What is Harry's crime in the Half-Blood Prince?

There is something that has always bothered my about one of the key scenes in The Half-Blood Prince.

As you will no doubt recall, in the later stages of the novel, Harry sees on the Marauders Map that Malfoy is in a boys bathroom with Moaning Myrtle. Harry enters the bathroom and finds Malfoy leaning over a sink, crying, while Myrtle attempts to soothe him.

Harry takes no action, other than to stand looking at Malfoy. Malfoy pulls himself together and looks up into the mirror. He sees Harry standing behind him, draws his wand and casts a spell at Harry. That spell misses and a duel ensues.

The two are well-matched (surprisingly so, considering Harry's experience and training, but I wrote about that in an earlier post). After several shots back and forth, Malfoy attempts to cast the Cruciatus curse on Harry but Harry is a shade quicker, hitting Malfoy with the mysterious Sectum Sempra spell that he found in his potions text.

Malfoy collapses to the floor, bleeding profusely and dropping his wand. The duel is over. Harry takes no further offensive action but merely stands by as Myrtle screams and Snape thunders into the room to render aid to the bleeding Malfoy.

From what I can tell, Harry did nothing wrong. He walked into a public bathroom. He watched a schoolmate cry. He responded to an attack by that schoolmate. He avoided being tortured by that schoolmate (who was attempting to use an Unforgiveable Curse on him). He took effective action to render his attacker incapable of continuing the attack, without actually killing his attacker. He took no further aggressive steps once his attacker was incapacitated.

Where is the crime? Why is he punished? Why is he subjected to such significant vilification from Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall and even Hermione?

Malfoy cast the first spell and started the duel with no more provocation than that Harry happened to be standing there watching him cry. Malfoy escalated the duel by attempting to cast an Unforgiveable Curse. Harry defended himself once attacked and stopped once he had rendered his attacker incapable of continuing to attack.

Malfoy was forgiven for attacking Harry and forgiven for casting an Unforgiveable Curse.

Harry was found guilty of defending himself effectively from an unprovoked, serious, perhaps deadly attack.

Okay, I can understand that Snape, who hates Harry immensely for a variety of perhaps understandable reasons, might see this an opportunity to get at Harry. Fine.

But McGonagall? Once she heard Harry's story and interviewed Myrtle, wouldn't she intervene in support of Harry? Wouldn't she demand that Malfoy, once recovered, be punished (and likely expelled) for launching an unprovoked attack on a schoolmate and for attempting to hit that schoolmate with an Unforgiveable Curse?

And Hermione? Sure, she doesn't like the Half-Blood Prince's book. And sure, she quite properly chastises Harry for using an untried curse on someone like this. But why does she so thoroughly condemn Harry for his actions?

From a narrative perspective, on the other hand, I can understand this scene and its outcome. It provides action in the middle of a fairly static plot. It permits the duel between Malfoy and Potter that we have been hoping for since book one. It creates a reason for Harry to be forced to miss the final Quidditch match and sets up the climax of the Harry-Ginny romantic build up.

And, of course, if Malfoy were punished or expelled at this point, the climax of the entire novel would be impossible -- with Malfoy kicked out of school, there would be no way for Dumbledore to be trapped by Death Eaters on the top of the tower that fateful night.

So I see the value in the duel and Harry's punishment to Rowling as a writer but... the outcome of the duel still does not make any sense in the world of the novels.

Rowling would likely have been better to have the duel start less decisively -- Malfoy and Harry square off, trade words, then begin to duel together. And she should never have had Malfoy attempt an Unforgiveable Curse. It doesn't have much impact in the course of the action scene, it is unsuccessful and it creates the problem of Malfoy getting away with attempting to cast it.

Then, Harry could legitimately face punishment for using a curse without knowing what it did and, perhaps, for responding to Malfoy's less nasty attack with a ferocious spell that endangered the life of a schoolmate.

These are not major changes I am suggesting but I think they would make the outcome make much more sense and not seem so contrived.

The year of behaving badly

I have written over and over again on the subject of how hard I find it to read The Order of the Phoenix. This is a gloomy, claustrophobic novel in which no one... and I mean no one... behaves well.


