Chapter 18 of our Deathly Hallows Read-Through is brought to you by Red Rocker.

Like other great novels, Deathly Hallows is about how human beings try to love one another. Chapter 18 shows different kinds of love: the love Harry and Hermione have for each other and which makes itself known in every word they speak to one another. The problematic love of Albus Dumbledore for one Gellert Grindelwald. And more importantly, for one Harry Potter

This is how matters stand at the start of chapter 18.

Harry has lost his parents, his godfather, and his mentor to Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Dumbledore has set him on a mission to destroy the remaining horcruxes, but has not given him a clear idea of where they are or how he is to destroy them.. Ron has walked out on him. His last good idea of where the Sword of Gyriffindor might be has backfired in a grotesque ambush. And his wand – his right arm – has been rendered impotent. As in broken and bent, hanging together by a strand of phoenix feather. So useless that he has to borrow a girl’s wand to protect himself.

And just when he thinks things can get no worse, he finds the copy of Skeeter’s book and learns facts about Dumbledore which make him doubt everything he thought he knew about him.

Some inner certainty had crashed won inside him; it was exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom. All was ashes: how much more could he lose? Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand…

All of this is a prelude to a conversation between Harry and Hermione which summarizes the major elements of the conversation we have been having about Dumbledore for a long time at this site. Here it is, in abridged form:
Hermione: Remember, Harry. This is Rita Skeeter’s version of events.

Harry: The letter confirms how Dumbledore felt towards Muggle domination
Hermione: But he was really young.

Harry: No younger than we are now.

Hermione: But he was under a lot of stress; his mother had died, he was alone.
Harry: He had his brother. And his sister, whom he was keeping locked up.
Hermione: The Dumbledore we know wouldn’t have done that.

Harry: The Dumbledore we thought we knew wouldn’t have tried to conquer Muggles.
Herminone: He changed Harry. Maybe he was like that at 17. He spent the rest of his life fighting the Dark Arts and standing up for Muggles.

And then:
Hermione: The real reason you’re upset is because he didn’t tell you all this himself.
Harry: He asked me to risk my life over an over, without every explaining anything. He just asked me to trust him, without telling me the whole truth.
Hermione: He loved you.
Harry: This mess he left me with isn’t love.

The conversation ends with Harry’s silent thought: he hates himself for wishing that what Hermione says was true, for wishing that Dumbledore really did care for him.

What I love about this conversation is how they move from what is the obvious problem, to what is the underlying problem. Dumbledore is not the epitome of goodness and wisdom and that enrages Harry, but what really bothers him is that he had to find this out from Rita Skeeter. Dumbleodre didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. And this means that Dumbleodore didn’t care about him. That is the worm at the core of the apple: Harry fears that Dumbledore never really loved him.

I am in agreement with the literary critic from Newsweek who wrote that Deathly Hallows is about growing up and realizing that our grownups aren’t perfect, but learning it’s possible to love them despite that. I think Harry masters that lesson in Chapter 35, King’s Cross. He sees that Dumbledore is flawed, but he forgives him for it, and loves him. Back in Chapter 18, he is still the wounded child, enraged over his sense of betrayal and abandonment by a father figure whose love is so tricky that it hardly seems like love at all.

I’m not sure, btw that Harry ever gets his wish about Dumbledore. Certainly in Chapter 35 Dumbledore is full of approval and admiration because of what Harry has done. Who wouldn’t be? Does he care for Harry? I don’t know that anyone except Dumbledore – and maybe his maker – knows the answer to that question.

The other thing I love about the conversation in Chapter 18 is how Harry and Hermione look after one another. Harry is shocked at what just happened, angry at Hermione for zapping his wand – his right arm – and angry at Dumbledore. But his primary concern is still not to hurt her, to protect her from the awful knowledge of the end of Bathilda Bagshot, and to protect her from his anger at her. It is a very mature, very caring reaction. And she, for her part, tries to comfort him, to explain away Dumbledore’s seeming lack of trust, and to give Harry the one thing he craves: the assurance that Dumbledore did care for him. Again, very mature, very caring.

For all my railings against Ron’s lack of worthiness and Hermione’s ultimate relegation to a sex role stereotype, I’ve come to see that the love that these three have for one another is the cement that holds the books together. What hurts me about the endless hanging about in tents is not so much the loss of structure and purpose, but the loss of the certainty of their friendship. When that friendship is restored, I am as happy as Harry is in Chapter 35, when he finally realizes that he did earn Dumbledore’s approval – if not his love.

Related Posts

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• Ch. 14: The Thief

On her blog Quoth the Maven, Janet Batchler has some great comments regarding who is the hero of Harry Potter: Harry Potter or Dumbledore.  She’s responding to a story here arguing that Dumbledore is the real hero of the HP series not Harry.  Check out both and see what you think.

