No one in Gryffindor tower would sleep that night. Harry guessed that hardly anyone in the entire castle would get more than a few winks of shut-eye. 

Neville had been ready to rush out and take action that very instant. The fact that no one had the slightest idea where to begin searching for the Death-Eaters had no effect whatsoever on his desire to find them. 

Because Ron couldn't talk well – he had been warned not to try and use a spell to get rid of the pimples; no one had forgotten what happened to Eloise Midgen when she tried to hex hers away – Hermione told Harry that the notices had arrived right after dinner in an unexpected flurry of owls. Everyone who subscribed to the Daily Prophet had received a copy. 

"McGonagall came up," she said, "and told us that Dumbledore's gone off to London and the teachers are all on high alert, but we're to go about our business normally."

"That's rubbish!" Harry cried. "Voldemort's finally made another move, one hell of a drastic one! And we're to sit and do nothing?"

"We have to find them!" Neville said. "We have to –"

"Stay put," Ginny said. 

Harry hadn't much cared for Cornelius Fudge, who had been fussy and pedantic at the best of times, paranoid and vindictive at the worst of times. Fudge had been the one to willfully ignore Voldemort's return, doing the equivalent of closing his eyes, putting his fingers in his ears, and chanting, "la-la-la," or simply burying his head in the sand like an ostrich. Fudge had been quick to discredit Harry, to blame Dumbledore. 

But to think that the little wizard in the pinstriped cloak and bowler hat was dead … murdered … that the last thing he'd probably seen was a flash of blinding green light … 

He rubbed fitfully at his scar, which drew Hermione's notice like a hawk. 

"Does it hurt, Harry? Are you sensing anything?"

"No," he said, taking his hand away. "I was thinking about Fudge, and about what Ron's dad said after the World Cup, about people coming home to find the Dark Mark floating over their houses."

At midnight, Professor McGonagall came in and told them, not unkindly, to get into their beds and at least pretend to rest. She herself was fully alert and on edge, refusing to discuss anything with them until she had more information. 

They all did their best to comply, leaving the common room for their respective dormitories. But in the room Harry shared with Dean, Seamus, Neville and Ron, they all only sat on their beds with the lights still on, speculating as to what might be happening in London. 

"Reckon I'll hear something from Dad in the morning," Ron said. He had given up on the pimple-plaster, having washed it off so that he could speak freely. Unfortunately, it had not yet cured any of the pimples, only turned them peppermint-pink so that Ron looked polka-dotted. "What I don't get is why they'd go after Fudge. Smarmy git. It wasn't like he was any real threat to … to You-Know-Who."

"Voldemort, Ron. Say it," Harry said. 

Ron screwed up his face horribly. "Vuh … Vuh …"

"Voldemort," Neville said. He was waxy-pale, his eyes huge, and held his breath after he said it as if he expected Voldemort to appear in a sudden billow of brimstone-smelling smoke. When he didn't, Neville released his breath. "Whew. I did it. I said his name. I can't believe I really said it. Voldemort. Voldemort!"

"All right already, Neville!" Ron cried. "Very good, very brave, huzzah, now will you quit?"

"Fudge finally did admit he was back, though," Harry said. "He was starting to do something about it, preparing people and all. Who'll be in charge with him out of the way?"

"Would've been Umbridge next, I think," Seamus said, shrugging. "After her, who knows? Lately, we've been running through Ministry officials almost as fast as Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers."

At breakfast Thursday morning, the Great Hall was unnaturally quiet. The meal went largely untouched, and at any small noise hundreds of heads swiveled as one to look up at the windows through which the owls made their usual entrance. 

Even the teachers kept watching the upper windows, and Dumbledore's absence was more pronounced than ever. Only Firenze seemed unconcerned. 

Rumors circulated faster than Fizzing Whizbees … the entire Ministry was destroyed … Fudge had died in a duel with You-Know-Who … Dolores Umbridge was really behind the assassination and would be resurfacing to take over, and would then get her revenge against everyone at Hogwarts who had ever defied or humiliated her – which would have been everyone above first year at Hogwarts, except for Filch and a few members of her Inquisitorial Squad. 

At last, with a whipping flutter of wings, flocks of owls sped in through the high windows. For once nobody minded the feathers and odd droppings falling into their oatmeal bowls and juice glasses. Never had so many owls been divested of their burdens so swiftly. 

