Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (novel)/Headscratchers

Please check JK's FAQs before asking a question that may have already been answered.

Charms or Transfiguration?

 * In Chapter 24: Sectumsempra, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are in Charms class discussing what he and Dumbledore had talked about regarding Slughorn's memory and the Horcruxes. Flitwick comes over and scolds them for talking and tells them to get to work because "Hermione was the only one who had managed to turn vinegar into wine." It explicitly states they're in Charms class, and it's Flitwick who is teaching, so why exactly are they doing Transfiguration?
 * Wine turns into vinegar when it goes sour. Perhaps they were studying some kind of rejuvenating or process-reversing charm.

Love potions? More like "horrible sexual violation" potions!

 * Love Potions: Pretty much the ultimate Date Rape drug. Exactly why are they treated like harmless fun for most of the series, even after we hear the story of Voldemort's mom? There are absolutely no repercussions for any of the people we see try to use them -- like Romilda Vane, who tried to drug Harry but got Ron instead -- except maybe disappointment, when they should be getting a week in Azkaban or something to scare 'em straight.
 * Well, this is another culture we're dealing with. Maybe their stance on rape is totally different from ours; maybe they see rape as nothing more than harmless fun or even an act of love.
 * It's also worth noting that the Wizarding world seems to have a "no harm, no foul rule" in place. The things that wizards do to one another in the name of good fun would be considered monstrous in the real world, but since they have access to magic, they're mild nuisances at worst. It makes sense that this attitude would extend further into their culture. Note that the only person to successfully use a Love Potion as a date rape drug, Merope Gaunt, wasn't portrayed in a positive light. She was desperate and lonely and pitiful, but she wasn't excused for her crime. Moreover, Ron basically overdosed on an expired Love Potion; presumably, it doesn't normally consume the user entirely, and immediately after the Love Potion problem was rectified, Ron had more immediate issues to worry about.
 * The 'no harm no foul' rule is a good point. Though, part of the message seems to be that the intention DOES matter, whether or not it is successful, at least in some cases: no one can argue that some of the things James and Sirius got up to weren't deliberately intended to be cruel, and as such, their youthful exploits are - aside from Sirius and Remus's personal romanticized memories of them - presented as stupid, dangerous, and in some cases downright cruel. Rowling seems to have intentionally drove this point home when it comes to Snape, in both 'Snape's Worst Memory' and the knowledge of the Werewolf/Shrieking Shack prank against Snape, in which case they are represented as being unquestionably the instigators/bullies/antagonists. Of course, Snape is a dickwad to the extreme as an adult, so there really isn't much extra sympathy for him before those particulars, but even HARRY is disgusted by these particular events. It seems a flaw in the wizard mentality that is presented AS a flaw, because it creates further problems for the people instigating these situations. It never once feels as if Rowling is making excuses for these things, even though the fans sometimes do.
 * Maybe Rowling thinks that Double Standard Rape (Female on Male). After all, only females ever show any interest in drugging people with love potions.
 * Actually, perhaps this whole thing with Love Potions is meant to appear as a Double Standard, as a way of critiquing Muggle society's treatment of similar situations. It wouldn't be the first time Rowling did something like this, and if this is the case (and with the way in which she describes Merope Riddle, it certainly would seem so), it falls under Fridge Brilliance.
 * There's already some magical Double Standards in play. The one that jumps to mind is that girls can walk into the boys' dormitories, but if a boy tries the reverse, Hogwarts magically prevents him from entering.
 * I can't remember where exactly, but I do remember reading that the Hogwarts founders thought girls to be more trustworthy. I guess that was the way it was a thousand years ago.
 * This troper always took it (from the mentions in the early books of Molly Weasley, accounting an anecdote of brewing up a love potion - how would you react if your dad started laughingly talking about that one time he Roofied a girl?) that Amortentia is the strongest love potion, but not the only one. You only jump right to the strongest if you're being really reckless or you really want someone in total uncontrollable lust with you.
 * This seems to make the most sense, that there are a wide variety of love potions with varying strengths and effects. Presumably this can range from the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes brand, which would, presumably, be relatively short-lasting, with symptoms like uncontrollable blushing, grinning like an idiot, stammering, and heart-all-a-flutter (consult a Healer before administering to someone with a heart condition; contact St. Mungo's for details on possible side effects). On the other end of the scale are the (probably illegal) potions used by Merope Gaunt to completely subsume the drinker's own preferences and wishes, up to and including sexual activities and long-term relationships; i.e., an Imperius Curse powered by [false] love.
 * Aside from intention and the random other discussions of Love Potions... it seems weird to this troper that they are TAUGHT how to make them in their Potions class with Slughorn. While I somehow doubt that Snape would ever teach them this particular potion (since he looks nearly homicidal when Lockhart suggests on Valentine's that people ask him about it), it is clearly a potentially dangerous drug. The fact that we only see women use it, in the narrative, doesn't mean men NEVER have. Both boys and girls brew it in Potions with Slughorn, and this is both bizarre and pretty repulsive that this happens. You don't learn how to make Roofies Of Your Very Own in Chemistry class, as the potential for abuse with this kind of potion is pretty much its entire purpose - there IS no morally sound reason to brew it. Yergh.
 * I actually did learn how to make meth in my college chemistry class, although we didn't actually do it for a lab and I doubt it's the method that most meth labs use (as the reactants involved include strong acids that aren't exactly easy to get your hands on). Building on the "there are many different types of love potions" idea, I always figured that only amortentia and the other really strong kinds of love potions are the magical equivalent of roofies; weaker love charms and love potions are the magical equivalent of "buying 4-5 drinks for a girl to loosen her up", which, rightly or wrongly, most people do consider to be acceptable behavior and will laughingly talk about.
 * Wait a second, love potions are not necessarily "rape" drugs, because even though they cause "infatuation", it's not impossible that they don't lead to sex -- oh wait, Merope and Tom, right.
 * Rowling was going back to her old writing style/tone from the first couple books where she was using juvenile hijinx with magic and potions for comedic effect (Rule of Funny). The rape aspect is only Fridge Horror: it most likely didn't occur to her that horny lovestruck students would figure the Power Perversion Potential inherent in love potions. But then as mentioned above, she put Merope's use of the potion in the book. So she's got some kind of dissonance going on: she acknowledges their potential for abuse, but thinks teenagers wouldn't abuse them enough to warrant the professors doing the sensible thing and not teaching them how to brew it.
 * Just going by what was shown in Book 6, Professor Slughorn only showed the class what the love potion looks like, teaching them how to recognize its characteristics, scent, appearance, effects, etc. It doesn't specifically say that they were ever taught how to brew it themselves. Likely for the same reason they didn't learn how to make Felix Felicis: either it was way beyond their grade level, the ingredients are too expensive for a school course, or it takes so long to mature that it's infeasible for a classroom project.
 * He also did mention that it was the most dangerous potion in a line that included some deadly ones. Obviously a love potion of that strength isn't legal.
 * Noted, with some of the arguments made here, in this Cracked article, at #5.

That Malfoy kid's being allowed to get away with murder...

 * Does it bother anyone else that Dumbledore allows Malfoy enough of a leash to harm multiple students? Whether or not Dumbledore wants to keep Malfoy out of prison, it's sheer luck that Ron and Katie went into the hospital wing and not the morgue. The only step Dumbledore takes is to have Snape watch over him, and Snape already has a lot on his plate.
 * 'It's possible Dumbledore didn't know' -- Nope. Snape, who is completely loyal to Dumbledore, knew exactly what Malfoy was up to; that's the entire point of the Spinner's End chapter. Snape later confirms in the Pensieve that he told Dumbledore. As for the dumb luck, Malfoy has openly espoused pure blood supremacy, threatened to kill Harry, supported Umbridge in opposing Dumbledore, has significant connections to the Death Eaters (father, mother, aunt), and is overheard threatening a black market dealer with the name of a notorious werewolf, and boasting to his friends about Voldemort's coming new world order. These are solid reasons to suspect Malfoy. Unfortunately, Harry is a failure in the espionage/detective skill set; his idea of eavesdropping is to hide in the luggage rack. It's only after he gets Dobby and Kreacher to help him that's he's able to accomplish anything.
 * Dumbledore (and Harry) knew that Malfoy was doing something, and Harry doesn't have a solid enough understanding of either the Wizarding World or Dark Magic to suggest a way that Malfoy could have been responsible for the necklace; by the point of the poisoning, Harry's already effectively been discredited. Dumbledore, on the other hand, probably figured it had been Malfoy all along, but his attempts were so bad that he could be turned to the side of good, as Snape had been. Dumbledore's flaw was underestimating Malfoy's ingenuity and willingness to do whatever it took.
 * That's another thing the bugs me. Malfoy is an attempted murderer, but he's so incompetent that we're going to let him hurt people and try get him on our side? This after Malfoy has been at Hogwarts for 6 years, and Dumbledore (and Snape) pretty much turn a blind eye to the kid's Voldemort sympathies. Yeah, Malfoys don't know better, that's why you have teachers explain things like "Hanging out with racist terrorists is a Bad Idea."
 * Did it bother any one else that McGonagall didn't consider the possibility of Malfoy using an Imperius curse? Harry's an Idiot, but she (supposedly) isn't. Instead she just said "he was with me, so he has an alibi."
 * Seemed to me that McGonagall simply didn't consider that a teenage boy was capable of the Imperius Curse. It's noted that the Unforgivable Curses need a lot of power and motivation behind them. Plus, look at the timing -- all evidence was that Katie Bell (if that's the incident being referred to) was Imperius Cursed while in Hogsmeade. Malfoy wasn't in Hogsmeade, so logically he couldn't have cursed Katie personally. Imperius-by-Proxy via Rosmerta was never considered by anybody. Even Dumbledore didn't realize Malfoy's pawn until the end.
 * Dumbledore overlooking (sort of) Malfoy's attempted murders seemed perfectly in character. Both attempts failed, and more importantly, Malfoy's targets were completely inadvertent. Dumbledore even criticizes him for taking such high-risk, low-probability measures, but he knew they were mistakes, born of desperation instead of malice. He was already forgiving Malfoy for being a teenage boy working out of stark terror for a seriously evil psychopath, so forgiving him for unfortunate near-accidents is plausible.
 * The question isn't if Dumbledore could forgive Malfoy -- the book makes it quite clear that Malfoy had a fair Freudian Excuse and was under some extreme circumstances. The question is, why did Dumbledore let this go on for so long? As mentioned, Malfoy's attempts did have a very low chance of success, but they were going to hurt plenty of people just to get to Dumbledore, and it was only sheer dumb luck that Katie and Ron didn't die. Letting Malfoy continue his ill-conceived assassination attempts while living in a school filled with innocent children is simply insane. Not to mention that Malfoy was obviously mentally unstable at the time (perfectly willing to use an Unforgivable Curse on someone who'd just seen him crying in a public restroom), and could snap and do even more damage. The very instant his botched attack hospitalized Katie, Dumbledore should've pulled him aside and talked him down, instead of waiting until Malfoy was nearly successful and had him at wand-point (great timing there, Albus). His willingness to let Malfoy possibly kill innocent students is just one more piece of evidence shown throughout the books -- Dumbledore doesn't care about the safety or well-being of Hogwarts students.
 * Huh. That last sentence pretty much means any counterargument is going to fall on deaf ears, but... eh, why not. Dumbledore was doing something about Malfoy, having Snape keep him under control (or try to). Engineering Malfoy's Heel Face Turn (ironically waiting until Malfoy was at his weakest moment) was one of Albus "Everyone Deserves a Second Chance" Dumbledore's big projects (along with searching for the Horcruxes, teaching Harry to do so, and getting himself killed). He correctly assumed the assassination attempts were flukes, and he didn't really seem to know about Malfoy's actual "danger to himself and others" plan to smuggle in Death Eaters. Malfoy really wasn't mentally unstable, either, except that one moment (under stress, mortal enemy caught him in weak moment, already willing to use Unforgivable Curses anyway...). Until the plan ran away from him, Dumbledore letting Malfoy "win" was killing three birds with one stone: Malfoy would be most likely to concede when he wasn't backed into a corner, Malfoy's death could be faked, and Dumbledore's death could be accomplished, freeing Snape.
 * The thing about Malfoy's plans, though, was that they were only incompetent as attempts to kill Dumbledore. As attempts to kill someone, they came very close to working. The necklace kills whoever touches it; odds are near 100% that someone is going to pick it up and get killed. Same thing with the poisoned mead: someone is going to drink it, even if that someone is unlikely to be Dumbledore. Malfoy is doing the equivalent of firing a gun into a crowd, and Dumbledore really needed to put a stop to it.
 * The simplest explanation is that he overestimated Malfoy. Dumbledore is smart enough not to accept anonymous gifts. Those who actually got harmed by them did so when they weren't supposed to by Malfoy's plan.
 * Also, worth noting is that Dumbledore's goal was never to keep Malfoy out of prison so much as it was to keep Malfoy alive. Any overt action on Dumbledore's part would have gotten Draco killed if Voldemort found out about it. That's why he had to work through Snape. Short of relying on Snape to try and keep Malfoy in check, there was nothing Dumbledore could do except watch, work Damage Control, and thank heavens nobody got killed (since he remarks Draco was lucky neither of his accidental victims died).
 * He was also protecting Narcissa, as she probably would've gotten herself killed trying to protect Draco, had Voldemort judged her son a liability and sicced the other Death Eaters on him. Narcissa is probably the least evil person among Voldemort's supporters (barring the deceased Regulus), so Dumbledore wouldn't want her to suffer for her son's incompetence.
 * Don't forget that he needed Snape to remain alive for part of his Xanatos Roulette, and taking action against Malfoy based on the information Snape had given him could have lead to Snape being killed by the Unbreakable Vow.
 * Seems in character for Dumbledore. Remember it was suggested in the first book that he knew what Quirrell was up to and let the trio take care of him on purpose.
 * Also, don't forget that in book 7 Voldemort is trying to get the Elder Wand. If Dumbledore had confronted Draco before Draco disarmed him, then Voldemort would have gotten the wand and Harry might be dead.
 * Moreover, so long as Draco is acting as a Death Eater agent at Hogwarts, whose plans have yet to run their course, it decreases the risk that Voldemort will send some other agent to infiltrate the school. The bad guys have done this repeatedly in the past, showing enough ingenuity that Dumbledore can't trust his defenses to foil the next attempt. By leaving Draco in place -- an incompetent whose clumsy assassination-attempts only endanger people by accident -- Dumbledore is stalling for time, delaying Voldemort's next full-blown attack on the school and/or Harry because the Dark Lord is waiting for Draco to succeed or to blow it.
 * Ok, I'd like to reiterate an aforementioned perfectly good point: Malfoy is doing the equivalent of firing a gun into a crowd. Period. His clumsy assassination-attempts do not endanger people by accident - they are bound to endanger people and the accidents (or miracles) were that nobody actually died. If that girl touched that necklace with her full palm, she would've died. If Slughorn drank that mead alone (and why not?), he would've died. And Snape did nothing to prevent both cases, so this excuse is lame. Seriously, it looks more and more as if Dumbledore was content with the situation where everybody in the school was in real danger except for him. What the heck?
 * Dumbledore calls Snape out on that in the Pensieve episode in book 7, just before he reveals the secret of the Harry-Horcrux. "I thought you had agreed to keep an eye on our young Slytherin friend." Presumably, this was after Snape had failed to prevent the first two attempts, and afterward, Snape is able to convince Draco not to concoct any more hare-brained schemes and focus on the one that was working - even though Draco still doesn't tell him exactly what that is.
 * Dumbledore knew the entire time what was going on. When Harry was looking through Snape's memories, it was revealed that Dumbledore wanted to keep Malfoy as ignorant as possible of the protection (otherwise Voldemort might use Legilimency to find out and kill Malfoy anyway). As a result, Dumbledore pretended to have no idea that Malfoy was really behind everything and thus had to basically gaslight Harry's suspicions. Harry even suspects at one point that Dumbledore was working on the issue but just wasn't confiding everything to him for some reason.
 * For one thing, exposing Malfoy would force Snape's hand -- once Draco was apprehended and rendered completely incapable of finishing his task, Snape would have to kill Dumbledore for any of their plans to work out, which would be even worse for everyone since Snape would then be stranded inside Hogwarts with no back up. Add to that the fact that Dumbledore has been spending all year trying to get Harry up to date, and it doesn't take much to realize that despite all the repercussions of having Malfoy continue plotting, outing him would be a much worse situation all around. It's horrible, but this is war we're talking about.
 * Dumbledore is simply ready to potentially sacrifice innocent bystanders to get his master plan with Snape to work. That's all. Most important was to have the plan with Snape assassinating him work. Second was to keep Draco, potential murderer safe. And his family who were all potential or real murderers depending if Lucius had killed anyone. The least of imortance was if someone innocent (like students) die in the process. Dumbledore is all about greater good. If some kids get hurt or die then... well, crap happens. Albus would shed a tear and life goes on.

The digestive tract is not a disposal system!

 * Why did Dumbledore have to drink the potion in Half-Blood Prince? Couldn't he have conjured a bucket and just dumped it in there? And for that matter, if he DID have to drink it, couldn't Harry have conjured another goblet to fill with water?
 * Why use a bucket? "Now, I shall drink this potion, and - oops, I seem to have spilt it all." The potion seems to regenerate to a finite amount - it can be moved, but not destroyed, and so must be set aside. Pour the stuff into the lake, and nothing would happen.
 * Probably some charm had been placed on the well that the potion has to be drunk in order to drain the well, otherwise it would automatically refill. As for Harry, clearly in his panic, he didn't consider all the options available to him, otherwise he'd simply conjure the water right into Dumbledore's mouth.
 * What? Harry DID try to conjure water. And every time he brought it near Dumbledore's mouth, it disappeared. The potion was cursed so that it could only be relieved by the water of the lake. Which, upon contact, would set the Inferi on whoever tried taking it.
 * He conjured it into the goblet that had just held the potion; the troper above you seems to be suggesting... well, exactly what they said. How could you miss that?
 * If the water disappeared by proximity, it's more than likely that if the water was conjured into his mouth, it would still disappear before Dumbledore could swallow it.
 * That cave's layered curses, which restrict intruders' actions so they're forced to trigger the Inferi to attack, Just Bug Me. If I tried something like that in a role-playing game, my players would throw things at me for Railroading them! True, Voldemort is a control freak, but did he have to require that many frustrated actions to set off an ambush, that would've faced better odds if the trespassers were already in the boat and trying to leave?
 * Voldemort needed a way to restrict access to the Horcrux that would a) allow him access to it, b) forbid anyone else access to it, and c) (optionally) increase his power. So the potion tortures the drinker to the edge of insanity, meaning he has to have a sacrifice. Not too hard to accomplish. But Dumbledore is about the only person who would figure him out, have the skills to figure out all the traps, and get the Horcrux, and Dumbledore isn't likely to sacrifice anyone else or be accompanied by anyone who would sacrifice him. So they would have to go to the water. And then they would be dragged under, the Horcrux would (presumably) be returned to its resting place, the potion refilled, and he would have another Inferi. As for your tabletop group... well, if they see potentially animate corpses in the water and don't expect to be re-killing them at some point, they clearly haven't been rolling the dice for long enough.
 * The key is a Role-Playing *Group*. The traps are specifically set up to isolate and weaken one person. If Dumbledore hadn't been with Harry, he'd have never finished the potion.
 * Why would Voldemort expect just one person, though? Anyone with half a brain would have brought along a whole bunch of people, (and maybe a nice bottle of water, while they're at it) in case of incapacitating traps just like that potion. And yes, I know Dumbledore would be too noble to let anyone else drink the poison, but how about having along somebody useful who could apparate Harry out of there? Maybe Moody, Snape, or even a house-elf? Dumbledore couldn't have known that there was only the one trap and he would have enough time left to get Harry back to Hogwarts, so taking just an underage, pretty useless boy with him is pretty foolish.
 * The boat was enchanted so that it would only carry one adult wizard without sinking, and was small enough so that no more than two people could fit into it, anyway. This troper suspects that it was also enchanted against making empty trips across the water (and so cannot be used to ferry people over in multiple trips).
 * Unless Dumbledore had had the good sense to bring Fawkes along, which would have been the perfect Cutting the Knot solution to Voldemort's traps. The phoenix can fly without recourse to magic, so wouldn't take up space in the boat. He can neutralize poisons, which relieves the worst of the potion's effects. And he can carry any amount of weight, so could lift Dumbledore, Harry, the Horcrux, and possibly the entire boat up out of the Inferi's reach for the return trip.
 * OK, you just won life, that is a brilliant solution. Dumbledore is an idiot for not thinking of that.
 * Well, Dumbledore assumed that the same way you can only remove the potion by drinking it, you can only pass using the boat.
 * Alternate solution: Step one, make a bowl out of a rock. Step two, transfigure another rock into a dog. Step three, use the goblet to scoop out the potion like you're supposed to, then pour it from the goblet into the bowl. Step four, use a Complusion to make the dog drink the potion. Step five, turn the dog back into a rock. And step six, take the locket and be on your merry way.
 * Voldy probably had a defence against that. and Phoenixes are so magically powerful, they'd probably register as more than a wizard. Awesome idea though.
 * Alternate alternate solution: Stand outside the cave, huck in a giant ball of Fiendfyre, and wait. It's not like you have to worry about the fire spreading, given that you're in the middle of a bunch of wet rocks in the middle of nowhere. Shazam -- no more Inferi, no more goblet, no more poison... no more anything in the cave, really. Admittedly, missing the note from Regulus telling you 'by the way, this is not the real horcrux' would be a problem, but its not like Duumbledore could know that in advance.
 * If Moldy Shorts really wanted to stop anyone from getting to the Horcrux, why didn't he just fill the whole damn bowl with deadly poison?
 * What, didn't you read carefully? He would want to interrogate the intruder, which is why he made the poison that only incapacitates the drinker and invokes terrible thirst, which can only be quenched with water from the lake, whereupon the Inferi would immediately attempt to drown the intruder.
 * Exactly how does Voldemort intend to interrogate someone that's been clawed apart by a horde of zombies and drowned? 'And then the Inferi all jump you!' is a lethal trap, not a subdual trap. And if you're going to use a lethal trap, just fill the goddamn goblet with basilisk venom and skip the middleman.