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Quick Synopsis: After an abortive attempt to return to Grimmauld Place, the Trio instead end up in a forest.  Yaxley was able to hold on long enough to get within the protective charms on the house, but Hermione shakes him off and goes to where the Quidditch Cup was held in Goblet of Fire.  Ron is splinched and has a gaping wound in his arm and is in danger of bleeding to death.  Tense moments pass until first aid is applied.  Ron appears to be okay, but the Trio decide to stay put for a spell.  The Trio have the Locket Horcrux but only have vauge ideas on how to destroy it.  Caution and watchfulness become the order of the day.  Hermione puts up several protective spells and Harry suggests he and she take turns watching.  As he takes the first watch, Harry begins heading into the doldrums again which leaves him open to seeing another vision from Voldemort’s head.  The Dark Lord has finally found Gregorovitch and learns that the object he seeks was stolen years ago by the curly haired, wild, merry youth.  The vision ends with Gregorovitch’s death and Harry is left to ponder what he has seen.

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Chapter 8 is brought to you by guest-blogger Red Rocker!

The camera loves the wedding scene. It roams from one small group to another, picking up a conversation here, an argument there, a quick glimpse of a girl dancing by herself over there, a young man finding a seat at a table by an old man, getting him to talk about the past, an old woman settling down beside them to provide a derisive counterpoint to the discussion. Chapter 8 reads like it was written for the camera – but perhaps that’s the nature of weddings, to be episodic, transient, giving glimpses of many lives brought together in a brief moment of juxtaposition, until they go their separate ways again.

So we see the Weasley twins acting out their patented shtick – and because we have already read the book to the end, it breaks our hearts when Fred talks about his own wedding. We see Krum ogling Hermione and – unforgivably – Ginny, and we hear him drop a tidbit of information about Grindelwald. We hear Luna greet the disguised Harry, easily seeing through the effects of the polyjuice. We see Ron’s brief moment of shock as he sees a dolled up Hermione and watch the two of them warily working toward their long-overdue union. And then Harry pulls up a seat beside Doge, Aunt Muriel plops herself between them and the camera settles down to the main event.

I’m writing this as I’m reading the commentary on the post on Chapter 2, when Harry is first confronted by the wizarding world’s contradictory takes on Dumbledore. Dave has just written that “Dumbledore has to be “recovered” because his death, combined with Harry’s memories and the public descriptions, has scattered his identity.”

This time around, we – through Harry – get the public descriptions in counterpoint: Muriel attacks, while Doge defends. What I found most entertaining was their respective emotional tones: Doge is distraught at the truths Muriel is delivering between gulps of champagne. She, on the other hand, is enjoying herself mightily. The story she tells is the tale of Ariana – the sister who was locked away from the world by her family. It horrifies Harry because of the similar fate he suffered as a child, and because he can’t reconcile his knowledge of Dumbledore with someone who could let that happen. And then the final blow: the revelation that Dumbledore’s family lived at Godric’s Hollow. Harry doesn’t know why this affects him so strongly. All he knows is that Dumbledore’s failure to tell him they had this in common was “tantamount to a lie”. This is the moment, I think, when he realizes how little he knew Dumbledore.

Think about this. You know a man for six years. You’re not equals, and you don’t spend all that much time together, but you share some pretty hairy experiences. You witness two deaths together. The man is your mentor and someone whom you would and do follow to the literal ends of the earth. And at the end of the day, after he dies, you find out that he never told you that he comes from the same town where you were born. He denied you this small fact which anyone would have shared with you without thought. How would you feel?

We have argued endlessly at this site about Dumbledore’s nature. Whether he lied by omission or commission. Whether he used people, and used Harry. Whether he was compassionate and generous, or deceptive and manipulative. His defenders explain his actions as motivated by the best of motives. His detractors view his actions as motivated by the view that the end justifies the means. But whichever stance you take on why he acts as he does, it is hard to argue against the view that at this moment in time Harry feels betrayed. He doesn’t feel betrayed because Dumbledore has failed to tell him about weighty matters such as Voldemort or horcruxes. He feels betrayed because Dumbledore has failed to inform him about a very simple and basic thing about himself.

And this, I believe is one of the basic things about Dumbledore: his refusal to share even the smallest thing about himself. Interpret that as you will – and I will not interpret it for you – Dumbledore will not share even the smallest piece of truth about himself with Harry, whom he loves.

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Half-Blood Prince’s final chapter opens with a favorite device of Ernest Hemingway, the simple declarative sentence:

“All lessons were suspended, all examinations postponed.”

It really is one of Rowling’s finer moments as a writer, poignant and rich with subtlety.  In this one statement, she wipes away all the carefree wonderment of childhood with pointed irony.  Hogwarts shifts in symbolism from a place of comfort and safety where the worst worry was two parchments on werewolves for horrible Professor Snape, to a place in which parents are spiriting their children away as fast as possible because Snape has murdered the headmaster.

