‘Does it involve Paracelsus falling on top of the person's head?’ asked Harry.

‘Does it involve Paracelsus falling on top of the person's head?’ asked Harry.

‘Funnily enough, it does,’ said Nearly Headless Nick in a bored voice. ‘Subtlety has never been Peeves's strong point. I'm off to try and find the Bloody Baron ... he might be able to put a stop to it ... see you, Harry ...’

‘Yeah, bye,’ said Harry and instead of turning right, he turned left, taking a longer but safer route up to the Owlery. His spirits rose as he walked past window after window showing brilliantly blue sky; he had training later, he would be back on the Quidditch pitch at last.

Something brushed his ankles. He looked down and saw the caretaker's skeletal grey cat, Mrs Norris, slinking past him. She turned lamplike yellow eyes on him for a moment before disappearing behind a statue of Wilfred the Wistful.

‘I'm not doing anything wrong,’ Harry called after her. She had the unmistakeable air of a cat that was off to report to her boss, yet Harry could not see why; he was perfectly entitled to walk up to the Owlery on a Saturday morning.

The sun was high in the sky now and when Harry entered the Owlery the glassless windows dazzled his eyes; thick silvery beams of sunlight crisscrossed the circular room in which hundreds of owls nestled on rafters, a little restless in the early-morning light, some clearly just returned from hunting. The straw-covered floor crunched a little as he stepped across tiny animal bones, craning his neck for a sight of Hedwig.

‘There you are,’ he said, spotting her somewhere near the very top of the vaulted ceiling. ‘Get down here, I've got a letter for you.’

With a low hoot she stretched her great white wings and soared down on to his shoulder.

‘Right, I know this says Snuffles on the outside,’ he told her, giving her the letter to clasp in her beak and, without knowing exactly why, whispering, ‘but it's for Sirius, OK?’

She blinked her amber eyes once and he took that to mean that she understood.

‘Safe flight, then,’ said Harry and he carried her to one of the windows; with a moments pressure on his arm, Hedwig took off into the blindingly bright sky. He watched her until she became a tiny black speck and vanished, then switched his gaze to Hagrid's hut, clearly visible from this window, and just as clearly uninhabited, the chimney smokeless, the curtains drawn.

The treetops of the Forbidden Forest swayed in a light breeze. Harry watched them, savouring the fresh air on his face, thinking about Quidditch later ... then he saw it. A great, reptilian winged hcrse, just like the ones pulling the Hogwarts carriages, with leahery black wings spread wide like a pterodactyl's, rose up out of the trees like a grotesque, giant bird. It soared in a great circle, then plunged back into the trees. The whole thing had happened so quickly, Harry could hardly believe what he had seen, except that his heart was hammering madly.

The Owlery door opened behind him. He leapt in shock and, turning quickly, saw Cho Chang holding a letter and a parcel in his hands.

‘Hi,’ said Harry automatically.

‘Oh ... hi,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I didn't think anyone would be up here this early ... I only remembered five minutes ago, it's my mum's birthday’

She held up the parcel.

‘Right,’ said Harry. His brain seemed to have jammed. He wanted to say something funny and interesting, but the memory of that terrible winged horse was fresh in his mind.

‘Nice day,’ he said, gesturing to the windows. His insides seemed to shrivel with embarrassment. The weather. He was talking about the weather ...

‘Yeah,’ said Cho, looking around for a suitable owl. ‘Good Quidditch conditions. I haven't been out all week, have you?’

‘No,’ said Harry.

Cho had selected one of the school barn owls. She coaxed it down on to her arm where it held out an obliging leg so that she could attach the parcel.

‘Hey has Gryffindor got a new Keeper yet?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘It's my friend Ron Weasley, d'you know him?’

‘The Tornados-hater?’ said Cho rather coolly. ‘Is he any good?’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry, ‘I think so. I didn't see his tryout, though, I was in detention.’

Cho looked up, the parcel only half-attached to the owl's legs.

‘That Umbridge woman's foul,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Putting you in detention just because you told the truth about how—how—how he died. Everyone heard about it, it was all over the school. You were really brave standing up to her like that.’

Harry's insides re-inflated so rapidly he felt as though he might actually float a few inches off the dropping-strewn floor. Who cared about a stupid flying horse; Cho thought he had been really brave. For a moment, he considered accidentally-on-purpose showing her his cut hand as he helped her tie her parcel on to her owl ... but the very instant this thrilling thought occurred, the Owlery door opened again.

Filch the caretaker came wheezing into the room. There were purple patches on his sunken, veined cheeks, his jowls were aquiver and his thin grey hair dishevelled; he had obviously run here. Mrs. Norris came trotting at his heels, gazing up at the owls overhead and mewing hungrily. There was a restless shifting of wings from above and a large brown owl snapped his beak in a menacing fashion.

‘Aha!’ said Filch, taking a flat-footed step towards Harry, his pouchy cheeks trembling with anger. ‘I've had a tip-off that you are intending to place a massive order for Dungbombs!’

Harry folded his arms and stared at the caretaker.

‘Who told you I was ordering Dungbombs?’

Cho was looking from Harry to Filch, also frowning; the barn owl on her arm, tired of standing on one leg, gave an admonitory hoot but she ignored it.

‘I have my sources.’ said Filch in a self-satisfied hiss. ‘Now hand over whatever it is you're sending.’

Feeling immensely thankful that he had not dawdled in posting off the letter, Harry said, ‘I can't, it's gone.’

‘Gone?’ said Filch, his face contorting with rage.

‘Gone,’ said Harry calmly.

Filch opened his mouth furiously, mouthed for a few seconds, then raked Harry's robes with his eyes.

‘How do I know you haven't got it in your pocket?’

‘Because—’

‘I saw him send it,’ said Cho angrily.

Filch rounded on her.

‘You saw him—?’

‘That's right, I saw him,’ she said fiercely.