•°THE BOY WHO LIVED 3°•

Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on

the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as

a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive.. It

didn’t so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor

when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before

the cat moved at all.

A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so

suddenly and silently you’d have thought he’d just popped out of the

ground. The cat’s tail twitched and its eyes narrowed

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall,

thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were

both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple

cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice.This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore didn’t seem to realize that he had just arrived in a

street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was

busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to

realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat,

which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some

reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered,

“I should have known.”

He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a

silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked

it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again –

the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-

Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks

in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone look-

ed out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn’t

be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumble-dore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn’t look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

“Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.”

He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling

at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly

the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was

wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun.

She looked distinctly ruffled.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked.

“My dear Professor, I’ve never seen a cat sit so stiffly. “

“You’d be stiff if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day,” said Profe-

ssor McGonagall.

“All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a

dozen feasts and parties on my way here.”

Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.

“Oh yes, everyone’s celebrating, all right,” she said impatiently. “You’d

think they’d be a bit more careful, but no – even the Muggles have noticed

something’s going on. It was on their news.” She jerked her head back at

the Dursleys’ dark living-room window. “I heard it. Flocks of owls...

shooting stars... Well, they’re not completely stupid. They were bound to

notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent – I’ll bet that was Dedalus

Diggle. He never had much sense.”

“You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious

little to celebrate for eleven years.”

“You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious

little to celebrate for eleven years.”

She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hop-

ing he was going to tell her something, but he didn’t, so she went on. “A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have

disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really

has gone, Dumbledore?”

“It certainly seems so,” said Dumbledore. “We have much to be thankful

for. Would you care for a lemon drop?”

“A what?”

“A lemon drop. They’re a kind of Muggle sweet I’m rather fond of. “

“No, thank you,” said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn’t

think this was the moment for lemon drops. “As I say, even if You-Know-

Who has gone –”

“My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him

by his name? All this ‘You-Know-Who’ nonsense – for eleven years I have

been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort.”

Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking

two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. “It all gets so confusing if we keep

saying ‘You-Know-Who.’ I have never seen any reason to be frightened of

saying Voldemort’s name.”

“I know you haven’t,” said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exaspe-

rated, half admiring. “But you’re different. Everyone knows you’re the only

one You-Knowoh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of.”

“You flatter me,” said Dumbledore calmly. “Voldemort had powers I will

never have.”

“Only because you’re too – well – noble to use them.”

“It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey

told me she liked my new earmuffs.”

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, “The

owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what

everyone’s saying? About why he’s disappeared? About what finally stopped him?”

_______________________________________

like

comments

subscribe

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***