This was the immediate question I asked when I read the recently released title to the sixth installment to the Harry Potter series. Many ideas came to mind, but one happened to be the most intriguing to me. J.K. Rowling has said on her site that neither Harry or Voldemort are the half blood prince, and that the sixth book is very much related to the Chamber of Secrets. So who could it be? I thought of all the characters you either meet, or learn more about in Book 2.

The first two things that come to mind are of course, Harry's best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermionie Granger. However, the two of them are immediately discarded, seeing as though Ron is a pure blood, (He says he only has a couple of distant muggle relatives, but his family doesn't talk about them) and Hermionie is a complete muggleborn, (Her parents are dentists) those two possibilities are as I said, completely dead.

The next thing you think about: Ginny Weasley. She opens the chamber being possessed by Voldemort, and then gets taken into it to die. She however, gets discarded just as quickly as Ron, because of course, she is his little sister and thereby a pureblood.

One thing that is never confirmed in the books, but is assumed, is that Mrs. Weasley is a pure blood. If not, how could her children be pure bloods? It would be rubbish if she were a muggleborn. But that would lead to some interesting possibilities…

Gilderoy Lockheart is maybe not the first one we think about, but definitely someone to consider. Only seen in CoS and a tiny bit in OotP, I think he is the most likely candidate. It never is said whether or not he is a pureblood, and he probably would have showed up on Sirius's family history. (Or maybe not, he was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, and claimed to fight the dark forces all the time, with style mind you!) So he might not have been mentioned on the family tree inside the Order's headquarters. Sirius does tell that his dear old mum liked to burn off people she didn't approve of off the tree, so that might have been a reason why he might not have appeared. However, it might have not been just an accident that he was walked in on by Harry and co. in the fifth book. Sure he's senile at the moment, but wouldn't it be funny and ironic if he came in handy after all?

Dumbledore could be another possibility, but I really don't think that's going to happen, because again it's assumed that he is a pureblood. But I do think he might die, perhaps to save Harry?

My last suggestion would be Severus Snape, the Potions Master. Although he is the head of Slytherin house and very pointedly favors them above all others, he might have been a half-blood. Presumably not, because in the fifth book he calls Harry's mother a "Mudblood" and he is of course in Slytherin house. But one wonders why he joined the dark forces with Voldemort. One of the most common answers would be that because he was obsessed with the dark arts even in his school days, he of course would have been a big supporter of it. Another reason would have been that he knew that Voldemort was a half blood, and if he had been a half blood, he would have been attracted to someone from Slytherin that was like himself. Ambitious, yet not a pure blood, and fellow Slytherin. I also think that he would be an excellent candidate for the aforementioned Half Blood Prince.

7/11/04