The Importance of Being Half-Blood

By: Devina (The Charmed One)

Note to all reading this: If, by any far-flung chance, you do not know the title of the sixth Harry Potter book (and if this is true, SHAME ON YOU; what sort of Harry Potter fan are you?), I suggest you don't read further. But then, if you're curious by nature, go ahead!!! Hope you enjoy this!!!

    Finally! We know the title of the much-awaited Harry Potter book and in this manner have come a step closer to the release of the book. Oh yes, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a book for which millions are waiting with bated breath.

    Most important: who is a half-blood? In my opinion, it's a witch or a wizard who has one Muggle parent and one magical parent. A lot of doubt has been raised over the exact definition as Harry has also been called a half-blood even though neither Lily nor James was a Muggle. Bellatrix Black called Harry a half-blood in the Department of Mysteries and so did Dumbledore. In CoS, we found out that a Mudblood is an offensive term for a Muggle-born witch or wizard. And a pure-blood is one who has only magical blood in their veins. I feel that Harry is not exactly a half-blood, rather he has mixed blood, as Lily comes from a family of Muggles (or Squibs; for more information, read my next article!). Voldemort, on the other hand, is definitely half-blood. There is no way that Voldemort is a pure-blood. His mother was a witch and his father was a Muggle. So his pure-blood fanaticism makes sense only if we see it as a purely psychological desire to be better than his father, who was a Muggle. But enough of this, lets look at the title of Book 6.

    The question now emerges: Who is the half-blood prince? Let's try and explore the options.

    Now, first, I'm going to eliminate who cannot be the half-blood prince. It's not Harry, nor is it Voldemort, as J.K. Rowling herself eliminated them on her website. It can't be any of the Weasley's as they come from a long line of wizards. It's definitely not anyone from the Malfoy family either as they pride themselves on being "pure". Let's check out our options.

    How about Hagrid? You might think, "Hagrid? A prince? Hah!" But let's look at it logically. He's the offspring of a wizard and a giantess. Alright, some people may look at it as being half-breed rather than half-blood, but as we're not quite clear on the terminology, let's suppose it means half-blood. He's half-giant right? So he could be the prince of some giant clan or something. If Hagrid is indeed the half-blood prince referred to in the title, then maybe it's in this book that he plays a major role and comes out into his own. Maybe he galvanizes the giants and leads them into a fight against evil?

    Another person that comes to mind is Dumbledore. Who's to say that he's not a half-blood? His lineage is never mentioned anywhere in the books. He might be too old to be a prince, but being a prince has nothing to do with youth. He could be the HBP and this book could show his roots, his history in greater detail. Many fans have always wondered why he's the only wizard Voldemort was afraid of. We've also seen how powerful he is. How come? Perhaps the answer to these questions is that he's royalty of some sort and has some inherent power passed on from generation to generation and he's too humble to talk about it. Look at all the 5 books released until now. How much do we know about Dumbledore besides what's given behind the Chocolate Frog Cards? Who is he? Maybe we're going to find out!

    Viktor Krum. The Bulgarian Seeker who's still in school. The guy whom Ron is jealous of coz he likes Hermione too. Could he be the HBP? Again, we know nothing of his lineage, so he's also a possibility. If you notice in GoF, Karkaroff goes out of his way to please Krum. We then thought it was because he was an international Quidditch player, but it could also be because he's a prince of some kind and exercises some sort of power over others. He was 17 in Harry Potter's fourth year. Two years later, he's going to be 19. Maybe he came into his inheritance at the age of 18 and spent a year consolidating his power. And now, he returns to help Harry fight Voldemort.

    My next suggestion might come as a surprise, but anyways, let me go ahead with it. I was thinking of Severus Snape as a possibility. I can almost hear some of you going, "He's not a half-blood!" Oh really? Prove it then. Give me the page number, the chapter and the book in which it's written that Snape is a pure-blood. Everyone assumes he's a pure-blood because he's in Slytherin. Remember his memory where a hook-nosed man was shouting at a woman? Could the hook-nosed man (the father in my opinion) be a wizard and the woman (presumably his mother) be a Muggle? He could have been brought up by his father, and taught to hate all Muggles, and behave as though he has no association with them. The whole "Perseus Evans" thing can be even explained this way: his mother was related to the Evans family from which sprung Lily. This sort of puts paid to my theory in the next article, but for speculation's sake, let's say this is true. Severus Snape could become a whole lot more appealing to the public by actually being the good guy. Oh, I had a thought. Recall the time when Dumbledore asked Snape to do something? Maybe Snape had left his title long ago and Dumbledore was asking him to claim it back and help the Order get more members and fight evil! (Uh, I know my theories might be totally wild, but when has JKR stuck to the tame?)

    The paragraph over here was actually dedicated to Mark Evans before I found out he was a nobody!!! Hehe, thank you J.K. Rowling, for announcing this before I plunged into a crazy theory about who he was.

    Does this line look familiar? "Me Dad's a Muggle, Mum's a witch. Bit of a shock for him when he found out." I know you know who I'm talking about! Seamus Finnigan!!! He's someone who we know is definitely a half-blood. He said it himself in the first book. He could be the prince of some Scottish clan for all we know.

    But, here's where we need to take another thing into consideration. J.K. Rowling said that she considered naming CoS as HBP. It's a clue!!! Okie dokie, let's take all the major male characters in CoS under scrutiny. Harry Potter? No. Ron Weasley? No. Any other Weasley? Nopes. Malfoy? No. Dobby? Well, he could be a house-elf prince, but I don't think the term 'half-blood' is applied outside the wizarding fraternity as such. Hagrid? Well…his centrality in this book does lend support to my argument that he's the HBP doesn't it? Tom Riddle? Well, Voldemort isn't the HBP as we all know, but if Tom Riddle and Voldemort can be two separate entities (ever heard of split personality disorder?), why not? Essentially, Tom Riddle became a completely different person after immersing himself in the Dark Arts. He wasn't the same person anymore. He wasn't the good, responsible, intelligent Headboy that Dumbledore remembered. Also, he's the heir of Slytherin. Tom Riddle knows he was a half-blood, whereas Voldemort refuses to accept that. He's the heir (like the heir to a throne, alternatively, a prince) and he's a half-blood. The Half-Blood Prince? It's a wild theory, but we just have to wait and see. I'm not ignoring Lockhart; it's just that…he's too awful to be a prince! Oh well, if he is the HBP (Ew, I hope not!) then he's one hell of an arrogant and deceitful one!

    And of course, if you've read some of my earlier articles, you'd know that I think there could be the introduction of a new character in the sixth book. This new character could also be the HBP. How then, could CoS have been named HBP? Well, if the new character was introduced there, then it could have been.

    If I had to choose whom I think is the prince, I'd think of Hagrid first. Viktor Krum and Snape also seem hopefuls. If you have any theories about this…do let me know at supersleuth_87@hotmail.com. Wait for my next article then!