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

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 156363

Colebiancardi:
I believe that in CoS, we learned that Snape was an expert duelist
and was pretty quick on his feet. And that he kinda man-handled
Draco in the dueling scene with Harry. Or is that the movie?
Anyway, there seems to be more than just potions to our Potions
Master - he can duel - a hint of his power to come in HBP

Dung:
Actually, it's Flitwick we find out was the ex-duelling champion, 
Snape just managed to knock Lockhart off his feet at the one and 
only meeting of the duelling club, which is hardly cause for 
crowning him champion. And the manhandling of Draco is definitely 
film-nonsense.

Carol:
<snipping list of Snape stuff in CoS>
So even though I'd love to have seen more of Snape in CoS and any
other book, I think we see enough of him <snip>

Dung:
That's not quite what I meant. I meant that there's important 
information given out about Snape in each book except CoS, not that 
he doesn't appear in CoS, nor that we can't speculate anything 
about him from what he does or says in CoS. I was talking about 
specific personal information about his past, and if you look at a 
list of the books and what we discover about Snape, CoS is 
conspicuously uninformative. (I forgot to put discovering that 
Snape was the one who sent Voldy after the Potters as important 
info we find out about him in Book 6, btw.)
 
Carol:
Still, to return to my original comment about not seeing how the 
HBP plot could fit into CoS, I don't see how the HBP's Potions 
text or DADA text could have been used in a book about Harry's 
second year. <snip>
It's just hard for me to comprehend that JKR would even think of 
including it so early.

Dung:
That's precisely my point. It doesn't make sense, and she was 
right to move it to book 6, but if you take the view that when she 
was planning out the series she wanted to drop in a new bit of info 
about Snape in every book, it makes perfect sense that she was 
originally going to have Harry discover that Snape was a clever 
half-blood who was drawn to the dark arts in book 2.

Carol:
it would have been premature to show Snape inventing spells like 
Levicorpus, much less Sectumsempra, not to mention having Harry 
cast it on Draco in second year and Snape saving Draco from death 
at Harry's hands when the two boys are twelve years old.

Dung:
Weeeelll... Sort of. It's unlikely she would have had the nonverbal 
Levicorpus. But she could easily have substituted something else, 
or made levicorpus verbal and Sectumsempra easy to pull off, or 
would she simply have moved the time that the students learn about 
nonverbals to second year? Difficult to tell, and IMO, not 
terrifically important. The way it ended up being written of 
course seems like a more natural progression, because that's what 
we've been reading for the last howevermany years, but she could 
have changed things, switched them around, and generally fudged 
stuff to make it fit.

Carol:
As I think I said in an earlier post, I'd love to get my hands on 
the draft and/or notes of the HBP/CoS combined plots. What a 
disaster it would have been for the series if she hadn't realized 
her error!

Dung:
I certainly think it wouldn't have tricked so many readers into 
thinking that Snape wasn't a main character <g>.

Goddlefrood:
The basic plot element that is discovered in HBP is the existence 
of LV's cache of Horcruxes. This is what I think JKR meant in that 
she would have introduced us to Horcruxes in Cos (wehich would have 
been called HBP but for the alteration of the sequence of events), 
and part of the revelation originally was to have come from the HBP 
himself (leaving us in less doubt as to his loyalties). After all, 
as we now know the diary was a Horcrux container.

Dung:
I think you're confusing the Half-Blood Prince *book* (book 6) with 
the Half-Blood Prince *plotline*, which is only a very small part 
of that book. In fact, I think that "plotline" is a bit of a 
misnomer, because all it really is is information about Snape which 
is revealed painfully slowly over the course of a book. I'm certain 
it's important for book 7, in that it gives us a bit more 
background about Snape, and may affect whatever decision harry is 
going to have to make with regards to him. 

All those who think the HBP was originally going to be Voldemort, 
can you tell me why? What use is it for the plot? Why is the 
plotline in there at all? Why is it so important to have a 
character who nicknames himself the Half-Blood Prince, yet it 
doesn't matter *which* character it actually is?

Abergoat:
If Eileen is tied up in Hagrid's story that may have been 
completely removed from CoS. We only know that Hagrid was blamed 
for the events and his name was never completely cleared. I'm sure 
I'm wrong – but tying Snape's goals to his mother and tying his 
mother to Snape would help JKR tie up the loose ends into the 'big 
knot' she has promised us. And the entrance to the CoS is in the 
GIRLS bathroom. A sharp Ravenclaw with a lot of family books may 
have known the story...and found the entrance.

Dung:
I admire your dedication to Eileen! But I'm afraid I don't agree. 
I never got the impression that there were any big nagging questions 
posed by the Chamber affair which needed clearing up. I'm not sure 
what your theory actually solves, what holes it actually fills. But 
don't listen to me being a killjoy :D. Theorise away! (With lots of 
gruesome deaths and back-stabbings, please ... has anybody tried to 
make you wear a FEATHERBOA, yet...?)

Just out of interest, though, to put a little flesh on the bones of 
your theory, why would any kind of Ravenclaw be interested in 
finding the legendary secret chamber of Slytherin? And if she 
didn't speak Parseltongue, how did she realise that the little 
serpent scratched into the tap in the bathroom signified that 
she'd found the entrance? 

Abergoat:
An archnid has black (faceted?) eyes. The eyes described by Moaning 
Myrtle were NOT those of a spider.

Dung:
No, spider eyes are not faceted, but neither are they yellow, or 
anything like a snake's eyes, and they generally have 8 of them, 
though always in 4 pairs.  

Dung, previously: < Out of interest, did anyone ever figure out 
what that detail was that JKR insisted was kept in the unnameable 
version of CoS? <snip>

DA Jones:
The answer to that is easy enough. The silver and opal necklace 
that Katie is cursed with in the chapter Silver and Opals in HBP 
chapter 12 (pg. 248-252 HBP, scholastic) is the same necklace 
mentioned on page 52 of chapter 4 Flourish and Blotts from COS 
(Scholastic).

Dung:
::Slaps forehead:: Ah, yes! Bravo! Though actually, I'll have to 
sheepishly admit to not remembering at all whether we saw the 
necklace in the film. 

Cheers,
Dungrollin