Between These Pages

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

Since the last book didn’t exactly leave off at a point of great hope and joyful rejoicing, I expect I’m in for more darkness with Book 6.  I’ve given myself a bit of a break between finishing the last book and starting this one, a trick that you might want to recommend to young readers.  While they may be desperate to get on with the story, it might be good for everyone’s mood and emotional well-being if some happier, fluffier books were enjoyed in between installments of ‘Harry Potter’.  Especially because you can’t very well promise that this one will end more cheerfully than the last. (It doesn’t, I’m afraid).

Luckily, the first 11 chapters are not terribly ominous.  Certainly the return of Voldemort isn’t a good thing, and Mrs. Weasley’s clock is constantly telling her that all of her family members are in mortal peril, but the tone is much lighter.  There are Quidditch tryouts and twittering girls mooning over famous Harry, “the Chosen One”.  A new teacher has made a pet of him.  Things are officially not horrible.  Then there’s a brief “student gets cursed” interlude, as well as some foreshadowy flashbacks in which we learn that Tom Riddle (aka Lord Voldemort) was always a pretty nasty, twisted kid.  But on the whole, there’s a lot more smooching and teenagers having feelings than you would expect (a whole different can of worms in terms of content).

But when things get dark, and at the end, they do get dark, it is a level of horror that most young readers are unprepared for.  During the course of the book, Harry learns he will have to be the one to face Voldemort in the end.  I don’t expect this to come as a shock to anyone, but the book really does make it clear what a heavy burden this is for Harry.  The journey to destroy Voldemort begins towards the end of this book as Dumbledore takes Harry to find a Horacrux.  This is a pretty horrible scene, in which Harry must continue to give Dumbledore poison even though he knows it could kill him.  Then a whole lot of corpses come to life. These include dead women and children.  They are Inferi, animated dead.  The description is pretty scary.  One picks him up and brings him into the water to drown.  When they return to Hogwarts, a time that should be full of relief and celebration, things only get worse.  In a turn that will surely upset younger readers

 Harry does not believe it at first, and I don’t think readers will either.  I think they’ll be looking for a way out, for it to somehow not be true.  As it becomes clear that it is very much real and will not be undone, it will be very hard for some readers to process.

I do have to say that despite all of the death and loss, this book in particular shows a lot of grieving and processing of loss, done very transparently, which is always good at helping children understand.  Harry also thinks a lot about how he ended up in his current position.

What I cannot truly like is how truly disinterested and dismissive of school Harry and Ron are.  They rely on Hermione (and yes, thank goodness a girl is smart here) but after this many books it really started to wear on me how very much they rely on cheating to get by.  Harry in particular is also deceitful.  It’s pretty alarming since he is held up as a hero and much of this aspect of his character is not really shown in a negative light, except by the endlessly nagging Hermione.

In terms of the demands placed on readers, as the series continues, there is more and more information for readers to process.  It will be hard for many, especially younger readers, to keep track of all of the characters.  There are new ones introduced in each book, some only making brief (but significant) appearances during flashbacks or subplots (another thing that will be hard for some readers to keep track of).  Also, the genre of fantasy can often be more difficult because of the world-building.  Think of all of the many words that Rowling has invented solely for Harry Potter, like horacrux or legilimency or occulmency. Think of how much energy is needed to keep track of all of those words as well as trying to decode and define all of the standard difficult words that readers could at least look up in a dictionary.  It is a lot to take in.

