Harry Potter and the coming of Athena - Chapter one – Horace Slughorn

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For a second, Harry’s whole being was seized with horror. The unmistakeable sheen of silver, softer and whiter than steel or tin, brought along some of his very worst memories… cowled monsters looking with relish on the shedding of blood; a frightful act of self-mutilation; and as the climax of it all, the return of a thing that should have died long before, and that, because it had not died, would kill. It was on the night when the monster had been reborn, that Harry had seen a silver hand bestowed on a lesser monster.
He caught hold of himself. Surely the silver hand, as such, meant nothing. Surely it did not mean that Dumbledore had sold himself in the same way a Pettigrew. Pettigrew was something else.. an infinitely lower kind of being. The Dumbledore he knew could not possibly be so low. Harry’s eyes rose to meet those of his mentor; and he saw there… nothing, nothing that he did not know already. Nothing that he had not trusted for years.
But he could not go on without asking.
“Sir…”
“Yes, Harry. You’ve noticed my hand, I take it.”
“It’s… it’s like Pettigrew’s…”
“I should have thought that it would have reminded you of that. I do apologize, Harry. This is a very powerful bit of magic, for replacing lost or damaged limbs… I did not perform it myself, but I assure you, neither did Lord Voldemort.”
“What – I mean, sir, if anything was strong enough…. I’d like to know.”
“And so you shall, Harry. I promise I will no longer keep things from you. But I have to ask you one thing now…”
“What?”
“Do you trust me?”
“I…”
“It is important, Harry. There is no point in my telling you the story – or a story – of what happened to my hand – if you have no trust in me first. I might as well be telling you a tale… a pack of lies. And I cannot give you the trust in me if you don’t have it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I shall just take you to your friend Ron and his family, whom you do trust, and report to them and you later. But if you trust me, you shall meet the person who made the silver hand – tonight.”
Harry looked at the old wizard long and hard.
“I guess I do trust you, after all. And even if I didn’t… if you wanted to do something to me, there is not much I could do about it.”
“That is rather a cold thought” said Dumbledore; and there was a hint of sorrow in his voice.
“It… yeah, it is. And it is not really what I meant. After all, what you have just done to the Dursleys… if that wasn’t the right Dumbledore, without anything wrong or… I don’t know how to say it, but that was just everything I could ever have wanted from a friend. I trust the man who did that.”
“Thank you, Harry. Now, as you do trust me, I have to warn you that we are about to have a rather nasty experience…”
Before Dumbledore had finished speaking, he caught Harry by the hand. Immediately the young man felt a scary sense of pressure over his whole body, as though he were being squeezed violently through a tight tube of something that was not exactly matter –
“…you are not used to Apparation, and it can be quite unsettling the first few times.” And as suddenly as the squeeze had begun, it ceased.
“This… this is Apparation?” said Harry, still catching his breath. Dumbledore nodded. “I think I prefer broomsticks, all things considered.” And the old man smiled.
Harry looked around himself. They were still in England – and among houses; but these were not the polished modern buildings of Privet Drive, but the irregular cottages of an ancient village, surrounded by gardens full of rose bushes. Ahead of him, he saw the road broadening into a village green. As his eyes rested on this peaceful sight, however, he heard the wizard by his side telling him to keep his wand ready.
“I... I thought I wasn’t permitted to do magic outside school, sir?”
“If there is an attack,” said Dumbledore, “I give you permission to use any counterjinx or curse that might occur to you. However, I do not think you need worry about being attacked tonight.”
“Why not, sir?”
“You are with me,” said Dumbledore simply. He set off at a brisk pace, past an empty inn and a few houses. According to a clock on a nearby church, it was almost midnight.
“So tell me, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “Your scar... has it been hurting at all?”
Harry raised a hand unconsciously to his forehead and rubbed i he lightning-shaped mark.
“No,” he said, “and I’ve been wondering about that. I thought it would be burning all the time now Voldemort’s getting so powerful again.”
He glanced up at Dumbledore and saw that he was wearing a satisfied expression.
