The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  ‘Touching, touching,’ said Slughorn absent-mindedly, his large droopy eyes fixed upon the distant lights of Hagrid’s cabin. ‘But Acromantula venom is very valuable … if the beast has 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 were any way to procure some … I mean, it’s almost impossible to get venom from an Acromantula while it’s 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 on’y 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 Acromantula: they had been quite clear that Aragog was the only thing that stopped them 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, tha’ is, an’ not turnin’ you 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 – you 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 sombre 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 …’

  ‘Wouldn’t have dreamed of it,’ said Slughorn. ‘Sad night, sad night … where is the poor creature?’

  ‘Out here,’ said Hagrid in a shaky voice. ‘Shall we – shall we do it, then?’

  The three of them stepped out into the back garden. The moon was glistening palely through the trees and its rays mingled with the light spilling from Hagrid’s window to illuminate Aragog’s body lying on the edge of a massive pit, beside a ten-foot-high mound of freshly dug earth.

  ‘Magnificent,’ said Slughorn, approaching the spider’s head, where eight milky eyes stared blankly at the sky and two huge, curved pincers shone, motionless, in the moonlight. Harry thought he heard the tinkle of bottles as Slughorn bent over the pincers, apparently examining the enormous hairy head.

  ‘It’s not ev’ryone appreciates how beau’iful they are,’ said Hagrid to Slughorn’s back, tears leaking from the corners of his crinkled eyes. ‘I didn’ know yeh were int’rested in creatures like Aragog, Horace.’

  ‘Interested? My dear Hagrid, I revere them,’ said Slughorn, stepping back from the body. Harry saw the glint of a bottle disappear beneath his cloak, though Hagrid, mopping his eyes once more, noticed nothing. ‘Now … shall we proceed to the burial?’

  Hagrid nodded and moved forwards. He heaved the gigantic spider into his arms and, with an enormous grunt, rolled it into the dark pit. It hit the bottom with a rather horrible, crunchy thud. Hagrid started to cry again.

  ‘Of course, it’s difficult for you, who knew him best,’ said Slughorn, who, like Harry, could reach no higher than Hagrid’s elbow, but patted it all the same. ‘Why don’t I say a few words?’

  He must have got a lot of good-quality venom from Aragog, Harry thought, for Slughorn wore a satisfied smirk as he stepped up to the rim of the pit and said, in a slow, impressive voice, ‘Farewell, Aragog, king of arachnids, whose long and faithful friendship those who knew you won’t forget! Though your body will decay, your spirit lingers on in the quiet, web-spun places of your Forest home. May your many-eyed descendants ever flourish and your human friends find solace for the loss they have sustained.’

  ‘Tha’ was … tha’ was … beau’iful!’ howled Hagrid and he collapsed on to the compost heap, crying harder than ever.

  ‘There, there,’ said Slughorn, waving his wand so that the huge pile of earth rose up and then fell, with a muffled sort of crash, on to the dead spider, forming a smooth mound. ‘Let’s get inside and have a drink. Get on his other side, Harry … that’s it … up you come, Hagrid … well done …’

  They deposited Hagrid in a chair at the table. Fang, who had been skulking in his basket during the burial, now came padding softly across to them and put his heavy head into Harry’s lap as usual. Slughorn uncorked one of the bottles of wine he had brought.

  ‘I have had it all tested for poison,’ he assured Harry, pouring most of the first bottle into one of Hagrid’s bucket-sized mugs and handing it to Hagrid. ‘Had a house-elf taste every bottle after what happened to your poor friend Rupert.’

  Harry saw, in his mind’s eye, the expression on Hermione’s face if she ever heard about this abuse of house-elves, and decided never to mention it to her.

  ‘One for Harry …’ said Slughorn, dividing a second bottle between two mugs, ‘… and one for me. Well,’ he raised his mug high, ‘t
o Aragog.’

  ‘Aragog,’ said Harry and Hagrid together.

  Both Slughorn and Hagrid drank deeply. Harry, however, with the way ahead illuminated for him by Felix Felicis, knew that he must not drink, so he merely pretended to take a gulp and then set the mug back on the table before him.

  ‘I had him from an egg, yeh know,’ said Hagrid morosely. ‘Tiny little thing he was when he hatched. ’Bout the size of a Pekinese.’

  ‘Sweet,’ said Slughorn.

