[Part 12] "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by Rowling J.K.

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CHAPTER XXIII. HORCRUXES

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Harry could feel the Felix Felicis wearing off as he crept back into the castle.

The front door had remained unlocked for him, but on the third floor he met Peeves and only narrowly avoided detection by diving sideways through one of his shortcuts.

By the time he got up to the portrait of the Fat Lady and pulled off his Invisibility Cloak, he was not surprised to find her in a most unhelpful mood.

“What sort of time do you call this?”

“I’m really sorry — I had to go out for something important —”

“Well, the password changed at midnight, so you’ll just have to sleep in the corridor, won’t you?”

“You’re joking!” said Harry. “Why did it have to change at midnight?”

“That’s the way it is,” said the Fat Lady.

“If you’re angry, go and take it up with the headmaster, he’s the one who’s tightened security.”

“Fantastic,” said Harry bitterly, looking around at the hard floor.

“Really brilliant.

Yeah, I would go and take it up with Dumbledore if he was here, because he’s the one who wanted me to —”

“He is here,” said a voice behind Harry.

“Professor Dumbledore returned to the school an hour ago.”

Nearly Headless Nick was gliding toward Harry, his head wobbling as usual upon his ruff.

“I had it from the Bloody Baron, who saw him arrive,” said Nick.

“He appeared, according to the Baron, to be in good spirits, though a little tired, of course.”

“Where is he?” said Harry, his heart leaping.

“Oh, groaning and clanking up on the Astronomy Tower, it’s a favorite pastime of his —”

“Not the Bloody Baron — Dumbledore!”

“Oh — in his office,” said Nick.

“I believe, from what the Baron said, that he had business to attend to before turning in —”

“Yeah, he has,” said Harry, excitement blazing in his chest at the prospect of telling Dumbledore he had secured the memory.

He wheeled about and sprinted off again, ignoring the Fat Lady who was calling after him.

“Come back! All right, I lied! I was annoyed you woke me up!

The password’s still ‘tapeworm’!”

But Harry was already hurtling back along the corridor and within minutes, he was saying “toffee éclairs” to Dumbledore’s gargoyle, which leapt aside, permitting Harry entrance onto the spiral staircase.

“Enter,” said Dumbledore when Harry knocked.

He sounded exhausted.

Harry pushed open the door.

There was Dumbledore’s office, looking the same as ever, but with black, star-strewn skies beyond the windows.

“Good gracious, Harry,” said Dumbledore in surprise.

“To what do I owe this very late pleasure?”

“Sir — I’ve got it.

I’ve got the memory from Slughorn.”

Harry pulled out the tiny glass bottle and showed it to Dumbledore.

For a moment or two, the headmaster looked stunned.

Then his face split in a wide smile.

“Harry, this is spectacular news!

Very well done indeed!

I knew you could do it!”

All thought of the lateness of the hour apparently forgotten, he hurried around his desk, took the bottle with Slughorn’s memory in his uninjured hand, and strode over to the cabinet where he kept the Pensieve.

“And now,” said Dumbledore, placing the stone basin upon his desk and emptying the contents of the bottle into it.

“Now, at last, we shall see.

Harry, quickly . . .”

Harry bowed obediently over the Pensieve and felt his feet leave the office floor . . .

Once again he fell through darkness and landed in Horace Slughorn’s office many years before.

There was the much younger Slughorn, with his thick, shiny, straw-colored hair and his gingery-blond mustache, sitting again in the comfortable winged armchair in his office, his feet resting upon a velvet pouffe, a small glass of wine in one hand, the other rummaging in a box of crystallized pineapple.

And there were the half-dozen teenage boys sitting around Slughorn with Tom Riddle in the midst of them, Marvolo’s gold-and-black ring gleaming on his finger.

Dumbledore landed beside Harry just as Riddle asked, “Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?”

“Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn’t tell you,” said Slughorn, wagging his finger reprovingly at Riddle, though winking at the same time.

“I must say, I’d like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are.”

Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.

“What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn’t, and your careful flattery of the people who matter — thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you’re quite right, it is my favorite —”

Several of the boys tittered again.

“— I confidently expect you to rise to Minister of Magic within twenty years.

Fifteen, if you keep sending me pineapple, I have excellent contacts at the Ministry.”

Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again.

Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader.

“I don’t know that politics would suit me, sir,” he said when the laughter had died away.

“I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.”

A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other.

Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader’s famous ancestor.

“Nonsense,” said Slughorn briskly, “couldn’t be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours.

No, you’ll go far, Tom, I’ve never been wrong about a student yet.”

The small golden clock standing upon Slughorn’s desk chimed eleven o’clock behind him and he looked around.

“Good gracious, is it that time already?

You’d better get going, boys, or we’ll all be in trouble.

Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it’s detention.

Same goes for you, Avery.”

One by one, the boys filed out of the room.

Slughorn heaved himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk.

A movement behind him made him look around; Riddle was still standing there.

“Look sharp, Tom, you don’t want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect . . .”

“Sir, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Ask away, then, m’boy, ask away . . .”

“Sir, I wondered what you know about . . . about Horcruxes?”

Slughorn stared at him, his thick fingers absentmindedly caressing the stem of his wine glass.

“Project for Defense Against the Dark Arts, is it?”

But Harry could tell that Slughorn knew perfectly well that this was not schoolwork.

“Not exactly, sir,” said Riddle.

“I came across the term while reading and I didn’t fully understand it.”

“No . . . well . . . you’d be hard-pushed to find a book at Hogwarts that’ll give you details on Horcruxes, Tom, that’s very Dark stuff, very Dark indeed,” said Slughorn.

“But you obviously know all about them, sir?

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I mean, a wizard like you — sorry, I mean, if you can’t tell me, obviously — I just knew if anyone could tell me, you could — so I just thought I’d ask —”

It was very well done, thought Harry, the hesitancy, the casual tone, the careful flattery, none of it overdone.

