Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Chapter 13: The Secret Riddle

• Something that I noticed during this chapter is that Dumbledore, after he had shown Harry another memory, interprets the scene for him. Therefore Rowling interprets the scene through the character of Dumbledore for her audience. This isn’t the first time. Especially Hermione (but also Dumbledore) functions often as an Exposition character, someone who gives Harry vital information about the Wizarding World, as well as interpreting certain situations for Harry, for example Cho’s emotional state on their horrible first date. In this case Dumbledore (therefore Rowling) wanted to make sure Harry (therefore the audience) pays attention to the right details when it comes to Voldemort. I’m usually not a huge fan of a writer trying to explain their story to me, but in this case it makes sense within the story.

• “She appears to have brushed the necklace with the smallest possible amount of skin: there was a tiny hole in her glove. Had she put it on, had she even held it in her ungloved hand, she would have died, perhaps instantly.” – I wonder what kind of curse Katie almost fell victim to. Touching the necklace would have killed her immediately, but in her case even the smallest amount of skin caused severe damage. How exactly would the curse have killed her? What is it that happened to her?

• “‘He only gave her ten Galleons?’ said Harry indignantly.” – Well, she could have bought a Hogwarts textbook from it. And maybe like one butterbeer.

• “‘Ah,’ said Dumbledore, ‘perhaps she could. But it is my belief – I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right – that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think that she wanted to be a witch any longer. Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; […].’” – I think for Merope magic has never been a good thing. Her father and her brother used magic against her, to oppress her, to the point where she was emotionally unstable enough not to perform any magic herself. She then eventually used magic to get Tom Riddle to fall in love with her, but the moment she stopped he left her, perhaps making her believe it was her being a witch that made him go. Being a witch has never been a positive experience for her, so the great irony is that the descendant of Salazar Slytherin, the mother of Lord Voldemort, no longer wanted to be a witch.

• “‘Could you possibly be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort?’ ‘No,’ said Harry quickly, ‘but she had a choice, didn’t she, not like my mother –’ ‘Your mother had a choice, too,’ said Dumbledore gently. ‘Yes, Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry.’” – Lily died for her son, died to protect him, chose death to save him. Merope chose death despite her son needing her; it would have been brave for her to choose life instead. Both Harry and Voldemort grew up as orphans, but the reasons why they had no parents taking care for them couldn’t have been more different. The one whose parents died for love became a good man, the one whose parents abandoned him became a monster.

• “‘You mean he’s won a scholarship? How can he have done? He’s never been entered for one.’ ‘Well, his name has been down for our school since birth –’ ‘Who registered him? His parents?’ There was no doubt that Mrs Cole was an inconveniently sharp woman.” – Look, Mrs Cole might think that Tom is a bit strange and she is relieved that he will leave her orphanage, but still when a complete stranger appears to take away one of her children she asks the right questions.

• “‘Here,’ said Dumbledore, waving his wand once as he passed her the piece of paper, ‘I think this will make everything clear.’ Mrs Cole’s eyes slid out of focus and back again as she gazed intently at the blank paper for a moment. ‘That seems perfectly in order,’ she said placidly, handing it back.” – Obviously this is the same magic paper the Doctor uses. #confirmed

• “‘Well, we named him just as she’d said, it seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor Marvolo nor any kind of Riddle ever came looking for him, nor any family at all, so he stayed in the orphanage and he’s been here ever since.’” – We later find out that little Tom Riddle isn’t very fond of his name, and that is even before he found out that his father was a Muggle. The name ‘Tom’ is too common, not special, not the way Tom sees himself (he doesn’t even like that he shares his names with others). But it is so interesting that this is the name Merope chose for her son – the name of his Muggle dad. Merope, who no longer used magic, who no longer wanted to be a witch, gave her son a name that would leave no trace of his heritage. The only indicator to his Wizard ancestors is his middle name, Marvolo, so despite his abuse it is possible Merope still loved her father. Perhaps she had also given her son a Muggle name so that neither her father or her brother would find her son.