It's only funny 'till the Main Characters get hurt...

 * When they are learning apparition for the first time, when characters splinch themselves, it's kind of silly-looking and alarming, but they're physically fine... just not all together. In Deathly Hallows, when Ron splinches himself, there's blood everywhere and he's in terrible pain. Why the disconnect? They certainly never bring up 'oh, and there's a spell on the room to make splinching less painful, so Don't Try This At Home' or anything, which you'd think they would.
 * Maybe there was a spell to keep them from being seriously hurt. Or the Death Eaters know how to disrupt apparitions.
 * I would have thought that if the former point was true, that they would have said something. Also, in an early book, Arthur casually refers to people being splinched and needing to be set right - if it takes until some wizards happen to stop by and revert them, wouldn't they be worried about bleeding to death? It is true, though, maybe a Death Eater interrupted him somehow and caused the bad effects.
 * In Half-Blood Prince, it does explicitly state that when the first girl splinches herself, she makes a shriek of pain. Maybe her splinching only hurt a little bit because her apparition power was weak in the first place, so she was only moving a few metres? Perhaps if a fully-grown wizard with full apparition powers splinches himself traveling a fairly long distance, the consequences are worse.
 * Distance probably had something to do with it, too. In Hogwarts, the kids were apparating, what, 2 feet. In the last book, Hermione was apparating two other people from somewhere in London into the middle of nowhere, while under immense stress.
 * It's simply one of many things in book six that does not fit in with what was written in the first five.
 * No, it does make kinda sense. Ron was missing a chunk out of his arm, meaning the skin broke. The other girl, Susan Bones, just lost her leg, which, I'm assuming, means that when she left her leg, the skin didn't break. There was no mention of blood, and really, when you lose a leg, there will be blood. It said she "was shaken" after that incident. If you were practicing magic and lost your leg, blood gushing, you wouldn't be shaken. I'd be scarred for life. And, wouldn't that elicit more than a shriek of pain?
 * Probably two types of Splinch - least serious one, you lose something, but your magic screws up to the point where it actually changes your body, making it less painful. More serious, you simply leave a chunk behind without changing the rest. Also, the time in HBP, there were many very powerful and trained wizards and witches to glue them back together. Theoretically even if one splinched one's head, they could cast the rebuild spell before you are brain dead.
 * The idea of two types of splinching makes sense. For my own part, I'm pretty sure they mentioned that splinching can do really bad things to you if you screw it up, hence even some adults not messing with it.

All right, who stuffed the plot into a Vanishing Cabinet?

 * Malfoy explains that he discovered how the Vanishing Cabinet worked when a character was stuffed into it the previous year... and escaped by Apparating into an upstairs toilet at Hogwarts. When you go to that much trouble to establish that you cannot Apparate or Disapparate on school grounds, HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT PLOT HOLE?
 * I always thought the stuffed-in-a-toilet thing WAS Hogwarts's defence system: sure you can Apparate, but only if you don't mind being stuffed into a toilet. Seems like the kind of thing Dumbledore would do. Note when the sixth years are learning, the teachers say if they try to Apparate further than the Great Hall they will not like the results, not that it's impossible.
 * A vanishing cabinet is at least partially in one place, circumvents most of Hogwarts' defenses, and that one was broken, remember? Not to mention that the character who managed to Apparate back in was nearly killed.
 * If you can't Disapparate off Hogwarts grounds, and you can't Disapparate onto Hogwarts grounds, there's no reason to assume you should be able to Apparate from one part of the Hogwarts grounds to another. The vanishing cabinet being broken should have no effect at all on whether it's possible to Apparate out of it into a place that is reportedly impossible to Apparate into. And the text implies that he nearly died Apparating because he didn't know how to Apparate, not because of the enchantments.
 * It seemed to me that he didn't successfully Apparate out of the cabinet. He tried to, but the enchantment caused a magical backlash which shunted him into a Hogwarts bathroom and nearly killed him in the process.
 * The above would seem likely. If you recall the first Apparation lesson, the anti-Apparation wards have to be taken down in the great hall to let students Apparate even a few inches, and they are unable to practice outside of the scheduled lessons. Plus, if Apparation within the grounds was allowable, there would be many, many cases where it should have been used (medical emergencies, fights, etc.). It may not have been EXPLICITLY stated that the wards only prevented entering or leaving the grounds, but it's quite clear that any Apparation/Disapparation is guarded against. Though without at least a little "magical backlash from the attempt" handwave, it does appear to be a nasty little plothole...
 * People seem to be assuming that the anti-Apparation wards stop people from starting to apparate. We have no evidence of that. Apparation is a process, not instant teleportation, so perhaps the wards just 'kick out' anyone they catch apparating through the space they cover. You try to apparate into Hogwarts, you drop out at the boundary, you try it inside Hogwarts, you make it a few feet and pop back out. To put in science fiction terms, perhaps the wards mean you are 'immediately forced to drop out of FTL', not that you cannot enter it for a split second. (We do see anti-Apparation wards at the Malfoy's in Deathly Hallow apparently stopping Ron from starting Apparation, but those might be different wards, and he was 'trying to Apparate without his wand' which might indicate he's trying to do something completely impossible anyway.)
 * If the cabinet hadn't been specially designed to circumvent security-spells, it's hard explain why it would've been for sale in a Dark Arts store in the first place.
 * The Room of Requirement might have played a role. Perhaps it worked if you needed a Room which was somehow unaffected by Hogwarts's security.
 * The Movie actually adds some background info to this, which one suspects came straight from the author. Harry asks Mr. Weasley about Vanishing Cabinets, and he (Mr. Weasley) explains that they always come in pairs and basically act as two-way transit portals. The line was something like, "They were all the rage during You-Know-Who's first reign of terror, because you could shut yourself into the cabinet, pop out somewhere else, (IE safe) and then return home later." You're supposed to use Vanishing Cabinets to travel and, if evidence is to be believed, they do indeed trump Hogwarts's Anti-Apparition defenses. Fridge Brilliance suggests that this interplay might have helped Montague make his (nominally) impossible Apparition escape.
 * This troper was always incredibly amused by that line, because of the obvious logical fallacy involved. Think about it. You're running from someone, so you jump in a cabinet and reappear elsewhere in a matching cabinet. What's wrong with that? The Death Eater can follow you.'
 * I'd assume it only works if both cabinets are closed. If you leave the one you escaped to open, they wouldn't be able to follow you.
 * There's also a difference between having Death Eaters storming your house from all sides, and Death Eaters climbing out of a cabinet one at a time. Especially if the other cabinet is at a friend's house, so you have reinforcements.
 * It would be ludicrously easy for the escapee - all they have to do is stand with their wand pointed at the vanishing cabinet entrance saying "Stupefy!" repeatedly.
 * So, a character gets stuffed into a cabinet, disappears to somewhere, and escapes by Apparating into a toilet. From this, Draco deduces: 1) that it's a broken vanishing cabinet, and 2) that the other part of the pair of cabinets is in Borgin's & Burke's. Seems to me that that isn't enough information to figure out either of them, let alone both.
 * First, everyone knew it was a broken vanishing cabinet, since Peeves broke it in Chamber of Secrets. That's why it's only ever referred to as "the broken vanishing cabinet", not "that presumably mundane cabinet that Montague mysteriously vanished in, yet we see no need for further investigation". Second, Montague was shaken up, but he apparently remembered enough to tell Draco about his experience (this is specifically stated in the book) of being trapped in a limbo between the cabinets where he could hear voices from both Hogwarts and Borgin & Burke's.

I'm just gonna act petrified for no reason!

 * Okay, in the book, Harry had been hit by a Petrificus Totalus, but that bit was removed from the movie... so what's the in-universe reason for Harry to just stand there while Draco threatens to kill Dumbledore?
 * Dumbledore told him to.
 * He didn't think Malfoy had it in him. After that, the rest of the Death Eaters showed up, and fighting would've effectively been suicide. You could kinda see Harry raising his wand and questioning inside himself if he wanted to do it. Also, he trusted Snape, at least a little.
 * At first, he probably underestimated the potion's lasting effects and thought the great Dumbledore was in no danger from Draco. After he gets disarmed, he might have reconsidered, but Draco was clearly hesitating and Dumbledore was trying to talk him out of it, and Harry might mess that up if he bursts out of nowhere and attacks Malfoy. When the rest of the Death Eaters arrive, Harry realizes Dumbledore is screwed if he doesn't do something (even though pretty much anything he might try would likely be insufficient to save Dumbledore and would get Harry killed as well, but he is known for having more guts than brains), so he takes out his wand, prepares to attack... and then Snape stops him. He tells him to shut up and goes upstairs. Now, Harry might have his doubts about Snape, but when the guy who you think is a Death Eater has a chance to take you out by surprise and instead warns you to keep quiet and doesn't even mention you to the Death Eater group upstairs, you start thinking maybe you were wrong about him, maybe he has a plan to save Dumbledore, and maybe, just maybe, you really should just shut up and stay quiet for once. Of course, then Snape kills Dumbledore. Harry is too freaking shocked by seeing one of the two greatest wizards of the present day, his friend and headmaster, die, and doesn't react fast enough when the Death Eaters make a fast exit, being forced to catch up to them once his senses have recovered enough for him to seek revenge.
 * This makes a lot of sense. Thank you!
 * Also, it should be mentioned that Harry had, by verbal contract, given Dumbledore's word that he would do whatever he was asked to do. Just a few minutes before, this deal had included him force-feeding Dumbledore a potion that made him suffer agonizing madness and nearly kill him. The likelihood of Harry having gone for Snape after that seems rather high -- I mean, he was worried about his Headmaster in his weakened state, and Dumbledore was adamant about it, so Harry would do whatever needed to be done to try and save him. For all intensive purposes intents and purposes, however, screenplay writer Steve Kloves said in an interview that he wrote that in just to haunt Harry with the fact that he did nothing. Nice.
 * You mean, right? :)

As if Moody's mad eye wasn't enough!

 * In the movie, Luna uses her magical glasses to detect Harry underneath his invisibility cloak. Her glasses detect whatever those strange, invisible creatures she believes in are called. Does this mean, in movie-verse at least, that all the whacky things Luna and her family believe in are real and true?
 * They're called Wrackspurts, BTW.
 * Actually, Luna was dead wrong. Her glasses actually detect Midi-chlorians, not Wrackspurts. Unless, of course, she just calls them Wrackspurts due to not knowing the original name.
 * Maybe. Alternatively, they just pick up people or something and the Lovegoods have gotten the idea that it must be little creatures they detect.
 * They're shown to be right about one thing. That does not confirm the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
 * You have no proof that Crumple-Horned Snorkacks don't exist!
 * My point was that people can be very accurate in one area, yet talk a lot of utter codswallop in others. Look at Fred Hoyle; awesome astronomer, but never really got evolution. In this case, during Xenophilus Lovegood's voyage through Cloudcuckooland, he stumbled upon something that actually, verifiably exists; it seems fair to assume the nonexistence of Snorkacks until non-exploding evidence of their existence can be located (*cough*Erumpenthorn*cough*).
 * JK Rowling has stated that Luna eventually learnt that Crumple Horned Snorkacks don't exist.
 * Or maybe -- just maybe -- she discovered that they did but was sworn to secrecy because Snorkacks hide from wizards the same way wizards hide from Muggles?
 * Her glasses are supposed to allow her to see invisible things. Harry was invisible because of the cloak, so the glasses allowed her to see him. The only thing this scene tells us is that the glasses work as advertised, and allow the viewer to see invisible things. We have no new evidence that Loony Lovegood's belief in the magical equivalent of cryptids is justified.
 * But that makes no sense. Harry's invisibility cloak is THE cloak of invisibility, a Deathly Hallow, and can protect you and others from any but probably the strongest magic. I find it absolutely impossible that her spectrospecs have Voldemort-level powers of revealing and breaking down magical defenses. Obviously just an in-movie mistake, but Deathly Hallows had already come out, so it is not excusable.
 * Maybe that's just it -- the Hallow Cloak beats all other cloaks, and then some otherwise useless nonsense, built out of plastic for ten sickles, beats the Hallow Cloak.
 * The scene is question is mostly Rule of Funny. However we have seen that Mad Eye Moody's Eye can see through the cloak, and it can't be that much stronger than enchanted eyewear that also sees through walls.
 * I completely forgot that Barty Crouch Jr. saw Harry under the Invisibility Cloak using the eye. What I think this means is that this is another nod to how truly powerful Alastor Moody was, to be able to create something that could see through the cloak, much more so than a nod to how ineffective the cloak was. After all, Moody was one of the top members of the old and new OotP, and caught a lot of Death Eaters, to the point that Dumbledore acknowledged his skill and it took Voldemort himself to finally kill him.
 * Um, no. The glasses were advertised to see Wrackspurts, and in the movie, that's what they see. The tiny glowing balls of light are the Wrackspurts. She saw them congregating around Harry's head and used a spell to reveal whatever was there. She never actually saw Harry (glasses or no) until the cloak was off. However, that doesn't explain how the spell she used (I want to say it was a spell designed to reveal magic) affected the cloak, since we're told in DH that charms and spells don't work on the Hallow.
 * The spell was probably Homenum Revelio. It spreads out and causes a 'swooping feeling' when it hits people, even if they're invisible, and presumably indicates those people to the caster somehow, although we don't ever see what it does. It doesn't 'affect the cloak' as much as 'detects people in a way other than sight', which the cloak doesn't protect against. Word of God says that's how Dumbledore knows when people are there under the Cloak early in the series, and Hermione uses it at Grimmauld Place in the last book to make sure it's empty. (Which is why the Death Eaters are majorly stupid in Hogsmeade when they attempt to summon the cloak instead of using that spell, but they're probably idiots overspecialized in offensive magic.)
 * For the record, the likelihood of the glasses having the ability to randomly reveal gnat-like creatures fluttering about a person's head (the gnats being a product of the glasses themselves, not reality) seems high. Kind of like the reliability of a lie detector -- it can be accurate sometimes, but too sensitive other times to really trust.
 * Maybe the glasses and the eye can detect something else, air currents eddying around the body or heat signatures? As far as I can deduce, the cloak did not stop your from being solid.
 * The movies screw everything up.

The Half-Climax Prince
""...the Four-Point spell, a useful discovery of Hermione's which would make his wand point due north, therefore enabling him to check whether he was going in the right direction within the maze''. "'Point me,' he whispered to his wand, holding it flat in his palm. The wand spun around once and pointed towards his right into solid hedge. That way was north, and he knew that he needed to go north-west for the centre of the maze.""
 * So, Harry throws a spell at Snape, one Snape made up, by the way, and Snape, in the movie, at least, just goes, "Yes, I'm the Half-Blood Prince". Okay... the audience is going, "How...?" the fans are going, "There's supposed to be more curiosity, not just a throwaway line at the end!"
 * Thing is, that's more or less how it was in the book. Nobody could've known Snape was the Half-Blood Prince without being insanely Genre Savvy. There were no clues. Harry tried a bit harder to figure it out in the book, that is true. But did he ever get anywhere with that? Nope.
 * Okay, but, even then, it's brought up twice in the movie, not counting the title at all, and, I SWEAR, I heard someone in the theater at the midnight premiere say, "Who's Draco?" Hand to the sky, it was said. So, it's just a bookend with no clues during the movie... that's really what bugs me about it.
 * What bugs me is, why was it made such a big deal in the book anyway who the Half-Blood Prince was? It seemed to be leading to something epic... and momentous... and fantastically revelatory... and then it was just like, meh. Also, what was Snape's old book doing in that store cupboard anyway? It's not like it belonged to the school and he had to give it back (it was his property after all) and he's hardly the kind of guy that would forget all about one of his books on his best subject, full of his own notes. If he had just lost it, he could have done a simple point me or summoning charm, so, what's the deal? Any ideas?
 * It was in that classroom because Slughorn taught Potions in the same dungeon Snape did. Slughorn simply took possession of the place that morning and, clearly, Snape didn't do a good job cleaning up (possibly didn't bother). Personally, I do see Snape as having forgotten about his old textbook; he may be able to do a lot of it from memory by now. As to why Snape was the subtitular character, it was probably to underline the sheer ambiguity of his character and the fact that nobody can tell whether he's a good guy or not. Harry (and thus many of his readers) consider Snape an enemy and the Half-Blood Prince a friend. They're the same person. Hilarity Ensues.
 * It did have his own notes in it, but even so, most people don't care all that strongly about their old textbooks. He probably donated it to the school when he graduated and didn't think again about it for years. And, point me? Uh... how would a magical compass help him find his lost textbook?
 * Why did he make such a fuss about Harry having that book then? Harry already knew the Sectumsempra spell by then, so what did it matter if he held on to the book? If he donated it to the school, he should have expected a student to have it. And the point me spell points you towards people or things you are looking for, not North South East and West like compasses do.
 * He doesn't make a fuss about Harry having the book, he asks Harry for the book so he has proof that the spell Sectumsempra was the one that was used. And no, point me does not point you towards people or things you are looking for. It points north. To quote directly from the two relevant sections (emphasis mine):


