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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Two things I like about this chapter: Romance and Politics.

I won’t attempt to summarize the whole chapter since there’s so much packed in there. Instead, I’ll have some random thoughts on things that stood out for me.

As the chapter begins, Harry is dreaming of Voldemort searching for Gregorovitch. For HP obsessives, we should remember way back to Goblet of Fire and the passing reference to Gregorovitch as Krum’s wand maker. Did anyone catch this on first reading DH? I don’t think I did. This reference, combined with the actions of Harry’s wand three chapters ago, should get us thinking about wands and wand-lore as something important to which we should pay attention throughout the story.

Harry’s Birthday Gifts

Harry also turns of age in this chapter. He can legally do magic and immediately indulges himself in doing so with some occasional comic results. I’ll deal with Ron’s gift in a moment. But he receives a new Sneakoscope, which will be used later in the camping scenes as a backdrop; a new razor, which we don’t see again, a box of Wheezes from Fred and George, part of which is used later at the Ministry, and a moleskin purse from Hagrid which Harry uses throughout the book. Mrs. Weasley also makes him a Golden Snitch cake. We’ll see another snitch in a moment.

I’ll also deal with Ginny’s gift in a moment. Arthur and Molly’s gift shows how much they have already adopted Harry into their family. He receives Fabian Prewett’s old watch. We also see how much Harry has come to adopt the Weasleys as his family as he immediately gives Mrs. Weasley a warm hug, trying to convey all of his feelings to her through it.

Romance: Ginny’s Kiss

Now, on to romance. Ron, as much as he is a frustrating character at times and dreadfully immature, seems to be growing up a bit in this chapter. He takes Fred and George’s gift of 12 Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches to heart. He shows that he now knows that Hermione is the girl he likes, and he’s willing to make changes in himself to get closer to her. He also thinks the book good enough to get Harry a copy.

Ginny’s gift to Harry, her kiss, is a moment that always touches me. Being an incurable romantic and all, I thought the kiss between them and the moments leading up to it felt real. It shows that although Ginny is willing to stand aside to Harry’s quest, she’s also going to show him that she’s not going to let that stand in the way of her love for him. I think this is some of Rowling’s best writing because it’s human.

Ron’s reaction to the kiss is also important, because while Ginny doesn’t need protecting, we probably wouldn’t think much of a brother who didn’t want to protect his sister. Ron’s reaction is noble, if perhaps misplaced. When we love someone we want to keep them from being hurt. We may not like it when our loved ones try to protect us but I also think we wouldn’t like it if they took some sort of stoic attitude towards us and never showed any emotion at all.

Politics: Scrimgeour vs. Harry

Anyway, I’ve left so little space for the politics. Scrimgeour’s visit is very tense and very uncomfortable. His attitude is brusque, abusive, and arrogant. To some extent, you can’t really blame the guy. Things aren’t going well. But Scrimgeour, like most politicians and bureaucrats, seems to be more concerned not with winning the war but with protecting the Ministry and the status quo. Sure, he wants to defeat Voldemort but not in the same selfless way Harry does.

Scrimgeour only wants to use Harry to further the goals and prestige of the Ministry. Beat Voldemort but only in a Ministry approved manner. To this end, he abuses what seems like another well-intentioned law that doesn’t really work out in real life, holding up the execution of Dumbledore’s will in order to further his own ends. Scrimgeour wants to use Harry the Chosen One but he doesn’t have faith in Harry as the Chosen One and by extension he has no faith in Dumbledore.

Dumbledore’s Gifts

And now to whirlwind through the rest of the stuff. Who wasn’t scratching their heads and pondering deeply the meaning of the gifts Dumbledore left to the Trio? The Deluminator, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the Snitch Harry caught in his first Quidditch game, and the intended but not given Sword of Gryffindor. How were these going to play into the story? I also found it interesting that Ron mentions every tale from Beedle except for the two that underline the quest of this story, Horcruxes (Warlock’s Hairy Heart) versus Hallows (The Tale of the Three Brothers).

I found it both hilarious and sad that when asked if she’s considered a career in the Ministry Hermione says she hopes to do some good in the world. And then she ends up in the Ministry. What a waste! Finally, I find it quite remarkable that Harry and Ron, Quidditch fanatics (the only book Harry’s ever read besides the Prince’s potions book is Quidditch Through the Ages), have no clue that snitches have flesh memories!

So, I leave you with these words, “I open at the close.”

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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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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.

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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?

Why do you think Slughorn stops holding Slug Club parties after telling Harry the truth about his Horcrux conversation with Tom Riddle?

