The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  Mrs Weasley took the nasty-smelling ointment from Madam Pomfrey and began dabbing at Bill’s wounds.

  ‘And Dumbledore …’ said Mr Weasley. ‘Minerva, is it true … is he really …?’

  As Professor McGonagall nodded, Harry felt Ginny move beside him and looked at her. Her slightly narrowed eyes were fixed upon Fleur, who was gazing down at Bill with a frozen expression on her face.

  ‘Dumbledore gone,’ whispered Mr Weasley, but Mrs Weasley had eyes only for her eldest son; she began to sob, tears falling on to Bill’s mutilated face.

  ‘Of course, it doesn’t matter how he looks … it’s not r – really important … but he was a very handsome little b – boy … always very handsome … and he was g – going to be married!’

  ‘And what do you mean by zat?’ said Fleur suddenly and loudly. ‘What do you mean, ’e was going to be married?’

  Mrs Weasley raised her tear-stained face, looking startled.

  ‘Well – only that –’

  ‘You theenk Bill will not wish to marry me any more?’ demanded Fleur. ‘You theenk, because of these bites, he will not love me?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I –’

  ‘Because ’e will!’ said Fleur, drawing herself up to her full height and throwing back her long mane of silver hair. ‘It would take more zan a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!’

  ‘Well, yes, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Weasley, ‘but I thought perhaps – given how – how he –’

  ‘You thought I would not weesh to marry him? Or per’aps, you ’oped?’ said Fleur, her nostrils flaring. ‘What do I care how ’e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave! And I shall do zat!’ she added fiercely, pushing Mrs Weasley aside and snatching the ointment from her.

  Mrs Weasley fell back against her husband and watched Fleur mopping up Bill’s wounds with a most curious expression upon her face. Nobody said anything; Harry did not dare move. Like everybody else, he was waiting for the explosion.

  ‘Our Great Auntie Muriel,’ said Mrs Weasley after a long pause, ‘has a very beautiful tiara – goblin-made – which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding. She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look lovely with your hair.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fleur stiffly. ‘I am sure zat will be lovely.’

  And then – Harry did not quite see how it happened – both women were crying and hugging each other. Completely bewildered, wondering whether the world had gone mad, he turned round: Ron looked as stunned as Harry felt and Ginny and Hermione were exchanging startled looks.

  ‘You see!’ said a strained voice. Tonks was glaring at Lupin. ‘She still wants to marry him, even though he’s been bitten! She doesn’t care!’

  ‘It’s different,’ said Lupin, barely moving his lips and looking suddenly tense. ‘Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely –’

  ‘But I don’t care either, I don’t care!’ said Tonks, seizing the front of Lupin’s robes and shaking them. ‘I’ve told you a million times …’

  And the meaning of Tonks’s Patronus and her mouse-coloured hair, and the reason she had come running to find Dumbledore when she had heard a rumour someone had been attacked by Greyback, all suddenly became clear to Harry; it had not been Sirius that Tonks had fallen in love with after all …

  ‘And I’ve told you a million times,’ said Lupin, refusing to meet her eyes, staring at the floor, ‘that I am too old for you, too poor … too dangerous …’

  ‘I’ve said all along you’re taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus,’ said Mrs Weasley over Fleur’s shoulder as she patted her on the back.

  ‘I am not being ridiculous,’ said Lupin steadily. ‘Tonks deserves somebody young and whole.’

  ‘But she wants you,’ said Mr Weasley, with a small smile. ‘And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so.’ He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them.

  ‘This is … not the moment to discuss it,’ said Lupin, avoiding everybody’s eyes as he looked around distractedly. ‘Dumbledore is dead …’

  ‘Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world,’ said Professor McGonagall curtly, just as the hospital doors opened again and Hagrid walked in.

  The little of his face that was not obscured by hair or beard was soaking and swollen; he was shaking with tears, a vast spotted handkerchief in his hand.

