The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  But Malfoy said nothing: he was still listening to whatever was happening below and seemed almost as paralysed as Harry was.

  ‘Perhaps you ought to get on with the job alone,’ suggested Dumbledore. ‘What if your back-up has been thwarted by my guard? As you have perhaps realised, there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight, too. And after all, you don’t really need help … I have no wand at the moment … I cannot defend myself.’

  Malfoy merely stared at him.

  ‘I see,’ said Dumbledore kindly, when Malfoy neither moved nor spoke. ‘You are afraid to act until they join you.’

  ‘I’m not afraid!’ snarled Malfoy, though he still made no move to hurt Dumbledore. ‘It’s you who should be scared!’

  ‘But why? I don’t think you will kill me, Draco. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe … so tell me, while we wait for your friends … how did you smuggle them in here? It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do it.’

  Malfoy looked as though he was fighting down the urge to shout, or to vomit. He gulped and took several deep breaths, glaring at Dumbledore, his wand pointing directly at the latter’s heart. Then, as though he could not help himself, he said, ‘I had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one’s used for years. The one Montague got lost in last year.’

  ‘Aaaah.’

  Dumbledore’s sigh was half a groan. He closed his eyes for a moment.

  ‘That was clever … there is a pair, I take it?’

  ‘The other’s in Borgin and Burkes,’ said Malfoy, ‘and they make a kind of passage between them. Montague told me that when he was stuck in the Hogwarts one, he was trapped in limbo but sometimes he could hear what was going on at school, and sometimes what was going on in the shop, as if the Cabinet was travelling between them, but he couldn’t make anyone hear him … in the end he managed to Apparate out, even though he’d never passed his test. He nearly died doing it. Everyone thought it was a really good story, but I was the only one who realised what it meant – even Borgin didn’t know – I was the one who realised there could be a way into Hogwarts through the Cabinets if I fixed the broken one.’

  ‘Very good,’ murmured Dumbledore. ‘So the Death Eaters were able to pass from Borgin and Burkes into the school to help you … a clever plan, a very clever plan … and, as you say, right under my nose …’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Malfoy who, bizarrely, seemed to draw courage and comfort from Dumbledore’s praise. ‘Yeah, it was!’

  ‘But there were times,’ Dumbledore went on, ‘weren’t there, when you were not sure you would succeed in mending the Cabinet? And you resorted to crude and badly judged measures such as sending me a cursed necklace that was bound to reach the wrong hands … poisoning mead there was only the slightest chance I might drink …’

  ‘Yeah, well, you still didn’t realise who was behind that stuff, did you?’ sneered Malfoy, as Dumbledore slid a little down the ramparts, the strength in his legs apparently fading, and Harry struggled fruitlessly, mutely, against the enchantment binding him.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I did,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I was sure it was you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stop me, then?’ Malfoy demanded.

  ‘I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders –’

  ‘He hasn’t been doing your orders, he promised my mother –’

  ‘Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but –’

  ‘He’s a double-agent, you stupid old man, he isn’t working for you, you just think he is!’

  ‘We must agree to differ on that, Draco. It so happens that I trust Professor Snape –’

  ‘Well, you’re losing your grip, then!’ sneered Malfoy. ‘He’s been offering me plenty of help – wanting all the glory for himself – wanting a bit of the action – “What are you doing? Did you do the necklace, that was stupid, it could have blown everything –” But I haven’t told him what I’ve been doing in the Room of Requirement, he’s going to wake up tomorrow and it’ll all be over and he won’t be the Dark Lord’s favourite any more, he’ll be nothing compared to me, nothing!’

  ‘Very gratifying,’ said Dumbledore mildly. ‘We all like appreciation for our own hard work, of course … but you must have had an accomplice, all the same … someone in Hogsmeade, someone who was able to slip Katie the – the – aaaah …’

  Dumbledore closed his eyes again and nodded, as though he was about to fall asleep.

  ‘… of course … Rosmerta. How long has she been under the Imperius Curse?’

  ‘Got there at last, have you?’ Malfoy taunted.

  There was another yell from below, rather louder than the last. Malfoy looked nervously over his shoulder again, then back at Dumbledore, who went on, ‘So poor Rosmerta was forced to lurk in her own bathroom and pass that necklace to any Hogwarts student who entered the room unaccompanied? And the poisoned mead … well, naturally, Rosmerta was able to poison it for you before she sent the bottle to Slughorn, believing that it was to be my Christmas present … yes, very neat … very neat … poor Mr Filch would not, of course, think to check a bottle of Rosmerta’s … tell me, how have you been communicating with Rosmerta? I thought we had all methods of communication in and out of the school monitored.’

  ‘Enchanted coins,’ said Malfoy, as though he was compelled to keep talking, though his wand hand was shaking badly. ‘I had one and she had the other and I could send her messages –’

  ‘Isn’t that the secret method of communication the group that called themselves Dumbledore’s Army used last year?’ asked Dumbledore. His voice was light and conversational, but Harry saw him slip an inch lower down the wall as he said it.

