The Potter Twins and the Half-Blood Prince {6}

7. The House of Gaunt

"Heart don't fail me now, courage don't desert me," ~ Journey to the Past, Anastasia 

For the rest of the week's Potions lessons Harry continues to follow the Half-Blood Prince's instructions wherever they deviated from Libatius Borage's, with the result that by our fourth lesson Slughorn is raving about Harry's abilities, saying that he had rarely taught anyone so talented. Neither Ron or Hermione are delighted by this, and Draco has taken to muttering snide comments about him all through our lessons.  Although Harry had offered to share his book with both of them, 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, is resolutely plowing on with what she called the "official" instructions, but becoming increasingly bad-tempered as they yielded poorer results than the Prince's. And naturally, Harry would never risk Draco discovering the Prince's book, so we too are left with the regular instructions. 

We've all been wondering who on earth the Prince could be, but due to the amount of homework we've been given we've had little time to investigate who he could be. On a more worrying note, he has left incarnations for spells he has seemingly created himself. 

"Or herself," says Hermione irritably, when Harry points this out to us in the common room. "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 says. "How many girls have been princes?"

Hermione seems to have no answer to this. She merely scowls and twitches her essay on "The Principles of Rematerialization" away from Ron, who was trying to read it upside down.

Harry looks at his watch and hurriedly puts the old copy of Advanced Potion-Making back into his bag.

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

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

"Hope it goes okay," says Ron, as we approach the portrait hole. 

"Being friends with Harry and Haylee has a lot of benefits, don't you think?" I hear Riley chime, as the portrait closes behind us. 

Harry and I proceed through deserted corridors, though we have to step hastily behind a statue when Professor Trelawney appears around a corner, muttering to herself as she shuffles a pack of dirty-looking playing cards, reading them as she walks.  

"Two of spades: conflict," she murmurs, as she passes the place where Harry and I are crouched, hidden. "Seven of spades: an ill omen. Ten of spades: violence. Knave of spades: a dark young man, possibly troubled, one who dislikes the questioner --"

She stops dead, right on the other side of Harry's statue.

"Well, that can't be right," she says, annoyed, and we hear her reshuffling vigorously as she sets off again, leaving nothing but a whiff of cooking sherry behind her. We wait until we ar quite sure she has gone, then hurry off again until we reach the spot in the seventh-floor corridor where a single gargoyle stands against the wall.

"Acid Pops," says Harry, and the gargoyle leaps aside; the wall behind it slides apart, and a moving spiral stone staircase is revealed, onto which Harry and I step, so that we are carried in smooth circles up to the door with the brass knocker that leads to Dumbledore's Office.

We knock. 

"Come in," says Dumbledore s voice.   

"Good evening, sir," I say, walking into the Headmaster's office. 

"Ah, good evening, Harry and Haylee. Sit down," says Dumbledore, smiling. "I hope you've had an enjoyable first week back at school?"

"Yes, thanks, sir," says Harry.

"You must have been busy, a detention under your belt already!"

"Er," begins Harry awkwardly, but Dumbledore does not look too stern.

"I have arranged with Professor Snape that you will do your detention next Saturday instead. "

"Right," says Harry, clearly with more pressing matters on his mind than Snape's detention. I look around carefully for any indication of what we're going to be doing. The circular office looks just as it always did; the delicate silver instruments stand on spindle-legged tables, puffing smoke and whirring; portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses doze in their frames, and Dumbledore's magnificent phoenix, Fawkes, stands on his perch behind the door, watching Harry and I with bright interest. It does not even look as though Dumbledore has  cleared a space for dueling practice.

"So, Harry and Haylee," says Dumbledore, in a businesslike voice. "You have been wondering, I am sure, what I have planned for you during these--for want of a better word -- lessons?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given certain information. " There is a pause.

"You said, at the end of last term, you were going to tell us everything," I say. It is hard to keep a note of accusation from my voice. "Sir," I add curtly. 

"And so I did," says Dumbledore placidly. "I told you everything I know. From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork. From here on in, Harry and Haylee, I may be as woefully wrong as Humphrey Belcher, who believed the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron. "

"But you think you're right?" says Harry.

"Naturally I do, but as I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being -- forgive me--rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger. "

"Sir," says Harry tentatively, "does what you're going to tell me have anything to do with the prophecy? Will it help us. . . survive?"

"It has a very great deal to do with the prophecy," says Dumbledore, as casually as if Harry had asked him about the next day's weather, "and I certainly hope that it will help you to both survive. "

Dumbledore gets to his feet and walks around the desk, past Harry and I. We turn eagerly in our seats to watch Dumbledore bending over the cabinet beside the door. When Dumbledore straightens up, he is holding a familiar shallow stone basin etched with odd markings around its rim. He places the Pensieve on the desk in front of us. 

"You look worried. "