As everyone is preparing for the new year,
and Harry visit
, home to the Weasley family, stopping in along the way to visit
, a retired
professor who agrees to return to teach the
class once again.
, who had been taking that class, is to become the new Defence Against
teacher. Because Harry had not expected to be allowed in the class (having failed to get the highest possible mark in the previous year's O.W.L. exams), he did not have a text, so had to borrow one. It contained many annotations, both modifications of the listed spells (such as the note that placing a
in a poison victim's mouth allowed him to save Ron when he accidentally drank poisoned
intended for Dumbledore), and spells of his own creation (such as
, with which Harry inflicted much more harm on
than he had intended) from a previous owner, identified as 'The Half-Blood Prince'. Harry first found these
, as they made it hard to read the text. However, once he tried to follow some of the tips, he discovered that they were very
, and his potions became outstanding. This led to his receiving a vial of
, a luck potion, which was to come in useful when he used it to obtain Slughorn's memories and learn more about Voldemort's six
. These are objects in which he had placed a part of his soul, so that it would survive his body's physical death, and gain him immortality.
The first,
, had been destroyed by Harry when he stabbed it with a Basilisk fang in order to rescue
in 'Chamber of Secrets'.
, which contained the
, had also been destroyed by Dumbledore just before the start of this book. Harry and Dumbledore set out to locate
, but the one they find turns out to be a fake.
In 'The Deathly Hallows', the remaining pieces of Voldemort's soul are located and destroyed.
