CHAPDISC: HBP24, Sectumsempra

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161107

CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter
24, Sectumsempra.

After casting the Muffliato spell to prevent anyone in their Charms
class from hearing him, Harry tells Ron and Hermione about wheedling
the true memory from Slughorn and about Dumbledore's lesson on
Horcruxes. Both friends are "satisfyingly impressed."

A red-eyed Lavender Brown glares when Hermione grabs Ron's wrist
because he's accidentally creating fake snow and bursts into tears
when Hermione brushes the snow from Ron's shoulders. Ron confides that
Lavender broke up with him after she saw him leaving the boys' dorm
with Hermione, unaware that Harry was with them under the Invisibility
Cloak. Hermione, who seems amused by the story, informs them that
Ginny has split up with Dean for an equally silly reason--she didn't
like having him help her through the portrait hole. Harry feigns
indifference but his insides are "dancing the conga." Not
surprisingly, both he and Ron conspicuously fail to turn their vinegar
into wine. (Hermione, of course, has easily mastered the charm.)

Hermione and Ron are both in good spirits after the class, but Harry
is torn by conflicting emotions: attraction to Ginny and loyalty to
Ron. His internal debate is interrupted by the sight of Katie Bell,
who has returned to school after being in St. Mungo's since December.
After welcoming her back to the team and stating his hopes that
Gryffindor can beat Ravenclaw and win the Cup, Harry asks her if she
remembers who gave her the cursed necklace. Unfortunately, Katie can't
recall anything between walking into the ladies' room at The Three
Broomsticks and waking up in St. Mungo's five months later.

After Katie leaves, Hermione states that the person who Imperiused
Katie must have been female, but Harry, thinking of Crabbe and Goyle,
suggests that the person might have been Polyjuiced to look like a
girl. He considers taking a swig of Felix Felicis and waiting beside
the Room of Requirement again, but Hermione discourages this idea as
"a waste of potion." Checking his copy of "Advanced Potion-Making" to
see how long a new batch of Felix would require (six months), Harry
notices the folded-down page corner that he had used to mark
Sectumsempra, a spell that the Half-Blood Prince had scribbled into
the margins of his book and labeled "For Enemies." Still unsure what
the spell does because he doesn't want to practice it around Hermione,
Harry considers testing it on McLaggen to find out.

With Katie back, Quidditch practice goes extremely well. Not at all
upset about breaking up with Dean (who is off the team because of
Katie's return), Ginny entertains her teammates with her imitations of
Ron and Harry. Harry returns to his internal debate over whether
asking Ginny out would be "base treachery" to Ron, at the same time
hoping that a spectacular win for Gryffindor will be as good as a swig
of Felix Felicis in insuring his success with Ginny.

Harry has not, however, lost interest in figuring out what Draco
Malfoy is up to and continues to check the Marauder's Map
periodically. Although Draco's dot is frequently absent, meaning that
he's spending a lot of time in the Room of Requirement, Harry's
continued attempts to get inside the room are futile. No matter how he
words his request, the door does not appear.

A few days before the scheduled match with Ravenclaw, he spots Draco
on the map in a sixth-floor boys' restroom, accompanied not by Crabbe
or Goyle but by Moaning Myrtle. Harry runs downstairs and presses his
ear against the restroom door but hears nothing. Quietly opening the
door, he sees Draco bent over a sink, clutching it with both hands and
shaking. Draco declines Moaning Myrtle's offers to help him and adds,
"I can't do it. . . . I can't. . . . It won't work. . . and unless I
do it soon . . . he says he'll kill me. . . ." 

Just as Harry realizes with a shock that Draco is crying, Draco sees
Harry's reflection in the mirror and whirls around with his wand
drawn. Harry draws his own wand. Draco's hex misses him, shattering a
lamp. Harry attempts Levicorpus, but Draco blocks it. Ignoring
Myrtle's screams and cries, the boys continue to battle, doing more
damage to the restroom than to each other. Finally, Draco attempts a
Cruciatus Curse, but Harry cuts him off, yelling "Sectumsempra!" and
waving his wand around wildly.