 * Since it would indeed be an extremely unlikely coincidence otherwise, the obvious answer is that the book was left there intentionally, both as a mean to provide the Trio with the Luck potion (surely Snape and Slughorn discussed the educational program, and Slughorn wouldn't help but brag about his clever idea with the contest), and as a test to see how Harry would deal with such a powerful artefact.
 * Ok, my bad, must have been thinking of something else. But I still wonder about the potions book. Harry having the book with the Sectumsempra spell in it is no proof that Harry used it, it's circumstantial evidence. Snape doesn't need proof, anyway, he knows fine well that's what was used. (He also could have done a priori incantatem on Harry's wand or legilimens him or give him Veritaserum.) It doesn't matter anyway what spell was used, Harry seriously hurt another student and the only punishment he got was being banned from Quidditch, which Harry even had the audacity to complain about.
 * You probably got it from Fanon, which seems to insist that you say "Point Me _____" and it will point you to the object of your choosing. If nothing else, it's used in one of the video games to lead you to your objective.
 * ...as his punishment, Harry got a weekly detention every week for the rest of term, including the day of the last Quidditch match, which he was also not permitted to attend. Snape also indicated that the weekly punishment might continue into the following school year (except Harry didn't show up the following year). Also, Snape DID use legilimency on him - Harry tried to close his mind but he couldn't help but have the book rise to the surface, remember? That's when Snape insisted he go retrieve the book.
 * McGonagall also chews him out for fifteen minutes in the common room.
 * Snape wanted the book because Harry was rocking potions that year and Slughorn wouldn't stop bragging about him. He wanted the book to expose Harry.
 * This is all speculation, anyway, because it's never actually resolved how Snape's textbook came to be in the Potions classroom - we see in the earlier books that Luna's belongings are stolen because people consider her so strange and unpopular. It's not out of the question that this same thing occurred to Snape as a student. Another possibility is that he lost it when he was a student, someone found it and returned it to Slughorn, but Snape never thought to look for it there. It seems very unlikely that Snape would have put his own book somewhere for students to use for the very reason that the formulas in it are not what the book is trying to teach; the recipes in the textbooks are meant to teach specific skills to a student, not to find the easiest solution. Snape as a student was just so gifted at his subject that he already knew all the basic skills, and more than enough to find more efficient ways to brew the potions.
 * On a related note, it Bugs Me that Harry's Potions class is still using the same textbook that his parents' generation used. A textbook, which the teacher knows for a fact is badly flawed, as he himself had to make substantial corrections to its recipes when he was a student. What, so Hogwarts hasn't updated its potion-making curriculum in the last twenty-odd years? Snape should've been publishing revised and corrected Potions textbooks himself: he'd have made a fortune, and not needed to spout Death Eater dogma to impress the snobs.
 * Made worse by the fact that Snape's book was a hand-me-down from his mother. I don't think they update those books ever.
 * Uh... guys, why so worried about the age of this book? Much fantasy fiction in general features wizards learning from "Ancient grimoires." Plus, there's another consideration: Slughorn hasn't taught this curriculum in decades since he's been retired. It's plausible (although it would be execrable teaching practice in real life) that when he returned to Hogwarts he also brought a curriculum he's familiar with, including the notes and textbooks he used during his twenty-odd years in the classroom. Teachers recycle lessons and even curriculums all the time. The fact that a teacher dragged out of retirement decided to mail it in with an out of date book he was familiar with rather than spending the time and energy to research an entirely new one is not that implausible... I could introduce you to some of my colleagues at the junior high I taught at two years ago if you want a specific example.
 * "although it would be execrable teaching practice in real life" I disagree. There is no point in having new textbooks and curricula for the sake of having new textbooks and curricula, and many subjects (like elementary geometry and Newtonian physics) have not changed at all for centuries, let alone the last few decades. Whether this applies to Potions depends on whether anybody made significant changes to the subject during that time.
 * On the other hand, I don't recall Snape ever actually using the textbook -- I believe he wrote most of his notes on the board. I figure he assigned the textbook because the Ministry requires some sort of book, but ignored it and taught whatever he wanted.
 * The issue is that the Harry Potter universe isn't about some wizards in a tower somewhere pouring over ancient texts searching for forgotten knowledge. It's about a thriving wizarding community that is supposedly coming up with new spells and potions all the time. In a shorter period of time than the textbooks changing the treatment for werewolfism went from "lock them up in a house so their frenzied rampage doesn't kill anyone" to "drink this once a month". Snape, as a student, came up with numerous significant improvements to existing potions, yet he doesn't seem to have told anyone. No one else appears to have made the same discoveries. None of the discoveries that appear to occur in the world outside the school seem to affect what's taught at all.
 * Guys, you keep forgetting: Snape was established as a repentant DEATH EATER. Yes, he is under Dumbledore's protection, but that only extends so far. Just think about how Fudge regards him in PoA. While he is considered a BRILLIANT potions master, one of the best, he will forever be blacklisted because he's a Death Eater. There was no point in him showing the world his discoveries, as they don't trust it, or rather don't trust him. It's rarely shown how he's regarded outside of Hogwarts.
 * I'll point out what someone else here said that seems to have been passed by: we never actually see Snape use this textbook in HIS classes, nor is it on any of the book lists for previous years. Knowing that Snape used that textbook for his FIFTH year and he isn't assigning it to his 5th or younger students as a teacher, it's entirely possible that Snape uses a different textbook for all his classes. They've had standard books they had to buy before then, though he does generally use the board for instructions and the books are more for their essays and independent study.
 * It's utterly in character for Snape to knowingly use an out-of-date book, because he thinks that if the students are bright enough to pass his class, then they ought to be damn well bright enough to work out that the book is wrong and how to put it right. Plus, if he had to work it all out himself, why should this bunch of oafs and malcontents get it easy. He seems to be big on making students work things out themselves, teach them how to think critically on their own, and then the rest will follow. Unable to learn to think critically, well then, they deserve to learn the crap. Snape is kinda an Educational Darwinist.
 * Another point that Snape may never have used this particular textbook to teach from - it is interesting that Ron also takes a spare book from the cupboard rather than getting a copy from one of his siblings. The twins surely dropped Potions as soon as they could, but from Percy upward, it seems likely enough that one of them continued the study. Yes, Snape is thoroughly unpleasant and has no fondness for the Weasleys, but it would really surprise me if not one of the three eldest continued with potions. Percy was extremely academically motivated, and we're told that Bill is noted for having achieved 12 OWLs as well as being Prefect and Head Boy. If neither of them had a leftover copy of this book, it's possible that Snape never did use this text for his own classes.
 * However, Ron (and Harry) didn't know that they were eligible to take NEWT-level Potions until McGonagall was going over their schedules. Since it would take time for Ron to write home and have one of his brother's copies be delivered, he'd still have to borrow the spare from the cupboard for the first class.
 * I had always assumed that the teacher assigned the textbooks, seeing as how Lockhart made all of his students buy his "textbooks" in Chamber of Secrets.
 * back to the movie, what I find annoying is the fact that it didn't give enough attention to the fact that sectumsepra came from the Prince's book. You get a blink and you'll miss it cameo and Ron muttering the spell among random plot unrelated stuff while looking at it. I was watching the movie with friends and they were very confused about why Harry had to get rid of the book among other things.
 * I still say he could have rewritten the book under an alias, such as, say, The Half Blood Prince and donated his earnings to the Order of the Phoenix's emergency return of Dark Lord fund.

Who needs alarms, anyhow?

 * Voldemort doesn't bother to put secrecy sensor spells all over either the cave or the Gaunt shack so that he would be alerted to somebody entering it. He would have Dumbledore dead by now and 2 of his Horcruxes safe and sound if he had made sure he could intercept anybody who came near the Gaunt shack.
 * That's because Voldy believes no-one would even ever come close to finding any of his Horcruxes, and even if they did, he would still be convinced the protective curses would be sufficient to guard them.
 * And, remember, he put all sorts of other traps on the cave. Dumbledore Took A Third Option to get through them, but, had they worked as intended (IE had Harry not been there), Dumbledore would've been dead and the Horcrux safe and sound. Furthermore, what makes you think that Lord Thingy didn't put all sorts of traps and stuff on the Gaunt shack? Dumbledore didn't say anything about that one way or the other, only that "it is a thrilling tale; I wish to do it justice." (Which, of course, he never got to tell.) Now, as to why You-Know-Who didn't put real-time alarm systems on the places, relying on his traps instead of doing the job right himself... Well, you got us there. But the point is, that's the only thing he forgot. And the rest was pretty competent.
 * Overconfidence. First, he thought that no one knew that he had created a Horcrux, much less seven. Secondly, he thought that his numerous safeguards would be effective. The locket was in a bowl of poison surrounded by an army of the undead. The diadem wasn't warded, but Voldemort thought that he was the only one who'd ever found the Room of Requirement, and Hogwarts is the single most well-guarded place in the Wizarding World. The ring was hidden in a rundown shack and filled to the brim with curses. The cup and the book were given to his most trusted lieutenants, and Nagini was with him at all times.
 * Really, who's to say he didn't have magical burglar alarms for those Horcruxes? We really don't know how much work Dumbledore did getting at them, so they might've been bypassed entirely.
 * Regulus Black managed to go in and steal the locket uninterrupted, and Harry and Co. managed to steal both the cup and the diadem with V only learning of it from third people or not at all. It's like he's somehow opposed to the idea of learning about attempts at his most prized possessions.
 * This Troper's theory is if he put a spell on a place that directly linked to him, any sufficiently powerful wizard would be able to spot that a mile away and all the authorities would know something serious was going on there. So Voldemort, believing that no one knew about his making Horcruxes and so wouldn't go looking for them, thought it safer to leave off the sensor spells so there wouldn't be a big flashing "Voldemort thinks this place is important" flag.
 * He also believed that if one of his Horcruxes was destroyed, he would feel it. He honestly thought that they would act as his own burglar alarm, because it didn't occur to him that, if someone managed to get to the Horcruxes, that they wouldn't immediately just Fiendfyre it.
 * An alarm that goes off only when the treasure is destroyed is a pretty shitty alarm in my book.

What? He's got a penis, why wouldn't he want to use it?

 * Does the other "unthinkable evil" that creates a Horcrux consist of the act of rape? And did Voldemort commit this at any point? He can't love but he can probably lust. Although one thinks that he probably didn't even boink Bellatrix when she was clearly interested.
 * It's possible, but we won't know until Rowling reveals it. Also, how do we know he didn't bone Bellatrix?
 * We don't know he didn't, but it doesn't seem very likely. We see the reason why in the Spinner's End chapter; Voldemort trusts Snape and has particular assignments for him, but Bellatrix's jealousy over him becoming favored by Voldemort is enough for her to question everything he does in a way that may have actually sometimes included attempts to thwart Snape so that he will fall in Voldemort's esteem. She clearly wants to be with Voldemort in a sexual capacity, but him doing that would compromise the hold he has over her because she would probably take it as a definite sign that she is the second in command, the favorite, or even the PARTNER, and her efforts to assert herself over other Death Eaters would probably have become even more overt, to the point of getting in the way of things Voldemort wanted accomplished.
 * Personally... I think it's necrophilia, or something something close to it.
 * So Voldy hit postmortem dat with Myrtle, Bertha Jorkins, and his own father? Sweet.
 * Might also be cannibalism, in which case calling his cronies Death Eaters is Voldemort's private sick joke.
 * Y'all do realize that to create a Horcrux, you have to sever your soul in two, yank a chunk out of your body, and put it in a Soul Jar, right? That's plenty evil enough.

Why don't the Muggles just shoot them?

 * The Death Eaters should have suffered some casualties when they wiped out the Muggle town in the sixth book. While they had magic and maybe giants, Muggles there had what are known as guns. These (for those of you who aren't familiar with them) shoot lead/steel at a rate that no human, magical or otherwise, can react fast enough to stop the bullets from hitting them. You'd think that someone in the whole city would have tried shooting at the Death Eaters and killing them. They may be magical, but if a bullet goes through their head, they're as dead as anyone. And we already know that the Death Eaters don't put protective charms on themselves even when they face magical opponents, so they certainly wouldn't have done it when facing lowly Muggles.
 * Oh, FFS! 1: The books are set in the UK, where most people go their entire lives without seeing a gun. Yes, people in the countryside have guns for pest and predator control, but this was a town that was attacked, not a village or a farmhouse. 2: It's a series of children's books, not The Adventures of Young Jack Ryan; the characters aren't going to go around shooting everything. 3: One of the big points of the stories is that killing damages the soul, so it would be bad writing to suddenly have the Designated Victims pull out guns and start killing the Mooks. 4: The books are set in the UK, where most people go their entire lives without seeing a gun. And yes, I realise that point 4 is the same as point 1, but it's such a big point that people keep ignoring, I thought I'd better mention it twice.
 * Did it ever specify that the Death Eaters suffered no casualties? Now you're just reaching.
 * The books take place in Britain, which has strict gun laws. Hell, there's been a crack down on knives.
 * This is The West Country. Everyone and their mum is packing 'round here.
 * This is Harry Potter we're talking about, and Rowling is not going to make the Death Eaters or Voldemort look less scary by getting hurt. There weren't any stories about any casualties for the same reason as there weren't many tales about DEs getting killed in hit-and-run tactics or any operation that went badly wrong: To add atmosphere and remind everyone that the Dark Lord is very scary and hard to beat. After all, which is worse: Death Eaters going through a town leveling everything, or Death Eaters leveling everything but the Ministry finding some Death Eater bodies in the wreckage and some of the suspected Death Eaters "disappearing" or dying under "mysterious circumstances" shortly after the rampage?
 * Which is a good Doylian answer, but it still doesn't make sense from a Watsonian perspective. You COULD, by the same logic, have Voldemort take a stroll through Hogwarts, drop by Dumbledore's office for tea, then leave without anyone ever making a move against him, because he can't be defeated until the seventh book. But that wouldn't make any Watsonian sense either.
 * First of all, wizards can conjure up shields in a second if they have to, or turn things like bullets to dust. Second of all, wizards can magically heal themselves in an instant if they were shot but didn't die immediately (like an armshot or something that would cause death from bleeding). Third of all, wizards can make themselves invisible and fly through spells and enchanted items, which gives them a good element of surprise. Fourth of all, wizards have spells that can stun, torture, brainwash, or kill a person with one word (nonverbal even), so all said wizard would have to do would be to cast the spell from behind something or while invisible. Finally, keep in mind that as far as Muggles know, there are no wizards. Thus, they won't be on alert for people who can kill with one word or turn invisible or fly or magically shield and heal themselves. Not to say that a gun couldn't hurt or stop a wizard, but since Voldemort only accepts his strongest and most loyal followers as Death Eaters, it's pretty unlikely that he would use someone who could be held off or killed by a non-magic weapon used by a non-magic and unprepared person.
 * It takes longer to say, "Protego!" than it does for a bullet to fly through the air. Same for turning a bullet into dust; the bullet flies quicker than the human can react. You will not be able to cast a spell on something moving that fast before it hits you. And even if you could, dust moving at that velocity would still be incredibly painful if not outright lethal. And yes, Muggles don't know that wizards exist, but if a bunch of people in black cloaks walk into a town with magic wands throwing explosions and green flashes of death everywhere, they don't have to believe; they just have to kill it. As for instant healing, flying, and invisibility, I don't recall ever seeing any of those spells used. Flying on a broom and turning invisible with a unique Deadly Hallow, sure, but not by casting a spell. And if people could heal from any injury with a single casting, Hogwarts wouldn't need to have a medical area at all, would it? Being a wizard does not mean you're God. You can still die from a lethal injury, just like anyone else.
 * Valid points, but I would like to clarify a few things. There are invisibility cloaks besides Harry's, Moody owns two and he also uses the Disillusionment spell on Harry in the 5th book to turn him almost invisible (it's described as a near-perfect camouflage). Also the only way a wizard can win against a gun is if they transfigure the gun itself or shield before the gun can fire.
 * What's the OP's point anyway? That Muggles might try to retaliate and even succeed in killing some DE? Ok, unlikely but maybe, so?
 * A wizard can't cast a spell faster than a bullet travels, but they have a decent chance of casting a Protego or gun-disabling spell faster than someone can draw their gun, aim, and shoot, and if the Muggle doesn't get an instant kill, a wizard can probably still kill them while bleeding profusely. This is even assuming that the muggle carries a gun on his person, which is unlikely in itself.
 * May I point out that wizards don't know what guns are? In PoA, the paper has to explain that "Sirius may have a gun (a metal wand used to kill people)", this in itself bugs me and is a massive wallbanger.
 * The majority of civilian wizards don't. But a wizard that's very experienced in fighting and killing Muggles probably would have seen a gun at some point.
 * Yes, yes, valid points all, but it stands to be reiterated again that this is BRITAIN! The only people in Britain who legally carry guns are the police and farmers, and even then it's special divisions of the police who aren't on constant patrol, even in the major cities. So potentially, in this scenario of an attack on a town, there might be some criminals who would be able to return fire, but even if there were, they would be so few in number that it's unlikely they would be a serious threat. And given how fast a group of wizards can attack, they'd be gone before the armed police ever showed up. Stop trying to apply American laws to a series which takes place in Britain. Gun control laws are much, much stricter.
 * Except that it states they wiped out the entire town -- including the police and "criminals" (as you put it). The police didn't have to arrive on the scene on time, the Death Eaters marched up to their door!
 * FFS! Guns are SO RARE in Britain that even the rare divisions of the police that have them (and even that's a fairly recent innovation that a lot of British people aren't too keen on) are not going to be found in a small town. If a death eater goes up to a police station in even a large town, never mind them not reacting in time - there wouldn't even be armed officers there. I am British and I cannot emphasise enough that guns are so rare and so associated with "bad guys" that it simply would not occur to even a muggle-born to use one. They're not very high up in the collective consciousness. Like Rowling herself, most British people - like me - were never really bothered by the lack of guns in the book precisely because they're so hard to get hold of over here, even through criminal channels.
 * Accidental magic, anyone? Grindelwald wouldn't have caused World War II if he could've been shot in the face. Plus, wizards are tougher than Muggles: Harry swims through heavy hot gold, Neville bounces when dropped on his head, Quidditch players are routinely smashed in the head with lead balls and so on. Also, This Troper has a theory that subconscious magic is most effective against Muggles, ergo why Voldemort didn't shoot Lily and James. It's hard to shoot someone with a gun that has just become a haddock.
 * If we're talking the wizarding world vs Muggles in general, if the wizards were openly fighting against the Muggles, and they were obvious and visible, then the Muggles would win, hands down. Wizards don't have spells capable of the scale of destruction that Muggle weaponry does, and there are much fewer wizards in the world than there are Muggles. However, if we're talking defenseless Muggle villagers vs Death Eaters, well, a) the Muggles weren't expecting any wizards to show up, b) guns are heavily restricted in Britain, so the likelihood of people having weapons to fight the DEs is also very low, c) the DEs could easily just Disapparate before anyone dangerous, like the Muggle military, decided to show up. While wizards are tough, they are definitely not bulletproof; Word of God says that if a wizard were to go up against a Muggle with a gun, the Muggle would win, though the wizard would probably just Disapparate before that happened.

BAWWWWW!!!!! UNFAIR ADVANTAGE!!! BAWWWWWW!!!!!!

