HBP Chapter Ten

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*Uh-oh. Settle in for the premiere episode of The Days of Our Dark Lord’s Lives.

*Ron can’t use the HBP book with Harry because he’d have to get Harry to keep reading out the instructions to him and that would look suspicious. Err…yeah, that’s it. Because it’s not like Harry could write stuff like “stir 7 times clockwise, once counter-clockwise” without being noticed. Or use magic to a) make the handwriting legible (you know that spell must exist) or b) copy the words from the book to Ron’s book in different handwriting (you know that spell exists too). Making Harry appear to be a gifted student requires a Trio team effort.

*ETA: I kind of liked the theory that the book was spelled so that it couldn't be read by anyone "but Lily's eyes" if only because the idea that the handwriting is so bad that Ron can't read this stuff at all is ridiculous.

*As much as I know Hermione’s own refusal to read the book is just a convenient way of getting on with it, I can actually buy that she’s somehow getting something out of proving she can make a better Potion with worse instructions, like that’s part of the challenge. Granted this theory falls down when Hermione’s never shown to even be tempted by the Prince’s notes, even after she can't do it.

*ETA: Seriously, this is the sort of thing that should have set Hermione off researching this HBP to find out who he was, as well as researching why his instructions work better. It's not like Hermione had a problem either doing non-Ministry stuff or doing magic outside of her grade level last year.

*ETA: Or, you know, trying out extreme memory charms on her parents with no supervision. I doubt a counterclockwise stir is going to cause as much damage as that.

*If the Ravenclaws or Slytherins caught wind of these instructions they’d every one of them have those notes copied into their own book by the end of the week and then pass them down to their housemates. But really, power like this ought to be kept in the hands of the kind of people born to hold the power. Fate will tell you which people those are.

*Right on schedule, after a few weeks of consistent, good, loyal service from the Prince Harry begins to vaguely wonder if this kid has a name.

*Trelawney wanders by a hidden Harry with her fortune telling cards—I forgot this moment was so early in the book. We get an ill omen and violence, and a dark young man who dislikes the questioner. Now that I see this scene in context again the dark young man is totally and completely Harry. (And I think the theories that he’s Snape are really pushing it no matter how young Snape is compared to Dumbledore or Trelawney.)

*ETA: The dark young man dislikes the questioner, but the questioner doesn't dislike him back unless it's because she's jealous.

*Trelawney reeks of cooking sherry by the way. She’s drunk! It’s funny!

*One can’t really blame her for drinking, though. We get this constant stream of information telling us she and the whole idea of prophesizing is a fraud, yet this year she seems completely plugged into the future, enough so that the cards practically point at Harry next to her. Is it just that it’s Harry, and thus the whole universe is constantly buzzing about him?

*Dumbledore jokes about Harry getting detention. Harry almost approaches something like regret, but then sees Dumbledore isn’t stern at all, because he’s actually, as usual, using the detention to make fun of and undermine Snape. That’s how you know Dumbledore is a manipulative bastard who plays Harry like a fiddle cool grown-up who’s down with the kids!

*ETA: Wow. Dumbledore surpassed even my expectations in that regard.

*Dumbledore takes Harry’s hand, they lift their robes and skip from the firm foundation of fact into the murky marshes of memory with that flighty temptress, alliteration, sprinkling fairy dust in their wake.

*ETA: Did you hear that Dumbledore is gay in a totally non-sexual way, btw?

*Actually, given that the Pensieve actually shows us what happened they are really going from the firm foundation of fact to the firm foundation of flashback, but whatever.

*Dumbledore speaks of the prophecy as casually as if Harry had asked him about the next day’s weather and not, you know, the most important thing in the history of the world ever because it’s about Harry Potter!

*ETA: Man, it's amazing to think, looking back, just how much Dumbledore used that prophecy as an excuse for randomly manipulating everybody into a plan that totally should have lost the war for them.

*Strangely, at this point I suddenly wonder if it will occur to Harry, now that he’s with the Headmaster, to let him know that the entire sixth year Potions textbook that his students are learning from is full of wrong instructions. But why would that be relevant to Dumbledore? Or Harry?

