The Half-Blood Prince Read online

‘Oh, you want to come back to Hogwarts, but you do not want to teach any more than you wanted to when you were eighteen. What is it you’re after, Tom? Why not try an open request for once?’

  Voldemort sneered.

  ‘If you do not want to give me a job –’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And I don’t think for a moment you expected me to. Nevertheless, you came here, you asked, you must have had a purpose.’

  Voldemort stood up. He looked less like Tom Riddle than ever, his features thick with rage.

  ‘This is your final word?’

  ‘It is,’ said Dumbledore, also standing.

  ‘Then we have nothing more to say to each other.’

  ‘No, nothing,’ said Dumbledore, and a great sadness filled his face. ‘The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom … I wish I could …’

  For a second, Harry was on the verge of shouting a pointless warning: he was sure that Voldemort’s hand had twitched towards his pocket and his wand; but then the moment had passed, Voldemort had turned away, the door was closing and he was gone.

  Harry felt Dumbledore’s hand close over his arm again, and moments later, they were standing together on almost the same spot, but there was no snow building on the window-ledge, and Dumbledore’s hand was blackened and dead-looking once more.

  ‘Why?’ said Harry at once, looking up into Dumbledore’s face. ‘Why did he come back? Did you ever find out?’

  ‘I have ideas,’ said Dumbledore, ‘but no more than that.’

  ‘What ideas, sir?’

  ‘I shall tell you, Harry, when you have retrieved that memory from Professor Slughorn,’ said Dumbledore. ‘When you have that last piece of the jigsaw, everything will, I hope, be clear … to both of us.’

  Harry was still burning with curiosity, and even though Dumbledore had walked to the door and was holding it open for him, he did not move at once.

  ‘Was he after the Defence Against the Dark Arts job again, sir? He didn’t say …’

  ‘Oh, he definitely wanted the Defence Against the Dark Arts job,’ said Dumbledore. ‘The aftermath of our little meeting proved that. You see, we have never been able to keep a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for longer than a year since I refused the post to Lord Voldemort.’

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE —

  The Unknowable Room

  Harry racked his brains over the next week as to how he was to persuade Slughorn to hand over the true memory, but nothing in the nature of a brainwave occurred and he was reduced to doing what he did increasingly these days when at a loss: poring over his Potions book, hoping that the Prince would have scribbled something useful in a margin, as he had done so many times before.

  ‘You won’t find anything in there,’ said Hermione firmly, late on Sunday evening.

  ‘Don’t start, Hermione,’ said Harry. ‘If it hadn’t been for the Prince, Ron wouldn’t be sitting here now.’

  ‘He would if you’d just listened to Snape in our first year,’ said Hermione dismissively.

  Harry ignored her. He had just found an incantation (Sectumsempra!) scrawled in a margin above the intriguing words ‘For Enemies’, and was itching to try it out, but thought it best not to in front of Hermione. Instead, he surreptitiously folded down the corner of the page.

  They were sitting beside the fire in the common room; the only other people still up were fellow sixth-years. There had been a certain amount of excitement earlier when they had come back from dinner to find a new sign on the noticeboard that announced the date for their Apparition test. Those who would be seventeen on or before the first test date, the twenty-first of April, had the option of signing up for additional practice sessions, which would take place (heavily supervised) in Hogsmeade.

  Ron had panicked on reading this notice; he had still not managed to Apparate and feared he would not be ready for the test. Hermione, who had now achieved Apparition twice, was a little more confident, but Harry, who would not be seventeen for another four months, could not take the test whether ready or not.

  ‘At least you can Apparate, though!’ said Ron tensely. ‘You’ll have no trouble come July!’

  ‘I’ve only done it once,’ Harry reminded him; he had finally managed to disappear and rematerialise inside his hoop during their previous lesson.

  Having wasted a lot of time worrying aloud about Apparition, Ron was now struggling to finish a viciously difficult essay for Snape that Harry and Hermione had already completed. Harry fully expected to receive low marks on his, because he had disagreed with Snape on the best way to tackle Dementors, but he did not care: Slughorn’s memory was the most important thing to him now.

