Harry Potter Half Blood Princes Book

Harry Potter And The Half

Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Halfblood ChroniclesRacial purityHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Severus Snape

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a fantasy novel written by British author J.K. Rowling and the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series. Set during Harry Potter‘s sixth year at Hogwarts, the novel explores the past of the boy wizard’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and Harry’s preparations for the final battle against Voldemort alongside his headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore.

The book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury and in the United States by Scholastic on 16 July 2005, as well as in several other countries. It sold nine million copies in the first 24 hours after its release, a record that was eventually broken by its sequel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There were many controversies before and after it was published, including the right to read copies delivered before the release date in Canada. Reception to the novel was generally positive, and it won several awards and honours, including the 2006 British Book of the Year award.

Books Related To Harry Potter And The Half

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is closely related to Harry Potter and theChamber of Secrets because of how J. K. Rowling considered a lot of plot points and even the title of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for the second book but eventually decided to go with the plot of the Chamber of Secrets. Several details like the identity of the Half-Blood Prince and the possibility of Tom Riddles diary being a Horcrux were considered to be revealed in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but eventually got revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince instead.

Furthermore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is closely related to all of the other Harry Potter books, especially Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as it works as a bridge between these two highly charged plots and directs the stories of these two books, despite having nuances of its own.

Most of the books in the Harry Potter series are also compared to works by other popular childrens fantasy writers. The most popular of these is J. R. R. Tolkein. The books of the Harry Potter series are constantly compared to and considered in the same vein as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Furthermore, the books are also said to be similar to the Narnia series written by C. S. Lewis and several instances of the Arthurian Legend.

The Lasting Impact Of Harry Potter And The Half

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is considered one of the most popular Harry Potter books, especially because of its gritty nature, character development, and its vicinity to the finale of the book series. Within 24 hours of the books release, it sold around 9 million copies worldwide. It was lauded by critics and readers alike for its interesting and engrossing plot.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince won several awards worldwide. It was awarded the 2006 British Book of the Year Award. It also won the 2006 Royal Mail Award for Scottish Childrens Books that covered a demographic of the 8-12 age group. In the United States of America, it was listed among the 2006 best books for young adults.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was adapted into a movie with the cast from the previous adaptations reprising their roles and with the popular British actor Jim Broadbent as Professor Horace Slughorn.

Don’t Miss: Who Plays Hermione Granger In The Cursed Child

Harry Potter And Voldemort

The primary relationship that causes the plot of this entire book series to unravel, that between Harry Potter and Voldemort himself, is also subject to the changing frame in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Till this point, Harry had only seen Voldemort as the murderer of his parents, and an untrustworthy, completely evil being who had to be vanquished for good. However, in this book, after his constant visits to the Pensieve and his exposure to Voldemorts origins, Harry is humbled by how complex even evil is within the ethics of its existence. Harry cannot help but feel sorry for and relate to young Tom Riddle who had a very difficult childhood as an orphan, just like Harry.

This book humanizes Tom Riddle and portrays him in a light that understands the complexity of the human condition, instead of one that villainizes him by default something every book prior to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has done.

Under Severus Snape’s Possession

The first known owner of this copy of Advanced Potion-Making was Severus Snape, the future Potions Master of Hogwarts, when he was still attending as a student. Not being well off, the book was second-hand nothing is known of its original owner.

A teenage Severus Snape

When Snape attended Hogwarts as a student, he had acquired this textbook for N.E.W.T.-level Potions with Horace Slughorn and then signed it with his own self-proclaimed nickname and signature, the “Half-Blood Prince”. Snape, being a talented potioneer even at a young age, had made alterations to the many recipes within the book for even better effects. He also made notes in the margins of several spells that he had invented himself, including Sectumsempra, Levicorpus, Langlock, and Muffliato.

When Severus left Hogwarts, he fell in league with the Death Eaters, though he never lost his old copy of Advanced Potion-Making. When he eventually returned to Hogwarts to work as Potions Master, he kept this copy of Advanced Potion-Making in a cupboard in his classroom . When he changed teaching positions and Horace Slughorn gained the classroom, he left the book there.

Recommended Reading: Is Harry Potter On Netflix 2020

Chapter : The Unknowable Room

“And I bet that’s why he’s been disappearing off the map – come to think of it, I’ve never seen the Room of Requirement on there!”

Harry, about the Marauder’s Map.

Hermione fixing Ron’s essay that’s spilled with ink.

Ron wants to break up with Lavender but doesn’t know how. Harry learns from Kreacher and Dobby that Malfoy is regularly visiting the Room of Requirement , and spends the next few days trying to get inside. Not knowing what Malfoy is using it for, he has no success. Ron and Hermione come back from the Hogsmeade Apparition test, in which Hermione is successful but not Ron, who will take the exam with Harry again.

