“You filthy hypocrite! What about you and Lavender, thrashing around like a pair of eels all over the place?” demanded Ginny.
But Ron’s tolerance was not to be tested much as they moved into June, for Harry and Ginny’s time together was becoming increasingly restricted. Ginny’s O.W.L.s were approaching and she was therefore forced to study for hours into the night. On one such evening, when Ginny had retired to the library, and Harry was sitting beside the window in the common room, supposedly finishing his Herbology homework but in reality reliving a particularly happy hour he had spent down by the lake with Ginny at lunchtime, 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?” said Harry 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,” said Hermione 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,” said Harry crossly. “Prince, Hermione, Prince!”
“Right!” said Hermione, 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’!”
“Yeah, very ingenious, Hermione . . .”
“But it would! Maybe she was proud of being half a Prince!”
“Listen, Hermione, I can tell it’s not a girl. I can just tell.”
“The truth is that you don’t think a girl would have been clever enough,” said Hermione angrily.
“How can I have hung round with you for five years and not think girls are clever?” said Harry, stung by this. “It’s the way he writes, I just know the Prince was a bloke, I can tell. This girl hasn’t got anything to do with it. Where did you get this anyway?”
“The library,” said Hermione predictably. “There’s a whole collection of old Prophets up there. Well, I’m going to find out more about Eileen Prince if I can.”
“Enjoy yourself,” said Harry irritably.
“I will,” said Hermione. “And the first place I’ll look,” she shot at him, as she reached the portrait hole, “is records of old Potions awards!”
Harry scowled after her for a moment, then continued his contemplation of the darkening sky.
“She’s just never got over you outperforming her in Potions,” said Ron, returning to his copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.
“You don’t think I’m mad, wanting that book back, do you?”
“’Course not,” said Ron robustly. “He was a genius, the Prince. Anyway . . . without his bezoar tip . . .” He drew his finger significantly across his own throat. “I wouldn’t be here to discuss it, would I? I mean, I’m not saying that spell you used on Malfoy was great —”
“Nor am I,” said Harry quickly.
“But he healed all right, didn’t he? Back on his feet in no time.”
“Yeah,” said Harry; this was perfectly true, although his conscience squirmed slightly all the same. “Thanks to Snape . . .”
“You still got detention with Snape this Saturday?” Ron continued.
“Yeah, and the Saturday after that, and the Saturday after that,” sighed Harry. “And he’s hinting now that if I don’t get all the boxes done by the end of term, we’ll carry on next year.”
He was finding these detentions particularly irksome because they cut into the already limited time he could have been spending with Ginny. Indeed, he had frequently wondered lately whether Snape did not know this, for he was keeping Harry later and later every time, while making pointed asides about Harry having to miss the good weather and the varied opportunities it offered.
Harry was shaken from these bitter reflections by the appearance at his side of Jimmy Peakes, who was holding out a scroll of parchment.
“Thanks, Jimmy . . . Hey, it’s from Dumbledore!” said Harry excitedly, unrolling the parchment and scanning it. “He wants me to go to his office as quick as I can!”
They stared at each other.
“Blimey,” whispered Ron. “You don’t reckon . . . he hasn’t found . . . ?”