Harry stared at these words for a moment. Hadn’t he once, long ago, heard of bezoars? Hadn’t Snape mentioned them in their first-ever Potions lesson? “A stone taken from the stomach of a goat, which will protect from most poisons.”
It was not an answer to the Golpalott problem, and had Snape still been their teacher, Harry would not have dared do it, but this was a moment for desperate measures. He hastened toward the store cupboard and rummaged within it, pushing aside unicorn horns and tangles of dried herbs until he found, at the very back, a small cardboard box on which had been scribbled the word BEZOARS.
He opened the box just as Slughorn called, “Two minutes left, everyone!” Inside were half a dozen shriveled brown objects, looking more like dried-up kidneys than real stones. Harry seized one, put the box back in the cupboard, and hurried back to his cauldron.
“Time’s . . . UP!” called Slughorn genially. “Well, let’s see how you’ve done! Blaise . . . what have you got for me?”
Slowly, Slughorn moved around the room, examining the various antidotes. Nobody had finished the task, although Hermione was trying to cram a few more ingredients into her bottle before Slughorn reached her. Ron had given up completely, and was merely trying to avoid breathing in the putrid fumes issuing from his cauldron. Harry stood there waiting, the bezoar clutched in a slightly sweaty hand.
Slughorn reached their table last. He sniffed Ernie’s potion and passed on to Ron’s with a grimace. He did not linger over Ron’s cauldron, but backed away swiftly, retching slightly.
“And you, Harry,” he said. “What have you got to show me?”
Harry held out his hand, the bezoar sitting on his palm.
Slughorn looked down at it for a full ten seconds. Harry wondered, for a moment, whether he was going to shout at him. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“You’ve got nerve, boy!” he boomed, taking the bezoar and holding it up so that the class could see it. “Oh, you’re like your mother. . . . Well, I can’t fault you. . . . A bezoar would certainly act as an antidote to all these potions!”
Hermione, who was sweaty-faced and had soot on her nose, looked livid. Her half-finished antidote, comprising fifty-two ingredients, including a chunk of her own hair, bubbled sluggishly behind Slughorn, who had eyes for nobody but Harry.
“And you thought of a bezoar all by yourself, did you, Harry?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“That’s the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs!” said Slughorn happily, before Harry could reply. “Just like his mother, she had the same intuitive grasp of potion-making, it’s undoubtedly from Lily he gets it. . . . Yes, Harry, yes, if you’ve got a bezoar to hand, of course that would do the trick . . . although as they don’t work on everything, and are pretty rare, it’s still worth knowing how to mix antidotes. . . .”
The only person in the room looking angrier than Hermione was Malfoy, who, Harry was pleased to see, had spilled something that looked like cat-sick over himself. Before either of them could express their fury that Harry had come top of the class by not doing any work, however, the bell rang.
“Time to pack up!” said Slughorn. “And an extra ten points to Gryffindor for sheer cheek!”
Still chuckling, he waddled back to his desk at the front of the dungeon.
Harry dawdled behind, taking an inordinate amount of time to do up his bag. Neither Ron nor Hermione wished him luck as they left; both looked rather annoyed. At last Harry and Slughorn were the only two left in the room.
“Come on, now, Harry, you’ll be late for your next lesson,” said Slughorn affably, snapping the gold clasps shut on his dragon-skin briefcase.
“Sir,” said Harry, reminding himself irresistibly of Voldemort, “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask away, then, my dear boy, ask away. . . .”
“Sir, I wondered what you know about . . . about Horcruxes?”
Slughorn froze. His round face seemed to sink in upon itself. He licked his lips and said hoarsely, “What did you say?”
“I asked whether you know anything about Horcruxes, sir. You see —”
“Dumbledore put you up to this,” whispered Slughorn. His voice had changed completely. It was not genial anymore, but shocked, terrified. He fumbled in his breast pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, mopping his sweating brow. “Dumbledore’s shown you that — that memory. Well? Hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Harry, deciding on the spot that it was best not to lie.
“Yes, of course,” said Slughorn quietly, still dabbing at his white face. “Of course . . . well, if you’ve seen that memory, Harry, you’ll know that I don’t know anything — anything” — he repeated the word forcefully — “about Horcruxes.”
He seized his dragon-skin briefcase, stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, and marched to the dungeon door.
“Sir,” said Harry desperately, “I just thought there might be a bit more to the memory —”
“Did you?” said Slughorn. “Then you were wrong, weren’t you? WRONG!”
He bellowed the last word and, before Harry could say another word, slammed the dungeon door behind him.
Neither Ron nor Hermione was at all sympathetic when Harry told them of this disastrous interview. Hermione was still seething at the way Harry had triumphed without doing the work properly. Ron was resentful that Harry hadn’t slipped him a bezoar too.
“It would’ve just looked stupid if we’d both done it!” said Harry irritably. “Look, I had to try and soften him up so I could ask him about Voldemort, didn’t I? Oh, will you get a grip!” he added in exasperation, as Ron winced at the sound of the name.