Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hp-6

by J. K. Rowling

“Wha—? Yeah, of course,” he said, pulling himself together. “Well… okay. If I can’t get Slughorn to talk this afternoon, I’ll take some Felix and have another go this evening.”

  “That’s decided, then,” said Hermione briskly, getting to her feet and performing a graceful pirouette. “Destination… determination… deliberation…” she murmured.

  “Oh, stop that,” Ron begged her, “I feel sick enough as it is—quick, hide me!”

  “It isn’t Lavender!” said Hermione impatiently, as another couple of girls appeared in the courtyard and Ron dived behind her.

  “Cool,” said Ron, peering over Hermione’s shoulder to check. “Blimey, they don’t look happy, do they?”

  “They’re the Montgomery sisters and of course they don’t look happy, didn’t you hear what happened to their little brother?” said Hermione.

  “I’m losing track of what’s happening to everyone’s relatives, to be honest,” said Ron.

  “Well, their brother was attacked by a werewolf. The rumor is that their mother refused to help the Death Eaters. Anyway, the boy was only five and he died in St. Mungo’s, they couldn’t save him.”

  “He died?” repeated Harry, shocked. “But surely werewolves don’t kill, they just turn you into one of them?”

  “They sometimes kill,” said Ron, who looked unusually grave now. “I’ve heard of it happening when the werewolf gets carried away.”

  “What was the werewolf’s name?” said Harry quickly.

  “Well, the rumor is that it was that Fenrir Greyback,” said Hermione.

  “I knew it—the maniac who likes attacking kids, the one Lupin told me about!” said Harry angrily.

  Hermione looked at him bleakly.

  “Harry, you’ve got to get that memory,” she said. “It’s all about stopping Voldemort, isn’t it? These dreadful things that are happening are all down to him…”

  The bell rang overhead in the castle and both Hermione and Ron jumped to their feet, looking terrified.

  “You’ll do fine,” Harry told them both, as they headed toward the entrance hall to meet the rest of the people taking their Apparition Test. “Good luck.”

  “And you too!” said Hermione with a significant look, as Harry headed off to the dungeons.

  There were only three of them in Potions that afternoon: Harry, Ernie, and Draco Malfoy.

  “All too young to Apparate just yet?” said Slughorh genially, “Not turned seventeen yet?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Ah well,” said Slughorn cheerily, “as we’re so few, we’ll do something fun. I want you all to brew me up something amusing!”

  “That sounds good, sir,” said Ernie sycophantically, rubbing his hands together.

  Malfoy, on the other hand, did not crack a smile.

  “What do you mean, ‘something amusing’?” he said irritably.

  “Oh, surprise me,” said Slughorn airily.

  Malfoy opened his copy of Advanced Potion-Making with a sulky expression. It could not have been plainer that he thought this lesson was a waste of time. Undoubtedly, Harry thought, watching him over the top of his own book, Malfoy was begrudging the time he could otherwise be spending in the Room of Requirement.

  Was it his imagination, or did Malfoy, like Tonks, look thinner! Certainly he looked paler; his skin still had that grayish tinge, probably because he so rarely saw daylight these days. But there was no air of smugness, excitement, or superiority; none of the swagger that he had had on the Hogwarts Express, when he had boasted openly of the mission he had been given by Voldemort… There could be only one conclusion, in Harry’s opinion: The mission, whatever it was, was going badly.

  Cheered by this thought, Harry skimmed through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making and found a heavily corrected Half-Blood Prince’s version of “An Elixir to Induce Euphoria,” which seemed not only to meet Slughorn’s instructions, but which might (Harry’s heart leapt as the thought struck him) put Slughorn into such a good mood that he would be prepared to hand over that memory if Harry could persuade him to taste some…

  “Well, now, this looks absolutely wonderful,” said Slughorn an hour and a half later, clapping his hands together as he stared down into the sunshine yellow contents of Harry’s cauldron. “Euphoria, I take it? And what’s that I smell? Mmmm… you’ve added just a sprig of peppermint, haven’t you? Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration, Harry, of course, that would tend to counterbalance the occasional side effects of excessive singing and nose-tweaking… I really don’t know where you get these brain waves, my boy… unless—”

  Harry pushed the Half-Blood Prince’s book deeper into his bag with his foot.

