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

[house_elf_44]

Harry spent his last week of summer wondering about Draco. Hermione says it’s fishy, and there can be a lot of explanations. Hm, just like readers of HBP. The trio is sitting on/near the window in the twins bedroom, and Harry is trying to figure out what Draco is up to. Ron is fixing his broom, and scraping dirt off the handle. So, if we can assume that there are still flowers in a vase near that window, (the boxes of stock are still there and presumably so is the smell like gunpowder) I think there’s room to think that "the woody scent of a broomstick handle, and something flowery he thought he might have smelled at the Burrow" from Amortentia fumes are related to his time at the Burrow. It could have been from when he figured out Draco is a Death Eater, with the vase of flowers and Ron scraping a broom handle right there. Or previously I was thinking it was from playing Quidditch over the Weasley’s garden for weeks with his friends

[pilly2009]

Harry and Hermione are interpreting Malfoy’s behavior in Madame Malkins differently, which might be a first. And I think they’ve switched roles a bit. Hermione was rash in trying to question Borgin, and has become more emotional than ever in this book, and Harry is the one thinking and figuring things out.

I know, and I think this might be a good part of the problem cadesama was talking about with Hermione earlier. Harry has begun incorporating thought into his recklessness, and could even be said to be growing intellectually, and therefore growing away from Hermione (who has always had to do his thinking for him). In some sort of thematic retaliation, Hermione in HBP acts on her emotions more than she has ever before. The reason I say Harry could be growing away from Hermione is because...well, following thought with recklessness has ended successfully for Harry -- it's the first time ever that his initial suspicion has been corect. Yet allowing emotion to rule her behaviour has NOT worked out for Hermione in HBP, has in fact gotten her

[house_elf_44]

...she has nothing particular anymore to offer Harry...If she was her old self she does. She still has the skills it took to organize SPEW, the DA, think things through, figure things out, solve a logic puzzle, finagle an article in the Quibbler, and control Rita Skeeter - she just didn't use them this year, except for researching that Eileen Prince was the HBP

[house_elf_44]

except for researching that Eileen Prince was the HBP.

oops...you know what I meant.

[cadesama]

Well, if we assume that she's liked Ron since GoF, then no, her old personality didn't know how to start anything with him. I realize that your theory works from the premise that Hermione didn't like Ron in GoF or OotP, and her attitude was altered, but I see HBP as a definitive retcon. Scenes that were once on debatable are now definitively examples of how much Hermione liked Ron. And really, I don't think her behavior has changed that much, only the intensity of it.

In GoF she flounced about making Ron jealous, wishing he would have asked her out instead of doing anything herself. In OotP, she mentioned Viktor to make Ron jealous, but doesn't make a move herself, and doesn't have the courage to respond to Ron's perfume. In HBP, she tries to make Ron jealous with Cormac, attacks him when he chooses someone else over her (although she hasn't obviously put herself in the running), and then sits around waiting for Ron to come to his senses, rather than going after him herself. Seems like a pattern to me.

[house_elf_44]

I may be giving Jo too much credit, but I don't think so. I think all the "anvils" are perfect optical illusions. If you see them all as jealousy, you see what you just described. If you see them as things other than jealousy, you see a different Hermione, and Hermione and Ron not liking each other

[schtroumph_c]

Why Hermione would scream to Ron to ask her the next time if it's not jealousy, from a side or another?

I do realize that at any time Jo could say H/Hr will never happen,

She already did, in 99, when she said they were platonic friends.

[house_elf_44]

Why Hermione would scream to Ron to ask her the next time if it's not jealousy, from a side or another?

I took Ron's statment about fraternizing with the enemy to mean just that. And even though I didn't see Hermione having a crush on him, I could see her going with him as friends. But I think a big part of her reaction was that he was desperate for a date, and didn't consider her because she wasn't pretty enough. "You can go with one of us" told me he didn't fancy her.

She already did, in 99, when she said they were platonic friends.

I believe she could have meant "at the time", and not necessarily for ever and ever. She's very careful not to make future statements that give things away.