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

  It was as though an invisible hand had twisted Harry’s intestines and held them tight.

  “Well, anyway, he was a big pal of your father’s at school. The whole Black family had been in my House, but Sirius ended up in Gryffindor! Shame—he was a talented boy. I got his brother, Regulus, when he came along, but I’d have liked the set.”

  He sounded like an enthusiastic collector who had been outbid at auction. Apparently lost in memories, he gazed at the opposite wall, turning idly on the spot to ensure an even heat on his backside.

  “Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldn’t believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good.”

  “One of my best friends is Muggle-born,” said Harry, “and she’s the best in our year.”

  “Funny how that sometimes happens, isn’t it?” said Slughorn.

  “Not really,” said Harry coldly.

  Slughorn looked down at him in surprise.

  “You mustn’t think I’m prejudiced!” he said. “No, no, no! Haven’t I just said your mother was one of my all-time favorite students? And there was Dirk Cresswell in the year after her too—now Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, of course—another Muggle-born, a very gifted student, and still gives me excellent inside information on the goings-on at Gringotts!”

  He bounced up and down a little, smiling in a self-satisfied way, and pointed at the many glittering photograph frames on the dresser, each peopled with tiny moving occupants.

  “All ex-students, all signed. You’ll notice Barnabas Cuffe, editor of the Daily Prophet, he’s always interested to hear my take on the day’s news. And Ambrosius Flume, of Honeydukes—a hamper every birthday, and all because I was able to give him an introduction to Ciceron Harkisss who gave him his first job! And at the back—you’ll see her if you just crane your neck—that’s Gwenog Jones, who of course captains the Holyhead Harpies… People are always astonished to hear I’m on first-name terms with the Harpies, and free tickets whenever I want them!”

  This thought seemed to cheer him up enormously.

  “And all these people know where to find you, to send you stuff?” asked Harry, who could not help wondering why the Death Eaters had not yet tracked down Slughorn if hampers of sweets, Quidditch tickets, and visitors craving his advice and opinions could find him.

  The smile slid from Slughorn’s face as quickly as the blood from his walls.

  “Of course not,” he said, looking down at Harry. “I have been out of touch with everybody for a year.”

  Harry had the impression that the words shocked Slughorn himself; he looked quite unsettled for a moment. Then he shrugged.

  “Still… the prudent wizard keeps his head down in such times. All very well for Dumbledore to talk, but taking up a post at Hogwarts just now would be tantamount to declaring my public allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix! And while I’m sure they’re very admirable and brave and all the rest of it, I don’t personally fancy the mortality rate—”

  “You don’t have to join the Order to teach at Hogwarts,” said Harry, who could not quite keep a note of derision out of his voice: It was hard to sympathize with Slughorn’s cosseted existence when he remembered Sirius, crouching in a cave and living on rats. “Most of the teachers aren’t in it, and none of them has ever been killed—well, unless you count Quirrell, and he got what he deserved seeing as he was working with Voldemort.”

  Harry had been sure Slughorn would be one of those wizards who could not bear to hear Voldemort’s name spoken aloud, and was not disappointed: Slughorn gave a shudder and a squawk of protest, which Harry ignored.

  “I reckon the staff are safer than most people while Dumbledore’s headmaster; he’s supposed to be the only one Voldemort ever feared, isn’t he?” Harry went on.

  Slughorn gazed into space for a moment or two: He seemed to be thinking over Harry’s words.

  “Well, yes, it is true that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has never sought a fight with Dumbledore,” he muttered grudgingly. “And I suppose one could argue that as I have not joined the Death Eaters, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named can hardly count me a friend… in which case, I might well be safer a little closer to Albus… I cannot pretend that Amelia Bones’s death did not shake me… If she, with all her Ministry contacts and protection…”

  Dumbledore reentered the room and Slughorn jumped as though he had forgotten he was in the house.

  “Oh, there you are, Albus,” he said. “You’ve been a very long lime. Upset stomach?”

