“I’m perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly,” said Sirius coldly.
“I’m not sure you are!” said Mrs. Weasley. “Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it’s as though you think you’ve got your best friend back!”
“What’s wrong with that?” said Harry.
“What’s wrong, Harry, is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!” said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes still boring into Sirius. “You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!”
“Meaning I’m an irresponsible godfather?” demanded Sirius, his voice rising.
“Meaning you have been known to act rashly, Sirius, which is why Dumbledore keeps reminding you to stay at home and—”
“We’ll leave my instructions from Dumbledore out of this, if you please!” said Sirius loudly.
“Arthur!” said Mrs. Weasley, rounding on her husband. “Arthur, back me up!”
Mr. Weasley did not speak at once. He took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly on his robes, not looking at his wife. Only when he had replaced them carefully on his nose did he reply.
“Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that Harry will have to be filled in, to a certain extent, now that he is staying at Headquarters.”
“Yes, but there’s a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he likes!”
“Personally,” said Lupin quietly, looking away from Sirius at last, as Mrs. Weasley turned quickly to him, hopeful that finally she was about to get an ally, “I think it better that Harry gets the facts—not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture—from us, rather than a garbled version from… others.”
His expression was mild, but Harry felt sure Lupin, at least, knew that some Extendable Ears had survived Mrs. Weasley’s purge.
“Well,” said Mrs. Weasley, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that did not come, “well… I can see I’m going to be overruled. I’ll just say this: Dumbledore must have had his reasons for not wanting Harry to know too much, and speaking as someone who has Harry’s best interests at heart—”
“He’s not your son,” said Sirius quietly.
“He’s as good as,” said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. “Who else has he got?”
“He’s got me!”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley, her lip curling, “the thing is, it’s been rather difficult for you to look after him while you’ve been locked up in Azkaban, hasn’t it?”
Sirius started to rise from his chair.
“Molly, you’re not the only person at this table who cares about Harry,” said Lupin sharply. “Sirius, sit down.”
Mrs. Weasley’s lower lip was trembling. Sirius sank slowly back into his chair, his face white.
“I think Harry ought to be allowed a say in this,” Lupin continued, “he’s old enough to decide for himself.”
“I want to know what’s been going on,” Harry said at once.
He did not look at Mrs. Weasley. He had been touched by what she had said about his being as good as a son, but he was also impatient with her mollycoddling. Sirius was right, he was not a child.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Weasley, her voice cracking. “Ginny—Ron—Hermione—Fred—George—I want you out of this kitchen, now.”
There was instant uproar.
“We’re of age!” Fred and George bellowed together.
“If Harry’s allowed, why can’t I?” shouted Ron.
“Mum, I want to hear!” wailed Ginny.
“NO!” shouted Mrs. Weasley, standing up, her eyes overbright. “I absolutely forbid—”
“Molly, you can’t stop Fred and George,” said Mr. Weasley wearily. They are of age.”
“They’re still at school.”
“But they’re legally adults now,” said Mr. Weasley, in the same tired voice.
Mrs. Weasley was now scarlet in the face.
“I—oh, all right then, Fred and George can stay, but Ron—”
“Harry’ll tell me and Hermione everything you say anyway!” said Ron hotly. “Won’t—won’t you?” he added uncertainly, meeting Harry’s eyes.
For a split second, Harry considered telling Ron that he wouldn’t tell him a single word, that he could try a taste of being kept in the dark and see how he liked it. But the nasty impulse vanished as they looked at each other.
“’Course I will,” Harry said.
Ron and Hermione beamed.
“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny—BED!”
Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Black’s ear-splitting shrieks were added to the din. Lupin hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke.
“OK, Harry… what do you want to know?”
Harry took a deep breath and asked the question that had obsessed him for the last month.
“Where’s Voldemort?” he said, ignoring the renewed shudders and winces at the name. “What’s he doing? I’ve been trying to watch the Muggle news, and there hasn’t been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything.”
“That’s because there haven’t been any funny deaths yet,” said Sirius, “not as far as we know, anyway… and we know quite a lot.”
“More than he thinks we do, anyway,” said Lupin.
“How come he’s stopped killing people?” Harry asked. He knew Voldemort had murdered more than once in the last year alone.
“Because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself,” said Sirius. “It would be dangerous for him. His comeback didn’t come off quite the way he wanted it to, you see. He messed it up.”
“Or rather, you messed it tip for him,” said Lupin, with a satisfied smile.
“How?” Harry asked, perplexed.
“You weren’t supposed to survive!” said Sirius. “Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know he’d come back. But you survived to bear witness.”
“And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore,” said Lupin. “And you made sure Dumbledore knew at once.”
“How has that helped?” Harry asked.
“Are you kidding?” said Bill incredulously. “Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!”
“Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned,” said Sirius.
“So, what’s the Order been doing?” said Harry, looking around at them all.
“Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can’t carry out his plans,” said Sirius.
“How d’you know what his plans are?” Harry asked quickly.
“Dumbledore’s got a shrewd idea,” said Lupin, “and Dumbledore’s shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate.”
“So what does Dumbledore reckon he’s planning?”
“Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again,” said Sirius. “In the old days he had huge numbers at his command: witches and wizards he’d bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the giants; well, they’ll be just one of the groups he’s after. He’s certainly not going to try and take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters.”
“So you’re trying to stop him getting more followers?”
“We’re doing our best,” said Lupin.
“How?”
“Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard,” said Bill. “It’s proving tricky, though.”
“Why?”
“Because of the Ministry’s attitude,” said Tonks. “You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back, Harry. Well, he hasn’t shifted his position at all. He’s absolutely refusing to believe it’s happened.”