He, Harry, had had too much experience of trying to wheedle information out of reluctant people not to recognize a master at work.

He could tell that Riddle wanted the information very, very much; perhaps had been working toward this moment for weeks.

“Well,” said Slughorn, not looking at Riddle, but fiddling with the ribbon on top of his box of crystalized pineapple, “well, it can’t hurt to give you an overview, of course.

Just so that you understand the term.

A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul.”

“I don’t quite understand how that works, though, sir,” said Riddle.

His voice was carefully controlled, but Harry could sense his excitement.

“Well, you split your soul, you see,” said Slughorn, “and hide part of it in an object outside the body.

Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged.

But of course, existence in such a form . . .”

Slughorn’s face crumpled and Harry found himself remembering words he had heard nearly two years before: “I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost . . . but still, I was alive.”

“. . . few would want it, Tom, very few.

Death would be preferable.”

But Riddle’s hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing.

“How do you split your soul?”

“Well,” said Slughorn uncomfortably, “you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole.

Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature.”

“But how do you do it?”

“By an act of evil — the supreme act of evil.

By committing murder.

Killing rips the soul apart.

The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: He would encase the torn portion —”

“Encase?

But how — ?”

“There is a spell, do not ask me, I don’t know!” said Slughorn, shaking his head like an old elephant bothered by mosquitoes.

“Do I look as though I have tried it — do I look like a killer?”

“No, sir, of course not,” said Riddle quickly.

“I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to offend . . .”

“Not at all, not at all, not offended,” said Slughorn gruffly.

“It’s natural to feel some curiosity about these things.

Wizards of a certain caliber have always been drawn to that aspect of magic. . . .”

“Yes, sir,” said Riddle.

“What I don’t understand, though — just out of curiosity — I mean, would one Horcrux be much use?

Can you only split your soul once?

Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces, I mean, for instance, isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn’t seven — ?”

“Merlin’s beard, Tom!” yelped Slughorn.

“Seven!

Isn’t it bad enough to think of killing one person?

And in any case . . . bad enough to divide the soul . . . but to rip it into seven pieces . . .”

Slughorn looked deeply troubled now:

He was gazing at Riddle as though he had never seen him plainly before, and Harry could tell that he was regretting entering into the conversation at all.

“Of course,” he muttered, “this is all hypothetical, what we’re discussing, isn’t it?

All academic . . .”

“Yes, sir, of course,” said Riddle quickly.

“But all the same, Tom . . . keep it quiet, what I’ve told — that’s to say, what we’ve discussed.

People wouldn’t like to think we’ve been chatting about Horcruxes.

It’s a banned subject at Hogwarts, you know.

Dumbledore’s particularly fierce about it. . . .”

“I won’t say a word, sir,” said Riddle, and he left, but not before Harry had glimpsed his face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when he had first found out that he was a wizard, the sort of happiness that did not enhance his handsome features, but made them, somehow, less human. . . .

“Thank you, Harry,” said Dumbledore quietly.

“Let us go. . . .”

When Harry landed back on the office floor Dumbledore was already sitting down behind his desk.

Harry sat too and waited for Dumbledore to speak.

“I have been hoping for this piece of evidence for a very long time,” said Dumbledore at last.

“It confirms the theory on which I have been working, it tells me that I am right, and also how very far there is still to go. . . .”

Harry suddenly noticed that every single one of the old headmasters and headmistresses in the portraits around the walls was awake and listening in on their conversation.

A corpulent, red-nosed wizard had actually taken out an ear trumpet.

“Well, Harry,” said Dumbledore, “I am sure you understood the significance of what we just heard.

At the same age as you are now, give or take a few months, Tom Riddle was doing all he could to find out how to make himself immortal.”

“You think he succeeded then, sir?” asked Harry.

“He made a Horcrux?

And that’s why he didn’t die when he attacked me?

He had a Horcrux hidden somewhere?

A bit of his soul was safe?”

“A bit . . . or more,” said Dumbledore.

“You heard Voldemort: What he particularly wanted from Horace was an opinion on what would happen to the wizard who created more than one Horcrux, what would happen to the wizard so determined to evade death that he would be prepared to murder many times, rip his soul repeatedly, so as to store it in many, separately concealed Horcruxes.

No book would have given him that information.

As far as I know — as far, I am sure, as Voldemort knew — no wizard had ever done more than tear his soul in two.”

Dumbledore paused for a moment, marshaling his thoughts, and then said, “Four years ago, I received what I considered certain proof that Voldemort had split his soul.”

“Where?” asked Harry.

“How?”

“You handed it to me, Harry,” said Dumbledore.

“The diary, Riddle’s diary, the one giving instructions on how to reopen the Chamber of Secrets.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” said Harry.

“Well, although I did not see the Riddle who came out of the diary, what you described to me was a phenomenon I had never witnessed.

A mere memory starting to act and think for itself?

A mere memory, sapping the life out of the girl into whose hands it had fallen?

No, something much more sinister had lived inside that book . . . a fragment of soul, I was almost sure of it.

The diary had been a Horcrux.

But this raised as many questions as it answered.

“What intrigued and alarmed me most was that that diary had been intended as a weapon as much as a safeguard.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Harry.

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“Well, it worked as a Horcrux is supposed to work — in other words, the fragment of soul concealed inside it was kept safe and had undoubtedly played its part in preventing the death of its owner.

But there could be no doubt that Riddle really wanted that diary read, wanted the piece of his soul to inhabit or possess somebody else, so that Slytherin’s monster would be unleashed again.”

“Well, he didn’t want his hard work to be wasted,” said Harry.

“He wanted people to know he was Slytherin’s heir, because he couldn’t take credit at the time.”

“Quite correct,” said Dumbledore, nodding.

