Hogwarts Herald

Chapter Eighteen of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is called “Birthday Surprises.” Harry tells Ron and Herminoe separately (Hermione continues to avoid Ron) about his task of getting the real memory about the Horcruxes from Slughorn. Ron thinks Harry will have not trouble because Harry is Slughorn’s favorite. Hermione thinks that Slughorn is determined to hide the truth since Dumbledore could not get the truth out of Slughorn.

In Potions class Slughorn has each take a vial of potion. They have to identify the potion and determine the antidote. Hermione tells Harry the Prince cannot help him on this task. The Prince seems to be failing to help him as he struggles to figure out the reveal ingredient spell. Harry then reads the list of antidotes and finds mention of a bezoar stone, which Harry’s remembers from Snape’s class that it protects against most poisons.

After class Harry sticks behind to ask Slughorn about Horcruxes. Slughorn is on to Harry right away about Dumbledore putting Harry up to it and having shown him the memory. After this failure, Harry begins to hope for another Slug Club party, but no invitations are sent out. Meanwhile Hermione fails to find anything about Horcruxes in the library. All she finds out is that it is the wickedest of magical inventions.

They have their first apparation lesson in the Great Hall because of rain. Harry positions himself near Malfoy and overhears him telling Crabbe and Goyle to just keep lookout for him and stop asking what he is doing. The minister apparation teacher explains the three Ds (Destination, Determination, and Deliberation). No one comes close to apparating until the fourth try when a Hufflepuff apparates, but leaves behind a leg in what is called splinching.

Harry does not care that he could not do it. After the lesson he hurries back to the Gryffindor dormitory to find the Marauder’s Map. He finds Malfoy in the Slytherin Common Room. He decides to keep an eye on Malfoy from now on and when he finds Malfoy alone with Crabbe and Goyle on lookout he will put on the invisibility cloak to find out what Malfoy is up to.

Weeks go by and Harry still cannot figure out what Malfoy is up to other than him disappearing from the map regularly. Ron’s birthday arrives and he has a pile of presents delivered by the house elves overnight. Ron eats some Chocolate Cauldrons and Harry refuses one as he is too focused on the Marauder’s Map. Harry then tries get Ron to go down to breakfast with him, but soon discovers that Ron has eaten the Chocolate Cauldrons laced with love potion and Ron thinks he is in love with Romilda Vane.

Harry takes Ron to Slughorn’s office saying that he will introduce Ron to Romilda Vane there. Harry asks Slughorn to help make an antidote and Slughorn does only briefly questioning why Harry does not do it himself. Once Ron is back to normal Slughorn offers them mead (that he forgot to give Dumbledore for Christmas) to celebrate Ron’s birthday. Ron is the first to drink the mead and Harry quickly realizes he had been poisoned. Harry thinks quickly and gets a bezoar stone and thrusts it into Ron’s mouth.