We see the Centaurs and Merfolk gather and pay their respects in ways I believe would have left Dumbledore deeply honored.  His entombment is rich with symbolism, as Harry thinks “for one heart-stopping moment, that he [sees] a phoenix fly joyfully ino the blue.”  Yet, the “next second the fire had vanished,” and a brilliant “white marble tomb” sits in its place.

In Dumbledore’s death, Voldemort has seemingly gained a devastating victory. Harry and Hogwarts no longer have their protector.  The last bastion of paradise is now vulnerable — very vulnerable. Hogwarts has become, in one sense, a graveyard.

A palpable threat glares at us from the edges of this chapter, never clear and explicit, but there nonetheless. It peers at us from the Riddle mansion. The effect is amplified in the explicit declarations that our enchanting rhythm of nearly six long books has been broken.  We’re no longer tied to time as it is dictated in school.  Instead, everyone’s concerns take on much more urgent tones, emanating from a great emergency — war and death. Like the disjointed feeling new-minted graduates experience upon leaving school for “the real world,” so, too, with the Wizarding World as we’ve known it. Rowling is playing with an emotional realism like never before. Even as the Trio debate whether or not Hogwarts will be open in the next year, Harry makes it clear to readers that it doesn’t matter:  “I’m not coming back even if it does reopen.” The chapter’s overriding emotion is not only sadness, but anxiety.

Harry understands his childhood is over.  Yet, Rowling isn’t ready to declare him “ready.”  To lift a line from another heroic opus, Harry must complete his training.  In Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Yoda’s warning to Luke refers to a need to complete both a physical and mental training that prepares him to confront ultimate evil in the form of his father.  The trope is a common one, and often serves as a way to remove our Hero’s wise mentor out from under him.  In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore is taken from Harry so that Harry has to complete his heroic quest on his own.

I’ve always argued that HBP’s central plot thread is Dumbledore’s intense efforts to educate Harry in a more hazardous, yet consequential, way of engaging Voldemort — the fine art of speculation and inferrential reasoning.  The Pensieve lessons are always about piecing together incomplete pieces of Voldemort’s past so as to anticipate his plans.

Yet, there are sharp indications that Harry still has much to learn now that he has been thrust prematurely into his adulthood.  Trying to decipher who might be R.A.B, his feelings betray him:

He did not fell the way he had so often felt before, excited, curious, burning to get to the bottom of a mystery, he simply knew that the task of discovering the truth about the real Horcruxes had to be completed before he could move a little farther along the dark and winding path stretching ahdead of him, the path he and Dumbledore had set out upon together, and which he now knew he would have to journey alone.  There might still be as many as four Horcruxes out there somewhere. … He kept reciting their names to himself, as though by listing them he could bring them within reach.

This picture starkly contrasts what we’ve seen from Harry before.  Whenever confronted with a problem, excitement and curiosity have coursed through him, often uncontrollably.  Philosopher’s Stone describes his first use of the Invisibility Cloak in terms of pure adrenaline:  “The whole of Hogwarts was open to him…”  Yet, in two years Harry has watched both Sirius and Dumbledore die as his intelligence and heroism failed him.  His rash dash into the Ministry’s aptly named Department of Mysteries ends in tragedy.  One year later, he can do nothing whatsoever to fight off Dumbeldore’s killers.  In two crucial moments, Harry believes that his greatest attributes have betray him completely.

Now, harry must rely on the kind of reasoning (incomplete as its bases may sometimes be) in order to think through the journey in front of him. And we see examples of incomplete thoughts seeping forth from Harry:

Neville and Luna alone of the D.A. had responded to Hermione’s summons the night that Dumbledore had died, and Harry knew why: They were the ones how had missed the D.A. the most… probably the ones who had checked their coins regularly in the hope that there would be another meeting.

The ellipsis points the reader to something omitted here.  Harry attaches a kind of childish need-to-belong to their loyalty.  Yet, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to add that Neville and Luna missed the D.A. the most because they believed in its cause.  It was surely one of the first places either had experienced social acceptance, but they also chose what was right over what was easy. And Neville will prove it in grim and terrifying fashion at the end of DH.

Harry’s breakup with Ginny is another pointer that Harry hasn’t quite thought his plan through.  As Harry laments what might have been, Ginny’s response is both knife-edged and sympathetic:  “‘But you’ve been too busy saving the Wizarding World,’ siad Ginny, half laughing. ‘Well…I can’t say I’m surprised.  I knew this would happen in the end.  I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort.  Maybe that’s why I like you so much.’”  Without question she resents his choice here, but accepts it without too much protest.  There’s a sense in which she seems to say to him, “Do you really think my safety is what matters now?  Don’t you see my importance to you in all of this?”  Harry hasn’t quite recognized in his friends and true love what we as readers see in John Granger’s eloquently explicated alchemical narrative.  All of them are absolutely important for Harry’s efforts to overcome Voldemort’s plan.

