Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix [17]
“Okay, uh… Remus. Why were you attacked by that Hallython?” asked Harry. From the look on his face, this was apparently something Lupin didn’t really want to tell him, but he sighed, and spoke:
“Well Harry, I got a letter from Arabella (he pointed to Mrs. Figg) and she said the Dursleys had left you home alone. I didn’t bother to read the rest that said you were with the Weasleys and you’d come to her. I immediately came to the Dursley’s house and barged in while someone else was in there.”
“Who was there?” asked Harry.
“Peter Pettigrew, or as he is known now, Wormtail,” shuddered Lupin. “He shot the Hallython at me, but not before I hit him with a Stupefy. It prevented him from kidnapping me, but not from apparating away. I immediately came over here and… well… you know the rest.” Harry waiting a few seconds to take all this in, then he responded.
“But, how did Wormtail know I was there, and how did he know I would’ve been home alone?” There was a few seconds of silence.
“That, Harry, is still a mystery,” said Lupin. No one spoke for about a minute, until Harry once again broke the silence.
“Anyway, why am I here?” he asked.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re sitting Harry because if you weren’t I’d ask you to. This is a long story,” said Mrs. Figg.
“Well, I’ve only got another month left until I got to go back to Hogwarts, so don’t make it that long,” replied Harry. Everyone forced a laugh. Mrs. Figg spoke again.
“Harry, the reason you’re here begins before even Hogwarts was founded, before even Godric Gryffindor was born, well over 2,000 years ago. It is a story that has been passed down from each generation to the next.” Harry was listening with intent, Sirius and Lupin were half listening, they both were looking tired, they must have heard this before.
“It started with a man named Garde Delafer. In his time, phoenixes were hunted, both for sport and for their healing powers. While a phoenix’s tears are powerful healers, the actual phoenix, when put into a potion, is millions of time more powerful than its tears. Because of the intense hunting of them, the phoenixes were slowly but surely going from rare and endangered to extinct.
“Only one man, Garde, cared about the phoenixes for other reasons than their bodies for potions. He felt it was important for future generations to experience the beauty of a phoenix. He believed there was nothing on this earth that could compare with the splendor of a phoenix. So, to help them, he joined a group that hunted phoenixes for sport. This way, he would know where and when to find and save them.
“One day, a giant phoenix hunting expedition was planned, and it was a massive one, bigger than any other before. The hunting group had discovered an enormous pack of phoenixes that had eluded them ever since the group was founded. There were over one hundred phoenixes in that pack, and if the group managed to kill them all, they would make more money than any of them could possibly imagine, the phoenix species would be extinct, and Garde’s dream would be over.
“Well, the group did succeed in planning and developing the expedition strategy and Garde had to find some way to stop it. He first tried to sink the ship (brooms that could travel distances that far were not invented yet) that was taking them all there by putting a small hole in the bottom of the ship. It was too small to be noticed easily, but large enough to left a good deal of water in.
“Unfortunately, the room that Garde put the hole in was converted into a cargo hold and a large box covered the hole he made, making it useless. Not a drop of water got inside the ship. But, Garde did not give up, he had another plan. When the ship landed and set up camp, the other men partied, anticipating the large sum of money they would receive when they sold the phoenixes: just one was worth a thousand times its weight in galleons.
“While they were feasting and partying, Garde snuck into their leader’s tent and stole the maps that showed where the phoenixes were. He magicked the maps so that they were