Some Pretty Thing

Harry spent a good deal of the next few days ducking out of sight whenever he saw Gilderoy Lockhart coming along a corridor.

Colin Creevey was harder to dodge. Colin seemed to have learned Harry's timetable by heart, and nothing in the world gave him more pleasure than saying, 'All right, Harry?' six or seven times a day and getting, 'Hullo, Colin,' back, however worn-out Harry sounded when he said it. He could be wearing, Colin. But Harry found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he didn't mind it as much as he let on. It was rather nice, if he was honest, to have somebody following him about with that look on his face. It was a bit like having a little brother who thought you'd hung the moon. Harry had never had anybody think that about him, and he liked it a good deal more than he'd have admitted to Ron.

Hedwig was still furious with him about the car. Ron's wand was still misbehaving, and outdid itself on Friday morning in Charms by leaping out of his hand and hitting tiny Professor Flitwick squarely between the eyes, where it raised a large, throbbing green boil. So, one way and another, Harry was glad to get to the weekend. He, Ron and Hermione meant to go down and see Hagrid on Saturday morning.

Harry, however, was shaken awake several hours before he'd have chosen by Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

'Whassamatter?' said Harry groggily.

'Quidditch practice!' said Wood. 'Come on!'

Harry squinted at the window. A thin mist hung across a sky that was only just going pink and gold. Now that he was awake he couldn't understand how he'd slept through the row the birds were making.

'Oliver,' Harry croaked, 'it's the crack of dawn, mate.'

'Exactly,' said Wood. His eyes were shining with something that wasn't altogether sane. 'It's part of our new training programme. Come on, grab your broom and let's go. None of the other teams have started training yet. We're going to be first off the mark this year...'

Yawning, and shivering a bit, Harry climbed out of bed and hunted for his Quidditch robes, muttering under his breath about mad Scotsmen in words he'd learned from Ron.

'Good man,' said Wood. 'Meet you on the pitch in fifteen minutes.'

Harry loved Quidditch. He loved it with all his heart. But just then, with his feet on the cold floor and the dormitory still grey, he'd have throttled Oliver Wood sooner than Dobby.

He pulled on his kit and scribbled a note for Ron. He stood over it for a moment with the quill in his hand, wondering whether to leave one for Hermione too, and decided that the wisest course was not to, because if she knew where he'd gone she'd have been in the stands by half past six with her arms folded, and he didn't want to think about why. He took his broom and went down through the empty common room, and he'd got as far as the portrait hole when there was a clatter on the stairs behind him.

It was Colin. He came down three steps at a time with his camera swinging wildly on its strap and a grin on his face that Harry couldn't help liking.

'Harry! Harry! I've done it! Look, I've developed it, look!'

He held out a photograph. In it, a black-and-white Lockhart was tugging with both hands on an arm that Harry recognised as his own. Harry was pleased to see that his photographic self was putting up a stiff fight and refusing point-blank to be dragged into view. As they watched, Lockhart gave up and slumped against the white border of the picture, panting.

'Will you sign it?' said Colin eagerly.

'No,' said Harry flatly, with a look round to be sure the room was really empty. 'Sorry, Colin, I'm in a hurry. Quidditch practice.'

He climbed through the portrait hole.

'Oh, wow! Wait for me! I've never watched a Quidditch game before!'

Colin scrambled through after him.

'It'll be really boring,' Harry said quickly, but Colin wasn't listening. His face was alight.

'You were the youngest house player in a hundred years, weren't you, Harry? Weren't you?' said Colin, trotting beside him. 'You must be brilliant.'

Harry's chest went out an inch without his telling it to. He just might be, he thought. He might just be, at that. And he was so warmed by it that he heard himself say, 'Come on, then. If you're coming, keep up.'

'I don't really understand Quidditch,' said Colin breathlessly. 'Is it true there are four balls? And two of them fly round trying to knock people off their brooms?'

