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

she had stood in the room beside them. ‘Couldn’t your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?’
    ‘It’s not ours,’ said a young man’s voice. ‘Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt and his children. The son’s quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village –’
    The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder. Morfin made to get out of his armchair.
    ‘Keep your seat,’ said his father warningly, in Parseltongue.
    ‘Tom,’ said the girl’s voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, ‘I might be wrong – but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?’
    ‘Good Lord, you’re right!’ said the man’s voice. ‘That’ll be the son, I told you he’s not right in the head. Don’t look at it, Cecilia, darling.’
    The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing fainter again.
    ‘“Darling”,’ whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. ‘“Darling”, he called her. So he wouldn’t have you anyway.’
    Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint.
    ‘What’s that?’ said Gaunt sharply, also in Parseltongue, looking from his son to his daughter. ‘What did you say, Morfin?’
    ‘She likes looking at that Muggle,’ said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. ‘ Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn’t she? And last night –’
    Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, ‘Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn’t she?’
    ‘Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?’ said Gaunt quietly.
    All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping.
    ‘Is it true?’ said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two towards the terrified girl. ‘My daughter – pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin – hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?’
    Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak.
    ‘But I got him, Father!’ cackled Morfin. ‘I got him as he went by, and he didn’t look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?’
    ‘You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!’ roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter’s throat.
    Both Harry and Ogden yelled ‘No!’ at the same time; Ogden raised his wand and cried, ‘ Relashio! ’ Gaunt was thrown backwards, away from his daughter; he tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of rage, Morfin leapt out of his chair and ran at Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand.
    Ogden ran for his life. Dumbledore indicated that they ought to follow and Harry obeyed, Merope’s screams echoing in his ears.
    Ogden hurtled up the path and erupted on to the main lane, his arms over his head, where he collided with the glossy chestnut horse ridden by a very handsome, dark-haired young man. Both he and the pretty girl riding beside him on a grey horse roared with laughter at the sight of Ogden, who bounced off the horse’s flank and set off again, his frock-coat flying, covered from head to foot in dust, running pell-mell up the lane.
    ‘I think that will do, Harry,’ said Dumbledore. He took Harry by the elbow and tugged. Next moment, they were both soaring weightlessly through darkness, until they landed squarely on their feet, back in Dumbledore’s now twilit office.
    ‘What happened to the girl in the cottage?’ said Harry at once, as Dumbledore lit extra lamps with a flick of his wand. ‘Merope, or whatever her name was?’
    ‘Oh, she survived,’ said Dumbledore, reseating himself behind his desk and indicating that Harry should sit down too. ‘Ogden Apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes. Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered, removed from the cottage and subsequently convicted by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record of Muggle attacks, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, who had injured several Ministry employees in addition to Ogden, received six months.’
    ‘Marvolo?’ Harry repeated