Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

by J.K. Rowling

And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his mother’s sister. He could not have said why this hit him so very powerfully at this moment. All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean.

“He’s not your son,” said Sirius quietly. “He’s as good as,” said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. “Who else has he got?” “He’s got me!” “Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley, her lip curling.

“My gran says that’s rubbish,” piped up Neville. “She says it’s the Daily Prophet that’s going downhill, not Dumbledore. She’s canceled our subscription. We believe Harry,” he said simply. He climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin, looking owlishly over them at Seamus. “My gran’s always said You-Know-Who would come back one day. She says if Dumbledore says he’s back, he’s back.”

His mother tottered away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked around at the others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh, but Harry did not think he’d ever found anything less funny in his life.

“He never knew I ordered dementors after Potter last summer, but he was delighted to be given the chance to expel him, all the same. . . .”

“Did you know he’s a half-blood too?” said Harry recklessly.

“Voldemort’s aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. It would have been yours. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him.”

“While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you.

“The odd thing is, Harry,” he said softly, “that it may not have meant you at all. Sybill’s prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.”

Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore’s face into his long silver beard.