In addition, we witness the Trio speculate on Snape’s motives by looking at the past hinted at in Harry’s illicit Potions book.  Snape’s lineage leads Harry to conclude quite simply that Snape is “just like Voldemort.”  As determined as Harry needs to be, this reads alongside what we learn in Deathly Hallows, as a warning against thinking dismissively.  Admittedly, Harry is thinking emotionally.  But, if we learned anything from Dumbledore in the last three chapters, it’s that facing a crisis with a calm mind and steady courage is absolutely important.  Harry has to relearn this now that his challenges have grown more sinister.

Other moments Harry takes notice of are just as compelling in light of Deathly Hallows.  The appearance of an anonymous Elphias Doge foreshadows his role in DH.  Harry dismisses the man’s eulogy because “It did not mean very much.  It had little to do with Dumbledore as Harry had known him.”  Immediately, Harry flashes to his first vision of Dumbledore and his wonderfully odd welcome to Hogwarts:  “Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak!”  What Draco and the other Malfoys want to construe as Dumbledore’s senility, Harry recognizes as Dumbledore’s playfulness.  In light of Doge’s highly romanticized view of Dumbledore in DH, the one Harry so desperately wants to cling to, his entire performance here reads as a bright warning to Harry not to read too much into Doge’s sentiments.

Harry declares he is “Dumbledore’s man through and through,” but this final chapter is full of flashing warnings of Harry’s biggest fight to come.  He’s faced down Voldemort multiple times on pure instinct, and he’s felt the warmth of victory and chill of defeat.  He’s even forced Voldemort from his mind and body.  Along with that metaphor in Order of the Phoenix, “The White Tomb” shows us that one of Harry’s greatest foes yet to come is his own self.  Dumbledore has armed for this battle more than perhaps any other.

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Chapter 29 of our Half-Blood Prince Read-Through is brought to you by Arabella Figg!

Shock and grief define this chapter’s mood. In addition, we have three betrayals that took place before Dumbledore’s death on the tower.

We don’t get a Dumbledore denouement in Half-Blood Prince, but we still get a book-ending data dump in the hospital ward and Headmaster’s office, as the characters deconstruct the evening’s events.

As we move alchemically from white to red, moisture continuously flows—tears, blood, sweating, and ointment.  Silver-haired Phlegm’s frozen expression upon seeing Bill melts in a red-hot passion as choleric as that of any Weasley. Rubedo elements abound: a lot of Hagrid, the Weasleys, Gryffindor rubies, bloody Bill, Gryffindor’s sword, Rufus Scrimgeour, battle blazes, and recounted wounds. In the heard but unseen presence of red and gold Fawkes throughout, and Dumbledore snoozing in a golden frame in the Headmaster’s office, there is promise.

Harry and White Hats

I see Harry as taking on the Dumbledore role here, especially in the hospital ward where he gives critical information and explanations, and questions the others about events. Though McGonagall presides in the Headmaster’s office, Harry interacts as an equal with the adults, refusing to give her information, and insisting on a Dumbledore funeral/burial at Hogwarts, so the students can say goodbye to him (in contrast to his own experience with Sirius).

It’s Ginny who leads dazed Harry away from Dumbledore’s body; only when he recognizes her “trace of flowery fragrance” does he realize whom he unthinkingly obeyed. What symbolism might be here?

Hagrid’s eyes may be blurry with tears throughout the chapter, but his vision is quite clear, and his devotion to Dumbledore steadfast and touching. And don’t you love Professor Sprout voicing Dumbledore? “If a single pupil wants to come…,” she says, the school should remain open.

Betrayal # 1:   The White Hats by Dumbledore and Snape.

(While we, having read Deathly Hallows, know the truth, the characters at this point surely perceive their actions as betrayals.)

Stunned by Snape’s evil deed, the WHs are appalled by Dumbledore’s seeming naiveté when they learn his “ironclad reason” for trusting the former Death Eater. Disaster has ensued because they had put their unswerving faith in Dumbledore, and therefore Snape, though McGonagall says, “We all wondered….” Slughorn later says about Snape, “I taught him! I thought I knew him!” Curious reaction. Didn’t Sluggo see that the adult Snape was far removed from the boy he’d taught and Lily had loved? Does this betrayal foreshadow the betrayal Harry will feel in DH?

Upon learning that Dumbledore’s “ironclad reason” was Snape’s deep regret over James and Lily Potter’s death, Lupin is incredulous. “Snape hated James,” he declares. Again, no one makes any Lily/Severus connections, though some of them must have remembered the two as friends for most of their school years. (As Remus and Lily were same-year Gryffindors, and Remus was present at the event Harry refers to, wouldn’t Remus have known of it?) But Harry forestalls any speculation by bitterly adding, without explanation or context, that Snape “didn’t think my mother was worth a damn, either,” and had called her Mudblood. No one questions this.