  ‘I’ve … I’ve done it, Professor,’ he choked. ‘M – moved him. Professor Sprout’s got the kids back in bed. Professor Flitwick’s lyin’ down but he says he’ll be all right in a jiffy, an’ Professor Slughorn says the Ministry’s bin informed.’

  ‘Thank you, Hagrid,’ said Professor McGonagall, standing up at once and turning to look at the group around Bill’s bed. ‘I shall have to see the Ministry when they get here. Hagrid, please tell the Heads of House – Slughorn can represent Slytherin – that I want to see them in my office forthwith. I would like you to join us, too.’

  As Hagrid nodded, turned and shuffled out of the room again, she looked down at Harry.

  ‘Before I meet them I would like a quick word with you, Harry. If you’ll come with me …’

  Harry stood up, murmured, ‘See you in a bit,’ to Ron, Hermione and Ginny, and followed Professor McGonagall back down the ward. The corridors outside were deserted and the only sound was the distant phoenix song. It was several minutes before Harry became aware that they were not heading for Professor McGonagall’s office, but for Dumbledore’s, and another few seconds before he realised that, of course, she had been Deputy Headmistress … apparently she was now Headmistress … so the room behind the gargoyle was now hers …

  In silence they ascended the moving spiral staircase and entered the circular office. He did not know what he had expected: that the room would be draped in black, perhaps, or even that Dumbledore’s body might be lying there. In fact, it looked almost exactly as it had done when he and Dumbledore had left it mere hours previously: the silver instruments whirring and puffing on their spindle-legged tables, Gryffindor’s sword in its glass case gleaming in the moonlight, the Sorting Hat on a shelf behind the desk. But Fawkes’s perch stood empty; he was still crying his lament to the grounds. And a new portrait had joined the ranks of the dead headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts … Dumbledore was slumbering in a golden frame over the desk, his half-moon spectacles perched upon his crooked nose, looking peaceful and untroubled.

  After glancing once at this portrait, Professor McGonagall made an odd movement as though steeling herself, then rounded the desk to look at Harry, her face taut and lined.

  ‘Harry,’ she said, ‘I would like to know what you and Professor Dumbledore were doing this evening when you left the school.’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Professor,’ said Harry. He had expected the question and had his answer ready. It had been here, in this very room, that Dumbledore had told him that he was to confide the contents of their lessons to nobody but Ron and Hermione.

  ‘Harry, it might be important,’ said Professor McGonagall.

  ‘It is,’ said Harry, ‘very, but he didn’t want me to tell anyone.’

  Professor McGonagall glared at him.

  ‘Potter’ (Harry registered the renewed use of his surname) ‘in the light of Professor Dumbledore’s death, I think you must see that the situation has changed somewhat –’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Harry, shrugging. ‘Professor Dumbledore never told me to stop following his orders if he died.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘There’s one thing you should know before the Ministry gets here, though. Madam Rosmerta’s under the Imperius Curse, she was helping Malfoy and the Death Eaters, that’s how the necklace and the poisoned mead –’

  ‘Rosmerta?’ said Professor McGonagall incredulously, but before she could go on, there was a knock on the door behind them and Professors Sprout, Fl
itwick and Slughorn traipsed into the room, followed by Hagrid, who was still weeping copiously, his huge frame trembling with grief.

  ‘Snape!’ ejaculated Slughorn, who looked the most shaken, pale and sweating. ‘Snape! I taught him! I thought I knew him!’

  But before any of them could respond to this, a sharp voice spoke from high on the wall: a sallow-faced wizard with a short black fringe had just walked back into his empty canvas.

  ‘Minerva, the Minister will be here within seconds, he has just Disapparated from the Ministry.’

  ‘Thank you, Everard,’ said Professor McGonagall, and she turned quickly to her teachers.

  ‘I want to talk about what happens to Hogwarts before he gets here,’ she said quickly. ‘Personally, I am not convinced that the school should reopen next year. The death of the Headmaster at the hands of one of our colleagues is a terrible stain upon Hogwarts’ history. It is horrible.’

