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

the following morning. He had been unable to tell Ron and Hermione about his lesson with Dumbledore over breakfast for fear of being overheard, but he filled them in as they walked across the vegetable patch towards the greenhouses. The weekend’s brutal wind had died out at last; the weird mist had returned and it took them a little longer than usual to find the correct greenhouse.
    ‘Wow, scary thought, the boy You-Know-Who,’ said Ron quietly, as they took their places around one of the gnarled Snargaluff stumps that formed that term’s project, and began pulling on their protective gloves. ‘But I still don’t get why Dumbledore’s showing you all this. I mean, it’s really interesting and everything, but what’s the point?’
    ‘Dunno,’ said Harry, inserting a gum shield. ‘But he says it’s all important and it’ll help me survive.’
    ‘I think it’s fascinating,’ said Hermione earnestly. ‘It makes absolute sense to know as much about Voldemort as possible. How else will you find out his weaknesses?’
    ‘So how was Slughorn’s latest party?’ Harry asked her thickly through the gum shield.
    ‘Oh, it was quite fun, really,’ said Hermione, now putting on protective goggles. ‘I mean, he drones on about famous ex-pupils a bit, and he absolutely fawns on McLaggen because he’s so well-connected, but he gave us some really nice food and he introduced us to Gwenog Jones.’
    ‘Gwenog Jones?’ said Ron, his eyes widening under his own goggles. ‘ The Gwenog Jones? Captain of the Holyhead Harpies?’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Hermione. ‘Personally, I thought she was a bit full of herself, but –’
    ‘ Quite enough chat over here!’ said Professor Sprout briskly, bustling over and looking stern. ‘You’re lagging behind, everybody else has started and Neville’s already got his first pod!’
    They looked round; sure enough, there sat Neville with a bloody lip and several nasty scratches along the side of his face, but clutching an unpleasantly pulsating green object about the size of a grapefruit.
    ‘OK, Professor, we’re starting now!’ said Ron, adding quietly, when she had turned away again, ‘Should’ve used Muffliato , Harry.’
    ‘No, we shouldn’t!’ said Hermione at once, looking, as she always did, intensely cross at the thought of the Half-Blood Prince and his spells. ‘Well, come on … we’d better get going …’
    She gave the other two an apprehensive look; they all took deep breaths and then dived at the gnarled stump between them.
    It sprang to life at once; long, prickly, bramble-like vines flew out of the top and whipped through the air. One tangled itself in Hermione’s hair and Ron beat it back with a pair of secateurs; Harry succeeded in trapping a couple of vines and knotting them together; a hole opened in the middle of all the tentacle-like branches; Hermione plunged her arm bravely into this hole, which closed like a trap around her elbow; Harry and Ron tugged and wrenched at the vines, forcing the hole to open again and Hermione snatched her arm free, clutching in her fingers a pod just like Neville’s. At once, the prickly vines shot back inside and the gnarled stump sat there looking like an innocently dead lump of wood.
    ‘You know, I don’t think I’ll be having any of these in my garden when I’ve got my own place,’ said Ron, pushing his goggles up on to his forehead and wiping sweat from his face.
    ‘Pass me a bowl,’ said Hermione, holding the pulsating pod at arm’s length; Harry handed one over and she dropped the pod into it with a look of disgust on her face.
    ‘Don’t be squeamish, squeeze it out, they’re best when they’re fresh!’ called Professor Sprout.
    ‘Anyway,’ said Hermione, continuing their interrupted conversation as though a lump of wood had not just attacked them, ‘Slughorn’s going to have a Christmas party, Harry, and there’s no way you’ll be able to wriggle out of this one because he actually asked me to check your free evenings, so he could be sure to have it on a night you can come.’
    Harry groaned. Ron, meanwhile, who was attempting to burst the pod in the bowl by putting both hands on it, standing up and squashing it as hard as he could, said angrily, ‘And this is another party just for Slughorn’s favourites, is it?’
    ‘Just for the Slug Club, yes,’ said Hermione.
    The pod flew out from under Ron’s fingers and hit the greenhouse glass, rebounding on to the back of