The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  The house-elf returned within minutes, followed by a tall young man Harry had no difficulty whatsoever in recognising as Voldemort. He was plainly dressed in a black suit; his hair was a little longer than it had been at school and his cheeks were hollowed, but all of this suited him: he looked more handsome than ever. He picked his way through the cramped room with an air that showed he had visited many times before and bowed low over Hepzibah’s fat little hand, brushing it with his lips.

  ‘I brought you flowers,’ he said quietly, producing a bunch of roses from nowhere.

  ‘You naughty boy, you shouldn’t have!’ squealed old Hepzibah, though Harry noticed that she had an empty vase standing ready on the nearest little table. ‘You do spoil this old lady, Tom … sit down, sit down … where’s Hokey … ah …’

  The house-elf had come dashing back into the room carrying a tray of little cakes, which she set at her mistress’s elbow.

  ‘Help yourself, Tom,’ said Hepzibah, ‘I know how you love my cakes. Now, how are you? You look pale. They overwork you at that shop, I’ve said it a hundred times …’

  Voldemort smiled mechanically and Hepzibah simpered.

  ‘Well, what’s your excuse for visiting this time?’ she asked, batting her lashes.

  ‘Mr Burke would like to make an improved offer for the goblin-made armour,’ said Voldemort. ‘Five hundred Galleons, he feels it is a more than fair –’

  ‘Now, now, not so fast, or I’ll think you’re only here for my trinkets!’ pouted Hepzibah.

  ‘I am ordered here because of them,’ said Voldemort quietly. ‘I am only a poor assistant, madam, who must do as he is told. Mr Burke wishes me to enquire –’

  ‘Oh, Mr Burke, phooey!’ said Hepzibah, waving a little hand. ‘I’ve something to show you that I’ve never shown Mr Burke! Can you keep a secret, Tom? Will you promise you won’t tell Mr Burke I’ve got it? He’d never let me rest if he knew I’d shown it to you, and I’m not selling, not to Burke, not to anyone! But you, Tom, you’ll appreciate it for its history, not how many Galleons you can get for it …’

  ‘I’d be glad to see anything Miss Hepzibah shows me,’ said Voldemort quietly, and Hepzibah gave another girlish giggle.

  ‘I had Hokey bring it out for me … Hokey, where are you? I want to show Mr Riddle our finest treasure … in fact, bring both, while you’re at it …’

  ‘Here, madam,’ squeaked the house-elf, and Harry saw two leather boxes, one on top of the other, moving across the room as if of their own volition, though he knew the tiny elf was holding them over her head as she wended her way between tables, pouffes and footstools.

  ‘Now,’ said Hepzibah happily, taking the boxes from the elf, laying them in her lap and preparing to open the topmost one, ‘I think you’ll like this, Tom … oh, if my family knew I was showing you … they can’t wait to get their hands on this!’

  She opened the lid. Harry edged forwards a little to get a better view and saw what looked like a small golden cup with two finely wrought handles.

  ‘I wonder whether you know what it is, Tom? Pick it up, have a good look!’ whispered Hepzibah, and Voldemort stretched out a long-fingered hand and lifted the cup by one handle out of its snug silken wrappings. Harry thought he saw a red gleam in his dark eyes. His greedy expression was curiously mirrored on Hepzibah’s face, except that her tiny eyes were fixed upon Voldemort’s handsome features.

  ‘A badger,’ murmured Voldemort, examining the engraving upon the cup. ‘Then this was …?’

  ‘Helga Hufflepuff’s, as you very well know, you clever boy!’ said Hepzibah, leaning forwards with a loud creaking of corsets and actually pinching his hollow cheek. ‘Didn’t I tell you I was distantly descended? This has been handed down in the family for years and years. Lovely, isn’t it? And all sorts of powers it’s supposed to possess, too, but I haven’t tested them thoroughly, I just keep it nice and safe in here …’

  She hooked the cup back off Voldemort’s long forefinger and restored it gently to its box, too intent upon settling it carefully back into position to notice the shadow that crossed Voldemort’s face as the cup was taken away.

  ‘Now then,’ said Hepzibah happily, ‘where’s Hokey? Oh yes, there you are – take that away now, Hokey –’

  The elf obediently took the boxed cup, and Hepzibah turned her attention to the much flatter box in her lap.

  ‘I think you’ll like this even more, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘Lean in a little, dear boy, so you can see … of course, Burke knows I’ve got this one, I bought it from him, and I daresay he’d love to get it back when I’m gone …’

  She slid back the fine, filigree clasp and flipped open the box. There upon the smooth crimson velvet lay a heavy golden locket.

  Voldemort reached out his hand without invitation this time and held it up to the light, staring at it.

  ‘Slytherin’s mark,’ he said quietly, as the light played upon an ornate, serpentine S.

  ‘That’s right!’ said Hepzibah, delighted, apparently, at the sight of Voldemort gazing at her locket, transfixed. ‘I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn’t let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value –’

  There was no mistaking it this time: Voldemort’s eyes flashed scarlet at her words and Harry saw his knuckles whiten on the locket’s chain.

