The Half-Blood Prince Read online

  ‘Why not, sir?’

  ‘You are with me,’ said Dumbledore simply. ‘This will do, Harry.’

  He came to an abrupt halt at the end of Privet Drive.

  ‘You have not, of course, passed your Apparition test?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘I thought you had to be seventeen?’

  ‘You do,’ said Dumbledore. ‘So you will need to hold on to my arm very tightly. My left, if you don’t mind – as you have noticed, my wand arm is a little fragile at the moment.’

  Harry gripped Dumbledore’s proffered forearm.

  ‘Very good,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Well, here we go.’

  Harry felt Dumbledore’s arm twist away from him and redoubled his grip: the next thing he knew, everything went black; he was being pressed very hard from all directions; he could not breathe, there were iron bands tightening around his chest; his eyeballs were being forced back into his head; his eardrums were being pushed deeper into his skull, and then –

  He gulped great lungfuls of cold night air and opened his streaming eyes. He felt as though he had just been forced through a very tight rubber tube. It was a few seconds before he realised that Privet Drive had vanished. He and Dumbledore were now standing in what appeared to be a deserted village square, in the centre of which stood an old war memorial and a few benches. His comprehension catching up with his senses, Harry realised that he had just Apparated for the first time in his life.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Dumbledore, looking down at him solicitously. ‘The sensation does take some getting used to.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Harry, rubbing his ears, which felt as though they had left Privet Drive rather reluctantly. ‘But I think I might prefer brooms.’

  Dumbledore smiled, drew his travelling cloak a little more tightly around his neck and said, ‘This way.’

  He set off at a brisk pace, past an empty inn and a few houses. According to a clock on a nearby church, it was almost midnight.

  ‘So tell me, Harry,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Your scar … has it been hurting at all?’

  Harry raised a hand unconsciously to his forehead and rubbed the lightning-shaped mark.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘and I’ve been wondering about that. I thought it would be burning all the time now Voldemort’s getting so powerful again.’

  He glanced up at Dumbledore and saw that he was wearing a satisfied expression.

  ‘I, on the other hand, thought otherwise,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Lord Voldemort has finally realised the dangerous access to his thoughts and feelings you have been enjoying. It appears that he is now employing Occlumency against you.’

  ‘Well, I’m not complaining,’ said Harry, who missed neither the disturbing dreams nor the startling flashes of insight into Voldemort’s mind.

  They turned a corner, passing a telephone box and a bus shelter. Harry looked sideways at Dumbledore again.

  ‘Professor?’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Er – where exactly are we?’

  ‘This, Harry, is the charming village of Budleigh Babberton.’

  ‘And what are we doing here?’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course, I haven’t told you,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Well, I have lost count of the number of times I have said this in recent years, but we are, once again, one member of staff short. We are here to persuade an old colleague of mine to come out of retirement and return to Hogwarts.’

  ‘How can I help with that, sir?’

  ‘Oh, I think we’ll find a use for you,’ said Dumbledore vaguely. ‘Left here, Harry.’

  They proceeded up a steep, narrow street lined with houses. All the windows were dark. The odd chill that had lain over Privet Drive for two weeks persisted here, too. Thinking of Dementors, Harry cast a look over his shoulder and grasped his wand reassuringly in his pocket.

  ‘Professor, why couldn’t we just Apparate directly into your old colleague’s house?’

  ‘Because it would be quite as rude as kicking down the front door,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Courtesy dictates that we offer fellow wizards the opportunity of denying us entry. In any case, most wizarding dwellings are magically protected from unwanted Apparators. At Hogwarts, for instance –’

  ‘– you can’t Apparate anywhere inside the buildings or grounds,’ said Harry quickly. ‘Hermione Granger told me.’

  ‘And she is quite right. We turn left again.’

  The church clock chimed midnight behind them. Harry wondered why Dumbledore did not consider it rude to call on his old colleague so late, but now that conversation had been established, he had more pressing questions to ask.

  ‘Sir, I saw in the Daily Prophet that Fudge has been sacked …’

  ‘Correct,’ said Dumbledore, now turning up a steep side-street. ‘He has been replaced, as I am sure you also saw, by Rufus Scrimgeour, who used to be Head of the Auror Office.’

