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

wand-tip. Longer and longer the memory stretched until it broke and swung, silvery bright, from the wand. Slughorn lowered it into the bottle where it coiled, then spread, swirling like gas. He corked the bottle with a trembling hand and then passed it across the table to Harry.
    ‘Thank you very much, Professor.’
    ‘You’re a good boy,’ said Professor Slughorn, tears trickling down his fat cheeks into his walrus moustache. ‘And you’ve got her eyes … just don’t think too badly of me once you’ve seen it …’
    And he, too, put his head on his arms, gave a deep sigh, and fell asleep.

 
     
— CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE —
     
Horcruxes
    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 short cuts. 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 towards 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 favourite 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 eclairs’ to Dumbledore’s gargoyle, which leapt aside, permitting Harry entrance on to 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 Horace Slughorn, with his thick, shiny, straw-coloured hair and his gingery-blond moustache, 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 crystallised pineapple. And there were