Traitor [ON HOLD]

Chapter 15

Hermione had missed it, but when she was told that Harry and Ginny had started dating, she was more than pleased. Like almost anyone, Hermione could see the way Harry would stare at Ginny when she doing things as mundane as her homework.

However, Hermione had far too many things on her mind. She'd been trying to guess for ages about the Half-Blood Prince, and now she finally had some form of information. All she wanted really was for Harry to stop using the book.

The fact that he excelled at Potions while she did not was only a minor contributing factor. She believed that one should rise to top of the class by talent and hard work. Aside from that, Hermione could tell there was somehing off with that book. It was like Harry was obsessed.

On this particular evening, Harry was sitting with Ron, neither of them speaking, for Harry's mind was rather occupied with a certain Weasley.

Hermione dropped into the seat between him and Ron with an unpleasantly purposeful look on her face.

"I want to talk to you, Harry."

"What about?" Harry asked suspiciously. Only the previous day, Hermione had told him off for distracting Ginny when she ought to be working hard for her examinations.

"The so-called Half-Blood Prince."

"Oh, not again," he groaned. "Will you please drop it?"

He had not dared to return to the Room of Requirement to retrieve his book, and his performance in Potions was suffering accordingly (though Slughorn, who approved of Ginny, had jocularly attributed this to Harry being lovesick). But Harry was sure that Snape had not yet given up hope of laying hands on the Prince's book, and was determined to leave it where it was while Snape remained on the lookout.

"I'm not dropping it," Hermione said firmly, "Until you've heard me out. Now, I've been trying to find out a bit about who might make a hobby of inventing Dark spells -"

"He didn't make a hobby of it -"

"He, he - who says it's a he?"

"We've been through this," Harry said crossly. "Prince, Hermione, Prince!"

"Right!" Hermione said, red patches blazing in her cheeks as she pulled a very old piece of newsprint out of her pocket and slammed it down on the table in front of Harry. "Look at that! Look at the picture!"

Harry picked up the crumbling piece of paper and stared at the moving photograph, yellowed with age; Ron leaned over for a look too. The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face.

Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.

"So?" said Harry, scanning the short news item to which the picture belonged. It was a rather dull story about interschool competitions.

"Her name was Eileen Prince. Prince, Harry."

They looked at each other, and Harry realized what Hermione was trying to say. He burst out laughing.

"No way."

"What?"

"You think she was the Half-Blood . . . ? Oh, come on."

"Well, why not? Harry, there aren't any real princes in the Wizarding world! It's either a nickname, a made-up title somebody's given themselves, or it could be their actual name, couldn't it? No, listen! If, say, her father was a wizard whose surname was Prince, and her mother was a Muggle, then that would make her a 'half-blood Prince'!"