“But don’t you see, Harry, that if he intended the diary to be passed to, or planted on, some future Hogwarts student, he was being remarkably blasé about that precious fragment of his soul concealed within it.

The point of a Horcrux is, as Professor Slughorn explained, to keep part of the self hidden and safe, not to fling it into somebody else’s path and run the risk that they might destroy it — as indeed happened: That particular fragment of soul is no more; you saw to that.

“The careless way in which Voldemort regarded this Horcrux seemed most ominous to me.

It suggested that he must have made — or been planning to make — more Horcruxes, so that the loss of his first would not be so detrimental.

I did not wish to believe it, but nothing else seemed to make sense.

“Then you told me, two years later, that on the night that Voldemort returned to his body, he made a most illuminating and alarming statement to his Death Eaters.

‘I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality.’

That was what you told me he said.

‘Further than anybody.’

And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Death Eaters did not.

He was referring to his Horcruxes, Horcruxes in the plural, Harry, which I do not believe any other wizard has ever had.

Yet it fitted: Lord Voldemort has seemed to grow less human with the passing years, and the transformation he has undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if his soul was mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call ‘usual evil’ . . .”

“So he’s made himself impossible to kill by murdering other people?” said Harry.

“Why couldn’t he make a Sorcerer’s Stone, or steal one, if he was so interested in immortality?”

“Well, we know that he tried to do just that, five years ago,” said Dumbledore.

“But there are several reasons why, I think, a Sorcerer’s Stone would appeal less than Horcruxes to Lord Voldemort.

“While the Elixir of Life does indeed extend life, it must be drunk regularly, for all eternity, if the drinker is to maintain their immortality.

Therefore, Voldemort would be entirely dependent on the Elixir, and if it ran out, or was contaminated, or if the Stone was stolen, he would die just like any other man.

Voldemort likes to operate alone, remember.

I believe that he would have found the thought of being dependent, even on the Elixir, intolerable.

Of course he was prepared to drink it if it would take him out of the horrible part-life to which he was condemned after attacking you, but only to regain a body.

Thereafter, I am convinced, he intended to continue to rely on his Horcruxes: He would need nothing more, if only he could regain a human form.

He was already immortal, you see . . . or as close to immortal as any man can be.

“But now, Harry, armed with this information, the crucial memory you have succeeded in procuring for us, we are closer to the secret of finishing Lord Voldemort than anyone has ever been before.

You heard him, Harry: ‘Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces . . . isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number . . . ’

Isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number.

Yes, I think the idea of a seven-part soul would greatly appeal to Lord Voldemort.”

“He made seven Horcruxes?” said Harry, horror-struck, while several of the portraits on the walls made similar noises of shock and outrage.

“But they could be anywhere in the world — hidden — buried or invisible —”

“I am glad to see you appreciate the magnitude of the problem,” said Dumbledore calmly.

“But firstly, no, Harry, not seven Horcruxes: six.

The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body.

That was the part of him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his exile; without that, he has no self at all.

That seventh piece of soul will be the last that anybody wishing to kill Voldemort must attack — the piece that lives in his body.”

“But the six Horcruxes, then,” said Harry, a little desperately, “how are we supposed to find them?”

“You are forgetting . . . you have already destroyed one of them.

And I have destroyed another.”

“You have?” said Harry eagerly.

“Yes indeed,” said Dumbledore, and he raised his blackened, burned-looking hand.

“The ring, Harry. Marvolo’s ring.

And a terrible curse there was upon it too.

Had it not been — forgive me the lack of seemly modesty — for my own prodigious skill, and for Professor Snape’s timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, desperately injured, I might not have lived to tell the tale.

However, a withered hand does not seem an unreasonable exchange for a seventh of Voldemort’s soul.

The ring is no longer a Horcrux.”

“But how did you find it?”

“Well, as you now know, for many years I have made it my business to discover as much as I can about Voldemort’s past life.

I have traveled widely, visiting those places he once knew.

I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gaunts’ house.

It seems that once Voldemort had succeeded in sealing a piece of his soul inside it, he did not want to wear it anymore.

He hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where his ancestors had once lived (Morfin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course), never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment.

“However, we should not congratulate ourselves too heartily.

You destroyed the diary and I the ring, but if we are right in our theory of a seven-part soul, four Horcruxes remain.”

“And they could be anything?” said Harry.

“They could be old tin cans or, I dunno, empty potion bottles. . . .”

“You are thinking of Portkeys, Harry, which must be ordinary objects, easy to overlook.

But would Lord Voldemort use tin cans or old potion bottles to guard his own precious soul?

You are forgetting what I have showed you.

Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies, and he preferred objects with a powerful magical history.

His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favoring objects worthy of the honor.”

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“The diary wasn’t that special.”

“The diary, as you have said yourself, was proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin; I am sure that Voldemort considered it of stupendous importance.”

“So, the other Horcruxes?” said Harry.

“Do you think you know what they are, sir?”

“I can only guess,” said Dumbledore.

“For the reasons I have already given, I believe that Lord Voldemort would prefer objects that, in themselves, have a certain grandeur.

I have therefore trawled back through Voldemort’s past to see if I can find evidence that such artifacts have disappeared around him.”

“The locket!” said Harry loudly.

“Hufflepuff’s cup!”

“Yes,” said Dumbledore, smiling, “I would be prepared to bet — perhaps not my other hand — but a couple of fingers, that they became Horcruxes three and four.

The remaining two, assuming again that he created a total of six, are more of a problem, but I will hazard a guess that, having secured objects from Hufflepuff and Slytherin, he set out to track down objects owned by Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.

Four objects from the four founders would, I am sure, have exerted a powerful pull over Voldemort’s imagination.

I cannot answer for whether he ever managed to find anything of Ravenclaw’s.

I am confident, however, that the only known relic of Gryffindor remains safe.”

Dumbledore pointed his blackened fingers to the wall behind him, where a ruby-encrusted sword reposed within a glass case.