Chapter : The Slug Club

“I enjoyed the meetings too… It was like having friends.”

Luna Lovegood, about the D.A meetings.

Harry, Neville and Luna on the Hogwart’s Express

On the Hogwarts Express, Harry meets his other friends Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood and shares a compartment with them, as Ron and Hermione are in the Prefect Carriage. By now, Harry finds himself attracted to Ginny, although she appears to have long given up on her crush on him and is currently dating Harry’s classmate Dean Thomas. Harry and Neville are invited for lunch to Slughorn’s compartment on the train along with Ginny and some other students with connections to well known or influential people. Before reaching Hogsmeade station, Harry enters Malfoy’s compartment using his Invisibility cloak to prove his suspicions about Malfoy. His suspicions are proven correct: Malfoy tells his friends Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini that he has become a Death Eater and he may not return to Hogwarts for his final year if the mission he was assigned by Voldemort is successful. Unfortunately for Harry, Malfoy notices Harry spying on him and once his friends have alighted from the train, he paralyses Harry, breaks his nose, covers him with the Invisibility Cloak and leaves him on the train.

Read Also: What Was The Best Selling Harry Potter Book

Chapter 2: The Phoenix Lament

“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.”

Harry thinking about Fawkes.

The empty Dumbledore’s office

After the battle, Ginny accompanies Harry to the hospital wing, where he learns that the only other person who died was a Death Eater. None of Harry’s friends are badly hurt, apart from Bill Weasley, the Weasleys’ oldest child who was attacked by an untransformed Greyback, although the only side effects are permanent scars across his face and a liking for rare steaks. Fleur expresses her desire to marry Bill despite his potential transformations, and she and Mrs Weasley reconcile. Tonks reveals her love for Lupin, who had refused her because he was a werewolf and felt that she deserved someone young and whole, unlike himself. Professor McGonagall questions Harry about what he and Dumbledore were doing, but Harry, under orders from Dumbledore not to tell anyone except Ron and Hermione, refuses. The teachers then discuss the future of Hogwarts, and plans for Dumbledore’s funeral. Harry turns his back on the Half-Blood Prince’s book, and regrets ever possessing it, although Hermione and Ron comfort him, stating that while the Prince may have had a mean sense of humour, nothing in the book ever indicated that he was evil, or capable of murder.

Chapter 2: The Lightning

“No, Draco. It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.””

Dumbledore, at the Astronomy Tower.

The Dark Mark over Hogwarts

Borrowing broomsticks, the pair fly to the tower. Upon hearing someone approaching them, Dumbledore uses a charm to paralyse Harry and hides him under his invisibility cloak, before being disarmed by Malfoy. Malfoy reveals that he had let Death Eaters into the school through a pair of vanishing cabinets, which were the objects Harry had overheard him questioning Borgin about. Malfoy also explains that he was behind the cursed necklace and poisoned mead incidents, which were really assassination attempts on Dumbledore. Dumbledore reveals that he had known Malfoy was attempting to kill him, but allowed him to remain at Hogwarts because he knew that Voldemort would have murdered Malfoy once his cover had been blown. Dumbledore tries to persuade him to change sides, but the other Death Eaters join the scene and urge Malfoy to finish his mission. Then Snape appears, and with Malfoy still reluctant to finish off the unarmed Dumbledore, Snape kills Dumbledore.

You May Like: How Old Was Harry Potter When He Went To Hogwarts

Chapter 1: The Secret Riddle

“I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.”

Tom Riddle, to Dumbledore.

Tom Riddle reading on his bed at Wool’s Orphanage in Dumbledore’s memory

In his second lesson with Dumbledore, Harry first sees Caractacus Burke talking about a locket of Salazar Slytherin‘s that a pregnant and desperate Merope Gaunt had sold him, Riddle having abandoned her when she stopped giving him Love Potion, then goes into a memory of Dumbledore’s to the orphanage that Riddle had grown up in. Harry learns that Merope had later died in childbirth, and that even at an early age, Riddle had developed his powers, which he used to punish people who annoyed him and had a sadistic, cruel and independent nature, just like the adult Voldemort. Dumbledore also reveals to Harry that Voldemort likes to collect trophies.

Chapter 2: After The Burial

“You didn’t meet him, Hermione. Believe me, being dead will have improved him a lot.”

Ron, about Aragog.

Aragog’s Burial

Harry again fails to convince Slughorn to share his true memory, and Ron suggests he use the Felix Felicis. Harry takes the Felix Felicis and goes down to Hagrid’s hut because Aragog died and Hagrid wanted Harry to go to the burial. On the way to Hagrid’s hut, Harry luckily meets Professor Slughorn on the way and goes with Harry to Hagrid’s because he wants to collect Aragog’s venom . Aragog is buried and the adults get drunk, so Harry has a good opportunity to get the memory. As a result of the Felix Felicis, Harry is able to get the memory with ease.

