Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince - Rowling Joanne Kathleen - Страница 27

They reached the castle steps at last and as the great oaken front doors swung open into the vast flagged entrance hall, a burst of talk and laughter and of tinkling plates and glasses greeted them through the doors standing open into the Great Hail. Harry wondered whether he could slip his Invisibility Cloak back on, thereby gaining his seat at the long Gryffindor table (which, inconveniently, was the farthest from the entrance hall) without being noticed. As though he had read Harry’s mind, however, Snape said, “No cloak. You can walk in so that everyone sees you, which is what you wanted, I’m sure.”

Harry turned on the spot and marched straight through the open doors: anything to get away from Snape. The Great Hall with its four long House tables and its staff table set at the top of the room was decorated as usual with floating candles that made the plates below glitter and glow. It was all a shimmering blur to Harry, however, who walked so fast that he was passing the Hufflepuff table before people really started to stare, and by the time they were standing up to get a good look at him, he had spotted Ron and Hermione, sped along the benches toward them, and forced his way in between them.

“Where’ve you — blimey, what’ve you done to your face?” said Ron, goggling at him along with everyone else in the vicinity. I

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” said Harry, grabbing a spoon and squinting at his distorted reflection.

“You’re covered in blood!” said Hermione. “Come here —”

She raised her wand, said “Tergeo!” and siphoned off the dried blood.

“Thanks,” said Harry, feeling his now clean face. “How’s my nose looking?

“Normal,” said Hermoine anxiously. “Why shouldn’t it? Harry, what happened? We’ve been terrified!”

“I’ll tell you later,” said Harry curtly. He was very conscious that Ginny, Neville, Dean, and Seamus were listening in; even Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, had come floating along the bench to eavesdrop.

“But —” said Hermione.

“Not now, Hermione,” said Harry, in a darkly significant voice. He hoped very much that they would all assume he had been involved in something heroic, preferably involving a couple of Death Eaters and a dementor. Of course, Malfoy would spread the story as wide as he could, but there was always a chance it wouldn’t reach too many Gryffindor ears.

He reached across Ron for a couple of chicken legs and a handful of chips, but before he could take them they vanished, to be replaced with puddings.

“You missed the Sorting, anyway,” said Hermione, as Ron dived for a large chocolate gateau.

“Hat say anything interesting?” asked Harry, taking a piece of treacle tart.

“More of the same, really… advising us all to unite in the face enemies, you know.”

“Dumbledore mentioned Voldemort at all?”

“Not yet, but he always saves his proper speech for after the the feast doesn’t he? It can’t be long now.”

“Snape said Hagrid was late for the feast —”

“You’ve seen Snape? How come?” said Ron between frenzied mouthfuls of gateau.

“Bumped into him,” said Harry evasively.

“Hagrid was only a few minutes late,” said Hermione. “Look, he’s waving at you, Harry.”

Harry looked up at the staff table and grinned at Hagrid, who was indeed waving at him. Hagrid had never quite managed to comport himself with the dignity of Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House, the top of whose head came up to somewhere between Hagrid’s elbow and shoulder as they were sitting side by side, and who was looking disapprovingly at this enthusiastic greeting. Harry was surprised to see the Divination teacher, Professor Trelawney, sitting on Hagrid’s other side; she rarely left her tower room, and he had never seen her at the start-of-term feast before. She looked as odd as ever, glittering with beads and trailing shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size by her spectacles. Having always considered her a bit of a fraud, Harry had been shocked to discover at the end of the previous term that it had been she who had made the prediction that caused Lord Voldemort to kill Harry’s parents and attack Harry himself. The knowledge made him even less eager to find himself in her company, thankfully, this year he would be dropping Divination. Her great beaconlike eyes swiveled in his direction; he hastily looked away toward the Slytherin table. Draco Malfoy was miming the shatterering of a nose to raucous laughter and applause. Harry dropped his gaze to his treacle tart, his insides burning again. What he would give to fight Malfoy one-on-one…

“So what did Professor Slughorn want?” Hermione asked.

“To know what really happened at the Ministry.” said Harry.

“Him and everyone else here,” sniffed Hermione. “People were interrogating us about it on the train, weren’t they, Ron?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “All wanting to know if you really are ‘the Chosen One’ —”

“There has been much talk on that very subject even amongst the ghosts,” interrupted Nearly Headless Nick, inclining his barely connected head toward Harry so that it wobbled dangerously on its ruff. “I am considered something of a Potter authority; it is widely known that we are friendly. I have assured the spirit community that I will not pester you for information, however. ‘Harry Potter knows that he can confide in me with complete confidence,’ I told them. ‘I would rather die than betray his trust.’”