Those who didn't subscribe to the Daily Prophet crowded close to those who did, and the pushing and shoving was so agitated that Professor Flitwick cast a Projection Charm on his copy, to duplicate the front page a hundred times its original size. It hovered in mid-air above the teachers' table.

A black-bordered box framed a photo, above the words CORNELIUS FUDGE, MINISTER OF MAGIC, SLAIN IN HOME. In the picture, which must have been taken at some Ministry function, Fudge wore formal robes and a short conical wizard's hat instead of his customary bowler. He did not smile and wave as many wizard photos did; the Fudge in the picture looked mournful, as if understanding the reason he'd made the front page. 

"Listen to this!" Ron blurted. "An horrific scene awaited Junior Undersecretary to the Minister Percy Ignatius Weasley when he dropped by to deliver some important paperwork last night to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge. Upon finding the dreaded Dark Mark – see photo, page 2 – suspended above the house, Mr. Weasley threw thoughts of his own safety to the winds and dashed inside." He rattled the paper. "Blimey! Percy found him!"

"'I knew what it was and what it meant straight away,' Weasley was quoted as saying," read Hermione, picking up where Ron had left off. "'But I couldn't leave without trying to help Mr. Fudge.'"

"I don't know whether that was brave or stupid," Ron said. 

"Sometimes they go hand-in-hand," Harry said. 

"Well, we always wondered how Percy ended up in Gryffindor," Ginny said. "I wouldn't have wanted to run in there. For all he knew, the killer could still have been inside."

"Fudge, a widower, was found in his study," Hermione read. "Aurors and Healers who arrived in response to Mr. Weasley's summons confirmed that the cause of death was the Killing Curse."

Harry, without realizing it, rubbed his scar again. 

"All evidence seems to indicate," Ron read, "that this heinous act was the work of Death-Eaters, loyal followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and that the Minister was the first overt casualty in this new resurgence of an old war. For a complete list of known Death-Eaters, their status and their crimes, see page 5."

"First?" sputtered Harry. "What about Sirius? What about Cedric? What about Bertha Jorkins, and that man Bode, and –"

"Harry, you know they're not likely to bring all that up again," Hermione said. "Especially Sirius. It's one thing to admit that Voldemort's back –"

"No, d'you reckon? After he shows his bloody face in the heart of the bloody Ministry itself!" Harry shouted.

She went on, undeterred. "But it's something else entirely to bring up the fact that they had an innocent man imprisoned in Azkaban for twelve years and on the run for two more. People are having a hard enough time trusting the Ministry as it is, without reminding them of all those other blunders."

"Oy! Ron! Heads up!" Dennis Creevey called from the far end of the Gryffindor table. 

Another owl, this one dusty grey, was not so much flying or even gliding as it was falling down toward them. Its wings beat feebly at the air, shedding feathers, and if Ron hadn't sprung up and caught Errol, the Weasley family owl would have plowed beak-first into a pile of toast. An envelope fell from his relaxing talons, and Ginny rescued it before it fell into the butter dish.

"The poor thing!" Lavender said. "How cruel … why don't you let him retire?"

Ron flushed and mumbled. 

"It's from Mum and Dad," Ginny said, hastily scanning the letter. "Wanting us to know that they've heard from Percy and he's all right, and Mum is going to St. Mungo's this morning to visit him."

"St. Mungo's?" Ron frowned. "Was he hurt?"

Hermione turned to the next page. "Ooh … After informing the Aurors what he had found and directing them to the location of the body, Mr. Weasley collapsed in what witnesses called 'a nervous seizure,' which was unfortunately mistaken for some kind of hostile possession or control by Auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody … whose instinctive reaction was to incapacitate Mr. Weasley until such time as he was deemed free of all Dark influences. Poor Percy!"

"Poor Percy, nothing," Ron said with savage glee. "He deserves it after what a prat he's been. You know, he never did apologize to Mum and Dad for any of it, couldn't bear to admit that he'd been wrong and the rest of us had been right. I hope Fred and George have seen this. Wonder what Moody hit him with?"

"Knowing Moody …" Harry said, and whistled. "I'm with Hermione. Poor Percy!"

"Remember that time he Transfigured Malfoy into a ferret?"

"You never let us forget," Hermione said. "You mention it at least three times a month."

