Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince - Rowling Joanne Kathleen. Страница 110

‘Ginny, listen…’ he said very quietly, as the buzz of conversation grew louder around them and people began to get to their feet. ‘I can’t be involved with you any more. We’ve got to stop seeing each other. We can’t be together.’

She said, with an oddly twisted smile, ‘It’s for some stupid, noble reason, isn’t it?’

‘It’s been like… like something out of someone else’s life, these last few weeks with you,’ said Harry. ‘But I can’t… we can’t… I’ve got things to do alone now.’

She did not cry, she simply looked at him, ‘Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He’s already used you as bait once, and that was just because you’re my best friend’s sister. Think how much danger you’ll be in if we keep this up. He’ll know, he’ll find out. He’ll try and get to me through you.’

‘What if I don’t care?’ said Ginny fiercely.

‘I care,’ said Harry. ‘How do you think I’d feel if this was your funeral… and it was my fault…’

She looked away from him, over the lake.

T never really gave up on you,‘ she said. ’Not really. I always hoped… Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more — myself.‘

‘Smart girl, that Hermione,’ said Harry, trying to smile. ‘I just wish I’d asked you sooner. We coukTve had ages… months… years maybe…’

‘But you’ve been too busy saving the wizarding world,’ said Ginny, half-laughing. ‘Well… I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.’

Harry could not bear to hear these things, nor did he think his resolution would hold if he remained sitting beside her. Ron, he saw, was now holding Hermione and stroking her hair while she sobbed into his shoulder, tears dripping from the end of his own long nose. With a miserable gesture, Harry got up, turned his back on Ginny and on Dumbledore’s tomb and walked away around the lake. Moving felt much more bearable than sitting still: just as setting out as soon as possible to track down the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort would feel better than waiting to do it…

‘Harry!’

He turned. Rufus Scrimgeour was limping rapidly towards him around the bank, leaning on his walking stick.

‘I’ve been hoping to have a word… do you mind if I walk a little way with you?’

‘No,’ said Harry indifferently, and set off again.

‘Harry, this was a dreadful tragedy,’ said Scrimgeour quietly, ‘I cannot tell you how appalled I was to hear of it. Dumbledore was a very great wizard. We had our disagreements, as you know, but no one knows better than I -’

‘What do you want?’ asked Harry flatly.

Scrimgeour looked annoyed but, as before, hastily modified his expression to one of sorrowful understanding.

‘You are, of course, devastated,’ he said. ‘I know that you were very close to Dumbledore. I think you may have been his favourite ever pupil. The bond between the two of you -’

‘What do you want?’ Harry repeated, coming to a halt.

Scrimgeour stopped too, leaned on his stick and stared at Harry, his expression shrewd now.

‘The word is that you were with him when he left the school the night that he died.’

‘Whose word?’ said Harry.

‘Somebody Stupefied a Death Eater on top of the Tower after Dumbledore died. There were also two broomsticks up there. The Ministry can add two and two, Harry.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Harry. ‘Well, where I went with Dumbledore and what we did is my business. He didn’t want people to know.’

‘Such loyalty is admirable, of course,’ said Scrimgeour, who seemed to be restraining his irritation with difficulty, ‘bul Dumbledore is gone, Harry. He’s gone.’

‘He will only be gone from the school when none here are loyal to him,’ said Harry, smiling in spite of himself.

‘My dear boy… even Dumbledore cannot return from the-’

‘I am not saying he can. You wouldn’t understand. But I’ve got nothing to tell you.’

Scrimgeour hesitated, then said, in what was evidently supposed to be a tone of delicacy, The Ministry can offer you all sorts of protection, you know, Harry. I would be delighted to place a couple of my Aurors at your service -‘

Harry laughed.

‘Voldemort wants to kill me himself and Aurors won’t stop him. So thanks for the offer, but no thanks.’

