CHAPDISC HBP 15, The Unbreakable Vow

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 152234

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:
>
> CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter
> 15, The Unbreakable Vow.

houyhnhnm:

Excellent summary and thought-provoking questions.  I had to wait 'til
the weekend to give them my full attention and still can't respond as
fully as I would have liked to.

1) What do you think of Ron's public "snogging" sessions with Lavender
and Hermione's reaction? What about Ron's and Hermione's behavior in
Transfiguration? What does Harry (whose thoughts are paraphrased by
the narrator) mean by "the depths to which girls would sink to get
revenge"?

Between the fact that Ron is a sixteen-year-old boy who has just
discovered kissing and that fact that he was publicly humiliated for
his lack of experience by his little sister, his behavior with
Lavender isn't all that surprising, IMO.  Nor is Hermione's reaction.
 But I agree with Harry that asking McLaggan to the party, especially
announcing it in front of Ron with the comment "I like /really good/
Quidditch players" (perilously close to the revelation that she
confunded McLaggan), is pretty low.  It is much worse, IMO, than
attacking him with birds.

But more interesting to me in the Transfiguration class scene,  is the
fact that  the lesson deals with *human* transfiguration, at last, and
the fact that Ron gives himself a handlebar mustache (not a "walrus"
mustache, I know, but close). Heads up! :-)

2) Hermione says that love potions are not Dark or dangerous, but
Harry, the intended recipient, disagrees. How "dark" is Romilda's plot
to get Harry to take her to Slughorn's party by, erm, potioning him?
And how responsible are the Twins, who made and sold the love potions,
for the uses to which the potions are put?

I think that Hermione, who is so frequently the voice of reason in the
Potter series, is wrong in this instance.  Possibly because she is so
deeply immersed in her own "bad love".  Not that her underlying
attraction to Ron is bad, but the dangerous and destructive lengths to
which her jealosy drives her are very bad indeed.

The most conclusive proof that love potions are Dark and dangerous is
the fact that the very existence of Lord Voldemort is due to their
use.  Merope would never have induced Tom Riddle, Sr. to marry her,
and Tom Marvolo Riddle would never have been born, without the use of
a love potion.

How responsible are Fred and George for furnishing the love potion
that almost, indirectly, kills their brother?  How responsible are
they for indirectly providing Draco with the means of bringing DEs
into the castle, and for, indirectly again, furnishing them with the
means of eluding the DAs when they emerge from the RoR?  This is a
question I would very much like answered in book 7. Are Dark Lords (of
which Voldemort is only the latest manifestation) the cause or the
result of evil?  Is the true genesis of evil to be found in the
everyday petty sins of omission and commission performed by otherwise
"good" people?

3)[snip] Is he just using the Prince's notes to get marks he doesn't
deserve, or is he really learning more from the Prince than he ever
learned from the adult Snape or Slughorn?

I think it is the Prince's mind that fascinates Harry, not potions per
se.  It shows how rich the student-teacher relationship between Harry
and Snape could have been, if only .... 

4) We later learn that Madam Pince is not the only person listening
behind the shelves: Draco is there as well. JKR is clearly misleading
the reader with a false or incomplete explanation.

There is misleading going on in this scene, and there is also leading.
 My favorite:  "I'm not taliking about your stupid so-called Prince,"
said Hermione, giving his book a nasty look *as though it had been
rude to her*.  [emphasis added]  It had, or rather its previous owner
had.  Then there is "[Madam Pince's] long hooked nose illuminated
unflatteringly by the lamp she was carrying."  And there is the
linking together of Filch and Madam Pinch.  

6) Why do you think that Harry invited Luna to Slughorn's party? What
does his doing so tell us about him, compared to or contrasted with
Hermione's inviting Cormac McLaggen?

Harry's decision to invite Luna was triggered, I believe, by her
behavior to Hermione and her generous and candid remarks about Ron. 
It is an excellent example of Harry's power "that the Dark Lord knows
not".  His decision to invite her was spontaneous and disinterested. 
There was no calculation, no ulterior motive (a little concern with
what others would think--he's a teenage boy after all--but he overcame
it.)  It stands in stark contrast to Hermione's behavior, and so do
the consequences.  Harry earns Ginny's approbation by inviting Luna to
the party and Luna gets him out of an uncomfortable three-way
conversation with Snape and Slughorn.  Hermione only succeeds in
hurting the object of *her* desire and suffers a very unpleasant
evening (and she will have gotten off very lightly, IMO, if one bad
evening is the end of it.)

7) And why would Slughorn invite Trelawney, of all people, along with
his Slug Club, his celebrity guests, and his former star pupil,
Severus Snape? 

Very good question!    Trelawney has nothing to recommend her to
Slughorn.  Poor, obscure, not a mixer, not even a very competent
witch, AFAWK.  The only reason she even has a job is because of the
prophecy.  I find her presence at the party very strange.  If he had
issued a blanket invitation to all faculty, surely one or two others,
besides Snape, might have at least have put in an appearance.  He
calls her Sybill.  He says "... I can tell you that, Sybill--"  We
don't know whether the emphasis was on "you" or "that". 

7) [...] Do you detect any genuine affection on Slughorn's part for
his brilliant former student, or is it all jovial bluster and too much
mead? 

I was chiefly struck by the similarity to Dumbledore's "handling" of
Snape. ("Come Severus, there's a delicious-looking custard tart I want
to sample--") And I am more interested in whether or not *Dumbledore*
has any genuine affection for his brilliant former student.  Slughorn'
s affections, at their most genuine, appear to me to be rather
shallow. But, I think there is much about Slughorn that we still don't
know.