Dumbledore's man through and through

Happy Harry Potter Friday! We've just finished Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince and shit is getting serious. As with every week, Alice, you kick ass for hosting this readalong and there are spoilers below so beware.

Ron's poisoning was a little "OMG HE'S GOING TO DIE...nope never mind, he's fine. Look, not even any damage." Not that I want Ron hurt, but just felt like a fake-out. I don't appreciate the manipulation.

How bad did you feel when Dumbledore is all disappointed in Harry for not getting Slughorn's memory? Disappointed Dumbles is SO MUCH WORSE than angry Snape.

I wonder how Harry is going to finally get the memory from Slughorn. I bet he'll come up with something really clever and...oh he'll just get him drunk and use his parents' death to guilt him into it. Right. Well. There you go.

Oh look, Harry and Ginny are officially going out. And again...

It still feels forced. Harry's crush on Cho didn't feel forced. It was adorable. This just feels like "Oh we're almost at the end of the series and Harry doesn't have a love interest, so let's fix that." But Ginny continues to kick ass, so I'm cool with seeing more of her.

Most of this book is its own story. However, from the time Harry gets the final summons from Dumbledore to the end of the book is pretty much Deathly Hallows: The Prologue. The other books obviously lead into each other, but they were all stand alone books. This one doesn't wrap up. It doesn't even end with Harry back at the Dursleys. It ends with H/R/Hr still at Hogwarts, planning to start their fetch quest that is the next book. I like the raising of the stakes and whatnot, but I sorta wish this had more of the wrap up the other books had.

We do learn the answer to a question I was very curious about back when we read Chamber of Secrets. What was Lucius hoping to accomplish by sneaking Tom Riddle's diary into Ginny's bag and did he know what it actually was? Dumbles tells us that no, he didn't know it was part of Voldie's soul, which is why he was so careless with it. However, he did know it would open the Chamber and was totally cool with murdering a bunch of children in order to get a wizard fired. Really, the fact that Malfoy had so much trouble murdering Dumbles is pretty admirable considering he was raised by someone who is pretty blase about killing. Of course maybe this is just because Malfoy had to come face to face with his victim while Lucius would have been pretty far removed, but still.

So Dumbledore is dead. Was I sad about this? Of course because I am human and have a soul. Was I as sad as I was with Sirius's death? Nope. Dumbles death for me:

Less this

More this

I'm still not sure why this is. Maybe because there's so much downtime to really let Sirius's death sink in, and that's when the sads really got to me. Dumbledore's death is surrounded by so much craziness and fighting that there isn't time to catch your breath and really wallow in the grief. I was less in shock this time around cos, you know, I knew it was coming. That said, Dumbles had all the answers and you knew things were ultimately going to be OK while he was around. Now he's not and now things are unknown and shit. I'm sure Dumbles is still Dumbling where ever he is.

Even into the beyond

Before this readalong, I didn't realize I was all for defending Fleur. To be honest, the only thing I really remembered about her in this book is she's bratty and says stuck up things, but then all is forgiven because she'll still marry Bill even though he's not as handsome anymore. But this time around I feel so bad for her. Does she still say bratty and stuck up things when she's at the Weasley's? Yup. Though given she's just learning English, I do give her some leeway because English is hard and she may not mean things to come out quite the way they do. Hermione and Ginny are talking about her behind her back and calling her names, which isn't that much better than calling her things to her face, and also doesn't mean she doesn't know about it. The Burrow isn't the biggest house and it wouldn't be too surprising if she had overheard them. We see that Mrs. Weasley didn't even make her a holiday sweater after making them for EVERYONE ELSE. So the ladies of HP, who I normally luuurve are acting really catty and this did not make me happy. Fleur's understandably hurt when Mrs. Weasley suggests Fleur won't want to marry Bill after his attack. She makes it clear that she knows, and has known, Mrs. Weasley doesn't want her to marry Bill. But she does it without insulting Mrs. Weasley, without pointing out how mean they've all been to her. Fleur's proud (she does push Mrs. Weasley out of the way, after all), but she's not cruel. She's far from my favorite character, but there's more to her than I thought the first time around. Go J.K. for putting so much into this minor character.

I can't believe we're almost done with this readalong. Next up The Tales of Beedle the Bard which I haven't actually read before so EXCITEMENT. Oh and to get us ready for the final book, here's a Cracked list (of course): 6 Questions The Last Harry Potter Book Had Better F#@king Answer

Title quote from page 765

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Bloomsbury, 2005

I knew I was different...I knew I was special

Another Friday, another Harry Potter post! And this time I'm back stateside so you'll get my normal incoherent ramblings. LUCKY YOU!

Thanks Alice for hosting this super-fun, gif-filled readalong and beware, there are spoilers ahead.

First thing, and I meant to say this in my last Half-Blood Prince post, but I forgot cos traveling. But anyway, for reasons my copy of HBP is the "adult version". As I've explained a couple times my HP collection is all weird and messed up, because I don't have a matching set so it was necessary that it doesn't match in a VERY SPECIFIC WAY. Since my second book was some weird mass-market paperback bought in Rome I needed the 6th book to also be a mass-market version. This is apparently really hard to find until I stumbled on a listing for the "adult version". Luckily, this just referred to the cover not being cartoony, and I didn't end up with some weird porn version of HBP. It's really just for adults who are self conscious about being seen reading a kid's book. Except HP is one of the most well-known book series out there, so these anxious adults are not fooling anyone.

Now, random incoherent thoughts!

Snape insulting Tonks's new Patronus -

Tell 'em, Snape. Wait, what?

