Kassandra Bauer and the Half Blood Prince. (Book 6)

Chapter 8: House Gaunt.

That rest of the week of Potions saw Harry follow the Half Blood Prince's instructions wherever they deviated from the other books we had. And by our fourth lesson, Slughorn was raving about Harry's abilities, saying that he had rarely taught anyone so talented. He did the same for Ryan, but it was for different reasons. Neither Ron, nor Hermione were delighted by this. Ron because he didn't grab the book. Hermione because she was jealous. 

Ryan was staying out of this. And so was I. Harry even offered  to share his book with all of us. Ryan politely refused saying how he was getting on just fine. And I wanted to take the notes, but Hermione put a stop to me real quick. "It's not the official instructions, Kassie! Don't trust it!" She would say to me about 317 times.

Ron had more difficulty as well and neither of us could keep asking Harry to read aloud or it might look sus. Hermione, meanwhile, was resolutely plowing on with what she called the 'official' instructions, but became increasingly bad tempered as they yielded worse results than this Half Blood Prince's instructions. 

"Are you jealous?" I asked Hermione one day. "You're jealous, aren't you?" 

"No, I'm not." Hermione insisted. But I could tell she totally was. 

And speaking of the Prince. I kept wondering who he could be. But due to homework, we had little time to investigate it. According to Harry, he left incarnations for spells he had seemingly created himself. 

"Or herself." Hermione said irritated, when Harry pointed this out to us in the Common Room. "It might've been a girl. I think the Handwriting looks more like a girl's than a boy's." 

"Hey! Boys can write like that if they so chose." Ryan pointed out. And then wrote very similar to the handwriting in the notebook. 

"I stand corrected." Hermione admitted. 

"Plus, he was the Half Blood Prince." Harry added. "How many girls have been princes?" 

"Yeah, then we'd have to call her the Half Blood Princess. And coming from a Princess of Ithaca. I can vouch." I added. 

Hermione merely scowled and twitched her essay on: 'The Principles of Rematerialization.' Away from Ron, who was trying to read it upside down. 

Harry looked at his watch and put the old copy of the book into his bag. 

"Kassie, it's 5 to 8. We'd better go, or we'll be late for Dumbledore." He told me.

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

"Hope it goes okay." Ron said, as we approached the portrait hole. 

"I'm sure it will." I replied. This was Dumbledore we were talking about. Things usually went okay with him.

Harry and I proceeded through deserted corridors, though we had to step hastily behind a statue when Trelawney appeared around a corner, muttering to herself as she shuffled a pack of dirty looking playing cards, reading them as she walked. 

"Two of spades: conflict." She murmured, as she passed the place where Harry and I crouched. "Seven of Spades; an ill omen. Then of spades: violence. Knave of Spades: a dark young man, possibly troubled, one who dislikes the questioner-" 

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

"Well, that can't be right." She said annoyed, and we heard her reshuffling vigorously as she set off again, leaving nothing, but a whiff of cooking sherry behind her. We waited until we were quite sure she was gone.