Summary: Chapter Twelve: Magic is Might
As August wears on, the house itself remains unseen, but
watchers in cloaks continue to loiter outside number twelve Grimmauld Place.
During this time, Kreacher transforms himself into an extremely
productive and helpful house-elf, cleaning, cooking, and keeping
himself washed.
From the newspapers, Harry and his friends learn that
Snape has been confirmed as headmaster of Hogwarts, and that two
new professors have joined the staff. These siblings, the Amycus
and Alecto Carrow, are both Death Eaters.
Hermione remembers that the portrait of Phineas Nigellus
Black that hangs in the house allows the Phineas within the painting
to move between the painting in number twelve Grimmauld Place and the
painting of him that hangs in the headmaster’s office at Hogwarts
(Phineas is a former headmaster). Hermione takes the picture down
and puts it in her bag so that it won’t be able to spy on them and
report their secrets to Snape.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin stalking Ministry of Magic employees,
using the Invisibility Cloak to study the patterns of movement in
and out of the Ministry so they can try to infiltrate it and look
for the locket in Umbridge’s office. Earlier than the others expect,
Harry announces that they are as ready as they’re going to be, and
they should try to break in the next day.
At dinner that night, Harry’s scar burns, and he has to
excuse himself to go have a vision of Voldemort in the privacy of
the bathroom. Through Voldemort’s eyes, he sees Voldemort knock
on a door—somewhere in Europe where the houses have decorated gables—and
ask for Gregorovitch. On being told by the woman who answers that
she doesn’t know where Gregorovitch is, Voldemort kills the woman
in front of her young children—and perhaps kills the children as
well; the vision is unclear.
Hermione yells at Harry for allowing Voldemort to get
into his head again. Harry tells his friends that Voldemort must
be looking for Gregorovitch for answers about how Harry’s wand defeated Voldemort,
because Harry knows it was no ability of his own that let him fight
Voldemort off during the chase.
