She looked nervous even saying the name again.

She looked nervous even saying the name again.

“What about him?” asked Harry heavily, slumping back in his chair.

“Well, it's just that I was sort of right about the Half-Blood Prince business,” she said tentatively.

“D'you have to rub it in, Hermione? How do you think I feel about that now?”

“No—no—Harry, I didn't mean that!” she said hastily, looking around to check that they were not being overheard. “It's just that I was right about Eileen Prince

once owning the book. You see ... she was Snape's mother!”

“I thought she wasn't much of a looker,” said Ron. Hermione ignored him.

“I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape, and then later an

announcement saying that she'd given birth to a—”

“—murderer,” spat Harry.

“Well ... yes,” said Hermione. “So ... I was sort of right. Snape must have been proud of being “half a Prince", you see? Tobias Snape was a Muggle from what it

said in the Prophet.”

“Yeah, that fits,” said Harry. “He'd play up the pure-blood side so he could get in with Lucius Malfoy and the rest of them ... he's just like Voldemort. Pure-blood

mother, Muggie father ... ashamed of his parentage, trying to make himself feared using the Dark Arts, gave himself an impressive new name—Lord Voldemort—the Half-

Blood Prince—how could Dumbledore have missed—?”

He broke off, looking out of the window. He could not stop himself dwelling upon Dumbledore's inexcusable trust in Snape ... but as Hermione had just inadvertently

reminded him, he, Harry, had been taken in just the same ... in spite of the increasing nastiness of those scribbled spells, he had refused to believe ill of the boy

who had been so clever, who had helped him so much ...

Helped him ... it was an almost unendurable thought, now ...

“I still don't get why he didn't turn you in for using that book,” said Ron. “He must've known where you were getting it all from.”

“He knew,” said Harry bitterly. “He knew when I used Sectumsempra. He didn't really need Legilimency ... he might even have known before then, with Slughom talking

about how brilliant I was at Potions ... shouldn't have left his old book in the bottom of that cupboard, should he?”

“But why didn't he turn you in?”

“I don't think he wanted to associate himself with that book,” said Hermione. “I don't think Dumbledore would have liked it very much if he'd known. And even if

Snape pretended it hadn't been his, Slughom would have recognised his writing at once. Anyway, the book was left in Snape's old classroom, and I'll bet Dumbledore knew

his mother was called ‘Prince'.”

“I should've shown the book to Dumbledore,” said Harry. “All that time he was showing me how Voldemort was evil even when he was at school, and I had proof Snape

was, too—”