 * Why do the characters think of Harry using the Half-Blood Prince's book as cheating? I thought the whole point of Potions class is to be able to successfully create different potions, so what difference does it make if someone uses different instructions? And why is Harry so desperate to hide the book from Snape at the end? If anything, the whole Sectumsempra incident was Snape's fault for leaving the damn book lying around where some student could pick it up!
 * It's cheating because Harry was using a different formula, a better formula than the ones the rest of the class was using, giving him an unfair advantage. His potions weren't better than Hermione's because of his skill, it was because somebody wrote in the book. It's the equivalent of having all the equations worked out for you in a math book. Harry wanted to hide it because he wanted to excel at potions, and he knew that if it were discovered, a teacher would confiscate it, and he'd go back to sucking at Potions again. It'd also ruin his reputation just when he's starting to build it back up.
 * Yeah, but in a subject like mathematics, the point is for the student to work it out for themselves, but in a class like potions, it's about following the instructions, pure and simple. It's not about beating other students in a contest, it's about learning how to make potions, and if Harry's found a set of instructions that work better, then really the only thing he's doing wrong is not telling Slughorn so that the rest of the class can benefit.
 * This Troper begs to differ: You only get so far by following the instructions. To fully understand potion making, you have to understand the properties of each ingredient and how they interact. There is a lesson when Slughorn gives the students different poisons to analyze and has them brew antidotes. Harry almost fails that because the book cannot help him with the problem. (He only succeeds by giving Slughorn a Bezoar, an all-round antidote, instead of really solving the problem.)
 * The implication is that Harry is allowing Slughorn to believe that he's following the instructions he was given to better success, or that he understands the theory behind them so he doesn't need the instructions. Imagine a baking contest where two people are given the same ingredients but two different recipes to make bread. It's not fair that the person with a superior recipe that he didn't come up with or even understand got to win.
 * Except that, despite Hermione's attitude to the contrary, Slughorn's class is not a contest to see who can make the best potions; it is supposed to be a learning environment where students can learn how to brew their own potions for when they need to do so after they have left the school. Harry is doing nothing wrong by using and practicing better techniques of potion making than what are written in the standard textbook; indeed, as the above troper says, the only thing Harry did wrong was not sharing his newly found repository of knowledge with the other students so that all his classmates could learn the better ways of making potions.
 * Oh, get real! Of course it is a contest. Every lesson is a contest, anywhere, anytime. It's a chase after a better grade, after teachers' praise and classmates' envy. So, naturally, using better equipment that gives you better starting conditions is considered cheating. And cheating is only forgiven by other kids if you do not rub your fixed success into their faces - that is, do not boast about it and definitely are not approved for it explicitly by the teacher. In this case, you've fooled the System and you are cool. If you do boast or you are approved (that is pretty much the same), then you are a rat and will be hated. Which is exactly what we've witnessed. Besides, he offered the book to his friends, but Ron couldn't discern the writing and Hermione angrily rejected it. Which proves succinct: it's not about learning stuff, it's all about being number 1 and getting away with it.
 * The previous troper's comments show just how far modern educational policy has gone off the rails. Education should not be about racking up points as if it is a video game; the purpose of education is to give those learning a deeper understanding of the subject concerned. The tests and points involved were only ever supposed to be used as a yardstick to gauge the success (or lack thereof) of the understanding and see what needed to be improved upon. Somewhere along the way, the points have become the ends in and of themselves instead of the means to the ends.
 * Remember, we're talking about this from the perspective of the students. As this troper knows from experience, even without grades, kids will find a way to compete - they just make it easier to measure who wins. The teacher's goal is still to teach the student, even if the student just wants an A - or, in this case, an E or an O. Also, have you ever heard of the concept of "gamification"? One of the possible implementations is exactly that - giving points, ala a video game, for doing something praiseworthy in school.
 * It explicitly is a contest; Slughorn hands out prizes (like the Felix Felices potion) to the winner.
 * He hands out a prize ONCE. So ONE class, about making that specific potion, was a contest. Sometimes teachers in real life do that as well, to make things a bit more fun. But it isn't the raison d'etre of the class - students don't sign up for it so they will be able to collect various valuable prizes throughout the year. They sign up either because they want to learn or because their intended professions require them to, and their professions will require them to because they need students to have the necessary potions knowledge in order to do certain tasks. So, yeah, the point of the class is still learning, not competing. That said, Hermione has actual grounds to be annoyed if she objects only to Harry winning the Felix Felices from his fellow classmates, since that actually was unfair. But she seems to be annoyed at him for using the book in general, and thinks he should get rid of it rather than share it with everyone else.
 * Her annoyance at Harry beating her in potions was just nerd jealousy. But of course, she has an extremely valid reason for telling him to give it up: A student fucking with a book of powerful magic they don't understand was kind of the plot of Chamber of Secrets. Hermione even brings Ginny over to chastise him about it.
 * If she is scared about things like that, she could have had him turn the book over to an adult, like Slughorn or Dumbledore, to check out. But instead, she wants him to throw away a source of knowledge that could potentially benefit all students.
 * As one troper above noted, it isn't a contest, it's about learning the various ingredients and how they interact with one another. What Harry's doing isn't learning. It's equivalent to copying the answers to a homework sheet off someone else's homework; he doesn't know the material, and the only reason he's getting good grades is because he has a Cheat Sheet to give him all the answers he needs to get those grades. He'll walk away from the class having coasted through on someone else's hard work and learned nothing.
 * If Harry isn't learning, neither are any of the other students. They are both just following (and probably memorizing) instructions that someone else wrote down; Harry's instructions just happen to be an improved version of everyone else's. We also saw that the book has theory sections, but any notes Snape could have written down about those would only be insights and aids to understanding the theory. Unless Snape had the exact same homework assignments and tests that Harry did all those years later, there is no way he could have written a "cheat sheet" for Harry to use. There is NO CHEATING, just a better textbook, with better formulas and better explanations for concepts.
 * What really gets me about the whole thing is Hermione's massively OOC reaction, and I'm not referring to the nerd jealousy. I'm referring to the part where Hermione Granger saw a book filled with knowledge she didn't have yet and had ANY reaction other than nagging Harry day and night until he finally agreed to let her read it too.
 * Also, if I recall correctly, the only character to accuse Harry of cheating is Hermione, who is probably somewhat prissy at having been bested at potions and might have allowed that to cloud her judgment (Hermione isn't exactly known for being able to keep her emotions in check).
 * Though one could still wonder why Harry couldn't see through that after all of these years. Indeed, something is very wrong if students are brought up to think the alternate ways to brew potions are the wrong ones, especially since everyone could benefit from it, both to see the recipe in a new light and understand why the alternative ways wouldn't work. Imagine a history class where students were afraid to bring up stuff they'd read in updated literature...
 * Harry couldn't see because he is a moron most of the time...
 * Although, I noticed while re-reading book 5 that Snape frequently puts his instructions for potions on the board; the students in his class are NOT learning from the book, but from his provided recipes. It is very likely that he has been teaching the alternative, more efficient formulas he has discovered, rather than the unrefined recipes from the book. (But it is still cheating for Harry to use a different formula - not one he found himself, but took from a more advanced potions maker, while the rest of the class is stuck with a more time-consuming recipe.)
 * No need to imagine - I saw that. Prior to a Literature exam, our teacher said it in clear: just write a standard cut-and-dried paper - nobody cares about any smart ideas you might have. That's the way education works - you do what's expected from you.
 * Not necessarily. Sure, there are a lot of extremely incompetent teachers in real life (protected by the combined blights of unions and teacher scarcity due to low pay, not to mention inefficient government bureaucracy in public schools), but there are a few good ones who care about truly smart ideas and individuals and would have realized not using updated literature was retarded.
 * This troper sympathizes with the ones who mentioned the literature teacher. And, in Harry's defense, he did offer his friends the opportunity to cheat with him.
 * The reason for the literature teacher's instruction is probably that 99% of the time your smart ideas aren't nearly as smart as you think they are. You might think it's hilarious to do a Marxist critique of a Shakespeare play, but highschoolers and undergrads just do not have the intellectual tools to pull it off.
 * Why is no one questioning that there's something suspicous about the contest in the first place? Slughorn gives them a simple potion to brew; it doesn't matter how hard it the potion is to make, it's still a simple set of instructions, and the winner just happens to receive a rare and powerful potion. No school board would let a textbook be printed if the instructions were clearly wrong, so obviously it was done DELIBERATELY. Yes, it's important to learn the material and memorize it, but there's more to it then that. Slughorn was teaching them that not everything is 100% correct, and if you want to be a potions master, you need to experiment with formulas. You think something can be improved, try another solution, you think something can be done another way, then test it. A chef isn't well praised for following the same recipe, he's always adding to it, and new formulas are tested in science and maths to learn new ones, otherwise technology would stop progressing. The class can learn the formulas, but they won't succeed if that's all they're doing. So the kids are given a terrible book where EVERY instruction is wrong, and Slughorn's expecting them to slip out of their regular routine as sheep following the herd and start questioning "why aren't the insructions working". Snape knew this and solved it, Harry didn't, he just continued doing what the instructions told him, the exact opposite of what Slughorn was trying to get across. I think the reason Hermione was so devastated wasn't because Harry bested her, it was because she figured out too late what was expected from her. She's always viewed her textbooks as the bible, thinking they're never wrong and she'll never question it. Realising that the reason she lost was because she failed to think outside the box was a huge blow. Yes she lost the contest, but as a result, she learned the lesson Harry failed to learn. Did Harry cheat? Hell yeah, but for the first time, potions actually made sense, which Snape, as a teacher, failed to do in the previous years. Does Hermione have a right to be jealous? Yes. Should the class have benifitted from Snape's book? Possibly, but then they'd be back at square one again.
 * I find this idea extremely unlikely. It never comes up, and none of the people in charge strike me as the sort to appreciate this kind of thinking.
 * A chef could not potentially blow everybody up by experimenting with recipes, and if they only have one class to make the potion and weren't told about it in advance, then how could they possibly be realistically expected to make a better potion? Every time the change in ingredients didn't work, they'd have to start over. They may not have enough ingredients and they certainly wouldn't have enough time. That kind of thing might be an okay homework assignment, but not a 'brew a potion in an hour starting now' assignment.
 * It isn't cheating to use the book, but it is immoral. As others have said, the class is about the students learning how to make potions; by using a different set of instructions, Harry is theoretically learning better potion making than all the other kids in the class, and this gives Harry an advantage over everyone else in the class. The moral thing would have been for Harry to tell Slughorn about the book so the entire class can learn better ways to make potions; maybe even some of them could learn why certain ingredients make potions better and improve upon the potions themselves. Instead, Harry copies someone else's great ideas and claims that he came up with the ideas himself, which is borderline Plagiarism.
 * There might not have been much of a problem with the earlier potions made with the Prince's instructions, but the antidote scene definitely crossed the line. Antidotes aren't made from cut-and-dried recipes; there's a genuine law they follow, and the "Just shove a bezoar down their throats" line reeks of "This shit ain't worth my time" -- even more uncomfortable when you remember that, according to both Slughorn and Snape, they won't work on everything.
 * Harry using the Prince's book isn't cheating; he's only following a different set of instructions from everyone else. That being said, the points about the class being a learning environment as well as a competitive environment are both quite valid. Why on earth, when faced with a better way of making potions, would Harry decide to use an inferior method? To give the other students a chance to catch up to him? Why? There is no actual benefit for him doing so. Best case scenario, he would lose the advantage he had over the other students, raise the level of difficulty for everyone else (if Slughorn gave everyone copies of the enhanced book) and find himself with poorer grades than before and lose his reputation as a star potion maker and be seen as a mediocre student. Worst case scenario, he loses the book (highly unlikely, since Slughorn wouldn't be enough of a Jerkass to take away a chance for his students to get better) and gets expelled for cheating (if, indeed, the teachers would even see it as cheating). Also, the view that the classroom was purely a learning environment was only nominally true, otherwise Hermione's reaction would have been one of her trademark curiosity, begging Harry to let her have a look at the book, rather than jealousy. Expecting Harry to give the book away, or to stop using it, would be like telling a star athlete to reveal a secret, cutting edge training program or stop using it altogether to give his opponents a chance, and since when do you see competitors trying to give their opponents the edge against them? Also, it isn't plagiarism, any more than the other students copying out of their textbooks was; Harry just managed to find a better set of instructions, luckily for him. There is no such thing as cheating, only thinking outside the box.

Burning the Burrow for shits and giggles

 * Movie #6 only: Why did the Death Eaters attack the Burrow when Harry was staying there? What was the objective? Voldy wanted to kill Harry himself, so that couldn't have been it. And the Death Eaters made almost no attempt to subdue him to drag him before Voldy. And then they ran away after only a few minutes. What was the point of that?
 * Off-universe explanation: compensate the battle at the ending being cut, and showing the Death Eaters are an omnipresent danger. On-universe... anyone?
 * My guess is they just wanted to mess with Harry (even possibly doing so without Voldemort's orders). At this point, they aren't looking to take Harry to Voldemort, because he's trying to sort out the wand problem. That's the same reason why they didn't question Snape's order to leave him behind at the end. So they're attacking to remind Harry (and the Weasleys, who are known blood traitors) that as long as Harry is outside of Hogwarts, he is vulnerable. Nothing like a little fear to make your enemies less dangerous.
 * Bellatrix was leading the attack. Since when does she need a reason to do evil things?
 * This Troper's explanation for why the Death Eaters attacked the Burrow. Bellatrix is a BITCH.
 * I don't know about anyone else, but everything about that scene screamed "Friday night after one too many butterbeers." Walk down Southend high street that time of night and you'll see about five dozen Bellas and Fenrises, stealing street signs for the LOL's.
 * That actually sounds hilarious. "So, Fenrir, now that we blew up the bar because they kicked us out, what do you want to do now?" "Go fuck around with Potter?" "Okay! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
 * This is my new personal canon.
 * I have read somewhere that the actress for that Fleur is not planning to make a comeback in the last movie.
 * How is that relevant?
 * No actress for Fleur = no wedding scene for Bill in movie seven = no need for the Burrow to still be around.
 * No need to fear. Clemence Poesy is set to be in Deathly Hallows.
 * Just watched the movie today. The attack did two things; it set the house on fire and it separated some people from the group, making them easier to attack. Maybe their objective was to cause Order casualties. Not only was there a chance that somebody would be seriously wounded or killed by the spells used against the house, but the fire ring with a gap seemed suspiciously like a trap designed to let only a few people out into the grass/wheat/cornstalk/whatever the hell those fields were made of, which was a perfect ambush spot for the Death Eaters. Unfortunately for them, the four people who made it out of the ring managed to beat them off. They might have also done it as a vengeance strike on the Weasley family, several of which are members of the Order. Remember that the Death Eaters are terrorists; terrorizing their enemies by unexpectedly attacking their house and family is right up their alley. That would increase stress on the Weasleys, and if the Death Eaters are really lucky, it would cause them to decide it wasn't worth it to endanger their younger members like that and cause them to abandon the war to avoid being targets.
 * YES. I was afraid that I'd have to say this myself, but let me just make it clearer; the Death Eaters are TERRORISTS. Scaring people out of their wits is their freaking modius operandi.
 * For the record, did none of them even try the Aguamenti on The Burrow? I suppose troper can buy that the spell was a darker magic that water wouldn't work for, but still, better to do something than stand around open-mouthed watching it burn.
 * Off-universe: I believe the attack was supposed to create drama, confusion, and of course allow Harry and Ginny more time to bond. On-universe: they do it for the evulz. I have to agree that the scene was hard to take seriously; all I could think was: they're wizards. Surely a normal fire (if it was that) wouldn't be that hard to put out? And if not that, then wouldn't they be able to restore much or all of the house with magic?
 * Additionally, no one tried to put out the fire because it would have ruined the drama of the moment. It's the same reason why there was no battle scene at the end of the film. It would have been distracting.
 * About Aguamenti: The Harry Potter wiki brings up the possibility that Bella had used Fiendfyre (it didn't kill her like what happened to Crabbe because Crabbe was incompetent). If that's true, then Aguamenti was explicitly stated not to work and Rowling doesn't elaborate on what else could be used against Fiendfyre.
 * Same scene: When Ginny runs off after Harry, she gets nearly cornered by Fenrir. And then she just stands there staring at him until Harry shows up, and she doesn't start attacking until she does. So basically, Ginny can't do anything unless Harry, her man, is around to help her out. Um, anger? Um, confusion? In the books, Ginny wouldn't have hesitated; I hate what they've done with her character in this movie!
 * The previews showed her wand getting knocked out of her hand. I can't remember but did they cut that part in the finished film?
 * Apparently, not to mention that as soon as Harry shows up, she still has her wand.

Surrey Doubling?

 * In movie #6, why has the Burrow been transplanted to Iowa?
 * They probably figured that would be the last place that Voldemort looked. Who looks in Iowa?
 * They wanted a leg up against Star Trek at the box office.
 * It's just a back-up. That's why it burns down in the movie, but will reappear in the seventh movie.

Oh shit! Wizards with science!

 * I remember when reading that a character, most likely Horace Slughorn, most likely in the book Half-blood Prince, uses the word "genetic" or some other derivation of "gene". The word was coined at the beginning of the 20th century, and has only become part of colloquial language in the last decade or two; where and how would any non-Muggle-oriented member of the magical world have ever learned it? Since I don't recall the word being ever used otherwise, even though blood purity is a major topic, I'm guessing this is just one that slipped past both Rowling and her editor...
 * There's nothing to indicate wizards wouldn't understand the word "genetics." They do have Muggle Studies classes and branches of the Ministry designed to deal with Muggle relations, after all.
 * This Troper did a text-search of electronic copies of all seven books and turned up zero instances of the words "gene", "genetic", "genetics", or "heredity". Are you sure you weren't remembering a fanfic?
 * What Slughorn says is that Harry's potion skills were "Lily's genes coming out in [him]".
 * Slughorn hid in Muggle homes for quite a while before we meet him in HBP, and IIRC he mentions reading their magazines and such. HBP is set during the mid-90's, right around the height of the OJ Simpson trial which really put DNA into the public consciousness, so even an English wizard would have heard the term somewhere.
 * It's incorrect that basic genetic knowledge only entered into the popular consciousness recently. Since the eugenecists of the 30s and 40s, of which Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were the most famous, it's not been unreasonable that the word "genes" would be used by a wizard as immersed in Muggle culture as Slughorn.

Mass Teleport Trouble

 * Side-Along Apparation bugs the crap out of me. A complete ass pull by Rowling so she could have Harry apparate around the country with Dumbldore in book six, despite forgetting the fact that there were many, many instances in the first five books where such an apparation technique would have been useful. We see parents struggling to get their kids to King's Cross in time for the train at the start of each book, traveling in magically remade cars, hurrying, etc. when they could have simply side-along apparated their children there in seconds. How about in book four, when at the beginning, we meet Digory and his father, who say they had to get up at 2am to manage the walk to the Portkey as Cedric hadn't passed his test yet. Or for that matter, the fact that Harry and the rest had to walk there too; why not side along apparate them to the Portkey at the same time Percy and the others apparate? Or in book five, when they needed the Knight bus to get them safely back to Hogwarts after Christmas? A side along apparation would have sorted that out nice and quickly. There are many more, but the most obvious moment that the sudden invention of side along apparation later in the books renders stupid is when Voldemort attacks Harry's parents and kills them. James goes to head him off, telling Lily to "run" and escape with Harry. Seemingly both forgot they could have picked Harry up and side along apparated away. Stupid plot point, created because the author wanted something cool sounding for a later book without thinking the logic through. To make matters even worse, if she had not created the side along thing, and just had Dumbledore apparate Harry around, no one would have minded, as Dumbledore is a very talented and powerful wizard, so if he can apparate someone around with him, it is at least a willful suspension of disbelief.
 * First of all, forgive my memory, but I thought it was handwaved with the fact that only significantly powerful wizards could side-along apparate. And even then, they couldn't do it more than once in quick succession without suffering headaches or other ill effects, which isn't safe to combine with apparation. This covers the Weasleys, as there aren't enough people to side along apparate and it's probably not safe to do with so many people apparating into the event either (overlapping people might be cause for splinching). This theory would also explain the King's Cross instance for why there's no side-along apparation. The reason for James and Lily not side-along apparating was solved in book 7 when it's mentioned that they didn't have their wands with them when Voldemort attacked. It was late in the evening and the house was supposed to be perfectly safe, so it's somewhat understandable but really unprepared of them.
 * It seems unlikely it is only something powerful wizards can do, since during book six, signs were put up in Hogsmeade that said basically "If a Dementor or Death Eater attacks, grab your kids and side-along apparate them out of there"; if the method is being given in general advice to the populace, you would think that it is something anyone can do relatively easily. As for the James and Lily not having ther wands when attacked? Fine, though since the whole "not having their wands" thing isn't mentioned until a book later, you are left wondering why they didn't use it when it is first brought up, and yes, while I am sure there are possibilities of splinching and such, very few apparations themselves have that happen so long as the person doing it is somewhat competent, so the parents of the kids should have no real problem of possibly splinching their kids when they do it. The main problem I have with it all, is that it is a method created purely for the reason so Dumbledore could apparate Harry around in book six, without the author giving a moment's thought to all the indicents in the previous books that became retroactively stupid because the characters put a lot of effort into situations where a simple side-along apparation would work.
 * Side-along apparation has the same problems that apparation does (splinching, ending up in the wrong place, etc). It seems to this troper that it would be a bit risky to do something like that to get kids to a train station, especially if the parents were stressed (look at what happened to Ron in the final book, and now imagine that happening with an eleven year old). Same with the World Cup. It was really early, everyone was tired, and if they did a big Side-Along apparation, there probably would have been the good chance that the apparaters would have screwed up somehow and left a bit of family member behind. There's also the point that Muggleborns wouldn't be able to do this, as their parents could not do magic.
 * The point, though, is more along the lines that side-along apparation was nothing more than an Ass Pull by Rowling in the sixth book that she thought sounded cool and was a way to have Harry zip around the country with Dumbledore, without realising, or simply not caring, that it retroactively made many moments in the previous books seem stupid when the characters didn't even contemplate the idea of side-along apparation as an alternative to what they were doing, even if they eventually dismissed it in that situation for the reasons you state.
 * Keep in mind that none of the students in Harry's year had ever been taken on Side-Along Apparition, given their reaction when Ron tells them about it (they all flock around him and ask what it was like). So Side-Along is probably very rare and very risky to do, and probably only really powerful wizards (like Dumbledore) could do it safely. The fact that the Ministry pamphlets tell parents to Side-Along their children doesn't do anything to undermine this, because Side-Along is here presented as an alternative to certain death -- yes, it's a risk, but a considerably smaller risk than facing Death Eaters.
 * Perhaps characters did consider Side-Along, but dismissed it off-page. These things were planned well in advance of Harry arriving on the scene, so it's possible he (and, by extension, the readers) missed the planning stage altogether. Or, perhaps the idea simply never occurred to the characters making the plans for reasons they considered obvious. For example, it wouldn't be prudent to suddenly appear out of thin air, with an accompanying attention-attracting pop! in a station full of Muggles, as King's Cross was. It would probably unnecessarily risk violating the Statute of Secrecy (I'm aware that Hermione Apparated the Trio into Muggle London, but theirs was an emergency situation.) Also, I recall Moody mentioning in DH that they didn't want to use Side-Along Apparation to move Harry because the Ministry is somehow connected with it (I assume a regulatory board or something). In OotP, the Order knows that Voldie has Ministry spies, and that these spies may be in the transportation department. So again, it's an example of "why risk it when a safer alternative is available?"
 * Did anyone else think that it was, y'know, illegal to Side-Apparate because of being under 17 years old and everything? I mean, Dumbledore tells in OotP that the Ministry actually has no power to expel students from the school (giving warnings/advice/what have you doesn't count). I doubt it's general knowledge how the Trace works (Molly doesn't seem to know), and anyway, you're still Apparating, which is completely illegal. That was just the Ministry giving an alternative to that underage = no magic bullcrap.
 * I would postulate that major events like the landing area for the Quidditch World Cup on the way to registration, and possibly the campsite itself, are covered with an anti-apparating/disappating charm to prevent mass trouble if 30 groups tried to come at ones. The portkeys allowed for systematic entry to the cup so those Ministry individuals involved could keep control of things. The same magic charm could have been put on the house in Godric's Hollow so the person who enters must come through the door. This would ensure if something went wrong and Peter was captured and tortured, the enemy had only one way to get into the house.

