Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Just as the train begins to move, Harry is discovered by Nymphadora Tonks, an Order member, who had noticed his absence at the station, assumed he was hiding using the Invisibility Cloak, and searched the train. Tonks fixes Harry’s nose and accompanies him to Hogwarts, where Snape meets them at the gate. Snape went to school with Harry’s father, James; Snape and James were bitter rivals who hated each other. Because of this, Snape despises Harry, too. Snape needles Harry the entire way to the Great Hall, where the rest of the school is having dinner until Harry joins Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor table.

Dumbledore addresses the school after dinner and welcomes Slughorn as the new Potions master; this shocks everyone, as they had assumed Slughorn would be taking the vacant post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Snape is announced to be the new DADA teacher instead, a job he has been after for years; Harry rejoices in the only silver lining: Snape will be gone by the end of the year. The job is rumored to be jinxed, as no teacher serves longer than one year in the post.

The next morning Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor house, hands out their new timetables. She tells Harry that with Slughorn as the new Potions master, Harry can continue with the subject with the grade he has received; Ron, too, is similarly cleared to continue.

The trio proceed to their first DADA lesson taught by Snape. Snape describes the Dark Arts as “ever-changing and eternal” (177), likening fighting them to battling a “many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before” (177). Harry is angry and appalled by the reverential way Snape talks about the Dark Arts.

After lunch, the trio attends a Potions lesson with Slughorn. Since Harry and Ron were unprepared to continue with the subject, they don’t have books or supplies yet; Slughorn lends them these from the store cupboard. He then introduces the class to a set of different potions brewing in cauldrons, all of which Hermione correctly identifies, greatly impressing Slughorn. Slughorn offers a small sample of one of these potions as a prize to the student who best brews a potion based on textbook instructions. The prize potion is Felix Felicis or “liquid luck,” and the sample will give the user 12 hours of success in all their endeavors.

The class begins to brew their potions. The textbook Slughorn lent Harry is covered in notes scribbled by its previous owner. Harry follows these scribbled edits, which work better than the textbook instructions, and his potion is a clear winner. Slughorn delightedly hands him a bottle of Felix Felicis, claiming that Harry has inherited his mother’s talent. Harry later tells an incredulous Ron and Hermione the truth about the textbook. Hermione is immediately suspicious of the book, while Ron is impressed. Harry later discovers a scribbled line at the bottom of the back cover: “This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince” (192).

Harry wonders about the identity of the Half-Blood Prince, even as he continues following the Prince’s edits in his Potions textbook during lessons, leaving Slughorn soon raving about Harry’s natural talent.

Harry attends his first private lesson with Dumbledore, which the latter informs him is related to the prophecy and intended to help Harry survive. With the use of Dumbledore’s Pensieve (a magical object used to store and revisit memories), the two of them revisit a specific memory of a man named Bob Ogden, a Ministry official who was employed in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

In the memory, Ogden approaches a rundown house with a snake nailed to the door. He is greeted by Morfin Gaunt, a dirty and frightening-looking man speaking in Parseltongue (the language of snakes), telling Ogden that he is not welcome. Harry, who can also speak Parseltongue, understands this. Morfin and Ogden are joined by Morfin’s father, Marvolo Gaunt, who reluctantly lets Ogden into the house when he explains that he is here on Ministry business. Marvolo’s daughter Merope, a timid and frightened-looking girl, is in the kitchen.

Ogden informs the Gaunts that he is here because Morfin broke the law and attacked a Muggle earlier that day; upon hearing this, Merope drops a pot and breaks it, and Marvolo yells at her, insulting her lack of magical skills. Ogden tells Marvolo that Morfin has been summoned for a hearing at the Ministry. This enrages Marvolo, who furiously demands whether Ogden knows who he is talking to. He shows Ogden a black-stoned gold ring that he is wearing, as well as a gold chain around Merope’s neck. The latter is Salazar Slytherin’s, one of Hogwarts’s founding after whom Slytherin house is named, and a wizard who placed great value on blood status. The Gaunts are Slytherin’s last living descendants: “Generations of pure-bloods, wizards all” (206).

Ogden is unmoved and insists that Morfin must attend the hearing, at which point he is interrupted by the voices of two Muggles outside the house. Morfin reveals that Merope is in love with one of them, a man named Tom Riddle; Morfin attacked Tom when he caught Merope hanging out of the window to catch a glimpse of him. Marvolo calls Merope a “filthy little blood traitor” (209) and attempts to strangle her, but Ogden stops him. Morfin chases Ogden out of the house, firing hexes at him using his wand.

