Chapter 5
The following hour I listen with open mouth to what they are telling me. They speak about the darkest wizard of the last century. A man who killed an awful amount of people and whose name is enough for someone to gasp for breath and drop everything he has in his hands at that moment. Harry speaks about him without fearing him or his name, but everyone else except Hermione, shivers by the mentioning, and ask Harry to keep quiet.
They tell me about the decision of that wizard to kill Harry and his parents when Harry was just one year old, and that Harry has survived it, as the only one in the whole world. That that is the reason why he and his scar are famous; he has survived the attack with only a scar on his forehead to remind him of it.
"But my parents didn't survive it, so I had to live with my aunt, uncle and cousin. They are muggles and they didn't treat me very nice..."
"Very nice?!" says Ron weakly. "They were terrible!"
"Oh, they can be ok, you just need to learn how to live with them." He looks sad.
"Yeah, you can say that," Ron mutters.
"But enough about me," Harry continues.
I feel so sorry for Harry. He has lost both his parents! My parents are divorced, my father hit me, my mother doesn't care about me, but I didn't lose them! How does it feel to live with your aunt and uncle, because you don't have parents anymore? It seems like he doesn't want to talk about it and I decide to change the subject.
"What happened to ehm, that err... bad wizard?" I ask him.
"Call him by his name, Nika, You better learn to say it from the beginning. Call him Voldemort," A shiver like a cold wind goes through the room.
"Ok." I hesitate. "So, what happened to that... ehm... V-Voldemort?" I notice it is difficult to say that name properly when everybody is looking so anxious when I speak about him. What kind of man is he when only his name is enough to turn a warm convivial atmosphere into cold fear?
"Well, when he tried to kill me the curse bounced back at him and he disappeared, nobody knew where he was or what happened to him till last year. He came back. He made himself a new body and I... I saw him return."
"He... he is back?" I hadn't really comprehended that such man existed, and I felt quite relieved to hear that he disappeared, but my relief hadn't lasted long. Now I'm shaking, shaking from the thought of that man, that evil man, and thinking of another evil man, a man with a cloak, the man I saw on the square... "This has something to do with tonight, right?" I say softly, and again they exchange looks.
"You're a smart girl, Nika," Hermione says kindly, "Yes, it has something to do with Voldemort, –oh, behave yourself guys!– we think that man you saw tonight, was one of his followers, we call them Death Eaters."
Death Eaters. I taste the word. It sounds terrible and the name seems to suit that man perfectly.
"So, what was he doing here? I'm getting the feeling this is an important place: A lot of people; that Voldemort-follower here and I guess this house is hidden with some kind of spell right? So I couldn't see it in the first place? But why could I see it after reading that piece of paper?"
"Yeah, it's indeed magically hidden," says Ron "And you are right by thinking this is an important place. It's the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix"
I remember that name had been on the paper.
"And what is that? The order of the Phoenix?" It sounds mysterious.
"It is a secret society who fight against You-Know-Who. They are trying to find out what he is up to."
"And you are hiding it so that he or his followers can't find it! But how can you hide a whole house?!" I look around. I can't really believe that this house had been concealed for me when I was on the street. It looks so solid, so existing.
"Well, like you said, you could only see the house after you had read that paper. That paper was written by Professor Dumbledore, he is the Secret Keeper of this house." Ron explains.
But that doesn't explain anything to me.
"Secret Keeper? What is that?"
"Well, it is a bit difficult to explain, but it comes to this: when you want to hide a place, not only the house, but also the people and things in the house, somebody can perform a very difficult and complex spell, the Fidelius charm. This charm makes sure that nobody can see the place unless the performer of the spell, the Secret Keeper, tells you about it. Professor Dumbledore is the Secret Keeper of 12, Grimmauld Place, this place."
"You can hide a whole house, just by performing a spell?" I ask in disbelief.
"Yes, you can, but it is a very difficult spell and not everybody is able to perform it," says Hermione.
"Yeah, it must be complex if it hides a whole house... But that Order," I continue, "they try to find out what err... V-Voldemort is up to, right? So, what is he up to?"
"Yeah, that is the big problem," sighs George.
"We are too young to be in the meetings and we can't join the Order. So we have no idea," says Fred and he shakes his head, looking sad.
"But of course we know more than they think we know, thanks to our ears," George says proudly.
"Ehm, your ears?!" What does he mean? Can wizards hear better or something?
"It is our invention, we used them quite a bit already, but we had to improve them."
"Now it doesn't matter which charm you put on the door, we will hear everything –"
"If it wasn't for mum, who gets Moody to check if we are in our rooms and if there is nothing behind the door that could be an extendable..." mutters Fred.
"And as Moody is in almost every meeting..." George looks sad. But I can see that Hermione doesn't feel that bad about it as Fred and George do. In fact, she looks quite content.
"Ehm, what exactly are those ears?" I say curious.
"Extendable ears!" And George takes something out of his pocket. It looks like one very large, coloured earthworm. "With this you can hear everything you want from miles away!"
"As long as the extendable is long enough of course"
"And the longer it is, the more you'll have to pay!" George winks. My head seems to explode with all the information it has had to cope in the last few hours. I can't really comprehend everything they just told me. I'm trying to think clear.
"So, with those, ex-cent..."
"– Extendable ears!"
"Yes, with those ears, you hear what they are doing?"
"Well, not very much, but a bit, yes."
"And? What do you know?" I notice they look uncomfortable.
"Well, as we said before, we're not sure whether we are allowed to tell you or not," says Ginny. Suddenly as though somebody slapped me in my face, I wake up. I am back on the beginning of this conversation. I almost forgot I couldn't do magic! I almost forgot they didn't want to tell me anything first!
"I think you will hear more information very soon." says Harry. And as though he is expecting her to, Ron's mother calls to say we can come down.