So... what about the Malfoys' Chamber of Secrets?

 * There's something I never understood: in book two, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron use a polyjuice potion to gain Malfoy's trust. They learn that Malfoy's not Slytherin's heir, but what they DO learn is that there is a secret "chamber" in the Malfoys' drawing room full of Dark objects... Ron says he's going to write to his dad and tell Mr. Weasley about the Malfoys' chamber... but apparently he never does, because in book six, the Malfoys STILL haven't been caught... even that forgetfulness is permissible, except... why didn't Harry tell Mr. Weasley about the chamber in book six, when he pulls him aside to 'tip him off' after Harry and co. follow Malfoy to Borgin and Burke's and suspect something's up?
 * The problem is, unfortunately, the timing. He'd just been raided, so calling in another raid would have been hard to pull when they'd turned up nothing the first time. It'd count as harassment as well if Mr. Weasley kept calling them. Also, just because they know there's a chamber under the drawing room floor doesn't mean they know how to get into it. It might have a password or be under various wards that make it impossible to open unless Mr. Malfoy wants it to be opened (and he could claim no knowledge and say it was his father's and doesn't know the password). Then there's always the case where it was found, and money exchanged hands, and Fudge "forgot" about it and the evidence was mysteriously lost. I honestly would have been more surprised if anything came from it myself.
 * Didn't Malfoy figure out the ruse shortly after Harry and Ron left? I mean, a simple conversation with Crabbe and Goyle would resolve that: Malfoy: "Why were you acting so weird when I was talking to you?" Goyle: "Uh... we were shoved in a broom closet for the last hour." Then Malfoy has to just send an owl to his dad's house and they can move the artifacts before Weasley gets there.
 * Uh, I think that those artifacts WERE recovered. After all, the final chapter of the book mentions that Lucius had been sacked from his position as School Governor. Perhaps the second raid was the reason, and Malfoy bought his way out of prison time?
 * I thought that he was fired because half the board claimed he'd threatened to curse their families (which was really stupid to do openly) if they didn't fire Dumbledore. That was the only thing that could even remotely be proven, since he couldn't be linked to the Chamber. If Ron's tip had panned out, it probably would have been mentioned. Besides, even if wizards can do a second raid so soon after not finding anything based on nothing more than 'My twelve-year-old son claims to have knowledge of the inner workings of your house', would they really be able to do that with wizards like the Malfoys who have Fudge in their pockets? One raid is one thing, but repeated raids wouldn't be stood for.

Burn, Burrow, Burn! Wicked inferno!

 * Why did everybody just stand there and watch the Burrow burn down? THEY'RE WIZARDS! THEY CAN AT LEAST TRY TO PUT IT OUT!
 * THEY'RE ALSO PEOPLE. WHO JUST GOT TERRORIZED AND THEIR FAMILY HOME BURNT DOWN. WITH THEM POWERLESS TO STOP IT. Sorry they're not in combat mode right away, considering this attack on the Weasely house is a huge personal and familial blow, especially to Molly and Arthur.

Slug Club Oddities

 * I think this was only in the movie, but something about the timeline is bugging me. Slughorn definitely had Lily as a student, but he also mentioned in an early scene that he never had Sirius. Lily and Sirius were in the same year and the same house. How could he have had one but not the other?
 * He either meant having Sirius in Slytherin (like his brother) or in the Slug Club. He wasn't referring to teaching Potions, and at that point, Harry didn't know what he taught, just that he was retired.
 * But Lily wasn't in Slytherin and he didn't complain about that, and since Slughorn picks who's in the Slug Club, it'd be a little odd to complain about someone not being in it.
 * Sirius could have simply refused to become involved in the Slug Club for whatever reason.
 * Although brilliant Sirius was apparently a bit of a slacker in school, so he wouldn't have been invited for his grades. And inviting Sirius because of his family connections would have resulted in a very likely answer of "Go to hell!", given how far on the outs Sirius was with the whole idea of pureblood politicking.
 * The Slug Club reeked of a sort of a fraternity air (a la Skulls and Bones) where the members are all destined to become pillars of the establishment, which probably would not have appealed to the more anarchic and rebellious Sirius
 * Maybe Hogwarts had two potions teachers at the time, and Slughorn only taught the advanced, elective classes?
 * He is talking about Sirius not being in Slytherin, like the rest of his family, he was disapointed in that he did not get the whole Black "set" in his house, as it were.. He also says that he always said that Lily should have been in his house - "and very cheeky answers I got, too".
 * Another Slug Club oddity: this may have been only from the movie, but why was Ginny a member of the Slug Club and not Ron? Ron obviously wanted in, and despite the way the movies portray him he is not a complete imbecile, so it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say he wasn't qualified.
 * Ron wasn't in the Slug Club in the book either. Slughorn didn't think much of him and constantly got his name wrong. Ginny was invited to join the Slug Club after Slughorn saw her doing the Bat-Bogey Hex on Zacharias Smith. The point is Ron may not be a total idiot, but that's Hidden Depths and Slughorn never looked beneath the surface.

I'm sure they can figure it out themselves...

 * Although Dumbledore couldn't make it too easy for them to track down the Horcruxes, d'you realize he never even gave any of them that book that shows how to destroy them? I know, I know, he probably knew Hermione might think to Accio them and he made it easy to for them to be stolen from his office, but there was always the possibility that she might not have thought of it (and, neither Harry nor Ron did), wasn't there? Without that book, they were pretty much screwed.
 * Hermione's deductive reasoning skills are pretty good. If they realized, for example, that Slytherin's locket was a Horcrux, and remembered that, against all odds, the fucker wouldn't open and they couldn't break it, she might assume that it required some magical way of destroying it, as with the diary. Dumbledore gave them all they needed, it's just that he left a couple of extra clues, just in case it came up. Besides, if Hermione hadn't found the books, Dumbledore's portrait might have just told Snape to mail her the things or something.
 * Personally, I think that, while Dumbledore had made preparations for his death, he hadn't been planning on dying that exact night. I imagine his original plan was to go with Harry back to his office and he would have demonstrated right then and there how to use the sword to break the Horcrux. Unfortunately, the Death Eaters showed up, along with Snape, and there was no way to get out of it in his weakened state without blowing Snape's cover. Ultimately, he had to hope that Harry and his friends would be resourceful enough to compesnsate for being underequipped.
 * Why didn't Dumbledore just tell Harry why he needed the memory from Slughorn? Dumbledore was supposed to be telling Harry "everything I know or suspect," so why the mysterious, "You must trust me" about the Horcruxes? If Dumbledore had just said, "Horcruxes are magical objects that make you invincible, Voldemort certainly made one, and I think something in that conversation with Slughorn holds the key to defeating him," Harry would have made a much higher priority of getting the memory.
 * Dumbledore is teaching Harry to prioritize the Horcruxes in preparation for his death, as well as problem-solving skills.
 * This one is, in my opinion, handled better in the movie. When we see the key memory, it's gets all fuzzy just when young Riddle starts pronouncing the word "Horcrux". So it's reasonable that Dumbledore doesn't even know for sure that Horcruxes are what the memory's about.
 * I was more annoyed at the fact that absolutely nothing useful was obtained from that memory. So, Riddle knew a bit about Horcruxes. This isn't even evidence that he made one (unlike, you know, TWO HAVING BEEN IDENTIFIED AND DESTROYED). This incredibly critical memory that we are lost without gave absolutely no information that wasn't already known.
 * How can you say so, when the memory so very explicitely pointed to Riddle's overwhelming fascination with the number seven, which in turn obviously meant that he made (or intended to make) exactly seven Horcruxes.
 * Dumbledore would give Encyclopedia Brown a run for his money in this movie.

Stamp on the face! Stomp stomp stomp stomp!

 * Something a bit more mundane: When Harry tells Ron about getting his nose broken, it is said that Ron not laughing was a 'mark of strength of their' friendship. Is This Troper the only one that doesn't see why that is a mark of strength?
 * It puzzled me too, because you would think the closer you get with a person the more you're allowed to laugh at them and get away with it. My guess is that the strength was that Ron understood this was Serious Business to Harry, and reacted accordingly.
 * It's probably more that Harry would have understood if Ron had laughed, given that he thought it might have sounded amusing ("So then Malfoy sees my shoe, knocks me stiff, and then steps on my face.") but Ron instantly took it as seriously as Harry did.

Harry the Dumb Detective

 * Harry's "investigation" of Malfoy's plot, or specifically the stubborn and unimaginative way he's following up on one obviously wrong approach. He knows already that Malfoy is trying to fix something, so it's a pretty safe assumption that he turned the Room of Requirements into a workshop. So instead of making up the umpteenth variant of become-what-you-became-for-Draco, which clearly DOESN'T WORK, why not try to deduce Malfoy's request and repeat it? "I need a place to work on some complex magical device in absolute secrecy/hide something precious and dangerous"... hi, Draco, mind if I drop in? Stalin's moustache, professor Trelawney managed to do it!
 * Idiot Ball aside, Trelawney managed to do it because she was looking for a place to hide her sherry bottles, which means that it's even worse. Draco only asked for a place to hide what he was doing from others.
 * My point exactly. How hard was it to guess something like that?
 * Even worse, all he needs to prove Malfoy guilty is to confirm that he had the Dark Mark. Well, ambush the weasel under the cloak, stun him, and roll up his sleeve. Done. Everybody goes home/to Azkaban.
 * Now, this part isn't necessarily going to work. Voldemort might not have marked Draco because he's doing an undercover operation. You don't send in a new spy in a delicate location with your mark.
 * Well, he did show something to Mr. Burge in the shop and anyway, it's not about him having the mark or not - it's about Harry not bothering to check.
 * How would he get out of trouble if he falsely accused a student of being a Death Eater and carrying the Dark Mark? I think even Harry had some doubts about what exactly Draco showed Mr. Burge enough that he didn't want to be thought as a raving attention seeker again.
 * That's exactly the reason for the prudent omission of the "accuse" part in the purposed plan and its replacement with "ambush the weasel while under the cloak, stun him, and roll up his sleeve". Even if Harry got caught, what's the worst he could get - a detention? Yeah, right, like that's supposed to scare him. Oh, and let's not forget that as far as Voldemort cared, Draco's mission wasn't "undercover" as much as "suicide". Marking him and increasing his chances of failure would fit in perfectly.
 * Even if he exposed Malfoy's Dark Mark, could Harry necessarily prove it's the genuine article? Most people don't have scars with Spidey-sense that indicate when a legitimate Dark Mark is nearby. Draco could claim it's a mundane tattoo he got because it looks badass; he's never made his anti-Muggleborn politics a secret, but those beliefs don't prove he's a spy. Not every real-life jerkwad with a swastika tattoo was a member of the Gestapo, either.
 * Yep, because there is no way high-profile wizards could distinguish a mundane tatoo from a Beast Mark-equivalent inflicted by the Dark Wizard they've spent years hunting for. And because the wizard court was so renowned for its impeccable commitment to justice and its absolute abhorrence to the idea of convicting an innocent - Sirius testifies for that last one - and thus would readily dismiss a son of a known convicted Death Eater bearing the mark of a Death Eater in time of war with Death Eaters as a mere coincedence and boyish recklessness.
 * This troper wishes to point out that Sirius WAS framed, rather thoroughly.
 * Seconded. And even if for some stupid reason they couldn't tell if it was an actual mark, there is enough precedence in the modern world about these things that when you are dealing with this, you don't Fucking CARE about whether it is an actual mark or not, because you are guilty until proven innocent.
 * Is the fact that Death Eaters have the Mark widely known? Sirius didn't know it in the fourth book; he had no idea what Karkaroff was showing Snape. Of course, it seems that every time Harry learns something, it becomes common knowledge, and it's possible that Sirius just didn't know it because he didn't work in that line, but it might be a secret. It still looks bad that Draco has the Dark Mark tattooed on his arm, but they might not have any reason to check whether or not it could be magical.
 * Even if it is not, the fact the Dark Mark is the DE mascot is - they summon it every time they kill someone.
 * The final confrontation with Dumbledore on the matter. "Professor, Malfoy was acting highly suspiciously the whole year, his little talks with Snape strongly imply that he's an enemy agent, he nearly used a Cruciatus spell on me, and now he's jubilant after completing whatever he was working on so hard. What're we going to do?" "We're going after the Horcrux right now because... well, because and leave Malfoy to his devices, for I have the situation fully under my control." Hold the phone. An undercover DE in the school, concocting something sinister right under Dumbledore's nose... why does it sound familiar? Oh, yes, that's exactly what happened in the fourth book! And we all know how perfectly fine it worked out that time. Are you seriously telling me that Harry could forget that or failed to make a connection?
 * The best part is that Dumbledore pretty much knew from the beginning what Draco's mission was. He knew the end result was to kill him at least and had planned for it. He did have Order members stationed at Hogwarts and Harry had given his friends and remaining members of the DA that showed up the remains of the luck potion. If nothing else, his friends would be safe until he returned, he thought. However, it ended up being a wild goose chase and an ultimately pointless mission, but Dumbledore wanted to die anyway.
 * Ooookey, and how does all that accounts for Harry not putting two and two together and not calling the old intriguer out on it?
 * I reread the instance in the book. Harry actually questions Dumbledore on his leaving while who knows what Draco is doing occurs and Dumbledore asks him if he hasn't left the school prior to this occasion without precautions. Dumbledore is very vague on these precautions, and Harry simply assumes that he's got the situation in hand. Plus, he's distracted by the prospect of actually doing something by finding one of Voldemort's Horcruxes -- in his mind, a way of actually doing something for the war effort.
 * So did I. The point is not that Harry doesn't question Dumbledore - it's that he misses a perfect argument that would've shut the old control freak up and pressed him to the wall, that is, Cedric Diggory's take on the conjectural complete safety and control maintained by Dumbledore, which he could've given if he hadn't been killed precisely because of a spy that Dumbledore allowed to prance around the school for a whole year. I agree, however with the notion of the Horcrux distraction, and moreover, I got an impression that Dumbledore used it to get the boy off a tangent that would've otherwise let to some very awkward questions. Still, I sense a strong reek of Plot Induced Stupidity coming from Harry.
 * Dumbledore didn't LET Crouch Jr. waltz around campus, he legitimately didn't KNOW who the mole was until Crouch tried to square the circle by knocking off Harry. That is not the case here, and whereas Crouch was a veteran cohort of Voldemort's who was entirely comitted to the cause and could not be redeemed, Draco is an inexperienced, scared teen way in over his head. It's not a GREAT plan, but Dumbledore has reason to believe that he can keep a hold of the damage. And he was not entirely wrong.
 * Whether he knew or not, an enemy spy operated under his nose for a year and caused a catastrophe. So his assurances of total control over the situation are invalid. And he had no reasons to believe anything like that since, I'll reiterate, TWO PEOPLE NEARLY FUCKING DIED ALREADY, saved only by luck and without ANY intervention from D or Snape.
 * Dumbledore thought he had it taken care of: He ordered Snape to watch over Draco and assumed he would interfere if things got really nasty. Obviously, the books show that Dumbledore was putting too much faith in Snape, but the other characters called him out on that all the time, so at least it was addressed.
 * Snape had already failed to prevent the previous two assassination attempts, and two people nearly got it. What makes Dumbledore think that the third time would be any different except for that "saved in the last moment by Harry Potter" part, since Harry wouldn't be there?
 * Because Dumbledore had faith in Snape. Probably too much faith. The other characters repeatedly called Dumbledore out over it.
 * This has nothing to do with faith. Snape was loyal to D, no argument here, but he simply couldn't possibly tail Draco 24/7 and the two previous assasination attempts proved it (not that it was not painfully obvious to any sane person in the first place).
 * Agreeing that it wouldn't be possible for Snape to tail Draco all the time, and when it comes to the near-deaths of others, Dumbledore was never the one curing them of their situation; the other faculty in the school are more than able to handle anything that isn't ACTUALLY death, they have the skills to deal with that potential problem. When it comes to what Draco actually did, I don't know that they realized the extent of that plan or didn't anticipate Draco's creativity/intelligence in that area. Additionally, I don't think we're ever given information that suggests Snape knows where the Room of Requirement is or how to get into it. It's perfectly possible that he did, especially after Umbridge's year, but it's also possible that he simply couldn't do anything about Draco when Draco was in that room.
 * As for Harry's Idiot Ball behavior on this topic, I think people ARE underestimating the amount of emotional/psychological control Dumbledore has over Harry. Yes, Harry is defiant toward other authority figures, but the only time we see him react this way to Dumbledore is after Sirius's death. Aside from that, he's been trained up from the start to follow Dumbledore's instructions without question, and Dumbledore has very skillfully shaped that relationship so that Harry will not question what he's doing. In Harry's mind, Dumbledore is always right, and he will fight for Dumbledore more readily than anyone else because he's Dumbledore's man "through and through", etc. Dumbledore supports this because his plans for Harry have always been put forth by subtle manipulations. On top of which, while people suggest Dumbledore maybe didn't know the attack would happen THAT NIGHT, it seems more likely that he DID suspect it would be this night that the attack would happen. Him knowing makes more sense than otherwise, because otherwise the potion he drank could easily have killed him before either Snape or Draco could confront him, leading to Draco's punishment by Voldemort and Snape's punishment by the Unbreakable Vow. Harry follows Dumbledore without question and Dumbledore uses this to orchestrate his own death in such a way that Draco finally understands that he's not capable of being a 'true' Death Eater (or something to that effect?) and so that Snape can kill Dumbledore, stay alive, and have his cover cemented in the eyes of Voldemort. There are uncountable ways this plan could have gone wrong and spectacularly backfired, of course, but Dumbledore takes those risks in spite of the odds more than once through the series - most notably in the 'hunch' that Harry is a horcrux and must die in order to kill Voldemort. He did not know for certain, but he sent Harry to his death anyway. That's no different than what happens here, and Harry follows blindly here as well because he believes that Dumbledore knows everything.
 * I'd hardly say that Harry was trained to obey Dumbledore without question. Just because Harry trusts him, it doesn't mean that Harry's some kind of mindless minion. Also, Dumbledore's 'hunch' about Harry was backed up with a lot of proof and Dumbledore did realize that it was possible for Harry to survive.

Squire circa what now?

 * Okay, Brits should probably know this one: what exactly is the cultural significance of a squire circa 1925?
 * Uhh... I know this one! It's on the tip of my tongue! It's... it's... uhhh...
 * By the 1900s (and possibly as early as the 1700s) 'Squire' was a completely informal term that simply means 'the richest man in town'.

More griping over Voldemort's cave...

