Dumbledore's Man Through and Through

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the theme of loyalty is an important one, and, sadly, it is omitted in the film, for Rufus Scrimgeour does not appear in it, nor do many scenes between Harry and Dumbledore, nor does much of his questioning of Snape's loyalty, nor his disagreement with Ron and Hermione about where Draco Malfoy's loyalties now lie (with respect to the latter the film pretty much tells us flat out what he is doing; a dramatic necessity, perhaps, given restrictions of length, but again, omitting much of Rowling's genius in plotting and in leaving subtle clues and hints for the reader to enjoy and savour).

It is my intention in this post, then, to explore what I believe to be one of the chief themes of The Half-Blood Prince; namely, the theme of loyalty. If anything, of course, Harry's loyalty to Dumbledore is sorely tried more in The Deathly Hallows than in The Half-Blood Prince, but, if loyalty be a virtue, it is one which Harry had to learn as a habit in The Half-Blood Prince (not that he hadn't already demonstrated loyalty to Dumbledore; see The Chamber of Secrets) in order to remain loyal to the Headmaster and carry on the struggle under the most trying and difficult of circumstances in the last volume of the series.

The edition from which I will be quoting is the Raincoast/Bloomsbury edition of 2005. For those of you who wish to read the passages I quote for yourselves but have a different edition of the book, I will include the chapter from which the quotation was taken, using the abbreviation HBP (indicating Half-Blood Prince), followed by the number of the chapter; thus, for example, the first quotation is from the first chapter, and so is noted as 'HBP1'. This form of noting the chapter I am taking from the Harry Potter Lexicon, which is an excellent reference and resource. Needless to say, I will freely discuss what happens in the book, so if you haven't read it, proceed no further.