Countdown to Harry Potter 7: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Since the conclusion of Goblet of Fire, things have changed dramatically for Harry Potter. Now burdened with the knowledge that, in the end, he must either slay Voldemort or be killed himself, he moves with a sort of grim determination that is nonetheless quite mature for his age. Early in the book, Dumbledore arrives to spirit Harry away from his safehouse at Privet Drive, and from that point on his relationship with Harry is considerably closer and tighter than any previous book, and not without reason.
From the beginning of the book, we see Dumbledore with a gnarled, wounded hand. Throughout the book, he and Harry begin a series of private lessons, delving into the past of Tom Riddle, the boy who would become Voldemort. Using a bit of trickery, Harry finds manages to acquire a memory from the new Potions master, Horace Slughorn. In that memory is the last bit of evidence Dumbledore needs to confirm his suspicion about Voldemort. The Dark Lord has created six Horcruxes - magical objects into which the spellcaster places a piece of his own soul severed from the rest when he commits a murder. It is magic at its most dark, but it is a way to stay alive, in a sense, even when your body is destroyed. But two of Voldemort’s Horcruxes have already been destroyed - the first was the diary of Tom Riddle, destroyed by Harry himself back in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The second is a ring recovered by Dumbledore, and which seems to be the cause of his mangled hand. Now the two of them together will undertake a quest to find and destroy the third Horcrux, a locket which once belonged to Salazar Slytherin himself.
I won’t get too in-depth as to the characterization here, as I’m planning (and, in fact, have already begun writing) a separate piece about that, but we do learn quite a bit here. Harry has abandoned the petulant attitudes of Order of the Phoenix and, although he still sometimes thinks he knows better than his elders, he is a far more mature character. Ginny Weasley has grown dramatically as well, a fact that is not lost on Harry, and who despite himself begins falling in love with his best friend’s sister. (You Harry/Hermione shippers can deny it all you want, but as I detailed in this analysis after the book came out, it makes perfect sense.) Ron and Hermione spend most of the book (successfully) making each other jealous, but in the end seem to have admitted (to themselves if no one else) the depth of their feelings for each other.
Dumbledore, too, has abandoned any pretense of the more than teacher/student relationship he has with Harry. He is more than a mentor in this book. He is a friend and, ultimately, a father figure as well. And of course, this immediately marks him for death. Harry’s fathers have to be taken from him before his journey can be complete.
Upon re-reading this book for the first time in over a year, I am even more certain of something I thought when I read it before - Dumbledore knew from the very beginning that his death was approaching. Destroying the first Horcrux, the ring, wounded him very deeply and he knew his time was running out. That is why he spent this book working so hard to teach Harry everything he needed to know to defeat Voldemort once and for all. That is why he could order Harry to make him drink poison in order to retrieve the Horcrux. And that is why he could order Severus Snape to kill him in order to carry out a master plan to bring about Voldemort’s downfall. When I first read the book, I was enraged - I could have killed Snape myself. The more time passes, though, the more I am convinced that Snape was acting on Dumbledore’s orders, that he - like Harry - is Dumbledore’s man through and through, and that book seven will vindicate him. Of course, that vindication is very likely to come at the cost of his life.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a very incomplete-feeling book. With the exception of the identity of the Half-Blood Prince, whose old potions book aids Harry in his lessons, none of the major plot threads begun here are resolved. Even when Harry breaks up with Ginny at the end (not because he doesn’t love her, but because he thinks it is too dangerous for her to be with him), there’s no sense of finality to it. Ginny doesn’t fight him, but there seems to be a sly smile behind her words, as if she knows that he’ll come to his senses and come back to her, and that he’s clearly seen the first Spider-Man movie one too many times.
J.K. Rowling herself has said this book is really the first half of a longer one, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being the conclusion not only of this story, but of the entire series. As such, I expect that much of this book will be seen in a very different light after the final volume is released. As it stands now, though, this book is definitely the darkest, the most mature and the most tragic in the series - and there can be little doubt that is why it is undeniably my favorite.
Incidentally, this is the second review I’ve written of Half-Blood Prince. If you’re interested you can read the first, which I wrote immediately after reading the book for the first time, by clicking here. I just re-read it, and I still stand by most of my analysis from back then.