What is the story of Harry Potter and the half blood prince?

Answer 1

Harry, Ron and Hermione enroll at Hogwarts for their 6th year, and romance is in the air. Can Harry find out who the mysterious 'Half Blood Prince' is? Can Hermione finally admit to Ron she loves him? Can Dumbledore find one of the remaining Horcruxes with Harry's help? Will Draco Malfoy join the Dark side? Dark forces are moving in, and Hogwarts is more unsafe than ever, with the threat of the Ministry of Magic being taken over, no one is safe - not even Dumbledore. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is available on DVD and Blu Ray now!

Answer 2

Near the end of the summer holidays, Dumbledore comes to collect Harry from his aunt and uncle's house. He takes Harry to a house in a muggle suburb where Harry meets his soon-to-be potions master, Horace Slughorn. For his own reasons, Dumbledore is adament that Slughorn must return to Hogwarts to teach. Knowing that Dumbledore would come to ask this, and being unwilling to take the offered position, Slughorn attempts to show signs of a struggle in the house before transforming himself into an armchair. His identity was given away by the use of dragon blood - not human blood - as a sign that blood was drawn in battle. He was also given away by the wreck that the room was with an upright, unharmed chair standing in the middle - this turned out to be a transformed Slughorn. Eventually Slughorn is persuaded to return to Hogwarts, insisting a pay rise and the office of a professor who we assume was a teacher at Hogwarts during Slughorn's career as a professor there. Upon their departure, Dumbledore explains to Harry that he believes the reason for Slughorn's hesitant agreement to return was based largely on his love of special students - he had other favourite students such as Lily Evans (Harry's mother), Tom Riddle and Regulus Black (Sirius' brother), all of whom were very able students. He saw this in Harry - and of course the boy's fame - which persuaded him to return.

During all of this, Dumbledore has a blackened and shrivelled hand though refuses to explain its meaning to Harry. He then takes Harry to the Burrow, the home of his best friend and favourite family, Ron and the Weasleys. Harry stays here during the remainder of the holidays, where the house is greeted by the Death Eaters who fail to obtain Harry.

The trio return to Hogwarts where they return to classes as normal. Snape has been granted his long-sought-after job as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, whilst his post as Potions Master has been taken over by Slughorn. Though Harry would not be excepted in the NEWT class (NEWTs are the next exams) with his Exceeds Expectations grade had Snape been Potions Master, Slughorn is happy to accept both Harry and Ron with their respective grades. As Harry does not yet have his potions book (he was not expecting a spot in the class) he borrows an old book for the start of the year. In this book, the words "This book is the property of the Half Blood Prince" are written, and instructions have been changed and added. In making his potion - a rather tricky Living Death concoction - Harry follows these alternate instructions and comes out top of the class. Thus, he decides to follow these instructions in every lesson.

Meanwhile, Hermione tries to find this Half Blood Prince in the library, to no avail. It would seem that this Half Blood Prince is not a known soul amongst the wizards of the world.

Later on in the year, the trio are returning from Hogsmeade a few metres behind Katie Bell and her friend, Leanne. Katie and Leanne are arguing over a package that Katie seems to have accepted from a stranger in the women's bathroom in the Hogs Head. Whilst Katie is adament that she must deliver it to Dumbledore, or else open it herself, Leanne does not trust the package and urges Katie to leave it untouched and deliver it directly, or not deliver it at all. Katie, disagreeing, opens the package and promptly lets out a high pitched scream, before being hoisted into the air. Cursed, Katie's body is tossed around. Finally slumping to the ground, Katie remains still, twitching a little. The trio run up to help, before being yelled at by Hagrid who is on his way back to the castle, to leave the package alone and to not touch it. Whilst Hagrid carries Katie back to the castle, the trio take the cursed necklace (that is what was within the package) up to the castle wrapped in its paper packaging to ensure they do not come in contact with it. Snape later diagnoses it as a cursed necklace, and upon questioning, Leanne confessed that Katie was supposed to deliver it to Dumbledore. Snape concludes that direct flesh or skin contact with the necklace would kill.

Harry continues to get perfect grades in Potions. He is also Quidditch Captain and appoints Ron as keeper - largely due to Cormac McLaggen's last-minute failure due to a well-aimed Confundus Charm by Hermione - a girl he happens to have a crush on, and who is hated by Ron. Ron is a terrible keeper, but it turns out he is quite good with confidence. Where he would miss every save with the Slytherins chanting mean things about him and his family, he would save everything with a little confidence - which he gained for the first match when Harry pretended to put Felix Felicis in his morning pumpkin juice. Harry gained this potion by making the best Draught of Living Death in his potions class. Ron helped in Gryffindor's quidditch win, and is later kissed by Lavender Brown who becomes his girlfriend. Heart broken, Hermione decides to take Cormac McLaggen - a guy she and Ron both hate - to Slughorn's Christmas Party for the club of achievers he set up (of which both Hermione and Harry - and Ginny - are a part of), to spite Ron.

Upon telling Harry this, she also points out to him that Romilda Vane is plotting how to sneak love potion into Harry's system to make him love her. She puts them in chocolates, which are left on his bed. He leaves them for the time being, and comes back later to find Ron has consumed a large number of them. Ron now loves Romilda Vane, and Harry takes Ron to Slughorn for a love potion cure.