“Do you think that’s why he really wanted to come back to Hogwarts, sir?” said Harry.

“To try and find something from one of the other founders?”

“My thoughts precisely,” said Dumbledore.

“But unfortunately, that does not advance us much further, for he was turned away, or so I believe, without the chance to search the school.

I am forced to conclude that he never fulfilled his ambition of collecting four founders’ objects.

He definitely had two — he may have found three — that is the best we can do for now.”

“Even if he got something of Ravenclaw’s or of Gryffindor’s, that leaves a sixth Horcrux,” said Harry, counting on his fingers.

“Unless he got both?”

“I don’t think so,” said Dumbledore.

“I think I know what the sixth Horcrux is.

I wonder what you will say when I confess that I have been curious for a while about the behavior of the snake, Nagini?”

“The snake?” said Harry, startled.

“You can use animals as Horcruxes?”

“Well, it is inadvisable to do so,” said Dumbledore, “because to confide a part of your soul to something that can think and move for itself is obviously a very risky business.

However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents’ house with the intention of killing you.

“He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths.

You would certainly have been that.

He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined.

He believed he was making himself invincible.

I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death.

“As we know, he failed.

After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might then have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux.

She underlines the Slytherin connection, which enhances Lord Voldemort’s mystique;

I think he is perhaps as fond of her as he can be of anything;

he certainly likes to keep her close, and he seems to have an unusual amount of control over her, even for a Parselmouth.”

“So,” said Harry, “the diary’s gone, the ring’s gone.

The cup, the locket, and the snake are still intact, and you think there might be a Horcrux that was once Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s?”

“An admirably succinct and accurate summary, yes,” said Dumbledore, bowing his head.

“So . . . are you still looking for them, sir?

Is that where you’ve been going when you’ve been leaving the school?”

“Correct,” said Dumbledore.

“I have been looking for a very long time.

I think . . . perhaps . . . I may be close to finding another one.

There are hopeful signs.”

“And if you do,” said Harry quickly, “can I come with you and help get rid of it?”

Dumbledore looked at Harry very intently for a moment before saying, “Yes, I think so.”

“I can?” said Harry, thoroughly taken aback.

“Oh yes,” said Dumbledore, smiling slightly.

“I think you have earned that right.”

Harry felt his heart lift.

It was very good not to hear words of caution and protection for once.

The headmasters and headmistresses around the walls seemed less impressed by Dumbledore’s decision;

Harry saw a few of them shaking their heads and Phineas Nigellus actually snorted.

“Does Voldemort know when a Horcrux is destroyed, sir?

Can he feel it?”

Harry asked, ignoring the portraits.

“A very interesting question, Harry.

I believe not.

I believe that Voldemort is now so immersed in evil, and these crucial parts of himself have been detached for so long, he does not feel as we do.

Perhaps, at the point of death, he might be aware of his loss . . .

but he was not aware, for instance, that the diary had been destroyed until he forced the truth out of Lucius Malfoy.

When Voldemort discovered that the diary had been mutilated and robbed of all its powers, I am told that his anger was terrible to behold.”

“But I thought he meant Lucius Malfoy to smuggle it into Hogwarts?”

“Yes, he did, years ago, when he was sure he would be able to create more Horcruxes,

but still Lucius was supposed to wait for Voldemort’s say-so, and he never received it, for Voldemort vanished shortly after giving him the diary.

“No doubt he thought that Lucius would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully,

but he was counting too much upon Lucius’s fear of a master who had been gone for years and whom Lucius believed dead.

Of course, Lucius did not know what the diary really was.

I understand that Voldemort had told him the diary would cause the Chamber of Secrets to reopen because it was cleverly enchanted.

Had Lucius known he held a portion of his master’s soul in his hands, he would undoubtedly have treated it with more reverence —

but instead he went ahead and carried out the old plan for his own ends:

By planting the diary upon Arthur Weasley’s daughter, he hoped to discredit Arthur and get rid of a highly incriminating magical object in one stroke.

Ah, poor Lucius . . .

what with Voldemort’s fury about the fact that he threw away the Horcrux for his own gain,

and the fiasco at the Ministry last year, I would not be surprised if he is not secretly glad to be safe in Azkaban at the moment.”

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Harry sat in thought for a moment, then asked, “So if all of his Horcruxes are destroyed, Voldemort could be killed?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Dumbledore.

“Without his Horcruxes, Voldemort will be a mortal man with a maimed and diminished soul.

Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged beyond repair, his brain and his magical powers remain intact.

It will take uncommon skill and power to kill a wizard like Voldemort even without his Horcruxes.”

“But I haven’t got uncommon skill and power,” said Harry, before he could stop himself.

“Yes, you have,” said Dumbledore firmly.

“You have a power that Voldemort has never had.

You can —”

“I know!” said Harry impatiently.

“I can love!”

It was only with difficulty that he stopped himself adding, “Big deal!”

“Yes, Harry, you can love,” said Dumbledore, who looked as though he knew perfectly well what Harry had just refrained from saying.

“Which, given everything that has happened to you, is a great and remarkable thing.

You are still too young to understand how unusual you are, Harry.”

“So, when the prophecy says that I’ll have ‘power the Dark Lord knows not,’ it just means — love?”

asked Harry, feeling a little let down.

“Yes — just love,” said Dumbledore.

“But Harry, never forget that what the prophecy says is only significant because Voldemort made it so.

I told you this at the end of last year.

Voldemort singled you out as the person who would be most dangerous to him —

and in doing so, he made you the person who would be most dangerous to him!”

“But it comes to the same —”

“No, it doesn’t!” said Dumbledore, sounding impatient now.

Pointing at Harry with his black, withered hand, he said, “You are setting too much store by the prophecy!”

“But,” spluttered Harry, “but you said the prophecy means —”

“If Voldemort had never heard of the prophecy, would it have been fulfilled?

