Chapter 5 of Half-Blood Prince is comedic in many ways, and also sets up a mystery or two – for example, what is Tonks so down about? We’re usually inclined to trust Hermione, so many swallowed the misdiretion that she’s experiencing “survivor’s guilt.” In a rare moment of intelligence, I recall not falling for that one.
We get more of a picture in this chapter of what odd security measures the Ministry is putting in place. Clearly, the government is bloating in size in an attempt to meet the challenge, as Arthur’s been made head of a new department that has more words in its name that employees working for it. Dumbledore picked on these security questions by discussing his favorite jam (raspberry) with Harry in the previous chapter; in this chapter, we get that funny word, “Mollywobbles.”
I’m trying to avoid much speculation on the movie and to keep focused on the book, but I wonder if this chapter, with the security questions being asked between Arthur and Molly, is what inspired the idea of an attack on the Burrow.
For the most part, this chapter moves the plot along – we learn of Bill and Fleur’s engagement and Fred and George’s shop; Harry confides in his best friends about being Voldemort’s prophesied vanquisher; they get their OWL results. There is, of course, alchemical imagery introduced with “phlegm” and with the Bill/Fleur pairing; see John Granger’s works for more on that.
Harry’s sharing the prophecy with Ron and Hermione is also an important event, because he’s showing he’s learned the lesson of the last book – he can’t do this alone. He needs friends. Voldemort is the one who has no friends and shares no secrets. Harry can’t be like that, and entrusting Ron and Hermione with the prophecy, apart from being obviously necessary for plot reasons, is thematically important.
One more interesting observation, the consequence of which I’m not completely sure (there may not be one, but I’m open to suggestions) – “Neither can live while the other survives” is repeated twice is this chapter, marking the second and third times that phrase has been used in the first 5 chapters of the book. I suspect Rowling keeps putting that phrase and reminders of the prophecy in our brain to set us up for the big turn-around by Dumbledore in chapter 23: The prophecy doesn’t matter.
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You can usually trust Hermione, but not so much during her sixth year. Hermione gets a black eye in this chapter, and is pretty much a mess throughout the year, what with confounding McLaggen during Quidditch tryouts, the almost hysterical suspicion of Harry’s potion book (jealousy?) and of course the whole dust up with Ron. This last has her so emotional and out of control that JKR invents a word to describe her behavior: it is most un-Hermione-ish.
Hermione is hilarious in HBP (Flocks of canaries!), but I’m glad the Divine Miss Granger is back in Book 7.
I’m in a contrary mood tonight – horrible seventh game, the sting of which will not vanish until the Penguins are defeated in the playoffs, and the scars from which are probably etched for life.
So with that warning, here are my two quibbles.
Dumbledore says the prophecy doesn’t matter – it’s the choices we (or rather Harry) make that matter. But at the end of the day, the prophecy came true, did it not? Sure, it was a matter of choice – Harry chose to stay and take on Voldy – but was there ever a moment when we weren’t 100% certain that he would? Was there ever a moment when Voldy would have been ok with a live-and-let-live? My point: the freedom of choice is more apparent than real. From the moment that Voldy heard the prophecy, the end was predetermined.
Second quibble: wasn’t Hermione right to distrust the potions book? Even if her distrust was based on jealousy, wasn’t the book bad for Harry? And why is it that when a female has strong feelings, she is described as “hysterical”? How about “deep suspicion” or “obdurate suspicion” or “implacable suspicion”? How about “well-founded suspicion”? Hermione’s “hysterical suspicion” tells her the book is a dud; Harry has to half-kill someone before he realizes the same thing.
While we were waiting for Book 6 to come out, I stumbled on a website that was devoted to the relationship between Lupin and Tonks, as described in Book 5. It listed all of the evidence in the book for this relationship, and I was convinced. It must have been a pretty obscure website, because I couldn’t find it again, and I never came across any other discussion of that relationship prior to the release of HBP. It was fun knowing something that other readers didn’t, but I missed out on the possibility of being fooled by Hermione in this book.
