Slytherin House Victorious!!

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 133203

Betsy Hp:

Okay, I for one *loved* HBP!  I've only gotten through a first read, 
and I'm still a bit giddy, but JKR has hit it out of the park for 
me.  And she *does* love house Slytherin!  She does! She does!

*Finally* we get an inner glimpse of the Slytherins hanging out and 
they're so sweet with each other.  How much did I love Pansy 
stroking poor, "boy on a verge of a nervous breakdown", Draco?  Oh, 
very, very much.  How much did I love Draco *finally* getting some 
of his own back with a helpless Harry?  Probably a bit more than is 
entirely ethical.

And how incredibly cool was Draco throughout the book?  His family 
is in danger and he sacrifices *everything*, quidditch, his 
schoolwork, his obsession with Potter, to try and save them.  Plus, 
he was incredibly clever with the vanishing cabinet idea.  And he 
was very good to keep his friends as ignorant of his delimma as he 
could, even when he was falling apart from the pressure. And he 
dropped his wand in the end!  Yay!

[As an aside, I loved how Draco and Harry switched positions from 
OotP, so that Draco was so beyond any childish "Harry obsessions" 
and Harry was himself obsessed with Draco, to the point of irking 
Dumbledore, even.]

Slughorn was great!  I loved the Slug club, and I loved how much 
insight he gave us on Lily.  So Lily would have made a good 
Slytherin, eh?  Harry came by it honestly! (See?  Slytherin is *so* 
JKR's second favorite house.)

And let's not forget Harry's new best-friend, the Half-Blood 
Prince.  JKR really slammed us over the head with the parallels 
between Harry and Snape, didn't she?  And I loved how the nickname 
became something almost ironic or cynical rather than any kind of 
delusion of grandeur.  (Plus, total hints that Lily and Severus were 
study buddies -- yay for thickening plots!)

Which leads us to the man himself, Snape, the baddest of the bad 
asses.  I will admit to a punched in the gut feeling when Dumbledore 
died at the end.  I had a moment of, "Oh Lord!  I've been worrying 
over the wrong Slytherin!"  But then I started thinking and realized 
that Snape is *so* Dumbledore's man (yet another similarity to 
Harry) and that Dumbledore was dying from his opening scene.  
Dumbledore made sure his death *meant* something, and Snape has been 
positioned perfectly.

[Another aside: How sweet was Gawp cuddling Hagrid at the funeral?  
I mean, JKR actually made me like Gawp!!]

And how cool has Regulus Black become?  I'm dead certain he left 
that "In your face, Freak-show!" note to Voldemort, which goes to 
show he really *was* Sirius's brother, and what a shame the two of 
them didn't get to fight side by side.

Some other stuff I enjoyed:
Ron/Lavender - How utterly perfect a portral of teenage coupling.  
It was like High School all over again.  Including the baby talk and 
the over the top Christmas gift.

Harry/Ginny - Maybe it was cheesy, but I loved it.  Good for Harry 
getting a tiny bit of fun time in before he's off to kill the big 
bad.

Tonks/Lupin - Yup, the Sirius/Lupin ship has sadly been sunk but I'm 
quite sure it'll float on in fanon.  In the meantime, Lupin gets him 
some lovin' and Tonks has mood-hair.  What's not to love? 

Greyback - Probably JKR's most chilling villain yet.  HE EATS 
CHILDREN!!!  ON PURPOSE!!  Tell me he's not an obvious stand-in for 
a pedophile.  And he's the one who turned Lupin.  I foresee a mighty 
payback in his future.

Voldemort's history - So *that's* what kind of family he comes 
from.  Did anyone else get a flash-back to the X-Files' 
episode, "Home"?  Plus, turns out Tom Riddle, Sr. was the innocent 
victim in all of this.  Nice twist. 

The still ambiguous Twins - The twins still manage some acts of 
uncomfortable cruelty.  What was up with the garden gnome Christmas 
angel?  And how interesting that all their wonderful inventions were 
used by Draco to get the Death Eaters into the school and flummox 
Harry's crew.

Fluer - Molly has finally met her match! Fluer did a great job of 
showing the ugly side of the Weasley family, and she didn't back 
down a bit.  It was like the war of the passive agressives.  Most 
entertaining. And of course, her final scene with Bill was 
excellent. (Though I will admit that I've softened a bit towards 
Molly.  She wasn't *quite* as grating for me this time around.)

And finally, Dobby vs. Kreacher - Oh my gosh, that was funny.  From 
Peeves egging them on to the raptures Kreacher goes through over 
Draco, I loved every scene they popped into.  Here's hoping they 
show up in the next book!

Overall, I was well pleased with HBP.  Yay, JKR!

Betsy Hp, looking forward to the giant scavenger hunt in the final 
book.

PS "Fug" is actually a word.  It means, "a stuffy or malodorous 
emanation".  What a great way to bring us back to Harry, huh?