The Slughorn Club

• Type: Informal Social Club for Elite Students
• Location: Primarily Professor Slughorn's Office at Hogwarts Castle; one meeting was held in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express.
• Owner/Residents: Founder and Host: Horace Slughorn. Membership is by Slughorn's personal invitation only.
• Key Features: Exclusivity, lavish gatherings with rich food and drink, and networking opportunities. Membership is based on a student's exceptional talent, ambition, charm, or influential family connections.

The Slughorn Club is the informal name given to a group of students selected and periodically hosted by Horace Slughorn. Slughorn has a penchant for “collecting” people he deems likely to become important, powerful, or famous, and he maintains these connections for his own benefit, receiving perks such as free Quidditch tickets or boxes of his favourite sweets. Slughorn established this tradition during his first tenure as Potions Master at Hogwarts. He would invite his chosen students to sumptuous dinners and parties in his office, fostering a network that he could call upon for decades. Famous members of this original club included Tom Riddle, who Slughorn would later regret aiding, and Lily Evans, who was one of his all-time favourites. Upon his return to Hogwarts in 1996, Slughorn immediately revived his club. The primary target for his new collection was Harry Potter, whom he considered the “crown jewel” of his potential members. The club's meetings during the 1996-1997 school year consisted of small supper parties and a larger, more elaborate Christmas party.

The Slughorn Club is a central plot device in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Albus Dumbledore's entire strategy for defeating Lord Voldemort hinged on Harry Potter joining the club to get close to Horace Slughorn. Harry's primary mission throughout the school year was to attend the club's meetings to persuade Slughorn to give him an untampered memory of a conversation with a young Tom Riddle. This memory was crucial as it contained information about Horcruxes. Harry attends several of Slughorn's parties, but his attempts to retrieve the memory during these gatherings are consistently unsuccessful. The events also serve to develop other characters and subplots. Hermione Granger is invited for her brilliance, while Ginny Weasley earns a spot after Slughorn witnesses her perform a powerful Bat-Bogey Hex. This leads to tension with Ron Weasley, who feels excluded. The club's grand Christmas party becomes a focal point for social drama, particularly when Hermione invites Cormac McLaggen to make Ron jealous. Ultimately, Harry succeeds in obtaining the memory not at a club event, but by using a dose of Felix Felicis and appealing to Slughorn's conscience and his fondness for Lily Evans on a separate occasion.

Past Members (Pre-1996)

• Barnabas Cuffe (Editor of the Daily Prophet)
• Ambrosius Flume (Owner of Honeydukes)
• Gwenog Jones (Captain of the Holyhead Harpies)
• Lily Evans
• Lucius Malfoy
• Tom Riddle
• Dirk Cresswell (Later Head of the Goblin Liaison Office)

Revived Club Members (1996-1997)

• Harry Potter (Invited for being the “Chosen One”)
• Hermione Granger (Invited for her academic prowess)
• Ginny Weasley (Invited for her magical talent)
• Cormac McLaggen (Invited for his family connections to the Ministry of Magic)
• Blaise Zabini (Invited due to his famously beautiful mother)
• Marcus Belby (Invited because his uncle Damocles invented the Wolfsbane Potion)
• Neville Longbottom (Invited to the first meeting on the Hogwarts Express, but seemingly not to later events)

Known Meetings (1996-1997)

• Hogwarts Express Lunch: The first gathering of the revived club, held in Slughorn's train compartment.
• Office Suppers: A series of small dinner parties held in Professor Slughorn's Office for the core group of members.
• Christmas Party: A large, lavish party with many outside guests, including the vampire Sanguini and the author Eldred Worple. Harry Potter brought Luna Lovegood as his guest.

In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Slughorn Club's meetings are visually depicted. The Christmas party scene is particularly notable, showing Hermione hiding from an over-attentive Cormac McLaggen and Harry Potter talking with Professor Snape about the Unbreakable Vow. In the film, Neville Longbottom is depicted as a server at the Christmas party, a detail not present in the book where his involvement with the club ceases after the initial train meeting (film).