"J .K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowling J. K)

the fire yet again, this time with the news that there had been a mass breakout
from Azkaban.
"A mass breakout?" repeated the Prime Minister hoarsely.
"No need to worry, no need to worry!" shouted Fudge, already with one foot in
the flames. "We'll have them rounded up in no time тАФ just thought you ought
to know!"
And before the Prime Minister could shout, "Now, wait just one moment!"
Fudge had vanished in a shower of green sparks.
Whatever the press and the opposition might say, the Prime Minister was not a
foolish man. It had not escaped his notice that, despite Fudge's assurances at
their first meeting, they were now seeing rather a lot of each other, nor that
Fudge was becoming more flustered with each visit. Little though he liked to
think about the Minister of Magic (or, as he always called Fudge in his head, the
Other Minister), the Prime Minister could not help but fear that the next time
Fudge appeared it would be with graver news still. The site, therefore, of Fudge
stepping out of the fire once more, looking disheveled and fretful and sternly
surprised that the Prime Minister did not know exactly why he was there, was
about the worst thing that had happened in the course of this extremely
gloomy week.
"How should I know what's going on in the тАФ er тАФ Wizarding community?"
snapped the Prime Minister now. "I have a country to run and quite enough

7
concerns at the moment without тАФ "
"We have the same concerns," Fudge interrupted. "The Brock-dale Bridge didn't
wear out. That wasn't really a hurricane. Those murders were not the work of
Muggles. And Herbert Chorley's family would be safer without him. We are cur-
rently making arrangements to have him transferred to St. Mungo's Hospital for
Magical Maladies and Injuries. The move should be effected tonight."
"What do you... I'm afraid I ... What?" blustered the Prime Minister.
Fudge took a great, deep breath and said, "Prime Minister, I am very sorry to
have to tell you that he's back. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back."
"Back? When you say 'back'... he's alive? I mean тАФ "
The Prime Minister groped in his memory for the details of that horrible conver-
sation of three years previously, when Fudge had told him about the wizard
who was feared above all others, the wizard who had committed a thousand
terrible crimes before his mysterious disappearance fifteen years earlier.
"Yes, alive," said Fudge. "That is тАФ I don't know тАФ is a man alive if he can't be
killed? I don't really understand it, and Dumbledore won't explain properly тАФ
but anyway, he's certainly got a body and is walking and talking and killing, so I
suppose, for the purposes of our discussion, yes, he's alive."
The Prime Minister did not know what to say to this, but a persistent habit of
wishing to appear well-informed on any subject that came up made him cast
around for any details he could remember of their previous conversations.
"Is Serious Black with тАФ er тАФ He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
"Black? Black?" said Fudge distractedly, turning his bowler rapidly in his fingers.
"Sirius Black, you mean? Merlin's beard, no. Black's dead. Turns out we were тАФ
er тАФ mistaken about Black. He was innocent after all. And he wasn't in league
with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named either. I mean," he added defensively, spin-
ning the bowler hat still faster, "all the evidence pointed тАФ we had more than