The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  Harry ran flat out towards the bathroom on the floor below, cramming Ron’s copy of Advanced Potion-Making into his bag as he did so. A minute later, he was back in front of Snape, who held out his hand wordlessly for Harry’s schoolbag. Harry handed it over, panting, a searing pain in his chest, and waited.

  One by one Snape extracted Harry’s books and examined them. Finally the only book left was the Potions book, which he looked at very carefully before speaking.

  ‘This is your copy of Advanced Potion-Making, is it, Potter?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry, still breathing hard.

  ‘You’re quite sure of that, are you, Potter?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry, with a touch more defiance.

  ‘This is the copy of Advanced Potion-Making that you purchased from Flourish and Blotts?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry firmly.

  ‘Then why,’ asked Snape, ‘does it have the name “Roonil Wazlib” written inside the front cover?’

  Harry’s heart missed a beat.

  ‘That’s my nickname,’ he said.

  ‘Your nickname,’ repeated Snape.

  ‘Yeah … that’s what my friends call me,’ said Harry.

  ‘I understand what a nickname is,’ said Snape. The cold, black eyes were boring once more into Harry’s; he tried not to look into them. Close your mind … close your mind … but he had never learned how to do it properly …

  ‘Do you know what I think, Potter?’ said Snape, very quietly. ‘I think that you are a liar and a cheat and that you deserve detention with me every Saturday until the end of term. What do you think, Potter?’

  ‘I – I don’t agree, sir,’ said Harry, still refusing to look into Snape’s eyes.

  ‘Well, we shall see how you feel after your detentions,’ said Snape. ‘Ten o’clock Saturday morning, Potter. My office.’

  ‘But, sir …’ said Harry, looking up desperately. ‘Quidditch … the last match of the –’

  ‘Ten o’clock,’ whispered Snape, with a smile that showed his yellow teeth. ‘Poor Gryffindor … fourth place this year, I fear …’

  And he left the bathroom without another word, leaving Harry to stare into the cracked mirror, feeling sicker, he was sure, than Ron had ever felt in his life.

  ‘I won’t say “I told you so”,’ said Hermione, an hour later in the common room.

  ‘Leave it, Hermione,’ said Ron angrily.

  Harry had never made it to dinner; he had no appetite at all. He had just finished telling Ron, Hermione and Ginny what had happened, not that there seemed to have been much need. The news had travelled very fast: apparently Moaning Myrtle had taken it upon herself to pop up in every bathroom in the castle to tell the story; Malfoy had already been visited in the hospital wing by Pansy Parkinson, who had lost no time in vilifying Harry far and wide, and Snape had told the staff precisely what had happened: Harry had already been called out of the common room to endure fifteen highly unpleasant minutes in the company of Professor McGonagall, who had told him he was lucky not to have been expelled and that she supported whole-heartedly Snape’s punishment of detention every Saturday until the end of term.

  ‘I told you there was something wrong with that Prince person,’ Hermione said, evidently unable to stop herself. ‘And I was right, wasn’t I?’

  ‘No, I don’t think you were,’ said Harry stubbornly.

  He was having a bad enough time without Hermione lecturing him; the looks on the Gryffindor team’s faces when he had told them he would not be able to play on Saturday had been the worst punishment of all. He could feel Ginny’s eyes on him now, but did not meet them; he did not want to see disappointment or anger there. He had just told her that she would be playing Seeker on Saturday and that Dean would be rejoining the team as Chaser in her place. Perhaps, if they won, Ginny and Dean would make up during the post-match euphoria … the thought went through Harry like an icy knife …

  ‘Harry,’ said Hermione, ‘how can you still stick up for that book when that spell –’

  ‘Will you stop harping on about the book!’ snapped Harry. ‘The Prince only copied it out! It’s not like he was advising anyone to use it! For all we know, he was making a note of something that had been used against him!’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ said Hermione. ‘You’re actually defending –’

  ‘I’m not defending what I did!’ said Harry quickly. ‘I wish I hadn’t done it, and not just because I’ve got about a dozen detentions. You know I wouldn’t’ve used a spell like that, not even on Malfoy, but you can’t blame the Prince, he hadn’t written “Try this out, it’s really good” – he was just making notes for himself, wasn’t he, not for anyone else …’

  ‘Are you telling me,’ said Hermione, ‘that you’re going to go back –?’