Blood spurts from Draco's head and chest, and he collapses on the wet
floor, dropping his wand. Harry falls to his knees, gasping "No--No--I
didn't--"

Myrtle screams, "MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!" and
Professor Snape bursts into the restroom, looking livid. Pushing Harry
aside, he kneels beside Draco and mutters a songlike incantation,
tracing the wounds with his wand as Harry watches in helpless horror
and Myrtle sobs and wails overhead. The bleeding slows and then stops.
Snape repeats the incantation, and the wounds seem to knit. After
performing the incantation a third time, Snape helps Draco to his
feet, telling him that he needs to take dittany to avoid scarring and
ordering Harry to wait till he returns from taking Draco to the
hospital wing. 

Too shaken even to think of disobeying, Harry waits silently. Snape
returns ten minutes later and orders Myrtle to leave. Ignoring Harry's
protest that he didn't know what the spell did, Snape says that he
underestimated Harry and asks where he learned such Dark Magic. When
Harry claims that he read it in a library book, Snape calls him a liar
and, despite Harry's efforts to block his thoughts, forces a mental
image of his Potions book to rise to the forefront of his mind. Snape
orders Harry to fetch his schoolbag with all his textbooks and return
immediately.

Knowing that it's pointless to argue, Harry runs to Gryffindor Tower,
terrified that Snape will not only confiscate the book he regards as a
guide and friend but also tell Slughorn how he's been achieving his
high marks in Potions all year. He ignores Ron's questions about why
he's soaked with water and blood, demanding that Ron give him his
Potions book. Grabbing his schoolbag, he runs to the Room of
Requirement and asks it for a place to hide his book. The room opens
to reveal "walls" composed of broken and banned objects hidden and
forgotten by many generations of Hogwarts students--"thousands" of
books and a multitude of objects, from Fanged Frisbees and broken
eggshells to a blood-stained axe. Passing the broken Vanishing Cabinet
into which the Twins had stuffed Montague the previous year, Harry
finds an acid-splashed cupboard in which someone has already hidden a
cage containing a five-legged creature, now reduced to a skeleton. He
hides the Prince's book behind the cage and marks the spot with the
bust of an ugly old warlock, on which he places a dusty wig and a
tarnished tiara to help him find it again. 

Harry rushes back to the restroom where Snape is waiting and hands
over the schoolbag. Snape examines his books one at a time, looking
especially carefully at the Potions book. He asks Harry three times
whether the Potions book is his, and when Harry persists in answering
"yes," he asks why the name Roonil Wazlib is written inside the front
cover. When Harry says that's his nickname and Snape again looks into
his eyes, Harry again fails to close his mind and block Snape from
seeing his thoughts.

Calling Harry a liar and a cheat, Snape gives him detention every
Saturday until the end of term. Harry protests that Saturday is the
last match of the season, and Snape smiles, remarking that he fears
"poor Gryffindor" will be in fourth place this year. Harry leaves the
restroom feeling sick.

Word of the incident spreads quickly, thanks to Moaning Myrtle. After
Snape tells the staff "precisely what happened," Professor McGonagall
lectures Harry for fifteen minutes, telling him that he's lucky not to
have been expelled and that she wholeheartedly approves Snape's weekly
detentions. 

Hermione tells Harry that she knew something was wrong with "that
Prince person," but Harry defends the boy he feels is his friend,
arguing that the Prince only copied out the spell and saying that
without him, he'd never have won the Felix Felicis or known how to
save Ron from the poisoned mead. Hermione interrupts, pointing out
that he'd also never have acquired a reputation for brilliance in
Potions that he didn't deserve.

Ginny tells her to give it a rest and reminds her that Draco was
trying to use an Unforgiveable Curse. When the girls turn away from
each other after a few more angry words, Harry feels oddly cheerful.
However, he still has to endure the Slytherin taunts and his own
teammates' anger at him for getting detention during their final
match, which forces Ginny to play Seeker and puts Dean back on the
team in Ginny's place.

On Saturday morning, while the rest of the school heads for the
Quidditch pitch, Harry goes to Snape's office, the same dark room full
of slimy dead creatures floating in colored potions that he had used
as Potions master. Snape tells Harry that he'll be recopying the
records of  "crimes and punishments" of former students for Filch
without using magic. He is to begin with boxes 1012 to 1056, which
apparently correspond with the years during which Harry's father (and
Severus Snape) attended Hogwarts. After Snape reads aloud a card
recording a double detention for James Potter and Sirius Black for an
illegal hex that doubled the size of another student's head and
remarks that the record of their great achievements must be a comfort
to Harry, Harry holds back an angry retort and begins his boring task,
occasionally feeling a jolt in his stomach as he encounters another
record of his father's detentions. Five hours later, Snape tells him
to mark his place and return at 10 a.m. the next Saturday. Harry
stuffs a card into the box at random and runs up to the common room
where he discovers the Gryffindors celebrating their victory.

