CHAPDISC: HBP17, A Sluggish Memory

[AnitaKH]

No: HPFGUIDX 153064

CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 17, A Sluggish Memory
   
  (With profound gratitude to Penapart Elf, for all her invaluable suggestions and edits)
   
  The chapter opens shortly after the New Year, and Ginny, Harry and Ron are getting ready to return to Hogwarts by floo, through a one-off arrangement by the Ministry of Magic.  Molly is giving them a tearful sendoff, which is her general state these days.  
   
  They arrive in McGonnagall’s office and head for the Gryffindor Tower.  When they reach the Fat Lady, she is clearly hung over and the password has changed.  Hermione rushes up, having arrived shortly beforehand, and she provides the new password, “Abstinence.”  She has another message from Dumbledore for Harry, arranging to meet the following evening.
   
  As soon as they enter the common room, Ron is tackled – er – approached by Lavender, cooing “Won-Won,” and they soon adopt their standard positions, entwined about each other.  Hermione and Harry head for a quiet part of the room, and she invites Ginny to join them.  Ginny declines, saying she’s promised to meet Dean, but Harry notices she says it without much enthusiasm.
   
  Harry attempts to talk to Hermione about her attitude towards Ron, but she is not yet ready to overlook his behavior.  He then describes the conversation he overheard between Snape and Draco.  Predictably, her reaction resembles Lupin’s and Arthur Weasley’s, but she does concede that Draco is obviously up to something.  At the same time, she suggests that Draco’s “master” might be his father, not Lord Voldemort.
   
  She asks about Lupin, and Harry says he’s not happy, having had to hang out with werewolves.  He mentions Fenrir Greyback, and Hermione instantly recognizes the name.  She reminds Harry that Greyback is the “family friend” Draco used to threaten Borgin in Knockturn Alley.  Harry believes this proves Draco is a Death Eater, but Hermione is less willing to jump to that conclusion.
   
  Harry tells Hermione about his encounter with Scrimgeour over Christmas, and they spend the rest of the evening enjoyably, disparaging the Ministry of Magic.
   
  The next morning, the sixth-years find a sign-up for Apparition Lessons.  It becomes the topic du jour, with Ron concerned he won’t pass the first time and the twins will tease him endlessly.  Harry hopes that it is a better experience than Side-Along-Apparition.
   
  Seamus, lost in dreams of besting his cousin in Apparating, inadvertently flattens Professor Flitwick with a blast of water.  While Seamus is set writing his lines, Ron lets the others know Harry has experienced Side-Along-Apparition.  Throughout the day, Harry is besieged with questions about Apparition.
   
  Finally, it is time for him to meet with Dumbledore.  He wonders once again how Dumbledore’s hand was injured, but he resists asking.  Instead, Dumbledore tells him he heard about Harry’s meeting with Scrimgeour.  Harry discovers that Fudge hatched the idea and Scrimgeour took it up, demanding that Dumbledore arrange a meeting.  Harry realizes this is the argument reported in the Daily Prophet, and Dumbledore confirms it.
   
  Harry tells Dumbledore that Scrimgeour accused him of being “Dumbledore’s man through and through.”  Harry says, “I told him I was.”  Dumbledore is visibly moved, and Harry hears a musical cry from Fawkes.  He looks away, embarrassed at Dumbledore’s emotional display.  
   
  Harry adds that Scrimgeour also tried to find out where Dumbledore goes when he's not at school.  The Headmaster is aware of the MoM's intense curiosity about his activities, having already been forced to jinx Dawlish who was tailing Dumbledore for the Ministry.  Harry mentions the conversation between Snape and Draco to Dumbledore, who dismisses it, saying it is of no great importance.  When Harry questions his response, Dumbledore shows rare impatience with Harry, telling him he understands all Harry said and likely more than Harry understood.  He reiterates his trust in Snape.
   
  Despite Harry’s irritation with Dumbledore, he pays attention, realizing that he gains nothing by arguing.
   
  Dumbledore then continues Tom Riddle’s story, through Tom’s arrival at Hogwarts and his strikingly altered demeanor from the arrogant, willful child at the orphanage.  Tom charmed and impressed most of the faculty; Dumbledore chose not to tell them about his prior behavior in the hopes that he had determined to follow a different path.
   
  Harry remembers his conversation with Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets and realizes that Dumbledore was not among those who trusted Tom.  Dumbledore admits that he kept a close eye on him.  He mentions Tom’s group of “friends” that appear to have been the forerunner of the Death Eaters, and in fact some of the members were early Death Eaters.  
   
  Dumbledore had difficulty finding anyone willing to talk about Tom; those who would talk mentioned his obsession with his parentage, understandable in an orphan.  His search led Tom to conclude that his father was not a wizard; at this point, Dumbledore believes, Tom dropped his given name in order to assume the identity of Lord Voldemort.  Tom then pursued his line of inquiry based on his maternal grandfather’s name.  This led him to the Gaunts, and he went to see them the summer of his sixteenth year.
   
  They move to the pensieve for the next memory, which is Morfin’s encounter with Tom Riddle.  In it, Morfin mistook Tom for his father and revealed that Riddle Sr. returned to live with his parents  after leaving Morfin's sister.  As Morfin bewailed the missing Slytherin locket and being dishonored, the memory ends abruptly, and Dumbledore explains that Morfin’s memory ended there.  He remembered nothing until the next morning, when he was lying on his floor and the Gaunt ring which he had worn was missing.  
   
