HBP Chapter 23 re-read

HBP Chapter 23 re-read

I read chapters 23 through 26 over the weekend.  Wow!  This is where HBP really gets good!

When returns to Hogwarts, the Felix Felicis is wearing off … so does he immediately revert to his normal “luck quotient”? Harry seems to be something of a special case with very high “standard deviations” away from normal luck – for good and bad(Lily, Ron, surviving encounters with Voldemort; being selected by Voldemort in the first place, drawing the Dursleys as a host family, etc.).  Indeed in Harry’s case one might almost wonder if Felix simply “smooths out” Harry’s normally wild luck swings.

Dd looks “stunned” when Harry reports success on the Slughorn front.  Then says “I knew you could do it.”  Ok, did you know Harry could do it, or not?  What was your “plan B” if Slughorn wouldn’t dish to Harry?

Riddle tells Slughorn he didn’t think politics would “suit him”.  Why is it always the megalomaniacs who think they aren’t politicians?  And at the same time the politicians are always megalomaniacs.  Go figure.

One wonders if Riddle came across the term “Horcrux” in the same book that Hermione did, or whether he had already discovered non-Hogwarts sources of Dark Magic lore by that time?  Where would a Hogwarts student go to find Dark lore?  Off-campus during break, one supposes.

Loved it when Harry recognized another master wheedler at work, watching Riddle wheedle info out of Slughorn.

I liked it when Slughorn looked at Riddle “as though he had never seen him plainly before.” Nice to give Slughorn the insight to realize that Riddle is deeply disturbed and deeply dangerous. Perhaps it’s his failure to act on this insight – which as far as he knew, he alone had experienced – that causes him the greatest shame in later years. In a way, all the subsequent deaths at Voldemort’s hands can be laid at Slughorn’s doorstep.  I hadn’t realized that before.

Great moment when all the old headmasters are awake and listening on Harry’s conversation with Dd.

Ok, the diary was a Horcrux, but what was scariest was that it was a spare Horcrux, intended for use as a weapon.

He made seven Horcruxes? Not seven, six, b/c Riddle still has a fragment of soul.

Just for the record: JKR is  encouraging Harry, Dd, and everyone else make  a big-ass ol’ assumption here that there are seven Horcruxes.  We don’t have any actual proof that it’s seven.  Riddle might have wanted to be the only wizard ever with eight Horcruxes.  That would certainly throw a spanner in Harry’s plans for book seven!

Dd destroyed Marvolo’s ring … “and a terrible curse there was on it too…” Dd only saved by Snape’s timely action when he returned to Hogwarts.  Here’s yet another action very tough to explain in terms of Snape as 100% bad guy… if you’re a secret DeathEater, why not let Dd die?

Great and very helpful scene where Dd confirms that H3 is slytherin’s locket, H4 is Hufflepuff’s cup, H5 is Nagini, and H6 is  either something from Ravenclaw or a Gryffindor object not the sword (which seems confirmed by its role in CoS – surely the sword would have helped out its fellow Horcrux somehow),

Am I the only one who has trouble accepting that Nagini is a Horcrux?  Something about that just seems wrong to me. I can’t fathom why Riddle would put a part of his soul in something mortal.  All the other objects are immortal treasures, a snake, however cool for a Parseltongue speaker, just isn’t up to the same standard.

We haven’t really seen the inner workings of either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff in the first six books … they pretty much remain stock characters –  I hope JKR goes into the inner workings of both houses at some length in book seven.

Dd: I am sure V was intending to make his final Horcux with your death, Harry.  

We don’t know exactly how the spell works, but it seems likely it’s carried out simultaneous with and contingent on the completion of the Avada Kevadra spell… so when Lily’s motherly love spell blocked the AK, where did the Horcrux creation spell go?  Can we say “Harry the Horcrux”?

Lucius Malfoy secretly glad to be in Azkaban: indeed!  I almost want to join him there, I’m so scared of book seven.

Loved it when Harry could scarcely restrain himself from saying “Big deal” about his power to love.  

Great point about what harry saw in the Mirror of Erised and how few wizards could have seen the same thing.

The point about being dragged into the arena v. walking in with your head held high fell a bit flat for me, as the first thing that comes to my mind is the Roman Coliseum, and there I’m really not quite sure it does make much difference whether you walked in head high.  Hope Harry’s not heading for one of those Lions 1, Christians 0 moments.

Related posts:

• HBP Chapter 20 re-read
• HBP Chapter 26 re-read
• HBP Chapter 18 re-read
• HBP Chapter 24 re-read
• HBP Chapter 22 Re-read