Chapter Twenty-Six: The Cave
In chapter twenty-six of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry and Dumbledore have a creepy adventure involving a cave full of dead Gollums who only want their precious, by which I mean they want to kill them dead.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Dumbles has taken Harry to a creepy murder cave that Riddle tormented children in in some unspecified manner and then he makes Harry swim fully clothed in freezing cold ocean water. WTF? Is there not a better, magical way to do this y’all? I shudder in sympathy just reading this!
A-Dumbs figures out that the way into the weird death cave is by cutting his hand open and smearing his blood around and his disappointed disgust at TRidz for this amuses the hell out of me.
“Oh, surely not. So crude.”
“I said it was crude,” said Dumbledore, who sounded disdainful, even disappointed, as though Voldemort had fallen short of the standards Dumbledore expected.”
Look, Dumbles has irritated me in this book but this chapter is a return to why I loved the wacko in the first place. I’d read an enormous book solely comprised of Dumbledore being a disappointed teacher about Voldy’s actions.
Dumbledore: Oh Tom, the way you murdered that old lady and framed the house elf! How derivative of that murder of your parents!
Voldemort: Dammit Dumbledore I’ve told you my name is Lord–
Dumbledore: Yeah yeah and how many hours did you waste thinking of anagrams instead of doing your Transfiguration homework?
Voldemort: I–well–
Dumbledore: And “Death Eaters” couldn’t you have been more creative with that name?
Voldemort: *mumbles*
Dumbledore: What Tom? Speak clearly!
Voldemort: You don’t get to tell me what to do, DAD!
Anyway, so Dumbledore cuts his own hand open to save Harry, they travel in a creepy death gondola over the Dead Marshes while Gollum refuses to eat lembas bread and he can’t eat fish from the dead people water–oh, wait, wrong series!
They make it to the Horcrux island and Dumbledore determines he must drink all of the mysterious potion within and forces Harry to make him consume it even though he’s begging for it to stop, and I can’t joke this is very traumatic and badass of both Harry and Dumbledore.
So the trick to Voldemort’s trap is that Dumbledore absolutely needs water to drink after the potion, and the only water available is in the creepy corpse lake. Not to get ahead of myself but why didn’t Regulus bring a bottle of water with him when he came back with Kreacher, knowing he needed to drink water? Because when Harry gets the corpse water the Inferi jump out and try to kill them until Dumbledore pulls a quasi Gandalf.
We end our chapter with one of my favorite Harry/Dumbledore moments, which I was in sore need of after all the Snape-poligizing he’s been doing lately:
“…don’t worry…”
“I am not worried, Harry,” said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. “I am with you.”
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Which part would you dislike more: swimming in freezing ocean water or cutting open your own hand?
What is your favorite Harry/Dumbledore moment this chapter?
Who are all the dead people in the water?
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