Would it have meant anything?

Of course not!

Do you think every prophecy in the Hall of Prophecy has been fulfilled?”

“But,” said Harry, bewildered, “but last year, you said one of us would have to kill the other —”

“Harry, Harry, only because Voldemort made a grave error, and acted on Professor Trelawney’s words!

If Voldemort had never murdered your father, would he have imparted in you a furious desire for revenge?

Of course not!

If he had not forced your mother to die for you, would he have given you a magical protection he could not penetrate?

Of course not, Harry!

Don’t you see?

Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do!

Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress?

All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!

Voldemort is no different!

Always he was on the lookout for the one who would challenge him.

He heard the prophecy and he leapt into action, with the result that he not only handpicked the man most likely to finish him,

he handed him uniquely deadly weapons!”

“But —”

“It is essential that you understand this!” said Dumbledore, standing up and striding about the room, his glittering robes swooshing in his wake;

Harry had never seen him so agitated.

“By attempting to kill you, Voldemort himself singled out the remarkable person who sits here in front of me, and gave him the tools for the job!

It is Voldemort’s fault that you were able to see into his thoughts, his ambitions, that you even understand the snakelike language in which he gives orders,

and yet, Harry, despite your privileged insight into Voldemort’s world (which, incidentally, is a gift any Death Eater would kill to have),

you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort’s followers!”

“Of course I haven’t!” said Harry indignantly.

“He killed my mum and dad!”

“You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!” said Dumbledore loudly.

“The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Voldemort’s!

In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure of heart,

just as pure as you were at the age of eleven, when you stared into a mirror that reflected your heart’s desire,

and it showed you only the way to thwart Lord Voldemort, and not immortality or riches.

Harry, have you any idea how few wizards could have seen what you saw in that mirror?

Voldemort should have known then what he was dealing with, but he did not!

“But he knows it now.

You have flitted into Lord Voldemort’s mind without damage to yourself,

but he cannot possess you without enduring mortal agony, as he discovered in the Ministry.

I do not think he understands why, Harry,

but then, he was in such a hurry to mutilate his own soul,

he never paused to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole.”

“But, sir,” said Harry, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative,

“it all comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?

I’ve got to try and kill him, or —”

“Got to?” said Dumbledore.

“Of course you’ve got to!

But not because of the prophecy!

Because you, yourself, will never rest until you’ve tried!

We both know it!

Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy!

How would you feel about Voldemort now?

Think!”

Harry watched Dumbledore striding up and down in front of him, and thought.

He thought of his mother, his father, and Sirius.

He thought of Cedric Diggory.

He thought of all the terrible deeds he knew Lord Voldemort had done.

A flame seemed to leap inside his chest, searing his throat.

“I’d want him finished,” said Harry quietly.

“And I’d want to do it.”

“Of course you would!” cried Dumbledore.

“You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything!

But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal. . . .

In other words, you are free to choose your way,

quite free to turn your back on the prophecy!

But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy.

He will continue to hunt you . . .

which makes it certain, really, that —”

“That one of us is going to end up killing the other,” said Harry.

“Yes.”

But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him.

It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high.

Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways,

but Dumbledore knew — and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride,

and so did my parents — that there was all the difference in the world.

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CHAPTER XXIV. SECTUMSEMPRA

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Exhausted but delighted with his night’s work, Harry told Ron and Hermione everything that had happened during next morning’s Charms lesson (having first cast the Muffliato spell upon those nearest them).

They were both satisfyingly impressed by the way he had wheedled the memory out of Slughorn and positively awed when he told them about Voldemort’s Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s promise to take Harry along, should he find another one.

“Wow,” said Ron, when Harry had finally finished telling them everything; Ron was waving his wand very vaguely in the direction of the ceiling without paying the slightest bit of attention to what he was doing.

“Wow. You’re actually going to go with Dumbledore . . . and try and destroy . . . wow.”

“Ron, you’re making it snow,” said Hermione patiently, grabbing his wrist and redirecting his wand away from the ceiling from which, sure enough, large white flakes had started to fall.

Lavender Brown, Harry noticed, glared at Hermione from a neighboring table through very red eyes, and Hermione immediately let go of Ron’s arm.

“Oh yeah,” said Ron, looking down at his shoulders in vague surprise.

“Sorry . . . looks like we’ve all got horrible dandruff now. . . .”

He brushed some of the fake snow off Hermione’s shoulder.

Lavender burst into tears.

Ron looked immensely guilty and turned his back on her.

“We split up,” he told Harry out of the corner of his mouth.

“Last night.

When she saw me coming out of the dormitory with Hermione.

Obviously she couldn’t see you, so she thought it had just been the two of us.”

“Ah,” said Harry.

“Well — you don’t mind it’s over, do you?”

“No,” Ron admitted.

“It was pretty bad while she was yelling, but at least I didn’t have to finish it.”

“Coward,” said Hermione, though she looked amused.

“Well, it was a bad night for romance all around.

Ginny and Dean split up too, Harry.”

Harry thought there was a rather knowing look in her eye as she told him that, but she could not possibly know that his insides were suddenly dancing the conga.

Keeping his face as immobile and his voice as indifferent as he could, he asked, “How come?”

“Oh, something really silly . . .

She said he was always trying to help her through the portrait hole, like she couldn’t climb in herself . . . but they’ve been a bit rocky for ages.”

Harry glanced over at Dean on the other side of the classroom.

He certainly looked unhappy.

“Of course, this puts you in a bit of a dilemma, doesn’t it?” said Hermione.

“What d’you mean?” said Harry quickly.

“The Quidditch team,” said Hermione.

“If Ginny and Dean aren’t speaking . . .”

“Oh — oh yeah,” said Harry.

“Flitwick,” said Ron in a warning tone.