  ‘Used ter keep him in a cupboard up at the school until … well …’

  Hagrid’s face darkened and Harry knew why: Tom Riddle had contrived to have Hagrid thrown out of school, blamed for opening the Chamber of Secrets. Slughorn, however, did not seem to be listening; he was looking up at the ceiling, from which a number of brass pots hung, and also a long, silky skein of bright white hair.

  ‘That’s never unicorn hair, Hagrid?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Hagrid indifferently. ‘Gets pulled out of their tails, they catch it on branches an’ stuff in the Forest, yeh know …’

  ‘But my dear chap, do you know how much that’s worth?’

  ‘I use it fer bindin’ on bandages an’ stuff if a creature gets injured,’ said Hagrid, shrugging. ‘It’s dead useful … very strong, see.’

  Slughorn took another deep draught from his mug, his eyes moving carefully around the cabin now, looking, Harry knew, for more treasures that he might be able to convert into a plentiful supply of oak-matured mead, crystallised pineapple and velvet smoking jackets. He refilled Hagrid’s mug and his own, and questioned him about the creatures that lived in the Forest these days and how Hagrid was able to look after them all. Hagrid, becoming expansive under the influence of the drink and Slughorn’s flattering interest, stopped mopping his eyes and entered happily into a long explanation of Bowtruckle husbandry.

  The Felix Felicis gave Harry a little nudge at this point and he noticed that the supply of drink that Slughorn had brought was running out fast. Harry had not yet managed to bring off the Refilling Charm without saying the incantation aloud, but the idea that he might not be able to do it tonight was laughable: indeed, Harry grinned to himself as, unnoticed by either Hagrid or Slughorn (now swapping tales of the illegal trade in dragon eggs), he pointed his wand under the table at the emptying bottles and they immediately began to refill.

  After an hour or so, Hagrid and Slughorn began making extravagant toasts: to Hogwarts, to Dumbledore, to elf-made wine and to –

  ‘Harry Potter!’ bellowed Hagrid, slopping some of his fourteenth bucket of wine down his chin as he drained it.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ cried Slughorn a little thickly, ‘Parry Otter, the Chosen Boy Who – well – something of that sort,’ he mumbled, and drained his mug, too.

  Not long after this, Hagrid became tearful again and pressed the whole unicorn tail upon Slughorn, who pocketed it with cries of, ‘To friendship! To generosity! To ten Galleons a hair!’

  And for a while after that, Hagrid and Slughorn were sitting side by side, arms around each other, singing a slow sad song about a dying wizard called Odo.

  ‘Aaargh, the good die young,’ muttered Hagrid, slumping low on to the table, a little cross-eyed, while Slughorn continued to warble the refrain. ‘Me dad was no age ter go … nor were your mum an’ dad, Harry …’

  Great fat tears oozed out of the corners of Hagrid’s crinkled eyes again; he grasped Harry’s arm and shook it.

  ‘… bes’ wiz and witchard o’ their age I never knew … terrible thing … terrible thing …’

  Slughorn sang plaintively:

  ‘And Odo the hero, they bore him back home

  To the place that he’d known as a lad,

  They laid him to rest with his hat inside out

  And his wand snapped in two, which was sad.’

  ‘… terrible,’ Hagrid grunted and his great shaggy head rolled sideways on to his arms and he fell asleep, snoring deeply.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Slughorn with a hiccough. ‘Can’t carry a tune to save my life.’

  ‘Hagrid wasn’t talking about your singing,’ said Harry quietly. ‘He was talking about my mum and dad dying.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Slughorn, repressing a large belch. ‘Oh, dear. Yes, that was – was terrible indeed. Terrible … terrible …’

  He looked quite at a loss for what to say, and resorted to refilling their mugs.

  ‘I don’t – don’t suppose you remember it, Harry?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘No – well, I was only one when they died,’ said Harry, his eyes on the flame of the candle flickering in Hagrid’s heavy snores. ‘But I’ve found out pretty much what happened since. My dad died first. Did you know that?’

  ‘I – I didn’t,’ said Slughorn in a hushed voice.

  ‘Yeah … Voldemort murdered him and then stepped over his body towards my mum,’ said Harry.

  Slughorn gave a great shudder, but he did not seem able to tear his horrified gaze away from Harry’s face.