  ‘Yeah, I got the idea from them,’ said Malfoy, with a twisted smile. ‘I got the idea of poisoning the mead from the Mudblood Granger, as well, I heard her talking in the library about Filch not recognising potions …’

  ‘Please do not use that offensive word in front of me,’ said Dumbledore.

  Malfoy gave a harsh laugh.

  ‘You care about me saying “Mudblood” when I’m about to kill you?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Dumbledore, and Harry saw his feet slide a little on the floor as he struggled to remain upright. ‘But as for being about to kill me, Draco, you have had several long minutes now. We are quite alone. I am more defenceless than you can have dreamed of finding me, and still you have not acted …’

  Malfoy’s mouth contorted involuntarily, as though he had tasted something very bitter.

  ‘Now, about tonight,’ Dumbledore went on, ‘I am a little puzzled about how it happened … you knew that I had left the school? But of course,’ he answered his own question, ‘Rosmerta saw me leaving, she tipped you off using your ingenious coins, I’m sure …’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Malfoy. ‘But she said you were just going for a drink, you’d be back …’

  ‘Well, I certainly did have a drink … and I came back … after a fashion,’ mumbled Dumbledore. ‘So you decided to spring a trap for me?’

  ‘We decided to put the Dark Mark over the Tower and get you to hurry up here, to see who’d been killed,’ said Malfoy. ‘And it worked!’

  ‘Well … yes and no …’ said Dumbledore. ‘But am I to take it, then, that nobody has been murdered?’

  ‘Someone’s dead,’ said Malfoy and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. ‘One of your people … I don’t know who, it was dark … I stepped over the body … I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way …’

  ‘Yes, they do that,’ said Dumbledore.

  There was a bang and shouts from below, louder than ever; it sounded as though people were fighting on the actual spiral staircase that led to where Dumbledore, Malfoy and Harry stood, and Harry’s heart thundered unheard in his invisible chest … someone was dead … Malfoy had stepped over the body … but who was it?

  ‘There is little time,
one way or another,’ said Dumbledore. ‘So let us discuss your options, Draco.’

  ‘My options!’ said Malfoy loudly. ‘I’m standing here with a wand – I’m about to kill you –’

  ‘My dear boy, let us have no more pretence about that. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it when you first Disarmed me, you would not have stopped for this pleasant chat about ways and means.’

  ‘I haven’t got any options!’ said Malfoy, and he was suddenly as white as Dumbledore. ‘I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!’

  ‘I appreciate the difficulty of your position,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Why else do you think I have not confronted you before now? Because I knew that you would have been murdered if Lord Voldemort realised that I suspected you.’

  Malfoy winced at the sound of the name.

  ‘I did not dare speak to you of the mission with which I knew you had been entrusted, in case he used Legilimency against you,’ continued Dumbledore. ‘But now at last we can speak plainly to each other … no harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that your unintentional victims survived … I can help you, Draco.’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. ‘Nobody can. He told me to do it or he’ll kill me. I’ve got no choice.’

  ‘Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban … when the time comes we can protect him too … come over to the right side, Draco … you are not a killer …’

  Malfoy stared at Dumbledore.

  ‘But I got this far, didn’t I?’ he said slowly. ‘They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here … and you’re in my power … I’m the one with the wand … you’re at my mercy …’

  ‘No, Draco,’ said Dumbledore quietly. ‘It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.’

  Malfoy did not speak. His mouth was open, his wand hand still trembling. Harry thought he saw it drop by a fraction –

  But suddenly footsteps were thundering up the stairs and a second later Malfoy was buffeted out of the way as four people in black robes burst through the door on to the ramparts. Still paralysed, his eyes staring unblinkingly, Harry gazed in terror upon four strangers: it seemed the Death Eaters had won the fight below.

  A lumpy-looking man with an odd lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle.

  ‘Dumbledore cornered!’ he said, and he turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. ‘Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! Well done, Draco, well done!’

  ‘Good evening, Amycus,’ said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. ‘And you’ve brought Alecto too … charming …’

  The woman gave an angry little titter.

  ‘Think your little jokes’ll help you on your death bed, then?’ she jeered.

  ‘Jokes? No, no, these are manners,’ replied Dumbledore.

  ‘Do it,’ said the stranger standing nearest to Harry, a big, rangy man with matted grey hair and whiskers, whose black Death Eater’s robes looked uncomfortably tight. He had a voice like none that Harry had ever heard: a rasping bark of a voice. Harry could smell a powerful mixture of dirt, sweat and, unmistakeably, of blood coming from him. His filthy hands had long yellowish nails.

  ‘Is that you, Fenrir?’ asked Dumbledore.

  ‘That’s right,’ rasped the other. ‘Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?’

  ‘No, I cannot say that I am …’

  Fenrir Greyback grinned, showing pointed teeth. Blood trickled down his chin and he licked his lips slowly, obscenely.