The tiny little Charms master was bobbing his way toward them, and Hermione was the only one who had managed to turn vinegar into wine; her glass flask was full of deep crimson liquid, whereas the contents of Harry’s and Ron’s were still murky brown.

“Now, now, boys,” squeaked Professor Flitwick reproachfully.

“A little less talk, a little more action . . .

Let me see you try. . . .”

Together they raised their wands, concentrating with all their might, and pointed them at their flasks.

Harry’s vinegar turned to ice; Ron’s flask exploded.

“Yes . . . for homework,” said Professor Flitwick, reemerging from under the table and pulling shards of glass out of the top of his hat, “practice.”

They had one of their rare joint free periods after Charms and walked back to the common room together.

Ron seemed to be positively lighthearted about the end of his relationship with Lavender, and Hermione seemed cheery too, though when asked what she was grinning about she simply said, “It’s a nice day.”

Neither of them seemed to have noticed that a fierce battle was raging inside Harry’s brain:

She’s Ron’s sister.

But she’s ditched Dean!

She’s still Ron’s sister.

I’m his best mate!

That’ll make it worse.

If I talked to him first —

He’d hit you.

What if I don’t care?

He’s your best mate!

Harry barely noticed that they were climbing through the portrait hole into the sunny common room,

and only vaguely registered the small group of seventh years clustered together there, until Hermione cried, “Katie! You’re back! Are you okay?”

Harry stared:

It was indeed Katie Bell, looking completely healthy and surrounded by her jubilant friends.

“I’m really well!” she said happily.

“They let me out of St. Mungo’s on Monday, I had a couple of days at home with Mum and Dad and then came back here this morning.

Leanne was just telling me about McLaggen and the last match, Harry. . . .”

“Yeah,” said Harry, “well, now you’re back and Ron’s fit, we’ll have a decent chance of thrashing Ravenclaw, which means we could still be in the running for the Cup.

Listen, Katie . . .”

He had to put the question to her at once; his curiosity even drove Ginny temporarily from his brain.

He dropped his voice as Katie’s friends started gathering up their things; apparently they were late for Transfiguration.

“. . . that necklace . . . can you remember who gave it to you now?”

“No,” said Katie, shaking her head ruefully.

“Everyone’s been asking me, but I haven’t got a clue.

The last thing I remember was walking into the ladies’ in the Three Broomsticks.”

“You definitely went into the bathroom, then?” said Hermione.

“Well, I know I pushed open the door,” said Katie, “so I suppose whoever Imperiused me was standing just behind it.

After that, my memory’s a blank until about two weeks ago in St. Mungo’s.

Listen, I’d better go, I wouldn’t put it past McGonagall to give me lines even if it is my first day back. . . .”

She caught up her bag and books and hurried after her friends, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione to sit down at a window table and ponder what she had told them.

“So it must have been a girl or a woman who gave Katie the necklace,” said Hermione, “to be in the ladies’ bathroom.”

“Or someone who looked like a girl or a woman,” said Harry.

“Don’t forget, there was a cauldron full of Polyjuice Potion at Hogwarts.

We know some of it got stolen. . . .”

In his mind’s eye, he watched a parade of Crabbes and Goyles prance past, all transformed into girls.

“I think I’m going to take another swig of Felix,” said Harry, “and have a go at the Room of Requirement again.”

“That would be a complete waste of potion,” said Hermione flatly, putting down the copy of Spellman’s Syllabary she had just taken out of her bag.

“Luck can only get you so far, Harry.

The situation with Slughorn was different; you always had the ability to persuade him, you just needed to tweak the circumstances a bit.

Luck isn’t enough to get you through a powerful enchantment, though.

Don’t go wasting the rest of that potion!

You’ll need all the luck you can get if Dumbledore takes you along with him . . .”

She dropped her voice to a whisper.

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“Couldn’t we make some more?” Ron asked Harry, ignoring Hermione.

“It’d be great to have a stock of it. . . . Have a look in the book . . .”

Harry pulled his copy of Advanced Potion-Making out of his bag and looked up Felix Felicis.

“Blimey, it’s seriously complicated,” he said, running an eye down the list of ingredients.

“And it takes six months . . . You’ve got to let it stew. . . .”

“Typical,” said Ron.

Harry was about to put his book away again when he noticed the corner of a page folded down; turning to it, he saw the Sectumsempra spell, captioned “For Enemies,” that he had marked a few weeks previously.

He had still not found out what it did, mainly because he did not want to test it around Hermione, but he was considering trying it out on McLaggen next time he came up behind him unawares.

The only person who was not particularly pleased to see Katie Bell back at school was Dean Thomas, because he would no longer be required to fill her place as Chaser.

He took the blow stoically enough when Harry told him, merely grunting and shrugging, but Harry had the distinct feeling as he walked away that Dean and Seamus were muttering mutinously behind his back.

The following fortnight saw the best Quidditch practices Harry had known as Captain.

His team was so pleased to be rid of McLaggen, so glad to have Katie back at last, that they were flying extremely well.

Ginny did not seem at all upset about the breakup with Dean; on the contrary, she was the life and soul of the team.

Her imitations of Ron anxiously bobbing up and down in front of the goalposts as the Quaffle sped toward him, or of Harry bellowing orders at McLaggen before being knocked out cold, kept them all highly amused.

Harry, laughing with the others, was glad to have an innocent reason to look at Ginny; he had received several more Bludger injuries during practice because he had not been keeping his eyes on the Snitch.

The battle still raged inside his head: Ginny or Ron?

Sometimes he thought that the post-Lavender Ron might not mind too much if he asked Ginny out, but then he remembered Ron’s expression when he had seen her kissing Dean, and was sure that Ron would consider it base treachery if Harry so much as held her hand. . . .

Yet Harry could not help himself talking to Ginny, laughing with her, walking back from practice with her; however much his conscience ached, he found himself wondering how best to get her on her own.