  ‘He told her to get out of the way,’ said Harry remorselessly. ‘He told me she needn’t have died. He only wanted me. She could have run.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ breathed Slughorn. ‘She could have … she needn’t … that’s awful …’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Harry, in a voice barely more than a whisper. ‘But she didn’t move. Dad was already dead, but she didn’t want me to go too. She tried to plead with Voldemort … but he just laughed …’

  ‘That’s enough!’ said Slughorn suddenly, raising a shaking hand. ‘Really, my dear boy, enough … I’m an old man … I don’t need to hear … I don’t want to hear …’

  ‘I forgot,’ lied Harry, Felix Felicis leading him on. ‘You liked her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Liked her?’ said Slughorn, his eyes brimming with tears once more. ‘I don’t imagine anyone who met her wouldn’t have liked her … very brave … very funny … it was the most horrible thing …’

  ‘But you won’t help her son,’ said Harry. ‘She gave me her life, but you won’t give me a memory.’

  Hagrid’s rumbling snores filled the cabin. Harry looked steadily into Slughorn’s tear-filled eyes. The Potions master seemed unable to look away.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he whispered. ‘It isn’t a question … if it were to help you, of course … but no purpose can be served …’

  ‘It can,’ said Harry clearly. ‘Dumbledore needs information. I need information.’

  He knew he was safe: Felix was telling him that Slughorn would remember nothing of this in the morning. Looking Slughorn straight in the eye, Harry leant forwards a little.

  ‘I am the Chosen One. I have to kill him. I need that memory.’

  Slughorn turned paler than ever; his shiny forehead gleamed with sweat.

  ‘You are the Chosen One?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ said Harry calmly.

  ‘But then … my dear boy … you’re asking a great deal … you’re asking me, in fact, to aid you in your attempt to destroy –’

  ‘You don’t want to get rid of the wizard who killed Lily Evans?’

  ‘Harry, Harry, of course I do, but –’

  ‘You’re scared he’ll find out you helped me?’

  Slughorn said nothing; he looked terrified.

  ‘Be brave like my mother, Professor …’

  Slughorn raised a pudgy hand and pressed his shaking fingers to his mouth; he looked for a moment like an enormously overgrown baby.

  ‘I am not proud …’ he whispered through his fingers. ‘I am ashamed of what – of what that memory shows … I think I may have done great damage that day …’

  ‘You’d cancel out anything you did by giving me the memory,’ said Harry. ‘It would be a very brave and noble thing to do.’

  Hagrid twitched in his sleep and snored on. Slughorn and Harry stared at each other over the guttering candle. There was a long, long silence, but Felix Felicis told Harry not to break it, to wait.

  Then, very slowly, Slu
ghorn put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his wand. He put his other hand inside his cloak and took out a small, empty bottle. Still looking into Harry’s eyes, Slughorn touched the tip of his wand to his temple and withdrew it, so that a long, silver thread of memory came away too, clinging to the wand-tip. Longer and longer the memory stretched until it broke and swung, silvery bright, from the wand. Slughorn lowered it into the bottle where it coiled, then spread, swirling like gas. He corked the bottle with a trembling hand and then passed it across the table to Harry.

  ‘Thank you very much, Professor.’

  ‘You’re a good boy,’ said Professor Slughorn, tears trickling down his fat cheeks into his walrus moustache. ‘And you’ve got her eyes … just don’t think too badly of me once you’ve seen it …’

  And he, too, put his head on his arms, gave a deep sigh, and fell asleep.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE —

  Horcruxes

  Harry could feel the Felix Felicis wearing off as he crept back into the castle. The front door had remained unlocked for him, but on the third floor he met Peeves and only narrowly avoided detection by diving sideways through one of his short cuts. By the time he got up to the portrait of the Fat Lady and pulled off his Invisibility Cloak, he was not surprised to find her in a most unhelpful mood.

  ‘What sort of time do you call this?’

  ‘I’m really sorry – I had to go out for something important –’

  ‘Well, the password changed at midnight, so you’ll just have to sleep in the corridor, won’t you?’

  ‘You’re joking!’ said Harry. ‘Why did it have to change at midnight?’

  ‘That’s the way it is,’ said the Fat Lady. ‘If you’re angry, go and take it up with the Headmaster, he’s the one who’s tightened security.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Harry bitterly, looking around at the hard floor. ‘Really brilliant. Yeah, I would go and take it up with Dumbledore if he was here, because he’s the one who wanted me to –’