The Lupin/Tonks relationship that was hidden for almost two whole books reminds me of the plot-turning relationship that Jane Austen kept undercover in Emma. Lupin/Tonks don’t have quite the impact on the plotline as Frank Churchill/Jane Fairfax, but I sure ate it up.
Speaking of the “ships,” I do love the interactions between Harry and Ginny at the Burrow. I did not pay that much attention to them on my first read, but they especially stood out to me on this most recent read. The two of them are so easy and chummy together, and it strikes me as quite healthy and delightful.
Wasn’t this whole Phlegm thing funny the first time you read it?
The security question is actually very interesting because Molly never questions Harry and Dumbledore. She lets them right in even though she wasn’t expecting them until morning and then Harry is accepted from there. If Death Eaters had done something to the real Harry and Dumbledore and substituted fakes a la Mad-Eye Moody, it would have been a real sticky situation. We get the reverse of this in Deathly Hallows where everyone keeps requestioning Harry to make sure he is the real Harry when they get to the Burrow after the aerial chase.
Not only is there an excess of phlegm in this chapter, there is an excess of references to the number three. Dumbledore knocks three times, the three of them gaze at each other before the telescope punches Hermione, when the owls come bearing their OWL results, three black specks are seen, Harry says there are three of them, the owls are described as three handsome tawnies, one, two three, the owls soar through the window, all three of them lift their right legs. In line with your point, Travis, about the importance of Harry confiding in his friends, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are the obvious three-some. There are also three intelligent, jealous girls (Hermione, Ginny, and Fleur). And with Hermione’s jealousy when Ron gawks at Fleur, perhaps a suggestion of the later triangle of Hermione, Ron, and Lavendar Brown. (Also note how Hermione attacks Harry for Harry’s pro-feminist comment that Fleur isn’t stupid since she was good enough to enter the Triwizard Tournament.)
There is also the interesting image of the fork. When Harry is about to tell Hermione and Ron about the prophecy, he “fixed his eyes on his fork, which was gleaming in the sunlight.” After Harry says he thinks the lessons are about the prophecy and Ron and Hermione freeze, Harry continues “still speaking to his fork.” The fork could symbolize a fork in the road – are Ron and Hermione with him or not (he is filled with warmth when he realizes they are with him, not shrinking from him as if he were contagious)? The fork could also symbolize the forked tongue of a snake – the real snake and figurative snake he will have to kill. Some forks have three tines, so it could also tie in with the excess of threes (most forks have four tines, though).
We also have the lingering smell of gunpowder, a noise like cannon fire, and a loud bang and black smoke (when the telescope punches Hermione), all war images. I.e., this is a war (in case that wasn’t clear yet). Harry receives a “sharp blow to the top of the head” when Ron wakes him up, recalling the beginning of OOTP. And there’s a very interesting metaphor comparing sunlight to a stick: “The dazzling sunlight seemed to poke him hard in both eyes.” I suppose this foreshadows the telescope punching Hermione in the eye a few pages later. It also is mirrored in The Flight of the Prince when Snape reacts to Harry calling him a coward by slashing the air and “Harry felt a white-hot, whiplike something hit him across the face” and “spots of light burst in front of his eyes” when he is slammed into the ground (which is very similar to Lupin’s reaction to Harry calling him a coward in DH). Hermione’s black eye is compared to half a panda. Maybe this is a throw away line, but in England I believe a police car is called a panda car. So is Hermione half a policeman and then cured of it in the next chapter? She’s a prefect, but I don’t recall her doing anything anti-prefecty in HBP.
There’s an odd parallel between Narcissa in Spinners End and Fleur. Recall, Narcissa has the look of a drowned woman, blond hair, and blue tear-filled eyes. Fleur has silvery blond hair and blue eyes and Ginny calls her phlegm, which represents the cool, moist personality. She is certainly narcissistic. We get a different take on Fleur at the end of HBP when she and Molly reconcile, so this could be a subtle hint of or setup for Narcissa’s colluding with Harry at the end of DH.