  ‘Is he … do you think he’s good?’ asked Harry.

  ‘An interesting question,’ said Dumbledore. ‘He is able, certainly. A more decisive and forceful personality than Cornelius.’

  ‘Yes, but I meant –’

  ‘I know what you meant. Rufus is a man of action and, having fought Dark wizards for most of his working life, does not underestimate Lord Voldemort.’

  Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not say anything about the disagreement with Scrimgeour that the Daily Prophet had reported, and he did not have the nerve to pursue the subject, so he changed it.

  ‘And … sir … I saw about Madam Bones.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore quietly. ‘A terrible loss. She was a great witch. Just up here, I think – ouch.’

  He had pointed with his injured hand.

  ‘Professor, what happened to your –?’

  ‘I have no time to explain now,’ said Dumbledore. ‘It is a thrilling tale, I wish to do it justice.’

  He smiled at Harry, who understood that he was not being snubbed, and that he had permission to keep asking questions.

  ‘Sir – I got a Ministry of Magic leaflet by owl, about security measures we should all take against the Death Eaters …’

  ‘Yes, I received one myself,’ said Dumbledore, still smiling. ‘Did you find it useful?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘No, I thought not. You have not asked me, for instance, what is my favourite flavour of jam, to check that I am indeed Professor Dumbledore, and not an impostor.’

  ‘I didn’t …’ Harry began, not entirely sure whether he was being reprimanded or not.

  ‘For future reference, Harry, it is raspberry … although of course, if I were a Death Eater, I would have been sure to research my own jam-preferences before impersonating myself.’

  ‘Er … right,’ said Harry. ‘Well, on that leaflet, it said something about Inferi. What exactly are they? The leaflet wasn’t very clear.’

  ‘They are corpses,’ said Dumbledore calmly. ‘Dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a Dark wizard’s bidding. Inferi have not been seen for a long time, however, not since Voldemort was last powerful … he killed enough people to make an army of them, of course. This is the place, Harry, just here …’

  They were nearing a small, neat stone house set in its own garden. Harry was too busy digesting the horrible idea of Inferi to have much attention left for anything else, but as they reached the front gate Dumbledore stopped dead and Harry walked into him.

  ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear.’

  Harry followed his gaze up the carefully tended front path and felt his heart sink. The front door was hanging off its hinges.

  Dumbledore glanced up and down the street. It seemed quite deserted.

  ‘Wand out and follow me, Harry,’ he said quietly.

  He opened the gate and walked swiftly and silently up the garden path, Harry at his heels, then pushed the front door very slowly, his wand raised and at the ready.

  ‘Lumos.’

  Dumbledore’s wand-tip ignited, casting its light up a narrow hallway. To the
left, another door stood open. Holding his illuminated wand aloft, Dumbledore walked into the sitting room with Harry right behind him.

  A scene of total devastation met their eyes. A grandfather clock lay splintered at their feet, its face cracked, its pendulum lying a little further away like a dropped sword. A piano was on its side, its keys strewn across the floor. The wreckage of a fallen chandelier glittered nearby. Cushions lay deflated, feathers oozing from slashes in their sides; fragments of glass and china lay like powder over everything. Dumbledore raised his wand even higher, so that its light was thrown upon the walls, where something darkly red and glutinous was spattered over the wallpaper. Harry’s small intake of breath made Dumbledore look round.

  ‘Not pretty, is it,’ he said heavily. ‘Yes, something horrible has happened here.’

  Dumbledore moved carefully into the middle of the room, scrutinising the wreckage at his feet. Harry followed, gazing around, half-scared of what he might see hidden behind the wreck of the piano or the overturned sofa, but there was no sign of a body.

  ‘Maybe there was a fight and – and they dragged him off, Professor?’ Harry suggested, trying not to imagine how badly wounded a man would have to be to leave those stains spattered halfway up the walls.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Dumbledore quietly, peering behind an overstuffed armchair lying on its side.

  ‘You mean he’s –?’

  ‘Still here somewhere? Yes.’

