Sirius's son

Classmates

Snow was swirling against the icy windows once more; Christmas was approaching fast. Hagrid had already single-handedly delivered the usual twelve Christmas trees for the Great Hall; garlands of holly and tinsel had been twisted around the banisters of the stairs; everlasting candles glowed from inside the helmets of suits of armor and great bunches of mistletoe had been hung at intervals of along the corridors. Large groups of girls tended to converge underneath the mistletoe bunches every time Harry or Rigel went past, which caused blockages in the corridors; fortunately, however, their frequent nighttime wanderings had given both boys an unusually good knowledge of the castle's secret passageway

Ron, who might once have found the necessity of these detours a cause for jealousy rather than hilarity, simply roared with laughter about it all though he avoided Eliza all the time. The twins had sent Ron a hexed letter that made his skin turn rainbow-colored. Over the past three weeks, there was barely a day that went by without Ron being pranked at some point. Rigel had to marvel at how the twins were managing it all. They had to be getting help from someone and it certainly wasn't Eliza.

"Don't you think you're taking it too quick?" Rigel said, "Don't take it wrong. Lavender is good for you but you guys. . . snog a lot"

"What can I say. She can't resist me," said Ron grinning but Harry and Rigel rolled their eyes.

Harry, Rigel, Eliza and Hermione met up at the library

"Harry you need to be careful," said Hermione

"For the last time," said Harry, speaking in a slightly hoarse tone after three-quarters of an hour of silence, "I am not giving back this book. I've learned more from the Half-blood prince than Snape or Slughorn have taught me in —"

"I'm not talking about your stupid so-called prince," said Hermione, giving his book a nasty look. "I'm talking about earlier. I went into the girl's bathroom just before I came in here and there were about a dozen girls in there, including that Romilda Vane, trying to decide how to slip you a love potion. They're all hoping they're going to get you to take them to Slughorn's party, and they all seem to have bought Fred and George's love potions, which I'm afraid to say probably work —"

"Why didn't you confiscate them then?" Harry asked,

"They didn't have the potions with them in the bathroom," said Hermione scornfully, "They were just discussing tactics. As I doubt the Half-blood prince" she gave the book another scornful look "could dream up an antidote for a dozen different love potions at once, I'd just invite someone to go with you, that'll stop all the others thinking they've still got a chance. It's tomorrow night, they're getting desperate."

"There isn't anyone I want to invite," mumbled Harry

"Well, just be careful what you drink, because Romilda Vane looked like she meant business," Eliza said grimly.

"Hang on a moment," Harry said slowly. "I thought Filch had banned anything bought at Weasley'sWizard Wheezes?"

"And when has anyone ever paid attention to what Filch has banned?" asked Hermione, still concentrating on her essay.

"Definitely not us," Rigel murmured. Hermione nodded.

"But I thought all the owls were being searched. So how come these girls can bring love potions into the school?"

"Fred and George send them disguised as perfumes and cough potions," Eliza explained. "It's part of their Owl order service."

"You know a lot about it," Rigel asked

Eliza gave him the kind of nasty look Hermione gives on Harry's copy of Advanced PotionMaking.

"It was all on the back of the bottles they showed Ginny and me in the summer," Hermione said coldly, "I don't go around putting potions in people's drinks...or pretending too either-