Recommended Reading: What Harry Potter Character Was Gay

Chapter : Spinner’s End

“Do you really think that the Dark Lord has not asked me each and every one of those questions? And do you really think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answers, I would be sitting here talking to you?”

Snape, to Bellatrix Lestrange.

Bellatrix and Narcissa Malfoy at Snape’s House

Snape agrees to all three terms and the vow is made.

Chapter 1: Silver And Opals

“He did not usually lie in bed reading his textbooks that sort of behaviour, as Ron rightly said, was indecent in anybody except Hermione, who was simply weird that way.”

Description of Harry’s obsession about the Half-Blood Prince book.

Imperiused Katie Bell touching a cursed necklace

Harry finds a couple of spells scribbled on the Half-Blood Prince’s textbook. He tries one of them in his dormitory, but points his wand at Ron by mistake, which results in Ron hanging by his ankle from the ceiling. Later that day, Harry, Ron and Hermione go to Hogsmeade, where they witness Katie being cursed after touching a strange necklace. Remembering seeing the same necklace in Borgin’s shop, Harry voices his suspicions of Malfoy to ProfessorMcGonagall, but she, like Ron and Hermione, rubbishes his theory, stating that Malfoy did not go to Hogsmeade as he had a detention with her, and that there is no proof that he bought the necklace.

You May Like: Can You Resell Harry Potter Tickets

Talk To Your Kids About

• Families can talk about why Dumbledore’s private lessons were so important in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Have you heard the phrase “Know thy enemy”? By looking at Voldemort’s past, what did Harry learn that will help him fight against him?

• The scene in the cave is one of the most frightening of the whole Harry Potter series, both in this book and the movie. What made it so spooky? Dumbledore wasn’t as frightened as Harry, why not?

• It’s on to the last book in the series! How did the ending of this book set up the finale? What is Harry’s task? What must he do first? Who stands to get in his way?

• Publication date: July 16, 2005
• Publisher’s recommended age: 10 – 14
• Number of pages: 652
• Available on: Paperback, Audiobook , Hardback, iBooks, Kindle

• Exciting, provocative tale of lethal reality show.

  age 12+

• Exciting start to teen fantasy series in urban setting.

  age 12+

• The violent “truth” behind Alice in Wonderland.

  age 9+

The 9 Most Surprising Harry Potter Movie Moments

• In 1 or 2 scenes in the dining hall, Lavender Brown is shown sitting at a different table across from Ron Weasley. They were both in Gryffindor, so they should be at the same table. However, it is not uncommon for students to be seated at other Houses’ tables. Lavender was avoiding Ron and chose not to sit with Gryffindor.

• : Why is it, when something happens, it is always you three?

  : Believe me, Professor. I’ve been asking myself the same question for six years.

• Some of the dubbed versions change the names of a few characters, to match their translated novel counterparts in each respective language. Examples include Hermione, who in the German version is named Hermine, and Dumbledore, who in the Dutch version is Perkamentus.

Read Also: When Does The Next Harry Potter Come Out

Chapter : Lord Voldemort’s Request

“You see, we have never been able to keep a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for longer than a year since I refused the post to Voldemort.”

Dumbledore, about Tom Riddle’s request.

Hepzibah Smith with Slytherin’s locket

In their fourth lesson, Dumbledore is disappointed that Harry failed to obtain Slughorn’s true memory. Harry apologises and promises to try harder, which Dumbledore is happier about. Dumbledore shows him two memories: one of Tom Riddle being shown Salazar Slytherin’s Locket and Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup by a wealthy woman named Hepzibah Smith, the other of Riddle applying for the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching post at Hogwarts, which Dumbledore rejects as he felt that it was an attempt by Riddle to further search the school for secrets and recruit followers. Dumbledore explains that Smith was murdered by Riddle and stole the locket and cup. The post for Defence Against the Dark Arts was jinxed by Riddle out of spite teachers never held the post for more than a year, suffering some terrible fate or humiliation which caused them to leave the position.

Is It Any Good

This dark and brooding Potter volume unearths unsettling truths and even more unsettling speculation about Snape, Draco Malfoy, and, especially, Voldemort as a young man. Dumbledore offers Harry private lessons focused on mining every memory of Voldemort he could gather and examining it for clues on how to defeat him. The earliest memory of Tom Riddle in his orphanage is fascinating and creepy enough that Harry asks Dumbledore, “Did you know then?” The profile of a sociopath slowly emerges throughout Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and then the bombshell. Readers finally know how Voldemort came back to life and much, much more.

Also Check: What Is The Fifth Harry Potter Movie