Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Chapter 22: After the Burial

• It is a bit irresponsible from Hagrid to ask Harry, Ron and Hermione to attend Aragog’s funeral, knowing they are not supposed to leave the school after dark, and for good reasons, simply because he can’t face the funeral alone. We know Dumbledore is not around (he returns in the middle of the night, about the time Harry gets the memory), and it is possible nobody else knows about Aragog, but still. Don’t put children at risk for something like this.

• “Harry stared at them both. ‘Felix Felicis?’ he said. ‘I dunno … I was sort of saving it …’ ‘What for?’ demanded Ron incredulously. ‘What on earth is more important than this memory, Harry?’ asked Hermione. Harry did not answer. The thought of that little golden bottle had hovered on the edges of his imagination for some time; vague and unformulated plans that involved Ginny splitting up with Dean, and Ron somehow being happy to see her with a new boyfriend, had been fermenting in the depths of his brain, unacknowledged except during dreams or the twilight time between sleeping and waking …” – And here I thought he might be saving it for his battle against Voldemort (which he knows will come one day eventually), but no. He saved it so he might has a shot at Ginny. Ironically though the potion does help him on the matter, as the event of the evening will lead to Ginny splitting up with Dean.

• “‘He died?’ repeated Harry, shocked. ‘But surely werewolves don’t kill, they just turn you into one of them?’ ‘They sometimes kill,’ said Ron, who looked unusually grave now. ‘I’ve heard of it happening when the werewolf gets carried away.’” – Is this the rumour Tonks heard about? Was she worried Lupin was involved in it, that he had no control over himself or perhaps was forced to kill someone? And even if she knew it was Greyback who had killed the boy she knew how much it would upset Lupin.

• “Was it his imagination, or did Malfoy, like Tonks, look thinner? Certainly he looked paler; his skin still had that greyish tinge, probably because he so rarely saw daylight these days. But there was no air of smugness, or excitement, or superiority; none of the swagger that he had had on the Hogwarts Express, when he had boasted openly of the mission he had been given by Voldemort … there could be only one conclusion, in Harry’s opinion: the mission, whatever it was, was going badly.” – What irritates me is that despite Harry noticing how bad Malfoy looks he never pities him in any way. He knows or rather suspects Draco is up to something bad but never wonders why, or if he could be forced to do it. It is obvious that Draco is under much pressure. And yes he is not a good person, but still, Harry only starts to see him in a different light when it is too late to help him. Harry still categorizes people to be bad or good, with nothing in between, unlike Dumbledore, who saw the good in Snape, who will offer Draco help.

• I think it is really interesting to see how Felix Felicis works. Harry acts on instinct rather than rational thought. He visits Hagrid based on the feeling that this is the place to be, without being able to explain why. It seems like the circumstances just mold perfectly around him, little coincidences that we would otherwise call lucky. And I guess all the things that happen that evening would have happen sooner or later anyway – Harry getting the memory, Ron and Lavender as well as Ginny and Dean splitting up etc, but the potion created the right circumstances for it.

• “Why he knew that going to Hagrid’s was the right thing to do, he had no idea. It was as though the potion was illuminating a few steps of the path at a time: he could not see the final destination, he could not see where Slughorn came in, but he knew that he was going the right way to get that memory.” – This might also work as a metaphor for life in general – you can’t always plan everything, especially not your entire life, just the things right in front of you and sometimes you have to trust that things will turn out for the better in the end.

• Also, from a storytelling point of view the Felix Felicis potion works a bit like the Room of Requirement, that is as a Deus Ex Machina. A room that becomes whatever you need it to be, and a potion that instinctively tells you what to do. We do not question it, because it is magic, but you could criticize it as a rather lazy way of writing and getting your plot into the right direction.

• It does not make Slughorn any more sympathetic that he only shows interest in Hagrid once he knows that Hagrid can get him valuable things (Acromantula-venom, Unicorn-hair etc). And again he brings alcohol, offering it to Harry, who is still underage.

• “‘Where are we burying him?’ he asked. ‘The Forest?’ ‘Blimey, no,’ said Hagrid, wiping his streaming eyes on the bottom of his shirt. ‘The other spiders won’ let me anywhere near their webs now Aragog’s gone. Turns out it was on’y on his orders they didn’ eat me! Can yeh believe that, Harry?’” – Oh Hagrid. He is still a bit naïve when it comes to creatures, always believing them to be misunderstood, underestimating their dangers, for himself and others.

• The way to get Slughorn’s memory is to make him feel incredibly guilty (‘She gave me her life, but you won’t give me a memory’) and then offer him a chance to redeem himself (‘You’d cancel out anything you did by giving me the memory. […] It would be a very brave and noble thing to do’). Which is a very manipulative and Slytherin thing to do, just saying.