  ‘But you know how much I like kids, Dumbledore.’

  ‘Am I to take it that you are attacking even without the full moon now? This is most unusual … you have developed a taste for human flesh that cannot be satisfied once a month?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Greyback. ‘Shocks you, that, does it, Dumbledore? Frightens you?’

  ‘Well, I cannot pretend it does not disgust me a little,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And, yes, I am a little shocked that Draco here invited you, of all people, into the school where his friends live …’

  ‘I didn’t,’ breathed Malfoy. He was not looking at Greyback; he did not seem to want to even glance at him. ‘I didn’t know he was going to come –’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to miss a trip to Hogwarts, Dumbledore,’ rasped Greyback. ‘Not when there are throats to be ripped out … delicious, delicious …’

  And he raised a yellow fingernail and picked at his front teeth, leering at Dumbledore.

  ‘I could do you for afters, Dumbledore …’

  ‘No,’ said the fourth Death Eater sharply. He had a heavy, brutal-looking face. ‘We’ve got orders. Draco’s got to do it. Now, Draco, and quickly.’

  Malfoy was showing less resolution than ever. He looked terrified as he stared into Dumbledore’s face, which was even paler, and rather lower than usual, as he had slid so far down the rampart wall.

  ‘He’s not long for this world anyway, if you ask me!’ said the lopsided man, to the accompaniment of his sister’s wheezing giggles. ‘Look at him – what’s happened to you, then, Dumby?’

  ‘Oh, weaker resistance, slower reflexes, Amycus,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Old age, in short … one day, perhaps, it will happen to you … if you are lucky …’

  ‘What’s that mean, then, what’s that mean?’ yelled the Death Eater, suddenly violent. ‘Always the same, weren’t yeh, Dumby, talking and doing nothing, nothing, I don’t even know why the Dark Lord’s bothering to kill yeh! Come on, Draco, do it!’

  But at that moment, there were renewed sounds of scuffling from below and a voice shouted, ‘They’ve blocked the stairs – Reducto! REDUCTO!’

  Harry’s heart leapt: so these four had not eliminated all opposition, but merely broken through the fight to the top of the Tower, and, by the sound of it, created a barrier behind them –

  ‘Now, Draco, quickly!’ said the brutal-faced man angrily.

  But Malfoy’s hand was shaking so badly that he could barely aim.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ snarled Greyback, moving towards Dumbledore with his hands outstretched, his teeth bared.

  ‘I said no!’ shouted the brutal-faced man; there was a flash of light and the werewolf was blasted out of the way; he hit the ramparts and staggered, looking furious. Harry’s heart was hammering so hard it seemed impossible that nobody could hear him standing there, imprisoned by Dumbledore’s spell – if he could only move, he could aim a curse from under the Cloak –

  ‘Draco, do it, or stand aside so one of us –’ screeched the woman, but at that precise moment the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Malfoy.

  ‘We’ve got a problem, Snape,’ said the lumpy Amycus, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon Dumbledore, ‘the boy doesn’t seem able –’

  But somebody else had spoken Snape’s name, quite softly.

  ‘Severus …’

  The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.

  Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.

  Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.

  ‘Severus … please …’

  Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.

  ‘Avada Kedavra!’

  A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape’s wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent and unmoving, he
was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air: for a split second he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he fell slowly backwards, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT —

  Flight of the Prince

  Harry felt as though he, too, were hurtling through space; it had not happened … it could not have happened …

  ‘Out of here, quickly,’ said Snape.

  He seized Malfoy by the scruff of the neck and forced him through the door ahead of the rest; Greyback and the squat brother and sister followed, the latter both panting excitedly. As they vanished through the door Harry realised he could move again; what was now holding him paralysed against the wall was not magic, but horror and shock. He threw the Invisibility Cloak aside as the brutal-faced Death Eater, last to leave the Tower top, was disappearing through the door.

  ‘Petrificus Totalus!’

  The Death Eater buckled as though hit in the back with something solid, and fell to the ground, rigid as a waxwork, but he had barely hit the floor when Harry was clambering over him and running down the darkened staircase.

  Terror tore at Harry’s heart … he had to get to Dumbledore and he had to catch Snape … somehow the two things were linked … he could reverse what had happened if he had them both together … Dumbledore could not have died …

  He leapt the last ten steps of the spiral staircase and stopped where he landed, his wand raised: the dimly lit corridor was full of dust; half the ceiling seemed to have fallen in and a battle was raging before him, but even as he attempted to make out who was fighting whom, he heard the hated voice shout, ‘It’s over, time to go!’ and saw Snape disappearing round the corner at the far end of the corridor; he and Malfoy seemed to have forced their way through the fight unscathed. As Harry plunged after them, one of the fighters detached themself from the fray and flew at him: it was the werewolf, Greyback. He was on top of Harry before Harry could raise his wand: Harry fell backwards, with filthy matted hair in his face, the stench of sweat and blood filling his nose and mouth, hot greedy breath at his throat –