由 鹿飞 
文章目录[隐藏]
作者：J.K.罗琳（J.K. Rowling）
选自《哈利波特原版》，J.K.罗琳著。
Chapter 10 The house of count
Chapter 10 The house of count
For or the rest of the week's Potions lessons Harry continued to follow the Half-Blood Prince's instructions wherever they de-viated from Libatius Borage's, with the result that by their fourth lesson Slughorn was raving about Harrys abilities, saying that he had rarely taught anyone so talented. Neither Ron nor Hermione was delighted by this. Although Harry had offered to share his book with both of them, Ron had more difficulty deciphering the handwriting than Harry did, and could not keep asking Harry to read aloud or it might look suspicious. Hermione, meanwhile, was resolutely plowing on with what she called the "official" instruc-tions, but becoming increasingly bad-tempered as they yielded poorer results than the Prince's.
Harry wondered vaguely who the Half-Blood Prince had been. Although the amount of homework they had been given prevented him from reading the whole of his copy of Advanced Potion-Making, he had skimmed through it sufficiently to see that there was barely a page on which the Prince had not made additional notes, not all of them concerned with potion-making. Here and there were direc-tions for what looked like spells that the Prince had made up himself.
"Or herself," said Hermione irritably, overhearing Harry point-ing some of these out to Ron in the common room on Saturday evening. "It might have been a girl. I think the handwriting looks more like a girl's than a boy's.""The Half-Blood Prince, he was called," Harry said. "How many girls have been Princes?"Hermione seemed to have no answer to this. She merely scowled and twitched her essay on The Principles of Rematerialization away from Ron, who was trying to read it upside down.
Harry looked at his watch and hurriedly put the old copy of Advanced Potion-Making back into his bag.
"It's five to eight, I'd better go, I'll be late for Dumbledore.""Ooooh!" gasped Hermione, looking up at once. "Good luck! We'll wait up, we want to hear what he teaches you!""Hope it goes okay," said Ron, and the pair of them watched Harry leave through the portrait hole.
Harry proceeded through deserted corridors, though he had to step hastily behind a statue when Professor Trelawney appeared around a corner, muttering to herself as she shuffled a pack of dirty-looking playing cards, reading them as she walked.
"Two of spades: conflict," she murmured, as she passed the place where Harry crouched, hidden. "Seven of spades: an ill omen. Ten of spades: violence. Knave of spades: a dark young man, possibly troubled, one who dislikes the questioner —"She stopped dead, right on the other side of Harry's statue.
"Well, that can't be right," she said, annoyed, and Harry heard her reshuffling vigorously as she set off again, leaving nothing but a whiff of cooking sherry behind her. Harry waited until he was quite sure she had gone, then hurried off again until he reached the spot in the seventh-floor corridor where a single gargoyle stood against the wall.
"Acid Pops," said Harry, and the gargoyle leapt aside; the wall behind it slid apart, and a moving spiral stone staircase was re-vealed, onto which Harry stepped, so that he was carried in smooth circles up to the door with the brass knocker that led to Dumbledore's Office.
Harry knocked.
"Come in," said Dumbledore s voice.
"Good evening, sir," said Harry, walking into the headmaster's office.
"Ah, good evening, Harry. Sit down," said Dumbledore, smil-ing. "I hope you've had an enjoyable first week back at school?" "Yes, thanks, sir," said Harry.
"You must have been busy, a detention under your belt already!" "Er," began Harry awkwardly, but Dumbledore did not look too stern.
"I have arranged with Professor Snape that you will do your de-tention next Saturday instead.""Right," said Harry, who had more pressing matters on his mind than Snapes detention, and now looked around surreptitiously for some indication of what Dumbledore was planning to do with him this evening. The circular office looked just as it always did; the delicate silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, puff-ing smoke and whirring; portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses dozed in their frames, and Dumbledore's magnifi-cent phoenix, Fawkes, stood on his perch behind the door, watch-ing Harry with bright interest. It did not even look as though Dumbledore had cleared a space for dueling practice.
"So, Harry," said Dumbledore, in a businesslike voice. "You have been wondering, I am sure, what I have planned for you dur-ing these — for want of a better word — lessons?""Yes, sir."
"Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given certain information." There was a pause.
"You said, at the end of last term, you were going to tell me everything," said Harry. It was hard to keep a note of accusation from his voice. "Sir," he added.
"And so I did," said Dumbledore placidly. "I told you everything I know. From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm founda-tion of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork. From here on in, Harry, I may be as woefully wrong as Humphrey Belcher, who be-lieved the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron.""But you think you're right?" said Harry.
"Naturally I do, but as I have already proven to you, I make mis-takes like the next man. In fact, being — forgive me — rather clev-erer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.""Sir," said Harry tentatively, "does what you're going to tell me have anything to do with the prophecy? Will it help me . . . survive?""It has a very great deal to do with the prophecy," said Dumble-dore, as casually as if Harry had asked him about the next days weather, "and I certainly hope that it will help you to survive,."Dumbledore got to his feet and walked around the desk, past Harry, who turned eagerly in his seat to watch Dumbledore bend-ing over the cabinet beside the door. When Dumbledore straight-ened up, he was holding a familiar shallow stone basin etched with odd markings around its rim. He placed the Pensieve on the desk in front of Harry.
"You look worried."
Harry had indeed been eyeing the Pensieve with some appre-hension. His previous experiences with the odd device that stored and revealed thoughts and memories, though highly instructive, had also been uncomfortable. The last time he had disturbed its contents, he had seen much more than he would have wished. But Dumbledore was smiling.
"This time, you enter the Pensieve with me . . . and, even more unusually, with permission.""Where are we going, sir?"
"For a trip down Bob Ogden's memory lane," said Dumbledore, pulling from his pocket a crystal bottle containing a swirling silvery-white substance.
"Who was Bob Ogden?"
"He was employed by the Department of Magical Law Enforce-ment," said Dumbledore. "He died some time ago, but not before I had tracked him down and persuaded him to confide these recol-lections to me. We are about to accompany him on a visit he made in the course of his duties. If you will stand, Harry ..."But Dumbledore was having difficulty pulling out the stopper of the crystal bottle: His injured hand seemed stiff and painful.
"Shall —shall I, sir?"
"No matter, Harry —"
Dumbledore pointed his wand at the bottle and the cork flew out.
"Sir — how did you injure your hand?" Harry asked again, look-ing at the blackened fingers with a mixture of revulsion and pity.
"Now is not the moment for that story, Harry. Not yet. We have an appointment with Bob Ogden."
