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

weren’t we?’
    ‘Were you?’ said Harry, taken aback. ‘I wasn’t!’
    ‘Oh no, of course you weren’t, I forgot you were late … well, Filch ran over all of us with Secrecy Sensors when we got into the Entrance Hall. Any Dark object would have been found, I know for a fact Crabbe had a shrunken head confiscated. So you see, Malfoy can’t have brought in anything dangerous!’
    Momentarily stymied, Harry watched Ginny Weasley playing with Arnold the Pygmy Puff for a while before seeing a way around this objection.
    ‘Someone’s sent it to him by owl, then,’ he said. ‘His mother or someone.’
    ‘All the owls are being checked, too,’ said Hermione. ‘Filch told us so when he was jabbing those Secrecy Sensors everywhere he could reach.’
    Really stumped this time, Harry found nothing else to say. There did not seem to be any way Malfoy could have brought a dangerous or Dark object into the school. He looked hopefully at Ron, who was sitting with his arms folded, staring over at Lavender Brown.
    ‘Can you think of any way Malfoy –?’
    ‘Oh, drop it, Harry,’ said Ron.
    ‘Listen, it’s not my fault Slughorn invited Hermione and me to his stupid party, neither of us wanted to go, you know!’ said Harry, firing up.
    ‘Well, as I’m not invited to any parties,’ said Ron, getting to his feet again, ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
    He stomped off towards the door to the boys’ dormitories, leaving Harry and Hermione staring after him.
    ‘Harry?’ said the new Chaser, Demelza Robins, appearing suddenly at his shoulder. ‘I’ve got a message for you.’
    ‘From Professor Slughorn?’ asked Harry, sitting up hopefully.
    ‘No … from Professor Snape,’ said Demelza. Harry’s heart sank. ‘He says you’re to come to his office at half past eight tonight to do your detention – er – no matter how many party invitations you’ve received. And he wanted you to know you’ll be sorting out rotten Flobberworms from good ones, to use in Potions, and – and he says there’s no need to bring protective gloves.’
    ‘Right,’ said Harry grimly. ‘Thanks a lot, Demelza.’

 
     
— CHAPTER TWELVE —
     
Silver and Opals
    Where was Dumbledore, and what was he doing? Harry caught sight of the Headmaster only twice over the next few weeks. He rarely appeared at meals any more, and Harry was sure Hermione was right in thinking that he was leaving the school for days at a time. Had Dumbledore forgotten the lessons he was supposed to be giving Harry? Dumbledore had said that the lessons were leading to something to do with the prophecy; Harry had felt bolstered, comforted, and now he felt slightly abandoned.
    Halfway through October came their first trip of the term to Hogsmeade. Harry had wondered whether these trips would still be allowed, given the increasingly tight security measures around the school, but was pleased to know that they were going ahead; it was always good to get out of the castle grounds for a few hours.
    Harry woke early on the morning of the trip, which was proving stormy, and whiled away the time until breakfast by reading his copy of Advanced Potion-Making . He did not usually lie in bed reading his textbooks; that sort of behaviour, as Ron rightly said, was indecent in anybody except Hermione, who was simply weird that way. Harry felt, however, that the Half-Blood Prince’s copy of Advanced Potion-Making hardly qualified as a textbook. The more Harry pored over the book, the more he realised how much was in there, not only the handy hints and short cuts on potions that were earning him such a glowing reputation with Slughorn, but also the imaginative little jinxes and hexes scribbled in the margins which Harry was sure, judging by the crossings-out and revisions, that the Prince had invented himself.
    Harry had already attempted a few of the Prince’s self-invented spells. There had been a hex that caused toenails to grow alarmingly fast (he had tried this on Crabbe in the corridor, with very entertaining results); a jinx that glued the tongue to the roof of the mouth (which he had twice used, to general applause, on an unsuspecting Argus Filch); and, perhaps most useful of all, Muffliato , a spell that filled the ears of anyone nearby with an unidentifiable buzzing, so that lengthy conversations could be held in class without being overheard. The only person who did not find these charms amusing was Hermione, who maintained a rigidly disapproving expression