"J. K. Rowling - 6 - Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince(1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowling J. K)

Headmaster
Harry let the letter droop down. So… Dudley wouldn’t be coming to Hogwarts with him, Ron and Hermione…. He had been so sure that he would be able to! He shouldn’t have gotten his and Dudley’s hopes up so high.
“Hey Harry!” called Ron from the other end of the room. “Want to play a game?” He held up two decks of cards and shook them with a smile on his face.
“Sure,” said Harry, trying to cheer up. He walked over to Ron, and grabbed one of the decks right out of his hand. “Let’s go!”
Harry had gotten extremely good at the card game, which he learned was called Wizard Duel, and had even beaten Ron a few times. Fred, George, Charlie or Bill sometimes even joined in on the fun, creating multiplayer games which were even more exciting than one on one. The only bad part about the game, as Harry was concerned, was that the cards just… stayed cards. If only they could become real….
“Hey you two!” said Fred, during one of those such games. “You still haven’t seen the business yet!”
“Yeah, you have to see it,” said George, drawing his card.
“What business?” asked Harry, playing a Killing Curse on Bill’s dragon.
“Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes of course!” said Fred, countering Harry’s curse.
“Oh yeah…” groaned Ron, having his elf attacked by the dragon.
“Well, we’ll see it when we go to Diagon Alley for supplies for this year,” said Harry, using a Pin Spell on Fred’s Balloon-Beast.
“Hey! You popped him!” laughed Fred, throwing his beaten card into the air.
Before Harry knew it, his summer was practically over. There was only a week left of school, and Harry was feeling a little guilty for not visiting Dudley again. He had broken the sad news to him that he would not be coming to Hogwarts through a letter, and he had taken it fairly well. Though slightly disappointed, Dudley had not ever really known much about the wizarding world, so he didn’t have much to not look forward to.
Even though Dudley didn’t, Harry and Ron needed new school supplies, and the only place to go for them was Diagon Alley. Harry especially needed them, seeing as he had left them all at the Dursley’s, and did not feel like seeing Dudley right now. So, the day before the beginning of the new year, the two of them headed there with lists in their hands of what they would need.
“Let’s see here…” said Ron, taking out his supply list. Harry looked at his.
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“Hmm, there’s not as many books on this year’s list as there were on last year’s,” observed Harry, eyeing it again. “Looks like I’ll be making up for that by buying a new cauldron, quills, parchment…”
“Yeah, well, this year we mostly use the same ones we used last year,” said Ron, folding up his list and putting it in his pocket. Harry trusted him, he had already had five other brothers go through the system. If anyone knew more about what to expect at Hogwarts, it was Ron.
The two of them purchased their books as fast as they could, wanting to try and get to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes as soon as possible. Even Ron looked a little excited at the thought of it.
Since the two of them had been to Diagon Alley so many times before, it only took them a few minutes to acquire everything they needed: books, quills, ink, parchment, and some new dress robes, just slightly larger sizes of what they already had. They stuffed all of their purchases into magical bags that stayed their same, small size no matter how much stuff you put inside it, and ran over to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.
“Um… Ron…” said Harry. “Where exactly is it?”
“I’m not really sure,” said Ron, looking around. “Fred and George said ‘you couldn’t miss it’, so it has to be around here somewhere.” The two of them, hands over their eyes, scanned the area, looking for any sign of the place. All Harry could see, though, were several small shops, and one rather distinct yellow building….
“Hey Ron!” yelled Harry, pointing at the very tall yellow building. “Is that it?” “Let’s go see,” he said. The two of them ran over to the building, and looked up at it in awe. It was the tallest structure Harry had ever seen, and it was entirely yellow. It looked so fluffy and nice too, it was like a massive marshmallow. And, right above the giant glass door at the bottom of the cylindrical building, there were the words: “Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, Inc.” in bright, multicolored letters. Through the windows that were all around the building, Harry saw many people inside, purchasing and trying out the items. It looked extremely busy.
Harry and Ron walked up to the front door, and it opened for them, just like a Muggle store’s would. But, after that, something happened that definitely did not occur at Muggle shops. Below Harry and Ron’s feet, there was a sudden burst of air that shot them right up to the ceiling.
“AAAHHH!” both of them yelled. They were now hovering with their heads touching the ceiling. Then, by some invisible force, the two of them were turned one hundred and eighty degrees so that their feet were on the ceiling now, or what was previously the ceiling anyway. Harry expected to fell all the blood rushing to his head, but he felt perfectly fine, as if he was standing right-side up.
“Whoa, what’s going on?” asked Ron, rubbing his head.
“I think that… this room is upside down,” said Harry, looking around. However, the room looked perfectly normal. In fact, there were others in the room in the same position that Harry and Ron were, buying or testing products, and acting as if it was perfectly normal to be upside down.
“This must be just another one of Fred and George’s little tricks, to try and enhance their customer’s experience at their shop,” said Ron, looking around. “Man, look at all this stuff!”
Now that Harry had gotten over the initial shock of begin flipped, he took a look at all the items available. The walls were covered in hundreds of colored boxes, ranging from the size of a small nut to the size of cars! Scattered among those boxes were also tricks and toys that were not packages, just out for people to sample, and many were doing just that. Among them, Harry saw a red-haired young man with a clipboard, checking off and writing many things. Harry immediately recognized him as Percy.
“Hello there Percy!” yelled Harry, waving his hand. Percy looked up from his work, and waved to the two of them.
“Hey there Harry! Ron, you’ve finally come to see it! Isn’t this place great? Though I don’t quite agree with some of Fred and George’s little ideas, like flipping the customers upside down when they enter, a few compromises makes everything worth it.”
“Makes it all worth what?” asked Harry.
“Makes it all worth having the biggest business in all of Diagon Alley!” exclaimed Percy, throwing his arms into the air, and giving a giant grin. “Just this past week, we’ve quadrupled our sales, and in the past month, we’ve made more money than the rest of Diagon Alley put together!” He had a superior-looking expression on his face, and was breathing a little hard too.
“Um… that’s great Percy…” said Harry. “But… where are Fred and George?”
“Oh, they’re working the cash register,” said Percy, returning to his work. Harry and Ron slowly backed away from Percy, and bumped right into the check-out desk. The two of them turned around, and saw Fred and George, working tirelessly, taking transactions. The line for the check-out was so long it went up to the next floor, and money, receipts, and even a few items were flying everywhere. Fred and George, however, looked happier than Harry had ever seen them.
“Hey there Fred! George!” yelled Harry above the excited talk of all the customers. The twins turned and smiled at Harry for a second, and then immediately went back to their work of checking people out.
“Can’t you two take a break for a second?” asked Ron.
“We are taking a break,” came a voice from behind them. Harry and Ron turned around, and saw the two of them standing right there, drinking some sort of wizard soda.
Harry felt extremely confused.
“But- you were just… the cash register,” he mumbled out, pointing in random directions. Fred and George looked at him for a second, then suddenly appeared as though they understood what he was trying to say.