  ‘I am sure Dumbledore would have wanted the school to remain open,’ said Professor Sprout. ‘I feel that if a single pupil wants to come, then the school ought to remain open for that pupil.’

  ‘But will we have a single pupil after this?’ said Slughorn, now dabbing his sweating brow with a silken handkerchief. ‘Parents will want to keep their children at home and I can’t say I blame them. Personally, I don’t think we’re in more danger at Hogwarts than we are anywhere else, but you can’t expect mothers to think like that. They’ll want to keep their families together, it’s only natural.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘And in any case, it is not true to say that Dumbledore never envisaged a situation in which Hogwarts might close. When the Chamber of Secrets reopened he considered the closure of the school – and I must say that Professor Dumbledore’s murder is more disturbing to me than the idea of Slytherin’s monster living undetected in the bowels of the castle …’

  ‘We must consult the governors,’ said Professor Flitwick in his squeaky little voice; he had a large bruise on his forehead but seemed otherwise unscathed by his collapse in Snape’s office. ‘We must follow the established procedures. A decision should not be made hastily.’

  ‘Hagrid, you haven’t said anything,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘What are your views, ought Hogwarts to remain open?’

  Hagrid, who had been weeping silently into his large spotted handkerchief throughout this conversation, now raised puffy red eyes and croaked, ‘I dunno, Professor … that’s fer the Heads of House an’ the Headmistress ter decide …’

  ‘Professor Dumbledore always valued your views,’ said Professor McGonagall kindly, ‘and so do I.’

  ‘Well, I’m stayin’,’ said Hagrid, fat tears still leaking out of the corners of his eyes and trickling down into his tangled beard. ‘It’s me home, it’s bin me home since I was thirteen. An’ if there’s kids who wan’ me ter teach ’em, I’ll do it. But … I dunno … Hogwarts without Dumbledore …’

  He gulped and disappeared behind his handkerchief once more, and there was silence.

  ‘Very well,’ said Professor McGonagall, glancing out of the window at the grounds, checking to see whether the Minister was yet approaching, ‘then I must agree with Filius that the right thing to do is to consult the governors, who will take the final decision.

  ‘Now, as to getting students home … there is an argument for doing it sooner rather than later. We could arrange for the Hogwarts Express to come tomorrow if necessary –’

  ‘What about Dumbledore’s funeral?’ said Harry, speaking at last.

  ‘Well …’ said Professor McGonagall, losing a little of her briskness as her voice shook, ‘I – I know that it was Dumbledore’s wish to be laid to rest here, at Hogwarts –’

  ‘Then that’s what’ll happen, isn’t it?’ said Harry fiercely.

  ‘If the Ministry thinks it appropriate,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘No other headmaster or headmistress has ever been –’

  ‘No other headmaster or headmistress ever gave more to this school,’ growled Hagrid.

  ‘Hogwarts should be Dumbledore’s final resting place,’ said Professor Flitwick.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Professor Sprout.

  ‘And in that case,’ said Harry, ‘you shouldn’t send the students home until the funeral’s over. They’ll want to say –’

  The last word caught in his throat, but Professor Sprout completed the sentence for him.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Well said,’ squeaked Professor Flitwick. ‘Well said indeed! Our students should pay tribute, it is fitting. We can arrange transport home afterwards.’

  ‘Seconded,’ barked Professor Sprout.

  ‘I suppose … yes …’ said Slughorn in a rather agitated voice, while Hagrid let out a strangled sob of assent.

  ‘He’s coming,’ said Professor McGonagall suddenly, gazing down into the grounds. ‘The Minister … and by the looks of it, he’s brought a delegation …’

  ‘Can I leave, Professor?’ said Harry at once.

  He had no desire at all to see, or be interrogated by, Rufus Scrimgeour tonight.

  ‘You may,’ said Professor McGonagall, ‘and quickly.’

  She strode towards the door and held it open for him. He sped down the spiral staircase and off along the deserted corridor; he had left his Invisibility Cloak at the top of the Astronomy Tower, but it did not matter; there was nobody in the corridors to see him pass, not even Filch, Mrs Norris or Peeves. He did not meet another soul until he turned into the passage leading to the Gryffindor common room.