Now we come to the heart of Sectumsempra: Harry’s bathroom encounter with Draco.
We have seen some amazing changes in Draco in this book—from brutish strutting to terrified crying. We also learn what drives him: if he fails, Voldemort will kill him. Is there any significance to Draco seeing Harry in a cracked mirror?

Throughout his many travails involving desperation, frustration or fear, Harry has never shed tears (except in grief over Sirius’ death). What does this say about him? How do you feel about Draco’s tears; do they diminish him? Though Draco has always been cowardly, do you feel differently about him in this chapter?
What follows is not Harry’s finest hour. We have to ask, who are the heroes and villains in the following sequence?

(Note: Sectumsempra is a favorite curse of Snape’s. He uses it nonverbally twice in the series: against the tormenting James Potter (OotP 647), and in trying to save Remus, instead accidentally severing George’s ear (DH 688).

Now, into the bathroom, friends. First Harry spies upon and then unwittingly humiliates his tormented enemy by watching him cry, thus engendering a duel. To counter Draco’s Cruciatus curse, Harry employs the Prince’s Sectumsempra curse, which he’s been itching to try, to disastrous results. What were his other options?

Snape seems to arrive at the bathroom quite quickly. Was he following Harry or Draco? If he was watching over Draco, should he have diverted Harry from entering?

Along with using his wand, Snape sings over Draco three times to heal his wounds, each pass a step of healing. What relationship to Phoenix song might this have? What about any symbolism in both blood and water drenching the scene (and Harry)? What do you make of this line: “There were bloodstains floating like crimson flowers across [the wet floor’s] surface” (523)?

When Snape orders Harry to wait for him in the bathroom while taking care of Draco, “It did not occur to Harry for a second to disobey” (523). Yet within minutes, he’s boldly lying to an expert Legilimens (quite familiar with his mind) about where he learned the curse. Though Harry knows Snape sees the Potions book in his mind, he continues lying, and disobys Snape’s order to give over the Potions book. Instead, Harry switches covers with Ron’s book (involving Ron in his deception), hides the Prince’s book in the Room of Requirement (now the Room of Hidden Things), and brings Ron’s book to Snape. Harry then “firmly” and with “defiance” (527) heaps lies upon lies to Snape about the book’s ownership and provenance. Snape calls Harry “a liar and a cheat,” (528) and gives him a Professor McGonagall-approved Saturday detention for the rest of the term, thus making him miss the rest of the Quidditch matches.

Who are the honorable and dishonorable ones (or is each person partly both) during this sequence and why? How did you feel about Snape calling Harry a liar and cheat? Consider Harry, throughout the series, cribbing Hermione’s homework to pass his classes, and lying in many and varied circumstances? Did you read this scene differently after having read DH? Has Snape always been truthful to Harry, no matter the cruel and self-serving the delivery?

Hermione later upbraids Harry, but Ginny defends his use of the curse. Both love Harry, in different ways. Who is right and/or honorable here?

The chapter closes happily. At long last, after a critical Gryffindor win, Ginny runs to Harry and…they kiss! Did you feel this hit the expectation mark? What about Ron’s reaction?

There’s so much more to ruminate over in this chapter, but I leave it to you. For example:

• Why do you think Harry didn’t connect the curse and the Prince’s book with Snape, as Snape’s knowledge of this curse, questions and behavior were, as Rowling might say, “obvious”?
• Truth or Consequence: what might have happened if Harry been truthful about the Potions book? Was he right to deceive Snape?
• Draco knows that Snape has made the Unbreakable Vow (323), yet says Voldemort will kill him if he fails. Does this fit with the Unbreakable Vow as explained in Chapter 2?
• Why do you think Moaning Myrtle (after what we learned about ghosts in OotP) remained a certainly unhappy ghost?
• What does this chapter reveal about achieving access to the Room of Requirement? Why did Harry fail earlier and then succeed?
• Did Harry’s viewing his father’s misdeeds during detention have any value, especially after his Pensieve experience in the previous book?
• What setups for the last book do we find in the Room of Hidden Things?

Have fun!

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Let the snogging begin!  Chapter 14 of Half-Blood Prince centers on the continuing misunderstanding between Ron and Hermione and their frustration with each other.  There’s probably a lot to say about that, but I’ll leave it to the pub.

I want to talk about Harry.  It turns out we don’t have to wait for the Slughorn memory caper to observe Harry learning from Dumbledore.  Harry’s trick with the Felix Felicis is very Dumbledorian.  Harry believed he had reason enough to let Hermione believe a lie and make a fool of herself, even if just momentarily, in order to bolster Ron’s confidence and get him playing well.