'Yes,' said Harry heavily, and settled in to explain it. 'They're called Bludgers. There are two Beaters on each team, who carry clubs to beat the Bludgers away from their side. Fred and George Weasley are the Gryffindor Beaters.'

'And what are the other balls for?' Colin asked, missing two steps because he was gazing up at Harry with his mouth open.

'Well, the Quaffle, that's the biggish red one, is the one that scores goals. Three Chasers on each team throw the Quaffle to each other and try to get it through the goalposts at the end of the pitch. They're three long poles with hoops on the end.'

'And the fourth ball...'

'... is the Golden Snitch,' said Harry, 'and it's very small, very fast and difficult to catch. But that's what the Seeker's got to do, because a game of Quidditch doesn't end until the Snitch has been caught. And whichever team's Seeker gets the Snitch earns his team an extra hundred and fifty points.'

'And you're Gryffindor Seeker, aren't you?' said Colin, in awe.

'Yes,' said Harry, as they came out of the castle on to grass soaked with dew. 'And there's the Keeper, too. He guards the goalposts. That's it, really.'

Colin didn't stop asking questions the whole way down the lawns, and Harry only shook him off at the door of the changing rooms.

'I'll go and get a good seat, Harry!' Colin called after him in his piping voice, and ran off towards the stands.

He was a good lad, Harry thought, watching him go. A good lad.

The rest of the team were already inside, and Wood was the only one who looked properly awake. Fred and George sat puffy-eyed and tousled beside Alicia Spinnet, a fourth-year, who seemed to be asleep against the wall. Opposite them the other two Chasers, Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson, were yawning in unison.

'There you are, Harry, what kept you?' said Wood briskly. 'Now, I wanted a quick word with you all before we actually get out on the pitch, because I spent the summer devising a whole new training programme, which I really think will make all the difference...'

He held up a large diagram of a Quidditch pitch, covered in lines and arrows and crosses in half a dozen colours of ink. He tapped it with his wand and the arrows began to crawl across it like caterpillars. As Wood launched into his tactics, Fred's head drooped sideways on to Alicia's shoulder, and he began to snore.

The first board took nearly twenty minutes. There was a second board under it, and a third under that. Harry sank into a stupor as Wood went on, and on.

'So,' said Wood at last, and jerked Harry out of a dream about what he could have been eating in the Great Hall at that very minute, 'is that clear? Any questions?'

'I've got a question, Oliver,' said George, who'd woken with a start. 'Why couldn't you have told us all this yesterday, when we were awake?'

Wood wasn't pleased.

'Now listen here, you lot,' he said, glowering at them. 'We should have won the Quidditch Cup last year. We're easily the best team. But unfortunately, owing to circumstances beyond our control...'

'Sorry, lads. I was busy being in mortal danger from Vol... You Know Who.'

Wood nodded.

'No worries, Harry. I won't fault it. You're a bloody hero. But I'm just saying it did us no good last year. So this year, give us some notice before you go off to save Hogwarts or the whole wizarding world, yeah?'

'I'll be sure to put it down in my diary,' Harry said.

The whole team went up in laughter, and even Wood had to stop and get himself back under control. The final match was still, plainly, eating at him.

'This year, we batter the competition, or I batter you lot. Is that understood?' Wood shouted, and he seized his broom and led them out, and his team followed, stiff-legged and yawning.

They'd been in the changing room so long that the sun was properly up now, though wisps of mist still lay on the grass. As Harry walked out on to the pitch he saw Ron and Hermione in the stands.

'Aren't you finished yet?' Ron called, incredulous.

'Haven't even started,' said Harry, looking with naked envy at the toast and marmalade they'd brought out from breakfast. 'Wood's been teaching us new moves.'

'You didn't leave me a note,' Hermione called down. She said it lightly. Her face wasn't light.

'Sorry. I was in a hurry.'

'I found it anyway,' said Hermione, and went back to her toast.

Harry mounted his broom and kicked off, and the cold morning air hit him in the face and woke him up far more thoroughly than Wood's three boards had. It was wonderful to be back on the pitch. He went round the whole stadium at full speed, racing Fred and George.