 * The potion can't be penetrated by hand, ok. But a cup can penetrate it, which Dumbledore did in order to drink it. But why didn't he then just simply scoop up the locket at the bottom of the basin using the cup?
 * Either the locket wouldn't fit in the cup, or more likely the cup couldn't reach the bottom of the basin where the locket was. He did drink quite a lot of it before they could reach the locket.
 * Make a bigger cup?
 * It was an enchanted cup, basin, and locket. There was assuredly some counter to prevent someone from just side-stepping the entire trap.
 * The cup was created by Dumbledore. As for counters, if Voldemort put any real thought into designing the cave, he'd have installed an alarm.
 * It's magic. Maybe you can't penetrate the surface of the liquid if you're going for the locket, but you can if you're going for the potion.
 * It's common sense. Make a cup big enough to scoop all the potion in one draw.
 * As Dumbledore says when examining the potion, "This potion cannot be penetrated by hand, Vanished, parted, scooped up, or siphoned away, nor can it be Transfigured, Charmed, or otherwise made to change its nature. I can only conclude that this potion is supposed to be drunk." It can be infered that simply drawing all the potion out and dumping it would make it reappear in the basin. And even if you could scoop all the way to the bottom, the locket was probably charmed to stay there unless all the potion had been drunk.
 * Even if the potion is meant to be drunk, nothing says that you have to drink it. While Dumbledore is hardly going to use a house-elf, like poor Kreacher was used, nothing stops him from transfiguring the nearest rock into, oh, a really thirsty Blast-Ended Skrewt or something.
 * Speaking of which, why didn't Voldemort simply make the potion kill whoever drank it? That way, nobody who discovered the cave could get the Horcrux out without killing themselves. It's unlikely that Voldemort would have had to drink the potion in the first place to get the locket out, since he was willing to visit the cave alone in Book 7 to see if the Horcrux was missing. He was perfectly willing to kill whoever drank the potion anyways, since he was going to have them killed by the Inferi in the lake, and if he wanted to kill anyone else who might have come along on the boat, he could have enchanted the Inferi to attack anyone who sailed across the lake with the Horcrux, except himself, of course. This would also have the advantage of protecting the Horcrux even more, since I doubt even Dumbledore would have leapt into a lake full of Inferi to grab the Horcrux.
 * Addressed in book by Dumbledore. I don't recall the exact wording but effectively 'Voldemort would not want to kill whoever came to this island, he would want to know who it was who had discerned its location, fooled his barriers, and managed to get so close to stealing it. Presumably without a second person foolish enough to break the water's surface the poisoned would just lie there in agony until Voldemort came to check on his Horcrux. Also, potentially when he was pre-resurrection Voldemort might have checked up on his Horcruxes more often, but after getting ressurected he forgot about it because his soul and body were now so ravaged he had lost almost all tacticaly or strategic thought.
 * Repeat after me: just because DD says something doesn't mean it's true or makes the tiniest bit of sense for that matter. What does it matter how the intruders got there (with magic, motherfucker!) if they cannot reach the locket? "he had lost almost all tactical or strategic thought" - no. His plan to lure Harry to the Ministery in Oo P was brilliant (not his fault Lucius fucked it up), and his decision to stay behind the scenes in DH and to use the Taboo showed quite an insight.
 * The fact is, despite what Dumbledore said, Voldemort WAS trying to kill whoever made it to the island, since the Mind Rape potion made whoever drank it need to take a drink from the lake, (as seen in DH, when we hear about Regulus and Kreacher's experience with the cave) which was full of Inferi that would immediately swarm the island and pull the drinker down under, which is fatal. If anything, making the potion fatal would be better for gaining any information, since it would avoid the problem of having to sort through countless Inferi to find the body, instead of seeing the body on the island itself and knowing who had broken in. Of course, either way, dead men tell no tales, so Voldemort couldn't have gotten the information from the person post-mortem anyways.
 * Why, why, why didn't they just scoop out a cup and pour it out instead of drinking it? I'll probably get some response that it would teleport back or something, but even then, it would have been worth a try.
 * Because DD probaby learned about the exact extent of the potion's effect from Kreacher (otherwise he'd be an idiot to even attempt drinking it), and was fine with it, since him being so weakened would make it look more plausible for Snape to overpower and kill him. As for why Harry didn't suggest it, I'll better keep my thoughts ***cough***Heisadumbass***cough*** to myself.

The cursed arm... not THAT hopeless!

 * If Snape managed to contain the baneful magic of the ring inside Dumbledore's arm, why didn't they just amputate it?
 * And wouldn't that be sending up a massive red flare to anybody looking that something is going on?
 * Having his hand burned beyond cure already sent it. Besides, if V could create prosthetic limbs, surely D also could.
 * I think it was more the moral of the thing. Dumbledore knew Harry would have to defeat Voldemort, and he's helped him a lot. I mean, come on! The guy's a 150! I think D knew it was his time, but I'm wondering if he knew that he would die THAT NIGHT. I think he might have told Harry a tad more...
 * Dumbledore's behavior has never implied that he cared much for the opinions of others (at least not those he considers wrong-minded), so I don't think his choice to keep his arm attached had to do with how things looked. He has, however, demonstrated a tendency toward reminding himself of his own weaknesses. It makes more sense that Dumbledore kept the withered arm as a reminder to himself of the temptations he has failed to resist, even knowing he probably only had a year to live.
 * Knowing all the Dark things that happened before the prosthetic hand (taking blood from the unwilling, severing limbs, and destroying bits of the dead), means it may easily have been a Dark spell that Dumbledore would be unwilling to cast. A 'light' method of amputation and healing may have taken him out of commission for a period of time he didn't want to spend on recovering. Dumbles knew he was to die in a year, but the pain (if he had any) was probably not such to warrant amputation while he was busy doing things like tracking down other Horcruxes and trying to destroy them. Doing things for cosmetic purposes is not Dumbledore's style, in particular since amputation would not be a significantly less noticeable change than the withered arm.
 * The taking blood from the unwilling, severing limbs, and destroying bits of the dead were just to give Voldemort a new body. Why would the ritual be designed to give a disembodied spirit a new body AND grant said spirit the ability to create limbs? He probably just knew or created a spell to do it.
 * I assume that you can contain the dark magic in one part of your body, but not separate it. So, if you try to amputate it, the magic comes back in your arm, and so on.
 * A Ranma ½ fanfic this troper once read featured a magic ring that was similarly irremovable; if the hand was amputated, then the wound would never stop bleeding, and neither would any other wound, until one was dead. Perhaps this ring works on a similar basis?

Chasing Malfoy

 * Dumbledore was reluctant to approach or actively impede Malfoy out of fear that V would kill the boy. How exactly was he supposed to do that while Malfoy was in Hogwarts and, moreover, how was he supposed to know? It's not as if he can control or scan people remotedly, is it (he never knew that Snape betrayed him)? So, as I see it, talk to the boy, persuade him to reform (or just force him, it's for his own good), hide him somewhere, retrieve and hide Narcissa. Then have Snape kill you. Done. No collateral victims.
 * I get the feeling that it was a problem of too much to do, too little time to do it in. He had to chase down leads on Horcruxes, teach Harry about them, try to train (and/or manipulate) Harry so that he would have just the right mindset when it came time for him to take over the hunt, maintain the Order of the Phoenix, try to keep the Minister of Magic off his tail... He underestimated how creative and desperate Draco was, and thus allowed him to slip under his radar. And a good part of it was just terrible luck, really; what are the odds that Draco would finish his little project on the exact day that Dumbledore is weakened from Horcrux retrieval? I mean, yes, he was cursed to die at the end of the year and this might be how the curse manifested itself, but still.
 * Uhm, he was so over his head that he couldn't spare an evening to deal with a problem that threatens his students? However, it's not the issue. What's bugging me is why Dumbledore was reluctant to approach Draco to persuade or arrest him and hide him somewhere safe. How was Voldemort supposed to find out and kill Draco?
 * The problem is that if Dumbledore stops Draco, then Snape has to fulfill his part of the unbreakable vow of killing Dumbledore since Draco failed. Doing that early in the year would be disastrous to both his plans and the wizarding world.
 * The Vow obviously allows you to Take Your Time as long as you are determined to uphold it, so no.
 * We only see one Vow, and the way it's worded, we can't be sure of that. Snape doesn't only Vow to kill Dumbledore with no timeline specified. He Vows to watch and protect Draco as long as he's scheming to kill Dumbledore, and to do so himself when it appears Draco is about to fail. If Dumbledore had confronted Draco before the tower scene, the scheming would be over, Draco would have failed, and, likely, the Vow would have triggered. Dumbledore trusted Snape to keep Draco out of trouble in the meantime, and as discussed near the top of this page, he didn't do as good a job as hoped. But, to keep both Dumbledore and Snape alive, not to mention Draco himself, they had to let Draco keep trying.
 * I agree that it seems extremely likely that the Vow (which Snape probably informed Dumbledore of right away) had a big influence on how Dumbledore treated the situation. But aside from that:
 * The argument about legilimency/occlumency is not valid. Snape is identified from the first time these terms are brought up as being a superb occlumens, according to Lupin, and Dumbledore even wants Snape to teach Harry - the most likely victim of Vold's legilimency - because of Snape's skill. He has managed to be undiscovered because of his skill. There is no evidence that Draco's ability with occlumency is as good as Snape's, much less enough to withstand Voldemort's efforts.
 * As Snape explains it, legilimency is not plain-and-simple 'mind reading', either; one has to know how to find what they're looking for. This suggests that a huge part of Snape's success is misleading the legilimens into finding feelings and memories that only defend their desired position, rather than just putting up a wall between them, which would be much more suspicious. As it is, Voldemort is suspicious of Snape's loyalties during this time period anyway (and isn't convinced until Snape kills Dumbledore).
 * We don't see Snape's legilimency skills from anyone but Harry, who is fueled by the pride that forces him to keep eye contact as well as his complete hopelessness at occlumency, and as such we can't trust Harry's skills as the 'norm'. Snape's legilimency skills may be sorely lacking compared to his occlumency skills.
 * Even if Snape's legilimency skills aren't lacking, Draco is able to immediately detect that Snape is using legilimency on him. If Draco's occlumency skills are enough to prevent Snape from breaking OR if Voldemort's are such that they would detect Snape's unusual determination to find out what Draco was up to, it would be counter-productive to keep pushing. He may 'find out' Draco's secrets by legilimency but Vold may catch him, and if he can't break Draco's defenses, Draco would be even less willing to share his information with Snape after Snape tried to use force on him.
 * Aside from all this, it's very unlikely that Snape knew everything if he resorted to attempting legilimency in the first place. He probably knew Draco's mission but nothing else, and had trouble getting the details he felt he needed in order to fulfill the Vow as well as Dumbledore's wishes.
 * What's really annoying is that the entire plot would have been avoided if somebody had simply tied Draco to a chair, fed him Veritaserum, then Obliviated him of the interrogation afterwards. And while Snape can't do this himself due to the Unbreakable Vow (part of which was swearing to 'protect Draco from harm to the best of his ability', and while legilimency apparently isn't harm, this probably would be), Christ, its not like he can't just happen to speak up in an Order meeting with "Damn, I sure hope none of you guys do this while my back is turned."

Oh Voldemort, you're such an idiot...

 * I understand why the Death Eaters didn't kill Potter when they retreated from the school in the end. BUT WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY TAKE HIM WITH THEM TO VOLDEMORT?!! He was right there alone and utterly defenceless, it would only take them a second to grab him -- which they had since they stopped to Cruciate him, and, before you say, Snape's excuse is lame: "he belongs to the Dark Lord - leave him"... whaaa? A little consistency here, Sevy? And no, the fact that he'd just killed Dumbledore wouldn't bring much weight to his words, since Dumbledore was already nearly dead and Snape simply stepped in for Draco. And before you say more, for Voldemort to order them to leave Potter in the first place is nonsensical even for him. Even if he can't kill him, surely it's better to have Potter chained in his dungeon than to have him roam free, isn't it? And in book 7, he was perfectly fine with DE catching Potter, so why not then?
 * It's mostly Snape interpreting Voldemort's orders to Harry's advantage. Voldemort didn't order anyone to capture, hurt, or otherwise impede him (possibly not expecting Harry to show up during Draco's mission), so Snape assumes the orders say From a Certain Point of View to leave him alone for Voldemort to have a worthy oponent. At this time, Voldemort wants Dumbledore dead, is working out the wand issue, and anything he hasn't realised about any powers Harry really has due to the protection his mother gave him. Just because he's immune to it because of the stolen blood doesn't mean his Death Eaters are, so he waits until they wear off when Harry leaves the protection of the house in book 7. There's also that nagging thought in the back of his head about the prophecy and how he doesn't know what it says entirely.
 * Uhuh, except that V is clearly not the type who cares about worty opponents, so there is no reason he wouldn't order his goons to capture Potter at the first opportunity. Not just in that particular operation but by default, like "you see'em, you grab'em, you bring'em to me". And the wand issue has nothing to do with this, and Harry's "powers" can do squat as some Death Eater Cruciated him right before Snape told them to leave, and missing the prophecy didn't stop V from AKing Potter in the end of book 5.
 * Incorrect. Voldemort gave Harry back his wand in book 4. If he just wanted to kill him, why would he do such a thing? Yes, it could be to humiliate him, but he also wanted to show his followers that Harry was no match even when he had a wand. This is why Snape can get away with saying this, not that it's a standing order, but that it's vague enough to work. Again, the idea is that he was distracted by the wand problem and Dumbledore and thus didn't think anyone would run into Harry to capture him, so he left no orders to capture Harry. Harry's powers might be able to do squat when he's being hit by a spell, but try and grab him and take him back to Voldemort and who knows what his protection magic might do before he turns 17 (unless it's only targeted to Voldemort, then I'd concede that point).
 * Voldemort didnt give Harry his wand back to humilate him. He wanted to show to his Death Eaters that Harry was not a threat. He wanted them to see that even with his wand and ability to fight, Voldemort was his better and would kill him. He feared that having once tried to kill Harry and failed, that people might not think of him as the most powerful. Now it didnt work out well, but that was the intention, to quell any mutinous thoughts...
 * "why would he do such a thing?" Because he'd just resurrected and needed to reestablish himself as the baddest ass around in the eyes of his cronies. In book 5, he overgrew that stupid superstition and A Ked Harry right away having first incapacitated him. No Worthy Opponent bullshit even then. In book 7, the DE try to capture Potter all the time even though V is still distracted by the wand problem (even more so), so why not a little earlier? Oh, and Dumbledore wasn't his problem - he was Draco's (and by extension, Snape's) one. As for the protection, give me a break. Protection that cannot protect its client against being tortured to death (or against sharp objects, or having his soul sucked out, or Basilisk's bites) but is supposed to protect him against being kidnapped sounds ridiculous.
 * Perhaps they assumed Snape has been given more explicit/different orders than they had? I think we know enough of Voldemort to assume that he wouldn't tell the entirety of his plan to every single Death Eater, so they might have been wary of going against what Snape said in case it was an order from Voldemort. If your boss was Voldemort, and there was a chance he could remotely diapprove of something you're about to do, would you still do it?
 * Snape specifically says that Voldemort doesn't want them to touch Harry because Harry is Voldemort's to kill. It does not really matter why Voldemort would do this, and something tells me that Death Eaters questioning orders will not go well for them, so they don't even have to know what Voldemort's supposed rationale for this is. If Voldemort said "don't touch Harry", they had better not touch him. They believe Snape when he says this, as the only reason he could possibly have for lying is if he's secretly on the side of the light. If Snape had tried claiming that Harry was Voldemort's to kill in book five, then it might not have flown, but since Snape had finally firmly declared his allegiance (or so it seemed) by killing Dumbledore only minutes before, why would they doubt him? And the fact that Dumbledore wouldn't be getting off that roof alive doesn't really matter, as it's still a very unlikely thing for someone on Dumbledore's side to have stepped up to kill him. Possible, yes, but it's not like they have time to ponder any of these questions in great detail. Someone stopped to attack Harry on their way out of the Hogwarts grounds, Snape said Voldemort wouldn't approve, Voldemort wasn't to be questioned, and Snape just proved that he was on their side, so the Death Eater stopped.
 * This is even more ridiculous. So V is getting the strike team ready to go to Hogwarts, you know, the place where Harry Potter resides without blood protection, and he doesn't tell them "Oh yeah, before I forget, if somebody sees the brat, stun him and bring him along, alive"? That's improbably stupid even for V.
 * Was Voldemort ever directly involved in this plan? Unlikely, I know, but if he wasn't, that might explain why they didn't just take the Castle then.
 * They didn't take it because the Ministery was still operating. Apparently, despite its glaring incompetence, it was still a force to reckon with in a frontal confrontation. Hence their cautious actions the next year. As for the first part, are you kidding me? A plan to assassinate the Big Good proceeding without direct supervision from the Big Bad? Again, it doesn't necessary have to relate to this particular plan - "Get me Harry Potter" should've by all means been an integral part of an everyday Death Eater morning briefing, right before the "...and I'll cruciate the f* out of you, if you, elf-spawn, f* up again" part.
 * "A plan to assassinate the Big Good proceeding without direct supervision from the Big Bad?". What plan? There was no plan, he sent Draco on a goose chase hoping he'd get killed just to mess with Lucius. He gave him no instructions besides "kill Dumbledore". Bellatrix followed Narcissa's whims and Narcissa was horribly worried for her son, that's why he got any backup at all, and rather lousy backup at that. There were less Death Eaters in the raid than the amount Dumbledore casually asswhooped in the Department of Mysteries. Voldemort never expected him to succeed, the whole thing was a crapshoot because Dumbledore would be dead in weeks anyhow and decided to play along to fortify Snape's cover. You are all making an enormous deal out of something Snape barked at one random Death Eater while they were running the fuck away from the castle before backup arrived.
 * The plan to kill DD, of course. I hope you will agree that V needed to remove him before he could make his grand move. Sure, he expected Draco to fail, (not get killed, who the hell was supposed to kill him, DD?), but messing with Lucius was only an added bonus - the objective to kill DD 'was there. Besides, Draco's efforts didn't cost V anything, so he could allow not to care much about them, but a squad of his Eltie Mooks infiltrating the enemy HQ? No way would a control freak like him take no interest in such an endeavor (neither would they dare to undertake it without his leave, for that matter). Not to mention that Bella had no reasons to "follow Narcissa's whim", when she so clearly despised her for fretting over Draco, and, again, grabbing Potter he moment they see him should've by all means be the standing order for all Death Eaters.

Merope Gaunt Fails Naming Forever

 * Why did Merope name her son after her sucky husband and sucky father, both of whom treated her like crap?
 * Even so, they were, apparently, the only people sans her insane brother she ever connected with. Sad.
 * Uh, right. Lmao the 'sucky' husband that spent their entire relationship under Mind Control via a love potion? It's probable that he was a dick anyway, the narrative sure represents him that way, but the fact is that she was willing to force him to be her lover without caring a whit about his consent. The fact that people are so harsh toward Tom Sr. continues to surprise me, since Rowling's obvious intent was to show that this relationship was an immoral abuse on Merope's part (a loveless union... coercion... couldn't be a more prejudicial way to enter the world...). She named her son after the man she had "loved", who was not a sucky husband because he was being controlled via chemicals. He left her after she stopped using it on him and he was able to exert free will again. Obviously her father was an abusive prick, so I see what you mean there, but when it comes to the fact that she named her son after Tom Sr., I find it completely unsurprising, because her obsession with him was such that she would do anything to possess him. It was pretty clear that this was supposed to be (at least by authorial intent) the opposite of a 'virtuous' love like Snape's, which may have been obsessive but which did not include any sort of force or coercion, and included the respect and genuine affection necessary for him to stand aside when she chose a life that excluded him, something Merope was unwilling to do.
 * More simply, by the time Tom was born Merope Gaunt and sanity hadn't been speaking to each other for months. If not years.

Has Snape lowered his standards?!?

 * A more dull example, but why is it that Snape accepts E students into this DADA class when he only accepted O students for Potions?
 * Because he wasn't in charge of it the year prior, and couldn't really blame the students with Umbridge teaching the class. It was more his ego saying "here's how to teach it correctly", and the best way to do that would be to teach as many students as possible.
 * Because Britain is being threatened with domination by a genocidal Dark wizard, and it's kind of important for as many people as possible to learn as much as possible about defending themselves against him?
 * Because it's possible, if not probable, that Harry was the only person to get an "O". Hermione didn't even pull it off.
 * Because Snape really is the best person to teach kids how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts (being well-versed in them, and almost certainly having used many of them himself), and if Dumbledore is telling him to give as many students as possible the knowledge they'll need to protect themselves, he's not going to say "Only if they get an Outstanding". To do so could have cost him his job and Dumbledore's protection.
 * Well, he could have tried, but Dumbledore would basically have said, "Get that Dark Arts elitism shit out of my house. This is HOGWARTS, son." Only, y'know. Dumbledorey.
 * Since he wasn't the teacher the year before, he couldn't suddenly up the requirements for students to get in, seeing as several had likely already registered for the class. Potions, however, Slughorn was allowed to lower the standard to an E, since that would allow more people to take the class.

