Mrs Weasley followed them upstairs looking grim.

'I want you all to go straight to bed, no talking,' she said as they reached the first landing, 'we've got a busy day tomorrow. I expect Ginny's asleep,' she added to Hermione, 'so try not to wake her up.'

'Asleep, yeah, right,' said Fred in an undertone, after Hermione bade them goodnight and they were climbing to the next floor. 'If Ginny's not lying awake waiting for Hermione to tell her everything they said downstairs then I'm a Flobberworm . . .'

'All right, Ron, Harry,' said Mrs Weasley on the second landing, pointing them into their bedroom. 'Off to bed with you.'

' 'Night,' Harry and Ron said to the twins.

'Sleep tight,' said Fred, winking.

Mrs Weasley closed the door behind Harry with a sharp snap. The bedroom looked, if anything, even danker and gloomier than it had on first sight. The blank picture on the wall was now breathing very slowly and deeply, as though its invisible occupant was asleep. Harry put on his pyjamas, took off his glasses and climbed into his chilly bed while Ron threw Owl Treats up on top of the wardrobe to pacify Hedwig and Pigwidgeon, who were clattering around and rustling their wings restlessly.

'We can't let them out to hunt every night,' Ron explained as he pulled on his maroon pyjamas. 'Dumbledore doesn't want too many owls swooping around the square, thinks it'll look suspicious. Oh yeah . . . I forgot . . .'

He crossed to the door and bolted it.

'What're you doing that for?'

'Kreacher,' said Ron as he turned off the light. 'First night I was here he came wandering in at three in the morning. Trust me, you don't want to wake up and find him prowling around your room. Anyway . . .' he got into his bed, settled down under the covers then turned to look at Harry in the darkness; Harry could see his outline by the moonlight filtering in through the grimy window, 'what d 'you reckon? '

Harry didn't need to ask what Ron meant.

'Well, they didn't tell us much we couldn't have guessed, did they?' he said, thinking of all that had been said downstairs. 'I mean, all they've really said is that the Order's trying to stop people joining Vol—'

There was a sharp intake of breath from Ron.

— demort, ' said Harry firmly. 'When are you going to start using his name? Sirius and Lupin do.'

Ron ignored this last comment.

'Yeah, you're right,' he said, 'we already knew nearly everything they told us, from using the Extendable Ears. The only new bit was — '

Crack.

'OUCH!'

'Keep your voice down, Ron, or Mum'll be back up here.'

'You two just Apparated on my knees!'

'Yeah, well, it's harder in the dark.'

Harry saw the blurred outlines of Fred and George leaping down from Ron's bed. There was a groan of bedsprings and Harry's mattress descended a few inches as George sat down near his feet.

'So, got there yet?' said George eagerly.

'The weapon Sirius mentioned?' said Harry.

'Let slip, more like,' said Fred with relish, now sitting next to Ron. 'We didn't hear about that on the old Extendables, did we?'

'What d'you reckon it is?' said Harry.

'Could be anything,' said Fred.

'But there can't be anything worse than the Avada Kedavra Curse, can there?' said Ron. 'What's worse than death?'

'Maybe it's something that can kill loads of people at once,' suggested George.

'Maybe it's some particularly painful way of killing people,' said Ron learfully.

'He's got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain,' said Harry, 'he doesn't need anything more efficient than that.'

There was a pause and Harry knew that the others, like him, were wondering what horrors this weapon could perpetrate.

'So who d'you think's got it now?' asked George.

'I hope it's our side,' said Ron, sounding slightly nervous.

'If it is, Dumbledore's probably keeping it,' said Fred.

'Where?' said Ron quickly. 'Hogwarts?'

'Bet it is!' said George. That's where he hid the Philosopher's Stone.'

'A weapon's going to be a lot bigger than the Stone, though!' said Ron.

'Not necessarily,' said Fred.

'Yeah, size is no guarantee of power,' said George. 'Look at Ginny.'

'What d'you mean?' said Harry.

'You've never been on the receiving end of one of her Bat-Bogey Hexes, have you?'

'Shhh!' said Fred, half-rising from the bed. 'Listen!'