 Professor McGonagall rapped her wand on the edge of the podium at the front of the Great Hall. "If I might have your attention, please?" she called in a sharp, stern voice. 

All around the breakfast tables, conversation died away. Professor Flitwick cleared his throat and the giant image of the front page disappeared. Harry saw Snape, looking more than usually grim, and Gwenna with an expression of mild, polite grief fitting for the occasion of the death of a man she did not know.

"In light of this terrible, terrible event," McGonagall said when the room was silent, "today's classes have been canceled. Your Heads of House and all other instructors will make themselves available should you need to discuss what has happened. But I will tell you right now that at the moment, we have no more information than you. When the headmaster returns from London, we'll know more."

She dismissed them all from breakfast, but no one was in a hurry to leave. Even the teachers remained, milling about the table, asking each other questions to which none of them had the answers. Everyone was talking about Fudge, talking about Percy, speculating wildly on which Death Eaters might have been responsible. 

At some point, Harry glanced over to the Slytherin table and saw that several of them, especially Goyle and Malfoy, had made themselves scarce. And no wonder … the name of Lucius Malfoy had cropped up more than once in the animated debates flying from one end of the room to the other. 

"I think I know what happened to Percy," Hermione said, bent over the paper. "You've got to read between the lines, but listen to this description of his symptoms. The sidebar says that in addition to various facial injuries, he was being treated for nervous exhaustion, emotional distress, and hypothermia." 

"Hypo-whatsis?" Ron asked. "What's that?"

"Cold," Harry said, as an icy breath seemed to slip down the nape of his neck. "It means he got too cold. You're right, Hermione. It was dementors."

"Dementors got to him?" Ron no longer looked quite so excited by the prospect of Percy suffering. "I thought Moody –"

"Reckon that'd be the 'various facial injuries' they mention," Harry said. "So the dementors really are working with Voldemort. I wonder what's next? Giants? Goblins?"

Eventually, when everyone had hashed over every word of the paper and run out of new things to say, the students began dispersing. They had an unexpected day of freedom on their hands. 

And to most of them, Fudge was a remote public figure with no real connection to Hogwarts. If he was thought of around the castle at all, it was as the man who'd approved all of Umbridge's decrees and painted Harry as a raving liar. Therefore, he was mourned only perfunctorily.

Because it was a calm and sunny day, Harry rounded up his team and they went out to practice at the Quidditch pitch. The sky was a flawless mellow blue, cloudless, marred only by regular flights of owls to and from the Owlery. 

He, at least, was not so sanguine about the death of Cornelius Fudge. Harry had known Fudge. Hadn't much liked him the last few times they'd met … had in fact downright hated him on some of those occasions because it had been Fudge's stubbornness and unwillingness to listen that had contributed to the disastrous events of the previous spring. 

Now Fudge had paid the ultimate price for his folly. Had died in a ruthless, horrible way. Who had done it? Had it been Lucius Malfoy? Bellatrix Lestrange? Peter Pettigrew? Voldemort himself? 

The Killing Curse was, Harry knew, quick and even relatively painless. Somehow, though, he didn't imagine that Fudge's end had been either of those. He had probably been tortured, made to suffer. The Death Eaters might have wanted information out of him – just the thought of all they could have learned from interrogating the Minister of Magic made Harry's blood freeze. 

And torturing people, making them suffer, was just something that they enjoyed. If it had been Bellatrix, Harry didn't doubt that Fudge had pleaded for death before it finally came. 

Thankfully, Fudge hadn't had a family to be victimized with him. The paper said he was a widower, and Harry had never heard mention of there being any little Fudges.

It turned out to be an abysmal practice session. No one could concentrate, and not even the swift speeding rush of air as they zoomed around on their broomsticks could clear away the dark clouds of their thoughts. Harry called it to an end, and they trudged back up to the castle, sweaty and silent, in time for lunch. 

Another owl had arrived, a St. Mungo's owl from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. 

"Dear Ron and Ginny," Ginny read, "We're here with Percy and he is going to be just fine once his broken nose, jaw, and cheekbones heal."

"Ouch," Harry said. "Moody must've kicked him in the face with his wooden leg."

"I hope they were able to feed him some chocolate with his jaw wired shut," Hermione said. 

"Wired shut?" Ron scoffed. "Only if Augustus Pye wanted to test some more Muggle remedies, and you know Mum wouldn't have let him anywhere near Percy, not after the stitches business with Dad last year."