  “—it’s just your mother’s genes coming out in you!”

  “Oh… yeah, maybe,” said Harry, relieved.

  Ernie was looking rather grumpy; determined to outshine Harry for once, he had most rashly invented his own potion, which had curdled and formed a kind of purple dumpling at the bottom of his cauldron. Malfoy was already packing up, sour-faced; Slughorn had pronounced his Hiccuping Solution merely “passable.”

  The bell rang and both Ernie and Malfoy left at once. “Sir,” Harry began, but Slughorn immediately glanced over his shoulder; when he saw that the room was empty but for himself and Harry, he hurried away as fast as he could.

  “Professor—Professor, don’t you want to taste my po—?” called Harry desperately.

  But Slughorn had gone. Disappointed, Harry emptied the cauldron, packed up his things, left the dungeon, and walked slowly back upstairs to the common room.

  Ron and Hermione returned in the late afternoon.

  “Harry!” cried Hermione as she climbed through the portrait hole. “Harry, I passed!”

  “Well done!” he said. “And Ron?”

  “He—he just failed,” whispered Hermione, as Ron came slouching into the room looking most morose. “It was really unlucky, a tiny thing, the examiner just spotted that he’d left half an eyebrow behind… How did it go with Slughorn?”

  “No joy,” said Harry, as Ron joined them. “Bad luck, mate, but you’ll pass next time—we can take it together.”

  “Yeah, I s’pose,” said Ron grumpily. “But half an eyebrow—like that matters!”

  “I know,” said Hermione soothingly, “it does seem really harsh…”

  They spent most of their dinner roundly abusing the Apparition examiner, and Ron looked fractionally more cheerful by the time they set off back to the common room, now discussing the continuing problem of Slughorn and the memory.

  “So, Harry—you going to use the Felix Felicis or what?” Ron demanded.

  “Yeah, I s’pose I’d better,” said Harry. “I don’t reckon I’ll need all of it, not twenty-four hours’ worth, it can’t take all night… I’ll just take a mouthful. Two or three hours should do it.”

  “It’s a great feeling when you take it,” said Ron reminiscently. “Like you can’t do anything wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Hermione, laughing. “You’ve never taken any!”

  “Yeah, but I thought I had, didn’t I?” said Ron, as though explaining the obvious. “Same difference really…”

  As they had only just seen Slughorn enter the Great Hall and knew that he liked to take time over meals, they lingered for a while in the common room, the plan being that Harry should go to Slughorn’s office once the teacher had had time to get back there. When the sun had sunk to the level of the treetops in the Forbidden Forest, they decided the moment had come, and after checking carefully that Neville, Dean, and Seamus were all in the common room, sneaked up to the boys’ dormitory.

  Harry took out the rolled-up socks at the bottom of his trunk and extracted the tiny, gleaming bottle.

  “Well, here goes,” said Harry, and he raised the little bottle and look a carefully measured gulp.

  “What does it feel like?” whispered Hermione.

  Harry did not answer for a moment. Then, slowly but sure
ly, an exhilarating sense of infinite opportunity stole through him; he felt as though he could have done anything, anything at all… and getting the memory from Slughorn seemed suddenly not only possible, but positively easy…

  He got to his feet, smiling, brimming with confidence.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Really excellent. Right… I’m going down to Hagrid’s.”

  “What?” said Ron and Hermione together, looking aghast.

  “No, Harry—you’ve got to go and see Slughorn, remember?” said Hermione.

  “No,” said Harry confidently. “I’m going to Hagrid’s, I’ve got a good feeling about going to Hagrid’s.”

  “You’ve got a good feeling about burying a giant spider?” asked Ron, looking stunned.

  “Yeah,” said Harry, pulling his Invisibility Cloak out of his bag. “I feel like it’s the place to be tonight, you know what I mean?”

  “No,” said Ron and Hermione together, both looking positively alarmed now.

  “This is Felix Felicis, I suppose?” said Hermione anxiously, holding up the bottle to the light. “You haven’t got another little bottle full of—I don’t know—”

  “Essence of Insanity?” suggested Ron, as Harry swung his cloak over his shoulders.

