‘Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met,

‘Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met,’ said Ron weakly, ‘and if I'm ever rude to you again—’

‘—I'll know you're back to normal,’ said Hermione. ‘Harry, yours is OK except for this bit at the end, I think you must have misheard Professor Sinistra, Europa's covered in ice, not mice—Harry?’

Harry had slid off his chair on to his knees and was now crouching on the singed and threadbare hearthrug, gazing into the flames.

‘Er—Harry?’ said Ron uncertainly. ‘Why are you down there?’

‘Because I've just seen Sirius's head in the fire,’ said Harry.

He spoke quite calmly; after all, he had seen Sirius's head in this very fire the previous year and talked to it, too; nevertheless, he could not be sure that he had really seen it this time ... it had vanished so quickly ...

‘Sirius's head?’ Hermione repeated. ‘You mean like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament? But he wouldn't do that now, it would be too—Sirius!’

She gasped, gazing at the fire; Ron dropped his quill. There in the middle of the dancing flames sat Sirius's head, long dark hair failing around his grinning face.

‘I was starting to think you'd go to bed before everyone else had disappeared,’ he said. ‘I've been checking every hour.’

‘You've been popping into the fire every hour?’ Harry said, half-laughing.

‘Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear.’

‘But what if you'd been seen?’ said Hermione anxiously.

‘Well, I think a girl—first-year, by the look of her—might've get a glimpse of me earlier, but don't worry,’ Sirius said hastily, as Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, ‘I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I'll bet she just thought I was an oddly-shaped log or something.’

‘But, Sirius, this is taking an awful risk—’ Hermione began.

‘You sound like Molly,’ said Sirius. ‘This was the only way I could come up with of answering Harry's letter without resorting to a code—and codes are breakable.’

At the mention of Harry's letter, Hermione and Ron both turned to stare at him.

‘You didn't say you'd written to Sirius! said Hermione accusingly.

‘I forgot,’ said Harry, which was perfectly true; his meeting with Cho in the Owlery had driven everything before it out of his mind. ‘Don't look at me like that, Hermione, there was no way anyone would have got secret information out of it, was there, Sirius?’

‘No, it was very good,’ said Sirius, smiling. ‘Anyway, we'd better be quick, just in case we're disturbed—your scar.’

‘What about—?’ Ron began, but Hermione interrupted him.

‘We'll tell you afterwards. Go on, Sirius.’

‘Well, I know it can't be fun when it hurts, but we don't think its anything to really worry about. It kept aching all last year, didn't it?’

‘Yeah, and Dumbledore said it happened whenever Voldemort was feeling a powerful emotion,’ said Harry, ignoring, as usual, Ron and Hermione's winces. ‘So maybe he was just, I dunno, really angry or something the night I had that detention.’

‘Well, now he's back it's bound to hurt more often,’ said Sirius.

‘So you don't think it had anything to do with Umbridge touching me when I was in detention with her?’ Harry asked.

‘I doubt it,’ said Sirius. ‘I know her by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater—’

‘She's foul enough to be one,’ said Harry darkly, and Ron and Hermione nodded vigorously in agreement.

‘Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters,’ said Sirius with a wry smile. ‘I know she's a nasty piece of work, though—you should hear Remus talk about her.’

‘Does Lupin know her?’ asked Harry quickly, remembering Umbridge's comments about dangerous half-breeds during her first lesson.

‘No,’ said Sirius, ‘but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job.’

Harry remembered how much shabbier Lupin looked these days and his dislike of Umbridge deepened even further.

‘What's she got against werewolves?’ said Hermione angrily.

‘Scared of them, I expect,’ said Sirius, smiling at her indignation. ‘Apparently, she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year, too. Imagine wasting your time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toerags like Kreacher on the loose.’

Ron laughed but Hermione looked upset.

‘Sirius!’ she said reproachfully. ‘Honestly, if you made a bit of an effort with Kreacher, I'm sure he'd respond. After all, you are the only member of his family he's got left, and Professor Dumbledore said—’

‘So, what are Umbridge's lessons like?’ Sirius interrupted. ‘Is she training you all to kill half-breeds?’

‘No,’ said Harry, ignoring Hermione's affronted look at being cut off in her defence of Kreacher. ‘She's not letting us use magic at all!’

‘All we do is read the stupid textbook,’ said Ron.

‘Ah, well, that figures,’ said Sirius. ‘Our information from inside the Ministry is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat.’

‘Trained in combat!’ repeated Harry incredulously. ‘What does he think we're doing here, forming some sort of wizard army?’

‘That's exactly what he thinks you're doing,’ said Sirius, ‘or, rather, that's exactly what he's afraid Dumbledore's doing—forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic.’

There was a pause at this, then Ron said, That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard, including all the stuff that Luna Lovegood comes out with.’