Dumbledore tipped the silvery contents of the bottle into the Pensieve, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas. "After you," said Dumbledore, gesturing toward the bowl. Harry bent forward, took a deep breath, and plunged his face into the silvery substance. He felt his feet leave the office floor; he was falling, falling through whirling darkness and then, quite sud-denly, he was blinking in dazzling sunlight. Before his eyes had adjusted, Dumbledore landed beside him.
They were standing in a country lane bordered by high, tangled hedgerows, beneath a summer sky as bright and blue as a forget-me-not. Some ten feet in front of them stood a short, plump man wearing enormously thick glasses that reduced his eyes to molelike specks. He was reading a wooden signpost that was sticking out of the brambles on the left-hand side of the road. Harry knew this must be Ogden; he was the only person in sight, and he was also wearing the strange assortment of clothes so often chosen by inex-perienced wizards trying to look like Muggles: in this case, a frock coat and spats over a striped one-piece bathing costume. Before Harry had time to do more than register his bizarre appearance, however, Ogden had set off at a brisk walk down the lane.
Dumbledore and Harry followed. As they passed the wooden sign, Harry looked up at its two arms. The one pointing back the way they had come read: Great Hangleton, 5 miles. The arm pointing after Ogden said Little Hangleton, 1 mile.
They walked a short way with nothing to see but the hedgerows, the wide blue sky overhead and the swishing, frock-coated figure ahead. Then the lane curved to the left and fell away, sloping steeply down a hillside, so that they had a sudden, unexpected view of a whole valley laid out in front of them. Harry could see a vil-lage, undoubtedly Little Hangleton, nestled between two steep hills, its church and graveyard clearly visible. Across the valley, set on the opposite hillside, was a handsome manor house surrounded by a wide expanse of velvety green lawn.
Ogden had broken into a reluctant trot due to the steep down-ward slope. Dumbledore lengthened his stride, and Harry hurried to keep up. He thought Little Hangleton must be their final desti-nation and wondered, as he had done on the night they had found Slughorn, why they had to approach it from such a distance. He soon discovered that he was mistaken in thinking that they were going to the village, however. The lane curved to the right and when they rounded the corner, it was to see the very edge of Ogden's frock coat vanishing through a gap in the hedge.
Dumbledore and Harry followed him onto a narrow dirt track bordered by higher and wilder hedgerows than those they had left behind. The path was crooked, rocky, and potholed, sloping down-hill like the last one, and it seemed to be heading for a patch of dark trees a little below them. Sure enough, the track soon opened upat the copse, and Dumbledore and Harry came to a halt behind Ogden, who had stopped and drawn his wand.
Despite the cloudless sky, the old trees ahead cast deep, dark, cool shadows, and it was a few seconds before Harry's eyes discerned the building half-hidden amongst the tangle of trunks. It seemed to him a very strange location to choose for a house, or else an odd decision to leave the trees growing nearby, blocking all light and the view of the valley below. He wondered whether it was inhabited; its walls were mossy and so many tiles had fallen off the roof that the rafters were visible in places. Nettles grew all around it, their tips reaching the windows, which were tiny and thick with grime. Just as he had concluded that nobody could possibly live there, however, one of the windows was thrown open with a clatter, and a thin trickle of steam or smoke issued from it, as though somebody was cooking.
Ogden moved forward quietly and, it seemed to Harry, rather cautiously. As the dark shadows of the trees slid over him, he stopped again, staring at the front door, to which somebody had nailed a dead snake.
Then there was a rustle and a crack, and a man in rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing on his feet right in front of Ogden, who leapt backward so fast he stood on the tails of his frock coat and stumbled.
"You're not welcome."
The man standing before them had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any color. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small and dark and stared in opposite directions. He might have looked comical, but he did not; the effect was frighten-ing, and Harry could not blame Ogden for backing away several more paces before he spoke.
"Er — good morning. I'm from the Ministry of Magic —" "You're not welcome.""Er — I'm sorry — I don't understand you," said Ogden nervously.
Harry thought Ogden was being extremely dim; the stranger was making himself very clear in Harry's opinion, particularly as he was brandishing a wand in one hand and a short and rather bloody knife in the other.
"You understand him, I'm sure, Harry?" said Dumbledore quietly. "Yes, of course," said Harry, slightly nonplussed. "Why can't Ogden — ?"But as his eyes found the dead snake on the door again, he sud-denly understood.
"He's speaking Parseltongue?""Very good," said Dumbledore, nodding and smiling.
The man in rags was now advancing on Ogden, knife in one hand, wand in the other.
"Now, look —" Ogden began, but too late: There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers.
"Morfin!" said a loud voice.
An elderly man had come hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically. This man was shorter than the first, and oddly proportioned; his shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey. He came to a halt beside the man with the knife, who was now cackling with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground.
"Ministry, is it?" said the older man, looking down at Ogden. "Correct!" said Ogden angrily, dabbing his face. "And you, I take it, are Mr. Gaunt?""S'right," said Gaunt. "Got you in the face, did he?" "Yes, he did!" snapped Ogden.
"Should've made your presence known, shouldn't you?" said Gaunt aggressively. "This is private property. Can't just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself.""Defend himself against what, man?" said Ogden, clambering back to his feet.
"Busybodies. Intruders. Muggles and filth." Ogden pointed his wand at his own nose, which was still issuing large amounts of what looked like yellow pus, and the flow stopped at once. Mr. Gaunt spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Morfin. "Get in the house. Don't argue."This time, ready for it, Harry recognized Parseltongue; even while he could understand what was being said, he distinguished the weird hissing noise that was all Ogden could hear. Morfin seemed to be on the point of disagreeing, but when his father cast him a threatening look he changed his mind, lumbering away to the cottage with an odd rolling gait and slamming the front door behind him, so that the snake swung sadly again.
"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, as he mopped the last of the pus from the front of his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?""At, that was Morfin," said the old man indifferently. "Are you pure-blood?" he asked, suddenly aggressive.
"That's neither here nor there," said Ogden coldly, and Harry felt his respect for Ogden rise. Apparently Gaunt felt rather differently.
He squinted into Ogdens lace and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, "Now I come to think about it, I've seen noses like yours down in the village.""I don't doubt it, if your sons been let loose on them," said Og-den. "Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?""Inside?"
"Yes, Mr. Gaunt. I've already told you. I'm here about Morfin. We sent an owl —""I've no use for owls," said Gaunt. "I don't open letters.""Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of vis-itors," said Ogden tartly. "I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of this morning —""All right, all right, all right!" bellowed Gaunt. "Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it'll do you!"The house seemed to contain three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as kitchen and living room com-bined. Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue:Hissy, hissy, little snakey,
Slither on the floor
You be good to Morfin
Or he'll nail you to the door.