  ‘I’m telling you, the stupid Prince isn’t going to be able to help you with this, Harry!’ said Hermione, more loudly. ‘There’s only one way to force someone to do what you want, and that’s the Imperius Curse, which is illegal –’

  ‘Yeah, I know that, thanks,’ said Harry, not looking up from the book. ‘That’s why I’m looking for something different. Dumbledore says Veritaserum won’t do it, but there might be something else, a potion or a spell …’

  ‘You’re going about it the wrong way,’ said Hermione. ‘Only you can get the memory, Dumbledore says. That must mean you can persuade Slughorn where other people can’t. It’s not a question of slipping him a potion, anyone could do that –’

  ‘How d’you spell “belligerent”?’ said Ron, shaking his quill very hard while staring at his parchment. ‘It can’t be B – U – M –’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Hermione, pulling Ron’s essay towards her. ‘And “augury” doesn’t begin O – R – G either. What kind of quill are you using?’

  ‘It’s one of Fred and George’s Spell-Checking ones … but I think the charm must be wearing off …’

  ‘Yes, it must,’ said Hermione, pointing at the title of his essay, ‘because we were asked how we’d deal with Dementors, not “Dugbogs”, and I don’t remember you changing your name to “Roonil Wazlib”, either.’

  ‘Ah, no!’ said Ron, staring horror-struck at the parchment. ‘Don’t say I’ll have to write the whole thing out again!’

  ‘It’s OK, we can fix it,’ said Hermione, pulling the essay towards her and taking out her wand.

  ‘I love you, Hermione,’ said Ron, sinking back in his chair, rubbing his eyes wearily.

  Hermione turned faintly pink, but merely said, ‘Don’t let Lavender hear you saying that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Ron into his hands. ‘Or maybe I will … then she’ll ditch me …’

  ‘Why don’t you ditch her if you want to finish it?’ asked Harry.

  ‘You haven’t ever chucked anyone, have you?’ said Ron. ‘You and Cho just –’

  ‘Sort of fell apart, yeah,’ said Harry.

  ‘Wish that would happen with me and Lavender,’ said Ron gloomily, watching Hermione silently tapping each of his misspelled words with the end of her wand, so that they corrected themselves on the page. ‘But the more I hint I want to finish it, the tighter she holds on. It’s like going out with the Giant Squid.’

  ‘There,’ said Hermione, some twenty minutes later, handing back Ron’s essay.

  ‘Thanks a million,’ said Ron. ‘Can I borrow your quill for the conclusion?’

  Harry, who had found nothing useful in the Half-Blood Prince’s notes so far, looked around; the three of them were now the only ones left in the common room, Seamus having just gone up to bed cursing Snape and his essay. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and Ron scratching out one last paragraph on Dementors using Hermione’s quill. Harry had just closed the Half-Blood Prince’s book, yawning, when –

  Crack.

  Hermione let out a little shriek; Ron spilled ink all over his essay and Harry said, ‘Kreacher!’

  The house-elf bowed low and addressed his own gnarled toes.

  ‘Master sai
d he wanted regular reports on what the Malfoy boy is doing so Kreacher has come to give –’

  Crack.

  Dobby appeared alongside Kreacher, his tea-cosy hat askew.

  ‘Dobby has been helping too, Harry Potter!’ he squeaked, casting Kreacher a resentful look. ‘And Kreacher ought to tell Dobby when he is coming to see Harry Potter so they can make their reports together!’

  ‘What is this?’ asked Hermione, still looking shocked by these sudden appearances. ‘What’s going on, Harry?’

  Harry hesitated before answering, because he had not told Hermione about setting Kreacher and Dobby to tail Malfoy; house-elves were always such a touchy subject with her.

  ‘Well … they’ve been following Malfoy for me,’ he said.

  ‘Night and day,’ croaked Kreacher.

  ‘Dobby has not slept for a week, Harry Potter!’ said Dobby proudly, swaying where he stood.

  Hermione looked indignant.

  ‘You haven’t slept, Dobby? But surely, Harry, you didn’t tell him not to –’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t,’ said Harry quickly. ‘Dobby, you can sleep, all right? But has either of you found out anything?’ he hastened to ask, before Hermione could intervene again.