Harry’s description of Slughorn as a “walrus” is reminiscent of Uncle Vernon (who has a black, bushy mustache, p. 45); both are materialistic and enjoy comfort. The walrus description also reminds me of Bismarck (unified Germany, started Astro-Prussian war and Franco-Prussian War).
My favorite sentence of this chapter is, “To complete this vision of perfection, she was carrying a heavily laden breakfast tray.” I could swear I’ve read a similar thought elsewhere, but I can’t think where. It sounds rather Bertie Woosterish or possibly from Dorothy Sayers.
Also loved the line “Starting to feel that he was missing something, Harry . . .” How generally apt!
Finally, how does Hermione have eleven OWLs? I count only ten: Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, DADA, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, Transfiguration, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy [i.e., take the nine on Harry’s list, subtract divination, which makes eight, and add arithmancy and ancient runes, which makes ten. She dropped Divination and Muggle Studies during or at the end of third year. So what am I missing?
Note Ron and Harry each get the most magically powerful number of OWLs!
No one had posted yet when I started writing my long comment, so I wasn’t reacting to any of the other comments.
Red Rocker, I totally agree with you about the prophecy coming true despite what Dumbledore says about choice. And Trelawney’s prophecy about Wormtail and Voldemort at the end of POA also comes true even though Harry ignores it. I don’t completely agree about the HBP’s potions book. It has both a good side and a bad side. The potions directions and most of the hexes are very clever and useful and the comment about the bezoar saves Ron’s life. It provides a way for Harry in a sense to commune with Snape, which I would think he comes to appreciate later. On the negative side, the book represents Snape’s seduction by the dark side with the increased nastiness of the scribbled spells culminating in the Sectumsempra spell “for enemies” which Snape uses on James. The book also reflects Harry’s negative qualities, like using a spell when he didn’t know what it did (which Hermione had warned him against), lying to Snape, cheating by using better recipes that were not his own invention, and stealing by returning his new book instead of the old.
Schoolmarm, I never noticed hints of Lupin+Tonks in book 5; I’ll have to look for that next time I reread it. I mainly wondered in book 5 what the deal was with Lupin and Molly, but have since come to the conclusion that it was brotherly/sisterly, esp. since Lupin, like Molly’s brothers, is killed by Dolohov.
Ever struck anyone funny that Snape’s Sectumsempra spell on James only slashes his check & he knows what he’s doing & casting while Harry, who has no idea what this spell does other than it’s for enemies, totally incapacitates Draco & darn near kills him? Just a thought; more coherent ones will have to wait until tomorrow.
Red Rocker and Lily Luna: I’m not saying Rowling and Dumbledore were correct in the assertion that the prophecy doesn’t matter. I’m just saying Rowling intended to come down on one side of choice/fate, and she tried to set us up for it with all this emphasis on the inevitability of the prophecy’s fulfillment.
The only evidence Dumbledore really gives that the prophecy doesn’t matter, aside from his assertion that they could both just “walk away” (which is no evidence at all), is that there are lots of unfulfilled prophecies. That’s fair enough, but we’re never given enough information in the books to really make a judgment call ourselves.
Where do prophecies come from? The prophecy in PoA wasn’t heard and acted upon by a free choice – “Trelawney” said it would happen, and it did. I argued in chapter one of my book that despite Rowling’s attempt to come down strongly on one side of the fate/choice debate, the Harry Potter stories revolve around and do not resolve that mystery. Lewis wrote in “On Stories”:
On a completely different note, Red Rocker, my sympathies for your Caps. I watched that game 7 start to finish, and it was painful. I’ve been pulling for the Caps since the start of the playoffs, and that game hurt; I can’t imagine how Caps fans are feeling. (Well, yes I can … 1999 Stanley Cup playoffs, game 6; quite a different game, but Buffalo “losing” a championship to a team from Dallas was a killer. And yes, you’ll notice the scare quotes around “losing.” In my mind, that series never ended).
revgeorge, I agree Snape uses the spell in a very controlled way. Harry waves wildly, which he shoudn’t have been doing anyway – very shoddy wandwork no matter what the spell did. Snape is justly angry at Harry but I think part of his anger is at himself for not warning Harry not to use that spell (or perhaps he forgot it was in there). I also think it must call forth images he’d rather forget from his Death Eater days. I don’t agree with Hermione’s reason for why Snape doesn’t turn Harry in, that he thought Dumbledore wouldn’t like the HBP’s book. I think Snape took a perverse pleasure in seeing Harry learn from him without knowing it.
