Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Lightning Struck Tower
In chapter twenty-seven of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry is not allowed to do his saving people thing, Malfoy gets interesting for once, and perhaps the most memed moment of Harry Potter commences.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Dumbledore is not doing well and Harry manages an illegal duel Apparation, proving that when he’s really needed, Harry Potter is motheringf’ing clutch.
Dumbles is asking for Snape which does make me wonder if he’s asking for healing, or if he knows this is the moment that Snape’s gotta
Madam Rosmerta, (who’s been living her life Imperiused by Malfoy for god knows how long) comes over to tell our heroic duo that the Dark Mark’s chilling over the Astronomy Tower, which wakes up Dumbledore from his physical pain and he hops onto a broomstick with Harry.
Dumbledore’s last magical act (sob) is to freeze the hidden Harry under his invisibility cloak so he can’t go into his patented saving people thing act when D-Malfs appears to villain monologue at Albus. Errrr, I know you’re a genius Dumbles but don’t you know Harry’s saving people thing generally ends with him saving the day?
So Draco shows up to be like “Ha ha guess you thought I was making evil buttons as usual and writing rap diss tracks about Pottah but this year I’ve been casually committing massive crimes that almost killed two of my classmates in an attempt to murder you!”
And Dumbles is all “Draco m’boy I’ve known the whole time I just kind of let you almost murder that one chick, I want to say her name is Krystal and that boy Roonil Wazlib because I decided saving you was more important then the innocent lives of much, much more awesome people because I’m a benevolent genius.”
And then Draco says “yeah well I’m not worth it cause I’m a peroxided dickhead and I refuse to do the right thing but hey the girls love a bad boy, eh?”
While your recapper goes “wtf Dumbledore you couldn’t think of a better way to help Malfoy, who has suddenly become interesting and layered to me for the first time ever without risking him killing half the school in the crossfire?!!”
Malfoy reveals with his actions that he’s not all evil like he’s been pretending and is scared shitless to kill Dumbledore when the other Death Eaters arrive.
Let me take this moment to both praise and boo the movie. Praise, because Tom Felton’s performance is phenomenal and proves they should’ve given him more to do then sneer Pottah because he has depth as an actor. Boo, because the change to having Harry lurking silently like a fool and not helping even though he could because Dumbledore hasn’t cast any spells on him to stop the saving people thing. And don’t even get me started on the idiocy of adding a dumb scene where the Burrow burns down in order to cut out the AMAZING scenes with the Order fighting the Death Eaters. What the hell where the filmmakers thinking?!
Back to the book!
Well it turns out Harry has been right all along about Malfoy as we always knew SIGH and then everyone’s shitting on Draco for not killing Dumbledore while Dumbledore barfs in his mouth that Greyback, werewolf pedo is here bragging about all the biting of people he’s been doing like a fucking freak.
For once in his life Snape’s shown up at the right time to save the day, and then he fights off the Death Eaters and–wait, what?
So, Snape kills Dumbledore and I love nothing more then being honest with you dear reader so I hope you believe me when I say that I never believed Snape was evil at this point on first read. I didn’t know why it had happened, but I didn’t think Snape had been a Death Eater all along.
It is interesting to think about how Snape is able to summon the hatred we’ve been told is necessary to perform the Avada Kedavra. Harry sees “revulsion and hatred” in Snape’s face before it happens, and I think it’s possible this is true. Snape clearly has to tap into something here to do the act. Perhaps he’s thinking of how Dumbledore has used him to raise Harry like a pig for slaughter (as we find out next book so I’m jumping ahead.) Maybe he’s thinking of someone else he hates, like Voldemort, James Potter, or shampoo.
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Why does Dumbledore ask for Snape upon return to the castle?
Why doesn’t Dumbledore stop Draco earlier when he knows he’s behind the attacks?
How is Snape able to cast Avada Kedavra on Dumbledore?
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