Harry Potter 06 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

about an Inferius –’
    ‘No, there wasn’t,’ said Snape in a bored voice.
    ‘But sir, I heard people talking –’
    ‘If you had actually read the article in question, Mr Finnigan, you would have known that the so-called Inferius was nothing but a smelly sneak-thief by the name of Mundungus Fletcher.’
    ‘I thought Snape and Mundungus were on the same side?’ muttered Harry to Ron and Hermione. ‘Shouldn’t he be upset Mundungus has been arrest—?’
    ‘But Potter seems to have a lot to say on the subject,’ said Snape, pointing suddenly at the back of the room, his black eyes fixed on Harry. ‘Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost.’
    The whole class looked round at Harry, who hastily tried to recall what Dumbledore had told him the night that they had gone to visit Slughorn.
    ‘Er – well – ghosts are transparent –’ he said.
    ‘Oh, very good,’ interrupted Snape, his lip curling. ‘Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. Ghosts are transparent .’
    Pansy Parkinson let out a high-pitched giggle. Several other people were smirking. Harry took a deep breath and continued calmly, though his insides were boiling, ‘Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren’t they? So they’d be solid –’
    ‘A five-year-old could have told us as much,’ sneered Snape. ‘The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard’s spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth … and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent .’
    ‘Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we’re trying to tell them apart!’ said Ron. ‘When we come face to face with one down a dark alley we’re going to be having a shufti to see if it’s solid, aren’t we, we’re not going to be asking, “Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?”’
    There was a ripple of laughter, instantly quelled by the look Snape gave the class.
    ‘Another ten points from Gryffindor,’ said Snape. ‘I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room.’
    ‘No!’ whispered Hermione, grabbing Harry’s arm as he opened his mouth furiously. ‘There’s no point, you’ll just end up in detention again, leave it!’
    ‘Now open your books at page two hundred and thirteen,’ said Snape, smirking a little, ‘and read the first two paragraphs on the Cruciatus Curse …’
    Ron was very subdued all through the class. When the bell sounded at the end of the lesson, Lavender caught up with Ron and Harry (Hermione mysteriously melted out of sight as she approached) and abused Snape hotly for his jibe about Ron’s Apparition, but this seemed merely to irritate Ron, and he shook her off by making a detour into the boys’ bathroom with Harry.
    ‘Snape’s right, though, isn’t he?’ said Ron, after staring into a cracked mirror for a minute or two. ‘I dunno whether it’s worth me taking the test. I just can’t get the hang of Apparition.’
    ‘You might as well do the extra practice sessions in Hogsmeade and see where they get you,’ said Harry reasonably. ‘It’ll be more interesting than trying to get into a stupid hoop, anyway. Then, if you’re still not – you know – as good as you’d like to be, you can postpone the test, do it with me over the summ— Myrtle, this is the boys’ bathroom!’
    The ghost of a girl had risen out of the toilet in a cubicle behind them and was now floating in midair, staring at them through thick, white, round glasses.
    ‘Oh,’ she said glumly. ‘It’s you two.’
    ‘Who were you expecting?’ said Ron, looking at her in the mirror.
    ‘Nobody,’ said Myrtle, picking moodily at a spot on her chin. ‘He said he’d come back and see me, but then you said you’d pop in and visit me, too …’ she gave Harry a reproachful look ‘… and I haven’t seen you for months and months. I’ve learned not to expect too much from boys.’
    ‘I thought you lived in that girls’ bathroom?’ said Harry, who had been careful to give the place a wide berth for some years now.
    ‘I do,’ she said, with a sulky little shrug, ‘but that doesn’t mean I can’t visit other places. I came and saw you in