Ron snorted. 'Doesn't stop him being a git. The way he looks at us when he sees us.'

'Bill doesn't like him, either,' said Ginny, as though that settled the matter.

Harry was not sure his anger had abated yet; but his thirst for information was now overcoming his urge to keep shouting. He sank on to the bed opposite the others.

'Is Bill here?' he asked. 'I thought he was working in Egypt?'

'He applied for a desk job so he could come home and work for the Order,' said Fred. 'He says he misses the tombs, but; he smirked, 'there are compensations.'

'What d'you mean?'

'Remember old Fleur Delacour?' said George. 'She's got a job at Gringotts to eempwve 'er Eeenglish -'

'And Bill's been giving her a lot of private lessons,' sniggered Fred.

It was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most of the light was coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hung in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs had been crammed into the room for the meeting and a long wooden table stood in the middle of them, littered with rolls of parchment, goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appeared to be rags. Mr Weasley and his eldest son Bill were talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.

Over his shoulder Harry saw Bill, who still wore his long hair in a ponytail, hastily rolling up the lengths of parchment left on the table.

'Journey all right, Harry?' Bill called, trying to gather up twelve scrolls at once. 'Mad-Eye didn't make you come via Greenland, then?'

'He tried,' said Tonks, striding over to help Bill and immediately toppling a candle on to the last piece of parchment. 'Oh no - sorry -'

Mrs Weasley had seen him looking. She snatched the plan off the table and stuffed it into Bill's already overladen arms.

'This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings,' she snapped, before sweeping off towards an ancient dresser from which she started unloading dinner plates.

Bill took out his wand, muttered, 'Evanesco!' and the scrolls vanished.

'None of your brothers caused this sort of trouble!' Mrs Weasley raged at the twins as she slammed a fresh flagon of Butterbeer on to the table, and spilling almost as much again. 'Bill didn't feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't charm everything he met! Percy -'

She stopped dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression was suddenly wooden.

'Let's eat,' said Bill quickly.

Mr Weasley, Bill and Lupin were having an intense discussion about goblins.

They're not giving anything away yet,' said Bill. 'I still can't work out whether or not they believe he's back. Course, they might prefer not to take sides at all. Keep out of it.'

'I'm sure they'd never go over to You-Know-Who,' said Mr Weasley, shaking his head. They've suffered losses too; remember that goblin family he murdered last time, somewhere near Nottingham?'

'I think it depends what they're offered,' said Lupin. 'And I'm not talking about gold. If they're offered the freedoms we've been denying them for centuries they're going to be tempted. Have you still not had any luck with Ragnok, Bill?'

'He's feeling pretty anti-wizard at the moment,' said Bill, 'he hasn't stopped raging about the Bagman business, he reckons the Ministry did a cover-up, those goblins never got their gold from him, you know -'

A gale of laughter from the middle of the table drowned the rest of Bill's words. Fred, George, Ron and Mundungus were rolling around in their seats.

'And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore,' said Lupin. 'And you made sure Dumbledore knew at once.'

'How has that helped?' Harry asked.

'Are you kidding?' said Bill incredulously. 'Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!'

'Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard,' said Bill. 'It's proving tricky, though.'

'But you're telling people, aren't you?' said Harry, looking around at Mr Weasley, Sirius, Bill, Mundungus, Lupin and Tonks. 'You're letting people know he's back?'

They all smiled humourlessly.

'But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog Cards,' said Bill, grinning.

'It's no laughing matter,' said Mr Weasley sharply. 'If he carries on defying the Ministry like this he could end up in Azkaban, and the last thing we want is to have Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore's out there and wise to what he's up to he's going to go cautiously. If Dumbledore's out ol the way - well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field.'

Harry looked surreptitiously through the doorways as they passed. The Aurors had covered their cubicle walls with everything from pictures of wanted wizards and photographs of their families, to posters of their favourite Quidditch teams and articles from the Daily Prophet. A scarlet-robed man with a ponytail longer than Bill's was sitting with his boots up on his desk, dictating a report to his quill. A little further along, a witch with a patch over one eye was talking over the top of her cubicle wall to Kingsley Shacklebolt.

'Wait until your father hears! Ron, I'm so proud of you, what wonderful news, you could end up Head Boy just like Bill and Percy, it's the first step! Oh, what a thing to happen in the middle of all this worry, I'm just thrilled, oh, Ronnie -

Fred and George were both making loud retching noises behind her back but Mrs Weasley did not notice; arms tight around Ron's neck, she was kissing him all over his face, which had turned a brighter scarlet than his badge.

'I thought we'd have a little party, not a sit-down dinner,' she told Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny as they entered the room. 'Your father and Bill are on their way, Ron. I've sent them both owls and they're thrilled,' she added, beaming.

Mrs Weasley and Bill were having their usual argument about Bill's hair.

'… getting really out of hand, and you're so good-looking, it would look much better shorter, wouldn't it, Harry?'

'Oh - I dunno -' said Harry, slightly alarmed at being asked his opinion; he slid away from them in the direction of Fred and George, who were huddled in a corner with Mundungus.

'Mrs Weasley?' Harry croaked.

'R - r - riddikulus!' Mrs Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron's body.

Crack.

Ron's body turned into Bill's, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever.

'R - riddikulus!' she sobbed again.

Crack.

Mr Weasley's body replaced Bill's, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face.

'Oh, yeah,' said Ron. 'Bound to be, isn't it? OWLs are really important, affect the jobs you can apply for and everything. We get career advice, too, later this year, Bill told me. So you can choose what NEWTs you want to do next year.'

At ten past five in the morning by Ron's watch, the kitchen door swung open and Mrs Weasley entered the kitchen. She was extremely pale, but when they all turned to look at her, Fred, Ron and Harry half rising from their chairs, she gave a wan smile.

'He's going to be all right,' she said, her voice weak with tiredness. 'He's sleeping. We can all go and see him later. Bill's sitting with him now; he's going to take the morning off work.'

'Hello!' he called, throwing the Prophet aside. 'Bill just left, Molly, had to get back to work, but he says he'll drop in on you later.'

Mrs Weasley hesitated before getting inside - Harry knew her disapproval of Mundungus was battling with her dislike of travelling without magic - but, finally, the cold outside and her children's pleading triumphed, and she settled herself into the back seat between Fred and Bill with good grace.

Mrs Weasley let out an ominous noise somewhere between a shriek and a snarl. Lupin strolled away from the bed and over to the werewolf, who had no visitors and was looking rather wistfully at the crowd around Mr Weasley; Bill muttered something about getting himself a cup of tea and Fred and George leapt up to accompany him, grinning.