There was a scuffling noise in the corner beside the open win-dow, and Harry realized that there was somebody else in the room, a girl whose ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stonewall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it. Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother's, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person.
"M'daughter, Merope," said Gaunt grudgingly, as Ogden lookedinquiringly toward her.
"Good morning," said Ogden.
She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room and continued shifting the pots on the shelf behind her.
"Well, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, "to get straight to the point, we have reason to believe that your son, Morfin, performed magic in front of a Muggle late last night."There was a deafening clang. Merope had dropped one of the pots.
"Pick it up!" Gaunt bellowed at her. "That's it, grub on the floor like some filthy Muggle, what's your wand for, you useless sack of muck?""Mr. Gaunt, please!" said Ogden in a shocked voice, as Merope, who had already picked up the pot, flushed blotchily scarlet, lost her grip on the pot again1 drew her wand shakily from her pocket, pointed it at the pot, and muttered a hasty, inaudible spell that caused the pot to shoot across the floor away from her, hit the op-posite wall, and crack in two.
Morfin let out a mad cackle of laughter. Gaunt screamed, "Mend it, you pointless lump, mend it!"Merope stumbled across the room, but before she had time to raise her wand, Ogden had lifted his own and said firmly, "Reparo. " The pot mended itself instantly.
Gaunt looked for a moment as though he was going to shout at Ogden, but seemed to think better of it: Instead, he jeered at his daughter, "Lucky the nice man from the Ministry's here, isn't it? Perhaps he'll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn't mind dirty Squibs. . . ."Without looking at anybody or thanking Ogden, Merope picked up the pot and returned it, hands trembling, to its shelf. She then stood quite still, her back against the wall between the filthy window and the stove, as though she wished for nothing more than to sink into the stone and vanish.
"Mr. Gaunt," Ogden began again, "as I've said: the reason for my visit —""I heard you the first time!" snapped Gaunt. "And so what? Morfin gave a Muggle a bit of what was coming to him — what about it, then?""Morfin has broken Wizarding law," said Ogden sternly.
"'Morfin has broken Wizarding law.'" Gaunt imitated Ogdens voice, making it pompous and singsong. Morfin cackled again. "He taught a filthy Muggle a lesson, that's illegal now, is it?""Yes," said Ogden. "I'm afraid it is."He pulled from an inside pocket a small scroll of parchment and unrolled it.
"What's that, then, his sentence?" said Gaunt, his voice rising angrily.
"It is a summons to the Ministry for a hearing —""Summons! Summons? Who do you think you are, summoning my son anywhere?""I'm Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad," said Ogden.
"And you think we're scum, do you?" screamed Gaunt, advanc-ing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. "Scum who'll come running when the Ministry tells 'em to? Do you know who you're talking to, you filthy little Mudblood, do you?""I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, looking wary, but standing his ground.
"That's right!" roared Gaunt. For a moment, Harry thought Gaunt was making an obscene hand gesture, but then realized that he was showing Ogden the ugly, black-stoned ring he was wearing on his middle finger, waving it before Ogden's eyes. "See this? See this? Know what it is? Know where it came from? Centuries it's been in our family, that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I've been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?""I've really no idea," said Ogden, blinking as the ring sailed within an inch of his nose, "and it's quite beside the point, Mr. Gaunt. Your son has committed —"With a howl of rage, Gaunt ran toward his daughter. For a split second, Harry thought he was going to throttle her as his hand flew to her throat; next moment, he was dragging her toward Ogden by a gold chain around her neck.
"See this?" he bellowed at Ogden, shaking a heavy gold locket at him, while Merope spluttered and gasped for breath.
"I see it, I see it!" said Ogden hastily.
"Slytherins!" yelled Gaunt. "Salazar Slytherin's! We're his last liv-ing descendants, what do you say to that, eh?""Mr. Gaunt, your daughter!" said Ogden in alarm, but Gaunt had already released Merope; she staggered away from him, back to her corner, massaging her neck and gulping for air.
"So!" said Gaunt triumphantly, as though he had just proved a complicated point beyond all possible dispute. "Don't you go talk-ing to us as if we're dirt on your shoes! Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don't doubt!"And he spat on the floor at Ogdens feet. Morfin cackled again. Merope, huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair, said nothing.
"Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden doggedly, "I am afraid that neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter in hand. I am here because of Morfin, Morfin and the Muggle he ac-costed late last night. Our information" — he glanced down at his scroll of parchment — "is that Morfin performed a jinx or hex on the said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives."Morfin giggled.
"Be quiet, boy," snarled Gaunt in Parseltongue, and Morfin fell silent again.
"And so what if he did, then?" Gaunt said defiantly to Ogden, "I expect you've wiped the Muggle's filthy face clean for him, and his memory to boot —""That's hardly the point, is it, Mr. Gaunt?" said Ogden. "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenseless —""Ar, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt, and he spat on the floor again.
"This discussion is getting us nowhere," said Ogden firmly. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his ac-tions." He glanced down at his scroll of parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on the fourteenth of September to answer the charges of using magic in front of a Muggle and causing harm and distress to that same Mugg —"Ogden broke off. The jingling, clopping sounds of horses and loud, laughing voices were drifting in through the open window. Apparently the winding lane to the village passed very close to the copse where the house stood. Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry. Merope raised her head. Her face, Harry saw, was starkly white.
"My God, what an eyesore!" rang out a girl's voice, as clearly au-dible through the open window as if she had stood in the room be-side them. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?""It's not ours," said a young man's voice. "Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children. The son's quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village —"The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder. Morfin made to get out of his armchair. , "Keep your seat," said his father warningly, in Parseltongue.
"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, "I might be wrong — but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?""Good lord, you're right!" said the man's voice. "That'll be the son, I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling.
The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing faint again.
"'Darling,'" whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. "'Darling, he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway."Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint.
"What's that?" said Gaunt sharply, also in Parseltongue, looking from his son to his daughter. "What did you say, Morfin?""She likes looking at that Muggle, "said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. "Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn't she? And last night — "Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, "Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn't she?""Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?" said Gaunt quietly.
All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping.
"Is it true?" said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. "My daughter—pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?"Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak.
"But I got him, Father!" cackled Morfin. "I got him as he went by and he didn't look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?""You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!" roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter's throat.
Both Harry and Ogden yelled "No!" at the same time; Ogden raised his wand and cried, "Relaskio!"Gaunt was thrown backward, away from his daughter; he tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of rage, Morfin leapt out of his chair and ran at Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand.
Ogden ran for his life. Dumbledore indicated that they ought to follow and Harry obeyed, Merope's screams echoing in his ears.
