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

these days, the Chosen One.’
    At these words, a chill that had nothing to do with the surrounding mist stole over Harry. He was reminded of words he had heard a few weeks ago, words that had a horrible and particular meaning to him:
    Neither can live while the other survives …
    Dumbledore had stopped walking, level with the church they had passed earlier.
    ‘This will do, Harry. If you will grasp my arm.’
    Braced this time, Harry was ready for the Apparition, but still found it unpleasant. When the pressure disappeared and he found himself able to breathe again, he was standing in a country lane beside Dumbledore and looking ahead to the crooked silhouette of his second favourite building in the world: The Burrow. In spite of the feeling of dread that had just swept through him, his spirits could not help but lift at the sight of it. Ron was in there … and so was Mrs Weasley, who could cook better than anyone he knew …
    ‘If you don’t mind, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, as they passed through the gate, ‘I’d like a few words with you before we part. In private. Perhaps in here?’
    Dumbledore pointed towards a run-down stone outhouse where the Weasleys kept their broomsticks. A little puzzled, Harry followed Dumbledore through the creaking door into a space a little smaller than the average cupboard. Dumbledore illuminated the tip of his wand, so that it glowed like a torch, and smiled down at Harry.
    ‘I hope you will forgive me for mentioning it, Harry, but I am pleased and a little proud at how well you seem to be coping after everything that happened at the Ministry. Permit me to say that I think Sirius would have been proud of you.’
    Harry swallowed; his voice seemed to have deserted him. He did not think he could stand to discuss Sirius. It had been painful enough to hear Uncle Vernon say ‘His godfather’s dead?’; even worse to hear Sirius’s name thrown out casually by Slughorn.
    ‘It was cruel,’ said Dumbledore softly, ‘that you and Sirius had such a short time together. A brutal ending to what should have been a long and happy relationship.’
    Harry nodded, his eyes fixed resolutely on the spider now climbing Dumbledore’s hat. He could tell that Dumbledore understood, that he might even suspect that until his letter arrived Harry had spent nearly all his time at the Dursleys’ lying on his bed, refusing meals and staring at the misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to associate with Dementors.
    ‘It’s just hard,’ Harry said finally, in a low voice, ‘to realise he won’t write to me again.’
    His eyes burned suddenly and he blinked. He felt stupid for admitting it, but the fact that he had had someone outside Hogwarts who cared what happened to him, almost like a parent, had been one of the best things about discovering his godfather … and now the post owls would never bring him that comfort again …
    ‘Sirius represented much to you that you had never known before,’ said Dumbledore gently. ‘Naturally, the loss is devastating …’
    ‘But while I was at the Dursleys’,’ interrupted Harry, his voice growing stronger, ‘I realised I can’t shut myself away or – or crack up. Sirius wouldn’t have wanted that, would he? And anyway, life’s too short … look at Madam Bones, look at Emmeline Vance … it could be me next, couldn’t it? But if it is,’ he said fiercely, now looking straight into Dumbledore’s blue eyes, gleaming in the wand-light, ‘I’ll make sure I take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage it.’
    ‘Spoken both like your mother and father’s son and Sirius’s true godson!’ said Dumbledore, with an approving pat on Harry’s back. ‘I take my hat off to you – or I would, if I were not afraid of showering you in spiders.
    ‘And now, Harry, on a closely related subject … I gather that you have been taking the Daily Prophet over the last two weeks?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Harry, and his heart beat a little faster.
    ‘Then you will have seen that there have been not so much leaks, as floods, concerning your adventure in the Hall of Prophecy?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Harry again. ‘And now everyone knows that I’m the one –’
    ‘No, they do not,’ interrupted Dumbledore. ‘There are only two people in the whole world who know the full contents of the prophecy made about you and Lord Voldemort, and they are both standing in this smelly, spidery broom shed. It is true,