“That’s not saying much, seeing as you’re already dead,” Ron observed.

“Once again, you show all the sensitivity of a blunt axe,” said Nearly Headless Nick in affronted tones, and he rose into the air and glided back toward the far end of the Gryffindor table just as Dumbledore got to his feet at the staff table. The talk and laughter echoing around the Hall died away almost instantly.

“The very best of evenings to you!” he said, smiling broadly, his arms opened wide as though to embrace the whole room.

“What happened to his hand?” gasped Hermione.

She was not the only one who had noticed. Dumbledore’s right hand was as blackened and dead-looking as it had been on the night he had come to fetch Harry from the Dursleys. Whispers it the room; Dumbledore, interpreting them correctly, merely smiled and shook his purple-and-gold sleeve over his injury.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said airily. “Now… to our new students, welcome, to our old students, welcome back! Another year full of magical education awaits you …”

“His hand was like that when I saw him over the summer,”

Harry whispered to Hermione. “I thought he’d have cured it by now, though… or Madam Pomfrey would’ve done.”

“It looks as if it’s died,” said Hermione, with a nauseated expression. “But there are some injuries you can’t cure… old curses…and there are poisons without antidotes…”

“…and Mr. Filch, our caretaker, has asked me to say that there is a blanket ban on any joke items bought at the shop called Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

“Those wishing to play for their House Quidditch teams should give their names to their Heads of House as usual. We are also looking for new Quidditch commentators, who should do likewise.

“We are pleased to welcome a new member of staff this year, Professor Slughorn”— Slughorn stood up, his bald head gleaming in the candlelight, his big waistcoated belly casting the table into shadow — “is a former colleague of mine who has agreed to resume his old post of Potions master.”

“Potions?”

“Potions?”

The word echoed all over the Hall as people wondered wheel they had heard right.

“Potions?” said Ron and Hermione together, turning to stare Harry. “But you said —”

“Professor Snape, meanwhile,” said Dumbledore, raising voice so that it carried over all the muttering, “will be taking the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

“No!” said Harry, so loudly that many heads turned in his direction. He did not care; he was staring up at the staff table, incensed. How could Snape be given the Defense Against the Dark Arts job after all this time? Hadn’t it been widely known for years that Dumbledore did not trust him to do it?

“But Harry, you said that Slughorn was going to be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts!” said Hermione.

“I thought he was!” said Harry, racking his brains to remember when Dumbledore had told him this, but now that he came to think of it, he was unable to recall Dumbledore ever telling him what Slughorn would be teaching.

Snape, who was sitting on Dumbledore’s right, did not stand up his mention of his name; he merely raised a hand in lazy acknowledgment of the applause from the Slytherin table, yet Harry was sure he could detect a look of triumph on the features he loathed so much.

“Well, there’s one good thing,” he said savagely. “Snape’ll be gone by the end of the year.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ron.

“That job’s jinxed. No ones lasted more than a year… Quirrell actually died doing it… Personally, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for another death…”

“Harry!” said Hermione, shocked and reproachful.

“He might just go back to teaching Potions at the end of the year,” said Ron reasonably. “That Slughorn bloke might not want to stay long-term. Moody didn’t.”

“Dumbledore cleared his throat. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were not the only ones who had been talking; the whole Hall had erupted in a buzz of conversation at the news that Snape had finally achieved his heart’s desire. Seemingly oblivious to the sensational nature of the news he had just imparted, Dumbledore said nothing more about staff appointments, but waited a few seconds to ensure that the silence was absolute before continuing.

“Now, as everybody in this Hall knows, Lord Voldemort and his followers are once more at large and gaining in strength.”

The silence seemed to tauten and strain as Dumbledore spoke. Harry glanced at Malfoy. Malfoy was not looking at Dumbledore, but making his fork hover in midair with his wand, as though he found the headmaster’s words unworthy of his attention.

“I cannot emphasize strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts must take to ensure that we remain safe. The castle’s magical fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness on the part of any student or member of staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that you teachers might impose upon you, however irksome you might find them — in particular, the rule that you are not to be out of after hours. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the castle, to report it to a member of staff immediately. I trust you to conduct yourselves, always, with the utmost regard for your own and others’ safety.”