Leah: Because it's the chic thing to do, I've got spazzy, spazzy essay-length thoughts about Half Blood Prince. It was weird, this time around, because I'm so in my Stargate space, that I wasn't excited, I'm still not living from page-to-page. It's so strange. HP's always been my fallback and my home, but now it's... on the fringes of my mind always. I don't know if I can ever go back as deep as I've been in the past. Oh, sweet Harry Potter, I like your canon more than your fanfic now, how far we've come. (Also, note: I'm writing half of this while drinking a beer called "La Fin Du Monde" aka "The End of the World." Seems fitting?)

Lemme say, right off the bat, that I'm excited about having an acronym that doesn't have non-capitalized letters in it again. CoS, GoF, OotP, it gives your pinky a strange workout, and I'm haaaaappy to just hold down shift for the whole of HBP. The names of the books themselves have always struck me as strange anyway, you've got two where the "and the" is the major plot point, and four where they're just kinda... there. I mean, it's not like Harry was battling the Order the whole of the fifth book. I mean, in all honesty, a better title might have been Harry Potter and the Freaky Voldemort Dreams. Harry Potter and That Room He Can't Get Into. Also, could anyone think of a less important object in the fourth book than the gorram goblet itself? They spent more time with the merpeople.

Ok, gonna bold for easy reading, but basically, my thoughts have just been saying names in all caps, followed by an exclamation point. What can I say, I've always thought fifth book Harry and I have a lot in common. So, basically: SNAPE! DRACO! and REGULUS! Lord.

Snape! My mom doesn't get this one, but I've always always always liked Snape. Always! He and Remus have fights for my love, and I forget which one I like best sometimes, and Snape gets a lot more airtime than my man, so he's my Main Canon Focus while I'm actually reading the damn thing. My favorite non-Remus-related paragraph, and maybe my favorite bit of JK's writing, was when Harry managed to break into Snape's head in OotP, my favorite line ever being the description of him shooting down flies. Oh, Snape, you poor twisted loner!

Right. So, this book, has shoved him up in my esteem like whoa. So, either, he's still good and has the most fucked up of moral codes, he and Dumbledore planned the whole thing and he's all broken up about it, etc. etc. angst! OR he's the greatest superspy for evil that he world has ever known. He had the two greatest wizards EVER trusting him implicitly at the same time. I mean, Jesus, how do you do that? Plus, as we see via the old textbook, he was cool and smart and, in my opinion, funny as a teenager. Improvising on all those potions, inventing spells, working things out and breaking things down. If only he'd had the love of a good woman (read: me) when he was a young man. He could have gone far as his own Dark Lord, without having to grovel to Darth Vader all the damn time.

I was talking with Ashley (about Harry Potter? you're kidding!) and what struck me was the sudden "but you're Voldemort's Favorite" part. We've had no indications of this over the past two books (and with Harry's tight tight POV, how would we?), and every single Death Eater has claimed to be Voldemort's Right Hand Guy, what makes me think that this one's vaguely accurate is that Bella didn't go all "how DARE you say that, he love ME above ALL OTHERS" at her sister. If Bellatrix, batshit crazy Bella, is upset because she thinks the Dark Lord likes someone better than her, then she means it. She'd actually be hurt by admitting that he liked anyone besides her. If Snape had been all "the Dark Lord loves me, we're thisclose, we watch Football and drink microbrew together," I'd be like "shyeah, riiight." But it's Narcissa and BELLA! They're just crazy enough for me to take them seriously. (also re: that scene, it makes me so happy that the Malfoys all crazy!love each other. poor draco! but that's in another ten paragraphs or so)

So, yeah, Snape! Someone mentioned a person having and icon that just says Snape Kills Dumbledore and I think that's just the funniest thing ever, as long as they never post where virgin eyes can see it. Snape! It's so hard to believe he's completely evil, that is why I love him. He's been playing one side this whole time, and he's been playing it so well. Give the man an oscar. Though, dude, Half-Blood Prince? Who gives themselves a nickname?