  ‘And get the book? Yeah, I am,’ said Harry forcefully. ‘Listen, without the Prince I’d never have won the Felix Felicis. I’d never have known how to save Ron from poisoning, I’d never have –’

  ‘– got a reputation for Potions brilliance you don’t deserve,’ said Hermione nastily.

  ‘Give it a rest, Hermione!’ said Ginny, and Harry was so amazed, so grateful, he looked up. ‘By the sound of it Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse, you should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve!’

  ‘Well, of course I’m glad Harry wasn’t cursed!’ said Hermione, clearly stung, ‘but you can’t call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny, look where it’s landed him! And I’d have thought, seeing what this has done to your chances in the match –’

  ‘Oh, don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch,’ snapped Ginny, ‘you’ll only embarrass yourself.’

  Harry and Ron stared: Hermione and Ginny, who had always got on together very well, were now sitting with their arms folded, glaring in opposite directions. Ron looked nervously at Harry, then snatched up a book at random and hid behind it. Harry, however, though he knew he little deserved it, felt unbelievably cheerful all of a sudden, even though none of them spoke again for the rest of the evening.

  His light-heartedness was short-lived. There were Slytherin taunts to be endured next day, not to mention much anger from fellow Gryffindors, who were most unhappy that their Captain had got himself banned from the final match of the season. By Saturday morning, whatever he might have told Hermione, Harry would have gladly exchanged all the Felix Felicis in the world to be walking down to the Quidditch pitch with Ron, Ginny and the others. It was almost unbearable to turn away from the mass of students streaming out into the sunshine, all of them wearing rosettes and hats and brandishing banners and scarves, to descend the stone steps into the dungeons and walk until the distant sounds of the crowd were quite obliterated, knowing that he would not be able to hear a word of commentary, or a cheer or groan.

  ‘Ah, Potter,’ said Snape, when Harry had knocked on his door and entered the unpleasantly familiar office that Snape, despite teaching floors above now, had not vacated; it was as dimly lit as ever and the same slimy dead objects were suspended in coloured potions all around the walls. Ominously, there were many cobwebbed boxes piled on a table where Harry was clearly supposed to sit; they had an aura of tedious, hard and pointless work about them.

  ‘Mr Filch has been looking for someone to clear out these old files,’ said Snape softly. ‘They are the records of other Hogwarts wrongdoers and their punishments. Where the ink has grown faint, or the cards have suffered damage from mice, we would like you to copy out the crimes and punishments afresh and, making sure that they are in alphabetical order, replace them in the boxes. You will not use magic.’

  ‘Right, Professor,’ said Harry, with as much contempt as he could put into the last three syllables.

  ‘I thought you could start,’ said Snape, a malicious smile on his lips, ‘with boxes one thousand and twelve to one thousand and fifty-six. You will find some familiar names in there, which should add interest to the task. Here, you see …’

  He pulled out a
card from one of the topmost boxes with a flourish and read, ‘“James Potter and Sirius Black. Apprehended using an illegal hex upon Bertram Aubrey. Aubrey’s head twice normal size. Double detention.”’ Snape sneered. ‘It must be such a comfort to think that, though they are gone, a record of their great achievements remains …’

  Harry felt the familiar boiling sensation in the pit of his stomach. Biting his tongue to prevent himself retaliating, he sat down in front of the boxes and pulled one towards him.

