WE'LL TAKE ON THE WORLD ; h.j.p.

4 | Cleaning

Ginny had, of course, not been asleep, and Allie and Hermione had filled her in on everything the Order had told them - though they had known about most of it through the Extendable Ears. The only new information was the weapon that You-Know-Who was apparently after, and Allison had a feeling that Sirius was not supposed to talk about it. There was not much time to speculate about what that secret weapon could possibly be because Mrs. Weasley checked on them twice to make sure they were asleep.

Mrs. Weasley woke them up early the next morning, telling them that they should get some breakfast and meet her in the drawing room afterwards. She had found a lot more Doxies than expected as well as a nest of dead Puffskeins under the sofa. Allison's mother had left her a note in the kitchen, saying she was trying to make it for dinner today.

The drawing room lay on the first floor next to the girls' bedroom, its high, olive-green walls covered in dirty tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the long, moss-green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. Mrs. Weasley provided them with some cloths to cover their noses and mouths with, and large bottles of black liquid with a nozzle at the end.

Harry and Ron were the last to arrive.

"Cover your faces and take a spray," said Mrs. Weasley to the two boys the moment she saw them, pointing to two more bottles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad - what's that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years -"

Hermione's face was half concealed by a tea towel, but I could make out the reproachful look she threw at Mrs. Weasley at these words. "Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage -"

"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," said Sirius, who had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. "I've just been feeding Buckbeak," He added, in reply to Harry's inquiring look. "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway...this writing desk..."

He dropped the bag of rats onto an armchair, then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which, Harry now noticed for the first time, was shaking slightly.

"Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a boggart," said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out - knowing my mother it could be something much worse."

"Right you are, Sirius," Mrs. Weasley said. They were both speaking in carefully light, polite voices. Neither had forgotten their disagreement from the night before.

A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.

"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying back out of the room. Allison heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs. Black's screeches echoed up through the house once more: "Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth..."

"Close the door, please, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said. Harry took his time to close the drawing room door, eager to listen to what was going on downstairs. Mrs. Weasley noticed and with her eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing room door and re-joined the doxy party.

Mrs. Weasley bent over to check the page on doxies in Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa. "Right, you lot, you need to be careful because doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it."

She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains, and beckoned them all forward.

"When I say the word, start spraying immediately," she said. "They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyse them. When they're immobilised, just throw them in this bucket." She stepped carefully out of their line of fire and raised her own spray. "All right - go!"