more HBP spoilers

[gmonkey42]

In every previous book, the character who's got a secret or is the real bad guy is mentioned in chapter 13. Quirrel, Lockhart and the diary, Scabbers (he's disappeared at this point but Ron and Hermione are talking about him), Moody/Crouch Jr. and Umbridge. But chapter 13 of HBP consists entirely of Harry and Dumbledore looking at the memories that tell them about Merope selling the locket and Dumbledore inviting Tom at the orphanage to come to Hogwarts.

In HBP, there is no mention of Snape throughout the entire chapter 13.

On an unrelated note, I've got Snape/Narcissa on the brain. I have a lot more respect for Snape now. This is the first time we've really gotten to see him in action. We all pictured it and he's been like this in many fanfics but this is the first time in canon we've seen him talking to someone the way he talked to Bellatrix and really dueling. And now we have confirmation that he's brilliant at potions - we already had some idea, given that he can brew the Wolfsbane potion (incidentally, I couldn't help being disappointed that Damocles Belby and not Snape invented it, though I suspected Snape hadn't invented it himself). But now we have more proof. That textbook must've been pretty lousy, though, if Snape had to correct just about every protocol (no, they're not "recipes"). On the subject of Potions, I also thought it was awesome that it's getting more scientific in the advanced class. It's not just about following a recipe, it's about understanding how the ingredients interact with each other.

But back to Snape: he's also brilliant at Dark magic; he actually invented Sectumsempra. I love the image of teenage Snape sitting there hunched over his precious textbook writing "for Enemies" in his tiny, scrawly handwriting. Incidentally, I love that he writes like a girl (according to Hermione). That made me laugh. I wonder why he left the book in the Potions classroom where it might be found. Maybe the cupboard it was in was locked and only the teacher would have access to it. But it sounds like Snape left it in the cupboard and forgot about it. I guess that's reasonable. He wouldn't need it himself and as long as it was burried in his own classroom, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone finding it.

Oh! Another thing: I don't think Snape's office is adjacent to the main Potions classroom the way we all thought it was because he still has the same office even though he's teaching DADA in the DADA classroom. It's possible that the office has one door onto the Potions room and one to the hallway. I don't think he'd still have the same office if he had to go through the Potions classroom to get to it.

Just flipping through to confirm where Slughorn got the book, I see Ron said something odd: when the trio is talking about how Snape's the DADA teacher now, Ron says he might go back to teaching Potions next year because "[t]hat Slughorn bloke might not want to stay long-term. Moody didn't." Uh, Ron? That wasn't Moody. He didn't stay because he was really Barty and he got Dememtored (Dement0x0red). Maybe he just means how Moody had only agreed to teach for one year. That's probably it.