There’s a certain symmetry in who they each attack. Back in SS when Harry first meets Draco, Draco says imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave. When Snape first meets James, James says imagine being in Slytherin, I think I’d leave. Both Draco and James are bullies who by seventh year lay their bullying aside. And both were in the midst of attacking Harry/Snape when Harry/Snape fight back. There’s also a symmetry between Harry and his mother. Learning that there is dangerous Dark Arts lurking in his beloved book, Harry feels like a favorite pet turned around and bit him and acknowledges he ignored the warning signs of the increasing nastiness of the scribbled spells. Lily is shocked when her best friend calls her a terrible name but acknowledges she has been ignoring the warning signs of Snape’s desire to become a Death Eater, his evil friends, the fact she’s had to defend Snape to her friends for years. Lily turns her back on Snape and Harry turns his back on Snape’s book (he could have gone and retrieved it before leaving at the end of HBP but does not).
Lily Luna’s comments bring up an interesting question.
I had always assumed that the potions book was not much more than a plot device. In many of her earlier stories JKR works two story lines: the foreground story, and the background story. The foreground story keeps the action going, and has its own suspense and denoument. But in some ways its the less important story; the background story is the one that links to the bigger saga of the war against Voldemort. Thus the philosopher’s stone / Quirrell; the basilisk / Tom Riddle; Sirius Black / Pettigrew; triwizard tournament / the resurrection of Voldemort and the Order / the prophecy are the foreground and background stories of the first five books.
In the first five books, the foreground story isn’t completely stand alone; it is strongly linked to the “main” story, and what happens in the foreground has a major effect on what happens in the background. To wit, keeping the philosopher’s stone safe helps keep Voldy from coming back; destroying the basilisk is necesssary in order to destroy the diary – to keep Voldy from coming back; discovering the truth about Sirius Black reveals the truth about Pettigrew – who will be the one to finally bring Voldy back, and so on.
But in HBP, the foreground story – the story of the potions book – seemed to me to have almost no relevance to the background story, which is of course the main story. It was almost like a place holder, something for the kids to discuss and to keep the reader’s attention occupied, while the real business of the story happens in Harry’s “private lessons” with Dumbledore.
But does the story of the potions book have larger meaning or impact for the main story after all? Is it in fact the first (and only?) instance of Harry’s flirtation with the dark side of the Force, as it were? Was JKR thinking of it like that?
I am not convinced that this is the case. Part of the reason is the speed with which Harry renounces the potions book. Another reason is that there really does not appear to be any link between potions class and the rest of the narrative. And last of all, the temptation of the potions book seems to be nothing more than getting good marks without doing your homework. The easy solution. Which might be one of Harry’s weaknesses, but hardly earth shattering, and not of much impact to the final outcome.
Thanks for the words of condolence, Travis The worst part of it is not so much how the fans feel. We did, after all, get the ride of our lives in the first six games. It’s how the players must feel. The sense of frustration, helplessness and shock. I’m hoping no one does anything more reckless than usual over the summer in order to forget that feeling.
A point about Harry’s renunciation of the potions book. After he hides it he still has plans to go back and get it but holds off only because he thinks Snape is still trying to catch him with it (this is the closest Harry gets to flirting with the Dark Side; he thinks he can ignore the nastier spells while still using the good parts of the book, again like Lily thinking she can ignore Snape’s friendship with Avery and Mulciber and enjoy the good side that only she knows). It is only after he learns that the HBP is Snape and that Snape is (so he believes) a completely evil, double-crossing murderer that he is sickened by the thought of how he looked on the Prince as a friend and effectively renounces the book. Of course when we’re reading HBP we don’t yet know anything about Snape and Lily’s history aside from him calling her mudblood. Because of this and because who is the HBP/it’s Snape on its face is a weak story, I, too, thought the HBP was weak on the main plot, stronger on the background plot.