Dumbledore and Harry exit Ogden’s memory, and Dumbledore fills Harry in on the rest of the story: Marvolo Gaunt was Voldemort’s grandfather, and Merope was his mother. After the incident in the memory, Ogden returned to the Gaunt house with Ministry reinforcements and arrested Marvolo and Morfin, both of whom were imprisoned. Without the oppressive presence of her father, Merope escaped the house; she seemingly dosed Tom with a love potion, following which Tom eloped with her. He returned a few months later, claiming that he had been “hoodwinked,” and Dumbledore speculates that Merope had stopped using the love potion on him, hoping he would have really fallen in love with her by then. Merope was already pregnant with Voldemort; heartbroken and alone, she died shortly after childbirth, and Voldemort was brought up as Tom Riddle Jr. in a Muggle orphanage.

Dumbledore tells Harry he is allowed to tell Ron and Hermione the details of his lessons, but no one else is to know. Harry notices that Dumbledore is wearing the black-stoned ring from the memory on his shriveled right hand; Dumbledore confirms that it is the same ring and was acquired recently, around the same time he injured his hand. However, he refuses to elaborate further and dismisses Harry.

Harry holds tryouts for the Gryffindor Quidditch team as its newly appointed captain. An unprecedented number of people turn up, many just to see Harry, who is routinely being touted as the “Chosen One” by the newspapers.

Ginny makes the team, as does Harry’s old teammate, Katie Bell. The final spot comes down to the last two applicants: Cormac McLaggen, a seventh-year whom Harry met on the train and is part of the “Slug Club,” and Ron. Both are trying out for Keeper, whose job is to guard the goalposts and prevent the opposing team from scoring. Mclaggen saves almost all the penalties shot at him but flies in the wrong direction for the last one. To Harry’s great relief, Ron saves all of his and is made the Keeper. Ron laughs about how McLaggen seemed like he was “Confunded” (placed under a confusion charm) for the last penalty. Harry notices that Hermione turns bright red at this and later confronts her, and she admits that she did, indeed, Confound McLaggen so that Ron could become Keeper.

The trio visit Hagrid, who tearily confides in them that Aragog, his old pet Acromantula (giant magical spider), is dying. Aragog lives in the Forbidden Forest neighboring the school, and Hagrid has been caring for him.

Back in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione looks through the evening newspaper and finds mention of Mr. Weasley having searched Lucius Malfoy’s house on a “confidential tip-off” and not having found anything. Harry tells her that it was his tip-off and continues to theorize about where Draco may have hidden the Dark object from Borgin and Burkes.

On the morning of a Hogsmeade visit (the neighboring wizarding village), Harry lies awake in bed reading his Potions textbook. The Prince has scribbled several spells of his own invention in the margins, some of which Harry has already tried out. He tries a new one, “Levicorpus,” which sends Ron in the next bed flying into the air; Harry hastily finds the counter-spell and releases Ron. When Ron and Harry tell Hermione this story at breakfast, she is not amused, reminding Harry that they have witnessed Death Eaters use this spell to levitate and torture Muggles. Ginny delivers a note for Harry from Dumbledore confirming his next lesson for Monday evening.

The trio proceeds to Hogsmeade, and the terrible weather forces them to shelter at the Three Broomsticks, the local pub. After they finish their drinks, they head back to the castle; ahead of them are Katie Bell and her friend, Leanne. As they draw closer to Katie and Leanne, they realize the girls are arguing about something Katie is holding; Leanne makes a grab for it, and Katie drops it, rises into the air, and begins screaming as if being tortured.

Harry runs for help and finds Hagrid, who rushes back and takes Katie to the castle. Harry recognizes the contents of the torn package as a cursed opal necklace from Borgin and Burkes and warns everyone not to touch it. A sobbing Leanne tells the trio that Katie had been given the necklace in the bathroom of the Three Broomsticks; she wouldn’t tell Leanne who gave it to her or who it was meant for, only that it was a surprise for someone at Hogwarts.

Back at Hogwarts, the four are met by McGonagall, who takes them to her office. After Leanne tells her what happened, she is sent to the hospital wing to calm down; Harry then asks to see Dumbledore, but McGonagall tells him Dumbledore is away until Monday. Harry tells McGonagall his suspicions about Draco being responsible; however, McGonagall clarifies that Draco had been in detention with her the whole morning and was never in Hogsmeade. Harry still believes that Draco is somehow responsible; Ron and Hermione are unconvinced but give up arguing with him.