  “No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines,” said Dumbledore. “I do love knitting patterns. Well, Harry, we have trespassed upon Horace’s hospitality quite long enough; I think it is time for us to leave.”

  Not at all reluctant to obey, Harry jumped to his feet. Slughorn sinned taken aback.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes, indeed. I think I know a lost cause when I see one.”

  “Lost…?”

  Slughorn seemed agitated. He twiddled his fat thumbs and fidgeted as he watched Dumbledore fasten his traveling cloak, and Harry zip up his jacket.

  “Well, I’m sorry you don’t want the job, Horace,” said Dumbledore, raising his uninjured hand in a farewell salute. “Hogwarts would have been glad to see you back again. Our greatly increased security notwithstanding, you will always be welcome to visit, should you wish to.”

  “Yes… well… very gracious… as I say…”

  “Good-bye, then.”

  “Bye,” said Harry.

  They were at the front door when there was a shout from behind them.

  “All right, all right, I’ll do it!”

  Dumbledore turned to see Slughorn standing breathless in the doorway to the sitting room.

  “You will come out of retirement?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Slughorn impatiently. “I must be mad, but yes.”

  “Wonderful,” said Dumbledore, beaming. “Then, Horace, we shall see you on the first of September.”

  “Yes, I daresay you will,” grunted Slughorn.

  As they set off down the garden path, Slughorn’s voice floated after them, “I’ll want a pay rise, Dumbledore!”

  Dumbledore chuckled. The garden gate swung shut behind them, and they set off back down the hill through the dark and the swirling mist.

  “Well done, Harry,” said Dumbledore.

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Harry in surprise.

  “Oh yes you did. You showed Horace exactly how much he stands to gain by returning to Hogwarts. Did you like him?”

  “Er…”

  Harry wasn’t sure whether he liked Slughorn or not. He supposed he had been pleasant in his way, but he had also seemed vain and, whatever he said to the contrary, much too surprised that a Muggle-born should make a good witch.

  “Horace,” said Dumbledore, relieving Harry of the responsibility to say any of this, “likes his comfort. He also likes the company of the famous, the successful, and the powerful. He enjoys the feeling that he influences these people. He has never wanted to occupy the throne himself; he prefers the backseat—more room to spread out, you see. He used to handpick favorites at Hogwarts, sometimes for their ambition or their brains, sometimes for their charm or their talent, and he had an uncanny knack for choosing those who would go on to become outstanding in their various fields. Horace formed a kind of club of his favorites with himself at the center, making introductions, forging useful contacts between members, and always reaping some kind of benefit in return, whether a free box of his favorite crystallized pineapple or the chance to recommend the next junior member of the Goblin Liaison Office.”

  Harry had a sudden and vivid mental image of a great swollen spider, spinning a web around it, twitching a thread here and there to bring its large and juicy flies a little closer.

  “I tell you all this,” Dumbledore continued, “not to turn you against Horace—or, as we must now call him, Professor Slughorn—but to put you on your guard. He will undoubtedly t
ry to collect you, Harry. You would be the jewel of his collection; ‘the Boy Who Lived’… or, as they call you these days, ‘the Chosen One.’”

  At these words, a chill that had nothing to do with the surrounding mist stole over Harry. He was reminded of words he had heard a few weeks ago, words that had a horrible and particular meaning to him:

  Neither can live while the other survives…

  Dumbledore had stopped walking, level with the church they had passed earlier.

  “This will do, Harry. If you will grasp my arm.”

  Braced this time, Harry was ready for the Apparition, but still found it unpleasant. When the pressure disappeared and he found himself able to breathe again, he was standing in a country lane beside Dumbledore and looking ahead to the crooked silhouette of his second favorite building in the world: the Burrow. In spite of the feeling of dread that had just swept through him, his spirits could not help but lift at the sight of it. Ron was in there… and so was Mrs. Weasley, who could cook better than anyone he knew…

  “If you don’t mind, Harry,” said Dumbledore, as they passed through the gate, “I’d like a few words with you before we part. In private. Perhaps in here?”

