Chapter Twenty: Lord Voldemort’s Request
In chapter twenty of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry’s Chest Monster sniffs around and we get my favorite Riddle flashbacks of all.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Ginny and Dean are arguing, and AUGHH NO HELP ME
Hermione even escorted them down to breakfast, bringing with her the news that Ginny had argued with Dean. The drowsing creature in Harry’s chest suddenly raised it head, sniffing the air hopefully.
To make it worse, Ron and Hermione are continuing their quest to test my love…Ron by refusing to break up with Lav Lav and leading her on, and Hermione smirking because RonLav aren’t getting along.
Dumbledore shames Harry for not getting the Slughorn memory yet (easy for you to shame Dumbles when you haven’t even explained why he needs it) and then PotDore witness my favorite of the Riddle memories, because it’s the one where we see young Ridz at his subtle, manipulative best: using his physical beauty to trick rich old witches to part with their treasures. All he had to do was keep this face
and he would’ve had so much more power, IMO.
But as we see, after he murders Hepzibah Smith to steal her Hufflepuff cup and Slytherin locket (framing yet another long suffering house elf in the process) TRidz starts to turn himself into LVoldz, which means he melts his face like a candle and wears edgy red contacts or something. Kids these days! (…or maybe it’s a side effect of dark magick or Horcruxes. But we never find out exactly what causes this ravishment of his pretty, pretty face.)
LVoldz tries desperately to pull rank and show off to Dumbledore about how powerful and shit he is, and Dumbledore, love, arrogance, and hubris are his real weakness, huh? I mean why is this fool swaggering into Dumble’s office all “they call me something else now” like that’s a good idea. Like Dumbledore’s going to be like “gasp, your hours spend making a overcompensating anagram has made me scared and impressed at your badassery! Please take my job as Headmaster!” As much as Dumbles irritates me at times in this book, his relentless trolling of Tom Voldemort always amuses me. Oh, Trollbledore, never stop!
We get the SHOCKING BOMBSHELL (I jest it’s kind of obvious) that Voldz cursed the Defense Against the Dark Arts post because he was turned down for it, proving just how petty this mofo is and also impressing me that Dumbles has somehow filled this position every year for (thirty?) years or so until he starts to struggle to find fresh, willing sacrifices to the altar of cursed Professors.
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Do you enjoy Romione or Hinny more?
Which Riddle flashback is your fave?
Do you think Voldemort is willing to lift the DADA curse when Snape gets the position?
Why does Hagrid talk about Quirrell as if he were the DADA professor the year before when we know he couldn’t have been?
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