*Harry’s a little worried about the Pensieve. The last time he looked into one he saw something he didn’t like. Damn that Snape, leaving out his humiliating memories for Harry to stick his nose into!

*DD jokes about Harry actually entering the Pensieve with permission for once. He may be referring to Harry’s first accidental dip in GoF, but knowing DD it’s easy to think he’s joking about that funny time when Harry totally humiliated Snape. How many chapters till that Avada Kedavra?

*ETA: It's not like Dumbledore will have any memories to share with Harry. No, next year we'll have to move from Days of Our Dark Lord to a serialized novel about Dumbledore that repeats everything 8 times.

*ETA: Ironically, Dumbledore's life will have about as much to do with the plot as these Pensieve trips which is...very little. They're related in a small way, but all the details we get are tangential. It actually doesn't matter how Voldemort got these objects. What matters is that he's got them, and probably the Order should already be out hunting them down.

*Dumbledore again puts off telling the story of his shriveled hand, which we never really get in full. “The ring did it,” doesn’t count.

*ETA: Oh god, did I accidentally wish for all that repetitious backstory in DH by wondering about the ring? I'm sorry!

*Remind me to post my evidence that Little Hangleton is really Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which I believe is in Wales.

*Ogden is wearing the mis-matched clothes so often worn by wizards when Rowling remembers they’re not supposed to be able to figure out Muggle clothes wizards who try to blend in with Muggles.

*If you thought Bob Ogden lucked out on being a minor adult character in the WW by getting a dignified name, he’s also got Mr. Magoo glasses and is wearing a bathing suit and a frock coat. It’s like he’s paying with his appearance for not being named Nickleby Skittlepuss.

*Harry sees a handsome manor house—uh-oh, there must be evil afoot. (Sorry I’ve been trapped in a lot of “How evil Tom Riddle the Muggle misused the crazy witch who held his captive by being rich—just like Lucius Malfoy!” arguments lately.)

*ETA: Some manor house. No peacocks.

*Harry wonders himself why Ogden appears to be approaching the village from such a distance. Harry asking a question a logical reader is also asking is like having your dog suddenly sit up and talk.

*Harry and Dumbledore follow the dueling banjo music to the House of Gaunt, which looks a lot like the House of Black in that it’s rotting from the inside out. Get it? As opposed to the lively chaos of the Weasleys, brimming with life. How long do we give the Purebloods until they die out? ETA: Slytherin's already diluted by the epilogue, thank goodness.

*There is a dead snake on the door, proving the Gaunts haven’t completely let the place go.

*Morphin Gaunt makes his appearance by jumping out of a tree. (Women who are pregnant or nursing should not take Morphin. Ask your doctor of Morphin is right for you.) Sorry, that’s totally mike_smith’s joke but it’s true, Morphin does sound like some kind of prescription medication.)

*The narrator helpfully explains that while one might think his multiple birth defects would be comical, they actually aren’t. Thanks, narrator. I’ll save my jokes for the boy with spina bifida down the road.

*ETA: There's something ironic the way that incest and inbreeding are so at the center of evil in the books, yet in the end the final pairings are just as incestuous. Not literally, so they don't have to worry about that. There's the healthy mix of Veela, Muggle, wizard and werewolf blood. But the idea is really still the same: you have a small group of people and they all intermarry each other. The happy ending makes the Trio's kids all cousins, and Uncle Remus's son is well on his way to marrying one of their cousins etc.

*Fandom has had lots of discussions on whether Dumbledore is a Parseltongue due to this scene, but I think his “Harry, you understand him, I’m sure?” seems to indicate Dumbledore definitely isn’t one and is just validating that Harry understands the actual words in the scene, if he can’t.

*Marvolo looks like an ancient monkey, much like Slytherin. Why do I not imagine Gryffindor heirs in similar circumstances would still look good in a lion-ish way?

*People also want Merope to be the person who does magic late in life under stress but, err, she’s clearly not a Squib. She’s just a screw up—it’s that Neville lack of confidence.

*ETA: LOL! I feel sorry for people who read the series all at one go and can never understand years of tail-chasing over random interview comments like that one. I said somebody was going to do magic later in life? Err...I did? I guess that must have been when I was thinking about that storyline that I cut out. Sorry, did you guys think it was important?