Ogden hurtled up the path and erupted onto the main lane, his arms over his head, where he collided with the glossy chestnut horse ridden by a very handsome, dark-haired young man. Both he and the pretty girl riding beside him on a gray horse roared with laughter at the sight of Ogden, who bounced off the horse's flank and set off again, his frock coat flying, covered from head to foot in dust, running pell-mell up the lane.
"I think that will do, Harry," said Dumbledore. He took Harry by the elbow and tugged. Next moment, they were both soaring weightlessly through darkness, until they landed squarely on their feet, back in Dumbledore's now twilit office.
"What happened to the girl in the cottage?" said Harry at once, as Dumbledore lit extra lamps with a flick of his wand. "Merope, or whatever her name was?""Oh, she survived," said Dumbledore, reseating himself behind his desk and indicating that Harry should sit down too. "Ogden Apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes. Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered, removed from the cottage, and subse-quently convicted by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record of Muggle attacks, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, who had injured several Ministry employees addition to Ogden, received six months.""Marvolo?" Harry repeated wonderingly.
"That's right," said Dumbledore, smiling in approval. "I am glad to see you're keeping up.""That old man was — ?"
"Voldemort's grandfather, yes," said Dumbledore. "Marvolo, his son, Morfin, and his daughter, Merope, were the last of the Gaunts, a very ancient Wizarding family noted for a vein of insta-bility and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins. Lack of sense coupled with a great liking for grandeur meant that the family gold was squandered several generations before Marvolo was born. He, as you saw, was left in squalor and poverty, with a very nasty temper, a fantastic amount of arrogance and pride, and a couple of family heirlooms that he treasured just as much as his son, and rather more than his daughter.""So Merope," said Harry, leaning forward in his chair and star-ing at Dumbledore, "so Merope was . . . Sir, does that mean she was . . . Voldemort's mother?""It does," said Dumbledore. "And it so happens that we also had a glimpse of Voldemort's father. I wonder whether you noticed?""The Muggle Morfin attacked? The man on the horse?""Very good indeed," said Dumbledore, beaming. "Yes, that was Tom Riddle senior, the handsome Muggle who used to go riding past the Gaunt cottage and for whom Merope Gaunt cherished a secret, burning passion.""And they ended up married?" Harry said in disbelief, unable to imagine two people less likely to fall in love.
"I think you are forgetting," said Dumbledore, "that Merope was a witch. I do not believe that her magical powers appeared to their best advantage when she was being terrorized by her father. Once Marvolo and Morfin were safely in Azkaban, once she was alone and free for the first time in her life, then, I am sure, she was able to give full rein to her abilities and to plot her escape from the desperate life she had led for eighteen years.""Can you not think of any measure Merope could have taken to make Tom Riddle forget his Muggle companion, and fall in love with her instead?""The Imperius Curse?" Harry suggested. "Or a love potion?""Very good. Personally, I am inclined to think that she used a love potion. I am sure it would have seemed more romantic to her, and I do not think it would have been very difficult, some hot day, when Riddle was riding alone, to persuade him to take a drink of water. In any case, within a few months of the scene we have just witnessed, the village of Little Hangleton enjoyed a tremendous scandal. You can imagine the gossip it caused when the squire's son ran off with the tramp's daughter, Merope.""But the villagers' shock was nothing to Marvolo's. He returned from Azkaban, expecting to find his daughter dutifully awaiting his return with a hot meal ready on his table. Instead, he found a clear inch of dust and her note of farewell, explaining what she had done.""From all that I have been able to discover, he never mentioned her name or existence from that time forth. The shock of her de-sertion may have contributed to his early death — or perhaps he had simply never learned to feed himself. Azkaban had greatly weakened Marvolo, and he did not live to see Morfin return to the cottage.""And Merope? She . .. she died, didn't she? Wasn't Voldemort brought up in an orphanage?""Yes, indeed," said Dumbledore. "We must do a certain amount of guessing here, although I do not think it is difficult to deduce what happened. You see, within a few months of their runaway marriage, Tom Riddle reappeared at the manor house in Little Hangleton without his wife. The rumor flew around the neighbor-hood that he was talking of being 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in.' What he meant, I am sure, is that he had been under an enchant-ment that had now lifted, though I daresay he did not dare use those precise words for fear of being thought insane. When they heard what he was saying, however, the villagers guessed that Merope had lied to Tom Riddle, pretending that she was going to have his baby, and that he had married her for this reason.""But she did have his baby."
"But not until a year after they were married. Tom Riddle left her while she was still pregnant.""What went wrong?" asked Harry. "Why did the love potion stop working?""Again, this is guesswork," said Dumbledore, "but I believe that Merope, who was deeply in love with her husband, could not bear to continue enslaving him by magical means. I believe that she made the choice to stop giving him the potion. Perhaps, besotted as she was, she had convinced herself that he would by now have fallen in love with her in return. Perhaps she thought he would stay for the baby's sake. If so, she was wrong on both counts. He left her, never saw her again, and never troubled to discover what became of his son."The sky outside was inky black and the lamps in Dumbledore's office seemed to glow more brightly than before.
"I think that will do for tonight, Harry," said Dumbledore after a moment or two.
"Yes, sir," said Harry.
He got to his feet, but did not leave.
"Sir ... is it important to know all this about Voldemort's past?""Very important, I think," said Dumbledore.
"And it... it's got something to do with the prophecy?""It has everything to do with the prophecy.""Right," said Harry, a little confused, but reassured all the same.
He turned to go, then another question occurred to him, and he turned back again. "Sir, am I allowed to tell Ron and Hermione everything you've told me?"Dumbledore considered him for a moment, then said, "Yes, I think Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger have proved themselves trust-worthy. But Harry, I am going to ask you to ask them not to repeat any of this to anybody else. It would not be a good idea if word got around how much I know, or suspect, about Lord Voldemort's secrets.""No, sir, I'll make sure it's just Ron and Hermione. Good night."He turned away again, and was almost at the door when he saw it. Sitting on one of the little spindle-legged tables that supported so many frail-looking silver instruments, was an ugly gold ring set with a large, cracked, black stone.
"Sir," said Harry, staring at it. "That ring—""Yes?" said Dumbledore.
"You were wearing it when we visited Professor Slughorn that night.""So I was," Dumbledore agreed.
"But isn't it... sir, isn't it the same ring Marvolo Gaunt showed Ogden?"Dumbledore bowed his head. "The very same.""But how come — ? Have you always had it?""No, I acquired it very recently," said Dumbledore. "A few days before I came to fetch you from your aunt and uncle's, in fact.""That would be around the time you injured your hand, then, sir?""Around that time, yes, Harry."Harry hesitated. Dumbledore was smiling.