"I suppose you can figure out what else happened," Ginny read on. "Percy is rather shaken up, but they say he'll recover."

"That'll be the dementors," Harry said. 

"As you know, he's been having some problems dealing with the family lately." Ginny curled her lips back in a snarl. "Problems dealing with the family? He broke their hearts, the git! Siding with the Ministry, and all the awful things he said!"

"Read the rest of it," Ron said. 

Ginny looked like she might char holes in the paper with her burning eyes, but she resumed reading. "We'll be staying on in London until Percy is released from hospital. Your father and I are hopeful that some good might come from this tragedy and bring us together again."

Ron made a gagging noise. "If you ask me, they'd do better to wash their hands of him. But Mum's always had a soft spot for Percy. Percy the Prefect, Percy the Head Boy. She'll forgive him, wait and see."

"He's your brother," Hermione said. "And her son."

"We didn't want to say anything," Ginny said, biting her lip. "But Percy was petitioning to divorce the family and change his name."

"You're joking!" blurted Harry. 

She shook her head. "He wanted nothing more to do with us, said that he was ashamed of being a Weasley."

"It's true," Ron said. 

"That's awful!" Hermione gasped. 

"That's Percy," Ron corrected. "He had some sort of a hearing coming up next month at the Ministry so he could plead his case."

"Can you really divorce your entire family?" Harry asked, interested. "I mean, could I divorce the Dursleys?"

"You'd have to be of age," Ginny said. 

"Sirius cut off all ties with his," Harry mused. "He told me so. Spent all his time with my dad's family. I could –"

"Harry," Hermione began in that but Dumbledore said tone. 

"I know, I know. Back with the Dursleys at least once a year." 

There was no new word by suppertime, and McGonagall announced that Friday's schedule would carry on as normal. Since everyone had been up most of the night already, they were all exhausted by the time they dragged themselves, replete with a large and weighty meal of shepherd's pie, up to their rooms. 

But once he was in bed, and the others were beginning to snore, Harry found that he couldn't get to sleep. He lay wakeful in the darkness, crystalline stars peeking in through the high, arched window beside his bed. 

Something had been bothering him all day, and now he understood. Fudge was dead. That was a big victory for Voldemort and his followers. And yet, Harry had felt nothing. His scar was slightly sore, but only because he had been habitually rubbing it all day, thinking about Avada Kedavra and the flash of green light that must have engulfed Fudge's final split second of vision. 

He hadn't sensed anything from Voldemort in ages. He should have been glad of it, because it was horrible being linked to his worst enemy that way. Yet he'd grown dependent on it. Not only was he, Harry, Dumbledore's Voldemort alarm, he was his own Voldemort alarm. 

A few months ago, he would have sensed Voldemort's emotion, a powerful pulse of triumph at the death of the Minister of Magic. But there was nothing. 

Rationally, he should have expected it. Voldemort had realized what was going on, had used their uncanny bond to funnel Harry false information about Sirius and lead him into the fatal trap in the Department of Mysteries. The entire reason for the agonizing Occlumency lessons had been to prevent that sort of thing, to close down the two-way gate and make sure Voldemort couldn't learn things from Harry the way that Harry had been learning them from Voldemort. 

Since Harry had been a hopeless failure at Occlumency, he could only presume that it was Voldemort who had now closed that gate. No longer wanting Harry to be able to read anything of his mood or intentions. 

While it had been happening, Harry had hated it. The feeling of violation, the dirty taint of knowing that he was entwined, mind and soul, with the most evil wizard since the days of Salazar Slytherin … and the worst of it was that even as he hated it, he'd grown to need that contact. The enticing lure of that dark hallway … the tantalizing hint of being close, so close …

But now there was nothing. It was as if the link between them had never existed. 

Restless, he got up and went to the window. He leaned his forehead on the thick diamond-shaped panes, gazing down at the velvet-dark grounds and the satin shimmer of the lake. 

He was out there, somewhere. Voldemort. Moving carefully. Gathering power. Initially, Harry had expected him to go wild when he was restored. He'd expected a rash of brutal murders. Instead, there was this caution. Surgical strikes. A sense of setting all of the pieces in place. It was like a game of wizard chess, a tense and nervy game.

Finally, weariness overcame Harry and he returned to his bed. His sleep was light and uneasy. None of the others looked as if they'd slept well, either. 