It would have been ideal if Slughorn had given another of his little parties, for Ron would not be around — but unfortunately, Slughorn seemed to have given them up.

Once or twice Harry considered asking for Hermione’s help, but he did not think he could stand seeing the smug look on her face; he thought he caught it sometimes when Hermione spotted him staring at Ginny or laughing at her jokes.

And to complicate matters, he had the nagging worry that if he didn’t do it, somebody else was sure to ask Ginny out soon: He and Ron were at least agreed on the fact that she was too popular for her own good.

All in all, the temptation to take another gulp of Felix Felicis was becoming stronger by the day, for surely this was a case for, as Hermione put it, “tweaking the circumstances”?

The balmy days slid gently through May, and Ron seemed to be there at Harry’s shoulder every time he saw Ginny.

Harry found himself longing for a stroke of luck that would somehow cause Ron to realize that nothing would make him happier than his best friend and his sister falling for each other and to leave them alone together for longer than a few seconds.

There seemed no chance of either while the final Quidditch game of the season was looming; Ron wanted to talk tactics with Harry all the time and had little thought for anything else.

Ron was not unique in this respect; interest in the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw game was running extremely high throughout the school, for the match would decide the Championship, which was still wide open.

If Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw by a margin of three hundred points (a tall order, and yet Harry had never known his team to fly better) then they would win the Championship.

If they won by less than three hundred points, they would come second to Ravenclaw; if they lost by a hundred points they would be third behind Hufflepuff and if they lost by more than a hundred, they would be in fourth place and nobody, Harry thought, would ever, ever let him forget that it had been he who had captained Gryffindor to their first bottom-of-the-table defeat in two centuries.

The run-up to this crucial match had all the usual features: members of rival Houses attempting to intimidate opposing teams in the corridors; unpleasant chants about individual players being rehearsed loudly as they passed; the team members themselves either swaggering around enjoying all the attention or else dashing into bathrooms between classes to throw up.

Somehow, the game had become inextricably linked in Harry’s mind with success or failure in his plans for Ginny.

He could not help feeling that if they won by more than three hundred points, the scenes of euphoria and a nice loud after-match party might be just as good as a hearty swig of Felix Felicis.

In the midst of all his preoccupations, Harry had not forgotten his other ambition: finding out what Malfoy was up to in the Room of Requirement.

He was still checking the Marauder’s Map, and as he was unable to locate Malfoy on it, deduced that Malfoy was still spending plenty of time within the room.

Although Harry was losing hope that he would ever succeed in getting inside the Room of Requirement, he attempted it whenever he was in the vicinity, but no matter how he reworded his request, the wall remained firmly doorless.

A few days before the match against Ravenclaw, Harry found himself walking down to dinner alone from the common room, Ron having rushed off into a nearby bathroom to throw up yet again, and Hermione having dashed off to see Professor Vector about a mistake she thought she might have made in her last Arithmancy essay.

More out of habit than anything, Harry made his usual detour along the seventh-floor corridor, checking the Marauder’s Map as he went.

For a moment he could not find Malfoy anywhere and assumed he must indeed be inside the Room of Requirement again, but then he saw Malfoy’s tiny, labeled dot standing in a boys’ bathroom on the floor below, accompanied, not by Crabbe or Goyle, but by Moaning Myrtle.

Harry only stopped staring at this unlikely coupling when he walked right into a suit of armor.

The loud crash brought him out of his reverie; hurrying from the scene lest Filch turn up, he dashed down the marble staircase and along the passageway below.

Outside the bathroom, he pressed his ear against the door.

He could not hear anything.

He very quietly pushed the door open.

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Draco Malfoy was standing with his back to the door, his hands clutching either side of the sink, his white-blond head bowed.

“Don’t,” crooned Moaning Myrtle’s voice from one of the cubicles.

“Don’t . . . tell me what’s wrong . . . I can help you. . . .”

“No one can help me,” said Malfoy.

His whole body was shaking.

“I can’t do it. . . . I can’t. . . . It won’t work . . . and unless I do it soon . . . he says he’ll kill me. . . .”

And Harry realized, with a shock so huge it seemed to root him to the spot, that Malfoy was crying — actually crying — tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.

Malfoy gasped and gulped and then, with a great shudder, looked up into the cracked mirror and saw Harry staring at him over his shoulder.

Malfoy wheeled around, drawing his wand.

Instinctively, Harry pulled out his own.

Malfoy’s hex missed Harry by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him;

Harry threw himself sideways, thought Levicorpus! and flicked his wand, but Malfoy blocked the jinx and raised his wand for another —

“No! No! Stop it!” squealed Moaning Myrtle, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room.

“Stop! STOP!”

There was a loud bang and the bin behind Harry exploded;

Harry attempted a Leg-Locker Curse that backfired off the wall behind Malfoy’s ear and smashed the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle, who screamed loudly;

water poured everywhere and Harry slipped as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried, “Cruci —”

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” bellowed Harry from the floor, waving his wand wildly.

Blood spurted from Malfoy’s face and chest as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword.

He staggered backward and collapsed onto the waterlogged floor with a great splash, his wand falling from his limp right hand.

“No —” gasped Harry.

Slipping and staggering, Harry got to his feet and plunged toward Malfoy, whose face was now shining scarlet, his white hands scrabbling at his bloodsoaked chest.

“No — I didn’t —”

Harry did not know what he was saying; he fell to his knees beside Malfoy, who was shaking uncontrollably in a pool of his own blood.

Moaning Myrtle let out a deafening scream: “MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!”

The door banged open behind Harry and he looked up, terrified: Snape had burst into the room, his face livid.

Pushing Harry roughly aside, he knelt over Malfoy, drew his wand, and traced it over the deep wounds Harry’s curse had made, muttering an incantation that sounded almost like song.

The flow of blood seemed to ease; Snape wiped the residue from Malfoy’s face and repeated his spell.