  It was, as Harry had anticipated, useless, boring work, punctuated (as Snape had clearly planned) with the regular jolt in the stomach that meant he had just read his father or Sirius’s names, usually coupled together in various petty misdeeds, occasionally accompanied by those of Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. And while he copied out all their various offences and punishments, he wondered what was going on outside, where the match would have just started … Ginny playing Seeker against Cho …

  Harry glanced again and again at the large clock ticking on the wall. It seemed to be moving half as fast as a regular clock; perhaps Snape had bewitched it to go extra slowly? He could not have been here for only half an hour … an hour … an hour and a half …

  Harry’s stomach started rumbling when the clock showed half past twelve. Snape, who had not spoken at all since setting Harry his task, finally looked up at ten past one.

  ‘I think that will do,’ he said coldly. ‘Mark the place you have reached. You will continue at ten o’clock next Saturday.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Harry stuffed a bent card into the box at random and hurried out of the door before Snape could change his mind, racing back up the stone steps, straining his ears to hear a sound from the pitch, but all was quiet … it was over, then …

  He hesitated outside the crowded Great Hall, then ran up the marble staircase; whether Gryffindor had won or lost, the team usually celebrated or commiserated in their own common room.

  ‘Quid agis?’ he said tentatively to the Fat Lady, wondering what he would find inside.

  Her expression was unreadable as she replied, ‘You’ll see.’

  And she swung forwards.

  A roar of celebration erupted from the hole behind her. Harry gaped as people began to scream at the sight of him; several hands pulled him into the room.

  ‘We won!’ yelled Ron, bounding into sight and brandishing the silver Cup at Harry. ‘We won! Four hundred and fifty to a hundred and forty! We won!’

  Harry looked around; there was Ginny running towards him; she had a hard, blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that fifty people were watching, Harry kissed her.

  After several long moments – or it might have been half an hour – or possibly several sunlit days – they broke apart. The room had gone very quiet. Then several people wolf-whistled and there was an outbreak of nervous giggling. Harry looked over the top of Ginny’s head to see Dean Thomas holding a shattered glass in his hand and Romilda Vane looking as though she might throw something. Hermione was beaming, but Harry’s eyes sought Ron. At last he found him, still clutching the Cup and wearing an expression appropriate to having been clubbed over the head. For a fraction of a second they looked at each other, then Ron gave a tiny jerk of the head that Harry understood to mean, ‘Well – if you must.’

  The creature in his chest roaring in triumph, Harry grinned down at Ginny and gestured wordlessly out of the portrait hole. A long walk in the grounds seemed indicated, during which – if they had time – they might discuss the match.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE —

  The Seer Overheard

  The fact that Harry Potter was going out with Ginny Weasley seemed to interest a great number of people, most of them girls, yet Harry found himself newly and happily impervious to gossip over the next few weeks. After all, it made a very nice change to be talked about because of something that was making him happier than he could remember being for a very long time, rather than because he had been involved in horrific scenes of Dark magic.

  ‘You’d think people had better things to gossip about,’ said Ginny, as she sat on the common-room floor, leaning against Harry’s legs and reading the Daily Prophet. ‘Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.’

  Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘I told her it’s a Hungarian Horntail,’ said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. ‘Much more macho.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Harry, grinning. ‘And what did you tell her Ron’s got?’

  ‘A Pygmy Puff, but I didn’t say where.’

  Ron scowled as Hermione rolled around laughing.

  ‘Watch it,’ he said, pointing warningly at Harry and Ginny. ‘Just because I’ve given my permission doesn’t mean I can’t withdraw it –’

  ‘“Your permission”,’ scoffed Ginny. ‘Since when did you give me permission to do anything? Anyway, you said yourself you’d rather it was Harry than Michael or Dean.’

  ‘Yeah, I would,’ said Ron grudgingly. ‘And just as long as you don’t start snogging each other in public –’

  ‘You filthy hypocrite! What about you and Lavender, thrashing around like a pair of eels all over the place?’ demanded Ginny.