Also, the temptation of the potions book seemed to be more than just getting good marks. He treats it like a dear friend and reads it in bed, the only book he ever reads in bed aside from Flying with the Cannons. (And, digressing, I still roar with laughter every time after Harry wakes Ron up with Levicorpus and Ron says next time he’d prefer if Harry just set the alarm clock.) There is another way, though, in which the book causes Harry to flirt with the dark side, which is the way in which he uses the Prince’s hexes to bully others, like his father does. Specifically, he glues Filch’s tongue to the roof of his mouth making everyone laugh at Filch, and he hexes an unsuspecting Crabbe in the hallway making Crabbe’s toenails grow and probably causing Crabbe a lot of pain and discomfort. Sounds rather like James hexing Aubrey making Aubrey’s head twice normal size, as Harry reads in Filch’s files during his detentions.
Lily Luna, there is actually an interesting story buried in the potions book story. It’s Harry’s relationship with the Half Blood Prince. Up to the point where he realizes the identity of the Prince, he seems to be developing a sympathetic and admiring relationship with him/her. He constructs a mental construct or image of what Prince must be like by attributing qualities to him/her. It’s almost interactive.
What this reminded me of is Ginny’s relationship with Tom Riddle via his diary. But it’s more effective than the Ginny/Riddle story because the Harry/Prince story is told in real time. I’ve wondered if JKR was revisiting an idea she’d had earlier which she hadn’t been able to fully develop.
But although it’s more effective in book 6 than in book 2, the idea is still not developed to its full potential. It’s an afterthought in book 2, and peters out without any strong resolution – or overall impact – in book 6. Which is unfortunate, because it really is an intriguing idea: an object possessing quasi-intelligence or sentience; an object chanelling the intelligence or intent of its maker; an object containing the potential for evil. JKR explores this theme with other objects too – the monstrous book of monsters, the Hopping Pot, and most strikingly, wands.
I do wish that she’d gone further with the relationship between Harry and the Prince’s potion book and given it a resolution. But there was so much else going on, it would have been hard to fit it in. Also, I think, focusing on the relationship between Harry/Prince/Snape would have taken away from the primary focus, which was the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore.
Oh well. Here’s hoping there will be more stories.
Lily Luna, thanks: that was exactly the word I was looking for: friend. Harry treats the potions book like a friend. Which is the real intriguing part, given how the Prince is his mortal enemy, or so he thinks.
Interesting thought, Red Rocker. Obviously the big difference between bk 2 and bk 6 is that Snape does not try to possess or kill Harry as Riddle does Ginny and contains good whereas Riddle does not, but both books do end up destroyed and Snape’s book is linked to the diadem horcrux through the diadem’s use to mark the book’s location, while Riddle’s diary IS a horcrux.
The Prince’s spell book is not a possessed object like a horcrux or Sauron’s ring. The book is an inanimate object. It is not good or bad in itself, but morally neutral, like a gun, or even a bomb. These are mechanisms of power that can be used for good or evil. The person using them may be bad, or use them for a evil purpose, but these objects will sit on a shelf and do nothing for eternity, if they are not used at all. I think confusion over this is one of the one of the great errors of our time. The use of an object that is “evil” in itself or a person does bad because of his “bad” upbringing removes at least some of the responsibility for that person’s actions, and that path is madness. It abrogates free will.
I’m no latin scholar, but I know that sectumsempra means something like “cut/wound always”. Why doesn’t a sixth year Hogwarts student know this? Of course Harry should not of used that curse against Draco, even if he knew what it did.