  Harry laughed, and Ron and Hermione looked even more alarmed.

  “Trust me,” he said. “I know what I’m doing… or at least”—he strolled confidently to the door—“Felix does.”

  He pulled the Invisibility Cloak over his head and set off down the stairs, Ron and Hermione hurrying along behind him. At the foot of the stairs, Harry slid through the open door.

  “What were you doing up there with her!” shrieked Lavender Brown, staring right through Harry at Ron and Hermione emerging together from the boys’ dormitories. Harry heard Ron spluttering behind him as he darted across the room away from them.

  Getting through the portrait hole was simple; as he approached it, Ginny and Dean came through it, and Harry was able to slip between them. As he did so, he brushed accidentally against Ginny.

  “Don’t push me, please, Dean,” she said, sounding annoyed. “You’re always doing that, I can get through perfectly well on my own…”

  The portrait swung closed behind Harry, but not before he had heard Dean make an angry retort… His feeling of elation increasing, Harry strode off through the castle. He did not have to creep along, for he met nobody on his way, but this did not surprise him in the slightest. This evening, he was the luckiest person at Hogwarts.

  Why he knew that going to Hagrid’s was the right thing to do, he had no idea. It was as though the potion was illuminating a few steps of the path at a time. He could not see the final destination, he could not see where Slughorn came in, but he knew that he was going the right way to get that memory. When he reached the entrance hall he saw that Filch had forgotten to lock the front door. Beaming, Harry threw it open and breathed in the smell of clean air and grass for a moment before walking down the steps into the dusk.

  It was when he reached the bottom step that it occurred to him how very pleasant it would be to pass the vegetable patch on his walk to Hagrid’s. It was not strictly on the way, but it seemed clear to Harry that this was a whim on which he should act, so he directed his feet immediately toward the vegetable patch, where he was pleased, but not altogether surprised, to find Professor Slughorn in conversation with Professor Sprout. Harry lurked behind a low stone wall, feeling at peace with the world and listening to their conversation.

  “…I do thank you for taking the time, Pomona,” Slughorn was saying courteously, “most authorities agree that they are at their most efficacious if picked at twilight.”

  “Oh, I quite agree,” said Professor Sprout warmly. “That enough for you?”

  “Plenty, plenty,” said Slughorn, who, Harry saw, was carrying an armful of leafy plants. “This should allow for a few leaves for each of my third years, and some to spare if anybody over-stews them… Well, good evening to you, and many thanks again!”

  Professor Sprout headed off into the gathering darkness in the direction of her greenhouses, and Slughorn directed his steps to the spot where Harry stood, invisible.

  Seized with an immediate desire to reveal himself, Harry pulled off the cloak with a flourish.

  “Good evening, Professor.”

  “Merlin’s beard, Harry, you made me jump,” said Slughorn, stopping dead in his tracks and looking wary. “How did you get out of the castle?”

  “I think Filch must’ve forgotten to lock the doors,” said Harry cheerfully, and was delighted to see Slughorn scowl.

  “I’ll be reporting that man, he’s more concerned about litter than proper security if you ask me… But why are you out then, Harry?”

  “Well, sir, it’s Hagrid,” said Harry, who knew that the right thing to do just now was to tell the truth. “He’s pretty upset… But you won’t tell anyone, Professor? I don’t want trouble for him…”

  Slughorn’s curiosity was evidently aroused. “Well, I can’t promise that,” he said gruffly. “But I know that Dumbledore trusts Hagrid to the hilt, so I’m sure he can’t be up to anything very dreadful…”

  “Well, it’s this giant spider, he’s had it for years… It lived in the forest… It could talk and everything—”

  “I heard rumors there were Acromantula in the forest,” said Slughorn softly, looking over at the mass of black trees. “It’s true, then?”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “But this one, Aragog, the first one Hagrid ever got, it died last night. He’s devastated. He wants company while he buries it and I said I’d go.”

  “Touching, touching,” said Slughorn absentmindedly, his large droopy eyes fixed upon the distant lights of Hagrid’s cabin. “But Acromantula venom is very valuable… If the beast only just died it might not yet have dried out… Of course, I wouldn’t want to do anything insensitive if Hagrid is upset… but if there was any way to procure some… I mean, it’s almost impossible to get venom from an Acromantula while its alive…”

  Slughorn seemed to be talking more to himself than Harry now.