Of course, the antagonists -- Dolores Umbridge, Draco and Lucius Malfoy, Cornelius Fudge, even Percy Weasley, Voldemort -- are insufferable. That's to be expected.


But even the so-called "good guys" are not at their best.


Mundungus Fletcher leaves his post and permits Harry to be attacked by Dementors.


Sirius Black is childish and moody throughout most of the book. putting his own unhappiness ahead of the interests of his godson, Harry.


Mr. and Mrs. Weasley treat the teenagers like toddlers and refuse to let them in on what's going on with the Order of the Phoenix. Further, they fail entirely to prepare Harry adequately for the trial at the Ministry.


Professor McGonagall seems oblivious to Harry's suffering while at Hogwarts, continually chastising him for letting Umbridge upset him rather than helping him, counseling him on why his suffering is necessary and how he can better endure it.


Professor Dumbledore's behaviour is inexplicably abhorrent. He literally abandons Harry in his hour of need and leaves Harry to suffer the horrors of Umbridge without any support whatsoever. Okay, Dumbledore worries that Voldemort will use the connection between his mind and Harry's to try to spy on Dumbledore so the Headmaster doesn't want to interact with Harry face to face... but why not send him a series of letters, explaining the concerns, outlining what's happening and guiding him as to how to proceed?


You would think that, through all this, Ron and Hermione at least would behave appropriately. But Ron spends the book caught up in his own Quidditch-inspired malaise while Hermione... well, Hermione is awe-inspiring in her insipidness.


Every time the young people get a chance to speak to an Order member and obtain much needed reassurance and guidance, Hermione loses focus completely and goes off on Elf-rights tangents. She knows Harry is desperate for counsel from Sirius and yet, when Harry's godfather appears one evening in the common room fire, Hermione makes the whole, time-limited interaction about how Sirius shouldn't be taking risks and how Sirius should be treating Kreacher better.


It doesn't seem to occur to her that Harry really really really needs to talk to his godfather.


Sirius' own petulant pouting during that conversation is also way over the top.


Hermione is at her worst in Umbridge's Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. While Harry must be faulted for his own inability to control his temper in the face of the obnoxious Ministry hag, Hermione is the one who set matches to gasoline by challenging Umbridge in not one but two consecutive classes.


What is she thinking? What can she possibly be thinking? Hermione is smart enough to understand that the only way she, Harry and the rest of the students can possibly survive Umbridge and the Minister's interference is to keep their heads down and stay quiet. Yet, she goes out of her way to create conflict and confrontation and then has the unmitigated gall to admonish Harry for getting caught up in the fire she herself has created.


There are times I wonder if J.K. Rowling went too far in this book, if she let the narratorial imperative of isolating and abusing Harry in the first half of the novel cause her to undermine the consistency of her carefully established central characters.


The fact of the matter is, Dumbledore is not the insensitive clod that he is portrayed as in The Order of the Phoenix; Hermione is smarter and more sensible than the character who appears in this book.


It is possible that, in her understandable campaign to put Harry into a terrible, lonely, vulnerable and suffering situation in his fifth year at Hogwarts, Rowling lost track of who her characters really are?

Enemies of Quidditch Beware...

Does it make you laugh too that, even as a crowd of Hogwarts teachers is gathered around a Petrified Mrs. Norris trying to figure out what happened to her in The Chamber of Secrets, Snape's first thought is how to use the situation to help Slytherin win at Quidditch?

I laugh out loud every time I read the scene.

Here they are, facing what is to that point one of the most significant, scariest threats ever to face Hogwarts and Professor Snape's only worry is how to gain an advantage for his Q-team. He suggests to Dumbledore, in his silkiest of voices, that Harry should be suspended from playing Quidditch until the mystery is resolved.

Love it.

Even better is the fact that Professor McGonagall, Deputy Head Mistress, immediately jumps to her team's defence.

Love it love it love it.