I’ll stay with my description of Hermione’s hectoring of Harry about the spell book as hysterical, in part because I thought the hectoring was humorous if not hysterically so, and because Hermione, brilliant as she is, still hasn’t figured out a different way to influence Harry. She treats him in this manner many times in books 1-6, and he almost always ignores her, even when she is obviously right. In DH, she tries gentler means, especially after Ron leaves. Smart girl, that Hermione.
Sorry, the feminist objection to using words like hysterical with females bores me a little. I’ve been in the public schools maybe too long and hear these arguments all the time
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Red Rocker, a nice succinct analysis, but I think the point of the Half-Blood Prince plot is the same as it is in all her background plots—- to provide the mystery story of the book.
The mystery in this case is the identity of the book’s eventual villain—- Severus Snape, the Half-Blood Prince. It is easy to forget that we did not always know that Snape was a good guy. Remember, at the time there was considerable argument over whether he was good guy or bad. Perhaps no one here was completely fooled but, at the least, we could not be sure of Snape’s loyalty.
As for Hermione’s 11 OWLs, who said Ron could count?
deacondon, perhaps the reason why you hear the feminist objections about the use of the word “hysterical” to describe any strongly-held and voiced opinion by a woman all the time is because you have failed to understand Santayana’s saying: “Those who can not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
On this subject of the HBP Potions Book, I’m going to take what is probably way too many steps away from canon and consider the possibility of Lily’s influence on that book. We know that Lily stopped speaking to Sev in their 5th year, since he called her Mudblood when they were finishing their OWLs, so I doubt that she had any direct input on Snape’s 6th year book. But Slytherin and Gryffindor had Potions together for Harry’s first 5 years; is it possible that this is a long, upstanding tradition and that Lily and Severus had their classes together, too? Can’t you see the two of them conspiring together over Slughorn’s assignments for all those years? Slughorn gushes over Lily’s potion-making ability, but I don’t remember him saying anything about Snape’s. Maybe Slughorn just didn’t have the opportunity, or perhaps Snape’s ability was heavily nurtured by Lily. Either way, Lily and Severus must have been the queen and king of potions. I’ll bet some of what is in that book was her ideas from previous years.
deacondon mentioned Latin; that just got me to thinking that Latin would have been a very appropriate course for Hogwarts students.
I have always assumed that Lily and Sev were potions partners.
I thought that, too, though the writing in the book seems to be all Snape’s. Harry should have recognized the handwriting since he had seen Snape’s handwriting on his DADA OWL in the pensieve in OOTP (Harry notes that Snape’s handwriting was tiny yet he had written more parchment than anyone around him).
There seems to be a bit of inconsistency – Advanced Potion Making is used in Harry’s sixth year, yet Lily and Snape had split by the end of their fifth (OWL) year and James is using Snape’s hexes in their fifth year (eg levicorpus). Now Snape might have just copied it out into his book the following year, but he wouldn’t have done so with a lot of crossings out as if he were first figuring it out. The only way to reconcile this would be to say that when Lily and Snape were at school, Advanced Potion Making was used in their fifth year class, in which case Lily might well have contributed to it OR Lily might have been leaning on Snape for help.
I think the work in the 6th year was mostly Snape’s. He is very skilled, and was able to put off Dumbledore’s death. Slughorn probably didn’t mention Snape because Lily is warm and friendly (nobody seems to dislike her) and Snape is cold and stand-offish, the victim of bullies, not somebody Slughorn would be interested in collecting.
The prophecy and Harry as the “Chosen One” remind me of the Christian dilemma between accepting God and being called to God. I think this may be what Rowling is after. John Granger refers to Harry as the Christian everyman, and says that DH is about Harry deciding to choose despite not knowing everything. Harry is chosen and chooses. Maybe Rowling is saying they’re not mutually exclusive.
I find it interesting and rather odd that the Potions book contains the scribblings it does: levicorpus and sectumsempra are both hexes, wand spells, having no particular relationship to potion-making. Why didn’t Snape use his Charms or DADA book for making up and/or recording wand spells?