What do you think of Harry, and how he takes command in this chapter?

The Black Hats

Betrayal # 2: Draco by the Death Eaters

We clearly see how Draco has lost any control he believed he had in his assignment. Not only do the Death Eaters attack and hurt students (and use killing curses!), they bring along the hideously violent Fenrir Greyback, known to prey on and eat children. However nasty he is, I can’t see Draco condoning this. He expected no WHs to be on watch, and perhaps naively believed the DEs were to secure the school borders, be his guard, and set off the Mark. Instead, there was a “fight-to-the-death battle.” Once Greyback emerged into the RoHT, I think Draco felt desperate and trapped well before ascending the tower stairs to his doom.

Also, we see how much Draco has kept Snape out of the loop to attain all the glory for himself (symbolized by carrying the Hand of Glory?); Snape only learns of the infiltration from Flitwick.

Romance

Amidst the anguished discussion over Bloody Bill’s bed, we have an interlude—the Tonks/Lupin romantic revelation/argument, and a brief discussion of love, referencing Dumbledore. Fire away.

Snape

Snape certainly never expected White Hat witnesses at the Dumbledore execution. When Flitwick came to fetch him, Snape Stupefied him. Was Snape sidelining a talented “foe” able to stop or report him, or protecting a fellow-teacher from harm? Remember that Snape, no matter how distasteful, has been a protective figure all throughout the books.

Betrayal #3:  Snape by Draco and the Death Eaters

Draco betrayed Snape through exclusion, even though he knew his mentor had taken the Unbreakable Vow on his behalf. This exclusion and the mass DE attack made Snape’s position that much more difficult. Because of Harry’s witness (and surely Snape realized Hermione and Luna would tumble to Flitwick’s Stupification), he now had to flee the school, where Dumbledore intended him to stay. This put serious sand in the gears. In DH, we learn Snape was to continue his double agent work, protect Harry, and give him the Scarcrux information if LV stopped using Nagini. Also, Snape was to prevent the Carrows from taking over the school.

Fawkes

Fawkes the phoenix “flies somewhere out in the darkness,” singing a “stricken lament of terrible beauty,” heard within the hearer, rather than without, turning “grief magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows.” While actively listening, everyone loses a sense of time (as did Harry when he kissed Ginny), not knowing why “it seemed to ease their pain a little to listen to the sound of their mourning.” Most of the chapter takes place in the hospital wing, a place of healing.

Harry, reflecting Fleur’s frozen shock, is himself numb with grief and shock at chapter’s end. Lying on his bed, he suddenly realizes the grounds are silent; Fawkes “had left for good, just as Dumbledore had left the school, had left the world…had left Harry” (another foreshadowing). Thoughts on Fawkes symbolism? How does phoenix Fawkes tie in with Dumbledore’s phoenix Patronus rising from his body (which seems to be three days later) in the next chapter?

Arabella out. As Stan Shunpike would say, “Take it away, Ern!”

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Another guest post by Lily Luna! Chapter 28 of our Half-Blood Prince Read-Through.

Tonight has been one adrenaline-pumping moment after another for Harry.  He learns it was Snape who relayed the prophecy to Voldemort.  Dumbledore gives him a ludicrous explanation of Snape’s remorse.  He experiences Gothic horror upon Gothic horror in the cave.  He is forced to torture and nearly kill Dumbledore by force-feeding him poison.  They are nearly killed by Inferi.  They return to see the Dark Mark over the Tower.  Harry is forced to watch helplessly as Draco and Dumbledore confront each other, the other Death Eaters taunt Dumbledore and lust for his death, and finally, the ultimate horror: Snape blasts Dumbledore off the Tower with the killing curse.  Harry then almost has his throat ripped out by Greyback, fears his friends are dead, duels Death Eaters, engages in a long tortuous foot race through the castle and grounds, ineffectually duels Snape who sneers at him while Hagrid’s hut is set on fire and Fang howls, and is tortured by Rowle.  Is it any wonder that by this point Harry is crazed beyond reason or fear and tries to kill Snape?

That’s right, KILL.  When Harry tries to use Sectumsempra on Snape, he is trying to kill, not just injure, the person he has come to hate as much as he hates Voldemort.  He has seen what the curse did to Draco and to the bodies of the Inferi, yet he deliberately uses it “blindly” and therefore uncontrollably on Snape.  Snape has just stopped Rowle from torturing Harry and saved Harry from being kidnapped and brought to Voldemort, but Harry does not even notice.  He is intent only on destroying the man who has verbally tormented him for years and now has seemingly shown himself a traitor and murderer.  Is Harry morally responsible for his actions at this moment?  If Snape had not blocked him would Harry have been guilty of murder?  Dumbledore with all his plotting very nearly saves Draco’s soul at the cost of Harry’s.

