The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|100| Crushes

In Herbology the next day, Harry and I told Ron and Hermione all about our lesson with Dumbledore the previous night. The weekend's brutal wind had died out at last; the weird mist had returned and it took us a little longer than usual to find the correct greenhouse.

"Wow, scary thought, the boy You-Know-Who," said Ron quietly, as we took our places around one of the gnarled Snargaluff stumps that formed this term's project, and began pulling on our protective gloves. "But I still don't get why Dumbledore's showing you all this. I mean, it's really interesting and everything, but what's the point?"

"Dunno," said Harry, inserting a gum shield. "But Dumbledore says it's all important and it'll help us survive."

"I think it's fascinating," said Hermione earnestly. "It makes absolute sense to know as much about Voldemort as possible. How else will you find out his weaknesses?"

"So how was Slughorn's latest party?" I asked her thickly through the gum shield.

"Oh, it was quite fun, really," said Hermione, now putting on protective goggles. "I mean, he drones on about famous ex-pupils a bit, and he absolutely fawns on McLaggen because he's so well-connected, but he gave us some really nice food and he introduced us to Gwenog Jones."

"Gwenog Jones?" said Ron, his eyes widening under his own goggles. "The Gwenog Jones? Captain of the Holyhead Harpies?"

"That's right," said Hermione. "Personally, I thought she was a bit full of herself, but —"

"Quite enough chat over here!" said Professor Sprout briskly, bustling over and looking stern. "You're lagging behind, everybody else has started, and Neville's already got his first pod!"

We looked around; sure enough, there sat Neville with a bloody lip and several nasty scratches along the side of his face, but clutching an unpleasantly pulsating green object about the size of a grapefruit.

"Okay, Professor, we're starting now!" said Ron, adding quietly, when she had turned away again, "should've used Muffliato."

"No, we shouldn't!" said Hermione at once, looking, as she always did, intensely cross at the thought of the Half-Blood Prince and his spells. "Well, come on... we'd better get going..."

She gave us an apprehensive look; we all took deep breaths and then dived at the gnarled stump between us. It sprang to life at once; long, prickly, bramblelike vines flew out of the top and whipped through the air. One tangled itself in Hermione's hair, and Ron beat it back with a pair of secateurs; I succeeded in trapping a couple of vines and knotting them together; a hole opened in the middle of all the tentaclelike branches; Harry plunged his arm bravely into this hole, which closed like a trap around his elbow; Hermione, Ron, and I tugged and wrenched at the vines, forcing the hole to open again, and Harry snatched his arm free, clutching in his fingers a pod just like Neville's. At once, the prickly vines shot back inside, and the gnarled stump sat there looking like an innocently dead lump of wood.

"You know, I don't think I'll be having any of these in my garden when I've got my own place," said Ron, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead and wiping sweat from his face.

"Pass me a bowl," said Harry, holding the pulsating pod at arm's length; I handed one over and he dropped the pod into it with a look of disgust on his face.

"Don't be squeamish, squeeze it out, they're best when they're fresh!" called Professor Sprout.

"Anyway," said Hermione, continuing our interrupted conversation as though a lump of wood had not just attacked us, "Slughorn's going to have a Christmas party, Harry and Maisey, and there's no way you both'll be able to wriggle out of this one because he actually asked me to check your free evenings, so he could be sure to have it on a night you can come."