  ‘– I daresay Burke paid her a pittance, but there you are … pretty, isn’t it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe …’

  She reached out to take the locket back. For a moment Harry thought Voldemort was not going to let go of it, but then it had slid through his fingers and was back on its red velvet cushion.

  ‘So there you are, Tom, dear, and I hope you enjoyed that!’

  She looked him full in the face and, for the first time, Harry saw her foolish smile falter.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Voldemort quietly. ‘Yes, I’m very well …’

  ‘I thought – but a trick of the light, I suppose –’ said Hepzibah, looking unnerved, and Harry guessed that she, too, had seen the momentary red gleam in Voldemort’s eyes. ‘Here, Hokey, take these away and lock them up again … the usual enchantments …’

  ‘Time to leave, Harry,’ said Dumbledore quietly, and as the little elf bobbed away bearing the boxes, Dumbledore grasped Harry once again above the elbow and together they rose up through oblivion and back to Dumbledore’s office.

  ‘Hepzibah Smith died two days after that little scene,’ said Dumbledore, resuming his seat and indicating that Harry should do the same. ‘Hokey the house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress’s evening cocoa by accident.’

  ‘No way!’ said Harry angrily.

  ‘I see we are of one mind,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Certainly, there are many similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death –’

  ‘Hokey confessed?’

  ‘She remembered putting something in her mistress’s cocoa that turned out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison,’ said Dumbledore. ‘It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused –’

  ‘Voldemort modified her memory, just like he did with Morfin!’

  ‘Yes, that is my conclusion, too,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And, just as with Morfin, the Ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey –’

  ‘– because she was a house-elf,’ said Harry. He had rarely felt more in sympathy with the society Hermione had set up, S.P.E.W.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Dumbledore. ‘She was old, she admitted to having tampered with the drink and nobody at the Ministry bothered to enquire further. As in the case of Morfin, by the time I traced her and managed to extract this memory, her life was almost over – but
her memory, of course, proves nothing except that Voldemort knew of the existence of the cup and the locket.

  ‘By the time Hokey was convicted, Hepzibah’s family had realised that two of her greatest treasures were missing. It took them a while to be sure of this, for she had many hiding places, having always guarded her collection most jealously. But before they were sure beyond doubt that the cup and the locket were both gone, the assistant who had worked at Borgin and Burkes, the young man who had visited Hepzibah so regularly and charmed her so well, had resigned his post and vanished. His superiors had no idea where he had gone; they were as surprised as anyone at his disappearance. And that was the last that was seen or heard of Tom Riddle for a very long time.

  ‘Now,’ said Dumbledore, ‘if you don’t mind, Harry, I want to pause once more to draw your attention to certain points of our story. Voldemort had committed another murder; whether it was his first since he killed the Riddles, I do not know, but I think it was. This time, as you will have seen, he killed not for revenge, but for gain. He wanted the two fabulous trophies that poor, besotted old woman showed him. Just as he had once robbed the other children at his orphanage, just as he had stolen his uncle Morfin’s ring, so he ran off now with Hepzibah’s cup and locket.’

  ‘But,’ said Harry, frowning, ‘it seems mad … risking everything, throwing away his job, just for those …’

  ‘Mad to you, perhaps, but not to Voldemort,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I hope you will understand in due course exactly what those objects meant to him, Harry, but you must admit that it is not difficult to imagine that he saw the locket, at least, as rightfully his.’

  ‘The locket maybe,’ said Harry, ‘but why take the cup as well?’

  ‘It had belonged to another of Hogwarts’ founders,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I think he still felt a great pull towards the school and that he could not resist an object so steeped in Hogwarts’ history. There were other reasons, I think … I hope to be able to demonstrate them to you, in due course.

  ‘And now for the very last recollection I have to show you, at least until you manage to retrieve Professor Slughorn’s memory for us. Ten years separate Hokey’s memory and this one, ten years during which we can only guess at what Lord Voldemort was doing …’

  Harry got to his feet once more as Dumbledore emptied the last memory into the Pensieve.

  ‘Whose memory is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Mine,’ said Dumbledore.

  And Harry dived after Dumbledore through the shifting silver mass, landing in the very office he had just left. There was Fawkes, slumbering happily on his perch, and there, behind the desk, was Dumbledore, who looked very similar to the Dumbledore standing beside Harry, though both hands were whole and undamaged and his face was, perhaps, a little less lined. The one difference between the present-day office and this one was that it was snowing in the past; bluish flecks were drifting past the window in the dark and building up on the outside ledge.

  The younger Dumbledore seemed to be waiting for something, and sure enough, moments after their arrival, there was a knock on the door and he said, ‘Enter.’

  Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years before; they were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.

  The Dumbledore behind the desk showed no sign of surprise. Evidently this visit had been made by appointment.