  “…seems an awful waste not to collect it… might get a hundred Galleons a pint… To be frank, my salary is not large…”

  And now Harry saw clearly what was to be done.

  “Well,” he said, with a most convincing hesitancy, “well, if you wanted to come, Professor, Hagrid would probably be really pleased… Give Aragog a better send-off, you know…”

  “Yes, of course,” said Slughorn, his eyes now gleaming with enthusiasm. “I tell you what, Harry, I’ll meet you down there with a bottle or two… We’ll drink the poor beast’s—well—not health—but we’ll send it off in style, anyway, once it’s buried. And I’ll change my tie, this one is a little exuberant for the occasion…”

  He bustled back into the castle, and Harry sped off to Hagrid’s, delighted with himself.

  “Yeh came,” croaked Hagrid, when he opened the door and saw Harry emerging from the Invisibility Cloak in front of him.

  “Yeah—Ron and Hermione couldn’t, though,” said Harry. “They’re really sorry.”

  “Don’—don’ matter… He’d’ve bin touched yeh’re here, though, Harry…”

  Hagrid gave a great sob. He had made himself a black armband out of what looked like a rag dipped in boot polish, and his eyes were puffy, red, and swollen. Harry patted him consolingly on the elbow, which was the highest point of Hagrid he could easily reach.

  “Where are we burying him?” he asked. “The forest?”

  “Blimey, no,” said Hagrid, wiping his streaming eyes on the bottom of his shirt. “The other spiders won’ let me anywhere near their webs now Aragog’s gone. Turns out it was only on his orders they didn’ eat me! Can yeh believe that, Harry?”

  The honest answer was “yes”; Harry recalled with painful ease the scene when he and Ron had come face-to-face with the acromantulas. They had been quite clear that Aragog was the only thing that stopped them from eating
Hagrid.

  “Never bin an area o’ the forest I couldn’ go before!” said Hagrid, shaking his head. “It wasn’ easy, gettin’ Aragog’s body out o’ there, I can tell yeh—they usually eat their dead, see… But I wanted ter give ’im a nice burial… a proper send-off…”

  He broke into sobs again and Harry resumed the patting of his elbow, saying as he did so (for the potion seemed to indicate that it was the right thing to do), “Professor Slughorn met me coming down here, Hagrid.”

  “Not in trouble, are yeh?” said Hagrid, looking up, alarmed. “Yeh shouldn’ be outta the castle in the evenin’, I know it, it’s my fault—”

  “No, no, when he heard what I was doing he said he’d like to come and pay his last respects to Aragog too,” said Harry. “He’s gone to change into something more suitable, I think… and he said he’d bring some bottles so we can drink to Aragog’s memory…”

  “Did he?” said Hagrid, looking both astonished and touched. “Tha’s—tha’s righ’ nice of him, that is, an’ not turnin’ yeh in either. I’ve never really had a lot ter do with Horace Slughorn before… Comin’ ter see old Aragog off, though, eh? Well… he’d’ve liked that, Aragog would…”

  Harry thought privately that what Aragog would have liked most about Slughorn was the ample amount of edible flesh he provided, but he merely moved to the rear window of Hagrid’s hut, where he saw the rather horrible sight of the enormous dead spider lying on its back outside, its legs curled and tangled.

  “Are we going to bury him here, Hagrid, in your garden?”

  “Jus’ beyond the pumpkin patch, I thought,” said Hagrid in a choked voice. “I’ve already dug the—yeh know—grave. Jus’ thought we’d say a few nice things over him—happy memories, yeh know—”

  His voice quivered and broke. There was a knock on the door, and he turned to answer it, blowing his nose on his great spotted handkerchief as he did so. Slughorn hurried over the threshold, several bottles in his arms, and wearing a somber black cravat.

  “Hagrid,” he said, in a deep, grave voice. “So very sorry to hear of your loss.”

  “Tha’s very nice of yeh,” said Hagrid. “Thanks a lot. An’ thanks fer not givin’ Harry detention neither…”