Further to the question, does it seem fair to you that 1) McGonagall was allowed to purchase the latest racing broom for her team's new Seeker in Book One, making it all but assured that Gryffindor's quidditch fortunes would improve significantly by giving its team a HUGE advantage over everyone else and 2) that Mr. Malfoy would be allowed to buy the entire Slytherin team even better brooms the following year?

I have to admit, I think it's kind of poetic justice that McGonagall's cheating is so effectively and overwhelming countered by the Malfoys in book two. If glorious, honourable Gryffindor can cheat, then certainly Slytherin can cheat too and do an even better job of it.

How long does it take to produce a portrait?

I'm confused by the portraits that hang in the Hogwarts headmaster's office.

Okay, maybe I'm not confused by the portraits themselves but I'm confused by the process by which they are created.

And especially how long it takes after the death of a headmaster for his or her portrait to appear.

As we all know (I won't give a 'spoiler alert' since anyone who has read this far into this entry must have read all the Harry Potter books at least once), Dumbledore dies near the end of The Half-Blood Prince.

If I understand the 'Avada Kedavra' curse properly, it kills the instant it strikes its victim. So Dumbledore was dead even as his body was "blasted into the air" by Snape's curse, before it disappears over the battlements and ends up lying at the foot of the tower.

By the time Harry makes his way with now Headmistress McGonagall to the Headmistress' office just 27 pages later (in my paperback edition), Dumbledore's portrait is already hanging on the wall behind the desk. I take it that the position directly above/behind the desk is the place of honour for the last Headmaster but I may be wrong about that.

In those 27 pages, Harry fought his way out of the castle in pursuit of Snape, engaged in several duels with Snape and others, helped Hagrid put out the fire that was engulfing his house, returned to the crowd surrounding Dumbledore's body, then made his way up to the hospital wing to see poor Bill and sat with the Weasley family through Fleur's revelation of the true depth of her love for Bill.

Let's say that entire process took, what, two hours at most? Perhaps not even that long since Rowling says that the office, when Harry and McGonagall enter it, "looked exactly as it had done when he and Dumbledore had left it mere hours previously" and those "mere hours" also included the fateful trip to the cave for the locket.

Okay, so the process of creating a portrait of a headmaster takes at most two hours from the moment of death to the appearance of the portrait in the office. Right?

Now let's move forward to The Deathly Hallows and (no spoiler alert) the death of Headmaster Snape.

Snape dies of wounds he receives from Nagini.  Immediately thereafter, Voldemort calls for a cease-fire in the battle and gives Harry one hour two join him in the Forbidden Forest, or else the Dark Lord will join the battle himself.

Harry goes almost directly to the Headmaster's office to use the Pensieve. When he gets there, he finds every portrait absent, every frame empty. Harry "glances hopeless at Dumbledore's deserted frame, which hung directly behind the Headmaster's chair". So it hasn't moved to make room for a new portrait, one of Snape. And there's no mention of a new frame, even an empty one, where Snape might have hung.

Okay, so Harry takes a full hour to view Snape's memories, gird himself and walk into the Forest to face his death. He confronts Voldemort just as the hour expires. It would appear that the scene at King's Cross with Dumbledore takes no time whatsoever, since Harry returns to the Forest mere seconds after his duel with Voldemort.

So we're still at an hour. But then there follow a series of scenes that take some time. In fact, when Harry finally defeats Voldemort, the victory occurs just as the rising sun bursts into the Great Hall. So it's morning.

And Rowling then writes that "[t]he sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with light and life." News comes in from every corner "as the morning drew on".

So, by the time that Harry, Ron and Hermione finally make their way to the Headmaster's Office for their final chat with Dumbledore's portrait, anywhere from three to say 12 hours have passed since Snape's death.

And yet... no sign of Snape's portrait. Dumbledore still sits in the "largest portrait directly behind the Headmaster's chair".

If Dumbledore's portrait can appear in two hours or less, why does it take so long for Snape's to appear?

Four possibilities: 1) Snape's portrait is there but Harry simply does not notice it and Snape chooses to say nothing; 2) Snape's portrait is delayed because the portrait painter is otherwise occupied (in the battle and the celebration that follows, perhaps): 3) Snape will never get a portrait because he was not a true Hogwart's headmaster; or 4) Snape isn't dead.