  ‘Good evening, Tom,’ said Dumbledore easily. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Voldemort, and he took the seat to which Dumbledore had gestured – the very seat, by the looks of it, that Harry had just vacated in the present. ‘I heard that you had become Headmaster,’ he said, and his voice was slightly higher and colder than it had been. ‘A worthy choice.’

  ‘I am glad you approve,’ said Dumbledore, smiling. ‘May I offer you a drink?’

  ‘That would be welcome,’ said Voldemort. ‘I have come a long way.’

  Dumbledore stood and swept over to the cabinet where he now kept the Pensieve, but which then was full of bottles. Having handed Voldemort a goblet of wine and poured one for himself, he returned to the seat behind his desk.

  ‘So, Tom … to what do I owe the pleasure?’

  Voldemort did not answer at once, but merely sipped his wine.

  ‘They do not call me “Tom” any more,’ he said. ‘These days, I am known as –’

  ‘I know what you are known as,’ said Dumbledore, smiling pleasantly. ‘But to me, I’m afraid, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers, I am afraid, that they never quite forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.’

  He raised his glass as though toasting Voldemort, whose face remained expressionless. Nevertheless, Harry felt the atmosphere in the room change subtly: Dumbledore’s refusal to use Voldemort’s chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such.

  ‘I am surprised you have remained here so long,’ said Voldemort after a short pause. ‘I always wondered why a wizard such as yourself never wished to leave school.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dumbledore, still smiling, ‘to a wizard such as myself, there can be nothing more important than passing on ancient skills, helping hone young minds. If I remember correctly, you once saw the attraction of teaching, too.’

  ‘I see it still,’ said Voldemort. ‘I merely wondered why you – who is so often asked for advice by the Ministry, and who has twice, I think, been offered the post of Minister –’

  ‘Three times at the last count, actually,’ said Dumbledore. ‘But the Ministry never attracted me as a career. Again, something we have in common, I think.’

  Voldemort inclined his head, unsmiling, and took another sip of wine. Dumbledore did not break the silence that stretched between them now, but waited, with a look of pleasant expectancy, for Voldemort to talk first.

  ‘I have returned,’ he said, after a little while, ‘later, perhaps, than Professor Dippet expected … but I have returned, nevertheless, to request again what he once told me I was too young to have. I have come to you to ask that you permit me to return to this castle, to teach. I think you must know that I have seen and done much since I left this place. I could show and tell your students things they can gain from no other wizard.’

  Dumbledore considered Voldemort over the top of his own goblet for a while before speaking.

  ‘Yes, I certainly do know that you have seen and done much since leaving us,’ he said quietly. ‘Rumours of your doings have reached your old school, Tom. I should be sorry to believe half of them.’

  Voldemort’s expression remained impassive as he said, ‘Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies. You must know this, Dumbledore.’

  ‘You call it “greatness”, what you have been doing, do you?’ asked Dumbledore delicately.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to burn red. ‘I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed –’

  ‘Of some kinds of magic,’ Dumbledore corrected him quietly. ‘Of some. Of others, you remain … forgive me … woefully ignorant.’

  For the first time, Voldemort smiled. It was a taut leer, an evil thing, more threatening than a look of rage.

  ‘The old argument,’ he said softly. ‘But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore.’

  ‘Perhaps you have been looking in the wro
ng places,’ suggested Dumbledore.

  ‘Well, then, what better place to start my fresh researches than here, at Hogwarts?’ said Voldemort. ‘Will you let me return? Will you let me share my knowledge with your students? I place myself and my talents at your disposal. I am yours to command.’

  Dumbledore raised his eyebrows.

  ‘And what will become of those whom you command? What will happen to those who call themselves – or so rumour has it – the Death Eaters?’

  Harry could tell that Voldemort had not expected Dumbledore to know this name; he saw Voldemort’s eyes flash red again and the slitlike nostrils flare.

  ‘My friends,’ he said, after a moment’s pause, ‘will carry on without me, I am sure.’

  ‘I am glad to hear that you consider them friends,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said Voldemort.

  ‘Then if I were to go to the Hog’s Head tonight, I would not find a group of them – Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Dolohov – awaiting your return? Devoted friends indeed, to travel this far with you on a snowy night, merely to wish you luck as you attempted to secure a teaching post.’

  There could be no doubt that Dumbledore’s detailed knowledge of those with whom he was travelling was even less welcome to Voldemort; however, he rallied almost at once.

  ‘You are omniscient as ever, Dumbledore.’

  ‘Oh, no, merely friendly with the local barmen,’ said Dumbledore lightly. ‘Now, Tom …’

  Dumbledore set down his empty glass and drew himself up in his seat, the tips of his fingers together in a very characteristic gesture.

  ‘… let us speak openly. Why have you come here tonight, surrounded by henchmen, to request a job we both know you do not want?’

  Voldemort looked coldly surprised.

  ‘A job I do not want? On the contrary, Dumbledore, I want it very much.’