The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  The door creaked open. There on the threshold, holding an old-fashioned lamp, stood a boy Harry recognised at once: tall, pale, dark-haired and handsome – the teenage Voldemort.

  Voldemort’s eyes moved slowly around the hovel and then found the man in the armchair. For a few seconds they looked at each other, then the man staggered upright, the many empty bottles at his feet clattering and tinkling across the floor.

  ‘YOU!’ he bellowed. ‘YOU!’

  And he hurtled drunkenly at Riddle, wand and knife held aloft.

  ‘Stop.’

  Riddle spoke in Parseltongue. The man skidded into the table, sending mouldy pots crashing to the floor. He stared at Riddle. There was a long silence while they contemplated each other. The man broke it.

  ‘You speak it?’

  ‘Yes, I speak it,’ said Riddle. He moved forwards into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Harry could not help but feel a resentful admiration for Voldemort’s complete lack of fear. His face merely expressed disgust and, perhaps, disappointment.

  ‘Where is Marvolo?’ he asked.

  ‘Dead,’ said the other. ‘Died years ago, didn’t he?’

  Riddle frowned.

  ‘Who are you, then?’

  ‘I’m Morfin, ain’t I?’

  ‘Marvolo’s son?’

  ‘Course I am, then …’

  Morfin pushed the hair out of his dirty face, the better to see Riddle, and Harry saw that he wore Marvolo’s black-stoned ring on his right hand.

  ‘I thought you was that Muggle,’ whispered Morfin. ‘You look mighty like that Muggle.’

  ‘What Muggle?’ said Riddle sharply.

  ‘That Muggle what my sister took a fancy to, that Muggle what lives in the big house over the way,’ said Morfin, and he spat unexpectedly upon the floor between them. ‘You look right like him. Riddle. But he’s older now, i’n ’e? He’s older’n you, now I think on it …’

  Morfin looked slightly dazed and swayed a little, still clutching the edge of the table for support.

  ‘He come back, see,’ he added stupidly.

  Voldemort was gazing at Morfin, as though appraising his possibilities. Now he moved a little closer and said, ‘Riddle came back?’

  ‘Ar, he left her, and serve her right, marrying filth!’ said Morfin, spitting on the floor again. ‘Robbed us, mind, before she ran off! Where’s the locket, eh, where’s Slytherin’s locket?’

  Voldemort did not answer. Morfin was working himself into a rage again; he brandished his knife and shouted, ‘Dishonoured us, she did, that little slut! And who’re you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It’s over, innit … it’s over …’

  He looked away, staggering slightly, and Voldemort moved forwards. As he did so, an unnatural darkness fell, extinguishing Voldemort’s lamp and Morfin’s candle, extinguishing everything …

  Dumbledore’s fingers closed tightly around Harry’s arm and they were soaring back into the present again. The soft golden light in Dumbledore’s office seemed to dazzle Harry’s eyes after that impenetrable darkness.

  ‘Is that all?’ said Harry at once. ‘Why did it go dark, what happened?’

  ‘Because Morfin could not remember anything from that point onwards,’ said Dumbledore, gesturing Harry back into his seat. ‘When he awoke next morning, he was lying on the floor, quite alone. Marvolo’s ring had gone.

  ‘Meanwhile, in the village of Little Hangleton, a maid was running along the high street, screaming that there were three bodies lying in the drawing room of the big house: Tom Riddle Senior, and his mother and father.

  ‘The Muggle authorities were perplexed. As far as I am aware, they do not know to this day how the Riddles died, for the Avada Kedavra Curse does not usually leave any sign of damage … the exception sits before me,’ Dumbledore added, with a nod to Harry’s scar. ‘The Ministry, on the other hand, knew at once that this was a wizard’s murder. They also knew that a convicted Muggle-hater lived across the valley from the Riddle house, a Muggle-hater who had already been imprisoned once for attacking one of the murdered people.