  Dumbledore pointed toward a run-down stone outhouse where the Weasleys kept their broomsticks. A little puzzled, Harry followed Dumbledore through the creaking door into a space a little smaller than the average cupboard. Dumbledore illuminated the tip of his wand, so that it glowed like a torch, and smiled down at Harry.

  “I hope you will forgive me for mentioning it, Harry, but I am pleased and a little proud at how well you seem to be coping after everything that happened at the Ministry. Permit me to say that I think Sirius would have been proud of you.”

  Harry swallowed; his voice seemed to have deserted him. He did not think he could stand to discuss Sirius; it had been painful enough to hear Uncle Vernon say “His godfather’s dead?” and even worse to hear Sirius’s name thrown out casually by Slughorn.

  “It was cruel,” said Dumbledore softly, “that you and Sirius had such a short time together. A brutal ending to what should have been a long and happy relationship.”

  Harry nodded, his eyes fixed resolutely on the spider now climbing Dumbledore’s hat. He could tell that Dumbledore understood, that he might even suspect that until his letter arrived, Harry had spent nearly all his time at the Dursleys’ lying on his bed, refusing meals, and staring at the misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to associate with Dementors.

  “It’s just hard,” Harry said finally, in a low voice, “to realize he won’t write to me again.”

  His eyes burned suddenly and he blinked. He felt stupid for admitting it, but the fact that he had had someone outside Hogwarts who cared what happened to him, almost like a parent, had been one of the best things about discovering his godfather… and now the post owls would never bring him that comfort again…

  “Sirius represented much to you that you had never known before,” said Dumbledore gently. “Naturally, the loss is devastating…”

  “But while I was at the Dursleys’…” interrupted Harry, his voice growing stronger, “I realized I can’t shut myself away or—or crack up. Sirius wouldn’t have wanted that, would he? And anyway, life’s too short… Look at Madam Bones, look at Emmeline Vance… It could be me next, couldn’t it? But if it is,” he said fiercely, now looking straight into Dumbledore’s blue eyes gleaming in the wandlight, “I’ll make sure I take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage it.”

  “Spoken both like your mother and father’s son and Sirius’s true godson!” said Dumbledore, with an approving pat on Harry’s back. “I take my hat off to you—or I would, if I were not afraid of showering you in spiders.

  “And now, Harry, on a closely related subject… I gather that you have been taking the Daily Prophet over the last two weeks?”

  “Yes,” said Harry, and his heart beat a little faster.

  “Then you will have seen that there have been not so much leaks as floods concerning your adventure in the Hall of Prophecy?”

  “Yes,” said Harry again. “And now everyone knows that I’m the one—”

  “No, they do not,” interrupted Dumbledore. “There are only two people in the whole world who know the full contents of the prophecy made about you and Lord Voldemort, and they are both standing in this smelly, spidery broom shed. It is true, however, that many have guessed, correctly, that Voldemort sent his Death Eaters to steal a prophecy, and that the prophecy concerned you.

  “Now, I think I am correct in saying that you have not told anybody that you know what the prophecy said?”

  “No,” said Harry.

  “A wise decision, on the whole,” said Dumbledore. “Although I think you ought to relax it in favor of your friends, Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger. Yes,” he continued, when Harry looked startled, “I think they ought to know. You do them a disservice by not confiding something this important to them.”

  “I didn’t want—”

  “—to worry or frighten them?” said Dumbledore, surveying Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles. “Or perhaps, to confess that you yourself are worried and frightened? You need your friends, Harry. As you so rightly said, Sirius would not have wanted you to shut yourself away.”

  Harry said nothing, but Dumbledore did not seem to require an answer. He continued, “On a different, though related, subject, it is my wish that you take private lessons with me this year.”

  “Private—with you?” said Harry, surprised out of his preoccupied silence.