'What's that funny clicking noise?' called Fred, as they hurtled round the corner.

Harry looked into the stands. Colin was up in one of the highest seats with his camera to his eye, taking picture after picture, and the sound of it carried oddly in the empty stadium.

'Look this way, Harry! This way!' he shrilled.

'Who's that?' said Fred.

'That's Colin. He's a good lad. He just wants my attention,' replied Harry.

'What's going on?' said Wood, frowning, as he skimmed over to them. 'Why's that first-year taking pictures? I don't like it. He could be a Slytherin spy, trying to find out about our new training programme.'

'He's in Gryffindor,' said Harry quickly.

'And the Slytherins don't need a spy, Oliver,' said George.

'What makes you say that?' said Wood testily.

'Because they're here in person,' said George, and pointed.

Several figures in green robes were walking out on to the pitch with broomsticks in their hands.

'I don't believe it!' Wood hissed. 'I booked the pitch for today! We'll see about this!'

He shot for the ground, landed a good deal harder than he'd meant to, and staggered as he got off his broom. Harry, Fred and George came down after him.

'Flint!' Wood bellowed at the Slytherin captain. 'This is our practice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!'

Marcus Flint was even bigger than Wood, and there was a look of trollish cunning on his face as he answered.

'Plenty of room for all of us, Wood.'

Angelina, Alicia and Katie had come over too. There were no girls on the Slytherin side. They stood shoulder to shoulder facing the Gryffindors, and every one of them was leering.

'But I booked the pitch!' said Wood, spitting with rage. 'I booked it!'

'Ah,' said Flint, 'but I've got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape. I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practise today on the Quidditch pitch, owing to the need to train their new Seeker.'

'You've got a new Seeker?' said Wood, thrown. 'Where?'

And from behind the six large figures in front of them, a much smaller one pushed, shoved and tutted her way through.

It was Dracina Malfoy. She looked enormously pleased with herself, and she gave Harry the smug look she gave him in Potions whenever her cauldron came out the right colour and his didn't.

'Of bloody course,' said Harry.

Dracina huffed.

'Aren't you Lucius Malfoy's daughter?' said Fred, looking at her with dislike.

'Funny you should mention Dracina's father,' said Flint, and the whole Slytherin team smiled wider. 'Let me show you the generous gift he's made to the Slytherin team.'

All seven of them held out their brooms. Seven brand-new, highly polished handles, and seven sets of fine gold lettering that spelled Nimbus Two Thousand and One, gleamed under the Gryffindors' noses in the early sun.

'Very latest model. Only came out last month,' said Flint carelessly, flicking a speck of dust off the end of his. 'I believe it outstrips the old Two Thousand series by a considerable amount. As for the old Cleansweeps...' He smiled nastily at Fred and George, who were both holding Cleansweep Fives. '... sweeps the board with them.'

Nobody on the Gryffindor team could find anything to say. Malfoy was smirking so hard that her silver eyes had gone to slits.

'Oh, look,' said Flint. 'A pitch invasion.'

Ron and Hermione were coming across the grass to see what was going on.

'What's happening?' Ron asked Harry. 'Why aren't you playing? And what's she doing here?'

He'd seen the green Quidditch robes.

'I'm the new Slytherin Seeker, Weasley,' said Malfoy smugly. 'Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team.'

Ron gaped at the seven superb broomsticks.

'Good, aren't they?' said Malfoy smoothly. 'But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives. I expect a museum would bid for them.'

The Slytherin team drew breath to laugh, and Harry got in first.

'You think some pretty thing can make up for talent?' he asked, accusingly.

And something happened to Malfoy's face.

The twinkle came up in her eyes, the one from the common-room floor, and she went pink, the exact pink she'd gone in Madam Malkin's a year and a lifetime ago when a boy who didn't know who she was had asked her whether she was a princess. And Harry heard what he'd said. And he had, at the same instant, the feeling again, the one he didn't have a word for, the one that wanted that twinkle to stay exactly where it was and never go anywhere else.