“I, on the other hand, thought otherwise,” said Dumbledore. “Lord Voldemort has finally realized the dangerous access to his thoughts and feelings you have been enjoying. It appears that he is now employing Occlumency against you.”
“Well, I’m not complaining,” said Harry, who missed neither the disturbing dreams nor the startling flashes of insight into Voldemort’s mind. “But – can you tell me where we are, and what we are doing here?”
Harry had the impression that his question had rather flummoxed Dumbledore; the old wizard unconsciously stopped his long stride, and fell silent for a second or two. Then he looked at Harry again. “It is hard,” he said softly, “to undo a lifetime of bad habits, all at once.
“This,” he went on, “is the charming village of Budleigh Babberton. And we are looking for a former colleague of mine.”
“Why?” And then Harry had a flash. “Is the Defence against the Dark Arts post vacant again?”
“That is what the rest of the world knows. I let it be known that I am without a DADA teacher... That is true as far as it goes, but what the world does not know is that I have at least two, possibly three, candidates, and for the first time in years, I am going to be able to make a choice. If the Enemy hears that I have called on Horace Slughorn, I want him to think that this is another desperate effort to fill an unfillable post.”
“Whereas?”
“Whereas what I really want is to get a valuable player into Hogwarts and away from danger,” said the old man sombrely.
Harry’s mind reeled with thoughts. He knew that every year since he had been at Hogwarts, the teacher of this most difficult and important subject had had to be replaced; he knew there had long been a rumour that the post was cursed, and he suspected that the rumour was well founded. But – this year, Dumbledore had as good as said this would not be a problem. Something had changed – and – and it had changed at the same time as the Headmaster had got the silver hand.
Harry’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted; it took him a second to realize that he had cannoned into Dumbledore. The old sage had been taking him through the front garden of a small, neat stone house; and then he had stopped dead, and Harry had smashed into him.
“Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear.”
Harry followed his gaze up the carefully tended front path and felt his heart sink. The front door was hanging off its hinges.
Dumbledore glanced up and down the street. It seemed quite deserted.
“Wand out and follow me, Harry,” he said quietly.
He opened the gate and walked swiftly and silently up the garden path, Harry at his heels, then pushed the front door very slowly, his wand raised and at the ready.
“Lumos.”
Dumbledore’s wand tip ignited, casting its light up a narrow hallway. To the left, another door stood open. Holding his illuminated wand aloft, Dumbledore walked into the sitting room with Harry right behind him.
A scene of total devastation met their eyes. A grandfather clock lay splintered at their feet, its face cracked, its pendulum lying a little farther away like a dropped sword. A piano was on its side, its keys strewn across the floor. The wreckage of a fallen chandelier flittered nearby. Cushions lay deflated, feathers oozing from slashes in their sides; fragments of glass and china lay like powder over everything. Dumbledore raised his wand even higher, so that its light was thrown upon the walls, where something darkly red and glutinous was spattered over the wallpaper. Harry’s small intake of breath made Dumbledore look around.
“Not pretty, is it?” he said heavily.
Dumbledore moved carefully into the middle of the room, scrutinizing the wreckage at his feet. Harry followed, gazing around, half-scared of what he might see hidden behind the wreck of the piano or the overturned sofa, but there was no sign of a body.
“Maybe there was a fight and — and they dragged him off, Professor?” Harry suggested, trying not to imagine how badly wounded a man would have to be to leave those stains spattered halfway up the walls.
“I don’t think so,” said Dumbledore quietly, peering behind an overstuffed armchair lying on its side.
“You mean he’s — ?”
“Still here somewhere? Yes.”
And without warning, Dumbledore swooped, plunging the tip of his wand into the seat of the overstuffed armchair, which yelled, “Ouch!”
“Good evening, Horace,” said Dumbledore, straightening up again.
Harrys jaw dropped. Where a split second before there had been an armchair, there now crouched an enormously fat, bald, old man who was massaging his lower belly and squinting up at Dumbledore with an aggrieved and watery eye.
“There was no need to stick the wand in that hard,” he said gruffly, clambering to his feet. “It hurt.”
