HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

Author: J.K Rowling Illustrator: Mary GrandPre’ Rating: 9/10 Age: 10+ Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Magic, Suspense Pages: 607 Published in: July 2005 Main Characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Snape, Dumbldore,Slughorn.

Synopsis:   This story started with Severus Snape. He met up with Mrs Malfoy (Draco’s Mother) and made an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa, promising to protect Draco. One day, Dumbledore headed over to 4 Privet Drive to collect Harry from his cousin’s home. On the way to the burrow (Ron’s house) Dumbledore and Harry stopped to talk to Dumbledore’s old friend, Horace Slughorn, to work at Hogwarts again. Harry met up with Ron and Hermione once more!  When they were shopping for school books, Harry ran into Draco and followed him to Borgin and Burkes, where he overheard Draco threatening Borgin and insisted that he fix an unknown object. Harry is instantly suspicious of Draco, whom he believed to be a Death Eater, just like his father. The students returned to school, and Dumbledore announced that Snape will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts and Slughorn would be the new potions teacher. When having potion lessons with Professor Slughorn, Harry and Ron realise that they had forgotten to get their potions textbooks. Slughorn had told them to use the spare textbooks in the cupboard while their new books arrived. In the cupboard, they had found 2 textbooks, and, much to Harry’s horror, Ron had dived for a clean textbook, leaving him for an old, tatty one. When studying the book, Harry found out that this book belonged to the Half-Blood Prince. It had lots of crossed-out words and drawings in the margins. This helped Harry come top at potions which upset Hermione a lot… Dumbledore and Harry had regular meetings to find out if they could find out more about Voldemort and his past. Harry learned about Voldemort’s family, including his grandfather Marvolo, his uncle Morfin, and his mother Merope. Voldemort was left at an orphanage and grew to be an unpleasant and aggressive boy. Harry also learned that Voldemort had divided his soul into seven Horcruxes. Two of these, Tom Riddle’s diary and Marvolo’s ring, had already been destroyed. One resided in Voldemort, one resided in a snake, one is Merope’s locket, and the other two were suspected to be hidden in objects belonging to Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Gryffindor. Some time passes and Harry kept finding new tricks in his potions book. He also tried finding out about Draco and his plans… Eventually Harry and Dumbledore left Hogwarts together to fetch and destroy Merope’s locket, thus making Voldemort one step closer to mortal. They must overcome a variety of traps and challenges before reaching the basin where the locket is hidden under a poisonous potion. Dumbledore drank the potion and Harry fought off things that came in their way. They took the locket and returned to Hogwarts as quickly as possible. What happened after they had taken the Locket? Who really was the Half-Blood Prince? What was Draco Malfoy up to? Read this fantastic book by J.K Rowling to find out!

Why I like this book: I love this book because it has a lot of suspense. In this story, all the characters seem to have changed their personalities. The ending of the book is quite shocking, something that the character would never do. Harry keeps persevering even though he knows that he would have to face Voldemort at some point. The next book in this series is called: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Make sure to look out for my next book review as this will be the next one!