Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J. K. Rowling [62]
Harry looked at his feet. His heart, which seemed to have swollen to an unnatural size, was thumping loudly under his ribs. He had expected the hearing to last longer than this. He was not at all sure that he had made a good impression. He had not really said very much. He ought to have explained more fully about the dementors, about how he had fallen over, about how both he and Dudley had nearly been kissed. …
Twice he looked up at Fudge and opened his mouth to speak, but his swollen heart was now constricting his air passages and both times he merely took a deep breath and looked back at his shoes.
Then the whispering stopped. Harry wanted to look up at the judges, but found that it was really much, much easier to keep examining his laces.
“Those in favor of clearing the accused of all charges?” said Madam Bones’s booming voice.
Harry’s head jerked upward. There were hands in the air, many of them … more than half! Breathing very fast, he tried to count, but before he could finish Madam Bones had said, “And those in favor of conviction?”
Fudge raised his hand; so did half a dozen others, including the witch on his right and the heavily mustached wizard and the frizzy-haired witch in the second row.
Fudge glanced around at them all, looking as though there was something large stuck in his throat, then lowered his own hand. He took two deep breaths and then said, in a voice distorted by suppressed rage, “Very well, very well … cleared of all charges.”
“Excellent,” said Dumbledore briskly, springing to his feet, pulling out his wand, and causing the two chintz armchairs to vanish. “Well, I must be getting along. Good day to you all.”
And without looking once at Harry, he swept from the dungeon.
The Woes of Mrs. Weasley
Dumbledore’s abrupt departure took Harry completely by surprise. He remained sitting where he was in the chained chair, struggling with his feelings of shock and relief. The Wizengamot were all getting to their feet, talking, and gathering up their papers and packing them away. Harry stood up. Nobody seemed to be paying him the slightest bit of attention except the toadlike witch on Fudge’s right, who was now gazing down at him instead of at Dumbledore. Ignoring her, he tried to catch Fudge’s eye, or Madam Bones’s, wanting to ask whether he was free to go, but Fudge seemed quite determined not to notice Harry, and Madam Bones was busy with her briefcase, so he took a few tentative steps toward the exit and when nobody called him back, broke into a very fast walk.
He took the last few steps at a run, wrenched open the door, and almost collided with Mr. Weasley, who was standing right outside, looking pale and apprehensive.
“Dumbledore didn’t say —”
“Cleared,” Harry said, pulling the door closed behind him, “of all charges!”
Beaming, Mr. Weasley seized Harry by the shoulders.
“Harry, that’s wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn’t have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can’t pretend I wasn’t —”
But Mr. Weasley broke off, because the courtroom door had just opened again. The Wizengamot were filing out.
“Merlin’s beard,” said Mr. Weasley wonderingly, pulling Harry aside to let them all pass, “you were tried by the full court?”
“I think so,” said Harry quietly.
One or two of the passing wizards nodded to Harry as they passed and a few, including Madam Bones, said, “Morning, Arthur,” to Mr. Weasley, but most averted their eyes. Cornelius Fudge and the toadlike witch were almost the last to leave the dungeon. Fudge acted as though Mr. Weasley and Harry were part of the wall, but again, the witch looked almost appraisingly at Harry as she passed. Last of all to pass was Percy. Like Fudge, he completely ignored his father and Harry; he marched past clutching a large roll of parchment and