"Wish they'd cancel classes again today," Ron said as they shuffled groggily into the common room and out through the portrait hole. 

Harry shrugged. He was more interested in the morning paper, and whether or not there would be any more news. 

"Professor McGonagall said things would go back to normal," Hermione said. "I feel so bad for the fifth-years. All of this going on while they're trying to study for their O.W.L.s –"

"Oh, right, like we had such an easy time of it," Harry said. 

She flushed. "Well, we got through all right."

"Skin of our teeth, you mean," Ron said. 

Dumbledore was still absent from the staff table as the students filed in to take their places. McGonagall was standing at the podium, looking unhappy. At the sight of her, voices trailed off and everyone took their accustomed places with none of the usual chatter. 

"Good morning," she addressed them. "I have some news that I wanted to deliver to you before the Daily Prophet arrived. I heard from Professor Dumbledore early this morning."

"Do they know who did it?" cried a voice from the Ravenclaw table. 

"Quiet, please," McGonagall said, tugging her square spectacles down her nose to peer over them for the offender. Her mouth was a compressed line. "As of this time, no, the identity of the Minister's killer remains unknown."

Harry shot a look over at the Slytherin table, but none of them seemed to be hiding smug grins to suggest that they knew anything. 

"Late last night," McGonagall continued, "at an emergency meeting of the Wizengamot, a temporary Minister was elected by unanimous acclaim."

"Uh-oh," Hermione murmured. 

"What?" Ron asked, turning toward her. 

"The new acting Minister of Magic," McGonagall said, "is our own Professor Dumbledore."

"That," Hermione said over the babble and uproar of reaction. "I guessed they might want him to fill in. I'm surprised that he agreed, though."

"I thought Dumbledore didn't want to be Minister of Magic," Ron said. 

"Better him than Umbridge," Harry said.

"Better anybody than Umbridge, that's not the point," Ron said. 

"If I might finish?" inquired Professor McGonagall, and once again the room quieted. "While the headmaster is away, I will once more be serving in his stead as Acting Headmistress of Hogwarts. A formal election for –"

"This is bad," Hermione whispered. "I don't like it."

"What's the matter?" asked Harry. 

"Having Dumbledore gone. I understand why the Wizengamot did it … with Voldemort on the loose – honestly, Ron! You've got to get over it!"

"Voldemort," Neville said clearly, leaning over. 

Ron elbowed him. "Shut up, Neville."

"What I was saying," Hermione said, "was that Dumbledore is still the only one Voldemort fears, and so with him as Minister, Voldemort won't dare act against him. Plus, probably, no one else would take the spot, for fear they'd be next."

"It is turning out to be just like the Defense Against the Dark Arts job," Dean said. "But isn't it a good thing Dumbledore's in charge? Why don't you like it?"

"Because, Dean, it means that Dumbledore isn't here," Hermione said. "He'll be away in London dealing with Ministry business, so he won't be here at Hogwarts. Without him, Hogwarts is vulnerable. Remember what happened last year when he left?"

"What, so we need Dumbledore to protect us?" Seamus asked. "Isn't the entire Ministry and the wizarding world a wee bit more important than the few hundred of us here? Besides, we can do without him for a while, can't we? It's not like we're in any danger here. Hogwarts is the safest place there is, safer even than Gringotts."

"People keep saying that," Harry said. "It's funny, really. I've had more people try to kill me here at Hogwarts than anywhere else combined."

"Well, you're a special case, aren't you, Harry?" Seamus said with a grin.

"Thanks."

"I just don't like it," Hermione said. "I can't help wondering if the Minister was murdered just so this would happen."

"What are you saying, Hermione?" Ron asked. "That the Death Eaters killed Fudge because they knew Dumbledore would have to take over? And that would get Dumbledore away from Hogwarts? So that … what? They could bust in here and kill Harry?"

"Oh, come on," Harry said. "You're giving me way too much importance. I told you yesterday that Fudge had started taking action about the Death Eaters. They had to have more reason to kill him than just to make it easier to get at me." 

Still, Hermione's logic made him uneasy. Hermione's logic usually did. 

Ron suddenly snickered, and they all looked at him. He stifled it. "Sorry. I was just thinking about Percy."

"How are broken facial bones, hypothermia and nervous exhaustion funny?" Hermione wanted to know. 