"Sir, how exactly — ?"
"Too late, Harry! You shall hear the story another time. Good night.""Good night, sir."
Chapter 11: Hermione's helping hand
As Hermione had predicted, the sixth years' free periods were not the hours of blissful relaxation Ron had antici-pated, but times in which to attempt to keep up with the vast amount of homework they were being set. Not only were they studying as though they had exams every day, but the lessons them-selves had become more demanding than ever before. Harry barely understood half of what Professor McGonagall said to them these days; even Hermione had had to ask her to repeat instructions once or twice. Incredibly, and to Hermione's increasing resentment, Harry's best subject had suddenly become Potions, thanks to the Half-Blood Prince.
Nonverbal spells were now expected, not only in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but in Charms and Transfiguration too. Harry frequently looked over at his classmates in the common room or at mealtimes to see them purple in the face and straining as though they had overdosed on U-No-Poo; but he knew that they were really struggling to make spells work without saying incanta-tions aloud. It was a relief to get outside into the greenhouses; they were dealing with more dangerous plants than ever in Herbology, but at least they were still allowed to swear loudly if the Venomous Tentacula seized them unexpectedly from behind.
One result of their enormous workload and the frantic hours of practicing nonverbal spells was that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had so far been unable to find time to go and visit Hagrid. He had stopped coming to meals at the staff table, an ominous sign, and on the few occasions when they had passed him in the corridors or out in the grounds, he had mysteriously failed to notice them or hear their greetings.
"We've got to go and explain," said Hermione, looking up at Hagrid's huge empty chair at the staff table the following Saturday at breakfast.
"We've got Quidditch tryouts this morning!" said Ron. "And we're supposed to be practicing that Aguamenti Charm from Flitwick! Anyway, explain what? How are we going to tell him we hated his stupid subject?""We didn't hate it!" said Hermione.
"Speak for yourself, I haven't forgotten the skrewts," said Ron darkly. "And I'm telling you now, we've had a narrow escape. You didn't hear him going on about his gormless brother — we'd have been teaching Grawp how to tie his shoelaces if we'd stayed.""I hate not talking to Hagrid," said Hermione, looking upset.
"We'll go down after Quidditch," Harry assured her. He too was missing Hagrid, although like Ron he thought that they were bet-ter off without Grawp in their lives. "But trials might take all morning, the number of people who have applied." He felt slightly nervous at confronting the first hurdle of his Captaincy. "I dunno why the team's this popular all of a sudden.""Oh, come on, Harry," said Hermione, suddenly impatient. "It's not Quidditch that's popular, it's you! You've never been more in-teresting, and frankly, you've never been more fanciable."Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry.
"Everyone knows you've been telling the truth now, don't they? The whole Wizarding world has had to admit that you were right about Voldemort being back and that you really have fought him twice in the last two years and escaped both times. And now they're calling you 'the Chosen One' — well, come on, can't you see why people are fascinated by you?"Harry was finding the Great Hall very hot all of a sudden, even though the ceiling still looked cold and rainy.
"And you've been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar. You can still see the marks on the back of your hand where that evil woman made you write with your own blood, but you stuck to your story anyway. ...""You can still see where those brains got hold of me in the Min-istry, look," said Ron, shaking back his sleeves.
"And it doesn't hurt that you've grown about a foot over the summer either," Hermione finished, ignoring Ron.
"I'm tall," said Ron inconsequentially.
The post owls arrived, swooping down through rain-flecked windows, scattering everyone with droplets of water. Most people were receiving more post than usual; anxious parents were keen to hear from their children and to reassure them, in turn, that all was well at home. Harry had received no mail since the start of term; his only regular correspondent was now dead and although he had hoped that Lupin might write occasionally, he had so far been disappointed. He was very surprised, therefore, to see the snowy white Hedwig circling amongst all the brown and gray owls. She landed in front of him carrying a large, square package. A moment later, an identical package landed in front of Ron, crushing beneath it his minuscule and exhausted owl, Pigwidgeon.
"Ha!" said Harry, unwrapping the parcel to reveal a new copy of Advanced Potion-Making, fresh from Flourish and Blotts.
"Oh good," said Hermione, delighted. "Now you can give that graffitied copy back.""Are you mad?" said Harry. "I'm keeping it! Look, I've thought it out —"He pulled the old copy of Advanced Potion-Making out of his bag and tapped the cover with his wand, muttering, "Dijjindo!" The cover fell off. He did the same thing with the brand-new book (Hermione looked scandalized). He then swapped the covers, tapped each, and said, "Reparo!"There sat the Prince's copy, disguised as a new book, and there sat the fresh copy from Flourish and Blotts, looking thoroughly secondhand.
"I'll give Slughorn back the new one, he can't complain, it cost nine Galleons."Hermione pressed her lips together, looking angry and disap-proving, but was distracted by a third owl landing in front of her carrying that day's copy of the Daily Prophet. She unfolded it hastily and scanned the front page.
"Anyone we know dead?" asked Ron in a determinedly casual voice; he posed the same question every time Hermione opened her paper.
"No, but there have been more dementor attacks," said Hermi-one. "And an arrest.""Excellent, who?" said Harry, thinking of Bellatrix Lestrange. "Stan Shunpike," said Hermione.
"What?" said Harry, startled.
"'Stanley Shunpike, conductor on the popular Wizarding con-veyance the Knight Bus, has been arrested on suspicion of Death Eater activity. Mr. Shunpike, 21, was taken into custody late last night after a raid on his Clapham home. . .'""Stan Shunpike, a Death Eater?" said Harry, remembering the spotty youth he had first met three years before. "No way!""He might have been put under the Imperius Curse," said Ron reasonably. "You never can tell.""It doesn't look like it," said Hermione, who was still reading. "It says here he was arrested after he was overheard talking about the Death Eaters' secret plans in a pub." She looked up with a troubled expression on her face. "If he was under the Imperius Curse, he'd hardly stand around gossiping about their plans, would he?""It sounds like he was trying to make out he knew more than he did," said Ron. "Isn't he the one who claimed he was going to be-come Minister of Magic when he was trying to chat up those veela?""Yeah, that's him," said Harry. "I dunno what they're playing at, taking Stan seriously.""They probably want to look as though they're doing some-thing," said Hermione, frowning. "People are terrified — you know the Patil twins' parents want them to go home? And Eloise Midgen has already been withdrawn. Her father picked her up last night.""What!" said Ron, goggling at Hermione. "But Hogwarts is safer than their homes, bound to be! We've got Aurors, and all those extra protective spells, and we've got Dumbledore!""I don't think we've got him all the time," said Hermione very quietly, glancing toward the staff table over the top of the Prophet. "Haven't you noticed? His seat's been empty as often as Hagrid's this past week."Harry and Ron looked up at the staff table. The headmaster's chair was indeed empty. Now Harry came to think of it, he had not seen Dumbledore since their private lesson a week ago.
