Chapter Five: The Three Broomsticks

As Hermione and I watched in horror, Voldemort transformed back into Dumbledore. "There, that's better. Now, Wormtail, you had better assume rat form and travel in my pocket."

"Yes, my lord." Within a split second, a rat stood in Pettigrew's place. Voldemort bent down, scooped him up, and placed him in the side pocket of his burgundy robe. Taking the Polyjuice Potion with him, he left through the other door.

Hermione and I stared at each other, still shocked. "What are we going to do?" she whispered.

"Enlist reinforcements," I said in a confident voice. However, my shaking hands betrayed me. "Oh my God, Hermione, you're going to have to help me. I'm a Muggle, remember, Voldemort could kill me like that."

"You're right, though, we should get some help. After all, I don't think an underage witch and a Muggle writer will be much good alone." She took a deep breath. "The best thing we can do now is to pretend we don't know anything about this. If You-Know...all right, if Voldemort knows, that's it for us. Now, I think we'd better meet Harry and the others at the Three Broomsticks like we said we would."

"Are we going to tell them?"

"I think we should. They'll have other ideas, and of course Harry will want to know. Now come on, before someone finds us in here."

We went back out the door we had come in and found ourselves in the corridor once more. "My broomstick's on the rack over there," said Hermione. "I only bought it last week...it's a second-hand Nimbus 2000. You can sit on the back and I'll steer, there should be room for both of us."

The second she kicked off the ground, my stomach gave a terrible lurch. "Hermione, do you suppose you could fly a bit more slowly?" I asked.

"I'm only doing seven miles per hour."

We flew over Hogsmeade, my stomach doing some sort of horrid dance in my abdomen. "Look, I don't think I'm cut out for flying. Maybe it's a Muggle thing. You don't suppose we could land and walk, do you?"

"No, we're almost there. See, it's the one with the golden rooftop."

We landed after anther tortuous minute. "All right," said Hermione, "we're here. I wonder if they've arrived yet....Joanne? Are you going to be sick?"

"No, I'm fine."

Inside the Three Broomsticks, we saw Harry and Ron at one of the back tables. "Oh, hello," said Ron, when he looked up from their game of wizard's chess and saw us. "Hagrid and Lupin aren't here yet. Hagrid wanted to but a new collar for Fang...don't know what happened to Lupin....are you all right? You look a tad green."

"She's been through a lot today," said Hermione, sitting down next to Harry. I took the seat next to Ron, and Hermione told them what we had seen.

"I should have known Voldemort was behind this," said Harry.

"Why," I asked, "did your scar hurt?"

"No. In fact, I think it's fading a bit."

"Did you have a dream or something?"

"No."

"Then why should you have known Voldemort was behind this?"

"Well," said Harry, "when has Voldemort ever NOT been behind something?"

"Good point."

At that moment, Hagrid and Remus came in together. Hermione, whose throat was beginning to sound sore, told them what she had told Harry and Ron.

Remus paled. "Everyone has always said Dumbledore's the only wizard Voldemort ever feared, and if now he's captured him...."

"Wish we knew Dumbledore's secret," said Ron miserably.

Hagrid had been very quite during Hermione's story and now he spoke. "Well," he said, "We can't take Dumbledore back now, or You-Know-Who'll know that we know he's up to summat. So we can't go an' try to ask him. But even if Professor Dumbledore is the only wizard You-Know-Who's scared of, there's still some pretty powerful ones out there who'd be on our side."

"But it has to be someone we can trust," said Remus. "Someone who we know for sure isn't a Death Eater, someone smart enough to defeat him. Not that you lot are all useless," he added, glancing hastily at Harry and Hermione, "but a brilliant fully trained wizard is more useful than a brilliant young one."

Harry looked up suddenly. "Sirius," he said. "Sirius, he's perfect. He's obviously clever, he and my dad were the two smartest students at Hogwarts in their day. And he escaped from Azkaban. And when it comes to someone we know isn't a Death Eater....well, you can't be less of a Death Eater than Sirius."

"Now we need to decide who'll convince him to help us," said Ron, with a crafty smile on his face. All eyes landed on Remus.

"Oh no, I'm not the one," he said. "He's too angry at me. No, it should be Harry."

"All right then, both of you," I said. "It should be easy too, I don't see why he shouldn't believe you."

"But what I don't understand," said Hermione, "is why Voldemort's after Joanne. What does a Muggle matter to him?"

"Oh come on Hermione, you're not that thick," said Ron.

"She's told the world all he's done, Hermione," said Hagrid. "Millions an' millions of people know who he is an' what he's done. There's some crazy Muggles out there, I can jus' see a group of 'em decidin' that the things in her books were real an' goin' out lookin' for Volde- I mean, You-Know-Who."

"We ought to all say his name," said Harry. "That's one advantage Dumbledore's got, he isn't afraid of his name."

"Don't know what got into me," said Hagrid. "I've never almos' said it before."

"Time to start," said Remus. "Repeat. Voldemort."

Hagrid looked scared out of his wits. "It's easy," said Harry. "I've said it loads of times and I'm not dead yet. Come on. Just the Vol part."

"Vol," whispered Hagrid.

"Now the de."

Hagrid began to sob. "I can't...it's too dangerous..."

Hermione patted him on the back. "That's all right. Now, we'd better get back to Hogwarts. Joanne, you're staying in the dorm with me.

Harry yawned. "NOT you," said Hermione, "you've got to go with Remus and get Sirius on our side. Now let's go. Don't worry," she said, when she saw the look on my face, "we'll walk to the basement of Honeydukes."