How HBP could have interwoven into CoS (Was: Re: Eileen Prince)

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 156317

Carol:
But I have trouble understanding (even though I've read the 
interview in which JKR made the comment) how the plot of HBP could 
have been used for CoS. Was "Half-Blood Prince" originally a 
nickname for Voldemort, which she later assigned to Snape? surely 
she would have had twelve-year-old Harry finding out that much about 
Teen!Snape (finding Sectumsempra in his second-year Potions book and 
using it on Draco when both of them are twelve years old???) And 
obviously, Snape, regardless of his loyalties, would not have killed 
Dumbledore in Book 2, which would have meant closing down the school 
in Harry's third year and otherwise generally ruined the slowly 
unfolding main plot. And the encounter with the HBP's book would 
have worked rather oddly in connection with Ginny's interaction with 
the diary.

I'm completely thrown by this particular piece of information, 
frankly. Does anyone have any ideas how the HBP plot could have been 
interwoven with the Chamber of Secrets/diary/Basilisk plot?


Dung:
Coincidentally I was wondering similarly a few days ago. First, lets 
disentangle the HBP plotline from everything else that occurs in 
book 6, and see what we're left with. 

Well, the answer is not a lot, actually. It's just Snape's old text 
book with the potions additions and the made-up spells which get 
nastier, and his nick-name The Half-Blood Prince, which tells us a 
little about his family. The UV, the DADA job, and the murder of 
Dumbledore I wouldn't class as part of that plotline.

I did consider, like you, the possibility that Voldemort was 
originally going to be the HBP. There's one line of canon I can 
think of which might indicate the possibility, and it's DD at the 
end of CoS:

Ch18 p247(UK):
"[...]On the other hand, I would advise you, Lucius, not to go 
giving out any more of Lord Voldemort's old school things."

But on further reflection I've decided I think it was always going 
to be Snape. It's personal character information about what Snape 
was like at school and his family, it's just not transferable to 
another character, and neither is it an important enough plot point 
that it doesn't matter who was the HBP, we just need an HBP, 
somewhere. No, I think it was always Snape.

Because now you come to mention it, I've always wondered why there 
was so little about Snape in CoS. From where I'm sitting it looks 
like the plan was to drop in a little more information about him 
with each succeeding book, and the information that Snape was a 
highly gifted half-blood with a penchant for the Dark Arts would 
have fit quite neatly into the scheme. 

Consider:
PS: Snape hates Harry because he hated James, but he never wanted 
Harry dead.
CoS: (if the HBP plot had been left in) Snape's a highly gifted 
half-blood with a penchant for the Dark Arts. As it is, we learned 
nothing about Snape, except that he *really* hates Harry.
PoA: The hatred between Snape and the Marauders in more detail, 
along with The Werewolf Caper.
GoF: Snape was a Death Eater, but rejoined DD's side before 
Voldemort's fall.
OotP: Snape is a gifted Occlumens, which is how he manages his 
double-agent role, Sirius *really* hates him, and doesn't think 
he's really reformed.
HBP: Spinners End etc, bang bang bang.
Book 7: Either the cunning ruse which convinced DD to trust him, or 
the big reversal, and his real reasons for wanting Voldy finished. 
(You know which I'm rooting for.)

Most likely, IMO, is that the plotline was moved wholesale. Harry 
would originally have got the HBP's book in year 2 and events would 
have transpired similarly to the way they finally did in HBP; any 
old accident could have been conjured up to give him the excuse of 
needing a school copy, and he could easily have tried out something 
nasty on Draco, though not necessarily Sectumsempra. 

But I'll bet you a box of Honeydukes Best that it wasn't originally 
going to be a potions book, I bet it was going to be a DADA book. 
Snape would have been suspicious immediately if Harry had started 
doing brilliantly in potions right under his nose. 

If that's the case, I can see why she thought better, and put the 
HBP into book 6; quite apart from allowing Lockhart the vanity of 
demanding all his own publications as set texts, having Harry use 
the HBP's notes would have undermined his natural brilliance at 
DADA. Having the HBP revelation in book 6 also allows us to have 
seen Levicorpus used before, and it gives Harry a chance to talk to 
Lupin to get some more clues. 

I also think that the HBP (since the book was 50 years old) would 
have been a red herring suspect for the Heir of Slytherin, and was 
replaced with the Draco Malfoy polyjuice escapade.

Out of interest, did anyone ever figure out what that detail was 
that JKR insisted was kept in the unnameable version of CoS?

Dung.