"I think he's left the school to do something with the Order," said Hermione in a low voice. "I mean . . . it's all looking serious, isn't it?"Harry and Ron did not answer, but Harry knew that they were all thinking the same thing. There had been a horrible incident the day before, when Hannah Abbott had been taken out of Herbology to be told her mother had been found dead. They had not seen Hannah since.
When they left the Gryffindor table five minutes later to head down to the Quidditch pitch, they passed Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. Remembering what Hermione had said about the Patil twins' parents wanting them to leave Hogwarts, Harry was unsurprised to see that the two best friends were whispering to-gether, looking distressed. What did surprise him was that when Ron drew level with them, Parvati suddenly nudged Lavender, who looked around and gave Ron a wide smile. Ron blinked at her, then returned the smile uncertainly. His walk instantly became something more like a strut. Harry resisted the temptation to laugh, re-membering that Ron had refrained from doing so after Malfoy had broken Harry's nose; Hermione, however, looked cold and distant all the way down to the stadium through the cool, misty drizzle, and departed to find a place in the stands without wishing Ron good luck.
As Harry had expected, the trials took most of the morning. Half of Gryffindor House seemed to have turned up, from first years who were nervously clutching a selection of the dreadful old school brooms, to seventh years who towered over the rest, looking coolly intimidating. The latter included a large, wiry-haired boy Harry recognized immediately from the Hogwarts Express.
"We met on the train, in old Sluggy's compartment," he said confidently, stepping out of the crowd to shake Harry's hand. "Cormac McLaggen, Keeper.""You didn't try out last year, did you?" asked Harry, taking note of the breadth of McLaggen and thinking that he would probably block all three goal hoops without even moving.
"I was in the hospital wing when they held the trials," said McLaggen, with something of a swagger. "Ate a pound of doxy eggs for a bet.""Right," said Harry. "Well. . . if you wait over there ..." He pointed over to the edge of the pitch, close to where Hermi-one was sitting. He thought he saw a flicker of annoyance pass over McLaggen's face and wondered whether McLaggen expected pref-erential treatment because they were both "old Sluggy's" favorites. Harry decided to start with a basic test, asking all applicants for the team to divide into groups of ten and fly once around the pitch. This was a good decision: the first ten was made up of first years, and it could not have been plainer that they had hardly ever flown before. Only one boy managed to remain airborne for more than a few seconds, and he was so surprised he promptly crashed into one of the goal posts.
The second group was comprised of ten of the silliest girls Harry had ever encountered, who, when he blew his whistle, merely fell about giggling and clutching one another. Romilda Vane was amongst them. When he told them to leave the pitch, they did so quite cheerfully and went to sit in the stands to heckle everyone else.
The third group had a pileup halfway around the pitch. Most of the fourth group had come without broomsticks. The fifth group were Hufflepuffs.
"If there's anyone else here who's not from Gryffindor," roared Harry, who was starting to get seriously annoyed, "leave now, please!
There was a pause, then a couple of little Ravenclaws went sprinting off the pitch, snorting with laughter.
After two hours, many complaints, and several tantrums, one in-volving a crashed Comet Two Sixty and several broken teeth, Harry had found himself three Chasers: Katie Bell, returned to the team after an excellent trial; a new find called Demelza Robins, who was particularly good at dodging Bludgers; and Ginny Weasley, who had outflown all the competition and scored seventeen goals to boot. Pleased though he was with his choices, Harry had also shouted himself hoarse at the many complainers and was now enduring a similar battle with the rejected Beaters.
"That's my final decision and if you don't get out of the way of the Keepers I'll hex you," he bellowed.
Neither of his chosen Beaters had the old brilliance of Fred and George, but he was still reasonably pleased with them: Jimmy Peakes, a short but broad-chested third-year boy who had managed to raise a lump the size of an egg on the back of Harry's head with a ferociously hit Bludger, and Ritchie Coote, who looked weedy but aimed well. They now joined Katie, Demelza, and Ginny in the stands to watch the selection of their last team member.
Harry had deliberately left the trial of the Keepers until last, hoping for an emptier stadium and less pressure on all concerned. Unfortunately, however, all the rejected players and a number of people who had come down to watch after a lengthy breakfast had joined the crowd by now, so that it was larger than ever. As each Keeper flew up to the goal hoops, the crowd roared and jeered in equal measure. Harry glanced over at Ron, who had always had a problem with nerves; Harry had hoped that winning their final match last term might have cured it, but apparently not: Ron was a delicate shade of green.
None of the first five applicants saved more than two goals apiece. To Harry's great disappointment, Cormac McLaggen saved four penalties out of five. On the last one, however, he shot off in completely the wrong direction; the crowd laughed and booed and McLaggen returned to the ground grinding his teeth.
Ron looked ready to pass out as he mounted his Cleansweep Eleven. "Good luck!" cried a voice from the stands. Harry looked around, expecting to see Hermione, but it was Lavender Brown. He would have quite liked to have hidden his face in his hands, as she did a moment later, but thought that as the Captain he ought to show slightly more grit, and so turned to watch Ron do his trial.
Yet he need not have worried: Ron saved one, two, three, four, five penalties in a row. Delighted, and resisting joining in the cheers of the crowd with difficulty, Harry turned to McLaggen to tell him that, most unfortunately, Ron had beaten him, only to find McLaggen's red face inches from his own. He stepped back hastily.
"His sister didn't really try," said McLaggen menacingly. There was a vein pulsing in his temple like the one Harry had often ad-mired in Uncle Vernon's. "She gave him an easy save.""Rubbish," said Harry coldly. "That was the one he nearly missed."McLaggen took a step nearer Harry, who stood his ground this time.
"Give me another go."
"No," said Harry. "You've had your go. You saved four. Ron saved five. Ron's Keeper, he won it fair and square. Get out of my way."He thought for a moment that McLaggen might punch him, but he contented himself with an ugly grimace and stormed away, growling what sounded like threats to thin air.
Harry turned around to find his new team beaming at him.
"Well done," he croaked. "You flew really well —""You did brilliantly, Ron!"
This time it really was Hermione running toward them from the stands; Harry saw Lavender walking off the pitch, arm in arm with Parvati, a rather grumpy expression on her face. Ron looked extremely pleased with himself and even taller than usual as he grinned at the team and at Hermione.