Slughorn’s “She was a dab hand at potions, Lily was!” seems to me a foreshadowing of Lily’s relationship with Severus. I’ve always assumed that Sev was the potions genius and she got her “dab hand” from working closely with him. Perhaps I may be wrong. It’s interesting to consider the other possibilities.
Maybe; I wondered about that, too, but they would not have been working together sixth or seventh year and Slughorn would not have admired her work if she fell apart at Newt level. More likely they were both very good at potions and at magic generally. After all, that is one of the things that drew Snape to her; he could see that she had “loads of magic.”
I hadn’t thought about Lily learning from Snape; I think I assumed that they were both quite good. But two good brains tend to rub off on each other positively, making both great. That would actually be pretty funny if Lily got it all from Snape and Snape had to spend years listening to how great Lily was from Slughorn. I bet Snape wouldn’t have minded, though, since it was Lily.
My guess is that by the time Snape was writing up the Potions Book, he and Lily were no longer on speaking terms. But if Snape learned anything at all from years of working with Lily, the consequences of that time would probably manifest themselves in that book. Snape’s knowledge of the general principles of potion making would be better developed because of that relationship, and he might have picked up tricks such as the sprig of mint thing from her. As a result of that knowledge, he would have a better foundation from which to experiment on new potions.
The Great Falling Out occurred at the end of Snape and Lily’s fifth year, and I would guess that at the beginning of their sixth year Snape might have still been trying to impress her or make things up to her. The work that we see in the beginning of the potions book would have been geared toward Lily-appeasement, but later he would have let go of his hopes, and the stuff he came up with might be more sinister, like sectumsempra.
I doubt that Snape invented levicorpus, since we see it in Snape’s fifth year and Lupin said it was a spell that was in fashion at the time. We don’t hear James say the incantation in Book 5; perhaps he used it silently and it took a while for Snape to figure out what was being used on him.
Ugh, sorry, that’s quite a bit of speculation.
miles365, I really like your comments on choosing and being chosen. Cool thought.
But when Harry tries to use levicorpus (nonverbally) on Snape at the end of HBP, Snape screams no, blasts Harry backwards, then rants at him “You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them – I, the Half-Blood Prince! And you’d turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, …” This plainly states that spell was Snape’s invention and James somehow stole it. Also bear in mind Snape uses sectumsempra on James in that post-OWL scene by the lake, so he had already invented it by then. I suspect that Rowling got confused about the years (fifth versus sixth) when she was writing these books, but if we need to make everything consistent, then we would have to say that either 1) the Advanced Potion Making book was taught a class below, in fifth year, when Snape and Lily were at school OR 2) Snape bought a Newt level book during his fifth year so he could work ahead and all his annotations were made on his own during fifth year. I’d vote for Explanation #2.
This also makes the timeline of the increasing nastiness of the spells parallel to his hanging out with Avery and Mulciber, Sirius sending him into the tunnel under the whomping willow, and Lily lecturing him about his pals.
By the way, and I know this is off topic, but the first several times I read the series, I assumed that Sirius deliberately sent Snape into harm’s way and James really did save Snape’s life. Then I started to wonder. I don’t think Snape’s take that James was in on it and went after him at the last minute to save Sirius and himself from trouble is exactly right, but I do wonder whether Sirius and James planned it out that Sirius would tell Snape how to get into the tunnel and then James would pull him out before Snape got in any real danger, the purpose being to give Snape a scare. This would make Sirius less culpable in that he wasn’t trying to get Snape killed. It would also make the prank more marauder-like and less evil than I had assumed. But it would make Snape correct that James wasn’t some hero. And it was a mean prank, but then I’m not very fond of pranks played on people who haven’t indicated an enjoyment of pranks.
Lily Luna, in reference to your Explanation #2: Wasn’t the book about fifty years old? in which case it might have been a hand-me-down from Eileen Prince to her son. They clearly weren’t the wealthy sort. Snape being especially good at potion-making, he might have chosen to work ahead, just as you say. Perhaps he might have even been let into an advanced-level class.
