jedibuttercup

In my review of HBP for backagainharry, I tripped over an interesting quote. After Remus lets Harry down about his not so subtle questions regarding the possible identity of the Half Blood Prince, he tells him to check the publish date on his used potions book. Harry does, and discovers "it was nearly fifty years old. neither his father, nor his father's friends, had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago."

How does it not occur to him that he once had his hands on another book, one which dated to Hogwarts in roughly the same timespan? That he knows the identity of a half blood (having just learned that information from Dumbledore!) who went to Hogwarts in exactly that time frame, and demonstrably thought rather highly of himself and the heritage he'd discovered?

If it had been me, I would. And where might things go from there? Obviously, we the readers would know Harry was wrong, that it was Snape using his pureblood mother's hand-me-down book who'd marked it all up. But what kind of an entertaining fic could you build out of Harry assuming it was Voldemort's book and, after debating whether to reject it, deciding to use it to learn more about his destined enemy? He'd be a lot more wary about the scribbled spells, for one thing (*cough* Sectumsempra); but what else might he learn and misattribute from the notes within its pages, and how else might that disarray the canon plot?

*thinky expression*