Ron groaned good-naturedly after a tense pause. "Didn't list any of that...give us another one, Hermione."

"All right, how about this one -- how did Minister Dumbledore overthrow Minister Grindelwald's pureblood regime in 1945?"

"You tell us," both Ron and Harry said at once.

"D'you two want to fail?" Hermione asked, sounding frustrated. "All right...Dumbledore supported the appointment of several hundred of his supporters to strategic jobs in the Ministry, including Minister Grindelwald's personal receptionist. His supporters laid low until the class of '45 graduated from Hogwarts...then, Dumbledore stormed the Ministry with the majority of these graduates, using his version of the Killing Curse that killed only purebloods. Dumbledore's plants inside the Ministry started the attack inside. Minister Grindelwald's receptionist Petrified the man until Dumbledore arrived to kill him and claim his title."

Harry yawned. He was unable to dredge up much sympathy for Minister Grindelwald and his pet purebloods -- not when they would have done all they could to prevent his birth, including prohibiting his parents from marrying (as they were not of the same blood), and if he had been born, done all they could to ensure he didn't live to see Hogwarts by sending hired wands after him. Grindelwald's bizarre, reactionary legislation -- almost the polar opposite of legislation passed by today's tolerant, progressive society -- had to be memorized by every Hogwarts student, and Harry didn't forget. He only regretted he'd never seen a tapestry of Dumbledore's triumphant storming of the Ministry, that it remained dry history to him.

"Why did Minister Dumbledore decide there needed to be regime change?" Hermione continued, oblivious to the fact that Harry was trying to ignore her. Her voice was lulling him to sleep.

To Harry's surprise, Ron answered this. "He was following the example of America, which made their purebloods and mudbloods equal under the law during their progressive era...and there was a failure to compromise between his followers and Grindelwald...and he was trying to boost morale during that one Muggle war."

"You know all that!" Hermione exclaimed, surprised.

"I know what I read off Hannah Abbott's parchment," Ron deadpanned while Harry laughed. "Hey, Hermione -- didn't Dumbledore install a puppet government in Norway or Sweden or somewhere up there where Durmstrang is?"

Hermione's voice cooled a bit. "He never installed any puppet government anywhere, Ron. He supported a radical candidate for Norwegian Minister of Magic in the 1940s, and yes, that man won and turned Durmstrang into an institute to train students to kill purebloods -- and some of Durmstrang's graduates helped Dumbledore storm the Ministry, but it was a complete coincidence. But the Norwegian Minister only served one turn, and the men who were elected after him started to denounce England -- saying rubbish about a Holocaust going on here. Some people say that in America, too."

"Gits," Ron said angrily. "If there were a pureblood Holocaust going on, I'm sure I would've been the first to hear about it."

"That doesn't stop Norway from giving asylum to pureblooded criminals," Hermione said unhappily. "Anyhow -- who was Percival the Proud Pureblood and what was his crime?"

Harry's stomach lurched uncomfortably. He knew the answer to this one, and he hadn't even peeked at Hannah Abbot's paper. He opened his mouth to answer her, but a sudden swell of sound from downstairs drowned out the feeble croak that he made.

Ron sat up and Hermione looked at the closed dorm door curiously. "What the--?" the redhead muttered.

The answer to his query burst through the door a moment later, and for the rest of the night, Harry did not think of tall handsome Sirius Black or blond shrewd Malfoy again. Dobby from Godric's Hollow, wearing something that vaguely resembled a shirt, catapulted himself onto Harry's bed and onto his lap; Hermione ducked and covered the top of her bushy head. Harry was, understandably, shocked; what other Hogwarts student had received a visit from their house-elf before?

Dobby looked in bad shape. He must have traveled all day and night to reach Hogwarts, for the fabric he wore was torn and stained, and he kept curling and uncurling his long fingers, and his already wide eyes were wider than ever. There were many questions Harry wanted to ask the creature -- Why are you here? and What's wrong? and What are you doing? flashed through his mind -- but he realized Dobby was saying something, frantically, over and over, so he shut his mouth.

"Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter!"

"Dobby--"

"No!" Dobby yelped, his eyes growing wider, unaware of gaping Ron and Hermione, his audience. "Harry Potter must come to Godric's Hollow! Something terrible has happened there!"