*ETA: Given the lack of interesting things going on in this book I wish it hadn't been dropped. Wait, no, scratch that. If it was included it would be in an extra 50 pages of wheel-spinning.

*You know, after a few pages of the Charming Gaunts I’m beginning to think they may represent the logical, horrible conclusion of Slytherin’s exclusive policies. Any guesses on what the natural conclusion to any of the other founder’s ideas would look like? Just kidding. I know only Slytherins produce this sort of thing. It’s already starting in this generation, after all. Draco Malfoy likes a girl with a pug face while Harry has a far healthier fixation on a girl who looks like his mother.

*Morphin gave a Muggle hives, apparently, which is against the law. I guess because the Muggle wasn't being taught a lesson. And he wasn't pudgy or something and deserved the hives. Or in the middle of exams and needing a distraction from studying.

*The Muggle’s face has been wiped clean, anyway. Which is more than we can say for Marietta. Slytherins can't do anything right.

*Tom Sr. and Cecelia go by proving they’re evil by saying, “What an eyesore, why doesn’t your father have that cleared away?” Though given Cecelia doesn’t know there’s people living in the house, which Harry himself has described as a hovel, I don’t see that what she says is a big deal.

*The real problem is everything in the valley on the other side belonging to Tom’s father. No wonder he doesn’t do the right thing and love poor Merope when the Potion wears off. It’s just because Merope's ugly on the outside, while on the inside she’s a gentle stalker who only wants love. Who does that Muggle think he is, having an equally rich girlfriend?

*Tom Riddle has got to be the unluckiest Muggle in the world. He’s handsome and he lives near the Gaunts. Well, if his family weren’t such jerks as to own half the valley, it wouldn’t have happened.

*And he is handsome, btw. Harry notices that right away. Not as handsome as his son, apparently, but he’s very handsome. Cecelia could have two heads for all we know, but Tom Riddle’s looking good!

*Harry’s Victim Detector goes wild at the sight of Merope. He not only notes that she has a name, he sort of remembers it!!

*ETA: I'm just remembering how Harry never tells anybody any of the stories he learns here in the Pensieve, nor does he ever think of them again himself while trying to find the Horcruxes.

*ETA: No, in order to do that he has to hear EVEN MORE random stories from ghosts and goblins and Voldemort's head.

*Fifteen minutes after this scene Morphin and Marvolo are carted off by the Ministry, both having records of previous Muggle attacks. And what do we learn from this? That the Gaunts were not personal friends of Arthur Weasley.

*ETA: I gotta say, I find it really hard to believe any imprisonments over Muggle attacks--including Dumbledore's father. There's just no way I can imagine this government caring if a Muggle died or was injured. I think Muggle deaths are just something they throw in if they want the person jailed for scaring Wizards.

*Harry amazes Dumbledore again by remembering Marvolo is the middle name of the guy who’s been trying to kill him for years. Well done, Harry!

*Dumbledore explains that lack of sense and a liking for grandeur is what squandered the Gaunt family fortune. So they’re not Weasley poor. They’re the bad kind of poor.

*ETA: I think it's the current economic crisis, but Dumbledore's remark sounds even more assholish to me now.

*Dumbledore explains that once Merope was free of her own tormenters, she was able to start doing some tormenting herself. However, if you squint and stand on your head you can make the moral of the story turn out to be that some men are so shallow that don’t love a girl who isn’t pretty and rich, even when she’s been so kind as to repeatedly drug him and they have nothing in common.

*ETA: Because I totally forgot the Mayella Ewell comment I was planning, little known bit of Wizarding History shows an Atticus Filch, Squib, defending Tom Riddle's abandonment of his child on the grounds that his only crime was feeling sorry for a white woman Pureblood.

*Sir, Harry asks, is it important to know this about Voldemort’s past? Important enough to spend a whole chapter on just this part of it? For the next book Harry, we’ll have to hope that it is. Sir, Harry then asks, isn’t it a big coincidence that while blood doesn’t matter at all, Voldemort somehow wound up just like the grandfather and uncle he never met? Yes, Harry. Just a coincidence.