• It is clear from what Mrs Cole tells Dumbledore about Tom that he is a psychopath. He doesn’t have any friends, he lies, he manipulates, he scares the other children. And there isn’t a defining incident that changed his personality, he has always been like this. Rowling avoids the stereotype to portray the orphanage as a horrible place – Harry mentions that the children look well-cared. From what we learn about Mrs Cole she has a genuine interest in the well-being of her children (and a little drinking problem). Her interest in getting rid of Riddle is more for the sake of the other children, who are afraid of him. There is no indication that Mrs Cole or anyone else at the orphanage has acted abusive, so in many ways Tom had a better childhood than Harry or Snape. The fact that Tom was a product of rape, that both his parents abandoned him, can be seen as a metaphor, that the loveless circumstances of his birth created a man who was never able to understand love himself. But little Tom Riddle doesn’t know this yet. It is no excuse for the frightening behaviour he already shows. And perhaps that is why he could never redeem himself in the end, because he has always been a monster.

• “‘I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.’” – You remember the kind of accidental magic Harry produced as a child? Like making his hair grow back or magically escaping his bullies at school? None of those have the quality of “I can make them hurt if I want to”. Like if a child ever says something like that to you, congratulation, you found yourself in a horror movie. And he shows not a single bit of remorse about it. He is just fascinated by the kind of power he has over other people.

• “‘I knew I was different,’ he whispered to his own quivering fingers. ‘I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something.’” – And as Harry later remarks Tom’s reaction is quite different to his. He immediately believed Dumbledore when he learned that he was a wizard, because he already thought of himself to be special. To be different. Extraordinary. And even now, when he doesn’t know about Purebloods and the like, little Tom already has this mind-set that he is better, above all others, Muggles and Wizards alike.

• “‘I haven’t got any money.’ ‘That is easily remedied,’ said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket. ‘There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes.” – How come the Weasleys never got any money from that fund? At least it is never mentioned. Does this fund only work for special cases like Riddle, who has no money of his own? Does it also apply to families with a low-income? Did the Weasleys simply refuse, too proud to take any money? Or does this fund no longer exist? (Though I doubt that Dumbledore as a headmaster would get rid of it)

• “‘Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they’ve told me.’ ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ said Dumbledore, his voice gentle. ‘My mother can’t have been magic, or she wouldn’t have died,’ said Riddle, more to himself than Dumbledore. ‘It must’ve been him.” – Already Tom associates Muggles with weakness and magic with power. He doesn’t believe his mother could have been a witch or else she wouldn’t have died. At some point he found out the truth however – that his father was a Muggle, that his mother was a witch, descendant from Slytherin, who still died after all, refusing to use magic to save her own life. Maybe that is where Voldemort’s fascination with immortality comes from – the belief that magic equals power, that used in the right way you can even avoid death, failing to see, as Dumbledore told him, that there are worse things than death.

• “‘Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?’ said Dumbledore. ‘No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his.” – Even then Dumbledore saw that Tom was a psychopath, someone who could appear charming on the surface, but with no empathy for others, who already used magic as a weapon. I think that over the years Riddle perfected his mask of the incredible gifted young charming man, to avoid to draw any attention to his true nature. Dumbledore had seen glimpses of that true nature upon their first meeting, which is why he never trusted Tom completely.

• “You will hear many of his Death Eaters claiming that they are in his confidence, that they alone are close to him, even understand him. They are deluded. Lord Voldemort has never had a friend, nor do I believe that he has ever wanted one.” – This perfectly corresponds with the second chapter, with Bellatrix’s firm belief that she is the closet to the Dark Lord and her anger when she learned that Voldemort confided in Snape as well. It is a part of Voldemort’s manipulative scheme, to let his followers believe they alone are his secret keepers, so therefore none of them will bond too much with the others. They all follow him, but as a group there are not united. Every single one of them is only interested what is best for them, not the collective.

• “‘And lastly – I hope you are not too sleepy to pay attention to this, Harry – the young Tom Riddle liked to collect trophies. You saw the box of stolen articles he had hidden in his room. These were taken from victims of his bullying behaviour, souvenirs, if you will, of particularly unpleasant bits of magic. Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later.” – Obviously this will later make sense in reference to the Horcruxes, and the value Voldemort puts in certain artefacts, especially those that contain a certain history. But these little souvenirs he has here remind me of a psychopath who keeps souvenirs from his murders. And that is what his first Horcrux is after all – the diary only has personal value, as it is an evidence for the first murder Voldemort ever committed.