  And without warning, Dumbledore swooped, plunging the tip of his wand into the seat of the overstuffed armchair, which yelled, ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Good evening, Horace,’ said Dumbledore, straightening up again.

  Harry’s jaw dropped. Where a split second before there had been an armchair, there now crouched an enormously fat, bald old man who was massaging his lower belly and squinting up at Dumbledore with an aggrieved and watery eye.

  ‘There was no need to stick the wand in that hard,’ he said gruffly, clambering to his feet. ‘It hurt.’

  The wand-light sparkled on his shiny pate, his prominent eyes, his enormous, silver walrus-like moustache, and the highly polished buttons on the maroon velvet jacket he was wearing over a pair of lilac silk pyjamas. The top of his head barely reached Dumbledore’s chin.

  ‘What gave it away?’ he grunted as he staggered to his feet, still rubbing his lower belly. He seemed remarkably unabashed for a man who had just been discovered pretending to be an armchair.

  ‘My dear Horace,’ said Dumbledore, looking amused, ‘if the Death Eaters really had come to call, the Dark Mark would have been set over the house.’

  The wizard clapped a pudgy hand to his vast forehead.

  ‘The Dark Mark,’ he muttered. ‘Knew there was something … ah well. Wouldn’t have had time, anyway. I’d only just put the finishing touches to my upholstery when you entered the room.’

  He heaved a great sigh that made the ends of his moustache flutter.

  ‘Would you like my assistance clearing up?’ asked Dumbledore politely.

  ‘Please,’ said the other.

  They stood back to back, the tall thin wizard and the short round one, and waved their wands in one identical sweeping motion.

  The furniture flew back to its original place; ornaments re-formed in midair; feathers zoomed into their cushions; torn books repaired themselves as they landed upon their shelves; oil lanterns soared on to side tables and reignited; a vast collection of splintered silver picture frames flew glittering across the room and alighted, whole and untarnished, upon a desk; rips, cracks and holes healed everywhere; and the walls wiped themselves clean.

  ‘What kind of blood was that, incidentally?’ asked Dumbledore loudly over the chiming of the newly unsmashed grandfather clock.

  ‘On the walls? Dragon,’ shouted the wizard called Horace as, with a deafening grinding and tinkling, the chandelier screwed itself back into the ceiling.

  There was a final plunk from the piano, and silence.

  ‘Yes, dragon,’ repeated the wizard conversationally. ‘My last bottle, and prices are sky-high at the moment. Still, it might be reusable.’

  He stumped over to a small crystal bottle standing on top of a sideboard and held it up to the light, examining the thick liquid within.

  ‘Hm. Bit dusty.’

  He set the bottle back on the sideboard and sighed. It was then that his gaze fell upon Harry.

  ‘Oho,’ he said, his large round eyes flying to Harry’s forehead and the lightning-shaped scar it bore. ‘Oho!’

  ‘This,’ said Dumbledore, moving forwards to make the introduction, ‘is Harry Potter. Harry, this is an old friend and colleague of mine, Horace Slughorn.’

  Slughorn turned on Dumbledore, his expression shrewd.

  ‘So that’s how you thought you’d persuade me, is it? Well, the answer’s no, Albus.’

  He pushed past Harry, his face turned resolutely away with the air of a man trying to resist temptation.

  ‘I suppose we can have a drink, at least?’ asked Dumbledore. ‘For old times’ sake?’

  Slughorn hesitated.

  ‘All right then, one drink,’ he said ungraciously.

  Dumbledore smiled at Harry and directed him towards a chair not unlike the one that Slughorn had so recently impersonated, which stood right beside the newly burning fire and a brightly glowing oil lamp. Harry took the seat with the distinct impression that Dumbledore, for some reason, wanted to keep him as visible as possible. Certainly when Slughorn, who had been busy with decanters and glasses, turned to face the room again, his eyes fell immediately upon Harry.

  ‘Humph,’ he said, looking away quickly as though frightened of hurting his eyes. ‘Here –’ He gave a drink to Dumbledore, who had sat down without invitation, thrust the tray at Harry and then sank into the cushions of the repaired sofa and a disgruntled silence. His legs were so short that they did not touch the floor.