At this point, Slughorn is angry at Harry. Dumbledore met with Harry earlier in the month to converse with Harry about plans for the future of Voldemort. He shows Harry a memory, though it is tarnished. It is Slughorn's memory, one he is ashamed of and has thus tampered with. Dumbledore's plans become clear - he has brought about the return of Slughorn to obtain the real memory. In this memory, we see Tom Riddle asking Slughorn about a bit of Dark Magic, its name muffled and indistinguishable due to Slughorn's tampering. However, we know that Slughorn tells Tom Riddle about this Dark Magic. It is Harry's job to get such information, and upon using Tom Riddle's methods to extract it from Slughorn, gets Slughorn offside.

Nevertheless, Slughorn allows the two into his office where he concocts a cure for Ron's case of fake love for Romilda Vane. They celebrate with sherry, which is drunk first by Ron who promptly chokes and starts to die. Harry shoves a bezoar down his throat and he is saved. In the hospital wing later, Slughorn confesses that the sherry was meant for Dumbledore, but he decided to have it with Harry and Ron instead. So, another attempt on Dumbledore's life.

I almost forgot! In the summer holidays, Narcissa Malfoy (Draco's mother) goes pleading to Snape's home. She asks him to protect him, and the two perform the Unbreakable Vow. Snape has now agreed to protect Malfoy, and failure to do so will result in his death.

Harry later follows Snape and Malfoy - from Slughorn's party, gatecrashed by Malfoy - where he hears Malfoy talking about how he has to kill Dumbledore or Voldemort will kill him. So, now Malfoy is making an attempt on Dumbledore's life - it turns out he was also behind the necklace resulting in Katie Bell's hospitalisation and the sherry which resulted in Ron's near-death.

One night, Harry gets a note from Hagrid saying that Aragog has died. Harry agrees to go down for the funeral. He has also enlisted Ron and Hermione's help in extracting the memory from Slughorn, and the three have been monitoring his daily movements. Knowing that Slughorn roams the grounds around the time that Harry would be going to Hagrid's, Harry decides to take a little Felix Felicis in an attempt to get the memory from Slughorn.

On his way down, Harry does come across Slughorn who agrees to come to Hagrid's mainly because the venom of the spider is extremely beneficial, and students are not allowed in the grounds alone at night. After the funeral, the three sit in Hagrids hut talking, and the two professors get drunk. Hagrid falls asleep, and Slughorn tells Harry a lovely story about Lily Evans, Harry's father. Harry then gives a moving speech to Slughorn who reluctantly gives over the memory with the plead that Harry will not think badly of him.

Harry takes the memory to Dumbledore and the two watch it together. It turns out that Tom Riddle was enquiring about Horcruxes. This confirms Dumbledore's suspicions. He also confides in Harry that the curse in his hand came about him wearing Marvolo Gaunt's ring. The ring was a Horcrux, and Dumbledore did end up destroying it. The diary that Harry destroyed in his second year was also a Horcrux.

Dumbledore thinks he knows where the third Horcrux is, and tells Harry he can come if he promises to do everything he is told. Harry agrees and goes by Side Along Apparition to a Sea Cave with Dumbledore. The two go in, where entry is only permitted by self sacrifice, namely, Dumbledore must give blood. They then proceed to a lake where they pull a boat out of the water and climb in to cross. They get to a large bowl set upon the rock, filled with potion below which is a locket. The entire potion must be drunk to get to the locket. Dumbledore drinks it, and screams. Harry forces it down his throat, guiltily. The potion is then finished, and Dumbledore seems to calm down. He requests water, but as Voldemort's primary aim is to weaken the drinker - thus making the locket less vulnerable - the charm Aguamenti does not work. Desperate, Harry goes to the water's edge to fill the cup, where he is dragged into the water by Inferi - dead bodies. Dumbledore regains the strenth to save Harry, though he is still desperately weak. He has enough strength to apparate them into Hogsmeade, where the bartender, Madame Malkin, fetches a broom for Harry to fly the two of them up to the castle. They land on the tower.

Meanwhile, Draco has been repairing the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement. He can now transport Death Eaters from the Vanishing Cabinet in Borgin and Burkes to its sister cabinet in the Room of Requirement - in Hogwarts. Death Eaters now have a passage into the school. On this night, they enter the school, for it is Draco's night to kill the Headmaster and they are here to witness.

As this is happening, Dumbledore weakly instructs Harry to fetch Snape despite Harry's protests that he should go to the hospital wing. Beaten, Harry begins to go when they hear footsteps coming up the tower. Dumbledore tells Harry to hide, and he does so just before Draco and his fellow Death Eaters arrive upon the scene. Draco has his wand pointed at Dumbledore, and he disarms him. The wand is pointed for several more minutes, its owner unable to kill Dumbledore despite the encouragement from the Death Eaters.

Snape arrives. Dumbledore pleads him, "Severus, please". Snape says the dreaded curse, and Dumbledore is dead.

Harry is in shock, and he returns to the school corridors amidst battle between Death Eaters and students/staff/Order members. The truth gets out eventually, and Ron's brother Bill has been bitten by a werewolf. Whilst he will not become a werewolf, he will exhibit signs for the rest of his life, not to mention the scar on his face.

The trio attend Dumbledore's funeral. It also turns out that the locket was a fake, and the real one was stolen years ago with the intent for its destruction, by a mysterious R A B. The trio make plans to search down the rest of the Horcruxes and skip their final year at Hogwarts to do so.

Sorry it is very brief and dodgy, if you have made it this far :/ the book describes it all, of course.