Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Chapter 29: The Phoenix Lament

• “And a Death Eater’s dead, he got hit by a Killing Curse the huge blond one was firing off everywhere – Harry, if we hadn’t had your Felix potion, I think we’d all have been killed, but everything seemed to just miss us –’”- We know using Felix Felicis is illegal if you enter a competition and that you should not use it too often, but this made me wonder if it wouldn’t be useful for Aurors to use the potion if they are facing particular dangerous situations? But also, what if the other side would have used Felix Felicis as well? Luck is not biased, it can not decide between good or bad. If the Death Eaters had used the potion the luck would have been on their side. Given that the potion helped Ginny and the others staying alive shows how powerful it really is, so perhaps it should be banned completely, because it can be abused as well.

• “‘I’d love to know what Snape told him to convince him,’ said Tonks. ‘I know,’ said Harry, and they all turned to stare at him. ‘Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn’t realised what he was doing, he was really sorry he’d done it, sorry that they were dead.’ ‘And Dumbledore believed that?’ said Lupin incredulously. ‘Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James …’ ‘And he didn’t think my mother was worth a damn, either,’ said Harry, ‘because she was Muggle-born … “Mudblood”, he called her …’” – And this shows how dangerous it can be if you only know half the truth. Even Lupin, who knows that Lily and Snape had been friends as children, doubts Snape’s motive. The only encounter between his mother and Snape Harry is aware of is the memory of him calling her ‘Mudblood’. He doesn’t know their history and the circumstances, but it fits into everything else Harry knows about Snape: that as a Death Eater he would obviously despise Muggleborn witches and wizards. To Lupin the situation reads the same; we later learn that Lily broke off her friendship with Snape after this incident and perhaps even she was not aware of the fact that Snape never stopped loving her. The only people who did know were Dumbledore and Voldemort, though the later never understood love and the things people are willing to risk for it. Dumbledore took Snape’s secret to the grave and Harry only knows half of the story, leaving out the important bit, the real reason why Dumbledore had trusted Snape.

• “As Professor McGonagall nodded, Harry felt Ginny move beside him and looked at her. Her slightly narrowed eyes were fixed upon Fleur, who was gazing down at Bill with a frozen expression on her face. […]‘You thought I would not weesh to marry him? Or per’aps, you ’oped?’ said Fleur, her nostrils flaring. ‘What do I care how ’e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave! And I shall do zat!’ she added fiercely, pushing Mrs Weasley aside and snatching the ointment from her.” – Both Ginny and Mrs Weasley suspect that now that Bill is injured, that he is no longer as handsome as he used to be and there might be some other after-effects of the wolf-bite, Fleur is no longer interested in him and will leave him. And of course Fleur’s initial reaction is shock. But it turns out she is less superficial than they thought. Yes, Bill is/was handsome and of course there was a physical attraction between them, but it does not mean they don’t love each other genuinely. Fleur could possibly have any man she wants, so there must be something about Bill that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, something that goes deeper than attraction. For better or for worse indeed.

• “And the meaning of Tonks’s Patronus and her mouse-coloured hair, and the reason she had come running to find Dumbledore when she had heard a rumour someone had been attacked by Greyback, all suddenly became clear to Harry; it had not been Sirius that Tonks had fallen in love with after all …” – I still think it is quite interesting how Tonks’s heartbreak manifests. It is so profound that Harry mistook it for grief. It changed Tonks’s hair, so that it took the same colour as Lupin’s, her Patronus changed into a wolf, in a way she became Lupin, who had always been on her mind.

• “‘I am not being ridiculous,’ said Lupin steadily. ‘Tonks deserves somebody young and whole.’ ‘But she wants you,’ said Mr Weasley, with a small smile. ‘And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so.’ He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them.” – There is something so genuine about both Fleur and Tonks expressing their love, showing that it is the person you fall in love with, not the body.

• “And a new portrait had joined the ranks of the dead headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts … Dumbledore was slumbering in a golden frame over the desk, his half-moon spectacles perched upon his crooked nose, looking peaceful and untroubled.” – Does that happen automatically the moment a headmaster dies? I mean doesn’t anybody have to paint the picture first? Or maybe they do this beforehand and the portrait only becomes alive when the subject of it dies? Like it feels weird that on the one hand Dumbledore is gone and yet he is still in a way here, like Harry could wait for him to wake up and ask him for advice, no biggie.

• “‘Harry,’ she said, ‘I would like to know what you and Professor Dumbledore were doing this evening when you left the school.’ ‘I can’t tell you that, Professor,’ said Harry. He had expected the question and had his answer ready. It had been here, in this very room, that Dumbledore had told him that he was to confide the contents of their lessons to nobody but Ron and Hermione.” – I think I wondered briefly why Dumbledore would be that secretively, that perhaps it would be better to find the remaining Horcruxes if for example Aurors would look for them, not three teenagers, who are not even fully educated yet. But I think the reason is that the less people are involved the less likely is the chance Voldemort knows what they are up to. Voldemort of course infiltrates the Ministry and perhaps he even had spies at the Order (apart from Snape). And obviously Harry and his friends are the last people Voldemort would suspect to have find out about his secret and who are off to destroy him. Vanity has always been one of his weaknesses.

• “‘I want to talk about what happens to Hogwarts before he gets here,’ she said quickly. ‘Personally, I am not convinced that the school should reopen next year. The death of the Headmaster at the hands of one of our colleagues is a terrible stain upon Hogwarts’ history. It is horrible.’” – We know that Hogwarts will reopen, though with a few changes. But if it hadn’t what would have happened to all the students? Would they have gone to a different school? Stayed at home? Hogwarts had always been a safe harbour, especially now that the Wizarding World is at war, but that promise of safety has always been linked to Dumbledore. And it is not just his death, but also the circumstances. That it was possible for Death Eaters to get in the school, that one of the teachers is seemingly one of them and then killed the headmaster, at school. The school has become a place of terror, it is no longer a home.

• “And he knew, without knowing how he knew it, that the phoenix had gone, had left Hogwarts for good, just as Dumbledore had left the school, had left the world … had left Harry.” – Book 7 is so different in so many ways, because the death of Dumbledore really means the end of an era in every way. Hogwarts is no longer the place Harry can call home. He will never return, at least not as a student, because to him there can be no Hogwarts without Dumbledore. Dumbledore has always been the one to look up to, the one to ask for help, the one with all the answers. After Sirius Dumbledore was the last parental figure Harry had. With his death, with leaving Hogwarts, the last parts of Harry’s childhood are over. Symbolically he becomes of age at the start of book 7; he is legally and emotionally an adult now. No one to protect him, to guide him. He is his own man now.