Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

We join Harry Potter as he enters his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This volume is written from the point-of-view of the now 16-year-old Harry, as he takes advanced courses to prepare for the NEWT-level exams required for his chosen career. A darker book than the preceding volumes, it reveals more about Lord Voldemort's history and his impact on the Muggle world. Voldemort has emerged into the open, and his presence is beginning to have an effect on the day-to-day life of the Wizarding world.

While the series progressively covers seven years in Harry Potter's life, each of the first five volumes is largely self-contained. This book is written more as the first half of a two-part novel, and, as such, the ending feels rather incomplete.

Note: While this book is one of the longer ones in the series, at 607 pages (Bloomsbury / Raincoast edition), it is also set in significantly larger type. If it were the same size type as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, it would be 414 pages (approximately) to 223 for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Book Highlights

New places visited: Muggle Prime Minister's office (Number 10, Downing Street), Spinner's End, Marvolo Gaunt's residence, an orphanage in London, the cave where young Tom Riddle tortured two children from his orphanage (Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson), Fred and George Weasley's joke shop: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Hepzibah Smith's house.
Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher: Severus Snape
New teacher: Horace Slughorn
Title refers to: previous owner of Harry's borrowed Advanced Potion Making book.