Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hp-6 Read online

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

  “Out here,” said Hagrid in a shaking 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 now, 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 thougln 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 interested 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 forward. 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 onto 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, onto the dead spider, forming a smooth mound. “Lets 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—“to 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 Pekingese…”

  “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 not 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.”

  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, crystallized 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 onto the table, a little cross-eyed, while Slughorn continued to warble the refrain. “Me dad was no age ter go… nor were yer 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…”

  “And Odo the hero, they bore him back home

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

  sang Slughorn plaintively.

  “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 onto his arms and he fell asleep, snoring deeply.

  “Sorry,” said Slughorn with a hiccup. “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 toward 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 leaned forward 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, Slughorn 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 mustache. “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.

  23. HORCRUXES

  Harry could feel the Felix Felicis wearing off as he creeped 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 shortcuts. 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—”

  “He is here,” said a voice behind Harry. “Professor Dumbledore returned to the school an hour ago.”

  Nearly Headless Nick was gliding toward Harry, his head wobbling as usual upon his ruff.

  “I had it from the Bloody Baron, who saw him arrive,” said Nick. “He appeared, according to the Baron, to be in good spirits, though a little tired, of course.”

  “Where is he?” said Harry, his heart leaping,”

  “Oh, groaning and clanking up on the Astronomy Tower, it’s a favorite pastime of his—”

  “Not the Bloody Baron—Dumbledore!”

  “Oh—in his office,” said Nick. “I believe, from what the Baron said, that he had business to attend to before turning in—”

  “Yeah, he has,” said Harry, excitement blazing in his chest at the prospect of telling Dumbledore he had secured the memory. He wheeled about and sprinted off again, ignoring the Fat Lady who was calling after him.

  “Come back! All right, I lied! I was annoyed you woke me up! The password’s still ‘tapeworm’!”

  But Harry was already hurtling back along the corridor and within minutes, he was saying “toffee eclairs” to Dumbledore’s gargoyle, which leapt aside, permitting Harry entrance onto the spiral staircase.

  “Enter,” said Dumbledore when Harry knocked. He sounded exhausted. Harry pushed open the door. There was Dumbledore’s office, looking the same as ever, but with black, star-strewn skies beyond the windows.

  “Good gracious, Harry,” said Dumbledore in surprise. “To what do I owe this very late pleasure?”

  “Sir—I’ve got it. I’ve got the memory from Slughorn.”

  Harry pulled out the tiny glass bottle and showed it to Dumbledore. For a moment or two, the headmaster looked stunned. Then his face split in a wide smile.

  “Harry, this is spectacular news! Very well done indeed! I knew you could do it!”

  All thought of the lateness of the hour apparently forgotten, he hurried around his desk, took the bottle with Slughorn’s memory in his uninjured hand, and strode over to the cabinet where he kept the Pensieve.

  “And now,” said Dumbledore, placing the stone basin upon the desk and emptying the contents of the bottle into it. “Now, at last, we shall see. Harry, quickly…”

  Harry bowed obediently over the Pensieve and felt his feet leave the office floor… Once again he fell through darkness and landed in Horace Slughorn’s office many years before.

  There was the much younger Slughorn, with his thick, shiny, straw-colored hair and his gingery-blond mustache, sitting again in the comfortable winged armchair in his office, his feet resting upon a velvet pouffe, a small glass of wine in one hand, the other rummaging in a box of crystallized pineapple. And there were the half dozen teenage boys sitting around Slughorn with To
m Riddle in the midst of them, Marvolo’s gold-and-black ring gleaming on his finger.

  Dumbledore landed beside Harry just as Riddle asked, “Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?”

  “Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn’t tell you,” said Slughorn, wagging his finger reprovingly at Riddle, though winking at the same time. “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 favorite—”

  Several of the boys tittered again.

  “—I confidently expect you to rise to Minister of Magic within twenty years. Fifteen, if you keep sending me pineapple, I have excellent contacts at the Ministry.”

  Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader.

  “I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir,” he said when the laughter had died away. “I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.”

  A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader’s famous ancestor.

  “Nonsense,” said Slughorn briskly, “couldn’t be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you’ll go far, Tom, I’ve never been wrong about a student yet.”

  The small golden clock standing upon Slughorn’s desk chimed eleven o’clock behind him and he looked around.

  “Good gracious, is it that time already? 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.”

  One by one, the boys filed out of the room. Slughorn heaved himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk. A movement behind him made him look around; Riddle was still standing there.