'You... you think I'm pretty?'

Her voice had gone soft. She looked, for a moment, as though she'd gone somewhere else entirely, somewhere a long way off and very pleasant, and had every intention of staying. Harry didn't notice any of that. He'd said the wrong thing. He knew, too, precisely what Malfoy would do with it, which was tease him into the ground with it for the rest of his life, so he'd better get out while he could.

'I... I meant the brooms, actually,' Harry said.

Malfoy came back from wherever she'd been. The pink went to red. She stamped up to him until they were almost nose to nose, and she was the taller of the two, by an inch, and she used it.

'Choose your words more carefully next time. Stupid Potter!'

And she thumped him, in the chest, so unexpectedly that he went back a step and nearly sat down.

'Don't you dare touch him!'

Hermione was between them before Harry had got his balance. She'd come from nowhere, and she was in Malfoy's face with such fury that Malfoy actually stepped back.

It lasted about a second. Then Malfoy came forward again, and the two of them were nose to nose, and Harry could see Hermione's fists and Malfoy's teeth.

'I'll touch him whenever I want, you disgusting thieving Mudblood!' Malfoy snarled.

The whole Gryffindor team cried out at the word. Fred and George went for her and were caught by Angelina and Katie. But nobody caught Hermione, Hermione had got two handfuls of Malfoy's hair before anyone could move, and Malfoy had got hers, the pair of them went round in a circle on the grass screaming at each other.

Harry had to get Malfoy off. He'd seen what she'd done to Ron in the stands last year, and he wasn't going to watch her do it to Hermione. He went in with both hands. The trouble was that there were two girls and a great deal of hair, but even within the confusion he got Malfoy by both arms, from behind, and pulled her clear.

She twisted round in his grip. For one second she looked at him, close, with that twinkle, and then she remembered herself and shoved him off with both hands.

'Stupid bloody Potter!' she screamed.

'Get away from him!' cried Ron, and his wand came up.

There was a bang that echoed round the stadium, and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end of Ron's wand and hit him in the stomach, and he went over backwards on to the grass.

'Ron! Ron! Are you all right?' squealed Hermione.

Ron opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Then he gave an almighty belch, and several slugs slid out of his mouth and into his lap.

The Slytherin team were helpless. Flint was bent double, clinging to his new broom to stay upright. Malfoy was on all fours, beating the grass with her fist, and the sight of that made Harry angrier than anything else that morning.

The Gryffindors had gathered round Ron, who was belching up large, glistening slugs at a steady rate. Nobody seemed to want to touch him.

'We'd better get him to Hagrid's, it's nearest,' Harry said to Hermione, who nodded bravely, and the two of them hauled Ron up by the arms.

'What happened, Harry? What happened? Is he ill? But you can cure him, can't you?'

Colin had come down from the stands and was dancing alongside them as they left the pitch. Ron gave a tremendous heave and more slugs ran down his front.

'Oooh,' said Colin, fascinated, and raised his camera. 'Can you hold him still, Harry?'

'Get out of the way, Colin!' said Harry angrily.

He and Hermione got Ron out of the stadium and across the grounds towards the edge of the Forest.

'Nearly there, Ron,' said Hermione, as Hagrid's cabin came into sight. 'You'll be all right in a minute... almost there...'

They were twenty feet from the door when it opened, and it wasn't Hagrid who came out. Gilderoy Lockhart, in robes of the palest mauve, came striding into the sunshine.

'Quick, behind here,' Harry hissed, and dragged Ron behind a bush. Hermione followed, with some reluctance.

Harry swore at Lockhart inside his head. Ron was leaking slugs into the undergrowth and Lockhart had to be here, now, making the whole morning about himself, and smelling, from twenty feet, of lavender.

'It's a simple matter if you know what you're doing!' Lockhart was saying loudly, back over his shoulder. 'If you need help, you know where I am! I'll let you have a copy of my book. I'm surprised you haven't already got one. I'll sign one tonight and send it over. Well, goodbye!'

