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"Oh, that one had a great vogue during my time at Hogwarts," said Lupin reminiscently.
"There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn't move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle." "My dad used it," said Harry. "I saw him in the Pensieve, he used it on Snape." He tried to sound casual, as though this was a throwaway comment of no real importance, but he was not sure he had achieved the right effect; Lupins smile was a little too understanding.
"Yes," he said, "but he wasn't the only one. As I say, it was very popular. . . . You know how these spells come and go. , . ." "But it sounds like it was invented while you were at school," Harry persisted.
"Not necessarily," said Lupin. "Jinxes go in and out of fashion like everything else." He looked into Harry's face and then said quietly, "James was a pureblood, Harry, and I promise you, he never asked us to call him 'Prince.'" Abandoning pretense, Harry said, "And it wasn't Sirius. Or you." "Definitely not." "Oh." Harry stared into the fire. "I just thought — well, he's helped me out a lot in Potions classes, the Prince has." "How old is this book, Harry." "I dunno, I've never checked." "Well, perhaps that will give you some clue as to when the Prince was at Hogwarts," said Lupin.
Shortly after this, Fleur decided to imitate Celestina singing "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love," which was taken by everyone, once they had glimpsed Mrs. Weasley's expression, to be the cue to go to bed. Harry and Ron climbed all the way up to Ron's attic bedroom, where a camp bed had been added for Harry.
Ron fell asleep almost immediately, but Harry delved into his trunk and pulled out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making before getting into bed. There he turned its pages, searching, until he finally found, at the front of the book, the date that it had been pub-lished. It was nearly fifty years old. Neither his father, nor his father's friends, had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago. Feeling disappointed, Harry threw the book back into his trunk, turned off the lamp, and rolled over, thinking of werewolves and Snape, Stan Shunpike and the Half-Blood Prince, and finally falling into an uneasy sleep full of creeping shadows and the cries of bitten children. . . .
"She's got to be joking. . . ."
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