"Not that. But when Percy had his big row with Dad, it was over how Dad was aligning himself with Dumbledore instead of the Ministry. Now Dumbledore's leading the Ministry, and when Percy gets out of St. Mungo's and goes back to his job – as Undersecretary to the Minister – he'll be working right for Dumbledore."

"Knowing Percy," Ginny said sourly, "he'll blame Dumbledore for Fudge's death, and say that Dumbledore set the whole thing up so that he could take over. Which, according to Fudge, was what Dumbledore's always wanted."

"There's no point debating it now," Harry said. "Percy will have to cope or quit. Those are his only choices."

"Yeah, but I'd still like to be there when he hears the news," Ron said. "He'd get that look, you know the one, Ginny, like he bit into what he thought was a sugarplum and it turned out to be a lemon."

In a rustle-flap of wings, the flight of owls arrived with the morning post. Hands reached up eagerly to catch copies of the Daily Prophet, as well as numerous letters from home. 

This time, Dumbledore's photograph dominated the front page, and his accession to the post of Acting Minister of Magic was the headline. In the photo, Dumbledore looked pensive and troubled. He was shown standing in front of the robed ranks of the Wizengamot, the High Council of the wizarding world. Harry recognized Susan Bones' aunt, Amelia, among them.

The other, smaller headlines caught his eye. UNDERSECRETARY WEASLEY MAKING SPEEDY RECOVERY, read one. FUDGE'S PRIVATE FUNERAL TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY, read another. 

No one had much luck paying attention in classes that day. No one except, as usual, Hermione. Harry and Neville joined the other sixth-years headed down to the dungeon for Potions class after Charms, and the palpable chill coming from the Slytherins cast a pall over the rest of them. They took their appointed places at the cauldrons and waited. 

Snape came in with a dark billow of cloak. "Mortars and pestles all around, Mr. Malfoy," he said as he strode down the aisle toward the locked cupboard where he kept his rarest, most expensive, and most dangerous ingredients. "We'll be grinding green opals and manticore teeth today."

Malfoy moved to obey, fetching sets of the utensils and passing them out to each pupil. 

"Was it your father, Malfoy?" whispered Neville in a hiss as Malfoy approached the table where he and Harry sat perched on high stools. "Did he kill the Minister?"

The heavy marble mortar slammed down on the granite tabletop with a hard crash. The mortar split in two and rocked there on its rounded sides. The pestle rolled free and Harry, with the quick grab of a Seeker, caught it before it could go off the edge and shatter on the dungeon floor. 

The sharp, loud noise echoed through the chamber. Slowly, a box of manticore teeth in hand, Snape turned. His eyes narrowed above his prominent, oily nose. 

"Problem, Potter?"

"No, sir," Harry said evenly. "Malfoy dropped one, that's all."

Malfoy's jaw clenched. His pale eyes bored like steel drills into Neville's, but Neville didn't blink. 

With a wave of his wand, Snape repaired the broken mortar. "Let's get started," he said. "The green opals must be ground to an exceedingly fine powder, so take care that you do not inhale. Or sneeze."

"Well, did he?" asked Neville in a low murmur. 

"Go to hell, Longbottom." Malfoy moved on, looking furious. 

Harry nudged Neville. "As hard as it was getting into this class, do you want to get thrown out?"

They began working on their green opals. Opal being a soft stone, it crushed easily under the marble pestle. The trick was in not mashing it into paste. Snape circulated, passing out teeth as he went.

"Who can tell me the properties of manticore tooth?" Snape asked. "Miss Parkinson?"

Pansy Parkinson drew herself up, fluffed her hair importantly, and began to speak. "Manticore tooth is ivory-white in its natural state, but when crushed or ground it undergoes a chemical change and turns dark brown. It is primarily used in the brewing of Veritaserum and Reversion Potions. It –"

She was interrupted by a wet, gagging cough from Goyle. He hacked and spat up a wad of phlegm. 

"Did you inhale the powdered opal, Mr. Goyle?" Snape asked, sounding irritated. "I did warn you –"

Goyle raised his head, and Snape cut off mid-sentence. 

Pansy screamed. 

Neville dropped the repaired mortar, breaking it again. 

Harry could only stare in horror at what was happening to Goyle's face. 

**

Continued in Chapter Seventeen -- The Liquipurging Elixir.