  ‘So the Ministry called upon Morfin. They did not need to question him, to use Veritaserum or Legilimency. He admitted to the murder on the spot, giving details only the murderer could know. He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years. He handed over his wand, which was proved at once to have been used to kill the Riddles. And he permitted himself to be led off to Azkaban without a fight. All that disturbed him was the fact that his father’s ring had disappeared. “He’ll kill me for losing it,” he told his captors, over and over again. “He’ll kill me for losing his ring.” And that, apparently, was all he ever said again. He lived out the remainder of his life in Azkaban, lamenting the loss of Marvolo’s last heirloom, and is buried beside the prison alongside the other poor souls who have expired within its walls.’

  ‘So Voldemort stole Morfin’s wand and used it?’ said Harry, sitting up straight.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dumbledore. ‘We have no memories to show us this, but I think we can be fairly sure what happened. Voldemort Stupefied his uncle, took his wand, and proceeded across the valley to “the big house over the way”. There he murdered the Muggle man who had abandoned his witch mother, and, for good measure, his Muggle grandparents, thus obliterating the last of the unworthy Riddle line and revenging himself upon the father who never wanted him. Then he returned to the Gaunt hovel, performed the complex bit of magic that would implant a false memory in his uncle’s mind, laid Morfin’s wand beside its unconscious owner, pocketed the ancient ring he wore and departed.’

  ‘And Morfin never realised he hadn’t done it?’

  ‘Never,’ said Dumbledore. ‘He gave, as I say, a full and boastful confession.’

  ‘But he had this real memory in him all the time!’

  ‘Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him,’ said Dumbledore, ‘and why should anybody delve further into Morfin’s mind when he had already confessed to the crime? However, I was able to secure a visit to Morfin in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort’s past. I extracted this memory with difficulty. When I saw what it contained, I attempted to use it to secure Morfin’s release from Azkaban. Before the Ministry reached their decision, however, Morfin had died.’

  ‘But how come the Ministry didn’t realise that Voldemort had done all that to Morfin?’ Harry asked angrily. ‘He was under age at the time, wasn’t he? I thought they could detect under-age magic!’

  ‘You are quite right – they can detect magic, but not the perpetrator: you will remember that you were blamed by the Ministry for the Hover Charm that was, in fact, cast by –’

  ‘Dobby,’ growled Harry; this injustice still rankled. ‘So if you’re under age and you do magic inside an adult witch or wizard’s house, the Ministry won’t know?’

  ‘They will certainly be unable to tell who performed the magic,’ said Dumbledore, smiling slightly at the look of great indignation on Harry’s face. ‘They rely on witch and wizard parents to enforce their offspring’s obedience while within their walls.’

  ‘Well, that’s rubbish,’ snapped Harry. ‘Look what happened here, look what happened to Morfin!’

  ‘I agree,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Whatever Morfin was, he did not deserve to die as he did, blamed for murders he had not committed. But it is getting late, and I want you to see this other memory before we part …’

  Dumbledore took from an inside pocket another crystal phial and Harry fell silent at once, remembering that Dumbledore had said it was the most important one he had collected. Harry noticed that the contents proved difficult to empty into the Pensieve, as though they had congealed slightly; did memories go off?

  ‘This will not take long,’ said Dumbledore, when he had finally emptied the phial. ‘We shall be back before you know it. Once more into the Pensieve,
then …’

  And Harry fell again through the silver surface, landing this time right in front of a man he recognised at once.

  It was a much younger Horace Slughorn. Harry was so used to him bald that he found the sight of Slughorn with thick, shiny, straw-coloured hair quite disconcerting; it looked as though he had had his head thatched, though there was already a shiny Galleon-sized bald patch on his crown. His moustache, less massive than it was these days, was gingery-blond. He was not quite as rotund as the Slughorn Harry knew, though the golden buttons on his richly embroidered waistcoat were taking a fair amount of strain. His little feet resting upon a velvet pouffe, he was sitting well back in a comfortable winged armchair, one hand grasping a small glass of wine, the other searching through a box of crystallised pineapple.

