Mark Reads ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’: Chapter 5

In the fifth chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, we learn more about the stress of living in wartime and also see how our characters are still doing their best to continue living. Oh, and a character from Goblet of Fire returns. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Harry Potter.

CHAPTER 5: AN EXCESS OF PHLEGM

Man, on top of shit getting real, everything’s so tense and weird as well. Life during war, I suppose.

I’m really glad to spend more time with Mrs. Weasley, though seeing her so stressed out grates my nerves, only because she’s already stressed as it is and now she has reason for that to be in overdrive.

  • She turned to look at a large clock that was perched awkwardly on top of a pile of sheets in the washing basket at the end of the table. Harry recognized it at once: It had nine hands, each inscribed with the name of a family member, and usually hung on the Weasleys’ sitting room wall, though its current position suggested that Mrs. Weasley had taken to carrying it around the house with her. Every single one of its nine hands was now pointing at “mortal peril.”

JESUS. Good god, that is so horrible. It also made me a bit sad when I realized that only Ginny and Ron were left in the house; the twins were in Diagon Alley, Bill is off at Gringotts, Percy’s pride is getting the best of him, and Charlie….wait. Where is Charlie? I literally had to go on AIM and run through the Weasley family because I couldn’t remember the ninth member because WHERE IS HE, ROWLING. omg YOU ARE NEGLECTING HIM.

Actually, he’s probably off TAMING DRAGONS OR SOME SHIT. He wins.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. We learn that Mr. Weasley got a promotion under Scrimgeour and that it’s now Ministry policy for all employees to use that weird “secret question” bullshit that’s kind of bogus when you think about it. It’s like all the earthquake drills they made me do throughout my public schooling years; hiding under my desk might help in some alternate universe, but really, if the building is crumbling before me, my desk will probably kill me anyway.

The next morning, we also (re)introduced to a character that’s currently causing a bit of stress throughout the Weasley residence:

  • A young woman was standing in the doorway, a woman of such breathtaking beauty that the room seemed to have become strangely airless. She was tall and willowy with long blonde hair and appeared to emanate a faint, silvery glow. To complete this vision of perfection, she was carring a heavily laden breakfast tray.

    “‘Arry,” she said in a throaty voice. “Eet ‘as been too long!”

    As she swept over the threshold toward him, Mrs. Weasley was revealed, bobbing along in her wake, looking rather cross.

    “There was no need to bring up the tray, I was just about to do it myself!”

    “Eet was no trouble,” said Fleur Delacour, setting the tray across Harry’s knees and then swooping to kiss him on each cheek: He felt the places where her mouth had touched him burn.

WHAT THE FUCK. WHY IS SHE HERE.

  • Fleur turned back to Harry, swinging her silvery sheet of hair so that it whipped Mrs. Weasley across the face.

    “Bill and I are going to be married!”

WHAT???????????????????? How…what…..how……WHAT????

  • Mrs. Weasley made a noise that sounded like “tchah@”

    “Mum hates her,” said Ginny quietly.

    “I do not hate her!” said Mrs. Weasley in a cross whisper. “I just think they’ve hurried into this engagement, that’s all!”

While I’m sure this is part of it, I have a feeling there’s more to this. Why does everyone in the family seem to dislike her so much? I’m sort of confused. Everyone SAYS she is annoying, but they don’t seem to give any reasons why. They say they like Tonks more (AND REALLY, WHO WOULDN’T?!?!?!), but…why? What is so terrible about Fleur?

I want to skip to the end of the chapter, but not out of disinterest for the conversation that Ron, Hermione, and Harry have about Sirius. Well….wait, there is one thing I want to comment on:

  • Harry did not really listen. A warmth was spreading through him that had nothing to do with sunlight; a tight obstruction in his chest seemed to be dissolving. He knew that Ron and Hermione were more shocked than they were letting on, but the mere fact that they were still there on either side of him, speaking bracing words of comfort, not shrinking from him as though he were contaminated or dangerous, was worth more than he could ever tell them.

EXCUSE ME WHILE I ATTEMPT TO MEND MY HEART. oh man.

Anyway, I had forgotten about this but O.W.L.S.!!!! When Harry makes a comment that the results of their O.W.L.S., Hermione’s paranoia made me laugh, only because she so sincere and endearing about it. Also I WAS HER THROUGHOUT HIGH SCHOOL, 100% TRUE STORY.

I love that the worst grade you can get on an O.W.L. is a T: Troll. This is incredibly hilarious to me.

Thankfully, none of them got any Trolls. I was surprised that Harry and Ron actually got 7 O.W.L.S. each, and it was no surprise that Hermione got 9 perfect scores and one E. HERMIONE, WE ARE THE SAME PERSON.

I’m gonna bring something back for this book because this last part totally gutted me. But Harry realizes that despite earning an O.W.L. in Potions, he still didn’t score high enough to be an Auror. So here is “The Most Depressing Sentence(s) in the English Language”:

  • It was odd, really, seeing that it had been a Death Eater in disguise who had firest told Harry he would make a good Auror, but somehow the idea had taken ahold of him, and he could really think of anything else he would like to be.

UGH. I’m sorry, Harry. :/