With regard to 1), I doubt it. Harry would notice it or at least Snape would not be able to stay quiet. I would also think that Harry, having seen all that Snape had done for him, would have taken the opportunity to thank him at the end of the book.

As to 2), I guess it's possible. I always thought that the portraits were produced by some magic of Hogwarts itself, not by an individual witch or wizard. But it is possible it was delayed.

I don't buy 3) because Harry himself, in the epilogue, tells little Albus Severus: "you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." So Snape was, indeed, a Headmaster.

As for 4), hmmm.... In describing Snape's death earlier, Rowling wrote: "after a second something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more." Snape sounds pretty dead to me.

So I guess it must be 3) after all. What do you think?

Harry's confrontation with Snape has mixed results

I keep going back to Rotten Tomatoes to watch those excerpts from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, in preparation for the big premiere in two days' time. One scene, in particular, has caught my attention and I can't say I'm entirely happy with it.

In the scene, which is entitled "You seem to have a bit of a security problem" on the website, Snape has gathered the students of Hogwarts together to interrogate them about Harry's presence in the school. Harry appears out of nowhere (I suspect from under his Cloak) and defies Snape to his face. As the excerpt ends, we see the doors behind Harry opening up to reveal a cadre of teachers and members of the Order of the Phoenix, coming forward to protect Harry from the new Headmaster.

(Note, I suspect that, directly following this little snippet, Professor McGonagall engages in a brief duel with Snape before the former Potions Master flees. I've seen that scene elsewhere.)

The film excerpt on Rotten Tomatoes is an entirely new scene, not presented in Rowling's book. In the novel, Harry never faces Snape directly until Snape is lying, almost dead, in the Shrieking Shack. In fact, when McGonagall forces Snape to flee, Harry and Luna are nearby but under the Cloak, trying to keep out of harm's way.

It would appear that screenwriter Kloves and director Yates felt it would be better for Harry to have a chance, even a brief one, to face down his long-time tormentor in this way, while Snape is still powerful and his true allegiances are still unknown.

I agree it's a dramatic scene. And I think it has something of a narrative logic behind it: as viewers, we want Harry to get a chance to challenge Snape directly and Harry's courage here foreshadows his courage later in the Forbidden Forest.

Now, you can call me a Rowling-ite, but I still prefer the original. It's more subtle and more graceful. You don't always get the chance to face down your harasser. You can't always tie your emotional issues up in a neat bow and set them aside.

In the novel's version, Harry wants nothing more than to take a shot at Snape; he's filled with fury and anger and all that. But it's a sign of his maturity that he realises he has a greater duty: to his friend Luna, who is vulnerable in that moment. He sacrifices his need for revenge to protect her.

The film scene might be emotionally satisfying for both protagonist and viewer but the book's approach confirms much more important qualities of Harry's, qualities like loyalty, self-control and the willingness to put the needs of others ahead of his own. I wish the film-makers had seen the wisdom of sticking the original. It works much better.

By the way, it's nice to see Cho Chang and several other recognisable faces among the students in that scene: even if they don't get much more screen time, at least they're allowed to be there at the end.

Ten days to go and ten things I like about The Deathly Hallows

Just ten more days to wait. And here is a list of ten small things I particularly like about J.K. Rowling's final novel:

1. I like the fact that Hedwig dies in an early scene, not because I have it in for the lovely owl but because her meaningless death sent a shiver through me when I first read the book as I understood fully that J.K. wasn't going to pull any punches in her final epic;
2. I like the fact that Harry, Hermione and Ron take off on their own for most of the book, giving us a chance to get to know them better, both individually and as a trio of courageous friends;
3. I like the fact that Neville keeps fighting at Hogwarts, at first with Ginny and Luna, and then after they are forced to leave;
4. I like the reception the trio gets when they enter the Room of Requirement near the end;
5. I like that Ron takes a bow when all of their classmates cheer them for escaping Gringott's on a dragon;
6. I like the fact that all of the other students refuse to let Harry keep them out of the fight;
7. I like J.K.'s description of the "Snape-shaped hole" in the window after Severus flees and the fact that she has McGonagall tell the school that Snape has "done a bunk";
8. I like how J.K. manages to make Voldemort's inability to recognise the value in others (like House Elves, for example) work against him in the end;
9. I like the redemption of Kreacher; and
10. I like the fact that J.K. slows the pace down and really makes us live Harry's experience of walking into the Forbidden Forest to die.

