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Michael Gambon, Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Jim Broadbent: Professor Horace Slughorn

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Jim Broadbent credited as playing...

Professor Horace Slughorn

Photos54

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Quotes23

  • Horace Slughorn: [talking to Harry about his fish] It was a student who gave me Francis. One Spring afternoon I discovered a bowl on my desk, just a few inches of clear water in it. Floating on the surface was a flower petal. As I washed, it sank. Just when it reached the bottom, it transformed into a wee fish. It was beautiful magic, wondrous to the behold. The flower petal had come from a lily, your mother. The day I came downstairs, the day the bowl was empty, was the day your mother...
  • Horace Slughorn: [shocked] Harry!
  • Harry Potter: [imitating Slughorn and hyper from the Felix potion] Sir!
  • Horace Slughorn: Exactly how did you get out of the castle, Harry?
  • Harry Potter: Through the front door sir.
  • Horace Slughorn: Harry! I must insist you accompany me back to the castle immediately!
  • Harry Potter: That would be counterproductive, sir!
  • Horace Slughorn: What makes you say that?
  • Harry Potter: No idea!
  • [Slughorn is snipping tentacular leaves through a window in the greenhouse; Harry, who is walking by, notices Slughorn and walks up behind him. Slughorn is startled]
  • Horace Slughorn: Aaauughh!... Merlin's beard, Harry!
  • Harry Potter: Oh, sorry, sir, I should've announced myself. Cleared my throat. Coughed. You probably feared I was Professor Sprout!
  • Horace Slughorn: Yes, I did actually!... What made you think that?
  • Harry Potter: Oh, well, just the general behavior, sir - the sneaking around, jumping when you saw me... Are those tentacular leaves, sir? They're very valuable, aren't they?
  • Horace Slughorn: Ten Galleons a leaf to the right buyer!... Not that I'm familiar with any such back alley transactions, but one does hear rumors. My own interests are purely academic, of course.
  • Harry Potter: Personally, these plants always kind of freak me out.
  • Horace Slughorn: I would have thought an expert potion-maker like yourself could whip up an antidote for a love potion in no time, Harry?
  • Harry Potter: Well, sir, I think this called for a more practiced hand.
  • Ron Weasley: [throws his arms around Slughorn] Hello, darling. Fancy a drink?
  • Horace Slughorn: Perhaps you're right.
  • Rubeus Hagrid: [talking about Aragog] I had him from an egg, you know? Tiny little thing he was when he hatched. No bigger than a Pekingese. A Pekingese, mind you!
  • Horace Slughorn: How sweet! I once had a fish... Francis. He was very dear to me. One afternoon, I came downstairs and... it vanished. Poof.
  • Rubeus Hagrid: That's very odd, isn't it?
  • Horace Slughorn: Yes, doesn't it? But that's life! I suppose, you - you go along with and suddenly... poof.
  • Rubeus Hagrid: Poof.
  • Harry Potter: Poof.
  • Horace Slughorn: [during Aragog's funeral] Farewell, Aragog. King of the arachnids. Your body will decay... but your spirit lingers on and your human friends find solace, the loss they have sustained.
  • Horace Slughorn: What about you, Miss Granger? What do your parents do in the muggle world?
  • Hermione Granger: Ah, my parents are dentists.
  • Horace Slughorn: And is that considered a dangerous profession?
  • Harry Potter: What brings you here, sir?
  • Horace Slughorn: [good-naturedly/drunkenly] Oh, the Three Broomsticks and I go way back! Farther back than I care to admit! Ho ho ho... Why I can remember when it was just ONE Broomstick!
  • [Slughorn chuckles and spills his drink all over the table, splashing Hermione; she jumps away]
  • Horace Slughorn: Whoops! All hands on deck, there, Granger!
  • Horace Slughorn: Thank you for the pineapple, you're quite right, it is my favorite - but how did you know?
  • Tom Riddle - Age 16: Intuition.
  • Harry Potter: [Harry knocks on the door of Professor Slughorn's room] I'm sorry, sir. I wouldn't bother you if it weren't essential.
  • Ron Weasley: Where's Romilda?
  • Horace Slughorn: What's the matter with Wenby?
  • Harry Potter: [Whispers] Very powerful love potion.
  • Horace Slughorn: Very well. Better bring him in. I'd have thought you could have whipped up a remedy for this in no time, Harry.
  • Harry Potter: I'd have thought that this called for a more practised hand, sir.
  • Ron Weasley: [Ron wraps his arms around Professor Slughorn and looks at him romantically] Hello Darling. Fancy a drink?
  • Horace Slughorn: Perhaps you're right.
  • [Harry persuades Slughorn to hand over his true memory]
  • Horace Slughorn: Please don't think badly of me when you see it. You have no idea what he was like... even back then.
  • Horace Slughorn: [in regard to returning to Hogwarts] All right, I'll do it! But I want Professor Merrythought's office, not that water closet I had before. And I want a raise, these are mad times we live in. MAD!
  • Ron Weasley: [he puts his arms around Professor Slughorn thinking he is Romilda Vane] Hello darling fancy a drink?
  • Horace Slughorn: Perhaps you're right Harry.
  • [after exposing Slughorn's disguise]
  • Albus Dumbledore: I must say, Horace, you make a very convincing armchair.
  • Horace Slughorn: Oh, thank you. It's all in the upholstry.
  • [pats his stomach]
  • Horace Slughorn: I come about the stuffing naturally.
  • Horace Slughorn: [showing Harry pictures] I taught the whole Black family, except Sirius, it's a shame. I got Regulus when he came around of course, but I would have liked the set.
  • Horace Slughorn: [from trailer]
  • [to class]
  • Horace Slughorn: What you see here before you is a curious little potion. It does cause infatuation or obsession.
  • [after Hermione explains the properties of a love potion]
  • Horace Slughorn: Now, Amortentia doesn't create actual love, that would be impossible. But it does cause powerful infatuation or obsession, and for that reason... it is probably the most dangerous potion in this room.
  • [Sure enough, all the witches in the room have been drifting towards the cauldron, staring into the steam, until Slughorn puts the lid on, and they snap back to themselves. Or were they imagining all the things they could do with it if they had it]
  • Horace Slughorn: Some of your classmates... well, let's just say they're unlikely to make the shelf.
  • Harry Potter: Shelf, sir?
  • [Slughorn points to a wall of portraits of past "Slug Club" members]
  • Horace Slughorn: Anyone who aspires to be anyone ends up here. But then again, you already are someone, aren't you, Harry?
  • Harry Potter: Did Voldemort ever make the shelf, sir?
  • [Slughorn freezes]
  • Harry Potter: You knew him, didn't you, sir? Tom Riddle? You were his teacher.
  • Horace Slughorn: Mr. Riddle had a number of teachers whilst he was here at Hogwarts.
  • Harry Potter: What was he like?
  • [no response]
  • Harry Potter: I'm sorry, sir. Forgive me. He killed my parents.
  • Horace Slughorn: I... of course, it's only natural you should want to know more. But I'm afraid I must disappoint you, Harry. When I first met young Mr. Riddle, he was a quiet, albeit brilliant boy committed to becoming a first-rate wizard. Not unlike others I've known. Not unlike yourself, in fact. If the monster existed, it was buried deep within.

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