Snape is enraged at Harry’s attempts to torture and kill him, at his ingratitude, at the thought that he has been protecting a boy whom Dumbledore keeps praising and yet has turned to the Dark Arts in pursuing him, and at his own spell being turned against him.  When Harry tries to use Levicorpus on him, to humiliate him like James did and throw him off balance thereby making him vulnerable to a repeated Sectumsempra, it is the last straw.  Snape in that moment feels a hatred for Harry and for his mission equal to what he felt having to kill Dumbledore on the Tower.  He tells Harry just who the Half-Blood Prince was, tells him he’s just like his “filthy father,” thereby denying Dumbledore’s assertions that he’s more like his mother, and blasts Harry’s wand away when he dives for it.  Harry then pushes Snape over the edge by again calling him a coward.

“DON’T – ” screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them – “CALL ME COWARD!”

For Snape, who has displayed tremendous courage ever since Voldemort first threatened Lily, this is the ultimate insult.  For the third time in the series he loses his self control and his inner torment shows in his face.  He looks like an animal in as much pain as the howling Fang, just like he made “a terrible sound, like a wounded animal” during his grief and remorse after Lily’s death.

There is a strong parallel between this scene and the scene in the Shrieking Shack in Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape looked “suddenly quite deranged.”  There, too, Harry threw the bullying that Snape had suffered in his face and called him “pathetic,” leading Snape to call Harry arrogant, “like father, like son,” and revile Harry for his ingratitude.  There, Harry, Ron, and Hermione slammed Snape into the wall and knocked him out when they tried to disarm him.  Here, the situation is reversed.  Snape has already effectively disarmed Harry and now magically whips Harry across the face, slamming him into the ground so hard he is dazed and cannot breathe for a moment, lying there like Snape lay “lifeless” in PoA.

Buckbeak intervenes, slashing at Snape with his razor-sharp claws and chasing him off the grounds.  A hippogriff and perhaps a symbol of Christ (per John Granger’s speculations in Unlocking Harry Potter, p. 124, 2007 edition), Buckbeak is doing more than protect Harry from Snape.  He is protecting both of them from themselves and from each other.  He prevents Snape from going too far and harming his own soul and by making Snape run as fast as he can, he protects Harry from finding his wand in time to try again to kill Snape.  This passage reminds me strongly of the scene in C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy where the Christ-like lion Aslan chases Shasta and Aravis on their horses to make the horses run as fast as they can so that Shasta can deliver a warning in time.  At the end of the chase, Aslan attacks Aravis, clawing her back to give her wounds like those she callously left a servant to suffer from a whip when she left home.  Aslan is not trying to kill Aravis, only make her feel the servant’s pain.  Here, Buckbeak claws but does not try to kill Snape, giving him wounds that make him feel the pain he has inflicted on others, including James, from his own use of Sectumsempra, as well as Harry’s pain from Snape magically “whipping” him and from the many cutting remarks Snape has made to Harry over the years.

There are additional parallels to other books in the series:

• The chapter title “The Flight of the Prince” foreshadows the literal flight of the Prince from the castle in Deathly Hallows.
• Harry hits Amycus (who has been trying to Cruciate Ginny) with an Impediment jinx, slamming him into a wall with a “piglike squeal of pain,” which foreshadows him hitting Amycus with Crucio in DH, slamming him howling in pain into a cabinet.
• Harry is comforted by Fang’s warm body, just like he is comforted by the warmth of Fawkes in Dumbledore’s office at the end of Goblet of Fire.  Hagrid rescues Fang from the fire; Fawkes lives in a cycle of fiery death and rebirth.  At the end of this chapter Fang howls; in the next, Fawkes laments.  Fawkes leaves; Fang stays.  What are some other Fawkes and Fang connections and what do they mean?
• What other instances of foreshadowing are there in this chapter (one is obvious)?

Some more questions to consider:

• What meaning(s) do you read into Harry’s feeling that if he could just get Snape and Dumbledore back together the murder could be reversed?
• What are some of the alchemical elements in this chapter?  There are a number of symbols of each of the black, white, and red stages and a descent from the Tower down through a labyrinth of hallways, secret passageways, and stairs inside the dark castle (from the air to the ground instead of underground).  Do we seem to go through more than one stage within this chapter and if so are the stages in the usual order?
• Why is Harry able to catch up to Snape and Draco?  Did Snape deliberately take the longer route so he could be around to protect Harry from the other Death Eaters?
• Is Snape right to fear telling Harry the truth about his motivations or does his pride nearly get him killed?
• What else can be said about Buckbeak and similarities between PoA and HBP?
• Was the trip to the cave pointless as Harry believes?  Did Dumbledore notice that the locket was wrong when he took it from the basin?  What clues are in RAB’s note as to his identity?