You’re right, Library Lily. I was forgetting that the book was a hand me down from his mum, not purchased. No one seems to take classes ahead of their year at Hogwarts, but I can definitely see him working ahead if he had his mum’s book. I also find support for this theory in the fact that, as Sirius tells us in OOTP, Snape arrived at Hogwarts knowing more curses than the sixth years, so he was either self-taught, or tutored by his mum. Given his aura of neglect, I’m inclined to go with self-taught. In Spinner’s End it says the sitting room was lined with books; his mum may have had a large collection that he read on his own and learned from.
Well reasoned, both of you Lilies. I totally forgot Snape yelled that he invented those spells! There goes that idea! Shucks, I liked it, too. It does mess up the time line a bit, but I like the idea that he had the book ahead of time and started playing with it. I can see him wanting to get ahead of things a bit and bringing his mom’s book with him to Hogwarts a year early.
I like the generally light tone of this chapter, despite the dark things happening in the outside world. It feels a lot like his stay with the Weasleys in Chamber of Secrets, such a welcome change from the Dursleys. This time around, the novelty has been replaced with familiarity; this place really does feel like home, and by this point he is intimately acquainted with all of the Weasleys, or certainly the ones at home. It’s also nice to see how Hermione has become part of the family – and the reactions she and Ginny have to Fleur are good indications of their feelings toward Ron and Harry, who so frustratingly fail to react to them with the same sort of dazzlement that Fleur inspires. And Fleur’s comment about Fred and George being very amusing cracks me up every time…
I was seeing my brother off at the airport a few months ago, and watching the planes take off, which made me think of Arthur’s “greatest ambition”. When I mentioned it, my brother shot me an incredulous look and made a comment about wizards’ lack of scientific knowledge. It’s kind of interesting, though, isn’t it? I mean, surely Arthur could go look up the answer to his question in a book somewhere, or put Hermione on the case. I guess it kinda ties in with Arthur C. Clarke’s comment about sufficiently advanced technology being like magic; to us, what the wizards do is magic, while all of our technical innovations are like magic to them, and they’re too preoccupied with the workings of their own world to delve too deeply into the discoveries of Muggle science.
Thinking about the Prince’s book, I think it’s interesting how Harry uses the book as a shortcut throughout his sixth year, much to Hermione’s disapproval, while in the seventh book, Dumbledore leaves Hermione The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in ancient runes, with no commentary, precisely because he wants her to take a long time to work things out for herself.
Erin, excellent observations about Arthur and the plane! I wrote about this in chapter 1 of my book. Chesterton wrote that fairy tales teach us that the world is a wild and startling place. We grow up with magic, and we take more delight in the world, because we learn at an early age that our own world is full of magic, etc.
Arthur is sort of a picture of that in reverse. It’s the Muggles’ version of “magic” that fascinates him and maintains a feeling of wonder about the world.
Neil Gaiman has a very interesting story that explores this idea. It’s called “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire.” I’m not going to ruin it for you by spoiling the ending, but I recommend you find it and read it!
Thanks, Travis! I really do love Arthur, and he serves as a great reminder that this world of ours that can seem so humdrum really is a remarkable place. Thanks for the story recommendation – that title is quite a mouthful! I’ve never read Gaiman, and I feel like that’s a major oversight on my part…
Ha, finally a thread where my science-oriented education is useful! If Arthur had consulted Muggle sources, he would probably have found inaccurate explanations of lift. This article would give him an idea of the real complexity of the matter — and, well, just note the concluding word!
So, if both levicorpus and sectumsempra are Snape’s inventions, is Lupin deliberately lying to Harry when he says that levicorpus was simply in fashion at the time? Trying to console Harry that James really wasn’t as bad as Snape’s memory portrays?
I’m guessing that Lupin didn’t know where it came from. James might have taken the book from Snape in a moment of bullying, flipped it open and seen it, and tried it out himself. Or Snape might have shown it to Lily or told her about it and James overheard them. He might then have used it without telling Lupin where he got it. Or a Slytherin or someone else knew about it starting using it and bragging about it, and then word got around.