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

very good idea, Harry; much the simplest way of finding out what we are facing.’
    ‘But we don’t know what the thing was,’ said Harry, looking at the sinisterly smooth water.
    ‘What the things are , you mean,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I doubt very much that there is only one of them. Shall we walk on?’
    ‘Professor?’
    ‘Yes, Harry?’
    ‘Do you think we’re going to have to go into the lake?’
    ‘Into it? Only if we are very unfortunate.’
    ‘You don’t think the Horcrux is at the bottom?’
    ‘Oh no … I think the Horcrux is in the middle .’
    And Dumbledore pointed towards the misty green light in the centre of the lake.
    ‘So we’re going to have to cross the lake to get to it?’
    ‘Yes, I think so.’
    Harry did not say anything. His thoughts were all of water-monsters, of giant serpents, of demons, kelpies and sprites …
    ‘Aha,’ said Dumbledore and he stopped again; this time, Harry really did walk into him; for a moment he toppled on the edge of the dark water and Dumbledore’s uninjured hand closed tightly around his upper arm, pulling him back. ‘So sorry, Harry, I should have given warning. Stand back against the wall, please; I think I have found the place.’
    Harry had no idea what Dumbledore meant; this patch of dark bank was exactly like every other bit as far as he could tell, but Dumbledore seemed to have detected something special about it. This time he was running his hand not over the rocky wall, but through the thin air, as though expecting to find and grip something invisible.
    ‘Oho,’ said Dumbledore happily, seconds later. His hand had closed in midair upon something Harry could not see. Dumbledore moved closer to the water; Harry watched nervously as the tips of Dumbledore’s buckled shoes found the utmost edge of the rock rim. Keeping his hand clenched in midair, Dumbledore raised his wand with the other and tapped his fist with the point.
    Immediately a thick coppery green chain appeared out of thin air, extending from the depths of the water into Dumbledore’s clenched hand. Dumbledore tapped the chain, which began to slide through his fist like a snake, coiling itself on the ground with a clinking sound that echoed noisily off the rocky walls, pulling something from the depths of the black water. Harry gasped as the ghostly prow of a tiny boat broke the surface, glowing as green as the chain, and floated, with barely a ripple, towards the place on the bank where Harry and Dumbledore stood.
    ‘How did you know that was there?’ Harry asked in astonishment.
    ‘Magic always leaves traces,’ said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, ‘sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style.’
    ‘Is … is this boat safe?’
    ‘Oh yes, I think so. Voldemort needed to create a means to cross the lake without attracting the wrath of those creatures he had placed within it, in case he ever wanted to visit or remove his Horcrux.’
    ‘So the things in the water won’t do anything to us if we cross in Voldemort’s boat?’
    ‘I think we must resign ourselves to the fact that they will, at some point, realise we are not Lord Voldemort. Thus far, however, we have done well. They have allowed us to raise the boat.’
    ‘But why have they let us?’ asked Harry, who could not shake off the vision of tentacles rising out of the dark water the moment they were out of sight of the bank.
    ‘Voldemort would have been reasonably confident that none but a very great wizard would have been able to find the boat,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I think he would have been prepared to risk what was, to his mind, the most unlikely possibility that somebody else would find it, knowing that he had set other obstacles ahead that only he would be able to penetrate. We shall see whether he is right.’
    Harry looked down into the boat. It really was very small.
    ‘It doesn’t look like it was built for two people. Will it hold both of us? Will we be too heavy together?’
    Dumbledore chuckled.
    ‘Voldemort will not have cared about the weight, but about the amount of magical power that crossed his lake. I rather think an enchantment will have been placed upon this boat so that only one wizard at a time will be able to sail in it.’
    ‘But then –?’
    ‘I do not think you will count, Harry: you are under age and unqualified. Voldemort would never have expected a sixteen-year-old to reach this place: I think it unlikely that your