book."
On that intriguing note, I take my leave. There can be no doubt that Skeeter
has quilled an instant bestseller. Dumbledore's legion of admirers, meanwhile,
may well be trembling at what is soon to emerge about their hero.
Harry reached the bottom of the article, but continued to stare blankly at the page.
Revulsion and fury rose in him like vomit; he balled up the newspaper and threw it, with
all his force, at the wall, where it joined the rest of the rubbish heaped around his
overflowing bin.
He began to stride blindly around the room, opening empty drawers and picking
up books only to replace them on the same piles, barely conscious of what he was doing,
as random phrases from Rita's article echoed in his head: An entire chapter to the whole
Potter-Dumbledore relationship ... It's been called unhealthy, even sinister ... He dabbled
in the Dark Arts himself in his youth ... I've had access to a source most journalists would
swap their wands for...
"Lies!" Harry bellowed, and through the window he saw the next-door neighbor,
who had paused to restart his lawn mower, look up nervously.
Harry sat down hard on the bed. The broken bit of mirror danced away from him;
he picked it up and turned it over in his fingers, thinking, thinking of Dumbledore and the
lies with which Rita Skeeter was defaming him ...
A flash of brightest blue. Harry froze, his cut finger slipping on the jagged edge of
the mirror again. He had imagined it, he must have done. He glanced over his shoulder,
but the wall was a sickly peach color of Aunt Petunia's choosing: There was nothing blue
there for the mirror to reflect. He peered into the mirror fragment again, and saw nothing
but his own bright green eye looking back at him.
He had imagined it, there was no other explanation; imagined it, because he had
been thinking of his dead headmaster. If anything was certain, it was that the bright blue
eyes of Albus Dumbledore would never pierce him again.
Chapter Three
The Dursleys Departing
The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs and a voice roared,
“Oh! You!”
Sixteen years of being addressed thus left Harry in no doubt when his uncle was
calling, nevertheless, he did not immediately respond. He was still at the narrow fragment
in which, for a split second, he had thought he saw Dumbledore’s eye. It was not until his
uncle bellowed, “BOY!” that Harry got slowly out of bed and headed for the bedroom
door, pausing to add the piece of broken mirror to the rucksack filled with things he
would be taking with him.
“You took you time!” roared Vernon Dursley when Harry appeared at the top of
the stairs, “Get down here. I want a word!”
Harry strolled downstairs, his hands deep in his pants pockets. When he searched
the living room he found all three Dursleys. They were dressed for packing; Uncle
Vernon in an old ripped-up jacket and Dudley, Harry’s, large, blond, muscular cousin, in
his leather jacket.