Related Posts

• The Hog’s Head Half-Blood Prince Read-Through
• The White Tomb
• The Phoenix Lament
• The Lightning-Struck Tower, by Red Rocker
• The Crowded Cave

Another guest post from Red Rocker! This is chapter 27 of our Half-Blood Prince Read-Through.

There are certain events which are so prominent in cultural awareness that they become historical markers for an entire generation. For the Boomers, it was the assassination of President Kennedy, the arrival of the Beatles in North America, the fall of Saigon. For the present generation, it’s Columbine, the alteration to the New York skyline on 9/11, the election of Barack Obama. These are the events where history takes a sharp turn. They are world changing events. Afterwards, nothing is the same.

For the readers and lovers of Harry Potter, that event is Chapter 27 of the Half-Blood Prince which describes the death of Albus Dumbledore. That is the moment where the world changes, and Harry changes. The center of the wizarding world, the strong guiding hand, the courteous, whimsical, ruthless Headmaster is gone. The reassuring pattern of the six previous books is gone. School’s out forever. Nothing will be the same ever again.

Not to say that JKR didn’t give us fair warning. She makes us a gift of what it all means in the title of Chapter 27: The Lightning-Struck Tower.

For the very few who are not in the know, the Tower is a Tarot card, depicting a tower on a rocky outcropping, struck by a bolt of lightning, with one or two figures falling to the ground. The symbolism of the Tower is ”chaos, crisis, disillusion and downfall”, which pretty accurately describes what happens after Dumbledore falls, “like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.”

I could write about the construction of Chapter 27, about how it’s basically a stage for Dumbledore to manage the manner of his death, holding Draco and the other DE’s in conversation long enough that Snape can come and do his appointed task. I could write about how Dumbledore’s death is simply another instance him asserting his superior knowledge and will power over reality, even at the point of death. I could write about the loss of Dumbledore in Harry’s character arc, how it’s crucial to his development as Hero. I could write about whether Dumbledore’s complete failure to equip Harry with vital information about the nature of his task is an instance of the supremacy of plot or of character. There are so many ways of looking at and understanding Chapter 27. But the most important thing after Chapter 27 is how the world – Harry’s world, the wizarding world, and our understanding of that world – is changed afterwards. It’s not so much that Dumbledore dies – but what his death means.

It means that he’s no longer there. And more so than with any other death – Lily, Cedric, Sirius, Dobby – we miss him. That is what Chapter 27 means to me: I miss the old bugger. Not quite like, but almost like missing a real friend.

JKR brings him back to us at the end of DH , and just in case we missed the point, gives us the comfort of the quote from Penn in her prologue:

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

But I still miss him.

Related Posts

• The Hog’s Head Half-Blood Prince Read-Through
• The White Tomb
• The Phoenix Lament
• The Flight of the Prince, by Lily Luna
• The Crowded Cave

Today’s guest post for chapter 26 of the Half-Blood Prince read-through is from one of our longest-standing patrons: Red Rocker!

In Chapter 26 of Half-Blood Prince, we witness Harry and Dumbledore make their way into a large, dark cave, take an enchanted boat to a rocky outcropping in the middle of a dark lake, dispose of the green potion of awfulness in a particularly awful manner, fight off some inferi, and grab the fake amulet and run, attended by fireworks.

They are alone in the cave, save for the aforementioned inferi, who are so featureless as to be characterless. Voldemort’s enchantments live on, but he himself is a topic of conversation only. For all intents and purposes, Harry and Dumbledore are alone.

But it’s a crowded place, all the same.

Look in the shadows, and you can see a crowd of myth masters: The unknown story tellers of Norse and Roman mythology are present. The blind poet Homer is there. I suspect Plato and his mouthpiece are there too because it’s really hard to think of a cave, without thinking of The Cave. Dante Alighieri is there, and his Roman mentor and sometime traveling companion, Virgil. Not surprisingly, Tolkien is there, puffing on his pipe, reminding Sam to keep Frodo from touching the water. And not surprisingly at all, David is there, singing praises to the Lord.

Not much doubt about where Chapter 26 takes place: the old Norse word for “cave” is “hellir”. Our word “hell” comes from Norse mythology: the dark goddess Hel, Queen of Shades. But if doubt remains, we can refer to Roman mythology, where the name for the gods of the underworld was “Inferi Dii”.

The trip that Harry and Dumbledore take to the underworld has been done before, and the rites and rituals are known: when Odysseus and his men visit the Underworld in Homer’s Odyssey, they make a sacrifice of blood, which attracts the spirits of the dead. Odysseus fends them off, until he finds the dead man he came to speak to. He uses ram’s blood, while Harry and Dumbledore use Voldermort’s preference: their own blood.