*Dumbledore says Ron and Hermione have proved themselves trustworthy—to him, of course. I wouldn’t trust Hermione as far as I could throw her, but I'm not Dumbledore. At in Hogwarts the important thing is always your personal loyalty to the Cult of Headmaster.

*Dumbledore warns Harry they shouldn’t tell stuff to anyone else. Harry reminds Dumbledore that the three of them pretty much consider themselves above everyone else in the school and so would hardly be talking to anyone else.

*ETA: Nope, they can't tell anyone else. It's really important that these three bozos be the only person trying to bring down Voldemort at all. No way competent adult Wizards could be trusted to find little artefacts with Dark Magic in them and destroy them. Or anything else, for that matter. If they knew what was going on, they might not follow Dumbledore's stupid plan to the letter.

*ETA: Thought you can't say Dumbledore asks other people to do what he doesn't do himself. He's not telling Harry half of what he needs to know either.

*No, Harry, I won’t tell you about my hand. Aren’t you satisfied with the flashbacks you got? Do you want to be subjected to more back-story? Off to bed with you!





Designated Hero
It doesn’t get more designated or random than Harry being the only person with Super Half-Blood Prince Book Decoding Powers. ETA: Oh wait, yes it does. Harry is also the only person who can do anything at all about Voldemort. He just is.

IITS
Seriously, why is Ron not taking advantage of Harry’s Teacher’s Edition textbook? Oh, iits.

Idiot World
Let’s think about the implications of this Half-Blood Prince storyline. Inheriting a textbook that once belonged to an intelligent teenager who scribbled notes in the margins is enough to get you mistaken for a Potions genius by an expert in the field. And in the 20 years since this teenager figured out that all these recipes are wrong, not a single other person has figured it out or changed the textbook.

Idiot Picture
Meanwhile, our current "genius" kid is not only unable to follow the previous genius’ logic on changing things, but continues to insist that it’s somehow wrong to use instructions that actually work.

Misdirected Answering
The entire Pensieve trip could have been told to us in a few paragraphs. But then we wouldn’t know about Bob Ogden: Magical Law Enforcement Dude!

Nut o’ Fun
Am I the only person who wonders what the last snakey did that made Morphin nail him to the door? I once read a fanfic where Draco had a stuffed snake when he was little called Soothie.

Final score: 7

Slytherin Liquid Count: Pensieve memory water, sherry, love potions.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I had no idea--that is fascinating! It never bothered me that Snape didn't publish his own textbook, actually. I've no idea how these things are done, but just because he had better methods didn't immediately make me think he ought to be trying to get a textbook published. I doubt we were intended to see Snape as humble, but it's probably in character for him to just get on with trying to get the kids to make Potions correctly rather than announcing he knows how to do this better than the book. Maybe once you get to NEWT level and beyond that's standard. It's not that Snape's strange, it's that Slughorn is. Dumbledore hired somebody really really out of touch with moderns Potions making. (Imagine Dumbledore hiring somebody who isn't a particularly good teacher!)

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

I noticed throughout the books, Snape did teach from his notes. I think Red Hen was right in thinking that Snape used his old textbook as his own teaching manual. Harry and Company almost never used their textbook instructions until 6th year in Slughorn's class. Before that Snape wrote all the potion instructions on the blackboard.

Snape was a teacher with a bad attitude but with the exception of Harry, I don't think he wanted his students to fail. Even then, I don't think that could be said of Harry because the chosen one had access to the same blackboard notes as everyone else. He just learned better when he thought he had a secret edge. I'm pretty sure that everything in that scribbled in textbook, in regards to the lessons (not the hexes), was written on Snape's blackboard from years 1 to 5.

Which is why Hermione had such trouble in Slughorn's class. She was coasting on Snape's hard earned knowledge. But unlike Snape who searched for ways to find better methods in potion making as a student, Hermione sat dumb like a rock.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole "is Snape a bad teacher" debate is so subjective, but he always seemed fine to me. I mean, he has glaring problems, but they fit within the types I can imagine for a teacher. He's just the harsh, sarcastic type. At some points in history he would probably not even be considered bad because of that. But leaving aside those things it does seem like he actually does want the kids to learn and succeeds at it.

