Sixth year is officially underway in Chapter 9 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “The Half-Blood Prince,” and guest Audrey joins Andrew, Eric, Micah, and Laura to break down Harry’s first lessons and that mysterious Potions book.

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Listen to the episode above, and check out some of our key takeaways from the chapter and our episode discussion below.

McGonagall Is Doing Way Too Much

Sixth year kicks off with McGonagall sitting down with every student to sort out their N.E.W.T. classes based on their O.W.L. results. It’s a lot of work for one professor, and Audrey thinks Hogwarts is missing something. “Hogwarts could really benefit from a career counselor or like a guidance counselor,” she said. These students are choosing classes that will shape their whole careers, and McGonagall seems to be the only adult helping them figure it out.

She’s good at it, though. McGonagall remembers that Harry wants to be an Auror and points him toward N.E.W.T. Potions now that Slughorn is teaching. She’s also honest with Neville. She doesn’t think Transfiguration is right for him, but she encourages him to keep going with Charms. Laura loved that approach, saying McGonagall is “totally comfortable being like, ‘Yeah, this isn’t really it for you.’” A good teacher can see what a student is actually good at, instead of pushing them down the teacher’s own path.

McGonagall’s Shade Toward Neville’s Gran

The best moment of the scene might be McGonagall’s dry dig at Augusta Longbottom. When Neville says his grandmother thinks Charms is a soft option, McGonagall offers to drop Augusta a line reminding her that she failed her own Charms O.W.L. Audrey called McGonagall “the sleeper sass” of the series, and it’s hard to argue.

The hosts took the moment further and talked about how people look down on certain subjects. Laura compared it to the way people sometimes dismiss the social sciences, even though they take real skill. Audrey pointed out that Charms can be as useful as anything when you get creative with it, bringing up the troll in Sorcerer’s Stone. “I wouldn’t, personally, have thought to levitate the club and hit the troll in the head with it, but it worked,” she said.

Snape’s First Defense Against the Dark Arts Class

Snape finally has the job he’s wanted for years, and his first lesson goes about how you’d expect. He makes Hermione wait before calling on her, then brushes off her correct answer about nonverbal spells. When the class practices, Snape goes after Harry himself, and Harry blocks him with a shouted “Protego!” Then Harry tops it off with the line fans still love: “There’s no need to call me sir, Professor.” That earns him a detention.

Audrey said a responsible teacher would handle a demonstration very differently, using “a polite jinx, something funny,” and not on Harry. Eric floated a theory that Snape is putting on a show for Draco. Snape has made the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa, and Draco is sitting in the room, sniggering at all the right moments. Is Snape making Harry miserable to keep up the act? Laura’s answer: “Why not both?”

Andrew thinks Snape could be a great teacher if he wanted to be. “He knows his stuff,” he said, but he just doesn’t try. Audrey joked that Snape picked the wrong career and should have published his tips and tricks instead. Laura put it in one sentence: “Snape is definitely a subject matter expert, not a teacher.”

Is Slughorn Actually a Good Teacher?

Potions with Slughorn feels like a completely different school. He shows the class a few potions, lets Hermione answer to her heart’s content, and then sets a challenge: brew the Draught of Living Death, and the best attempt wins a tiny bottle of Felix Felicis.

The hosts weren’t ready to call him a great teacher after one class. Audrey thought Slughorn might be testing what the students already know on day one, which would make sense for an advanced class. Laura was fine with that part. Her issue was “the favoritism that is the big problem in his classroom.” Slughorn collects students he thinks will be useful, and it’s a little ironic that Harry, who struggled in Potions for five years, is about to become his favorite.

There’s also a fun callback here. Back in Harry’s very first Potions lesson, Snape quizzed him about asphodel and wormwood, the ingredients that make the Draught of Living Death. Now, five years later, Harry is brewing that same potion.

Did Harry Cheat to Win the Felix Felicis?

Harry gets his hands on an old copy of Advanced Potion-Making scribbled all over with notes from someone calling himself the Half-Blood Prince. He follows the notes instead of the printed instructions, and his potion wins. Hermione is not amused. Ron thinks Harry still did the brewing.

Micah sided with Ron. “Harry still had to do all the work. He’s just following different directions,” he said. Laura liked that Harry is willing to try something different when the book’s method doesn’t seem to work. “Harry is not afraid to color outside the lines,” she said. Her bigger problem was that Harry isn’t upfront with Slughorn about where his method came from.

Eric pointed out the frustrating part for Hermione. She follows the instructions perfectly and still loses, because Harry has borrowed the expertise of someone who really understands the subject. Audrey related to Hermione completely as a fellow rule follower, the kind of student who actually reads all the instructions before starting the worksheet.

Ginny’s Warning About the Prince’s Book

Ginny overhears Harry talking about his new book and calls him out. He’s trusting writing in a book when he has no idea who wrote it. Harry knows exactly what she’s getting at, and Hermione even tests the book for hidden magic, but nothing turns up.

Andrew said it’s still worth asking, especially after Order of the Phoenix, when Harry got played by a false vision. Laura called it “a great connecting the threads moment,” because Harry is about to rely heavily on a book of instructions from a stranger, just like Ginny did with Tom Riddle’s diary in Chamber of Secrets. That’s exactly why she’s the one raising the alarm.

Katie Bell and Slughorn’s Two Perfect Days

The chapter has a couple of smaller moments the hosts loved. Harry is now Quidditch captain, and Katie Bell, the last member of his original team, insists on trying out like everyone else instead of keeping her spot automatically. Eric thought it was sweet, and Andrew called it admirable.

Then there’s Slughorn’s story about Felix Felicis. He’s taken it twice in his life, once at 24 and once at 57, and calls them “two perfect days.” What was he up to? Andrew guessed that at 24, Slughorn wanted some luck on a date, and at 57, he was probably stuck on a really tough crossword puzzle. Laura wanted to know Slughorn’s exact age so they could figure out what was happening in the wizarding world at the time, but the books never say. It’s one more mystery from a chapter full of them, with the biggest one being who the Half-Blood Prince really is.