Sirius's son

Lovegood

"Outvoted, Harry, sorry," said Eliza, clapping him on the back.

"Fine," said Harry, half amused, half irritated. "Only, once we've seen Lovegood, let's try and look for some more Horcruxes, shall we? Where do the Lovegoods live, anyway? Do either ofyou know?"

"Yeah, they're not far from my place," said Ron. "I dunno exactly where, but mum and Dad always point toward the hills whenever they mention them. Shouldn't be hard to find."

They had an excellent view of the village of Ottery St. Catchpole from the breezy hillside to which they Disapparated the next morning. From their high vantage point, the village looked like a collection of toy horses in the great slanting shafts of sunlight stretching to earth in the breaks between clouds. They stood for a minute or two looking toward the Burrow, their hands shadowing their eyes, but all they could make out were the high hedges and trees of the orchard, which afforded the crooked little house protection from Muggle eyes.

"It's weird, being this near, but not going to visit," said Ron.

Eliza patted Ron on the back sympathetically. Ron turned his back on the Burrow.

"Let's try up here," he said, leading the way over the top of the hill.

They walked for a few hours. The cluster of low hills appeared to be uninhabited apart from one small cottage, which seemed deserted.

"Do you think it's theirs, and they've gone away for Christmas?" said Hermione, peering through the window at a neat little kitchen with geraniums on the windowsill. Ron snorted.

"Listen, I've got a feeling you'd be able to tell who lived there if you looked through the Lovegood's window. Let's try the next lot of hills."

So they Disapparated a few miles farther north.

"Aha!" shouted Ron, as the wind whipped their hair and clothes. Ron was pointing upward, toward the top of the hill on which they had appeared, where a most strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky. "That's got to be Luna's house, who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!"

"It's nothing like a bird," said Hermione, frowning at the tower

"He meant castle," said Eliza. "A chess piece."

Ron's legs were the longest and he reached the top of the hill first. Harry, Rigel (who ended up piggybacking Eliza) and Hermione caught up with him, panting and clutching stitches in their sides, they found him grinning broadly.

"It's theirs," said Ron. "Look."

Three hand-painted signs had been tacked to a broken-down gate. The first read,

THE QUIBBLER. EDITOR: X. LOVEGOOD

the second,

PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE

the third,

KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS

"The fuck?" Rigel said

The gate creaked as they opened it. The zigzagging path leading to the front door was overgrown with a variety of odd plants, including a bush covered in the orange radishlike fruit Luna sometimes wore as earrings. Harry thought he recognized a Snargaluff and gave the wizened stump a wide berth. Two aged crab apple trees, bent with the wind, stripped of leaves but still heavy with berry-sized red fruits and bushy crowns of white-beaded mistletoe, stood sentinel on either side of the front door. A little owl with a slightly flattened, hawklike head peered down at them from one of the branches.