Hidey Ho, Bookworms!
I simply cannot get enough of The Estella Society sponsored Potter Binge. Honestly, I’ve had so many great conversations with real life friends and coworkers as well as with the internet that I just want to bring y’all over for a nice warm butterbeer and some treacle tart. Except, I’ve never had treacle tart so I’m not sure I’d like it. I could make you apple crisp. Would that work? We are coming in on the home stretch here, and I’m starting to get a little nostalgic. I mean, remember back when Harry just found out he was a wizard? They grow up SO FAST. In a matter of weeks, it seems. Let’s savor each moment, shall we? The second half of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Why isn’t side along apparition more popular? Harry was the only one who’d ever done it, but you’d think it would be the most convenient form of transport. Maybe they don’t recommend it for hauling children about because it’s sort of painful? Maybe it’s the splinching risk? Food for thought.
- For the love, Dumbledore. Must you always be so enigmatic? Just SPELL IT OUT.
- Apparating instructions sound SO VAGUE. The lessons basically consist of closing your eyes, hoping something will happen, and a pirouette. There’s not even a spell for it. Seriously HOW does that even work?!
- Given my teenage self’s penchant for falling in love with boys who weren’t into me, I’m quite relieved I never had access to love potion.
- Madam Pomfrey is the unsung hero of Hogwarts. The things this woman must have seen!
- OMG, Myrtle. Get out of the boys’ bathroom, you crazy voyeur! Draco will never love you anyway. You’re muggle born! And, well, dead. Sorry.
- Slughorn, you poor misguided fool. Riddle played you like a fiddle. (Nope, not sorry that rhymed. Not in the least.)
- Dumbledore is in the cave. I kind of want to hide under a blanket until it’s all over, but I’m a masochist.
- I’m going to need a moment.
- Several moments.
- Draco, Draco, Draco. You try to be a badass, but you’ve still got a teensy bit of humanity left in you. Embrace it, boy!
- Having read the books before, I’m trying really hard to remind myself that Snape’s actions are a mercy killing… Really, really hard.
- MY HEART IS IN TEN THOUSAND PIECES.
- “You thought I would not wish to marry him, or perhaps you hoped? What do I care how he looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I think. All these scars show is that my husband is brave.” And with that, Fleur cements her place in my heart. And Molly’s, apparently. (Yeah, yeah, I took out the accented spelling. I was listening to the books because JIM DALE is the man and I didn’t feel like looking up Fleur’s accented speech.)
- Tonks and Lupin. The scandal! Lupin is right. He is too old and too dangerous for Tonks. He totally doesn’t deserve her, but darn it, nobody does.
- I simply cannot hold it together. Every dang time. I know it’s coming, and I still get the awful lump in my throat and then the tears come and I just can’t.
- Ugh. The funeral. Seriously, you guys.
- “The last and greatest of his protectors had died, and he was more alone than he had ever been before.” SOB.
- Harry thinks he sees a phoenix in Dumbledore’s funerary fireworks- was it his Patronus being freed? Is that a thing that happens?
- Oh heavens. Being dumped at a funeral has to suck. Ginny accepts things with good grace, that’s for sure.
- And then Ron and Hermione say they’re going with Harry no matter what and I fall apart AGAIN. Because FRIENDSHIP.
Holy smokes, you guys. This is the last book wherein I preserve any shred of dignity and I’m afraid I’ve ruined it by sobbing all over the place. What is it about these characters and this world that just dig into my very marrow? My soul belongs to Hogwarts.
Talk to me, Bookworms. If you’re re-reading something that breaks your heart, do you skip over the sad parts?
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Megan M.
Skip the sad parts?! Sacrilege! I remember the first time reading this book. I was reading it verrrrrry early in the morning (I think I bought it at midnight and stayed up all night reading) and I had just gotten to That Part and was collapsed in sobs on the couch and my roommate came home and was like, “Oh my god, what’s wrong?” and all I could manage to say was, “The book… sad.”
Words For Worms
Hahahaha! Yes! I had a similar experience. When new books would come out I’d binge read hardcore, forgoing necessary sleep. Being overtired makes the sad much more intense!
JoulesDellinger
I cry at the end of that book every darn time. Which is totally weird when I’m in a room silently reading while my husband is watching tv.
Words For Worms
This one makes me cry, but it’s book 7 that tears me to absolute shreds. Which, you’re absolutely right, is completely weird when taken out of context.
Becky
Potter gets to me every time. EVERY. TIME. I had tears in my eyes just reading your post. Somehow a cry over a good book provides a catharsis that only an avid reader could understand. Read on!
Jenny @ Reading the End
I don’t skip over the sad parts, although I sometimes want to! I was actually okay about Dumbledore dying — sad but okay — all throughout when it was happening and the aftermath, and then I cried at the funeral part. It’s so much like a real funeral, where you keep having thoughts you don’t expect, and everyone’s sad and you’re sad and there’s also still things that make you laugh. Just a really nicely-done scene, I thought.
Words For Worms
I totally agree. I make it through the actual death scene with little more than a lump in the throat. It’s the funeral when I completely lose it. You’re absolutely right, it’s like being at a real funeral with that whole jumble of feelings in with the sad. Siiigh.
bookgeeking
I never thought of Dumblesore dying as Harry’s last protector being gone. Ron and Hermione know he’s the one who has to finish it, it was kinda of said in the first book, they just stand by his side and make sure he makes it.
Words For Worms
Well, yes, but to Harry, he felt he’d lost his last line of defense. Somehow forgetting that Hermione saved his ass on the regular and Ron was always, always there for his ill advised schemes.
Michelle
I love this book, but my heart belongs with book 7. That is the one that has me a complete mess.
Words For Worms
I hear you on that one. The whole damn book has me weeping.