  That same morning, the dead Riddles (Tom Sr. and his mother and father) were discovered and the Muggle authorities were mystified.  The Ministry of Magic immediately recognized it as a wizard murder, and they knew of a muggle-hater nearby.  Sure enough, when they visited Morfin, not only was his wand proven to have been used to commit the murders, he made a boastful confession, supplying details only the killer would have known.  Only through Dumbledore’s thoroughness and skill as a Legilimens was he able to retrieve the true memory.  He attempted to exonerate Morfin who died before the Ministry reached a decision.
   
  Harry asks why the Ministry didn’t realize someone else was involved, since Tom at the time was underage and the Ministry can detect underage magic.  Dumbledore explains that they can detect the magic but not the perpetrator, hence Harry’s trouble when Dobby performed magic at number four, Privet Drive.  He goes on to say that the Ministry relies on parents to monitor their children’s use of magic, which Harry points out is faulty, at best.
   
  Dumbledore presses on, having one more memory to explore that evening.  He produces another phial, and Harry notices that the contents seem somewhat congealed when Dumbledore pours them into the pensieve.  Landing in the memory, Harry instantly recognizes a much younger Slughorn, apparently holding court in his office.  Harry sees Tom Riddle among the students gathered, and he notices Tom was wearing the Gaunt ring.  Tom asked about a rumored retirement, and Slughorn noted that Tom knows more about what's going on at Hogwarts than half the staff.  
   
  During this interchange, the room suddenly fills with fog, and Slughorn’s altered voice announces that Tom will go wrong.  Just as suddenly, the scene returns to the office, and the party was breaking up.  Tom lagged behind to ask Slughorn about Horcruxes.  Again, the fog descends and Harry hears Slughorn speak through the fog, denying any knowledge of Horcruxes and ordering Tom out of the room.  
   
  Returning from the memory, Harry is puzzled.  Dumbledore had said this was the most important memory, yet he feels they learned very little.  Dumbledore explains that Slughorn, being ashamed, tampered with the memory, which accounts for the fog.  However, his true memory remains, and Dumbledore sets Harry the task of retrieving it from Slughorn.
   
  Harry questions that he is the best person for the job.  Why doesn’t Dumbledore just use his considerable skills?  Dumbledore is not willing to wrest the information from Slughorn who would now be on guard against Dumbledore, and he believes Harry can find a way to collect Slughorn’s memory without force. 
   
  As Harry leaves, he hears Phineas’s portrait express Harry’s own doubts, saying “I can’t see why the boy should be able to do it better than you, Dumbledore.”
   
  As Dumbledore replies that he wouldn’t expect Phineas to, we hear Fawkes once again.
    
   
  Questions:
   
  1. Early in the chapter, Harry and Hermione have the following exchange:  
   
  [Harry:] ‘So how was your Christmas?’ 
  ‘Oh fine,’ [Hermione] shrugged ‘Nothing special.  How was it at Won-Won’s?’ 
  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ said Harry.  ‘Look, Hermione, can’t you - ?’ 
  ‘No, I can’t,’ she said flatly.  ‘So don’t even ask.’ 
  ‘I thought maybe, you know, over Christmas–‘ 
  ‘It was the Fat Lady who drank a vat of five-hundred-year-old wine, Harry, not me.’ (pp. 329-330, Bloomsbury edition)
   
  I first presumed this was fairly straightforward.  Harry wants Hermione to stop being petty over Ron and she replies not as long as she remembers the past (unlike someone who had been on a bender).  Upon rereading it, however, it sounds much more ambiguous.  Is Hermione suggesting she has nothing to feel guilty about?  That she is temperate, unlike Ron and the Fat Lady?  For that matter, is that really what Harry was going to ask her?  Thoughts?
   
  2. When the other sixth-years learn Harry has experienced Apparition, they pelt him with questions.  Given how many of them come from wizarding families, why do they grill Harry? Why not ask Mom, Dad, or cousin Fergus?
   
  3. Once again, Professor Flitwick provides comedy relief.  Is this his role in the series, or will he play a more profound role by the end?
   
  4. In the scene when Harry confides his concerns about the Snape/Draco conversation, we have a Harry who is feeling wronged but takes the high road, refraining from arguing.  This is markedly different from his confrontations with Umbridge in Order of the Phoenix.  Can we attribute that to his respect for Dumbledore, his added maturity, or both?
   
  5. With Tom Riddle, Dumbledore again demonstrates his belief in second chances.  This could build the case for “See, he was right to give second chances,” or “Here’s an early demonstration of his tragic flaw.”  Which do you believe will be the eventual outcome?
   
  6. Dumbledore describes the group of Tom’s friends as “a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish, gravitating towards a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty.”  Can we apply this description to any other groups in the series, both within and outside of Hogwarts? 
   
  7. We now have some explanation of how detection of underage magic works and the Ministry’s decision to allow families to monitor their own children.  Did you find this to match your earlier presumptions?  Do you agree with Harry that this policy is “rubbish”?
   
  8. Just how *did* Slughorn tamper with his memory?
   
  9. Does the Slughorn memory scene help build the case for the Good Slytherin?
   
  10. Harry (and Phineas) thinks Dumbledore could get the accurate memory without Harry’s help.  Does Dumbledore have a larger purpose in setting Harry with the task?
   
  11. Fawkes “speaks” twice in this scene, once after Harry calls himself Dumbledore’s man and once after Dumbledore replies to Phineas.  What is the significance of the placement of these two cries?
   
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