Adrianna Tonks - Book Six - The Half Blood Prince

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 13: 𝓣𝓮𝓻𝓶 𝓡𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓼

The new term started next morning with a pleasant surprise for the sixth-years: a large sign had been pinned to the common room notice boards overnight.

APPARITION LESSONS

If you are seventeen years of age, or will turn seventeen on or before the 31st August next, you are eligible for a twelve-week course of Apparition Lessons from a Ministry of Magic Apparition instructor.

Please sign below if you would like to participate.

Cost: 12 Galleons.

Hermione and Addy joined the crowd that was jostling around the notice and taking it in turns to write their names at the bottom. Ron was just taking out his quill to sign after Hermione when Lavender crept up behind him, slipped her hands over his eyes, and trilled, "Guess who, Won-Won?" Harry turned to see Hermione stalking off with Addy; he caught up with them, having no wish to stay behind with Ron and Lavender, but to his surprise, Ron caught up with them only a little way beyond the portrait hole, his ears bright red and his expression disgruntled. Without a word, Hermione sped up to walk with Neville.

"So--Apparition," said Ron, his tone making it perfectly plain that Harry and Addy where not to mention what had just happened. "Should be a laugh, eh?"

"I dunno," said Harry. "Maybe it's better when you do it yourself, I didn't enjoy it much when Dumbledore took me along for the ride. "

"I forgot you'd already done it. . . I'd better pass my test first time," said Ron, looking anxious. "Fred and George did,"

"Charlie failed, though, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but Charlie's bigger than me," Ron held his arms out from his body as though he was a gorilla, "so Fred and George didn't go on about it much. . . not to his face anyway. . . "

"When can we take the actual test?"

"Soon as we're seventeen. That's only March for me!"

"Ha, I can take the test as soon as we start." Addy said

"Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to Apparate in here, not in the castle. . . "

"Not the point, is it? Everyone would know I could Apparate if I wanted. " Addy said.

Ron was not the only one to be excited at the prospect of Apparition. All that day there was much talk about the forthcoming lessons; a great deal of store was set by being able to vanish and reappear at will.

"How cool will it be when we can just --" Seamus clicked his ringers to indicate disappearance. "Me cousin Fergus does it just to annoy me, you wait till I can do it back. . . he'll never have another peaceful moment. . . "

Lost in visions of this happy prospect, he flicked his wand a little too enthusiastically, so that instead of producing the fountain of pure water that was the object of today's Charms lesson, he let out a hoselike jet that ricocheted off the ceiling and knocked Professor Flitwick flat on his face.

"Harry's already Apparated," Ron told a slightly abashed Seamus, after Professor Flitwick had dried himself off with a wave of his wand and set Seamus lines ("I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick. ") "Dum--er--someone took him. Side-Along-Apparition, you know. "

"Whoa!" whispered Seamus, and he, Dean, and Neville put their heads a little closer to hear what Apparition felt like. For the rest of the day, Harry was besieged with requests from the other sixth years to describe the sensation of Apparition. All of them seemed awed, rather than put off, when he told them how uncomfortable it was, and he was still answering detailed questions at ten to eight that evening, when he was forced to lie and say that he needed to return a book to the library, so as to escape in time for his lesson with Dumbledore.

The next day Harry confided in Addy, Ron and Hermione the task that Dumbledore had set him, though separately, for Hermione still refused to remain in Ron's presence longer than it took to give him a contemptuous look.

Ron thought that Harry was unlikely to have any trouble with Slughorn at all.

"He loves you," he said over breakfast, waving an airy forkful of fried egg. "Won't refuse you anything, will he? Not his little Potions Prince. Just hang back after class this afternoon and ask him. "

Hermione, however, took a gloomier view.

"He must be determined to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn't get it out of him," she said in a low voice, as they stood in the deserted, snowy courtyard at break. "Horcruxes . . . Horcruxes . . . I've never even heard of them . . . "

"You haven't?"