"J. K. Rowling - 6 - Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince(1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowling J. K)

“Sure,” said Harry, reaching into his pocket, grabbing one, and handing it to him. “Here you go.”
Ak reached over for the quill, but stopped as soon as he saw Harry’s hand. His eyes grew wide and his mouth opened slightly. He was staring at Harry’s ring.
“What- what is it?” asked Harry nervously. “Don’t you want the quill?”
“Where did you get that skull ring?” asked Ak slowly, not blinking.
“Um… Ron gave it to me,” lied Harry, not wanting to say he got it from a crazy old man back at Knockturn Alley. “He found it in a pyramid on his trip to Egypt.”
“Pyramid…” said Ak to himself, turning around, and walking away, back towards the Great Hall. “Yes….”
“Wait, Ak!” yelled Harry to him. “Don’t you want to fix the ‘I’?”
“Pyramid…” said Ak, disappearing back into the room. Harry shrugged and put the quill away. He began walking back to Ron and Hermione, all the while thinking what Ak and Dumbledore knew about his ring that he didn’t.
“Hey there!” said Ron, looking grim, and bringing Harry out of his dazed state. “You won’t believe this. Not only do we have Potions with the Slytherins still, but we also have Defense Against the Dark Arts with them too!”
“You’re kidding!” said Harry, picking up his schedule. But, it was sadly true. Even though he and Malfoy had started getting along better, he still did not feel like spending another entire class with him this year. Then, Harry noticed something else about his schedule. “What’s this? For the last period of the day, I have three things: Advanced Healing, Meteorology, and Spell Invention.”
“We have to choose which one we want,” explained Hermione.
“What, we just go to the class of our choice at the end of the day?” said Ron jokingly.
“Yep,” said Hermione, taking Ron by surprise.
“But, shouldn’t they give us more time to think about which class it is that we want?” asked Harry.
Hermione shook her head.
“No,” she said. “It’s supposed to just be a natural choice, not something influence by our family or events that happen between when we are told that we have the choice and when it comes time to choose. It is a spur of the moment thing.”
“How do you know all that?” asked Ron, slightly amazed.
“I think we both know the answer to that,” she said.
Just then, the magical bell rang throughout the school, signaling the start of school time. Harry, Ron, and Hermione strutted off to Defense Against the Dark Arts, their first class of the day. All of them were wondering how it was going to be with the Slytherins, and with their new professor. They filed into the classroom and in just a few minutes the rest of the class arrived. Surprisingly, Malfoy took a seat right next to Harry, and Crabbe and Goyle were on the other side of the room, nowhere near him. Professor Quirrell came in soon after.
“Hello everyone!” he said brightly, with his beard (that looked as though it was even bigger than Hagrid’s) going all the way down to his stomach. It was a very unpleasant shade of green all over, probably from food and stuff getting caught in it as he eats. “Now, as I have learned, in your fourth year, you learned how to deal with the Imperius Curse, then last year you learned about the Cruciatus Curse. So, this year, we will be looking at ways to protect yourselves from the final Unforgivable Curse… the Avada Kedavra Spell. But, since the spell itself is almost unavoidable, you will not be studying on how to protect yourselves from actual curse, but how to protect yourself from being drawn into the Dark Side and ever having to deal with the spell in the first place. We will be learning what makes wizards turn, and how to stop yourself from doing so… in a nutshell, what makes good wizards go bad…. Yeehaw!”
“I’d rather learn what made your beard grow so big and disgusting,” whispered Malfoy. Harry had to stifle down a laugh and he saw Ron do the same.
“Not bad Malfoy, not bad,” said Harry, commenting on his joke.
“Eh, I could do better,” he replied, cracking his knuckles.
“Hey,” said Harry, feeling as though this was actually becoming a good conversation, “why aren’t you sitting with Crabbe and Goyle?”
Malfoy shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I kind of… grew out of them,” he said. “They just got boring with their pathetic schemes and constant grunts. We just… don’t think on the same level any longer.” Harry was liking this more and more. With Crabbe and Goyle gone, Malfoy would be desperate for some new friends… perhaps Harry could show him the light.
The rest of the class went very well. Professor Quirrell talked to them about the letters that they all received at breakfast and how that was a perfect way for them to be tempted to come over. He asked them is any of them had kept their letters, and not very surprisingly, no one raised their hand. Harry suspected that many of the Slytherins, and probably a few of the Gryffindors, had kept their letters too, but were definitely not going to admit to it, especially to a teacher.