In relation to the sudden influx of romantic relationships, I'm 3 for 4. I liked how stupid Ron was about Hermione, I liked Ginny, I actually didn't wanna hit Fleur with a trowel, but I want my old Tonks back. I can understand being rejected by Remus Lupin, the Most Amazing Man In The Universe, would suck like nothing else in the world, but it actually went so far as to sap away her powers? The fuck? Is that all women are good for anymore? If we can't have the men we love we just DIE? (I'm looking at you here, Lucas.) A lot of my ew! ew! ew! Remus/Tonks thoughts have been better said by throughadoor in this entry. Especially when she starts talking about Remus/Sirius vs. Remus/Tonks and heteronormativity, etc.

Basically, I'm a hard-core Sirius/Remus person, I have been since PoA came out, I think the adults are the most interesting characters anyway, and I have this theory where no-one can ever understand what happened during the first war if they weren't there - and that keeps the war generation (those who graduated circa 1977, the core of which being the Mauraders, Snape, Lily, etc.) from being able to fully connect with the real world past that. So, in my theory of the relationship between Sirius/Remus, they were all they had left of the the one time in their lives they were happy and whole - and you can't replace that. Leave it to passionate male friendship or whatever, but I think the only character that Remus had ever have a chance to completely connect with, to completely be comfortable with, was Sirius. So Tonks stumbles in, says she loves him, and that's IT? It doesn't work for me, and they had no canon interaction to speak of, so we're just supposed to go "oh, ok, they're in love! yey!" and leave it at that? Uh, no? Also, in my heart of hearts, Remus was less "I'm too old for you, I'm a werewolf" and more "I just got over the death of my boyfriend, back off for a minute, ok?" So, I'm just gonna assume that they're holding hands and happy because they had a conversation wherein they realized that friendship is the true love of the 21st Century and then Remus said she looked better with pink hair anyway, and they embraced in a passionate, but very platonic way. Honestly, I could go on about this, too.

What knocks me sideways is that Harry was RIGHT the whole book. Every stupid theory! Every Malfoy and Snape are evil evil evil and must be stopped stopped stopped! It's so unexpected, because can we name all the things he's gotten wrong over the course of the last five books? Snape wants the stone! Draco's the Heir of Slytherin! Sirius Black is gonna kill me! That Professor Moody, he sure is a good guy, I should trust him implicitly! Sirius is in danger and needs my help! I could go on, it's a long list. I don't blame Ron and Hermione for ignoring him. Well, you know what, a stopped clock's right two times a day, I'm glad Harry finally hit his. He was right! It's still weirding me out to say it.

Also, I liked Harry in this book. My mom and I are of one mind about how we wanted to smack OotP Harry until his ears started ringing, but this mature but still angry Harry was cool! He's gonna go off unto yonder world and KILL PEOPLE. I gotta get behind that. Also, the one moment where ALLCAPS!Harry came back, I was like "oh, honey, there you are, where you been? Sit down, have some tea, we'll talk this over."

I've always had a morally-greyed-out view of Dumbledore, but as he's dead now and can't reveal his Horrible Plot Of Evil like I want him to, I guess I'll miss the batty little guy. The part with the potion freaked me out a little, how out of character that was. It was nearly impossible for me to imagine, he's too old to start shrieking "kill me," it's just too disturbing to picture.

Let's all have a round of applause for the sudden appearance of Draco Malfoy's third dimension. For YEARS I've been saying "yeah, but in the books he's nothing but an evil little snot! He has no redeeming characteristics!" I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to have a canon fully-realized Draaaaaco. He cries! He loves his family! He can't pull the trigger! Oh, Draco, you look like you could use some soup. Also, EVERY SINGLE TIME Harry goes stalking after Malfoy, I get this little horrible feeling in my stomach and want to smack the fuck out of him. Every time. I can't help but feel that he's getting off easy with that broken nose. Someday, he's gonna follow the wrong person and end up skinned or something. Oh, that boy.

Did anyone notice how in the last 50 or so pages of the book everybody was a war bride? We've got oddly strong female characters who understand fully what this new war means and it's cool and creepy and strange all at once. When Ginny got that "I know what you have to do, Harry" look in her eyes, my initial reaction was "ohmygod marry me Weasley woman!" Seriously, there's nothing more compelling and awesome as a person who looks something dark and horrible straight on and Ginny nailed that for me. Oooh, war brides.

