"J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowling J. K)

Harry was sure the cracking noise had been made by someone Apparating or
Disapparating. It was exactly the sound Dobby the house-elf made when he vanished into
thin air. Was it possible that Dobby was here in Privet Drive? Could Dobby be following
him right at this very moment? As this thought occurred he wheeled around and stared
back down Privet Drive, but it appeared to be completely deserted and Harry was sure
that Dobby did not know how to become invisible.

He walked on, hardly aware of the route he was taking, for he had pounded these streets
so often lately that his feet carried him to his favourite haunts automatically. Every few
steps he glanced back over his shoulder. Someone magical had been near him as he lay
among Aunt Petunia's dying begonias, he was sure of it. Why hadn't they spoken to him,
why hadn't they made contact, why were they hiding now?

And then, as his feeling of frustration peaked, his certainty leaked away.

Perhaps it hadn't been a magical sound after all. Perhaps he was so desperate for the
tiniest sign of contact from the world to which he belonged that he was simply
overreacting to perfectly ordinary noises. Could he be sure it hadn't been the sound of
something breaking inside a neighbour's house?

Harry felt a dull, sinking sensation in his stomach and before he knew it the feeling of
hopelessness that had plagued him all summer rolled over him once again.

Tomorrow morning he would be woken by the alarm at five o'clock so he could pay the
owl that delivered the Daily Prophet -but was there any point continuing to take it? Harry
merely glanced at the front page before throwing it aside these days; when the idiots who
ran the paper finally realised that Voldemort was back it would be headline news, and
that was the only kind Harry cared about.
If he was lucky, there would also be owls carrying letters from his best friends Ron and
Hermione, though any expectation he'd had that their letters would bring him news had
long since been dashed.

We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously… We've been told not to say
anything important in case our letters go astray… We're quite busy but I can't give you
details here… There's a fair amount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see
you…

But when were they going to see him? Nobody seemed too bothered with a precise date.
Hermione had scribbled I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon inside his birthday card,
but how soon was soon? As far as Harry could tell from the vague hints in their letters,
Hermione and Ron were in the same place, presumably at Ron's parents' house. He could
hardly bear to think of the pair of them having fun at The Burrow when he was stuck in
Privet Drive. In fact, he was so angry with them he had thrown away, unopened, the two
boxes of Honeydukes chocolates they'd sent him for his birthday. He'd regretted it later,
after the wilted salad Aunt Petunia had provided for dinner that night.

And what were Ron and Hermione busy with? Why wasn't he, Harry, busy? Hadn't he
proved himself capable of handling much more than them? Had they all forgotten what
he had done? Hadn't it been he who had entered that graveyard and watched Cedric being