The wandlight sparkled on his shiny pate, his prominent eyes, his enormous, silver, walruslike mustache, and the highly polished buttons on the maroon velvet jacket he was wearing over a pair of lilac silk pajamas. The top of his head barely reached Dumbledore’s chin.
“What gave it away?” he grunted as he staggered to his feet, still rubbing his lower belly. He seemed remarkably unabashed for a man who had just been discovered pretending to be an armchair.
“My dear Horace,” said Dumbledore, looking amused, “if the Death Eaters really had come to call, the Dark Mark would have been set over the house.”
The wizard clapped a pudgy hand to his vast forehead.
“The Dark Mark,” he muttered. “Knew there was something... ah well. Wouldn’t have had time anyway, I’d only just put the finishing touches to my upholstery when you entered the room.”
He heaved a great sigh that made the ends of his mustache flutter.
“Would you like my assistance clearing up?” asked Dumbledore politely.
“Please,” said the other.
They stood back to back, the tall thin wizard and the short round one, and waved their wands in one identical sweeping motion.
The furniture flew back to its original places; ornaments re-lormed in midair, feathers zoomed into their cushions; torn books repaired themselves as they landed upon their shelves; oil lanterns soared onto side tables and reignited; a vast collection of splintered silver picture frames flew glittering across the room and alighted, whole and untarnished, upon a desk; rips, cracks, and holes healed everywhere, and the walls wiped themselves clean.
“What kind of blood was that, incidentally?” asked Dumbledore loudly over the chiming of the newly unsmashed grandfather flock.
“On the walls? Dragon,” shouted the wizard called Horace, as, with a deafening grinding and tinkling, the chandelier screwed itself back into the ceiling.
There was a final plunk from the piano, and silence.
“Yes, dragon,” repeated the wizard conversationally. “My last bottle, and prices are sky-high at the moment. Still, it might be reusable.”
He stumped over to a small crystal bottle standing on top of a sideboard and held it up to the light, examining the thick liquid within.
“Hmm. Bit dusty.”
He set the bottle back on the sideboard and sighed. It was then that his gaze fell upon Harry.
“Oho,” he said, his large round eyes flying to Harry’s forehead and the lightning-shaped scar it bore. “Oho!”
“This,” said Dumbledore, moving forward to make the introduction, “is Harry Potter. Harry, this is an old Friend and colleague of mine, Horace Slughorn. And how have you been keeping, Horace?” Dumbledore asked.
“Not so well,” said Slughorn at once. “Weak chest. Wheezy. Rheumatism too. Can’t move like I used to. Well, that’s to be expected. Old age. Fatigue.”
“And yet you must have moved fairly quickly to prepare such a welcome for us at such short notice,” said Dumbledore. “You can’t have had more than three minutes’ warning?”
Slughorn said, half irritably, half proudly, “Two. Didn’t hear my Intruder Charm go off, I was taking a bath. Still,” he added sternly, seeming to pull himself back together again, “the fact remains that I’m an old man, Albus. A tired old man who’s earned the right to a quiet life and a few creature comforts.”
He certainly had those, thought Harry, looking around the room. It was stuffy and cluttered, yet nobody could say it was uncomfortable; there were soft chairs and footstools, drinks and books, boxes of chocolates and plump cushions. If Harry had not known who lived there, he would have guessed at a rich, fussy old lady.
“So, all these precautions against intruders, Horace... are they for the Death Eaters’ benefit, or mine?” asked Dumbledore.
“What would the Death Eaters want with a poor broken-down old buffer like me?” demanded Slughorn.
“I imagine that they would want you to turn your considerable talents to coercion, torture, and murder,” said Dumbledore. “Harry and I have seen quite a bit of that in recent years.”
Slughorn turned on Dumbledore, his expression shrewd. “So that’s how you thought you’d persuade me, is it?” he said, pointing at Harry. “Well, the answer’s no, Albus.”
“It isn’t, actually, Horace. Although I had hoped it would make things easier. Mainly, Harry is here because I made a promise to him, and to myself, that I would no longer keep things secret from him.”
“Secret?”
“I thought I could shield him from knowledge... And so a good man died. I am lucky Harry has forgiven me for that.”