‘So,’ said Scrimgeour, his voice cold now, ‘the request I made of you at Christmas -’

‘What request? Oh yeah… the one where I tell the world what a great job you’re doing in exchange for —’

‘— for raising everyone’s morale!’ snapped Scrimgeour.

Harry considered him for a moment.

‘Released Stan Shunpike yet?’

Scrimgeour turned a nasty purple colour highly reminiscent of Uncle Vernon.

‘I see you are -’

‘Dumbledore’s man through and through,’ said Harry. ‘That’s right.’

Scrimgeour glared at him for another moment, then turned and limped away without another word. Harry could see Percy and the rest of the Ministry delegation waiting for him, casting nervous glances at the sobbing Hagrid and Grawp, who were still in their seats. Ron and Hermione were hurrying towards Harry, passing Scrimgeour going in the opposite direction; Harry turned and walked slowly on, waiting for them to catch up, which they finally did in the shade of a beech tree under which they had sat in happier times.

“What did Scrimgeour want?‘ Hermione whispered.

‘Same as he wanted at Christmas,’ shrugged Harry. ‘Wanted me to give him inside information on Dumbledore and be the Ministry’s new poster boy.’

Ron seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then he said loudly to Hermione, ‘Look, let me go back and hit Percy!’

‘No,’ she said firmly, grabbing his arm.

‘It’ll make me feel better!’

Harry laughed. Even Hermione grinned a little, though her smile faded as she looked up at the castle.

‘I can’t bear the idea that we might never come back.’ she said softly. ‘How can Hogwarts close?’

‘Maybe it won’t,’ said Ron. ‘We’re not in any more danger here than we are at home, are we? Everywhere’s the same now. I’d even say Hogwarts is safer, there are more wizards inside to defend the place. What d’you reckon, Harry?’

‘I’m not coming back even if it does reopen,’ said Harry.

Ron gaped at him, but Hermione said sadly, ‘I knew you were going to say that. But then what will you do? 1

‘I’m going back to the Dursleys’ once more, because Dumbledore wanted me to,’ said Harry. ‘But it’ll be a short visit, and then I’ll be gone for good.’

‘But where will you go if you don’t come back to school?’

‘I thought I might go back to Godric’s Hollow,’ Harry muttered. He had had the idea in his head ever since the night of Dumbledore’s death. ‘For me, it started there, all of it. I’ve just got a feeling I need to go there. And I can visit my parents’ graves, I’d like that.’

‘And then what?’ said Ron.

Then I’ve got to track down the rest of the Horcruxes, haven’t I?‘ said Harry, his eyes upon Dumbledore’s white tomb, reflected in the water on the other side of the lake. That’s what he wanted me to do, that’s why he told me all about them. If Dumbledore was right — and I’m sure he was -there are still four of them out there. I’ve got to find them and destroy them and then I’ve got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort’s soul, the bit that’s still in his body, and I’m the one who’s going to kill him. And if I meet Severus Snape along the way,’ he added, ‘so much trie better tor me, so mucn the worse for him.’

There was a long silence. The crowd had almost dispersed now, the stragglers giving the monumental figure of Grawp a wide berth as he cuddled Hagrid, whose howls of grief were still echoing across the water.

‘We’ll be there, Harry,’ said Ron.

‘What?’

At your aunt and uncle’s house,‘ said Ron. ’And then we’ll go with you, wherever you’re going.‘

‘No -’ said Harry quickly; he had not counted on this, he had meant them to understand that he was undertaking this most dangerous journey alone.

‘You said to us once before,’ said Hermione quietly, ‘that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We’ve had time, haven’t we?’

‘We’re with you whatever happens,’ said Ron. ‘But, mate, you’re going to have to come round my mum and dad’s house before we do anything else, even Godric’s Hollow.’

‘Why?’

‘Bill and Fleur’s wedding, remember?’

Harry looked at him, startled; the idea that anything as normal as a wedding could still exist seemed incredible and yet wonderful.

‘Yeah, we shouldn’t miss that,’ he said finally.

His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux, but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, in a year, or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.

The End.