  ‘Master Malfoy moves with a nobility that befits his pure blood,’ croaked Kreacher at once. ‘His features recall the fine bones of my mistress and his manners are those of –’

  ‘Draco Malfoy is a bad boy!’ squeaked Dobby angrily. ‘A bad boy who – who –’

  He shuddered from the tassel of his tea cosy to the toes of his socks and then ran at the fire, as though about to dive into it; Harry, to whom this was not entirely unexpected, caught him around the middle and held him fast. For a few seconds Dobby struggled, then went limp.

  ‘Thank you, Harry Potter,’ he panted. ‘Dobby still finds it difficult to speak ill of his old masters …’

  Harry released him; Dobby straightened his tea cosy and said defiantly to Kreacher, ‘But Kreacher should know that Draco Malfoy is not a good master to a house-elf!’

  ‘Yeah, we don’t need to hear about you being in love with Malfoy,’ Harry told Kreacher. ‘Let’s fast forward to where he’s actually been going.’

  Kreacher bowed again, looking furious, and then said, ‘Master Malfoy eats in the Great Hall, he sleeps in a dormitory in the dungeons, he attends his classes in a variety of –’

  ‘Dobby, you tell me,’ said Harry, cutting across Kreacher. ‘Has he been going anywhere he shouldn’t have?’

  ‘Harry Potter, sir,’ squeaked Dobby, his great orblike eyes shining in the firelight, ‘the Malfoy boy is breaking no rules that Dobby can discover, but he is still keen to avoid detection. He has been making regular visits to the seventh floor with a variety of other students, who keep watch for him while he enters –’

  ‘The Room of Requirement!’ said Harry, smacking himself hard on the forehead with Advanced Potion-Making. Hermione and Ron stared at him. ‘That’s where he’s been sneaking off to! That’s where he’s doing … whatever he’s doing! And I bet that’s why he’s been disappearing off the map – come to think of it, I’ve never seen the Room of Requirement on there!’

  ‘Maybe the Marauders never knew the Room was there,’ said Ron.

  ‘I think it’ll be part of the magic of the Room,’ said Hermione. ‘If you need it to be unplottable, it will be.’

  ‘Dobby, have you managed to get in to have a look at what Malfoy’s doing?’ said Harry eagerly.

  ‘No, Harry Potter, that is impossible,’ said Dobby.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Harry at once. ‘Malfoy got into our Headquarters there last year, so I’ll be able to get in and spy on him, no problem.’

  ‘But I don’t think you will, Harry,’ said Hermione slowly. ‘Malfoy already knew exactly how we were using the Room, didn’t he, because that stupid Marietta had blabbed. He needed the Room to become the Headquarters of the DA, so it did. But you don’t know what the Room becomes when Malfoy goes in there, so you don’t know what to ask it to transform into.’

  ‘There’ll be a way around that,’ said Harry dismissively. ‘You’ve done brilliantly, Dobby.’

  ‘Kreacher’s done well, too,’ said Hermione kindly; but far from looking grateful, Kreacher averted his huge, bloodshot eyes and croaked at the ceiling, ‘The Mudblood is speaking to Kreacher, Kreacher will pretend he cannot hear –’

  ‘Get out of it,’ Harry snapped at him, and Kreacher made one last deep bow and Disapparated. ‘You’d better go and get some sleep too, Dobby.’

  ‘Thank you, Harry Potter, sir!’ squeaked Dobby happily, and he, too, vanished.

  ‘How good’s this?’ said Harry enthusiastically, turning to Ron and Hermione the moment the room was elf-free again. ‘We know where Malfoy’s going! We’ve got him cornered now!’

  ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ said Ron glumly, who was attempting to mop up the sodden mass of ink that had recently been an almost completed essay. Hermione pulled it towards her and began siphoning the ink off with her wand.

  ‘But what’s all this about him going up there with a “variety of students”?’ said Hermione. ‘How many people are in on it? You wouldn’t think he’d trust lots of them to know what he’s doing …’

  ‘Yeah, that is weird,’ said Harry, frowning. ‘I heard him telling Crabbe it wasn’t Crabbe’s business what he was doing … so what’s he telling all these … all these …’

  Harry’s voice tailed away; he was staring at the fire.

  ‘God, I’ve been stupid,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? There was a great vat of it down in the dungeon … he could’ve nicked some any time during that lesson …’

  ‘Nicked what?’ said Ron.