See, anytime I start to think maybe Snape is kind of OK, and I cut him some slack for being sort of a jerk because of all he's been through, he does something like this and I hate him ten fold. It was bad enough him making fun of Hermione's teeth in front of the class. Now he's taunting Tonks about her depression, and his reference to her new Patronus means he KNOWS what's bugging her so much. Or at least thinks he knows, and either way, taunting her for this makes him a really terrible person
*Double spoiler, since this is about stuff that hasn't happened just yet*
So either he thinks the Patronus change is because she's sad her cousin was just murdered and Snape, are you seriously mourning the murder of a family member, even one you hated??? Or else he knows it's because of her feelings towards Remus and the danger he is in and again ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
*Extra spoiler stuff contained here. Normal spoiler stuff still below*

Does Dumbles know Parsletongue? When he and Harry venture into Ogden's memory a lot of what they hear is a conversation among the family spoken in Parsletongue, which I thought only Harry could understand. Did Harry break things down for Dumbles afterwards? Does Dumbles speak snake? Are memories subtitled? And building off that last one, if Ogden didn't speak Parsletongue and this is his memory, how they hell did he remember the hissing noises so exactly that Harry could understand it? I have lots of questions about the whole Pensieve concept. Apparently to the point that I'm missing all of the important information being told to us.

I was irrationally angry at Mundungus for stealing things from Grimmauld place. Then I laughed when Phinny got all offended when he found out. Not that a portrait can do much but maybe he'll make some really scathing remarks at the guy or something. I feel like that's what he'd do even if he were corporeal.

Dumbles was a red head. Did we know that already? Regardless, I'm happy to see so many of my people wandering around these books.

How creepy is the scene with the cursed necklace and Katie Bell? Poor Katie. Maybe this is why you don't accept packages from strangers.

So now we're getting the start of the Ginny/Harry pairing and...well...

I don't remember having any particular feelings about this the first time around. Now I picture Rowling going "I should really give Harry a love interest that doesn't spend a bunch of their time together crying. But who to choose? Oh, Ginny's been hanging out over there being awesome, so that works." I mean, it makes sense and I could see Harry falling for his BFFs little sis who helped him fight at the ministry. But the whole thing just feels like an afterthought. Not like the Hermione/Ron pairing which was CLEAR from the start. Those two are adorably bicker-y.

However, before we can really get to Hermione & Ron, we have to watch Ron & Lavender. Poor Hermione, although she should really quit being so mad at him. Except I don't know I can blame her too much, if only because Won-Won and Lavender are especially annoying. Also "snogging" is an excellent term that we need to adopt over here.

I feel so bad for Lupin in these scenes. I forgot what he was up to the whole time in this book. And I can picture him trying to talk the werewolves into joining Dumbledore. I'm sure things are going as well as they did when he was trying to keep James and Sirius in line when they were all at Hogwarts. Lupin needs a hug. And maybe someone to buy him some new robes for Christmas.

Stop fighting it

I came veeeeery close to liking Scrimgeour during the Christmas scene, until he made it clear he wasn't just trying to make Percy see his family (which makes no sense because why would he care if Percy is fighting with his family except that I just want everyone to be happy, dammit.) But it's especially pathetic that Umbridge is still working for the Ministry. She went clearly nuts in the end and there were plenty of people to act as an anti-character witness for her. How the hell does she still have any job, let alone with the Ministry?

So love potions are wizarding roofies, yes?

The Apparition instructor's name is Wilkie. That is all.

What was Slughorn hiding in his memory??? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO RON?? You're making it very hard to stop reading this week.

Title quote from page 321

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Bloomsbury, 2005

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince part 1. Still no title quote

Happy HP Friday, everyone. This is going to be another quick post as I’m still out of the country. I’m actually sitting in a bar in Galway typing this up right now. Or at least starting this post. Anyhooo

Thanks Alice for hosting this and thar be spoilers ahead.

So, I didn’t finish the reading this week. Or in my case, the listening. I think had I actually had the book itself instead of just the audio I may have finished it. I can listen to the audiobooks if I’m on the move, on a train or a plane or something. This week though I’ve had a lot less travel time, which means a lot less time to just sit and listen to the story. I’m doing well this week.

Also I’m still angry at JK at this point cos of the whole ending to OotP. Which is roughly how I remember the reading going the first time around. How was it for those that had to wait for the 6th book to come out? I read 3-7 straight through so I didn’t have any time in between to speculate about what would be happening or really come to terms with the (SUPER AMBIGUOUS I STILL DON’T BELIEVE IT) death of Sirius. Of course that does mean even this time around I get all choked up whenever Harry gets choked up about Sirius’s death and then everyone’s sad again.

But at least this time Dumbles has realized maybe keeping Harry in the dark is a bad idea and has started letting him in on details. Plus this means more scenes with Dumbles and I love the way he had the glasses of brandy? whiskey? whatever smacking the Dursleys in the head when he was hanging out there waiting for Harry to get packed.

Then they go try to talk Slug-man into coming out of retirement. I did like his disguise and also the fact that he's just breaking into random Muggles homes to hang out there, which is creepy. And he says pompous things about all the amazing people he has inspired, but it's nice to see a Slytherin that isn't awful to the core.

Back to the Burrow and we learn that Arthur's private nickname is Mollywobbles (or that's what it sounded like) and that's adorable.

Oh and Fleur's hanging out, saying awful things even though it doesn't sound like she means to and maybe the others should be a little nicer to her or maybe tell her to shut up a bit. Tell her to shut up nicely and maybe call her a berk a few times. Family relations, I will fix them.

Aaaand, that's as far as I've made it. Whoops. But I'll be all caught up for next week. Probable promises. Also I will be able to actually visit everyone else's blogs. I will dedicate Sunday to that. Or you know, I won't but I'll sure think about doing it.