After fixing the time of their first full practice for the following Thursday, Harry, Ron, and Hermione bade good-bye to the rest of the team and headed off toward Hagrid's. A watery sun was trying to break through the clouds now and it had stopped drizzling at last. Harry felt extremely hungry; he hoped there would be some-thing to eat at Hagrid's.
"I thought I was going to miss that fourth penalty," Ron was say-ing happily. "Tricky shot from Demelza, did you see, had a bit of spin on it —""Yes, yes, you were magnificent," said Hermione, looking amused.
"I was better than that McLaggen anyway," said Ron in a highly satisfied voice. "Did you see him lumbering off in the wrong direc-tion on his fifth? Looked like he'd been Confunded. ..."To Harry's surprise, Hermione turned a very deep shade of pink at these words. Ron noticed nothing; he was too busy describing each of his other penalties in loving detail.
The great gray hippogriff, Buckbeak, was tethered in front of Hagrid's cabin. He clicked his razor-sharp beak at their approach and turned his huge head toward them.
"Oh dear," said Hermione nervously. "He's still a bit scary, isn't he?""Come off it, you've ridden him, haven't you?" said Ron. Harry stepped forward and bowed low to the hippogriff without breaking eye contact or blinking. After a few seconds, Buckbeak sank into a bow too.
"How are you?" Harry asked him in a low voice, moving for-ward to stroke the feathery head. "Missing him? But you're okay here with Hagrid, aren't you?""Oi!" said a loud voice.
Hagrid had come striding around the corner of his cabin wearing a large flowery apron and carrying a sack of potatoes. His enormous boarhound, Fang, was at his heels; Fang gave a booming bark and bounded forward.
"Git away from him! He'll have yer fingers — oh. It's yeh lot."Fang was jumping up at Hermione and Ron, attempting to lick their ears. Hagrid stood and looked at them all for a split second, then turned and strode into his cabin, slamming the door behind him.
"Oh dear!" said Hermione, looking stricken.
"Don't worry about it," said Harry grimly. He walked over to the door and knocked loudly. "Hagrid! Open up, we want to talk to you!"There was no sound from within.
"If you don't open the door, we'll blast it open!" Harry said, pulling out his wand.
"Harry!" said Hermione, sounding shocked. "You can't pos-sibly —""Yeah, I can!" said Harry. "Stand back —"But before he could say anything else, the door flew open again as Harry had known it would, and there stood Hagrid, glowering down at him and looking, despite the flowery apron, positively alarming.
"I'm a teacher!" he roared at Harry. "A teacher, Potter! How dare yeh threaten ter break down my door!""I'm sorry, sir" said Harry, emphasizing the last word as he stowed his wand inside his robes.
Hagrid looked stunned. "Since when have yeh called me 'sir'?""Since when have you called me 'Potter'?""Oh, very clever," growled Hagrid. "Very amusin'. That's me outsmarted, innit? All righ', come in then, yeh ungrateful little . . ."Mumbling darkly, he stood back to let them pass. Hermione scurried in after Harry, looking rather frightened.
"Well?" said Hagrid grumpily, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down around his enormous wooden table, Fang laying his head im-mediately upon Harry's knee and drooling all over his robes. "What's this? Feelin' sorry for me? Reckon I'm lonely or summat?""No," said Harry at once. "We wanted to see you.""We've missed you!" said Hermione tremulously.
"Missed me, have yeh?" snorted Hagrid. "Yeah. Righ'."He stomped around, brewing up tea in his enormous copper kettle, muttering all the while. Finally he slammed down three bucket-sized mugs of mahogany-brown tea in front of them and a plate of his rock cakes. Harry was hungry enough even for Hagrid's cooking, and took one at once.
"Hagrid," said Hermione timidly, when he joined them at the table and started peeling his potatoes with a brutality that sug-gested that each tuber had done him a great personal wrong, "we really wanted to carry on with Care of Magical Creatures, you know." Hagrid gave another great snort. Harry rather thought some bo-geys landed on the potatoes, and was inwardly thankful that they were not staying for dinner.
"We did!" said Hermione. "But none of us could fit it into our schedules!""Yeah. Righ'," said Hagrid again.
There was a funny squelching sound and they all looked around: Hermione let out a tiny shriek, and Ron leapt out of his seat and hurried around the table away from the large barrel standing in the corner that they had only just noticed. It was full of what looked like foot-long maggots, slimy, white, and writhing.
"What are they, Hagrid?" asked Harry, trying to sound interested rather than revolted, but putting down his rock cake all the same.
"Jus' giant grubs," said Hagrid.
"And they grow into ... ?" said Ron, looking apprehensive.
"They won' grow inter nuthin'," said Hagrid. "I got 'em ter feed ter Aragog."And without warning, he burst into tears.
"Hagrid!" cried Hermione, leaping up, hurrying around the table the long way to avoid the barrel of maggots, and putting an arm around his shaking shoulders. "What is it?""It's. . . him . .." gulped Hagrid, his beetle-black eyes stream-ing as he mopped his face with his apron. "It's . . . Aragog. ... I think he's dyin'. . , . He got ill over the summer an' he's not gettin' better.... I don' know what I'll do if he ... if he ... We've bin tergether so long. ..."Hermione patted Hagrid's shoulder, looking at a complete loss for anything to say. Harry knew how she felt. He had known Ha-grid to present a vicious baby dragon with a teddy bear, seen him croon over giant scorpions with suckers and stingers, attempt to reason with his brutal giant of a half-brother, but this was perhaps the most incomprehensible of all his monster fancies: the gigantic talking spider, Aragog, who dwelled deep in the Forbidden Forest and which he and Ron had only narrowly escaped four years previously.
"Is there — is there anything we can do?" Hermione asked, ig-noring Ron's frantic grimaces and head-shakings.
"I don' think there is, Hermione," choked Hagrid, attempting to stem the flood of his tears. "See, the rest o' the tribe ... Aragog's family . . . they're gettin' a bit funny now he's ill... bit restive ...""Yeah, I think we saw a bit of that side of them," said Ron in an undertone.
"... I don' reckon it'd be safe fer anyone but me ter go near the colony at the mo'," Hagrid finished, blowing his nose hard on his apron and looking up. "But thanks fer offerin', Hermione. ... It means a lot. . .."After that, the atmosphere lightened considerably, for although neither Harry nor Ron had shown any inclination to go and feed giant grubs to a murderous, gargantuan spider, Hagrid seemed to take it for granted that they would have liked to have done and be-came his usual self once more.