  ‘Polyjuice Potion. He stole some of the Polyjuice Potion Slughorn showed us in our first Potions lesson … there aren’t a whole variety of students standing guard for Malfoy … it’s just Crabbe and Goyle as usual … yeah, it all fits!’ said Harry, jumping up and starting to pace in front of the fire. ‘They’re stupid enough to do what they’re told even if he won’t tell them what he’s up to … but he doesn’t want them to be seen lurking around outside the Room of Requirement, so he’s got them taking Polyjuice to make them look like other people … those two girls I saw him with when he missed Quidditch – ha! Crabbe and Goyle!’

  ‘Do you mean to say,’ said Hermione in a hushed voice, ‘that that little girl whose scales I repaired –?’

  ‘Yeah, of course!’ said Harry loudly, staring at her. ‘Of course! Malfoy must’ve been inside the Room at the time, so she – what am I talking about? – he dropped the scales to tell Malfoy not to come out, because there was someone there! And there was that girl who dropped the toad-spawn, too! We’ve been walking past him all the time and not realising it!’

  ‘He’s got Crabbe and Goyle transforming into girls?’ guffawed Ron. ‘Blimey … no wonder they don’t look too happy these days … I’m surprised they don’t tell him to stuff it …’

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they, if he’s shown them his Dark Mark,’ said Harry.

  ‘Hmmm … the Dark Mark we don’t know exists,’ said Hermione sceptically, rolling up Ron’s dried essay before it could come to any more harm and handing it to him.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Harry confidently.

  ‘Yes, we will,’ Hermione said, getting to her feet and stretching. ‘But, Harry, before you get all excited, I still don’t think you’ll be able to get into the Room of Requirement without knowing what’s there first. And I don’t think you should forget,’ she heaved her bag on to her shoulder and gave him a very serious look, ‘that what you’re supposed to be concentrating on is getting that memory from Slughorn. Goodnight.’

  Harry watched her go, feeling slightly disgruntled. Once the door to the girls’ dormitories had closed behind her he rounded on Ron.

  ‘What d’you think?’

  ‘Wish I could Disapparate like a house-elf,’ said Ron, staring at the sp
ot where Dobby had vanished. ‘I’d have that Apparition test in the bag.’

  Harry did not sleep well that night. He lay awake for what felt like hours, wondering how Malfoy was using the Room of Requirement and what he, Harry, would see when he went in there the following day, for whatever Hermione said, Harry was sure that if Malfoy had been able to see the Headquarters of the DA, he would be able to see Malfoy’s … what could it be? A meeting place? A hideout? A storeroom? A workshop? Harry’s mind worked feverishly and his dreams, when he finally fell asleep, were broken and disturbed by images of Malfoy, who turned into Slughorn, who turned into Snape …

  Harry was in a state of great anticipation over breakfast the following morning; he had a free period before Defence Against the Dark Arts and was determined to spend it trying to get into the Room of Requirement. Hermione was rather ostentatiously showing no interest in his whispered plans for forcing entry into the Room, which irritated Harry, because he thought she might be a lot of help if she wanted to.

  ‘Look,’ he said quietly, leaning forwards and putting a hand on the Daily Prophet, which she had just removed from a post owl, to stop her opening it and vanishing behind it. ‘I haven’t forgotten about Slughorn, but I haven’t got a clue how to get that memory off him, and until I get a brainwave why shouldn’t I find out what Malfoy’s doing?’

  ‘I’ve already told you, you need to persuade Slughorn,’ said Hermione. ‘It’s not a question of tricking him or bewitching him, or Dumbledore could have done it in a second. Instead of messing around outside the Room of Requirement,’ she jerked the Prophet out from under Harry’s hand and unfolded it to look at the front page, ‘you should go and find Slughorn and start appealing to his better nature.’

  ‘Anyone we know –?’ asked Ron, as Hermione scanned the headlines.

  ‘Yes!’ said Hermione, causing both Harry and Ron to gag on their breakfast, ‘but it’s all right, he’s not dead – it’s Mundungus, he’s been arrested and sent to Azkaban! Something to do with impersonating an Inferius during an attempted burglary … and someone called Octavius Pepper has vanished … oh, and how horrible, a nine-year-old boy has been arrested for trying to kill his grandparents, they think he was under the Imperius Curse …’