Now the wounds seemed to be knitting.

Harry was still watching, horrified by what he had done, barely aware that he too was soaked in blood and water.

Moaning Myrtle was still sobbing and wailing overhead.

When Snape had performed his countercurse for the third time, he half-lifted Malfoy into a standing position.

“You need the hospital wing.

There may be a certain amount of scarring, but if you take dittany immediately we might avoid even that. . . .

Come. . . .”

He supported Malfoy across the bathroom, turning at the door to say in a voice of cold fury, “And you, Potter . . . You wait here for me.”

It did not occur to Harry for a second to disobey.

He stood up slowly, shaking, and looked down at the wet floor.

There were bloodstains floating like crimson flowers across its surface.

He could not even find it in himself to tell Moaning Myrtle to be quiet, as she continued to wail and sob with increasingly evident enjoyment.

Snape returned ten minutes later.

He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

“Go,” he said to Myrtle, and she swooped back into her toilet at once, leaving a ringing silence behind her.

“I didn’t mean it to happen,” said Harry at once.

His voice echoed in the cold, watery space.

“I didn’t know what that spell did.”

But Snape ignored this.

“Apparently I underestimated you, Potter,” he said quietly.

“Who would have thought you knew such Dark Magic?

Who taught you that spell?”

“I — read about it somewhere.”

“Where?”

“It was — a library book,” Harry invented wildly.

“I can’t remember what it was call —”

“Liar,” said Snape.

Harry’s throat went dry.

He knew what Snape was going to do and he had never been able to prevent it. . . .

The bathroom seemed to shimmer before his eyes; he struggled to block out all thought, but try as he might, the Half-Blood Prince’s copy of Advanced Potion-Making swam hazily to the forefront of his mind.

And then he was staring at Snape again, in the midst of this wrecked, soaked bathroom.

He stared into Snape’s black eyes, hoping against hope that Snape had not seen what he feared, but —

“Bring me your schoolbag,” said Snape softly, “and all of your schoolbooks.

All of them.

Bring them to me here.

Now!”

There was no point arguing.

Harry turned at once and splashed out of the bathroom.

Once in the corridor, he broke into a run toward Gryffindor Tower.

Most people were walking the other way; they gaped at him, drenched in water and blood, but he answered none of the questions fired at him as he ran past.

He felt stunned; it was as though a beloved pet had turned suddenly savage; what had the Prince been thinking to copy such a spell into his book?

And what would happen when Snape saw it?

Would he tell Slughorn — Harry’s stomach churned — how Harry had been achieving such good results in Potions all year?

Would he confiscate or destroy the book that had taught Harry so much . . .

the book that had become a kind of guide and friend?

Harry could not let it happen. . . .

He could not . . .

“Where’ve you — ?

Why are you soaking — ?

Is that blood?”

Ron was standing at the top of the stairs, looking bewildered at the sight of Harry.

“I need your book,” Harry panted.

“Your Potions book.

Quick . . . give it to me . . .”

“But what about the Half-Blood —”

“I’ll explain later!”

Ron pulled his copy of Advanced Potion-Making out of his bag and handed it over; Harry sprinted off past him and back to the common room.

Here, he seized his schoolbag, ignoring the amazed looks of several people who had already finished their dinner, threw himself back out of the portrait hole, and hurtled off along the seventh-floor corridor.

He skidded to a halt beside the tapestry of dancing trolls, closed his eyes, and began to walk.

I need a place to hide my book. . . .

I need a place to hide my book. . . .

I need a place to hide my book. . . .

Three times he walked up and down in front of the stretch of blank wall.

When he opened his eyes, there it was at last: the door to the Room of Requirement.

Harry wrenched it open, flung himself inside, and slammed it shut.

He gasped.

Despite his haste, his panic, his fear of what awaited him back in the bathroom, he could not help but be overawed by what he was looking at.

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He was standing in a room the size of a large cathedral, whose high windows were sending shafts of light down upon what looked like a city with towering walls, built of what Harry knew must be objects hidden by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants.

There were alleyways and roads bordered by teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture, stowed away, perhaps, to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, or else hidden by castleproud house-elves.

There were thousands and thousands of books, no doubt banned or graffitied or stolen.

There were winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees, some still with enough life in them to hover halfheartedly over the mountains of other forbidden items; there were chipped bottles of congealed potions, hats, jewels, cloaks; there were what looked like dragon eggshells, corked bottles whose contents still shimmered evilly, several rusting swords, and a heavy, bloodstained axe.

Harry hurried forward into one of the many alleyways between all this hidden treasure.

He turned right past an enormous stuffed troll, ran on a short way, took a left at the broken Vanishing Cabinet in which Montague had got lost the previous year, finally pausing beside a large cupboard that seemed to have had acid thrown at its blistered surface.

He opened one of the cupboard’s creaking doors: It had already been used as a hiding place for something in a cage that had long since died; its skeleton had five legs.

He stuffed the Half-Blood Prince’s book behind the cage and slammed the door.

He paused for a moment, his heart thumping horribly, gazing around at all the clutter. . . .

Would he be able to find this spot again amidst all this junk?

Seizing the chipped bust of an ugly old warlock from on top of a nearby crate, he stood it on top of the cupboard where the book was now hidden, perched a dusty old wig and a tarnished tiara on the statue’s head to make it more distinctive, then sprinted back through the alleyways of hidden junk as fast as he could go, back to the door, back out onto the corridor, where he slammed the door behind him, and it turned at once back into stone.

Harry ran flat-out toward 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 traveled 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 wholeheartedly 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 —”

----------------------------------------------------------

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“— 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, little though he knew he deserved it, felt unbelievably cheerful all of a sudden, even though none of them spoke again for the rest of the evening.

His lightheartedness 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 colored 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 toward 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 offenses 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 forward.

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 toward 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, he 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.