Half-Blood Prince: Chapter 7: The Slug Club

[handhfan]

This is my first summary, so be easy on me. :) Sorry if this is a little long, I think I got carried away…

Chapter 7: The Slug Club

Harry is spending a lot of time over the last week to figure out why Malfoy was in Knocturn Alley, and why he was in a good mood. He came up with an irrational suspicion that Draco could be a DE. To make matters

Comments

[pilly2009]

This first scene of Ron and Hermione's not believing Harry -- and indeed the whole scenario throughout HBP -- weirdly reminded me of Paris in the Odyssey (or the movie Troy). Any other time, not taking his opinions seriously would be completely safe (he is not the most reliable person when it comes to decision-making, etc.), but the one time they should be listening to him (Trojan Horse), they understandably decide to be "smart" amd mot do so.

But was anyone else very pleased to see Harry actually go to an adult for something on his mind? I swear, it has to be like, the first time he's done it, ever. I don't think his recklessness has stopped after what happened in the DoM, but it does seem as if he is learning something from his past experiences. Of course, Arthur doesn't seem to take it seriously (although, how much do I love it that we find out later that Arthur did take him seriously enough to organize a search. I don't know, I thought it showed a certain measure of trust engrained there, on Arthur's part anyway).

And for the record, Ron only made a fool of himself because of Ginny; very compassionate and warm, is she not? I mean, maybe Ron IS horny, but what's so wrong with expecting a kiss from your soon-to-be sister-in-law?

Groupies! *love* And Luna! *love even more* Whatever the reasons for it, I was so happy to see Harry's maturity in this chapter. As frequent as the complaining is around fandom about how Mr. Popularity Hogwarts barely saw Luna and Neville half the time, and the other half of the time was spent feeling pity for either one or both of them, I found something very fundamental in the interactions between Harry and Luna in HBP. She wasn't shown nearly as prominently as she was in OotP, but whereas in OotP her prsence was always inflicted (for lack of a better word) on Harry for any length of time, in HBP Harry actively made an effort to spend time with her. Not as often as he could, perhaps, but this told me that he counts her as a friend, rather than as just someone he was thrown on an adventure
with; I didn't at all get the message that, whatever he said, he no longer wanted to spend time with "the losers" now that he was "popular" again, seeing as in OotP, he rarely got the actual choice to spend time with them.

Then again, I find the term "popular" to be used very loosely most of the time anyway, because to me, being popular requires you to have some sort of actual, interactive relationship with your "public", so to speak, which Harry does not yet have. I mean, the Weasley twins are also gossiped about, but they are popular because their pranks are intended to make people laugh (even if they include a victim or two). They make the effort. It's different from being famous, where you don't have to make the effort; your groupies are going to gossip no matter what you do, and you can't really control what they gossip about.

Back OT! I really liked the new info we got on Blaise Zabini, it definitely made a lot of fangirls happy. But I wonder if Neville managed to stay in the Club? It didn't seem so, because he was never mentioned at one of the parties.

Slytherin interaction was amazing. Within moments of reading it, I went back to the train scene in GoF (the only real going-to-Hogwarts all-Gryffindor train scene we're given in the series -- Gryffindors other than Hermione, Ron, and Harry that is), and compared the two. It was so odd: the Gryffindor-scene was all sharing cakes and endless Quidditch talk, most likely a very loud conversation (Hermione wasn't able to learn her Summoning spell) whereas the Slytherin-scene was all lying across one another's laps, discussing either sex or Death Eaters (in a sense). Is this meant to be a stereotype JKR is setting between the two houses? I'm not sure, but what struck me most about both scenes is that they were so typically teenager-ish: from showing off action-figures to reading comic books. I was so glad that Rowling gave us that scene.

Am reserving judgement on Draco's smashing Harry's nose, because I still don't know what to make of it yet. It was deserved comeuppance, though, I'll say that.

[cadesama]

I mean, maybe Ron IS horny, but what's so wrong with expecting a kiss from your soon-to-be sister-in-law?

From your French soon-to-be-sister-in-law, no less. I really think that was a petty act, and I think it's even worse because most of Ginny's animosity is aimed toward Fleur -- yet Ron is the one that suffers because of it.

I found something very fundamental in the interactions between Harry and Luna in HBP. She wasn't shown nearly as prominently as she was in OotP, but whereas in OotP her prsence was always inflicted (for lack of a better word) on Harry for any length of time, in HBP Harry actively made an effort to spend time with her.

Eeee! I agree! I think that one would have to be extremely heartless not to feel some amount for pity for either Luna or Neville, but Harry doesn't let that rule his relatinships with them, and has genuine affection for both. And, honestly, the uncomfortable silence after Luna makes her comment about the DA and friendship reminds me of the topic changes we get from Ron and Hermione when Harry casually comments about the Dursleys' abuse in some way. I wish there was more interaction with Neville and Luna, but I love every morsel that we got. They are such an adorable little alter-trio.