The Weasley of Slytherin: The Half Blood Prince

Chapter 4: Tryouts

For the rest of the week's Potions lessons Harry continued to follow the Half-Blood Prince's instructions, while I listened to Tom. By the fourth lesson Slughorn was raving about Harry's abilities, saying that he had rarely taught anyone so talented, despite my potions being just as good, if not better.

Neither Ron nor Hermione were delighted by this. Although Harry had offered to share his book with all of us, Ron had more difficulty deciphering the handwriting than Harry did, and could not keep asking Harry to read aloud or it might look suspicious.

Hermione, meanwhile, was resolutely plowing on with what she called the "official" instructions, but becoming increasingly bad-tempered as they yielded poorer results than the Prince's.

"Or herself," said Hermione irritably, overhearing Harry pointing that the half blood prince had written on almost every page of his book, some of which seemed to be spells he had created, to Ron and me in the common room on Saturday evening. "It might have been a girl. I think the handwriting looks more like a girl's than a boy's."

"The Half-Blood Prince, he was called," Harry said. "How many girls have been Princes?"

Hermione seemed to have no answer to this. She merely scowled and twitched her essay on The Principles of Rematerialization away from Ron, who was trying to read it upside down.
Harry looked at his watch and hurriedly put the old copy of Advanced Potion-Making back into his bag.

"It's five to eight, I'd better go, I'll be late for Dumbledore."

"Ooooh!" gasped Hermione, looking up at once. "Good luck! We'll wait up, we want to hear what he teaches you!"

"How long d'you think you'll be Harry? I still need my beauty sleep." I told him.

Who are you kidding we barely even sleep.

"Hope it goes okay," said Ron, and we watched Harry leave through the portrait hole.

...

As Hermione had predicted, the sixth years' free periods were not the hours of blissful relaxation Ron had anticipated, but times in which to attempt to keep up with the vast amount of homework they were being set.

We barely had time to talk about what Dumbledore had shown Harry. He told us we he got back from his office, after making us promise we wouldn't tell anyone else.

He said that Dumbledore had shown him memories of the Gaunt family, Voldemort's relatives. My relatives.

But we didn't have time to discuss it much past the first night. Not only were we studying as though we had exams every day, but the lessons themselves had become more demanding than ever before. If it wasn't for Tom I'd have no idea what McGonagall said to us these days; even Hermione had had to ask her to repeat instructions once or twice.

Nonverbal spells were now expected, not only in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but in Charms and Transfiguration too, thankfully I'd been able to get a hang of them, but I was one of the few that had. I frequently looked over at my classmates in the common room or at mealtimes to see them purple in the face and straining as though they had overdosed on U-No-Poo; but I knew that they were really struggling to make spells work without saying incantations aloud.

It was even a relief to get outside into the greenhouses; we were dealing with more dangerous plants than ever in Herbology, but at least we were still allowed to swear loudly if the Venomous Tentacula seized us unexpectedly from behind.

One result of our enormous workload and the frantic hours of practicing nonverbal spells was that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I had so far been unable to find time to go and visit Hagrid. He had stopped coming to meals at the staff table, an ominous sign, and on the few occasions when we had passed him in the corridors or out in the grounds, he had mysteriously failed to notice us or hear our greetings.