And he strode off towards the castle.

Harry waited until he was out of sight, then pulled Ron out of the bush and up to Hagrid's door and knocked, hard. Hagrid opened it at once, looking thoroughly grumpy, and his face cleared the moment he saw who it was.

'Bin wonderin' when you'd come ter see me. Come in, come in. Thought you mighta bin Professor Lockhart back again.'

Harry and Hermione got Ron over the threshold and into the one-roomed cabin, with its enormous bed in one corner and its fire crackling in another. Hagrid didn't seem in the least put out by Ron's condition, which Harry explained in a hurry as he lowered Ron into a chair.

'Better out than in,' Hagrid said cheerfully, and set a big copper basin in front of him. 'Get 'em all up, Ron.'

'I don't think there's anything to do except wait for it to stop,' said Hermione anxiously, as Ron bent over the basin. 'That's a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a broken wand...'

Hagrid bustled about making tea, and Fang the boarhound slobbered on Harry.

'What did Lockhart want with you, Hagrid?' Harry asked, scratching Fang's ears.

'Givin' me advice on gettin' kelpies out of a well,' growled Hagrid, moving a half-plucked cockerel off the table and setting down the teapot. 'Like I don' know. An' bangin' on about some Banshee he banished. If one word of it was true, I'll eat my kettle.'

It was most unlike Hagrid to run down a Hogwarts teacher, and Harry looked at him in surprise. Hermione, on the other hand, said in a voice rather higher than her usual one, 'I think you're being a bit unfair. Professor Dumbledore obviously thought he was the best man for the job...'

'He was the on'y man for the job,' said Hagrid, holding out a plate of treacle toffee while Ron coughed wetly into the basin. 'An' I mean the on'y one. Gettin' very difficult ter find anyone fer the Dark Arts job. People aren't too keen ter take it on, see. They're startin' ter think it's jinxed. No one's lasted long fer a while now. So tell me,' said Hagrid, with a jerk of his head at Ron, 'who was he tryin' ter curse?'

Harry sighed.

'Okay. So it's a long story, Hagrid. But Malfoy was trying to antagonise us all. She and the Slytherin team were making a big fuss over their new bloody brooms just to make us all jealous. I told her that those pretty things couldn't make up for any talent, and...'

'Actually, mate. You said "some pretty thing". Big difference,' Ron pointed out, from the basin.

'Yeah... b-but it was obvious what I meant. Malfoy still thought I said she was pretty. Then she went mental!'

Hagrid's eyes narrowed. He looked at Ron. Ron shrugged, and then, slowly, nodded, and Hagrid nodded back, and the two of them seemed to have had a whole conversation in it without a word spoken, and Harry hadn't the faintest idea what it was about.

'I see,' said Hagrid. He said it very diplomatically.

'She attacked Harry!' Hermione added firmly.

'Yeah!' said Harry. 'T-then she said she'll touch me whenever she liked, after Hermione told her to stop. Then she called Hermione a Mudblood. And it just went to chaos.'

'That's a horrible thing to call another witch,' said Hagrid. He sounded scandalised, and he looked at Hermione with real feeling, and with something else under it that might have been a dawning understanding of exactly what the two witches in question had been fighting over. 'An' that's when Ron got cursed?' Hagrid asked.

'Yes. After I tried to get Malfoy off of Hermione. I grabbed her, and Ron must've thought he was saving me from her. So he used his wand, but it backfired.'

'An' why'd you grab Malfoy?' Hagrid asked. There was something odd in his voice.

'W-well, because she's dangerous. You saw how she was with Ron last year. She's so spiteful, a-and mean too, Hagrid.'

'Right,' said Hagrid, and sighed.

'I thought Harry was very brave, Hagrid,' Hermione added.

Hagrid sighed again, and rubbed the back of his neck.