The only problem is, Harry doesn’t have his priorities straight yet.  This is Quidditch, not war.  In the last thread, Red Rocker made an interesting comment in agreement with revgeorge:

But I’m not that concerned about the legal and moral implications of forgery and getting Mrs. C drunk. Agree with revgeorge here: much better for all if Tom Riddle moves to Hogwarts.

Which seems to me to suggest that many of us would be inclined to do very much what Dumbledore does, given certain circumstances.  We’ve discussed before the ethical dilemmas presented by war and the kind of threat Voldemort presents.  Dumbledore, being the only one with all the necessary knowledge, was perhaps in the most difficult position of almost anyone in the series.  We might say the same sorts of things about many of Dumbledore’s more manipulative moves.  “I’m not that concerned about the legal and moral implications of X; Voldemort needed to be stopped.”  Then, of course, there’s the problem with the slippery slope.

But this is Quidditch, not war, and Harry’s willingness to toy with the emotions and trust of his friends backfires on him when the plan doesn’t work out as well as any of Dumbledore’s plans ever did.  Whatever you think of Dumbledore’s decisions throughout the series, by the end, Harry is at least being like Dumbledore (“Neville, kill the snake”) for actual reasons of life and death.

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We’re not yet done with chapter 4 of Half-Blood Prince.  Before Dumbledore leaves Harry with the Weasleys, he has a few matters to discuss with him in a “smelly, spidery broom shed.”  This is one of those moments which convinces me of my idealistic reading of Dumbledore, though I’m sure Manipulative!Dumbledore advocates have their take on it as well.  This, to me, is Dumbledore showing authentic concern for and knowledge of Harry.  Nothing is a game in this discussion, nothing a plot.  It does lead to the set-up of the private lessons, where there’s far more room for debate, I think.  But I believe this scene is the old man genuinely caring for the boy who has lost so much.

There’s a bit of interesting foreshadowing here. Harry, regaining his voice and growing adamant, swears that if he’s killed, he’ll take as many Death Eaters with him as possible, “and Voldemort too if I can manage it.”

Dumbledore replies with admiration at Harry’s words.  In the past, that struck me as an almost inappropriate response from Dumbledore, who always seemed an icon of forgiveness and the hope of redemption.  To praise Harry’s wanting to take as many Death Eaters to the grave as possible?

But knowing what we know now, the scene is both understandable and chilling.  Dumbledore knows that Harry will have to sacrifice himself.  So, of course he is encouraged by Harry’s brave willingness to die in the fight against Voldemort, and take Voldemort with him, if possible.  And of course, he will praise that bravery in Harry, because it’s precisely the bravery needed to complete Dumbledore’s plan to take down Voldemort once and for all.

What was I saying about there being no room for debate about Dumbledore in this scene?  Nevermind.

Of course, Harry essentially does exactly what he says here.  When he “dies,” he takes Voldemort with him – in one quite literal sense, by destroying the soul-piece in his dead, and in another sense, by making Voldemort one soul-part weaker, enabling his final death the next morning.

Related Posts

• The Hog’s Head Half-Blood Prince Read-Through
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• The Phoenix Lament
• The Flight of the Prince, by Lily Luna
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“It would have been a cop out to kill him,” J.K. Rowling says:

In many ways it would have been a neater ending to kill him. For sure, I knew that all along. felt that the books’ overriding message was that love is the most powerful force in this world. My model with Harry really was war veterans, who have seen horrors and are asked to go home and rebuild, and go back to ordinary life and care for a family, be a father – particularly be a father – [it is] a difficult job, in troubled times. I felt it would be a betrayal of my character if I did anything other than show him doing that. And I think it’s an absolutely heroic thing to do, to go home after that, not to become a mercenary, not to live forever frozen in a time of excitement and danger, but to be mentally strong enough, to an extent physically strong enough, to return from war and to raise a new generation with values that you hope will not lead to another war. That’s massive.

Of course you can say, yes, to an extent, as ever in life, that’s the eternal paradox. What’s is most worthwhile may well be seen as slightly dull, but God knows without those people who were prepared to come home and raise the family and rebuild, help rebuild… rebuilding is much more difficult than destroying. So, I felt it was almost a cop-out, morally, to kill him. I wanted to show a man who, yeah, he went back and got his hands dirty and tried to rebuild. I liked that. And again, it made a lot of people were livid, but God knows by that time I was used to that by then!

I’ve heard her explaining this before. Thoughts?

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