By mid-morning enormous signs had been put up all over the school, not just on House notice boards, but in the corridors and classrooms too.

— BY ORDER OF — THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS

Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled. The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven.

Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge HIGH INQUISITOR

Demelza smirked every time we passed one of these.

"What's so funny?" I asked her

"Isn't it obvious? The only sure fire way to make sure every single person here reads Harry's interview is to ban it!"

And it seemed that Demelza was quite right. By the end of that day, though we had not seen so much as a corner of The Quibbler anywhere in the school, the whole place seemed to be quoting the interview at each other; we heard them whispering about it as they queued up outside classes, discussing it over lunch and in the back of lessons. Meanwhile Professor Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and demanding that they turn out their books and pockets. I knew she was looking for copies of The Quibbler, but the students were several steps ahead of her. The pages carrying Harry's interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to peruse it again. Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it.

"Reverse psychology at it's finest" we heard Matilda saying as we walked past the Ravenclaw table at dinner that night. "It's really backfired on the toad"

The best part of it all was the dark trio's reaction, as they could only stare at everyone connected to Harry bitterly rather than say anything. He had named all their fathers as Death Eaters, but they couldn't deny it, as that would mean admitting they'd read the article!

"How are your daddies doing today?" I smugly called to them from across the Transfiguration corridor. It was immensely satisfying to watch them fume, without being able to cast any spells at me, as doing so would only confirm the truth of Harry's article further. Even Demelza didn't scold me this time.

"I will admit, they do deserve this humbling" she said

To cap it all, Luna told us that no copy of The Quibbler had ever sold out faster.

"Dad's reprinting!" she said, her eyes popping excitedly. "He can't believe it, he says people seem even more interested in this than the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks!"

I had to laugh at this. Classic Luna, still thinking that the Snorkacks were the most important news story!

Harry was a hero in the Gryffindor common room that night; daringly, Fred and George had put an Enlargement Charm on the front cover of The Quibbler and hung it on the wall, so that Harry's giant head gazed down upon the proceedings, occasionally saying things like "The Ministry are morons" and "Eat dung, Umbridge" in a booming voice. Hermione and Demelza did not find this very amusing; they said it interfered with their concentration, and ended up going to bed early out of irritation. I had to admit that the poster was not quite as funny after an hour or two, especially when the talking spell had started to wear off, so that it merely shouted disconnected words like "Dung" and "Umbridge" at more and more frequent intervals in a progressively higher voice.

The next morning, Harry told us to meet him, Ron and Hermione in a corner of the courtyard, as he had something very important to tell us, that could not be overheard. Once we did so, he talked about a dream vision that he'd had the previous night, where Augustus Rookwood had given Voldemort some very useful information indicating that their recent plan had proven fruitless. He also revealed that Lucius Malfoy had placed Broderick Bode under the Imperious Curse, and, to my savage pleasure, that Avery was to be punished for his mistakes.

"Ohh I can't wait to see Lillian's reaction to that, she's going to be terrified!" I said, once Harry had finished. Amy nodded enthusiastically alongside me.

"That's not the most important thing here!" Demelza said

"Knew it had to be the Imperius Curse" said Amy

Hermione said nothing at all for a few moments, but stared with a kind of painful intensity at Fred and George, who were both headless and selling their magical hats from under their cloaks on the other side of the yard.

"So that's why they killed him," she said quietly, withdrawing her gaze from Fred and George at last. "When Bode tried to steal this weapon, something funny happened to him. I think there must be defensive spells on it, or around it, to stop people from touching it. That's why he was in St. Mungo's, his brain had gone all funny and he couldn't talk. But remember what the Healer told us? He was recovering. And they couldn't risk him getting better, could they? I mean, the shock of whatever happened when he touched that weapon probably made the Imperius Curse lift. Once he'd got his voice back, he'd explain what he'd been doing, wouldn't he? They would have known he'd been sent to steal the weapon. Of course, it would have been easy for Lucius Malfoy to put the curse on him. Never out of the Ministry, is he?"

"He was even hanging around that day I had my hearing," said Harry. "In the — hang on …" he said slowly. "He was in the Department of Mysteries corridor that day! Your dad said he was probably trying to sneak down and find out what happened in my hearing, but what if —"

"Sturgis," gasped Hermione, looking thunderstruck.

"He must have been under it too!" I said, eyes wide.

"Sorry?" said Ron, looking bewildered.

"Sturgis Podmore," said Hermione, breathlessly. "Arrested for trying to get through a door. Lucius Malfoy got him too. I bet he did it the day you saw him there, Harry. Sturgis had Moody's Invisibility Cloak, right? So what if he was standing guard by the door, invisible, and Malfoy heard him move, or guessed he was there, or just did the Imperius Curse on the off chance that a guard was there? So when Sturgis next had an opportunity — probably when it was his turn on guard duty again — he tried to get into the department to steal the weapon for Voldemort — Ron, be quiet — but he got caught and sent to Azkaban. …" She gazed at Harry. "And now Rookwood's told Voldemort how to get the weapon?"

"I didn't hear all the conversation, but that's what it sounded like," said Harry. "Rookwood used to work there. … Maybe Voldemort'll send Rookwood to do it?"

Hermione nodded, apparently still lost in thought. Then, quite abruptly, she said, "But you shouldn't have seen this at all, Harry."

"You're right" Demelza agreed, suddenly coming to the same realisation

"You're supposed to be learning how to close your mind to this sort of thing," said Hermione, suddenly stern.

"I know I am," said Harry. "But —"

"Well, I think we should just try and forget what you saw," said Hermione firmly. "And you ought to put in a bit more effort on your Occlumency from now on."