“It was not only your fault, Headmaster. It was also my obstinacy, and that damned woman. And I was keeping secrets too,” broke in Harry.
Horace Slughorn followed the exchange with a shrewd and evaluating look. “By ‘that damned woman’, do you mean Dolores Umbridge?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Harry. The memory of Umbridge was not sweet, but the happiness of having got rid of her still outweighed other emotions. “She did everything she could to sabotage me and ruin Professor Dumbledore.”
“And,” added Dumbledore with something of a smile, “she crowned her performance by striding into the Forbidden Forest and calling a horde of angry centaurs ‘filthy half-breeds.’” Slughorn could not help it; he burst into a wheezing laugh.
“That’s not the way I heard it,” he answered when he recovered. “No doubt she has been spreading her own version through her friends. I always thought it sounded wrong. Idiotic woman. I never did like her.”
“Well,” answered Dumbledore, “I am glad you got a good laugh for your money. But I have to get back to the point. And I am afraid I have to tell you that matters are now out of my hands. Out of my hands, you understand?”
“Hm. Has Scrimgeour taken command, then? I never expected you would let him.”
“The Minister is involved. But tell me” – and he held up his silver hand – “does this look like it might come from the Ministry?”
The metal shone and glimmered sweetly in the multiple lights of the chandelier. Horace Slughorn approached it slowly, as Dumbledore held it up without moving; he looked at it up and down, with a glance grown suddenly firm and clear; he raised a finger to follow some lines in the complex machinery; and finally, he let a heavy breath out through his walrus mustache.
“Well, in a sense, this makes things easier. Although” – and his small eyes were shrewd and twinkling, fixed on the taller wizard – “I dare say you would have managed to get your way in the end.”
“You give me more credit than I deserve, Horace. Will you tell Harry about his mother, while I go use your toilet?”
“My toilet. Hunh. You are a wit, Albus, you are. Go on with you, then. And remember I shall expect an increased wage.”
As Professor Dumbledore strode away, Harry turned to Slughorn. “Why do you say that Professor Dumbledore is being funny, sir?”
“Well, because this is not my home, my lad. As he knows perfectly well. I’ve been on the move for a year. Never stay in one place more than a week. Move from Muggle house to Muggle house — the owners of this place are on holiday in the Canary Islands — it’s been very pleasant, I’ll be sorry to leave. It’s quite easy once you know how, one simple Freezing Charm on these absurd burglar alarms they use instead of Sneakoscopes and make sure the neighbors don’t spot you bringing in the piano.”
Harry was impressed. In spite of Slughorn’s dismissive tones, this seemed to him an application of considerable power, more than he would have expected from the short, fat, wheezing figure before him.
“I never did want to take sides... the prudent wizard keeps his head down in such times. All very well for Dumbledore to talk, but taking up a post at Hogwarts just now would be tantamount to declaring my public allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix! And while I’m sure they’re very admirable and brave and all the rest of it, I don’t personally fancy the mortality rate —“
“You don’t have to join the Order to teach at Hogwarts,” said Harry, who could not quite keep a note of derision out of his voice: It was hard to sympathize with Slughorn’s cosseted existence when he remembered Sirius, crouching in a cave and living on rats. “Most of the teachers aren’t in it, and none of them has ever been killed — well, unless you count Quirrell, and he got what he deserved seeing as he was working with Voldemort.”
Harry had been sure Slughorn would be one of those wizards who could not bear to hear Voldemort’s name spoken aloud, and was not disappointed: Slughorn gave a shudder and a squawk of protest, which Harry ignored.
“I reckon the staff are safer than most people while Dumbledore’s headmaster; he’s supposed to be the only one Voldemort ever feared, isn’t he?” Harry went on.
Slughorn gazed into space for a moment or two: He seemed to be thinking over Harry’s words.
“Well, yes, it is true that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has never sought a fight with Dumbledore,” he muttered grudgingly. “And I suppose one could argue that as I have not joined the Death Eaters, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named can hardly count me a friend... in which case, I might well be safer a little closer to Albus... I cannot pretend that Amelia Bones’s death did not shake me... If she, with all her Ministry contacts and protection...”