Force-Feeding Time! :D

 * Returning to the matter of V's potion, it's said that it had to be drunk, but it's not specified who or what had to drink it. What about an animal? A sacrificial lamb, so to say. Surely Dumbledore wasn't THAT big of a Friend to All Living Things, was he? And please, don't rush to handwave with something like "V would've foreseen that", because with the amount of things he didn't foresee, this argument is invalid by default.
 * Or, alternatively, Dumbledore is not completely retarded, and it had to be drunk by a human. We already know that it has to be drunk just to get it out of the bowl, so if we assume that Dumbledore knows even slightly -- even slightly -- what he's doing, that he really is the most intelligent and gifted wizard of his age, and that a sensible reader does not need every potential loophole spelled out and dismissed before accepting the gravity of a situation, then we can also assume that there is a reason a person has to drink it.
 * That's all very nice, except that Voldemort successfully tested the potion on a house-elf, so the drinker definitely didn't need to be human.
 * Sentient, then. And Dumbledore is enough of a Friend to All Living Things not to torture a house-elf into insanity. Given the pain we see him going through as he's being fed the potion, and we know that he's hallucinating about his innumerable past sins, it would make sense for the potion to rely on some kind of pain beyond which a non-intelligent animal can fathom.
 * Sentience is a rather elastic notion in Potterverse. Kneazles (like Hermione's cat) are at least semi-sentient, owls too, maybe others as well. And again, seeing how unimaginative and shortsighted V was in his arrangements (the bloke didn't even install an alarm in that cave, for Khorne's sake!), it stretches the bounds of plausible to think he'd foreseen something so exquisite.
 * Why? He doesn't have to foresee it. "Being" has a specific definition in the Potterverse; all he would have to do is tie the potion to that, so that something had to suffer immensely to get the potion out. House-elves clearly count. One imagines a goblin would as well. Vampires too. Veela. A big long list of things can suck down the pain juice with minimal thinking on his part. Also, failing to foresee one thing doesn't mean he's completely and utterly incompetent. Voldemort is a malicious and sadistic little bastard, but he was also one of the most accomplished and brilliant wizards of his age. He could very easily have the potion only drain if feeding it to someone who would really suffer for it.
 * Okay, people, here's another point to consider: Dumbledore has probably the best grasp on What Measure Is a Non-Human? out of all the characters in the series (yes, including Hermione, whose insistence on starting and furthering SPEW gave house-elves no credit for being intelligent enough to choose the lifestyle that made them happy). With this in mind, why on earth would he have forced a house-elf, Kneazle, or any other semi-sentient, non-human creature to drink that potion and go through that awfulness? And why are so many of the people replying to this insistent that he should have? I know some of you consider Dumbledore a manipulative bastard, and to a degree he was, but he wasn't wantonly cruel as well.
 * Because that way he could've stayed in control of the situation and then taken the victim back to Hogwarts where it could be nurtured back to health, since the potion was not lethal. The way it did happen, he put all his hopes on one lame adolescent wizard (who failed miserably) and a wild chance that even poisoned D would still be able to save their collective butts (arbitrary whim of the author).
 * You don't think Dumbledore, who had a fully-formed plan to take over the world that inadvertently resulted in the death of his sister, who sat idly by while his former partner committed wanton acts of evil because he was afraid of what he might discover if he went after him, who is arguably the one wizard most aware of his own darkness and the limits to which he will go if he allows himself, might have a reason to hesitate at the idea of that kind of act? Even if you could just use a cow to get the potion out, it's still animal sacrifice. That's pretty dark magic for someone who knows how easy it'd be to go bad.
 * Sure, he'd be hesitant. But hesitance can (and should) be overcome with determination. I'll reiterate: the plan D used was INSANE. He didn't know if the potion wouldn't kill him outright (he only had speculations on that part), or if there were not other wards revealing themselves once the thief touched the locket (the fact that there were not further reinforces my point that V was an idiot and thus would hardly think of something as sophisticated as sentience-discriminating poison). UNLESS, of course, he did know in detail how the cave worked, having either questioned Kreacher or done exactly as I suggested and tested the potion on someone else. In either case, he would've already known that the Horcrux was a fake and the whole endeavor would've been just a ruse to distract Potter from pursuing Draco's case, to give Potter a training in ruthlessness and to get himself (Dumbledore that is) an excuse to force Snape into killing him. And that would've been freaking awesome.
 * "He's brilliant! But yes, he is mad."
 * New plan: Just don't remove the locket at all. Simply destroy it in the potion! If you can't stab the thing through the potion, Fiendfyre the whole thing! Or, just mix Basilisk venom into the potion and watch as the Horcrux is destroyed by its own protection. (Granted, it wasn't the Horcrux, but still.)
 * No can do. The potion blocked everything. As for alarms, D probably deactivated them; they have to be a pretty obvious spell, right? Also, considering D learning all about the cave just by touching it and the fact he spent large amounts of time out of Hogwarts it's safe to say he did enough research to ascertain that only Beings could cross the lake. Actually, come to think of it, that would fit with why D didn't bring Fawkes to heal him. V is hugely powerful and smart, if insane, and probably took precautions. Also if the potion was immediately lethal, V couldn't question the thief; the Inferi were a back-up for if someone brought an assistant with them.
 * "As for alarms, D probably deactivated them" - uhuh, then I guess Regulus deactivated them too. "only Beings could cross the lake" - how were Inferi supposed to stop a flying bird? "V couldn't question the thief" - thief drinks the potion, thief gets thirsty, thief drinks from the lake, thief gets drowned by Inferi. Again, as we saw with Regulus, it happens even when the thief is alone. Where does questioning come into the equation again? 'Inferi were a back-up" - a rather shitty backup as DD pwned them even when poisoned. If he did as I suggested and used someone else as a drinker, they would've done jack squat at all.
 * "how were Inferi supposed to stop a flying bird?" They weren't. There were wards for that. Just trying to summon something or tossing a ball of light over the water caused the water itself to lurch up and swallow the spell. Remember, Voldemort himself uses the boat while checking on the basin in the seventh book, and he can fly. It's unlikely that he'd forgotten he could do that just then, he had bloody flown to the cave to begin with.
 * "a rather shitty backup as DD pwned them even when poisoned" Dumbledore had already drunk the water and regained some of his sanity, and Harry held them off at bay for a few moments longer. You are also seemingly going by the movie version in saying he fought them off. In the book, he barely manages to summon a much smaller ring of fire to hold them at bay while Harry carries him out the cave. Forget defeating the Inferi en masse, he couldn't even walk for long on his own and would have been dragged underwater once he lost his strength.
 * "If he did as I suggested and used someone else as a drinker, they would've done jack squat at all."

Oh, Malfoy, how the tables have turned...

 * In the movies, the Gryffindor boys are shown to be sleeping in a luxurious room in comfy four-poster beds with curtains. Here, we see Malfoy (presumably in the Slytherin bedchambers) and he's sleeping on a metal cot in a very bland looking room? I would've thought that the Slytherins had better taste than that?
 * If you look carefully, it's actually the sick bay he's sleeping in, presumably still recovering from the Sectumsempra incident.

The Blades of Vague Darkness

 * Why exactly is Sectumsempra treated as something horrible and Dark? It's practically just a combat version of Diffindo. In comparison to, say, an exploding spell, you'd think it'd be no big deal.
 * It's more the way he used it (not even knowing what it did), but Sectusempra is a Dark curse that has to have a specific coutercurse to repair or stop the damage. For Diffindo, the nurse could heal the damage relatively quickly so long as they're not hit in anywhere too vital.
 * I find that a general problem in settings which make a distinction between "light" magic and "dark" magic is that the distinction often seems arbitrary, with nobody ever bothering to explain just what common characteristic is shared among the "dark" magics and why that characteristic is bad. I think that is the case in the Harry Potter setting, too. It was particularly noticeable when Lily and Snape where arguing about somebody's character and Lily saying that he used "Dark magic" as if that settled the issue beyong any doubt.
 * It's the Man, man! The Ministry tells you what to cast, what not to brew, and if Umbridge had had her way, they'd be telling you what socks to wear and making Cheering Charms illegal! The Man is telling us that certain spells are "Dark magic", even spells that have never been in clinical trials, with no more reason than that they're "bad", when Sectumsempra is no worse than Diffindo, and many "Dark" spells and illegal potions are either harmless or have perfectly reasonable non-recreational uses. Now if you'll excuse me, my buzz is wearing off, so I need to go treat my nearsightedness.
 * I imagine that injuries caused by Sectumsempra are more likely to be permenant. When Snape used it on George and cut his ear off, it couldn't be regrown. Had he used Diffindo, I imagine the damage could have been repaired. So there you go. Sectumsempra accomplishes nothing Diffindo couldn't, unless you're some kind of sicko who wants to permenantly harm someone. So what is Sectumsempra needed for?
 * Sectumsempra is considered dark and frightening because it's a rogue spell. Diffindo is a common spell that could be looked up in a book. Sectumsempra has mysterious origins and can cause serious, irreparable harm. Nobody knows exactly what it does or how to counteract it. Sectumsempra could even be comparable to the Cruciatus Curse in terms of lasting damage. If the spell had hit George in the back instead of the ear, he might have died. It isn't really needed; I think Snape created Sectumsempra as a weapon against the Marauders. Snape could seriously injure "enemies" and have them at his mercy, since he is the only one who knows the counter-curse. Snape could have just as easily used an existing spell, but opted to make one of his own to give himself the ultimate advantage.
 * Diffindo is a simple cutting spell that's not made for combat, it's akin to being cut with a knife while Sectumsempra is like being slashed with a sword, that and the wounds made by Sectumsempra can't be healed without the appropiate counterspell.
 * Maybe Sectumsempra only cuts flesh, which would pretty much eliminate any "good" uses for it. This is supported by the film, where the spell left Malfoy's shirt intact while slashing the skin underneath.
 * It makes sense to me that the real danger with Sectumsempra is, like said a bit before, because it's a rogue spell that wizards don't know how to combat (likely because they don't know the theory behind spell-making, much less behind Dark Arts spells which may potentially work in a different way). Obviously the proper countercurse is needed to heal the injuries, but it's not as if these things are just assigned somehow - Snape would have had to discover the countercurse in the same way he had to discover the spell itself. It's invention based on existing magical law, which means that people who knew how to craft new magic spells would probably be able to discover the appropriate counter-curse, too.
 * When it comes to the idea of combat uses making it a Dark spell, and Snape's use of the spell - obviously it is POSSIBLE to very seriously injure someone with this spell. We see Harry do this accidentally, and in the case of George's ear, it was also accidental (but Snape's intended target would have suffered a more debilitating injury), but the way we see him use the spell does end in very different results than what Harry did accidentally. There's a great potential for damage with the spell, but given that Snape was using this when he was a student, even, it's unlikely he ever intended to hurt someone THAT badly with it. Someone below said that maybe it only cut James' cheek because he missed a target at James' head, which is crazy to me. Snape was not trying to decapitate his classmates. It seems that he used the spell as he had originally intended, for small-to-moderate injury to 'enemies', namely those people that attacked him on a regular basis. When Harry uses it, he is panicked and doesn't know what the spell is, he wildly casts it with a huge emotional fueling to it, and Draco just collapses in a shower of blood because of that passion. The spell is probably considered Dark more because of the fact that it requires a certain amount of control to wield and because it is an unknown 'rogue' spell, not because it was intended to slice people's chests open or heads off. Something that can damage that greatly without the caster even knowing what the spell does is dangerous and rightfully considered 'Dark'.
 * In principle, by those same lines, Fred and George's stuff is Dark. Which, in fact, it does overlap with (they often trade in a number of items that many folks consider Dark).
 * But it still comes down to the intent of the caster, as seems to be the case with all Dark magic. Obviously in a combat situation, it's useful, and his intent to cut off the hand of the other Death Eater is nonlethal (thus not soul-damaging) but perfectly efficient use of magic in a violent situation to protect the Order. It's a war, it's just as moral as any other weapon. However, the common mentality about Dark magic is that it's unequivocally evil and that everyone who uses it is evil, which seems to be part of the problem with the labeling - Rowling shows how that mentality makes it easy for young people like Snape, who doesn't display the same sort of racism that fuels the Death Eater movement, to get sucked into it because he was ostracized for his interest in a topic which isn't innately evil, but which can be used for evil purposes (as most magic probably can). The Death Eaters play on that because it attracts loners that can suddenly feel part of a community that values them and their skills, which is common practice with radical terrorist organizations. I think the characters in the books do tend to confuse The Dark Side with 'Dark Magic' because of semantic reasons and the fact that Voldemort employs Dark Magic to do his genocide and world domination plots, which is actually pretty realistic. But the fact remains that the use of 'Dark Magic' does not a Death Eater make (Harry uses it a few times, including Unforgivable curses), and the definition of Dark Magic is ambiguous because people don't really understand it anyway and are misled because of it. Snape's interest in Dark Magic has always been one of the biggest reasons he's mistrusted, even though his use of Dark Magic has basically always been beneficial to the Order as a whole, excepting accidental situations.
 * Thank you so much! Yay! The concept of Dark Magic vs. Light Magic always seemed oddly vague - kind of like the warrior code from Warrior Cats. "Dark Magic" can be used for good as well as evil, it's how it's used that counts, not what you use. It does kinda bug me how Lily is able to brush off Snape by essentially saying "you used Dark Magic, so you're in the wrong; James and Sirius only use light magic, so they're not doing anything evil." Can't you use Light Magic for just as much evilness as Dark Magic? From Snape's commentary on the Dark Arts in book six, it seems that Dark Magic is more wild than evil: it can only be 'tamed,' while Light Magic is 'domesticated.'
 * We see Levicorpus being used in the fifth book by James during his fifth year, and most people seem to think that the curse Snape used on James at the time to make him bleed was Sectumsempra (which wouldn't make sense since James didn't seem too hurt by it, but just saying). But Snape writes about these spells in his sixth year book? Why? And for that matter, why in his Potions book? Why not in his DADA book? That was his best subject, after all.
 * I'm going to put on my Watsonian hat and guess that he started making notes in his potions book because that was the subject with the largest amount of easily-fixable flaws he took, and by the time he wrote down Sectumsempra, he was already using the book as a general notebook of sorts.
 * About Snape cursing James, I always thought Snape used an "early" version of Sectumsempra. Or, even more simply, Snape was so worked up that his spell missed and only grazed James's cheek instead of hitting him in the head.
 * As to the question of it being a sixth year book, there are a number of possible explanations. For instance, Snape could have ordered it ahead of time, being that Potions is his best subject (clearly to the point of genius), for personal reading. Or Slughorn might have assigned it in fifth year. It would make sense to use an advanced textbook to make sure students are not only adequately prepared for their OWLS, but ready to pwn them into the ground.
 * And about it not hurting James much, Snape could have mastered the use of Sectumsempra enough so that he could control how much damage it did. I always assumed that he'd meant to just cut him a little. As a bully victim I know that when I did fight back, I did so rather timidly, with great control, and usually failed, so this explanation made the most sense to me.
 * "There is no light or dark, merely righteous and evil intentions". I think Harry's big mistake was using a spell which, as far as he knew, could blow up the building. NEVER use a reality-altering weapon if you don't know what it does! Now imagine that scene if the spell had done something useless and Malfoy could keep fighting.

ZOMG HE'S BLACK!!!

 * Because Fan Dumb so fiercely debates a black actor being cast as Blaise Zabini (who was only described as having "dark skin" in the book), I've decided to Take a Third Option: Since he has an Italian surname, is it possible that Blaise is mixed race?
 * I'm thinking he is.
 * Well, Blaise's mother is said to have married 7 times already, with most of her husbands dying in mysterious circumstances. She could have been an Italian witch who got married to a rich Italian wizard, got pregnant with Blaise before the "mysterious" death of the first husband, and then moved to England with her second husband. Maybe Blaise's parents were either both mixed race or one of them could have been white-skinned and the other dark-skinned. Also, in England, a country where most people (I'm not 100% sure about this) are fair-skinned, someone like Blaise would be thought to be dark-skinned. Remember that some Kenyan people said that, had Barack Obama been born and lived in Kenya, he could have become the first white President of Kenya.
 * I don't know about the British edition, but the U.S. edition describes Zabini as "a tall black boy with high cheekbones and long, slanting eyes" on page 143, not just as having dark skin.

Voldemort's awesome social skills

 * About Voldemort's backstory, it's been established that he was highly charismatic and polite, being viewed as an upstanding young man by all of his teachers sans Dumbledore; why wasn't he adopted? I hardly think he could or would reject any offers, as anybody who would want to adopt must have the resources for a better lifestyle than the orphanage. Also, if his social skills were something he trained for, thus he didn't have them before Hogwarts, why didn't he get some rich foster parents later, at least to make his last summers, when he couldn't stay at the school, more comfortable? I don't see anything in Lord Voldemort's personality that leads to a frugal lifestyle if he could avoid it easily via manipulation or magic, especially at the cost of some Muggles.
 * It's likely because he's in a Muggle orphanage. Most people adopting wouldn't know about his good reputation at Hogwarts, and those that know he's got a good reputation at Hogwarts know he's in a Muggle orphanage and wouldn't want to adopt him because of the fact he's probably Muggleborn. Another problem is probably the fact that he's in a boarding school for about three-fourths of the year and wouldn't be able to get to know his adopted family well in the other fourth of the year.
 * Maybe the Wizarding laws forbade that? After all, he'd have to come out to his foster parents, and every extra Muggle aware of the wizarding world is the headache the Ministry would definitely want to avoid. And he couldn't bewitch them because, as an under-age wizard, he couldn't use magic outside Hogwarts.
 * There's also that Tom is attending Hogwarts during World War II. I don't think an orphanage in London would be seeing a lot of parents wanting to adopt at such a time.
 * Alternatively, he hated the orphanage, but he hated the prospect of adoption more. To Voldemort, Hogwarts was his home, and some rich Muggle with a do-gooder complex was no better than the spartan room that he lived in until summer passed. Besides, it's Truth in Television that older children have a harder time getting adopted, no matter how charming they are.
 * So why wasn't he adopted before age 11, then? He must have had at least the beginnings of his great charisma and social skills, otherwise the orphanage staff would have taken firmer action against him for being a bully (which some of them, at least, possibly knew and certainly suspected he was).
 * He had a bad reputation and, even if he was charismatic enough, potential parents would probably hear bad things about him from the staff and children. It's unlikely that he'd get a deeper look if he was quiet all the time too. Assuming he got interest before his 'weird' stage, occurred it's impossible to tell what turned them off from adopting him.

Dumbledore's Information Withholding Complex

 * Nobody seems to have asked this, so I will: WHY, in the name of flying fruitcake, does Dumbledore NOT TELL the Order that he's asked Snape to kill him? The seventh book would have been many orders of magnitude simpler had Dumbledore even once mentioned to McGonagall, "Just so you know, I'm dying, and I've asked Snape to kill me, so if/when he does, don't worry, he's still on our side." WHY?
 * Two possible reasons. One, he wants it to be believed that Snape really was on Voldemort's side and that he has betrayed the Order so Voldemort and his followers don't figure out he's still a spy and traitor. Two, he realizes that if anyone knows that he planned his death that isn't under heavy Occlumency shields, they're subject to breaking Snape's cover. Either way, it ultimately was the best plan of action as if he'd told them then, the Order might try and contact Snape, which would put his cover in jeopardy.
 * But there is a person Dumbledore could have trusted the knowledge of Snape's last mission with; Harry Potter. Because if Voldemort ever kills or mindrapes Harry then the situation is irretrievably fucked anyway.
 * It bothers me less that he didn't tell the Order his plan than that he apparently didn't leave any evidence of this situation anywhere. Yes, it was unlikely that Snape would survive the war, but he DID survive the first one as a spy, and with far less experience. On the off chance that he did live to the end, he would have end up imprisoned for life if not have his soul sucked out.
 * What, the pensieve memories that Harry found aren't good enough evidence for ya? What about the Dumbledore portrait?
 * Given the track record of the Wizarding World in using pensieves, truth serum, or any of the other ways to find the absolute truth and tell the innocent from the guilty (re: 0 for infinity), it's doubtful anyone would have thought of it.
 * If D told the Order he had to die, it would have been a ton easier for V to get the information which would have sent the whole plan sky-high. Yup, Snape's a hero all right: prepared to have his soul sucked out to save the world.

The best way to get something done is to be a panicking mother

 * Snape supposedly made those Unbreakable Vows to Narcissa in order to keep his cover as a Death Eater. Why not just say something like "I'm not going to muck about with the Dark Lord's plans. If the Dark Lord tells me to help Draco, then I'll do it"?
 * Because Narcissa wants him to protect Draco even if Voldemort plans Draco to die. Snape sincerely likes Narcissa, so he agrees to. It perfectly fits into Dumby's plan: Snape was not expected to kill Dumbledore, but he did it. So Snape became the most trusted Death Eater.
 * Also, perhaps he wanted to burn the bridges. He was reluctant to kill D, but that way he left himself no choice.
 * I'm pretty sure that Snape didn't make this vow until after his conversation with D where D asks Snape to kill him. Given that, why not make the Unbreakable Vow? It wins you points with Narcissa, helps convince Bellatrix that you really are on Team Dark, and doesn't oblidge you to do anything you weren't going to do anyway?
 * Points with Narcissa, huh? Once you go pale, you never get stale?