Plato’s Cave? Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. But there is a strong theme of reality vs. illusion. So much in the cave is deception: the invisible archway, the hidden boat, the intangible potion, the fake amulet. Reality is not available to Harry at all who only sees the shadows dancing on the wall. Dumbledore, though, can see the “invisible truths lying under the apparent surface of things which only the most enlightened can grasp.” So it’s Dumbledore who finds the invisible archway in the wall, feels out the invisible chain that pulls in the hidden boat, intuits the presence of the invisible island, the hidden locket, and the secret enchantments placed on the cave by Voldemort.

And then there’s Dante’s trip to the lowest levels of hell, in the company of his spirit guide, the poet Virgil. In the eighth ring of the Eighth Circle – Counselors of Fraud (Sins of Malice division) – they encounter Odysseus and friend, who walks wrapped in flame, his punishment for his schemes and conspiracies that won the Trojan War.

Reminds me of the Jason Cockcroft cover for HBP: Albus Dumbledore and friend, surrounded by rings of fire. Any other resemblance of character or motive may or may not be spurious.

And for the grand finale, we get a reading from Psalm 23:

‘I am not worried, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. ‘I am with you.’

It’s one of JKR’s strongest chapters. And the strength comes from the voices of all the shades whose words she’s listened to and heard. And repeated in her own words so others too could hear and understand.

Related Posts

• The Hog’s Head Half-Blood Prince Read-Through
• The White Tomb
• The Phoenix Lament
• The Flight of the Prince, by Lily Luna
• The Lightning-Struck Tower, by Red Rocker

The first few pages of chapter 17 of Half-Blood Prince belong to after-break catching-up.  Hermione gets filled in on the Snape/Draco conversation, and Ron begins to show more signs of discontent in his relationship with Lavender.

Fawkes and Loyalty to Dumbledore

The action begins once again in Dumbledore’s office, where one of my favorite Dumbledore/Harry moments takes place: when Harry tells Dumbledore the story of affirming to Scrimgeour that he was “Dumbledore’s man, through and through.”  Dumbledore goes speechless and teary, and Fawkes lets out “a low, soft, musical cry.”  Fawkes’s song symbolizes loyalty to Dumbledore, which is loyalty to the good.

It’s an interesting moment to observe after our discussion about Lupin’s loyalty to Dumbledore in the last chapter.   Whatever else you think about Dumbledore’s actions, this moment does not strike me as manipulative.  Dumbledore isn’t working up a tear to take advantage of Harry’s declaration of loyalty.  And Fawkes, quite obviously a symbol of goodness in the series, affirms Harry’s loyalty.

Morphin’s Memory

After a tense discussion about Snape and Dumbledore’s recounting of Riddle’s history until the age of 16, being sure to note the key themes of his life – isolation, talent, charm, deception – Harry and the headmaster dive into the Pensieve for the tale of Riddle’s visit to the House of Gaunt.  It’s quite fascinating to get the other side of the story that Harry picked up in a dream at the beginning of Goblet of Fire.

Interesting – and right – that Dumbledore tried to secure Morphin’s release when he discovered the truth.

We’ve talked about this before, but the application of the Restriction on underage wizardry is an awful law that cannot possibly be enforced well.  It will most often result in disadvantage to Muggle-borns (how many Wizarding parents really do keep their kids from practicing magic over the summer?), and in a Wizarding household, it was used by Riddle to cover up a murder.

Slughorn’s Memory

Next, we dive into the “Sluggish” memory.  Note Dumbledore’s words about Slughorn’s tampering: “It is … very crudely done … it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations.”  When I posited earlier that memories can be better altered than Slughorn’s fog-and-shouting, it appears I was correct.  However, I’m not sure it can be done magically. It seems to me it has to be done psychologically. “Crudely done” is connected with the fact that the real memory is still there.  I think a much more flawless memory could be created if someone actually convinces him- or herself of the lie. Like I said, psychological, not magical.

Fawkes and Loyalty to Harry

An interesting item I had not picked up before.  Dumbledore gives Harry his assignment: get the memory.  After Harry leaves the room, Phineas Nigellus protests, “I can’t see why the boy should be able to do it better than you, Dumbledore.”

Dumbledore’s reply, “I wouldn’t expect you to, Phineas,” is met with another low, musical cry from Fawkes.  If I’m correct in my position that this is a sign of approval from Fawkes, and it’s about loyalty, then Fawkes here has sung about Dumbledore’s loyalty to – or faith in – Harry.  As such, these two notes by Fawkes are something of a foreshadowing of the “You are with me” / “I am with you” reversal of roles between Dumbledore and Harry.

Related Posts

• The Hog’s Head Half-Blood Prince Read-Through
• The White Tomb
• The Phoenix Lament
• The Flight of the Prince, by Lily Luna
• The Lightning-Struck Tower, by Red Rocker