‘Be quiet, Harry, or I am afraid you will have to le

‘Be quiet, Harry, or I am afraid you will have to leave my office,’ said Dumbledore calmly.

‘Yes, shut up, Potter!’ barked Fudge, who was still ogling Dumbledore with a kind of horrified delight. ‘Well, well, well—I came here tonight expecting to expel Potter and instead—’

‘Instead you get to arrest me,’ said Dumbledore, smiling. ‘It's like losing a Knut and finding a Galleon, isn't it?’

‘Weasley!’ cried Fudge, now positively quivering with delight, ‘Weasley, have you written it all down, everything he's said, his confession, have you got it?’

‘Yes, sir, I think so, sir!’ said Percy eagerly, whose nose was splattered with ink from the speed of his note-taking.

‘The bit about how he's been trying to build up an army against the Ministry, how he's been working to destabilise me?’

‘Yes, sir, I've got it, yes!’ said Percy, scanning his notes joyfully.

‘Very well, then,’ said Fudge, now radiant with glee, ‘duplicate your notes, Weasley, and send a copy to the Daily Prophet at once. If we send a fast owl we should make the morning edition!’ Percy dashed from the room,

slamming the door behind him, and Fudge turned back to Dumbledore. ‘You will now be escorted back to the Ministry, where you will be formally charged, then sent to Azkaban to await trial!’

‘Ah,’ said Dumbledore gently, ‘yes. Yes, I thought we might hit that little snag.’

‘Snag?’ said Fudge, his voice still vibrating with joy. ‘I see no snag, Dumbledore!’

Well,’ said Dumbledore apologetically, ‘I'm afraid I do.’

‘Oh, really?’

Well—it's just that you seem to be labouring under the delusion that I am going to—what is the phrase?—come quietly.I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to

Azkaban. I could break out, of course—but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing.’

Umbridge's face was growing steadily redder; she looked as though she was being filled with boiling water. Fudge stared at Dumbledore with a very silly expression on his face, as though he had just been stunned by a

sudden blow and could not quite believe it had happened. He made a small choking noise, then looked round at Kingsley and the man with short grey hair, who alone of everyone in the room had remained entirely silent so

far. The latter gave Fudge a reassuring nod and moved forwards a little, away from the wall. Harry saw his hand drift, almost casually, towards his pocket.

‘Don't be silly, Dawlish,’ said Dumbledore kindly. ‘I'm sure you are an excellent Auror—I seem to remember that you achieved “Outstanding” in all your NEWTs—but if you attempt to—er—bring me in by force, I will have to hurt

you.’

The man called Dawlish blinked rather foolishly. He looked towards Fudge again, but this time seemed to be hoping for a clue as to what to do next.

‘So,’ sneered Fudge, recovering himself, ‘you intend to take on Dawlish, Shacklebolt, Dolores and myself single-handed, do you, Dumbledore?’

‘Merlin's beard, no,’ said Dumbledore, smiling, ‘not unless you are foolish enough to force me to.’

‘He will not be single-handed!’ said Professor McGonagall loudly, plunging her hand inside her robes.

‘Oh yes he will, Minerva!’ said Dumbledore sharply. ‘Hogwarts needs you!’

‘Enough of this rubbish!’ said Fudge, pulling out his own wand. ‘Dawlish! Shacklebolt! Take him!’

A streak of silver light flashed around the room; there was a bang like a gunshot and the floor trembled; a hand grabbed the scruff of Harry's neck and forced him down on the floor as a second silver flash went off; several of

the portraits yelled, Fawkes screeched and a cloud of dust filled the air. Coughing in the dust, Harry saw a dark figure fall to the ground with a crash in front of him; there was a shriek and a thud and somebody cried, ‘No!';

then there was the sound of breaking glass, frantically scuffling footsteps, a groan ... and silence.

Harry struggled around to see who was half-strangling him and saw Professor McGonagall crouched beside him; she had forced both him and Marietta out of harm's way. Dust was still floating gently down through the air on to

them. Panting slightly, Harry saw a very tall figure moving towards them.

‘Are you all right?’ Dumbledore asked.

‘Yes!’ said Professor McGonagall, getting up and dragging Harry and Marietta with her.

The dust was clearing. The wreckage of the office loomed into view: Dumbledore's desk had been overturned, all of the spindly tables had been knocked to the floor, their silver instruments in pieces. Fudge, Umbridge,

Kingsley and Dawlish lay motionless on the floor. Fawkes the phoenix soared in wide circles above them, singing softly.

‘Unfortunately, I had to hex Kingsley too, or it would have looked very suspicious,’ said Dumbledore in a low voice. ‘He was remarkably quick on the uptake, modifying Miss Edgecombe's memory like that while everyone was

looking the other way— thank him, for me, won't you, Minerva?

‘Now, they will all awake very soon and it will be best if they do not know that we had time to communicate—you must act as though no time has passed, as though they were merely knocked to the ground, they will not

remember—’

‘Where will you go, Dumbledore?’ whispered Professor McGonagall. ‘Grimmauld Place?’

‘Oh no,’ said Dumbledore, with a grim smile, ‘I am not leaving to go into hiding. Fudge will soon wish he'd never dislodged me from Hogwarts, I promise you.’

‘Professor Dumbledore ...’ Harry began.

He did not know what to say first: how sorry he was that he had started the DA in the first place and caused all this trouble, or how terrible he felt that Dumbledore was leaving to save him from expulsion? But Dumbledore cut

him off before he could say another word.

‘Listen to me, Harry,’ he said urgently. ‘You must study Occlumency as hard as you can, do you understand me? Do everything Professor Snape tells you and practise it particularly every night before sleeping so that you can

close your mind to bad dreams—you will understand why soon enough, but you must promise me—’

The man called Dawlish was stirring. Dumbledore seized Harry's wrist.

‘Remember—close your mind—’

But as Dumbledore's fingers closed over Harry's skin, a pain shot through the scar on his forehead and he felt again that terrible, snakelike longing to strike Dumbledore, to bite him, to hurt him—

‘—you will understand,’ whispered Dumbledore.

Fawkes circled the office and swooped low over him. Dumbledore released Harry, raised his hand and grasped the phoenix's long golden tail. There was a flash of fire and the pair of them were gone.

‘Where is he?’ yelled Fudge, pushing himself up from the floor. ‘Where is he?’

‘I don't know!’ shouted Kingsley, also leaping to his feet.