Harry Potter and the First Time Readers

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Ch 9-11

Episode Summary

‘Sir … is it important to know all this about Voldemort’s past?’ ‘Very important, I think,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And it … it’s got something to do with the prophecy?’ ‘It has everything to do with the prophecy.’ So join Jon, Jenn, Danny, and Kristen as they talk over chapters 9-11 of Half Blood Prince. They talk over some theories about what will happen, their impressions of the characters, and why it's important that Harry learn about Voldemort's past.

Episode Notes

Chapter 9 - The Half-Blood Prince

• Hermione’s remonstration was drowned by a loud giggle; Lavender Brown had apparently found Ron’s remark highly amusing. She continued to laugh as she passed them, glancing back at Ron over her shoulder. Ron looked rather pleased with himself.

Q1 - Does Lavender like Ron?

• ‘Humph,’ snorted Professor McGonagall. ‘It’s high time your grandmother learned to be proud of the grandson she’s got, rather than the one she thinks she ought to have – particularly after what happened at the Ministry.’

Q2 - Do you ever think McGonagall could go bad?

Q3 - Do you think Gryffindor will win the Quidditch Cup this year?

• Snape set off around the edge of the room, speaking now in a lower voice; the class craned their necks to keep him in view. ‘The Dark Arts,’ said Snape, ‘are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.’ Harry stared at Snape. It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them, as Snape was doing, with a loving caress in his voice?
• His Shield Charm was so strong Snape was knocked off-balance and hit a desk. The whole class had looked round and now watched as Snape righted himself, scowling. ‘Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?’ ‘Yes,’ said Harry stiffly. ‘Yes sir.’ ‘There’s no need to call me “sir”, Professor.’

Q4 - Do you view Harry as a better wizard than Snape?

• This left Harry, Ron and Hermione to share a table with Ernie. They chose the one nearest a gold-coloured cauldron that was emitting one of the most seductive scents Harry had ever inhaled: somehow it reminded him simultaneously of treacle tart, the woody smell of a broomstick handle and something flowery he thought he might have smelled at The Burrow. He found that he was breathing very slowly and deeply and that the potion’s fumes seemed to be filling him up like drink. A great contentment stole over him; he grinned across at Ron, who grinned lazily back.

Q5 - What do you think of the Amortentia?

• It’s supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment and –’ But she turned slightly pink and did not complete the sentence.

Q6 - What is the last smell Hermione smells?

• ‘No, I don’t think so, sir. I’m Muggle-born, you see.’ Harry saw Malfoy lean close to Nott and whisper something; both of them sniggered, but Slughorn showed no dismay; on the contrary, he beamed and looked from Hermione to Harry, who was sitting next to her. ‘Oho! “One of my best friends is Muggle-born and she’s the best in our year!” I’m assuming this is the very friend of whom you spoke, Harry?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said Harry. ‘Well, well, take twenty well-earned points for Gryffindor, Miss Granger,’ said Slughorn genially.

Q7 - Is Slughorn growing on you?

• ‘Amortentia doesn’t really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room – oh yes,’ he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking skeptically. ‘When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love …

Q8 - What do you think of this line?

Q9 - What do you think of Liquid Luck?

Q10 - What is a time when you beat everyone in class at something?

• ‘The clear winner!’ he cried to the dungeon. ‘Excellent, excellent, Harry! Good Lord, it’s clear you’ve inherited your mother’s talent, she was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was! Here you are, then, here you are – one bottle of Felix Felicis, as promised, and use it well!’
• Nobody else was looking. Harry bent low to retrieve the book and, as he did so, he saw something scribbled along the bottom of the back cover in the same small, cramped handwriting as the instructions that had won him his bottle of Felix Felicis, now safely hidden inside a pair of socks in his trunk upstairs. This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince

Q11 - Who is the Half-Blood Prince?

Chapter 10 - The House of Gaunt

Q1 - Should Harry be following the book's advice?

Q2 - What do you think of Snape and Slughorn in their roles?

• ‘Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given certain information.’

Q3 - Jenn, did your heart rate go up here?

• ‘I told you everything I know. From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork. From hereon in, Harry, I may be as woefully wrong as Humphrey Belcher, who believed the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron.’

Q4 - Where have you seen Little Hangleton before?

• There was a scuffling noise in the corner beside the open window and Harry realized that there was somebody else in the room, a girl whose ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stone wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it. Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother’s, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person.

Q5 - What do you think of Merope and Morfin?

Q6 - Is a Squib made from abuse?

Q7 - What do you think of Tom Riddle’s origin story?

• ‘Sir … is it important to know all this about Voldemort’s past?’ ‘Very important, I think,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And it … it’s got something to do with the prophecy?’ ‘It has everything to do with the prophecy.’

Q8 - Why is this important?

Q9 - What is the ring and what happened to Dumbledore’s hand?

Chapter 11 - Hermione’s Helping Hand

• Non-verbal spells were now expected, not only in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but in Charms and Transfiguration too. Harry frequently looked over at his classmates in the common room or at mealtimes to see them purple in the face and straining as though they had overdosed on U-No-Poo.
• ‘We’ve got to go and explain,’ said Hermione, looking up at Hagrid’s huge empty chair at the staff table the following Saturday at breakfast. ‘We’ve got Quidditch tryouts this morning!’ said Ron. ‘And we’re supposed to be practicing that Aguamenti charm for Flitwick! Anyway, explain what? How are we going to tell him we hated his stupid subject?’

Q1 - What is the Aguamenti charm?

Q2 - Is Hagrid childish for this?

• ‘Oh, come on, Harry,’ said Hermione, suddenly impatient. ‘It’s not Quidditch that’s popular, it’s you! You’ve never been more interesting and, frankly, you’ve never been more fanciable.’ Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry.

Q3 - Why is Ron gagging?

Q4 - Harry mentioned he hoped Lupin would write…why doesn’t Lupin write?

Q5 - Do you think Stan Shunpike is a Death Eater?

• ‘People are terrified – you know the Patil twins’ parents want them to go home? And Eloise Midgeon has already been withdrawn. Her father picked her up last night.’

Q6 - If you had kids, would you take them out of Hogwarts?

Q7 - Dumbledore is gone missing a lot…what is he doing?

Q8 - How do you think this years Gryffindor quidditch team looks?

Q9 - What do you think about Hermione confounding Cormac?

• ‘But how can he have done, Harry?’ said Hermione, putting down the newspaper with a surprised look. ‘We were all searched when we arrived, weren’t we?’ ‘Were you?’ said Harry, taken aback. ‘I wasn’t!’ ‘Oh no, of course you weren’t, I forgot you were late … well, Filch ran over all of us with Secrecy Sensors when we got into the Entrance Hall. Any Dark object would have been found, I know for a fact Crabbe had a shrunken head confiscated. So you see, Malfoy can’t have brought in anything dangerous!’

Q10 - What was this Shrunken head? And did Malfoy sneak anything in?

Q11 - What’s the best party you’ve ever been to?