[Acrylic-bob]

Isn't it funny, I have only seen the first Harry Potter film and that in a poor quality pirate version, but I now find it impossible to visualise the main characters as anything other than their screen personifications. Alan Rickman is Snape, he couldn't look any different. And they say that film and television do not influence behaviour - pah!

I found the book a lot darker and more adult oriented than anything that had preceded it. Clearly Rowling's experiments with murder mystery writing are leaking into the Potter series. The bit in the underground cave where Potter is forcing Dumbledore to drink the green potion was very close to painful.

I have to say though that there does not appear to be as much action as the previous books and, for me, the story did not really get going until the last third of the book. But that is a minor quibble.

Why did Dumbledore have to die? Clearly Potter needs to go through some sort of cathartic period of initiation, a "dark night of the soul" to enable him to come to a full realisation of the powers he posesses which will enable him to defeat Voldemort. This is clearly laid out in his sense of abandonment following Dumbledore's death and his determination to cut himself off from everything and everyone and in his declaration that he will not be returning to Hogwarts for his final year. Clearly Dumbledore realises this and arranged his own "apparent" death with Snape to facilitate whatever realisation Potter has to come to - remember the reported argument between Snape and Dumbledore? Potter has to believe that no one is coming to help him.

If the book of Advanced Potions was Snape's and he really was the Half-Blood Prince, can you really imagine him leaving such a thing lying around for years where anyone could pick it up? I think it was planted with the intention of it coming into Potter's posession.

Remember the battle between Snape and Potter as Snape tries to escape with the death-eaters. Why, if Snape really hates Potter as much as he pretends to do, did he not take the opportunity of, if not killing him, then at least seriously damaging him? If you look at the exchanges between the two he was still teaching Potter right up to his disappearance.