I had some fist-pump "oh hell YEAH" moments that I can no longer remember. The re-appearance of Fleur got a fist-pump because it was a throw-away line in book five, and I read a really good Bill/Fleur thing like, 3 years ago, but that's besides the point. I was whooping and hollering and jumping out of bed in emotions such as joy all the night I read the damn thing. I'd like an audio track of me reading that damn book, it must have been something amusing.

I tend to rag on JK for all the horrible plot-points and all the loopholes (uh, wasn't it at least implied that Quirell wasn't the new DADA teacher? like, they hinted at him being around for a while? so what's up with the sudden one-year curse?). But, honestly, the moment she was like "he's split up his soul, you gotta find everything so you can kill him" I was like "I forgive you for everything! You're a good writer! I forgive you!" Re: horcruxes. If I had one, I'd do it Jimmy Hoffa style and put at least one in a concrete weight-bearing pillar of a huge-ass building. I'd be on a plane to London the moment they started building the new Olympic stadium, not skulking around caves. 's all I'm sayin'.

Ok, this was funny, re: Bliase (is black? uh?)
ashley: i think she realized that there were no black slytherins and decided to remedy it
me: 'cause they can't be evil, meglomaniacal, AND racist.

I liked Sluggy, I liked the new minister. Sluggy, for some reason, reminds me of my old highschool chemistry teacher, who some kids hated hated hated but he always liked me. I like him 'cause he's got the slug-club with people who have connections, yes, but he's got Ginny and Hermione in there because they've got merit, and I can appreciate that. As long as you ignore the suck-ups, Slug man, you're good in my book. The new minister's a politician, yeah, and the "can we use you? please?" tactic on Harry was underhanded, but I like that he's a fighter. He's at the very least capable of handing a war on a grand scale, and seems able to go to the mattresses with it. As always, I'm pulling for Arthur Weasley to become Minister, but that's a far-off dream.

Also, dude, in the flashbacks, could harry have noticed any more how handsome Riddle was? Harry keeps doing this to us. We get about 10 words about his girlfriend and about 20 sentences describing how handsome the male characters are. It's really quite amusing, and I don't even like slashing Harry. Anyway! He's got a little boy-crush on The Young Mr. Riddle, and it's creepy to the extreme. I kept imagining Hayden Christiansen from RotS, the transformation from kinda good-looking to gaunt and red-eyed and freaky. It works, too well, and now I've started thinking of Voldemort only as Darth Vader. *breathe* Speaking of creepy, though, JESUS, I'm surprised I haven't had nightmares about baby!Riddle. Because seriously, if I were Albus, I might have killed the child right then and there and then obliviated the staff. Jesus. JESUS. I'm sure even baby Hitler didn't go around telling strangers "I can hurt people." Whoa.

Ok, R.A.B., I honestly read that and started jumping up and down and squeaking. REGULUS! Who the fuck thought that he'd come back as a plot-point? Regulus! Regulus! Regulus! It's still blowing my mind. Say it with me a couple times. REGULUS!

I'm excited because my three favorite characters lived through another book. She's got a year left to kill Remus, but I don't know if she can do it. He's got one characteristic in common with Harry - he's exceptionally good at surviving just about anything. I think, of all his generation, Remus is the Designated Survivor, the one who keeps the stories to tell. And it's hard and lonely, but it's all he's got left. Oh, Remus.

Also, if you made it this far, dude. DUDE. I'm going to bed now.

In my ultra-spazzy IM conversation with Ashley right after finishing, I used the phrase "ten billion heartbreak years" to describe Remus/Sirius, and it's one of those accidental turns of phrase that I end up loving afterwards. Ten billion heartbreak years.

Also, um, I'm back from Canada! I bought 4" heels! And a short skirt. I feel like I'm finally becoming a woman. I'd like to mention, right now, that before I met Yen Vi, speaking French was not a life-skill. Someday, though, I will be fewer than two languages behind. Someday. I'm tag-teaming Yen Vi on talking about the amusement park. 'Cause the idea was my baby, but she was the one who pulled for the Dippin' Dots. Heh. Le Boomerang. Oh, the French.