THE SEER OVERHEARD

The fact that Harry Potter was going out with Ginny Weasley seemed to interest a great number of people, most of them girls, yet Harry found himself newly and happily impervious to gossip over the next few weeks. After all, it made a very nice change to be talked about because of something that was making him happier than he could remember being for a very long time, rather than because he had been involved in horrific scenes of Dark magic.

“You’d think people had better things to gossip about,” said Ginny, as she sat on the common-room floor, leaning against Harry’s legs and reading the Daily Prophet. Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.”

Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her it’s a Hungarian Horntail,” said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. “Much more macho.”

“Thanks,” said Harry, grinning. “And what did you tell her Ron’s got?”

“A Pygmy Puff, but I didn’t say where.”

Ron scowled as Hermione rolled around laughing.

“Watch it,” he said, pointing wamingly at Harry and Ginny. “Just because I’ve given my permission doesn’t mean I can’t withdraw it—”

“‘Your permission,’” scoffed Ginny. “Since when did you give me permission to do anything? Anyway, you said yourself you’d rather it was Harry than Michael or Dean.”

“Yeah, I would,” said Ron grudgingly. “And just as long as you don’t start snogging each other in public—”

“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 revise 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 lunch-time, 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 inter-school competitions.

“Her name was Eileen Prince. Prince, Harry.”

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She looked too fierce to argue with at that moment, so Harry dropped the subject of Ron and recounted all that he had overheard between Malfoy and Snape.

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Harry felt the familiar boiling sensation in the pit of his stomach. Biting his tongue to prevent himself retaliating, he sat down in front of the boxes and pulled one toward him.	\|	They looked at each other and Harry realised what Hermione was trying to say. He burst out laughing.

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