  Harry looked around as Dumbledore appeared beside him and saw that they were standing in Slughorn’s office. Half a dozen boys were sitting around Slughorn, all on harder or lower seats than his, and all in their mid-teens. Harry recognised Riddle at once. His was the most handsome face and he looked the most relaxed of all the boys. His right hand lay negligently upon the arm of his chair; with a jolt, Harry saw that he was wearing Marvolo’s gold and black ring; he had already killed his father.

  ‘Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?’ Riddle asked.

  ‘Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn’t tell you,’ said Slughorn, wagging a reproving, sugar-covered finger at Riddle, though ruining the effect slightly by winking. ‘I must say, I’d like to know where you get your information, boy; more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are.’

  Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.

  ‘What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn’t, and your careful flattery of the people who matter – thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you’re quite right, it is my favourite –’

  As several of the boys tittered, something very odd happened. The whole room was suddenly filled with a thick white fog, so that Harry could see nothing but the face of Dumbledore, who was standing beside him. Then Slughorn’s voice rang out through the mist, unnaturally loudly: ‘– you’ll go wrong, boy, mark my words.’

  The fog cleared as suddenly as it had appeared and yet nobody made any allusion to it, nor did anybody look as though anything unusual had just happened. Bewildered, Harry looked around as a small golden clock standing upon Slughorn’s desk chimed eleven o’clock.

  ‘Good gracious, is it that time already?’ said Slughorn. ‘You’d better get going, boys, or we’ll all be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it’s detention. Same goes for you, Avery.’

  Slughorn pulled himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk as the boys filed out. Riddle, however, stayed behind. Harry could tell he had dawdled deliberately, wanting to be last in the room with Slughorn.

  ‘Look sharp, Tom,’ said Slughorn, turning round and finding him still present. ‘You don’t want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect …’

  ‘Sir, I wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘Ask away, then, m’boy, ask away …’

  ‘Sir, I wondered what you know about … about Horcruxes?’

  And it happened all over again: the dense fog filled the room so that Harry could not see Slughorn or Riddle at all; only Dumbledore, smiling serenely beside him. Then Slughorn’s voice boomed out again, just as it had done before.

  ‘I don’t know anything about Horcruxes and I wouldn’t tell you if I did! Now get out of here at once and don’t let me catch you mentioning them again!’

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said Dumbledore placidly beside Harry. ‘Time to go.’

  And Harry’s feet left the floor to fall, seconds later, back on to the rug in front of Dumbledore’s desk.

  ‘That’s all there is?’ said Harry blankly.

  Dumbledore had said that this was the most important memory of all, but he could not see what was so significant about it. Admittedly the fog, and the fact that nobody seemed to have noticed it, was odd, but other than that nothing seemed to have happened except that Riddle had asked a question and failed to get an answer.

  ‘As you might have noticed,’ said Dumbledore, reseating himself behind his desk, ‘that memory has been tampered with.’

  ‘Tampered with?’ repeated Harry, sitting back down too.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Dumbledore, ‘Professor Slughorn has meddled with his own recollections.’

  ‘But why would he do that?’

  ‘Because, I think, he is ashamed of what he remembers,’ said Dumbledore. ‘He has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations.

  ‘And so, for the first time, I am giving you homework, Harry. It will be your job to persuade Professor Slughorn to divulge the real memory, which will undoubtedly be our most crucial piece of information of all.’

  Harry stared at him.

  ‘But surely, sir,’ he said, keeping his voice as respectful as possible, ‘you don’t need me – you could use Legilimency … or Veritaserum …’

  ‘Professor Slughorn is an extremely able wizard who will be expecting both,’ said Dumbledore. ‘He is much more accomplished at Occlumency than poor Morfin Gaunt, and I would be astonished if he has not carried an antidote to Veritaserum with him ever since I coerced him into giving me this travesty of a recollection.