'Of course. Harry is very brave,' Hagrid said. 'It's not right that Miss Malfoy called you that, Hermione. An' they haven't invented a spell our Hermione can't do,' he added, proudly, and Hermione went a brilliant magenta.

'It's a disgusting thing to call someone,' said Ron, wiping his sweaty forehead with a hand that shook. 'Dirty blood, see. Common blood. It's mad. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out. We all know Squibs come from bloody incest. But all them lot like the Lestranges and the Blacks would rather marry their sisters than a Muggle-born.'

'What's a Squib?' said Harry.

'Someone born to wizard parents who hasn't got any...' Ron stopped, heaved, produced two slugs, and went on. '... any magic. Can't do a thing. It's rare. Dad reckons it's what you get when the same five families keep marrying each other for three hundred years. Doesn't stop them doing it.'

'I don't get why they're so precious about it,' said Harry. 'All of it. The blood. Dumbledore told me, in the hospital wing last year, that Muggle-borns are probably just recessive. From old magical ancestors, way back. So it's all the same blood anyway, isn't it? There's nothing to be precious about.'

'That's the magical equivalent of pseudoscience, Harry, for want of a better word,' said Hermione, who'd gone pink again, this time with interest. 'Nobody's ever actually tested it. There's no data at all. I'd like to do the research myself when I've got time, properly, with a control group...'

'Well, whatever it is,' said Harry, 'we should all be on the same side. All of us. Wizards, I mean. Muggle-born, pure-blood, half, whatever. We ought to be standing together. Especially against...' He thought of a frying pan, and a lock, and three days. 'There are some dreadful Muggles out there. Really dreadful. Not all of them. Your parents seem all right, Hermione, they seem lovely. But there's enough of the other kind that we can't afford to be fighting each other over whose grandad was what.'

He hadn't known he was going to say all that. It had come up on its own.

Ron lifted his head out of the basin. There was a slug on his chin and his eyes were bright.

'Yeah,' he said thickly. 'Yeah. That's it, Harry. All in it together. You're right. Mum says that. Dad says that.' He belched. 'Sorry.'

'I'm with you, Harry,' said Hermione. She said it very simply, and very seriously, as though it were a vow. 'Whatever you decide. I think it's a lovely idea.'

'And anyone who thinks you're less than them because of your parents,' said Harry, warming to it, 'can say it to me, and I'll tell them you're one of the cleverest witches there's ever been. Anyone. Malfoy included.'

Hermione didn't answer.

She was looking at him with her mouth slightly open and her eyes gone very far away, in a manner Harry had seen once already that morning, on somebody else, and had no name for in either case.

'Hermione? You all right?'

'Yes,' said Hermione, from a long way off. 'Yes. I'm fine, Harry.'

Hagrid looked from Hermione, to Harry, to the door, through which Dracina Malfoy had so recently been discussed, and sighed for a third time, in the manner of a man who has just understood that his young friend is standing in the middle of a battlefield and hasn't noticed the wands.

'Bu' maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired,' he said, steering for safer ground with the skill of long practice. ''Spect Lucius Malfoy would've come marchin' up ter school if yeh'd cursed his daughter. Least yer not in trouble.'

Harry would have pointed out that trouble didn't come a great deal worse than slugs pouring out of your mouth, but he couldn't, because Hagrid's treacle toffee had welded his jaws together.

'Harry,' said Hagrid suddenly, as if a thought had just struck him. 'Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I've heard you've bin givin' out signed photos. How come I haven't got one?'

Furious, Harry wrenched his teeth apart.

'I have not been giving out signed photos,' he said hotly. 'If Lockhart's still putting that about...'

Then he saw that Hagrid was laughing.

'I'm on'y jokin',' he said, and clapped Harry genially on the back, which sent him face first into the table. 'I knew yeh hadn't really. I told Lockhart yeh didn' need teh. Yer more famous than him without tryin'.'

'Bet he didn't like that,' said Harry, sitting up and rubbing his chin.