I don't even think he's supposed to really be that monstrous as far as other kids are concerned. Neville is terrified of him, but Neville is oversensitive to exactly his kind of personality. And Harry, of course, is a special case. Not that that lets Snape off the hook, but he does have a personal problem with Harry.

By Hogwarts' standards he's definitely one of the good ones in that he does actually seem to have knowledge and be passing it on to the kids. Unlike teachers like Hagrid or Trelawney or frankly even Slughorn here, who have an empty space where the teaching part is concerned.

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

Snape must've been the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs favourite teacher

Yes, I can see that too. And I can also envision a very relaxed classroom as well. The Claws and the Puffs certainly got on better than Slyths and Gryffs. Even if Snape wasn't short-tempered the Slyth/Gryff class would have been a load of trouble anyway. In that class Snape had to be the heavy in order to get respect from either side.

But the other class, I can actually see him relax enough to trust the class to work properly on their own. Maybe even discuss further principles with them rather than bark and point to a blackboard.

Darn that Harry filter.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

OMG.

You just gave me a whole new theory about how the book ended up in Harry's hands. Snape kept the book all those years, using his notes to write his instructions on the blackboard. Then, when he left the Potions position to take over D.A.D.A., he left in on the desk in the classroom with a snide little note about how it might help
Slughorn improve his teaching methods.

Slughorn, too lazy to decipher Snape's cramped handwriting, tossed the book into the cupboard, where it lay conveniently at the top of the books to be handed to Harry.

So, when Snape sees Harry with the book in the bathroom (which sounds like a Clue suggestion), he jumps to the conclusion that light-fingered Harry nicked the book, much as he did the lace wings and gillyweed....

It works!

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

So, when Snape sees Harry with the book in the bathroom (which sounds like a Clue suggestion)

Professor Snape in the Conservatory with the rope revolver poison!

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Ack, stupid tags.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Yes, it certainly *does* work! Makes more sense than anything Rowling gave us.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Actually, I suspect that Snape may have had a Beginning and possibly an Intermediate Potions-Making text which were just as full of marginal notes, and those are the notes that he put on the board in the lower years. Slughorn does claim that this years text is more advanced than the ones they've used before.

The only potions text we have ever heard of Snape's Potions class ever requiring at OWL-Level studies was called something like '1000 Magical Draughts and Potions'. Which sounds to me like a general reference work on the subject. Something that the kids would be expected to keep in a general household library afterwards. We don't know whether he would have required a new one at NEWT-Level.

Now the only real question is how Slughorn got hold of the book in order to give it to Harry. Because that is really the weirdest thing about the whole set-up. Snape would have hardly left his own references (not to mention personal property) behind in the classroom. My conspiracy theory that Albus got the book and gave it to Slughorn to give to Harry would make sense if the book had ever served a purpose outside being a disposable plot element just to get them all through this particular year.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to say that the fact that Snape didn't publish his textbooks and a load of other stuff bothered me. I mean, Slytherins are supposed to be ambitious, right? Yet the only outlet for this supposedly defining trait they were allowed in the books was becoming a Dark Lord or subservient thugs of the same. Draco's petty bullying hardly qualified.
So, yes, I'd have expected a Slytherin who has genuine accomplishments to want to get recognition for them. And in fact, I'd expect a lot of of the high-achieving elite of this society to consist of Slytherins. But not JKR, clearly. For her "ambition" was just a code word for all bad qualities, however unrelated. Like cowardice, etc.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I think the answer to why Snape didn't publish is that his life was no longer his own after submitting himself to Dumbledore. His every action after that was directed, by his own guilt and by Dumbledore's manipulations, toward avenging Lily's death. He had no right to a life, and publishing is a part of life. If Lily couldn't live, neither could he. Living also entails growing up. He did his assignments as Dumbledore directed but he was a character in stasis, frozen at young adulthood, basically waiting to die.

This raises the question of why didn't Dumbledore have him publish in order to further enrich the Potter fortune? It would have been just another school assignment for the guy stuck in his teenage years and it would have benefitted Dumbledore's favorite person in the entire world.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's sad that it never occurred to me to think of it that way because the Slytherins are so not ambitious at all in the way I usually define the word--when I think of the most ambitious people in canon I think of Hermione, the Twins and Percy.