Our next guest post comes from Arabella Figg! ~ Travis
This is my first post here, and what a chapter to work on! So, no metaphorical Dung Bombs, please. (All page references are from the American edition.)
Sectumsempra could well have been titled Truth or Consequences, as deceit plays the starring role. Moreover, two events we’ve long-anticipated—a confrontation between Harry and Draco, and another kind between Harry and Ginny—occur.
The chapter begins with good news—Katie Bell’s return and the Ron/Lavender and Ginny/Dean breakups, Harry can now pursue Ginny, but fears Ron will disapprove; is he right (Ron has previously indicated how he would feel)? He returns Katie to the Quidditch team, displacing Dean who has played most of the year; was this fair? [click to continue…]
Special thanks to Lily Luna for her willingness to guest-blog for Chapter 22 of our Half-Blood Prince Read-Through! She’ll be returning for “Flight of the Prince” as well. Enjoy! ~ Travis
I am honored to be asked to assist with the HBP read-through.
In Chapter 22, Slughorn extracts a bottle of valuable venom from the dead Aragog and Harry in turn extracts a bottle of valuable memory from him. Thus both spinners are milked of something evil. Harry gets the memory through a combination of drinking lucky potion, luring Slughorn with the promise of the venom, getting Slughorn drunk, appealing to his love of Lily and affection for Harry, and promising him that giving Harry the memory will cancel out the damage done by discussing horcruxes with Voldemort. [click to continue…]
Travis asked some of us to fill in on the HBP read-thr0ugh, since he’s busy, you know, editing a book!
It would be easy to skip through Chapter 20 thinking that the most important thing we learn is how Voldemort/Riddle came into possession of Hufflepuff’s Cup and Slytherin’s Locket. We know that both end up becoming Horcruxes at some point later. In addition, the connection between these devices, Hogwarts, and Horcruxes is foreshadowed both here and in the earlier Pensieve lesson. Slughorn’s distorted memory points to a conversation about such things with young Riddle, but it’s clear that he’s gone to great pains to hide important elements of that conversation — the wizard’s version of “trying to forget.” [click to continue…]