  ‘Well, how have you been keeping, Horace?’ Dumbledore asked.

  ‘Not so well,’ said Slughorn at once. ‘Weak chest. Wheezy. Rheumatism too. Can’t move like I used to. Well, that’s to be expected. Old age. Fatigue.’

  ‘And yet you must have moved fairly quickly to prepare such a welcome for us at such short notice,’ said Dumbledore. ‘You can’t have had more than three minutes’ warning?’

  Slughorn said, half-irritably, half-proudly, ‘Two. Didn’t hear my Intruder Charm go off, I was taking a bath. Still,’ he added sternly, seeming to pull himself back together again, ‘the fact remains that I’m an old man, Albus. A tired old man who’s earned the right to a quiet life and a few creature comforts.’

  He certainly had those, thought Harry, looking around the room. It was stuffy and cluttered, yet nobody could say it was uncomfortable; there were soft chairs and footstools, drinks and books, boxes of chocolates and plump cushions. If Harry had not known who lived there, he would have guessed at a rich, fussy old lady.

  ‘You’re not yet as old as I am, Horace,’ said Dumbledore.

  ‘Well, maybe you ought to think about retirement yourself,’ said Slughorn bluntly. His pale gooseberry eyes had found Dumbledore’s injured hand. ‘Reactions not what they were, I see.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Dumbledore serenely, shaking back his sleeve to reveal the tips of those burned and blackened fingers; the sight of them made the back of Harry’s neck prickle unpleasantly. ‘I am undoubtedly slower than I was. But on the other hand …’

  He shrugged and spread his hands wide, as though to say that age had its compensations, and Harry noticed a ring on his uninjured hand that he had never seen Dumbledore wear before: it was large, rather clumsily made of what looked like gold, and was set with a heavy black stone that had cracked down the middle. Slughorn’s eyes lingered for a moment on the ring, too, and Harry saw a tiny frown momentarily crease his wide forehead.

  ‘So, all these precautions against intruders, Horace … are they for the Death Eaters’ benefit, or mine?’ asked Dumbledore.
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  ‘What would the Death Eaters want with a poor broken-down old buffer like me?’ demanded Slughorn.

  ‘I imagine that they would want you to turn your considerable talents to coercion, torture and murder,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Are you really telling me that they haven’t come recruiting yet?’

  Slughorn eyed Dumbledore balefully for a moment, then muttered, ‘I haven’t given them the chance. I’ve been on the move for a year. Never stay in one place more than a week. Move from Muggle house to Muggle house – the owners of this place are on holiday in the Canary Islands. It’s been very pleasant, I’ll be sorry to leave. It’s quite easy once you know how, one simple Freezing Charm on these absurd burglar alarms they use instead of Sneakoscopes and make sure the neighbours don’t spot you bringing in the piano.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ said Dumbledore. ‘But it sounds a rather tiring existence for a broken-down old buffer in search of a quiet life. Now, if you were to return to Hogwarts –’

  ‘If you’re going to tell me my life would be more peaceful at that pestilential school, you can save your breath, Albus! I might have been in hiding, but some funny rumours have reached me since Dolores Umbridge left! If that’s how you treat teachers these days –’

  ‘Professor Umbridge ran afoul of our centaur herd,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I think you, Horace, would have known better than to stride into the Forest and call a horde of angry centaurs “filthy half-breeds”.’

  ‘That’s what she did, did she?’ said Slughorn. ‘Idiotic woman. Never liked her.’

  Harry chuckled and both Dumbledore and Slughorn looked round at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ Harry said hastily. ‘It’s just – I didn’t like her, either.’

  Dumbledore stood up rather suddenly.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ asked Slughorn at once, looking hopeful.

  ‘No, I was wondering whether I might use your bathroom,’ said Dumbledore.

  ‘Oh,’ said Slughorn, clearly disappointed. ‘Second on the left down the hall.’

  Dumbledore crossed the room. Once the door had closed behind him there was silence. After a few moments Slughorn got to his feet, but seemed uncertain what to do with himself. He shot a furtive look at Harry, then strode to the fire and turned his back on it, warming his wide behind.