  ‘Is it true?’ whispered the Fat Lady as he approached her. ‘Is it really true? Dumbledore – dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry.

  She let out a wail and, without waiting for the password, swung forwards to admit him.

  As Harry had suspected it would be, the common room was jam-packed. The room fell silent as he climbed through the portrait hole. He saw Dean and Seamus sitting in a group nearby: this meant that the dormitory must be empty, or nearly so. Without speaking to anybody, without making eye-contact at all, Harry walked straight across the room and through the door to the boys’ dormitories.

  As he had hoped, Ron was waiting for him, still fully dressed, sitting on his bed. Harry sat down on his own four-poster and, for a moment, they simply stared at each other.

  ‘They’re talking about closing the school,’ said Harry.

  ‘Lupin said they would,’ said Ron.

  There was a pause.

  ‘So?’ said Ron in a very low voice, as though he thought the furniture might be listening in. ‘Did you find one? Did you get it? A – a Horcrux?’

  Harry shook his head. All that had taken place around that black lake seemed like an old nightmare now; had it really happened, and only hours ago?

  ‘You didn’t get it?’ said Ron, looking crestfallen. ‘It wasn’t there?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘Someone had already taken it and left a fake in its place.’

  ‘Already taken –?’

  Wordlessly, Harry pulled the fake locket from his pocket, opened it and passed it to Ron. The full story could wait … it did not matter tonight … nothing mattered except the end, the end of their pointless adventure, the end of Dumbledore’s life …

  ‘R.A.B.,’ whispered Ron, ‘but who was that?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Harry, lying back on his bed fully clothed and staring blankly upwards. He felt no curiosity at all about R.A.B.: he doubted that he would ever feel curious again. As he lay there, he became aware suddenly that the grounds were silent. Fawkes had stopped singing.

  And he knew, without knowing how he knew it, that the phoenix had gone, had left Hogwarts for good, just as Dumbledore had left the school, had left the world … had left Harry.

  — CHAPTER THIRTY —

  The White Tomb

  All lessons were suspended, all examinations postponed. Some students were hurried away from Hogwarts by their parents over the next couple of days – the Patil twins were gone before
breakfast on the morning following Dumbledore’s death and Zacharias Smith was escorted from the castle by his haughty-looking father. Seamus Finnigan, on the other hand, refused point-blank to accompany his mother home; they had a shouting match in the Entrance Hall which was resolved when she agreed that he could remain behind for the funeral. She had difficulty in finding a bed in Hogsmeade, Seamus told Harry and Ron, for wizards and witches were pouring into the village, preparing to pay their last respects to Dumbledore.

  Some excitement was caused among the younger students, who had never seen it before, when a powder-blue carriage the size of a house, pulled by a dozen giant winged palominos, came soaring out of the sky in the late afternoon before the funeral and landed on the edge of the Forest. Harry watched from a window as a gigantic and handsome olive-skinned, black-haired woman descended the carriage steps and threw herself into the waiting Hagrid’s arms. Meanwhile a delegation of Ministry officials, including the Minister for Magic himself, was being accommodated within the castle. Harry was diligently avoiding contact with any of them; he was sure that, sooner or later, he would be asked again to account for Dumbledore’s last excursion from Hogwarts.

  Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were spending all of their time together. The beautiful weather seemed to mock them; Harry could imagine how it would have been if Dumbledore had not died, and they had had this time together at the very end of the year, Ginny’s examinations finished, the pressure of homework lifted … and hour by hour, he put off saying the thing that he knew he must say, doing what he knew it was right to do, because it was too hard to forgo his best source of comfort.

  They visited the hospital wing twice a day: Neville had been discharged, but Bill remained under Madam Pomfrey’s care. His scars were as bad as ever; in truth, he now bore a distinct resemblance to Mad-Eye Moody, though thankfully with both eyes and legs, but in personality he seemed just the same as ever. All that appeared to have changed was that he now had a great liking for very rare steaks.