  But Ron’s tolerance was not to be tested much as they moved into June, for Harry and Ginny’s time together was becoming increasingly restricted. Ginny’s O.W.L.s were approaching and she was therefore forced to revise for hours into the night. On one such evening, when Ginny had retired to the library and Harry was sitting beside the window in the common room, supposedly finishing his Herbology homework but in reality reliving a particularly happy hour he had spent down by the lake with Ginny at lunch-time, Hermione dropped into the seat between him and Ron with an unpleasantly purposeful look on her face.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Harry.’

  ‘What about?’ said Harry suspiciously. Only the previous day, Hermione had told him off for distracting Ginny when she ought to be working hard for her examinations.

  ‘The so-called Half-Blood Prince.’

  ‘Oh, not again,’ he groaned. ‘Will you please drop it?’

  He had not dared to return to the Room of Requirement to retrieve his book, and his performance in Potions was suffering accordingly (though Slughorn, who approved of Ginny, had jocularly attributed this to Harry being lovesick). But Harry was sure that Snape had not yet given up hope of laying hands on the Prince’s book, and was determined to leave it where it was while Snape remained on the lookout.

  ‘I’m not dropping it,’ said Hermione firmly, ‘until you’ve heard me out. Now, I’ve been trying to find out a bit about who might make a hobby of inventing Dark spells –’

  ‘He didn’t make a hobby of it –’

  ‘He, he – who says it’s a he?’

  ‘We’ve been through this,’ said Harry crossly. ‘Prince, Hermione, Prince!’

  ‘Right!’ said Hermione, red patches blazing in her cheeks as she pulled a very old piece of newsprint out of her pocket and slammed it down on the table in front of Harry. ‘Look at that! Look at the picture!’

  Harry picked up the crumbling piece of paper and stared at the moving photograph, yellowed with age; Ron leaned over for a look, too. The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.

  ‘So?’ said Harry, scanning the short news item to which the picture belonged; it was a rather dull story about inter-school competitions.

  ‘Her name was Eileen Prince. Prince, Harry.’

  They looked at each other and Harry realised what Hermione was trying to say. He burst out laughing.

  ‘No w
ay.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think she was the Half-Blood …? Oh, come on.’

  ‘Well, why not? Harry, there aren’t any real princes in the wizarding world! It’s either a nickname, a made-up title somebody’s given themselves, or it could be their actual name, couldn’t it? No, listen! If, say, her father was a wizard whose surname was “Prince”, and her mother was a Muggle, then that would make her a “half-blood Prince”!’

  ‘Yeah, very ingenious, Hermione …’

  ‘But it would! Maybe she was proud of being half a Prince!’

  ‘Listen, Hermione, I can tell it’s not a girl. I can just tell.’

  ‘The truth is that you don’t think a girl would have been clever enough,’ said Hermione angrily.

  ‘How can I have hung round with you for five years and not think girls are clever?’ said Harry, stung by this. ‘It’s the way he writes. I just know the Prince was a bloke, I can tell. This girl hasn’t got anything to do with it. Where did you get this, anyway?’

  ‘The library,’ said Hermione, predictably. ‘There’s a whole collection of old Prophets up there. Well, I’m going to find out more about Eileen Prince if I can.’

  ‘Enjoy yourself,’ said Harry irritably.

  ‘I will,’ said Hermione. ‘And the first place I’ll look,’ she shot at him, as she reached the portrait hole, ‘is records of old Potions awards!’

  Harry scowled after her for a moment, then continued his contemplation of the darkening sky.

  ‘She’s just never got over you outperforming her in Potions,’ said Ron, returning to his copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.

  ‘You don’t think I’m mad, wanting that book back, do you?’

  ‘Course not,’ said Ron robustly. ‘He was a genius, the Prince. Anyway … without his bezoar tip …’ he drew his finger significantly across his own throat, ‘I wouldn’t be here to discuss it, would I? I mean, I’m not saying that spell you used on Malfoy was great –’