Ginny rushes toward him wearing a "hard, blazing look," and Harry
kisses her in front of fifty people. Both Dean and Romilda Vane seem
angry, but Hermione looks happy and Ron looks stunned. Then Ron gives
a tiny jerk of his head that Harry interprets to mean, "Well, if you
must," and Harry and Ginny leave for a long walk on the grounds.

Discussion Questions:

1.  How in the world could Ron "make it snow"? What might be the
significance, if any, of this particular piece of accidental magic?

2. Lavender and Dean are both jilted in this chapter. What is your
reaction, if any, to their jealousy and/or suffering? Which one do you
feel is more deserving of sympathy, and why?

3.  Why does Harry feel that going out with Ginny would be disloyal to
Ron and that he must choose between the two? What do you think Ron's
reaction would have been if Harry had leveled with him?

4. Harry undergoes a number of temptations in this chapter, among them
to try out Sectumsempra on McLaggen and to use Felix Felicis either to
strengthen his chances with Ginny or to help him get into the Room of
Requirement so he can find out what Draco is up to. What do these
temptations reveal about Harry and about his ability to deal with
temptation in general? Might they foreshadow a more serious temptation
in Book 7?

5. What was your initial reaction to Draco crying in the "bathroom"
(restroom) and to Moaning Myrtle comforting him? Did that reaction
change on a second reading after you understood what Draco was trying
to do? Why or why not? 

6.  Were you shocked that Harry would try out Sectumsempra under these
circumstances, especially given the label "For Enemies"? Why or why
not? What other options, if any, did he have in response to Draco's
attempted Crucio?

7. Why did Snape and only Snape show up when Myrtle cried bloody
murder? Could anyone else have saved Draco, or does Snape alone know
the countercurse? What does the songlike or chantlike nature of the
countercurse suggest to you about it or about Snape? 

8. Why do you think JKR included the reference to dittany in the scene
rather than merely having Snape take Draco up to the hospital wing to
be examined by Madam Pomfrey? What does it tell us about Snape and/or
Draco? 

9. Why does Harry wait for Snape to return, as if he thinks that he
deserves to be punished, and yet lie when Snape asks him where he
learned such a Dark spell? What do you think would have happened if
Harry had told the truth? 

10. Harry uses, or tries to use, three of the HBP's spells in this
chapter (Muffliato, Levicorpus, and Sectumsempra), and he hides his
book rather than risk having it confiscated. Afterwards, he defends
the Prince against Hermione's accusations. What does this behavior
tell us about Harry and about his relationship with the boy he knows
only as the Half-Blood Prince?

11. Professor McGonagall tells Harry that he could have been expelled.
Why does Snape tell the staff "precisely what happened" yet punish
Harry only for being "a liar and a cheat"? Why didn't he so much as
threaten to expel Harry when he could have done so? Are the Saturday
detentions primarily intended to punish Harry by tormenting him with
his father's indiscretions or does this tactic disguise Snape's real
purpose for keeping Harry in his custody every Saturday until the end
of term?

12. Harry apparently feels only anger and resentment as he undergoes
his detention, with no thought of the reasons why Snape assigned it.
What has happened to Harry's horror and remorse? Has he forgotten his
own wrongdoing? What, if anything, might Snape have done to make this
detention (and its sequels) more effective?

13. Why do you think Snape continues to use his old office in the
dungeon, complete with dead creatures floating in colorful potions,
now that he's the DADA teacher and his classroom is on another floor?

14. The chapter begins with Lavender breaking up with Ron, closely
followed by Ginny breaking up with Dean, and ends with Harry
celebrating Gryffindor's victory (achieved without him) by finally
kissing Ginny. What do you think JKR is trying to convey by framing
the chapter in this way? Does the ending feel appropriate or
inappropriate in a chapter about Sectumsempra? (And what's up with
that "hard, blazing look"?)

Many thanks to Siriusly Snapey Susan for her astute questions,
attentive proofreading, and kind authorization for this sixth post of
the day.

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