Hermione Granger and the Classes from Nowhere

 * Ron steals Hermione's OWL results and says she got "ten 'Outstandings' and one 'Exceeds Expectations'". But... doesn't Hermione only take ten classes after having dropped Divination and Muggle Studies in Prisoner of Azkaban? (She takes eight of the same classes Harry takes - all but Divination - as well as Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. You can count up Harry's nine OWLs on the page prior.) I know Rowling fails at math, but this is basic counting!
 * Perhaps she took an exam for a subject she didn't attend a class for. I know I took the AP test for human geography and got a 4 out of 5 despite the course not being available and not knowing any of the theories named after people.
 * This Troper concurs, having taken an AP English exam without taking the class. (I got a 5 out of 5, but then again, English is a subject that I tend to make seriously. Since I'm the guy who has a knack for going around TV Tropes and ruthlessly fixing grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, that's probably a good indication that I'm not kidding.)
 * JKR is no good at math. She's said it multiple times, so I would chalk this up as a mathematical error. She's made other egregious math mistakes before, like telling people Dumbledore was 150 years old, but having him die at the age of around 115 at the end of this book.
 * My guess is she was allowed to take the Muggle Studies exam based on doing it in third year.

And we're supposed to call Dumbledore a genius?

 * Remember how Hermione created a fake locket when they stole the real one from Umbridge? Pretty smart, huh? Remember how Regulus placed a fake locket into the bowl after he stole the real one from the cave? Ok, maybe not too smart, since Voldy would likely sense the difference, but still smart. Now remember how Dumbledore didn't even try to do anything like that? How planet-shatteringly stupid do you have to be to make a blunder like that?!!! No, it's official now: Voldemort and Dumbledore attended the same self-delusion sessions.
 * Remember how it's revealed that Dumbledore lost his head, as revealed in the final book, and put on the ring? He was highly distracted by the fact that he was dying to do anything of the sort. Once he found out his death was inevitable he took to wearing the ring around. I believe he decided to make it appear to Voldemort that Dumbledore found a Horcrux and assumed it was his only one and showed it off. If Voldemort ever found out about it after the fact, he might be vain enough to believe that Dumbledore would think that would be the only Horcrux.
 * Yep, that's exactly what I mean by self-delusion sessions. For V it's "nobody is gonna find me Horcruxes EVAH", and for D it's "V is vain enough to do the next criminally stupid thing needed for my insane plan to work". As for D's ostensible "distraction", I don't recall anything in the book that backs this idea. Sure, he "lost his head", when he put on the ring, but afterwards he seemed just as imperturbable and cool-headed as ever and completely unruffled by the prospect of his death. As for wearing the ring, give me a break. He didn't plan to face V, and who else was supposed to notice it and report to V? Obviously it was just a trophy or a reminder of his moment of obfuscation.
 * We know why Dumbledore wore the ring -- I don't have my book in front of me, but IIRC, he wore it BECAUSE he'd made such a stupid mistake, and he wanted to keep reminding himself that no matter how brilliant he knew he was, he could still make monstrous mistakes. As for why he didn't make a fake ring to leave in place of the real one... why, exactly, would he bother? IIRC, the ring was in the old Gaunt house when he found it, which probably hadn't seen the light of day in half a century. Voldemort was no more likely to check that old, run-down shack to see if his ring was safe than he was to check the cave for his locket -- because if he'd checked for the latter, I doubt he would have left the fake in place quite undisturbed. Furthermore, we already know Voldemort is incredibly arrogant -- he probably never intended to check on at least those two horcruxes, because he had total faith in his own abilities that his curses would be insurmountable. Besides that, I highly doubt he would have been able to make a passable fake of the Deathly Hallow stone, so I still don't see why he should have bothered. It clearly wasn't something that would be missed any time soon, so why should he have left a fake in its place?
 * 1. WE know with the benefit of hindsight, that V was a self-deluded idiot who never checked on the Horcuxes. Dumbledor couldn't possibly know that for sure and couldn't rely on that. 2. As I've said a thousand times before, "it might not work" or "it might not be necessary" are NOT valid excuses not to try, especially if it costs you so little. Because any precaution is better than none, and a fake Horcrux is less probable to rise V's alert than no Horcrux at all. Some whelp understood that, but not the all-sage Dumbledor? As for faking the Resurrection Stone, V didn't know or didn't care what it was when he Horcrux...sifed it, and THAT was something D legitimately knew.
 * I think you're giving Regulus too little credit. A fake Horcrux that would fool Voldemort? Yeah, just getting something that he could stand in the same room with without telling the difference would be quite a feat (actually my guess is he hoped for Voldy to never visit the cave until it was too late to act on the switching, since he was helping set up the traps, but whatever). And Regulus had the advantage of having probably been able to examine the Horcrux in advance of making his fake, and of knowing that there wasn't an alarm (or that if there was it wouldn't alert Voldy to a switch before the trap was set). If Rowling wanted Dumbledore to be able to conjure up a compelling fake on the spot I wouldn't have faulted her, but the fact that he couldn't doesn't bother me. As for Hermione, she was just fooling someone who bought the thing a few days ago because it seemed like an interesting knick knack. Not the same level of difficulty at all, and she probably got the idea from Regulus anyways.
 * Another thing that has bugged me since book one, but had really violent consequences in this book: Why don't they teach Latin as a language in Hogwarts? I know, Latin and languages in general are a profane "Muggle" topic, but since many spells' names and wordings are based on Latin, it's just stupid not to teach that language. If Harry had been taught Latin, he would never have used Sectumsempra against Draco.
 * Because you're only supposed to cast spells that you've been taught in class, and you don't need to know what the incantations mean - you just have to say them right. Apparently, they do study Latin if they want to make new spells. As for Sectumsempra, Harry wouldn't have used it if he wasn't a complete idiot, and as OotP demonstrates, an idiot will always find a way to get himself and those around him in troubles, no matter what you teach or do not teach him.
 * You may be right with all of that, but it's still stupid not to teach Latin when nearly all spell incantations are based on that language.
 * I've just had a crazy idea that, maybe, "Ancient Runes" is Latin, and Harry never took it, because he had better things to do, like train how to catch a golden mosquito.
 * Except Hermione's studies in Ancient Runes came in handy in book seven, when she deciphered the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Probably Latin is an elective class available third-year and onward, and because (according to PoA) Harry signed up for the elective classes Ron signed up for, he didn't take Latin. So he wouldn't know it.

Wormtail the Butt Monkey... wait, why?

 * Why is Pettigrew/Wormtail treated like a pathetic loser by the Death Eaters? After all, he brought Voldemort back to life and was his only loyal supporter when he was semi-alive. I get the impression that the author dislikes him and so gives him a subordinate position that makes no sense.
 * As V correctly puts it, Wormtail wasn't loyal - he simply had nowhere else to go. Second, apart from V, the only one who is shown actively interacting with him is Snape, who hates him with a passion for obvious reasons. Third, he's still weak, cowardly, and useless (when Snape mockingly offers to seek more dangerous tasks for him, Pete backs off).
 * While they were sitting in Azkaban for 12 years and professing loyalty to the Dark Lord, he was disguised as a rat and being petted by the Weasleys. Of course they'd look down on him.
 * Not to mention that, apart from cuckoos like Bella, few DE were exactly happy about the return of their beloved leader.
 * Two points worth considering -- one, Voldemort himself plainly considers Pettigrew to be a pathetic loser, and in a group like the Death Eaters, you'd better follow the boss's lead if you have any wish to maintain your health. Two, the Death Eaters are mostly composed of ruthless political oppurtunists (like Lucius), deranged fanatics (like Bellatrix), and bloodthirsty psychos (like Greyback) -- none of those groups are liable to have any respect for a sniveling Dirty Coward.

Epic dueling fail

 * When Harry confronted Draco in the bathroom, Draco attacks with Crucio. Harry counters with Sectumsempra, a spell he has never used and has no knowledge of. Why? Even while holding the Idiot Ball, no sane person would do such a thing. He doesn't know what it could do! It's as crazy as "This guy bullies me, so I'm going to steal a random chemical from Chemistry and sneak it in his milk!" It could make his brains fall out or something. It seems that logically, he would use Expeliarmus, his Signature Move. I suppose it's a case of Plot Induced Stupidity, but seriously?
 * "Sectumsempra: For your enemies." Harry has been ruminating on this for a while, and it seems a more likely thing to fall back on ("for your enemies") when a political bully who has hated him for six years starts using the illegal equivalent of a mega-Taser on him. Expelliarmus is for anyone who should be disarmed; right then, Draco deserved whatever Harry expected... It's just that Harry probably didn't expect cursed, unhealing wounds. If I didn't know any Latin, I would expect it to be like Rictusempra (the laughter jinx), but probably more painful, and somehow sssnakey. If I really must find a mundane analogue, it's really more like finding a cabinet of martial arts books and defensive weapons, then using something from the cabinet that looks kind of like a homemade pocket Taser without realizing that it's actually just an exotic delivery mechanism for box jellyfish toxin.
 * Tl;dr. He's a dunce. An utter and complete idiot who never learned that some stuff can be just too dangerous to use it, because for the previous five years, regardless of whatever 99.9% lethal pit he stuck his empty head into, it always worked out miraculously.

Problems with the "other Minister"
""But then," bleated the Prime Minister, "why hasn't a former Prime Minister warned me - ?" At this, Fudge had actually laughed. "My dear Prime Minister, are you ever going to tell anybody?" [...] The Prime Minister had stood there, quite motionless, and realized that he would never, as long as he lived, dare mention this encounter to a living soul, for who in the wide world would believe him?"
 * In the first chapter, we get confirmation that the Muggle government of the U.K is in fact (at least at the level of Prime Minister) aware of the magical world. Are they just okay with this? Have none of them decided that the idea of letting another government administer on U.K. soil is ludicrous? In all the nameless Prime Minister's time, he never made any effort to investigate at all? Even if the intelligence agency might call him crazy, it should be possible for anyone who got to the position of Prime Minister to think of some way to prove that a group of individuals managed to enter and leave his office totally undetected. For that matter, the Prime Minister doesn't feel any pressing need to confront Shacklebolt on his divided loyalties?
 * Didn't you get an impression that the UK Prime Minister was a huge coward who nearly wet himself every time his "guests" arrived? Not that it was entirely unfounded, of course.
 * Fudge says it himself - he could tell the rest of the government (or the general population) about it, but he'd just be seen as insane. (Need exact quote from Fudge, which I don't recall ATM.)
 * Something along the lines of the Daily Prophet article describing Fudge as saying that there's no real risk of the PM telling anyone, followed by the quote, "and besides, if he did, who'd believe him?"
 * There's the above one then:

What was Snape attempting to do?

 * So. Flitwick shows up to tell Snape there are Death Eaters in the school, and that Snape must come with him. At this point Snape presumably figures out what 'plan' Draco had been working on all year. So Snape...stuns Flitwick? Uh, why? What did that accomplish?
 * Uhm, it accomplished the plan's succesful completion, which Flitwick could've interfered with, as well as cemented Snape's image of a loyal DE, which he obviously had to uphold.
 * Then, on top of that, he basically gets caught doing that by Hermione and Luna, who have been specifically tasked to watch him. Luckily, they have been handed the most epic Idiot Ball in history, so they believe him.
 * For that matter, as long as he's stunning people for no reason, why doesn't he stun Hermione and Luna?
 * Because they can help repel the attack, and, unlike Flitwick, letting them go wouldn't look too suspicious.
 * A theory here might be that the Felix Felicis they took just saved their lives by making them complete morons who didn't challenge Snape. Doesn't help Snape's inane behavior, though.
 * OTOH, it's unlikely Snape would have killed them away. He might have stunned them, but it seems odd that the Felix Felicis would have cared. Surely them laying stunned in the dungeon is safer then participating in the battle upstairs.
 * On the third hand, Flitwick does eventually help save the day, and perhaps the Felix Felicis can see far enough into the future to know that, and his life was in danger, so it got Luna and Hermione to actually save his life, and no one realized. (He is very small and elderly, perhaps Snape's stun was a little too strong. Or perhaps he really did have some sort of attack and pass out.)

What was Draco attempting to do?

 * Draco's master plan was to sneak a handfull of DE's into Hogwarts and...then what? We've already seen in Oo P, that Dumbledore could curbstomp a dozen of them without breaking a sweat, and now they are coming to his castle, where there will be at least three more powerfull wizards (McGonagall, Flitwick and Slughorn), not to mention the Aurors and the Order who could arrive later, and where the very walls might literally be frineds and helping hands to the defenders (it's an enchanted castle after all). I guess they relied on Snape as their "fifth column" and to an extent it worked as he stunned Flitwick, but still, were they really hoping to overpower DD on his home turf? I doubt Draco or even Snape could predict that DD woud be in such a debilitated state. It would make sense if the DEs attempted to take the students hostage, but they didn't.
 * I always presumed he'd been monitoring security at Hogwarts and found it was either just the teachers, or occasionally the Order. He wants to get DD on his own so he brings in a load of DEs to cut off any back-up and/or prevent him and DD from being interrupted. Also Draco doesn't know that DD knows that Draco's the one trying to kill him so he assumes he has the element of surprise and DD wouldn't expect a 16-year-old to try and kill him. Or the fight lures DD out and while he's distracted by DEs Draco jumps him.

Good luck finding the Horcruxes, Professor

 * OK, I can think of a lot of reasons why Felix Felicis isn't used in everyday life. It might be very, very expensive, might take quite a while, might be very difficult, needing a very good potionmaster to prepare it etc. I get all this. But Dumbledore is searching for the horcruxes. AS in, he's doing the most important thing that can be done against fighting the Dark Lord, something he should put all effort he can in. So, why not use the Felix Felicis? Expensive? He's the freaking headmaster, he can afford it. Time? He's been searching for horcruxes for YEARS, he had time. Difficulty? He's got THE (or one of the) Best Potionmasters in his school, who's able to brew several of the most difficut potions (Wolfsbane potion, for example). So, why in pluperfect hell would he not make snape prepare it for him, so he could find and get his hands on the horcruxes? The thing is, Felix Felicis is a Deus-ex-machinaesque Gamebreaker which Rowling shouldn't have used - it creates too much Fridge Logic.
 * What's to say he didn't use it to find the Ring and the Locket? As for the Cup and the Diadem, well, FF doesn't actually warp reality (I think) - it only guides the drinker in the direction where he'd be able to capitalize on the events that happen anyway (like Aragog dying). In other words, everything you've done under the potion, you should, in theory, be able to do without it. Thus if there was no conceivable way for DD to learn about those two Horcruxes, then FF couldn't help. As for why he didn't do it earlier, perhaps the magic of FF stretches back in time, proactively urging you to drink the stuff when the vantage opportunity is about to present itself.
 * They went on a mission to retrieve a horcrux. He was damn sure there would be a lot of danger and a lot of things to go wrong, so why not drink some FF and give some to harry?
 * How do you know he didn't drink it? After all, his insane plan worked, didn't it? As for Harry, well that stuff was some mighty strong mojo, maybe you can only drink it once a year or something, or else you become addicted. Alternatively, it was in line with DD's Modus Operandi "Make Harry rely on me as little as possible, so when I'm gone, he doesn't become lost and has at least a measly chance of succeeding by himself".
 * His performance during that night didn't seem quite lucky to me. He got pretty much fucked up.
 * Why? Ultimately everything he had in mind worked out: he died as planned, Severus escaped, Harry survived, and they got the Horcrux and didn't get killed in the process. It wasn't FF's fault the locket was fake.
 * He relived his worst memories, lost blood and had his Castle invaded by Death Eaters. He lost against Malfoy and he lost the ownership of the Elder Wand. He wanted and needed Snape to kill him, but not a horde of DEs in Hogwarts. And he wanted the wand to remain ownerless, not to go to an unstable scared Teenager.
 * Well, the Potion's effect is temporary. Perhaps it weared off by the time they returned to the Castle. And worst memories and blood thing were pretty much unavoidable even with the best of luck.
 * Slughorn explains why Felix Felicis is not a practical tool when he’s introducing the potion in class. Other than taking half a year to brew a tiny vial that's deadly poisonous if not made correctly, he says it’s horribly toxic in anything but minuscule, very-spaced-out doses (remember, Harry only takes a small sip from the already small vial and he has enough left to share between 5 people) and that repeated doses eventually leave you with the suicidal overconfidence bit even after the luck boost vanishes, which basically amounts to permanent mental damage. According to himself, even being a potions master capable of brewing it at will, he’s only dared take about two spoonfulls his whole life.
 * Also, take a step back and look at what you're saying. You're saying he should have used the potion when searching for all seven Horcruxes (not that he knew how many there were until near the end), and when going to retrieve each Horcrux, and... basically if he followed your logic he'd be chugging luck potions all the damn time. Which he can't do. There's LOTS of important things which he had to succeed at in order to have a prayer of beating Voldemort, and if he can't do each of those things without the help of a potion which is pretty much safe to use for a couple hours a year, he's not gonna win. The luck potion is officially Too Awesome to Use.
 * Felix Felicis is like the magical version of morphine. Mighty lovely, yes, but any benefits go out the window if you become dependent on the stuff.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow
In the movie after Ron breaks up with Lavender there is a scene in the dining hall in which Ron is very mopey, and Hermione tells him to stop and that he's making it snow. I don't have the book handy so I can't confirm whether this is present there, too, but I can't recall anything like this happening before or after this particular incident. Is there actual evidence and precedence for this, or is it just a huge Big Lipped Alligator Moment?
 * Well, there's a definite precedent for wizards accidentally causing magic with their emotions, such as Harry blowing up Aunt Marge. I always assumed Ron making it snow was supposed to be the same kind of thing.
 * That's true, but you'd think that if a wizard could control the weather, or at least the ceiling-simulated weather, with their emotions then it would always be pretty crazy. But it seemed like that instance was the only time it occurred. Harry's pretty angsty, he should have changed the weather at least once or twice.
 * Well, making it snow in a two-foot-by-two-foot space isn't exactly the same thing as changing the weather.

I will be very sad, but God forbid I do something about it!

 * When, in the flashback, Riddle comes to DD to apply for the DADA position, the latter says that "if half the things I've heard about you were true, I'd be very sad." So, DD is aware that Riddle is likely involved in some gruesome stuff, and it's hardly loitering or puppy-kicking. Hell, Riddle's very appearence strongly implies participation in Dark Arts. Well, in that case...why didn't he detain Riddle for investigation?
 * DD has rumors of bad stuff, not evidence. And in any case, he's a school headmaster, not a cop. He wouldn't even have authority to "detain" Riddle and if he tried it would have come to a fight.
 * 1) Which is why I used the word "detain", not "arrest". 2) An inconvinient fact is that DD is also the Head of the Wizengamot. He's the freaking Supreme Judge! I'm not that well-versed in the legal department and don't know if they officially have authority to seize suspects, but come on! Do you honestly think anybody would object? Hell, even if DD hadn't been appointed by that moment, he's first and foremost the goddamn Dumbledor! The one thrice offered the post of the Minister of Magic. He is the authority. 3) Yes, Riddle would've most likely resisted, so what? DD was much stronger than he'd ever been. If he was concerned about starting a fight inside the school, he could've let him leave and then engage him on the grounds.
 * Indeed. Dumbledore only escapes looking like a total arsehole here if he doesn't actually have any evidence that Tom is murdering people, only suspicions. (Which is, to be fair, entirely possible at this point in time). If he does have such evidence and refuses to try so much as even a citizen's arrest, he's just fluffing it here. While we don't expect J. Random Civilian to attempt doing the police's job because its neither safe nor sensible, Dumbledore is not J. Random Civilian. He is the single toughest magical combatant walking around on his home planet, the #1 defeater of Dark Lords, and he's an officer of the court (as he is not only on, but senior guy presiding over, the Wizarding High Court, aka the Wizengamot).

Quidditch Tryouts

 * Harry had tryouts for Quidditch. Fair enough, most of the last Team had finished the School. but Why the hell did he have to hold tryouts for the players he already had? He had Ron as goalkeeper. Why should Mc Laggen be tried out as goalkeeper, when he already had one? In Book V it's stated that trhere are tryouts for goalkeeper, as Wood left, and the rest of the team should just be there to see how the new one fits in. So, why?
 * So that nobody could accuse Harry of being nepotistic and keeping an inferior player just because they are friends.
 * Because there might be someone out there who is better than Ron. When he told Katie that he wouldn't be holding tryouts for her position and just keep her, she reprimanded him for this reason.
 * But there were no tryouts to replace Harry or Someone else till then. They had Tryouts only for a goalkeeper in the V book, not for the players they already had.
 * Harry has a different coaching style.