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

said Hermione, ‘I thought he sounded a bit like you.’
    ‘Like me ?’
    ‘Yes, when you were telling us what it’s like to face Voldemort. You said it wasn’t just memorising a bunch of spells, you said it was just you and your brains and your guts – well, wasn’t that what Snape was saying? That it really comes down to being brave and quick-thinking?’
    Harry was so disarmed that she had thought his words as well worth memorising as The Standard Book of Spells that he did not argue.
    ‘Harry! Hey, Harry!’
    Harry looked round; Jack Sloper, one of the Beaters on the previous year’s Gryffindor Quidditch team, was hurrying towards him holding a roll of parchment.
    ‘For you,’ panted Sloper. ‘Listen, I heard you’re the new Captain. When’re you holding trials?’
    ‘I’m not sure yet,’ said Harry, thinking privately that Sloper would be very lucky to get back on the team. ‘I’ll let you know.’
    ‘Oh, right. I was hoping it’d be this weekend –’ But Harry was not listening; he had just recognised the thin, slanting writing on the parchment. Leaving Sloper in mid-sentence, he hurried away with Ron and Hermione, unrolling the parchment as he went.
     
    Dear Harry,
    I would like to start our private lessons this Saturday. Kindly come along to my office at eight p.m. I hope you are enjoying your first day back at school.
    Yours sincerely
    Albus Dumbledore
    P.S. I enjoy Acid Pops.
     
    ‘He enjoys Acid Pops?’ said Ron, who had read the message over Harry’s shoulder and was looking perplexed.
    ‘It’s the password to get past the gargoyle outside his study,’ said Harry in a low voice. ‘Ha! Snape’s not going to be pleased … I won’t be able to do his detention!’
    He, Ron and Hermione spent the whole of break speculating on what Dumbledore would teach Harry. Ron thought it most likely to be spectacular jinxes and hexes of the type the Death Eaters would not know. Hermione said such things were illegal, and thought it much more likely that Dumbledore wanted to teach Harry advanced defensive magic. After break, she went off to Arithmancy while Harry and Ron returned to the common room, where they grudgingly started Snape’s homework. This turned out to be so complex that they still had not finished when Hermione joined them for their after-lunch free period (though she considerably speeded up the process). They had only just finished when the bell rang for the afternoon’s double Potions and they beat the familiar path down to the dungeon classroom that had, for so long, been Snape’s.
    When they arrived in the corridor they saw that there were only a dozen people progressing to N.E.W.T. level. Crabbe and Goyle had evidently failed to achieve the required O.W.L. grade, but four Slytherins had made it through, including Malfoy. Four Ravenclaws were there, and one Hufflepuff, Ernie Macmillan, whom Harry liked despite his rather pompous manner.
    ‘Harry,’ Ernie said portentously, holding out his hand as Harry approached, ‘didn’t get a chance to speak in Defence Against the Dark Arts this morning. Good lesson, I thought, but Shield Charms are old hat, of course, for us old DA lags … and how are you, Ron – Hermione?’
    Before they could say more than ‘fine’, the dungeon door opened and Slughorn’s belly preceded him out of the door. As they filed into the room, his great walrus moustache curved above his beaming mouth and he greeted Harry and Zabini with particular enthusiasm.
    The dungeon was, most unusually, already full of vapours and odd smells. Harry, Ron and Hermione sniffed interestedly as they passed large, bubbling cauldrons. The four Slytherins took a table together, as did the four Ravenclaws. This left Harry, Ron and Hermione to share a table with Ernie. They chose the one nearest a gold-coloured cauldron that was emitting one of the most seductive scents Harry had ever inhaled: somehow it reminded him simultaneously of treacle tart, the woody smell of a broomstick handle and something flowery he thought he might have smelled at The Burrow. He found that he was breathing very slowly and deeply and that the potion’s fumes seemed to be filling him up like drink. A great contentment stole over him; he grinned across at Ron, who grinned lazily back.
    ‘Now then, now then, now then,’ said Slughorn, whose massive outline was quivering through the many shimmering vapours. ‘Scales out, everyone, and potion kits, and don’t forget your copies of