  “Yes. I think it is time that I took a greater hand in your education.”

  “What will you be teaching me, sir?”

  “Oh, a little of this, a little of that,” said Dumbledore airily.

  Harry waited hopefully, but Dumbledore did not elaborate, so ho asked something else that had been bothering him slightly.

  “If I’m having lessons with you, I won’t have to do Occlumency lessons with Snape, will I?”

  “Professor Snape, Harry—and no, you will not.”

  “Good,” said Harry in relief, “because they were a—”

  He stopped, careful not to say what he really thought.

  “I think the word ‘fiasco’ would be a good one here,” said Dumbledore, nodding.

  Harry laughed.

  “Well, that means I won’t see much of Professor Snape from now on,” he said, “because he won’t let me carry on Potions unless I get ‘Outstanding’ in my O.W.L., which I know I haven’t.”

  “Don’t count your owls before they are delivered,” said Dumbledore gravely. “Which, now I think of it, ought to be some time later today. Now, two more things, Harry, before we part.

  “Firstly, I wish you to keep your Invisibility Cloak with you at all times from this moment onward. Even within Hogwarts itself. Just in case, you understand me?”

  Harry nodded.

  “And lastly, while you stay here, the Burrow has been given the highest security the Ministry of Magic can provide. These measures have caused a certain amount of inconvenience to Arthur and Molly—all their post, for instance, is being searched at the Ministry before being sent on. They do not mind in the slightest, for their only concern is your safety. However, it would be poor repayment if you risked your neck while staying with them.”

  “I understand,” said Harry quickly.

  “Very well, then,” said Dumbledore, pushing open the broom shed door and stepping out into the yard. “I see a light in the kitchen. Let us not deprive Molly any longer of the chance to deplore how thin you are.”

  5. AN EXCESS OF PHLEGM

  Harry and Dumbledore approached the back door of the Burrow, which was surrounded by the familiar litter of old Wellington boots and rusty cauldrons; Harry could hear the soft clucking of sleepy chickens coming from a distant shed. Dumbledore knocked three times and Harry saw sudden movement behind the kitchen window.

&nb
sp; “Who’s there?” said a nervous voice he recognized as Mrs. Weasley’s. “Declare yourself!”

  “It is I, Dumbledore, bringing Harry.”

  The door opened at once. There stood Mrs. Weasley, short, plump, and wearing an old green dressing gown.

  “Harry, dear! Gracious, Albus, you gave me a fright, you said not to expect you before morning!”

  “We were lucky,” said Dumbledore, ushering Harry over the threshold. “Slughorn proved much more persuadable than I had expected. Harry’s doing, of course. Ah, hello, Nymphadora!”

  Harry looked around and saw that Mrs. Weasley was not alone, despite the lateness of the hour. A young witch with a pale, heart-shaped face and mousy brown hair was sitting at the table clutching a large mug between her hands.

  “Hello, Professor,” she said. “Wotcher, Harry.”

  “Hi, Tonks.”

  Harry thought she looked drawn, even ill, and there was something forced in her smile. Certainly her appearance was less colorful than usual without her customary shade of bubble-gum-pink hair.

  “I’d better be off,” she said quickly, standing up and pulling her cloak around her shoulders. “Thanks for the tea and sympathy, Molly—”

  “Please don’t leave on my account,” said Dumbledore courteously, “I cannot stay, I have urgent matters to discuss with Rufus Scrimgeour.”

  “No, no, I need to get going,” said Tonks, not meeting Dumbledore’s eyes. “’Night…”

  “Dear, why not come to dinner at the weekend, Remus and Mad-Eye are coming…?”

  “No, really, Molly… thanks anyway… Good night, everyone.”

  Tonks hurried past Dumbledore and Harry into the yard; a few paces beyond the doorstep, she turned on the spot and vanished into thin air. Harry noticed that Mrs. Weasley looked troubled.

  “Well, I shall see you at Hogwarts, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “Take care of yourself. Molly, your servant.”