  ‘No, I think it would be foolish to attempt to wrest the truth from Professor Slughorn by force, and might do much more harm than good; I do not wish him to leave Hogwarts. However, he has his weaknesses like the rest of us and I believe that you are the one person who might be able to penetrate his defences. It is most important that we secure the true memory, Harry … how important, we will only know when we have seen the real thing. So, good luck … and goodnight.’

  A little taken aback by the abrupt dismissal, Harry got to his feet quickly.

  ‘Goodnight, sir.’

  As he closed the study door behind him, he distinctly heard Phineas Nigellus say, ‘I can’t see why the boy should be able to do it better than you, Dumbledore.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to, Phineas,’ replied Dumbledore, and Fawkes gave another low, musical cry.

  — CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —

  Birthday Surprises

  The next day Harry confided in both Ron and Hermione the task that Dumbledore had set him, though separately, for Hermione still refused to remain in Ron’s presence longer than it took to give him a contemptuous look.

  Ron thought that Harry was unlikely to have any trouble with Slughorn at all.

  ‘He loves you,’ he said over breakfast, waving an airy forkful of fried egg. ‘Won’t refuse you anything, will he? Not his little Potions Prince. Just hang back after class this afternoon and ask him.’

  Hermione, however, took a gloomier view.

  ‘He must be determined to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn’t get it out of him,’ she said in a low voice, as they stood in the deserted, snowy courtyard at break. ‘Horcruxes … Horcruxes … I’ve never even heard of them …’

  ‘You haven’t?’

  Harry was disappointed; he had hoped that Hermione might have been able to give him a clue as to what Horcruxes were.

  ‘They must be really advanced Dark magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about them? I think it’s going to be difficult to get the information, Harry, you’ll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy …’

  ‘Ron reckons I should just hang back after Potions this afternoon …’

  ‘Oh, well, if Won-Won thinks that, you’d better do it,’ she said, flaring up at once. ‘After all, when has Won-Won’s judgement ever been faulty?’

  ‘Hermione, can’t you –’
<
br />   ‘No!’ she said angrily, and stormed away, leaving Harry alone and ankle-deep in snow.

  Potions lessons were uncomfortable enough these days, seeing as Harry, Ron and Hermione had to share a desk. Today, Hermione moved her cauldron around the table so that she was close to Ernie, and ignored both Harry and Ron.

  ‘What’ve you done?’ Ron muttered to Harry, looking at Hermione’s haughty profile.

  But before Harry could answer, Slughorn was calling for silence from the front of the room.

  ‘Settle down, settle down, please! Quickly, now, lots of work to get through this afternoon! Golpalott’s Third Law … who can tell me –? But Miss Granger can, of course!’

  Hermione recited at top speed: ‘Golpalott’s-Third-Law-states-that-the-antidote-for-a-blended-poison-will-be-equal-to-more-than-the-sum-of-the-antidotes-for-each-of-the-separate-components.’

  ‘Precisely!’ beamed Slughorn. ‘Ten points for Gryffindor! Now, if we accept Golpalott’s Third Law as true …’

  Harry was going to have to take Slughorn’s word for it that Golpalott’s Third Law was true, because he had not understood any of it. Nobody apart from Hermione seemed to be following what Slughorn said next, either.

  ‘… which means, of course, that assuming we have achieved correct identification of the potion’s ingredients by Scarpin’s Revelaspell, our primary aim is not the relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component which will, by an almost alchemical process, transform these disparate elements –’

  Ron was sitting beside Harry with his mouth half-open, doodling absently on his new copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Ron kept forgetting that he could no longer rely on Hermione to help him out of trouble when he failed to grasp what was going on.

  ‘… and so,’ finished Slughorn, ‘I want each of you to come and take one of these phials from my desk. You are to create an antidote for the poison within it before the end of the lesson. Good luck, and don’t forget your protective gloves!’