“So,” he went on meditatively, “in a way, perhaps this is better.”
“You said so before, sir.”
“I did. I have been out of touch with all my friends, for one thing. This will allow me to let them know I am not dead. And then – perhaps the balance of forces has changed.” He fell silent. Harry suspected that he did not want to admit that he was, at heart, glad to have been forced out of his neutrality. As for himself – there was one thing he wanted to hear about.
“Sir, I understand you knew my parents?”
“Oh, yes.” Slughorn’s watery eyes slid over Harry. “You look very like your father.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told,” said Harry.
“Except for your eyes. You’ve got—“
“My mother’s eyes, yeah.” Harry had heard it so often he found it a bit wearing.
“Hmpf. Yes, well. You shouldn’t have favorites as a teacher, of course, but she was one of mine. Your mother,” Slughorn added, in answer to Harrys questioning look. “Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl. I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too.”
“Which was your House?”
“I was Head of Slytherin,” said Slughorn. “Oh, now,” he went on quickly, seeing the expression on Harry’s face and wagging a stubby ringer at him, “don’t go holding that against me! You’ll be Gryffindor like her, I suppose? Yes, it usually goes in families. Not always, though. Ever heard of Sirius Black? You must have done — been in the papers for the last couple of years — died a few weeks ago —“
It was as though an invisible hand had twisted Harry’s intestines and held them tight.
“Well, anyway, he was a big pal of your father’s at school. The whole Black family had been in my House, but Sirius ended up in Gryffindor! Shame — he was a talented boy. I got his brother, Regulus, when he came along, but I’d have liked the set.”
He sounded like an enthusiastic collector who had been outbid at auction. Apparently lost in memories, he gazed at the opposite wall, turning idly on the spot to ensure an even heat on his backside.
“Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldn’t believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good.”
“One of my best friends is Muggle-born,” said Harry, “and she’s the best in our year.”
“Funny how that sometimes happens, isn’t it?” said Slughorn.
“Not really,” said Harry coldly.
Slughorn looked down at him in surprise. “You mustn’t think I’m prejudiced!” he said. “No, no, no! Haven’t I just said your mother was one of my all-time favorite students? And there was Dirk Cresswell in the year after her too — now Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, of course — another Muggle-born, a very gifted student, and still gives me excellent inside information on the goings-on at Gringotts!”
He bounced up and down a little, smiling in a self-satisfied way, and pointed at the many glittering photograph frames on the dresser, each peopled with tiny moving occupants.
“All ex-students, all signed. You’ll notice Barnabas Cuffe, editor of the Daily Prophet, he’s always interested to hear my take on the day’s news. And Ambrosius Flume, of Honeydukes — a hamper every birthday, and all because I was able to give him an introduction to Ciceron Harkisss who gave him his first job! And at the back — you’ll see her if you just crane your neck — that’s Gwenog Jones, who of course captains the Holyhead Harpies... People are always astonished to hear I’m on first-name terms with the Harpies, and free tickets whenever I want them!” This thought seemed to cheer him up enormously.
“And all these people know where to find you, to send you stuff?” asked Harry, who could not help wondering why the Death Eaters had not yet tracked down Slughorn if hampers of sweets, Quidditch tickets, and visitors craving his advice and opinions could find him.
The smile slid from Slughorn’s face as quickly as the blood from his walls.
“Of course not,” he said, looking down at Harry. “I have been out of touch with everybody for a year.”
Harry had never met anyone like Slughorn, but he was increasingly feeling as if the old man would be glad to be forced out of his situation – whatever it was that was forcing him. At that point, Dumbledore reappeared. Slughorn turned to him with a defeated expression.
“All right, then, I’ll do it!”
“You will come out of retirement?”
“Yes, yes,” said Slughorn impatiently. “I must be mad, but yes.”
“Wonderful,” said Dumbledore. “Now, Horace, tomorrow evening – or, I should say, this evening – there will be a council of war. You would delight us all if you were to attend.” And neither Slughorn nor Harry missed the fact that the polite terms were no more than a velvet glove of words, covering an iron fist.