They fell silent. Footsteps were coming up the stairs.

'Mum,' said George and without further ado there was a loud crack and Harry felt the weight vanish from the end of his bed. A few seconds later, they heard the floorboard creak outside their door; Mrs Weasley was plainly listening to check whether or not they were talking.

Hedwig and Pigwidgeon hooted dolefully. The floorboard creaked again and they heard her heading upstairs to check on Fred and George.

'She doesn't trust us at all, you know,' said Ron regretfully.

Harry was sure he would not be able to fall asleep; the evening had been so packed with things to think about that he fully expected to lie awake for hours mulling it all over. He wanted to continue talking to Ron, but Mrs Weasley was now creaking back downstairs again, and once she had gone he distinctly heard others making their way upstairs . . . in fact, many-legged creatures were cantering softly up and down outside the bedroom door, and Hagrid the Care of Magical Creatures teacher was saying, 'Beauties, aren 't they, eh, Harry? We 'll be studyin 'weapons this term . . .' and Harry saw hat the creatures had cannons for heads and were wheeling to ace him . . . he ducked . . .

The next thing he knew, he was curled into a warm ball under his bedclothes and George's loud voice was filling the room.

'Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room, there are loads more Doxys than she thought and she's found a nest of dead Puffskeins under the sofa.'

Half an hour later Harry and Ron, who had dressed and breakfasted quickly, entered the drawing room, a long, high-ceilinged room on the first floor with olive green walls covered in dirty tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the long, moss green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. It was around these that Mrs Weasley, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George were grouped, all looking rather peculiar as they had each tied a cloth over their nose and mouth. Each of them was also holding a large bottle of black liquid with a nozzle at the end.

'Cover your faces and take a spray,' Mrs Weasley said to Harry and Ron the moment she saw them, pointing to two more boitles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. 'It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad — what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years — '

Hermione's face was half concealed by a tea towel but Harry distinctly saw her throw a reproachful look at Mrs Weasley.

'Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage — '

'You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione,' said Sirius, who had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. 'I've just been feeding Buckbeak,' he added, in reply to Harry's enquiring look. 'I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway . . . this writing desk . . .'

He dropped the bag of rats into an armchair, then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which, Harry now noticed for the first time, was shaking slightly.

'Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a Boggart,' said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, 'but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out — knowing my mother, it could be something much worse.'

'Right you are, Sirius,' said Mrs Weasley.

They were both speaking in carefully light, polite voices that told Harry quite plainly that neither had forgotten their disagreement of the night before.

A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.

'I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!' said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room. They heard him thundering clown the stairs as Mrs Black's screeches echoed up through the house once more:

'Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of flith . . . '

'Close the door, please, Harry,' said Mrs Weasley.

Harry took as much time as he dared to close the drawing-room door; he wanted to listen to what was going on downstairs. Sirius had obviously managed to shut the curtains over his mothers portrait because she had stopped screaming. He heard Sirius walking down the hall, then the clattering of the chain on the front door, and then a deep voice he recognised as Kingsley Shacklebolt's saying, 'Hestia's just relieved me, so she's got Moody's Cloak now, thought I'd leave a report for Dumbledore . . .'

Feeling Mrs Weasley's eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing-room door and rejoined the Doxy party.

Mrs Weasley was bending over to check the page on Doxys in Gilderoy Lockhart 's Guide to Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa.

'Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because Doxys bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it.'

She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains and beckoned them all forward.

'When I say the word, start spraying immediately,' she said. 'They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyse them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket.'

She stepped carefully out of their line of fire, and raised her own spray.

'All right — squirt! '

Harry had been spraying only a few seconds when a fully-grown Doxy came soaring out of a fold in the material, shiny beetle-like wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, its fairy-like body covered with thick black hair and its four tiny fists clenched with fury. Harry caught it full in the face with a blast of Doxycide. It froze in midair and fell, with a surprisingly loud thunk, on to the worn carpet below. Harry picked it up and threw it in the bucket.

'Fred, what are you doing?' said Mrs Weasley sharply. 'Spray that at once and throw it away!'

Harry looked round. Fred was holding a struggling Doxy between his forefinger and thumb.