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

abusing it. Harry and his dad were just having a laugh. You don’t like the Prince, Hermione,’ he added, pointing a sausage at her sternly, ‘because he’s better than you at Potions –’
    ‘It’s got nothing to do with that!’ said Hermione, her cheeks reddening. ‘I just think it’s very irresponsible to start performing spells when you don’t even know what they’re for, and stop talking about “the Prince” as if it’s his title, I bet it’s just a stupid nickname and it doesn’t seem as though he was a very nice person to me!’
    ‘I don’t see where you get that from,’ said Harry heatedly, ‘if he’d been a budding Death Eater he wouldn’t have been boasting about being “Half-Blood”, would he?’
    Even as he said it, Harry remembered that his father had been pure-blood, but he pushed the thought out of his mind; he would worry about that later …
    ‘The Death Eaters can’t all be pure-blood, there aren’t enough pure-blood wizards left,’ said Hermione stubbornly. ‘I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure. It’s only Muggle-borns they hate, they’d be quite happy to let you and Ron join up.’
    ‘There is no way they’d let me be a Death Eater!’ said Ron indignantly, a bit of sausage flying off the fork he was now brandishing at Hermione and hitting Ernie Macmillan on the head. ‘My whole family are blood traitors! That’s as bad as Muggle-borns to Death Eaters!’
    ‘And they’d love to have me,’ said Harry sarcastically. ‘We’d be best pals if they didn’t keep trying to do me in.’
    This made Ron laugh; even Hermione gave a grudging smile, and a distraction arrived in the shape of Ginny.
    ‘Hey, Harry, I’m supposed to give you this.’
    It was a scroll of parchment with Harry’s name written upon it in familiar thin, slanting writing.
    ‘Thanks, Ginny … it’s Dumbledore’s next lesson!’ Harry told Ron and Hermione, pulling open the parchment and quickly reading its contents. ‘Monday evening!’ He felt suddenly light and happy. ‘Want to join us in Hogsmeade, Ginny?’ he asked.
    ‘I’m going with Dean – might see you there,’ she replied, waving at them as she left.
    Filch was standing at the oak front doors as usual, checking off the names of people who had permission to go into Hogsmeade. The process took even longer than normal as Filch was triple-checking everybody with his Secrecy Sensor.
    ‘What does it matter if we’re smuggling Dark stuff OUT?’ demanded Ron, eyeing the long thin Secrecy Sensor with apprehension. ‘Surely you ought to be checking what we bring back IN?’
    His cheek earned him a few extra jabs with the Sensor, and he was still wincing as they stepped out into the wind and sleet.
    The walk into Hogsmeade was not enjoyable. Harry wrapped his scarf over his lower face; the exposed part soon felt both raw and numb. The road to the village was full of students bent double against the bitter wind. More than once Harry wondered whether they might not have had a better time in the warm common room, and when they finally reached Hogsmeade and saw that Zonko’s Joke Shop had been boarded up, Harry took it as confirmation that this trip was not destined to be fun. Ron pointed with a thickly gloved hand towards Honeydukes, which was mercifully open, and Harry and Hermione staggered in his wake into the crowded shop.
    ‘Thank God,’ shivered Ron as they were enveloped by warm, toffee-scented air. ‘Let’s stay here all afternoon.’
    ‘Harry, m’boy!’ said a booming voice from behind them.
    ‘Oh, no,’ muttered Harry. The three of them turned to see Professor Slughorn, who was wearing an enormous furry hat and overcoat with matching fur collar, clutching a large bag of crystallised pineapple and occupying at least a quarter of the shop.
    ‘Harry, that’s three of my little suppers you’ve missed now!’ said Slughorn, poking him genially in the chest. ‘It won’t do, m’boy, I’m determined to have you! Miss Granger loves them, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Hermione helplessly, ‘they’re really –’
    ‘So why don’t you come along, Harry?’ demanded Slughorn.
    ‘Well, I’ve had Quidditch practice, Professor,’ said Harry, who had indeed been scheduling practices every time Slughorn had sent him a little violet-ribbon-adorned invitation. This strategy meant that Ron was not left out and they usually had a laugh with Ginny imagining Hermione shut up with McLaggen and