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

Ministry? He reflected uncomfortably that Hermione would have suggested he say something consoling about Sirius to her, that it hadn’t been her fault at all, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was far from blaming her for Sirius’s death; it was no more her fault than anyone else’s (and much less than his), but he did not like talking about Sirius if he could avoid it. And so they tramped on through the cold night in silence, Tonks’s long cloak whispering on the ground behind them.
    Having always travelled there by carriage, Harry had never before appreciated just how far Hogwarts was from Hogsmeade Station. With great relief he finally saw the tall pillars on either side of the gates, each topped with a winged boar. He was cold, he was hungry, and he was quite keen to leave this new, gloomy Tonks behind. But when he put out a hand to push open the gates, he found them chained shut.
    ‘Alohomora!’ he said confidently, pointing his wand at the padlock, but nothing happened.
    ‘That won’t work on these,’ said Tonks. ‘Dumbledore bewitched them himself.’
    Harry looked around.
    ‘I could climb a wall,’ he suggested.
    ‘No, you couldn’t,’ said Tonks flatly. ‘Anti-intruder jinxes on all of them. Security’s been tightened a hundredfold this summer.’
    ‘Well then,’ said Harry, starting to feel annoyed at her lack of helpfulness, ‘I suppose I’ll just have to sleep out here and wait for morning.’
    ‘Someone’s coming down for you,’ said Tonks. ‘Look.’
    A lantern was bobbing at the distant foot of the castle. Harry was so pleased to see it he felt he could even endure Filch’s wheezy criticisms of his tardiness and rants about how his timekeeping would improve with the regular application of thumbscrews. It was not until the glowing yellow light was ten feet away from them, and Harry had pulled off his Invisibility Cloak so that he could be seen, that he recognised, with a rush of pure loathing, the uplit hooked nose and long, black, greasy hair of Severus Snape.
    ‘Well, well, well,’ sneered Snape, taking out his wand and tapping the padlock once, so that the chains snaked backwards and the gates creaked open. ‘Nice of you to turn up, Potter, although you have evidently decided that the wearing of school robes would detract from your appearance.’
    ‘I couldn’t change, I didn’t have my –’ Harry began, but Snape cut across him.
    ‘There is no need to wait, Nymphadora. Potter is quite – ah – safe in my hands.’
    ‘I meant Hagrid to get the message,’ said Tonks, frowning.
    ‘Hagrid was late for the start-of-term feast, just like Potter here, so I took it instead. And incidentally,’ said Snape, standing back to allow Harry to pass him, ‘I was interested to see your new Patronus.’
    He shut the gates in her face with a loud clang and tapped the chains with his wand again, so that they slithered, clinking, back into place.
    ‘I think you were better off with the old one,’ said Snape, the malice in his voice unmistakeable. ‘The new one looks weak.’
    As Snape swung the lantern about Harry saw, fleetingly, a look of shock and anger on Tonks’s face. Then she was covered in darkness once more.
    ‘Goodnight,’ Harry called to her over his shoulder, as he began the walk up to the school with Snape. ‘Thanks for … everything.’
    ‘See you, Harry.’
    Snape did not speak for a minute or so. Harry felt as though his body was generating waves of hatred so powerful that it seemed incredible that Snape could not feel them burning him. He had loathed Snape from their first encounter, but Snape had placed himself for ever and irrevocably beyond the possibility of Harry’s forgiveness by his attitude towards Sirius. Whatever Dumbledore said, Harry had had time to think over the summer, and had concluded that Snape’s snide remarks to Sirius about remaining safely hidden while the rest of the Order of the Phoenix were fighting Voldemort had probably been a powerful factor in Sirius rushing off to the Ministry the night that he had died. Harry clung to this notion, because it enabled him to blame Snape, which felt satisfying, and also because he knew that if anyone was not sorry that Sirius was dead, it was the man now striding next to him in the darkness.
    ‘Fifty points from Gryffindor for lateness, I think,’ said Snape. ‘And, let me see, another twenty for your Muggle attire. You know, I don’t believe any house has ever been in