'Don' think he did,' said Hagrid, with his eyes twinkling. 'An' then I told him I'd never read one o' his books, an' he decided ter go. Treacle toffee, Ron?' he added, as Ron came up out of the basin.

'No thanks,' said Ron weakly. 'Better not risk it.'

'Come an' see what I've bin growin',' said Hagrid, as Harry and Hermione finished their tea.

In the little vegetable patch behind the cabin were a dozen of the biggest pumpkins Harry had ever seen. Each one was the size of a boulder.

'Gettin' on well, aren't they?' said Hagrid happily. 'Fer the Hallowe'en feast... should be big enough by then.'

'Hagrid, what the bloody hell have you been feeding them? Pumpkin steroids?' said Harry.

Hagrid looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone.

'Well, I've bin givin' them... you know... a bit o' help.'

Harry noticed Hagrid's flowery pink umbrella leaning against the back wall. He'd had reason before now to think that the umbrella wasn't all it appeared; in fact he had a strong suspicion that Hagrid's old school wand lived inside it. Hagrid wasn't meant to do magic. He'd been expelled in his third year, and Harry had never found out why. Any mention of it and Hagrid would clear his throat and go mysteriously deaf until somebody changed the subject.

'An Engorgement Charm, I suppose?' said Hermione, halfway between disapproval and amusement. 'Well, you've done a good job on them.'

'That's what yer little sister said,' said Hagrid, with a nod at Ron. 'Met her jus' yesterday.' He looked sideways at Harry, and his beard twitched. 'Said she was jus' lookin' round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin' she might run inter someone else at my house.' He winked at Harry. 'If yeh ask me, she wouldn' say no ter a signed...'

'Oi, shut up, that's Ron's sister,' said Harry.

Ron snorted with laughter and sprayed the ground with slugs.

'Watch it!' Hagrid roared, and hauled Ron away from his pumpkins.

It was nearly lunchtime, and since Harry had had one piece of treacle toffee since dawn, he was keen to get back to the castle and eat. They said goodbye to Hagrid and walked back up, Ron hiccuping now and then but producing only two very small slugs.

'She hit you,' said Ron, halfway up the lawn. 'Malfoy. Actually hit you.'

'I know. I was there.'

'In the chest. Because you said she was pretty.'

'I didn't say she was pretty.'

'You said some pretty thing.'

'About the brooms, Ron.'

'Right,' said Ron, and hiccuped, and had the grace to say nothing more. Hermione, on Harry's other side, had said nothing at all since the hut, and walked very close.

They'd barely set foot in the cool of the Entrance Hall when a voice rang out.

'There you are, Potter, Weasley.'

Professor McGonagall was coming towards them, looking stern.

'You will both do your detentions this evening.'

'What are we doing, Professor?' said Ron, nervously suppressing a burp.

'You will be polishing the silver in the trophy room with Mr Filch,' said Professor McGonagall. 'And no magic, Weasley. Elbow grease.'

Ron gulped. Argus Filch, the caretaker, was hated by every student in the school.

'And you, Potter, will be helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail,' said Professor McGonagall.

Harry's heart filled with a dread he'd last felt watching a turban come off the back of a man's head.

'P-Professor, please. Not that. I'll go head first into the Forbidden Forest again if you like. I'll pick the mushrooms. I'll lick all the toads and consort with the forest hags. I'll learn tunes from the centaurs. Whatever you want, Professor. Just not that.'

Professor McGonagall's mouth did something it very rarely did, which was twitch, and the twitch got away from her and became, briefly, a chuckle. She covered it with a cough.

'Mr Potter, if you wanted to do it, it wouldn't be much of a punishment, would it? Anyway, Lockhart requested you specifically.'

'Bugger,' Harry said under his breath.

'Language, Mr Potter,' McGonagall said, doing her best to sound indignant through what was left of the chuckle. 'Eight o'clock sharp, both of you.'