By the end of class, Harry and Malfoy were practically as good friends as him and Ron. It was a very good feeling, befriending one of your oldest enemies. Malfoy told Harry that he wished he were a fifth year, because next year, the Sixth Years would be offering three new courses in addition to the three that they had now: Necrology, the study of bringing people back from the dead; Curses, the study of new and advanced ways to bring about horror; and Time Travel, where they’d try to figure out new ways of changing past events, and seeing the future.
“How do you know all that?” asked Harry after the bell rang.
“My father told me,” said Malfoy.
“How would he know the future of Hogwarts?” asked Harry.
Malfoy shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I do know that if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late for Transfiguration.”
“Fine, I’ll see you later Malfoy,” said Harry.
“Yeah, see you on the Quidditch field, Potter,” yelled Malfoy, walking away. “You know… Marcus Flint finally graduated last year. I wonder who the new captain will be?”
“So what’s up with you two now?” asked Ron, preventing Harry from commenting on Malfoy’s statement.
“Oh, don’t worry Ron,” smiled Harry. “You’re still my best friend.”
“I guess having a new class with the Slytherins wasn’t so bad after all,” commented Hermione, walking along beside them. Harry happily agreed.
The rest of the classes, while okay, did not contain any new friendships like Defense Against the Dark Arts did. In Herbology, they started learning about not plants, but rather soil. Magical dirt that could be grown and formed to act like humans. It would not be until much later into the year that any of the students, even Neville, could make a perfect person.
Transfiguration was pretty good as well. Professor McGonagall began teaching them how to transform each other’s certain body parts into different things. She began by making Hermione’s arms into crab claws, and then Neville’s legs into a goat’s. The class applauded and laughed at her transfigurations, but it would be a long time before anyone would be able to do something the well.
Charms was just as good. They began learning how to set magical charm traps, like Ron pretended he did last year. There were hundreds of different kinds: ones that exploded, ones that turned their victims to Stone, and ones that even made the person fall asleep. Harry couldn’t wait to begin learning some of them.
If Harry hadn’t know better, he would have though he was in the same Divination class as last year. Professor Trelawney did not improve much on her syllabus from last year, she only added that they would be using Wizard Duel cards in helping them to make some predictions. That, and only that, gave Harry hope for that class to be any good.
Care of Magical Creatures, though not as exciting as last year with the dragons, was still an improvement on Divination. Though Hagrid did not know exactly which creatures they would be studying, he did say they would be looking on an average of a new one each week, and by the end of the year, they would know almost ever animal in the world. It was very nice for once to not have Malfoy criticizing Hagrid every second, poking fun at him for everything he did. On the contrary, he talked to Harry most of the time, chatting about Quidditch or whatever. Malfoy was quickly becoming one of the group… if only he wasn’t in Slytherin.
In Potions, everyone’s favorite teacher, Professor Snape was back. Even before he started telling them what the were going to do during the year, Gryffindor had lost twenty points, Dean had an F for the semester, and Lavender ran out crying. Ahh… the teacher they all knew and loved was back.
Even with Professor Snape back, Potions did not even begin to compare to how bad History of Magic was. Even Professor Binns reading them the outline of the year was enough to make a dead person kill over again with boredom. Halfway into the class, Harry fell asleep, and did not know what they were going to do all year. Oh well, his next major test wasn’t until next year’s N.E.W.T.s anyway.
Now, the thing that Harry, along with the rest of the Sixth Years, was looking forward to the most came… the time for them to choose their ‘bonus’ class. Ron and Harry quickly consulted with Hermione on which one was the best.
“Well, Advanced Healing is pretty good if you plan on going into some sort of medicinal position, like a doctor or something. Meteorology is for those who want to go into serious fighting, you learn how to make storms and tornadoes appear out of nowhere. And, if you don’t fit into either of those categories, like me, Spell Invention. You do exactly what the class name is… invent spells.”
“Really?” asked Ron, sounding amazed. “You can make your own spells?”
“Yeah, but it’s not as easy as it sounds,” said Hermione. “They recommend having taken Arithmancy; you’ll need it to understand the code behind it. MMSC, or Majik’s Magical Spell Code, the code for making spells is quite similar to Muggle computer programs. That little second year, Akshay, would be good at it.”
“So you’re taking Spell Invention, Hermione?” asked Ron, completely ignoring everything she had just said.