"Ar, I always knew yeh'd find it hard ter squeeze me inter yer timetables," he said gruffly, pouring them more tea. "Even if yeh applied fer Time-Turners —""We couldn't have done," said Hermione. "We smashed the en-tire stock of Ministry Time-Turners when we were there last sum-mer. It was in the Daily Prophet.""Ar, well then," said Hagrid. "There's no way yeh could've done it. ... I'm sorry I've bin — yeh know — I've jus' bin worried about Aragog ... an I did wonder whether, if Professor Grubbly-Plank had bin teachin' yeh —"At which all three of them stated categorically and untruthfully that Professor Grubbly-Plank, who had substituted for Hagrid a few times, was a dreadful teacher, with the result that by the time Hagrid waved them off the premises at dusk, he looked quite cheerful.
"I'm starving," said Harry, once the door had closed behind them and they were hurrying through the dark and deserted grounds; he had abandoned the rock cake after an ominous crack-ing noise from one of his back teeth. "And I've got that detention with Snape tonight, I haven't got much time for dinner. ..."As they came into the castle they spotted Cormac McLaggen en-tering the Great Hall. It took him two attempts to get through the doors; he ricocheted off the frame on the first attempt. Ron merely guffawed gloatingly and strode off into the Hall after him, but Harry caught Hermione's arm and held her back.
"What?" said Hermione defensively.
"If you ask me," said Harry quietly, "McLaggen looks like he was Confunded this morning. And he was standing right in front of where you were sitting."Hermione blushed.
"Oh, all right then, I did it," she whispered. "But you should have heard the way he was talking about Ron and Ginny! Any-way, he's got a nasty temper, you saw how he reacted when he didn't get in — you wouldn't have wanted someone like that on the team.""No," said Harry. "No, I suppose that's true. But wasn't that dis-honest, Hermione? I mean, you're a prefect, aren't you?""Oh, be quiet," she snapped, as he smirked.
"What are you two doing?" demanded Ron, reappearing in the doorway to the Great Hall and looking suspicious.
"Nothing," said Harry and Hermione together, and they hurried after Ron. The smell of roast beef made Harry's stomach ache with hunger, but they had barely taken three steps toward the Gryffindor table when Professor Slughorn appeared in front of them, blocking their path.
"Harry, Harry, just the man I was hoping to see!" he boomed ge-nially, twiddling the ends of his walrus mustache and puffing out his enormous belly, "I was hoping to catch you before dinner! What do you say to a spot of supper tonight in my rooms instead? We're having a little party, just a few rising stars, I've got McLaggen com-ing and Zabini, the charming Melinda Bobbin — I don't know whether you know her? Her family owns a large chain of apothe-caries — and, of course, I hope very much that Miss Granger will favor me by coming too."Slughorn made Hermione a little bow as he finished speaking. It was as though Ron was not present; Slughorn did not so much as look at him.
"I can't come, Professor," said Harry at once. "I've got a deten-tion with Professor Snape.""Oh dear!" said Slughorn, his face falling comically. "Dear, dear, I was counting on you, Harry! Well, now, I'll just have to have a word with Severus and explain the situation. I'm sure I'll be able to per-suade him to postpone your detention. Yes, I'll see you both later!" He bustled away out of the Hall.
"He's got no chance of persuading Snape," said Harry, the mo-ment Slughorn was out of earshot. "This detentions already been postponed once; Snape did it for Dumbledore, but he won't do it for anyone else.""Oh, I wish you could come, I don't want to go on my own!" said Hermione anxiously; Harry knew that she was thinking about McLaggen.
"I doubt you'll be alone, Ginny'll probably be invited," snapped Ron, who did not seem to have taken kindly to being ignored by Slughorn.
After dinner they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower. The common room was very crowded, as most people had finished dinner by now, but they managed to find a free table and sat down; Ron, who had been in a bad mood ever since the encounter with Slughorn, folded his arms and frowned at the ceiling. Hermione reached out for a copy of the Evening Prophet, which somebody had left abandoned on a chair.
"Anything new?" said Harry.
"Not really. . ." Hermione had opened the newspaper and was scanning the inside pages. "Oh, look, your dad's in here, Ron — he's all right!" she added quickly, for Ron had looked around in alarm. "It just says he's been to visit the Malfoys' house. 'This sec-ond search of the Death Eaters residence does not seem to have yielded any results. Arthur Weasley of the Office for the Detection and Confis-cation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects said that his team had been acting upon a confidential tip-off.'""Yeah, mine!" said Harry. "I told him at Kings Cross about Malfoy and that thing he was trying to get Borgin to fix! Well, if it's not at their house, he must have brought whatever it is to Hogwarts with him —""But how can he have done, Harry?" said Hermione, putting down the newspaper with a surprised look. "We were all searched when we arrived, weren't we?""Were you?" said Harry, taken aback. "I wasn't!""Oh no, of course you weren't, I forgot you were late. . .. Well, Filch ran over all of us with Secrecy Sensors when we got into the entrance hall. Any Dark object would have been found, I know for a fact Crabbe had a shrunken head confiscated. So you see, Malfoy can't have brought in anything dangerous!"Momentarily stymied, Harry watched Ginny Weasley playing with Arnold the Pygmy Puff for a while before seeing a way around this objection.
"Someone's sent it to him by owl, then," he said. "His mother or someone.""All the owls are being checked too," said Hermione. "Filch told us so when he was jabbing those Secrecy Sensors everywhere he could reach."Really stumped this time, Harry found nothing else to say. There did not seem to be any way Malfoy could have brought a dangerous or Dark object into the school. He looked hopefully at Ron, who was sitting with his arms folded, staring over at Lavender Brown.
"Can you think of any way Malfoy — ?""Oh, drop it, Harry," said Ron.
"Listen, it's not my fault Slughorn invited Hermione and me to his stupid party, neither of us wanted to go, you know!" said Harry, firing up.
"Well, as I'm not invited to any parties," said Ron, getting to his feet again, "I think I'll go to bed."He stomped off toward the door to the boys' dormitories, leav-ing Harry and Hermione staring after him.
"Harry?" said the new Chaser, Demelza Robins, appearing suddenly at his shoulder. "I've got a message for you.""From Professor Slughorn?" asked Harry, sitting up hopefully.
"No .. . from Professor Snape," said Demelza. Harry's heart sank. "He says you're to come to his office at half past eight tonight to do your detention — er — no matter how many party invita-tions you've received. And he wanted you to know you'll be sorting out rotten flobberworms from good ones, to use in Potions and — and he says there's no need to bring protective gloves.""Right," said Harry grimly. "Thanks a lot, Demelza."