Harry and Ron slouched into the Great Hall in the deepest gloom, with Hermione behind them wearing a well-you-did-break-school-rules expression. Harry found he didn't fancy his shepherd's pie as much as he'd thought he would. Both he and Ron were sure they'd got the worse deal.

'Filch'll have me there all night,' said Ron heavily. 'No magic! There must be about a hundred cups in that room. I'm no good at Muggle cleaning.'

'I'd swap any time,' said Harry hollowly. 'I've had loads of practice with the Dursleys. Answering Lockhart's fan mail... I reckon Lockhart likes men. Ugh.'

Saturday afternoon melted away, and in what felt like no time at all it was five to eight and Harry was dragging his feet along the second-floor corridor to Lockhart's office. He set his teeth and knocked.

The door flew open at once. Lockhart beamed down at him.

'Ah, here's the scallywag!' he said. 'Come in, Harry, come in.'

The walls shone by the light of a great many candles with countless framed photographs of Lockhart. He'd signed several of them. Another large pile sat on his desk.

'You can address the envelopes!' Lockhart told Harry, as though this were an enormous treat.

'You're too kind,' Harry said, meaning the opposite.

'Oh, yes. I really am. Thank you for noticing, Harry. This first one's to Gladys Gudgeon, bless her. Huge fan of mine.'

The minutes crawled. They crawled on their stomachs. Lockhart, to be fair to him, did nothing worse than talk, but the lavender came off him in waves, and the waves got higher as the evening went on. Lockhart definitely liked men. Just look at how he dressed. Harry let Lockhart's voice wash over him and said 'Mmm' and 'Right' and 'Yeah' at intervals. Now and then a phrase surfaced, like 'Fame's a fickle friend, Harry' or 'Celebrity is as celebrity does, remember that'. The candles burned down, and the light moved over the dozens of Lockharts on the walls, every one of them watching him. Harry's hand ached. He was writing out, for what felt like the thousandth time, somebody's address, this one a Veronica Smethley, and thinking, please let it be nearly time, please, it's got to be nearly time...

And then he heard something.

Something quite apart from the spitting of the candles and Lockhart's drone about his readers. A voice. A voice that went into the bone, a voice of breathtaking, ice-cold venom.

'Come... come to me... let me rip you... let me tear you... let me kill you...'

Harry jumped so hard that a great lilac blot spread across Veronica Smethley's street.

'What?' he said loudly.

'I know!' said Lockhart. 'Six solid months at the top of the bestseller list! Broke all records!'

'No, for God's sake, not that!' said Harry frantically. 'That voice!'

'Sorry?' said Lockhart, puzzled. 'What voice?'

'That... that voice that said... didn't you hear it?'

Lockhart was looking at him in high astonishment.

'What are you talking about, Harry? Perhaps you're getting a little drowsy? Merlin, look at the time! We've been here nearly four hours! I'd never have believed it. The time's flown, hasn't it? It always does when people are around me.'

Harry didn't answer. He was straining every nerve to hear the voice again. But there was nothing now except Lockhart telling him, 'You mustn't expect a treat like this every time you get detention, Harry.'

'Oh, I hope so, Mr Lockhart,' Harry said, dazed, and left.

It was so late that the common room was almost empty. Harry went straight up. Ron wasn't back. Harry pulled on his pyjamas, got into bed, and waited.

Half an hour later Ron came in, nursing his right arm and bringing a powerful smell of polish into the dark.

'My muscles have all seized up,' he groaned, and dropped on to his bed. 'Fourteen times he made me buff up that Quidditch Cup before he was satisfied. And then I had another slug attack all over a Special Award for Services to the School. Took ages to shift the slime... How was it with Lockhart?'

Keeping his voice low so as not to wake Neville, Dean and Seamus, Harry told Ron exactly what he'd heard.

'And Lockhart said he couldn't hear it?' said Ron. Harry could see him frowning in the moonlight. 'D'you think he was lying? But I don't get it. Even someone invisible would've had to open the door.'

'I know,' said Harry, lying back and staring up at the canopy of his four-poster. 'I don't get it either.'