Hogwarts House Points make me crazy

I have to admit: I've never liked the way points are awarded to (or deducted from) Houses at Hogwarts. It just seems so arbitrary, doesn't it? I mean, Snape favours his own House so he is constantly taking points from Gryffindors while McGonagall, who is more fair, refuses to favour the House she leads.

I've felt that the system for awarding points at Hogwarts is a problem ever since Dumbledore manipulated the points at the end of The Philosopher's Stone in order to take the House Cup from Slytherin and give it to Gryffindor. I don't argue with his decision to give Neville ten points for standing up to his friends but I think it's highly problematic that he happens to give the four first-year kids just enough for Gryffindor to overtake Slytherin.

Oh well. I guess you can't love everything about the Potter world, can you?

Writing our own Harry Potter fiction

I wonder how many people around the world have tried their hands at writing their own Rowling-World novel or short story.

I know I have. My novel is entitled The Way Forward and follows three of the more minor characters from the Harry Potter series as they try to recover from the re-emergence of Voldemort and the final battle at Hogwarts.

In coming up with a plot for my book, I found it interesting to think that two of those characters (George Weasley and Aberforth Dumbledore) lost brothers in the violence of Voldemort's rise and I wondered how each of them would react to their loss. Of course, George lost his twin, his best friend, his constant companion, while Aberforth lost a brother from whom he had been mostly estranged, against whom he felt a great deal of animosity.

But losing a brother can have impacts on a person that they would never have expected, whether they loved or loathed that sibling.

The third character I chose to follow was Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts who would be the most likely successor to Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape as leader of the school.

I've written a fair chunk of the novel and you can find what I've written here: http://wordsby.walma.org/page59/page59.html.

I only work on it from time to time and I'm happy to take suggestions on how to make it better or where to go next. So please, give it a read and, if you want to, make a comment on this blog to tell me what you think.

Recognising Rowling's interesting writing techniques

It's interesting to be reading J.K.'s first novel again, but this time in French. Because I'm not fluent, I'm forced to read more slowly and to pay a great deal more attention to the words.

Sounds funny, doesn't it? But I'm finding it a very worthwhile exercise because I'm seeing things, recognising strategies J.K. is using, that I had never really noticed before. For example, she does a wonderful job of pre-introducing characters, often long before they become regular parts of Harry's life.

McGonagall, Dumbledore and Hagrid all appear early at Privet Drive, then disappear for several chapters. Harry encounters Draco Malfoy in Madam Malkin's robe shop and then doesn't see him again until the Hogwarts Express. And Quirrell makes a similar appearance: at the Leaky Cauldron during Harry's first visit to Diagon Alley and then, chapters later, at the opening feast at Hogwarts.

It's a useful strategy because it gives the reader a feeling of familiarity with the character when they start to take on a larger role in the story.

It also highlights J.K.'s other neat strategy: she usually introduces a characteristic (either a physical or behavioural marker) by which the character will be recognised whenever he or she appears later. For example, Draco is known by his pale skin and his nose, the Weasleys are all recognisable by their red hair with Ron's long nose an extra marker, while Hermione has the infamous bottle-brush hair and big teeth.

Rowling is then careful to repeat the description each time the character re-appears on the scene.

This is a highly effective strategy since it gives the reader more than one way to remember the character. In fact, we are probably more likely to remember the witch with the stern face and tight bun than we are to remember the name "McGonagall", at least at the start.

It sort of reminds me of the way ancient Greek epic poets used to assign similar trademark descriptions to characters to help us remember them. I've never forgotten "the winged-footed Achilles" from my high school classes!