“You sure the Prince hasn't got any tips

“You sure the Prince hasn't got any tips?” Ron muttered to Harry.

Harry pulled out his trusty copy of Advanced Potion-Making and turned to the chapter on Antidotes. There was Golpalott's Third Law, stated word for word as Hermione had

recited it, but not a single illuminating note in the Prince's hand to explain what it meant. Apparently the Prince, like Hermione, had had no difficulty understanding

it.

“Nothing,” said Harry gloomily.

Hermione was now waving her wand enthusiastically over her cauldron. Unfortunately, they could not copy the spell she was doing because she was now so good at non-

verbal incantations that she did not need to say the words aloud. Ernie Macmillan, however, was muttering, ’Specialis revelio!’ over his cauldron, which sounded

impressive, so Harry and Ron hastened to imitate him.

It took Harry only five minutes to realise that his reputation as the best potion-maker in the class was crashing around his ears. Slughorn had peered hopefully into

his cauldron on his first circuit of the dungeon, preparing to exclaim in delight as he usually did, and instead had withdrawn his head hastily, coughing, as the smell

of bad eggs overwhelmed him. Hermione's expression could not have been any smugger; she had loathed being out-performed in every Potions class. She was now decanting

the mysteriously separated ingredients of her poison into ten different crystal phials. More to avoid watching this irritating sight than anything else, Harry bent over

the Half-Blood Prince's book and turned a few pages with unnecessary force.

And there it was, scrawled right across a long list of antidotes.

Just shove a bezoar down their throats.

Harry stared at these words for a moment. Hadn't he once, long ago, heard of bezoars? Hadn't Snape mentioned them in their first ever Potions lesson? ‘A stone taken

from the stomach of a goat, which will protect from most poisons.’

It was not an answer to the Golpalott problem, and had Snape still been their teacher, Harry would not have dared do it, but this was a moment for desperate measures.

He hastened towards the store cupboard and rummaged within it, pushing aside unicorn horns and tangles of dried herbs until he found, at the very back, a small card box

on which had been scribbled the word ‘Bezoars'.

He opened the box just as Slughorn called, “Two minutes left, everyone!” Inside were half a dozen shrivelled brown objects, looking more like dried-up kidneys than

real stones. Harry seized one, put the box back in the cupboard and hurried back to his cauldron.

“Time's ... UP!” called Slughorn genially. “Well, let's see how you've done! Blaise ... what have you got for me?”

Slowly, Slughorn moved around the room, examining the various antidotes. Nobody had finished the task, although Hermione was trying to cram a few more ingredients into

her bottle before Slughorn reached her. Ron had given up completely, and was merely trying to avoid breathing in the putrid fumes issuing from his cauldron. Harry stood

there waiting, the bezoar clutched in a slightly sweaty hand.