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

[JD]

No: HPFGUIDX 156365

Imagining the Half-Blood Prince in the Chamber of Secrets.

>Carol (156339):
What a disaster it would have been for the series if she hadn't
realized her error!

JD: I don't agree. Whilst there are some advantages to putting the
Half-Blood Prince storyline in Books 6 there are also some advantages
to placing it in Book 2. The post will try to explain.

>Carol (156269): 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.

>Goddlefrood (156271): I think JKR meant in that she would have
introduced us to Horcruxes in Cos

JD:  I don't think either of these things belong to the "Half-Blood
Prince strand." Snape killing Dumbledore belongs to the "Unbreakable
Vow strand." Dumbledore teaching Harry about Voldemort's past and
Horcruxes belongs to the "House of Gaunt strand." The Half-Blood
Prince strand is separate to these. At its most basic level, the
information scrawled on the book means that: 
1. Harry wins the Felix Felicis
2. Harry saves Ron from poisoning 
3. Harry accidentally injures Draco
4. A few key things about Snape are revealed.

I think what we learn about Snape belongs in Book 6. Learning about
the dark spells he created as a teenager and finding out he referred
to himself as a Prince and emphasised his pureblood side belong in the
same book as his apparent betrayal. The book also introduces the idea
of a trusted friend betraying you- Harry is betrayed by the book when
it gives him Sectumsempra.

Winning the Felix Felicis could easily have been done without the
Potions book. I think that in a HBP-free Book 6 (perhaps called "Harry
Potter and the Unbreakable Vow") Harry would have won the Felix
Felicis simply because he found that he could prepare potions quite
easily with an amicable teacher and without Snape distracting him
(which is what happened in his OWL exam).

But I think the other two aspects of the story strand work better in
Book 2.

I found the scene where Ron gets poisoned contrived. I think this is
due to it being slotted in somewhere that it doesn't belong. Draco
sends poison to Dumbledore but Slughorn intercepts it and gives it to
Ron several months later just so that Harry can use a hint from the
Potions book to save him. Nevertheless, the scene's main point it to
give Harry a genuine reason to trust the Half-Blood Prince. This scene
would have slotted fairly easily into Book 2. I can imagine quite
clearly Lockhart in the place of Slughorn. He would have definitely
taken the wine for himself because of his vanity. Slughorn the Potions
Master failing to think of the bezoar when Harry does is a slightly
unrealistic, but incompetent Lockhart having no clue what to do would
have been completely in character and also hilarious. In this
alternate version of Book 2 perhaps it was Lucius Malfoy who sent
Dumbledore the poison to try and get rid of him. This fits with
Lucius's character and would have strengthened his role as a villain
in Book 2.

>Carol (156339): 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. 

JD: I disagree. I think moving this scene forward robbed it of its
power. Book 2 is when Harry begins to suspect that he may be evil.
Other students call him the Heir of Slytherin, suspect that he is
petrifying people and gossip that the reason Voldemort tried to kill
him as a baby was so that he wouldn't have any Dark Lord competition.
Harry doubts himself and asks the Sorting House for reassurance that
he is supposed to be a Gryffindor. A scene where Harry accidentally
does dark magic would build on these events. Simply being a
Parselmouth is enough for Harry to wonder if he is evil, but the
Sectumsempra scene would cause serious doubts in his mind. It doesn't
have the same effect in Book 6 because Harry doesn't have the same
doubts about himself anymore.

I found Harry's reaction to using Sectumsempra to be out of place in
Book 6. Harry says, "You know I wouldn't've used a spell like that,
not even on Malfoy" (Chapter 24 "Sectumsempra"). Yet Harry used the
much worse unforgivable torture curse on Bellatrix Lestrange a few
months before. Harry WOULD use a spell like that and he HAS. If he had
said the same thing in Book 2 it would have made more sense.

It's also easy to see how the logistics of the Sectumsempra scene
could be transposed 4 years earlier. It takes place in a bathroom and
features Moaning Myrtle, both key parts of Book 2. In this alternate
version of Book 2 I don't thing Draco would have been talking to
Myrtle about his isolation (I think that is part of the Unbreakable
Vow strand, not the Half-Blood Prince strand). He may have been
snooping on Harry. A duelling `rematch' between Draco and Harry would
give Draco a bit of comeuppance for cheating the first time and would
give the students something to gossip about: "Draco outs Potter as a
Parselmouth so Potter tries to bump him off in the girls' lavatory."

>Carol (156269): the encounter with the HBP's book would have worked
rather oddly in connection with Ginny's interaction with the diary.

>Dung (156317):
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

JD: I agree that it would have been a red herring. Harry would have
assumed that the owner of the diary and the owner of the Potions book
were one in the same. Including the Potions book in Book 2 would also
have made a nice parallel between the two books and therefore the two
owners.

The diary was bought 50 years ago and the Potions book was bought 50
years ago. Tom Riddle is a half-blood and the owner of the Potions
book is a half-blood. Tom Riddle earns Harry's trust by showing Harry
his capture of Hagrid and the Half-Blood Prince earns Harry's trust by
teaching him how to excel in Potions and giving him special spells.
Both Tom Riddle and the Half-Blood Prince betray Harry's trust- Hagrid
was innocent and the Sectumsempra spell caused real injury.

This red herring would have been useful. It would have given Harry a
real reason to immediately trust Tom Riddle's diary- he would have
already believed that he knew the owner (as the Prince) and that he
was a decent person.

>Dung (156317): 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.

JD: I don't think it could have been a DADA book because Lockhart was
that year's teacher and assigned all his own books. Eileen Prince
couldn't have had a 50 year old Lockhart book, could she? In addition,
Harry didn't get practical DADA lessons until third year. A DADA book
with hand-written hints and tips helping Harry excel in class would
have been useless when Harry spent second year DADA answering quizzes
about Lockhart's favourite colour, writing poems about Lockhart's
achievements and pretending to be a werewolf so Lockhart could
re-enact his triumphs.

I like the irony of Harry excelling at Potions right under Snape's nose.

>Dung (156317):
Harry would originally have got the HBP's book in year 2 
snip
 any
old accident could have been conjured up to give him the excuse of
needing a school copy 

JD: Perhaps in this alternate version of Book 2 Harry swapped all his
new books with Ginny's second-hand ones at Flourish and Blotts and
discovered the Half-Blood Prince's Potion book.

>Carol (156339): wondering how she would have fleshed out the plot of
Book 6 if she'd already used up the HBP plot

JD: The Half-Blood Prince strand isn't really that important in Book
6. I think the Unbreakable Vow strand is more developed and important.
The only aspect of the Half-Blood Prince strand that is essential to
Book 6 is what it reveals about Snape. Knowing that Snape created dark
spells as a teenager, called himself a Prince and emphasised his
pure-blood side means we are more likely to believe his apparent betrayal.

JD