“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 had made him even less eager to find himself in her company, but 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 shattering of a nose to raucous laughter and applause. Harry dropped his gaze to his treacle tart, his insides burning again. What he would not 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 swept 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 below 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 whether they had heard right.
“Potions?” said Ron and Hermione together, turning to stare at Harry. “But you said —”
“Professor Snape, meanwhile,” said Dumbledore, raising his voice so that it carried over all the muttering, “will be taking over 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 at the 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.