Age Recommendation: Sixth grade and up. Did you see the size of that Sex, Nudity, Dating category below?  Whew.  As I mentioned earlier boys and girls are noticing each other at Hogwarts.  And by noticing each other I mean dating and making out a lot, publicly.  With tongues entangled and bodies pressed against each other.  Yikes.  I’ve had third graders tell me they were uncomfortable with a boy and a girl holding hands in a book.  I’m not sure they’d like to be treated to a page where Ron Weasley is into some heavy smooching.  But more alarming is the tale of Tom Riddle and the witch Merope who uses a love potion to trick him into loving her and then a less magical trick – lying about being pregnant – to get him to marry her.  Of course all of this backfires when he does leave her when she actually is pregnant.  Now, all of that is pretty tame by a lot of teen standards, but for elementary school students, it’s a different matter.  Especially because at one point, Merope is called a slut.  Definitely not a word for younger readers.  The scariness factor doesn’t increase much from Book 5, in fact, the overall tone of this is much lighter (what with all the teenage angst) but the sadness of the ending is a firm counterbalance to all that precedes it.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – Dementors are “breeding”.  A girl kisses a boys cheeks leaving them burning.  There are daydream potions and love potions.  A girl is going out with someone.  A boy rests his head in a girl’s lap.  A girl gets called “darling”.  There is talk about how a girl is “hankering” after a boy and watches to see him pass.  A family has a habit of marrying their own cousins.  Someone cherishes a “secret, burning passion.” A woman tricks a man into marrying her by saying she is pregnant (she is not).  Later her husband leaves her while she is pregnant. Ron tries to catch the attention of a curvy barmaid.  It seems two of the main characters are romantically interested in each other.  A couple is “kissing fiercely as though glued together.”  A girl runs down a list of who has snogged whom.  A character imagines kissing another character.  Another pair of characters are kissing, so closely that you can’t tell whose hands are whose.  Girls wait under mistletoe hoping to kiss Harry.  Someone accidentally consumes a love potion intended for someone else.  Harry kisses someone and begins dating someone. Many characters date.  There is talk of people falling in love and getting married (luckily these characters aren’t students).
Profanity – “hell,” Boys use a rude hand gesture. “damn,” “good lord,” students swear loudly, “slut,”
Death, Violence and Gore – A bridge collapses sending a dozen cars into a river.  There are two “nasty” murders.  References are made to deaths that occur in prior books.  There is a threat of a mass Muggle killing.  Something the Muggles believe to be a hurricane causes horrible injuries.  A woman was killed in a room that was locked from the inside.  A man attempts to strangle three people.  A fox is killed.  The person who killed it is disappointed it is not a person.  A man’s hand looks blackened and shriveled as though his flesh has been burnt away.  A man’s body is found in a shack.  People’s lives are threatened.  A store sells skulls.  A woman’s husbands keep mysteriously dying.  Someone stomps on someone else’s face causing a bloody nose.  Gruesome pictures hang in a classroom.  One shows a bloody mass.  A man brandishes a short bloody knife.  A girl is dragged by the neck.  A snake is nailed to a door.  A girl is throttled. A girl is taken out of class and told her mother is dead.  A man is pinned against a wall by the throat.  A person rises into the air, begins screaming and writhing.  That person would have died had any skin come in contact with a cursed object.  A child’s pet rabbit is hung from the rafters.  Someone is accidentally punched in the mouth and bleeds.  There are werewolves and some discussion about how they bite children and how they kill to eat.  A man carries a knife.  We learn that three people were murdered (this is a past murder that we have read about in a previous book in the series).  A girl disapparates leaving her leg behind.  This is painful, but fixable.  A student twitches and chokes, poisoned.  Someone’s skull is fractured in a Quidditch match.  That person wants to kill the person that caused the injury.  Two house elves brawl.  People are framed for murder on multiple occasions.  People vanish.  A nine-year old is arrested for trying to kill his grandparents; people believe he was under a curse at the time.  A five year old is attacked by werewolves and died before he could be saved.  A giant spider dies.  Spiders usually eat their dead.  We read the details of Harry’s parents’ deaths yet again.  There is talk of killing in order to split your soul into pieces.  A character will be killed if he doesn’t do someone’s bidding.  There is a duel, where one person attempts the Cruciatus Curse and another uses a curse unknown to him, but which causes the other person to bleed profusely.  There are dementor attacks.  Tom Riddle used to hurt people for the fun of it.  In one case he brought two small children to a secluded place for the pleasure of terrorizing them.  Dumbledore cuts a gash in his own arm to gain admittance to a room.  There are dead people floating in a body of water.   A man drinks something knowing it is likely a very dangerous poison. The poison makes the person beg to die and scream in anguish.  Then a whole lot of corpses come to life. These include dead women and children.  They are Inferi, animated dead.  The description is pretty scary.  One picks him up and brings him into the water to drown.  The Dark Mark hangs over Hogwarts indicating a murder has taken place there.  Blood drips from a man’s mouth, because he has bitten someone.  He has “a taste for human flesh”  The killing curse is used on a beloved character.  The character is blasted into the air and fell over the castle battlements and out of sight.   We later read the details of how the body lies, arms and legs at a strange angle. A character trips over two bodies lying facedown in a pool of blood.  A house is set on fire with a dog trapped inside it. The Cruciatus curse is used against Harry.  There’s a lot more random blood that I’m not quite covering.  Razor sharp claws of a hippogryph attack someone.  A sacrifice is made for no reason.  Someone is attacked by a werewolf and left “a bit of a mess”.  That character is rendered unrecognizable, so slashed as to appear grotesque.  A random bad guy is killed by the Killing Curse (one from another bad guy that hit him inadvertently).
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Men drink whiskey.  People drink wine.  Mead is served to a group that includes teenagers by a person in a position of power. An unnamed but likely alcoholic beverage is served from a decanter.  A wizard conjures a bottle of gin and then is offered said gin.  A woman drinks quite a bit of gin.  There’s a reference to being under the influence of butterbeer, which is a beverage that students drink.  Students can smell the odor of cooking sherry on a teacher, who is later described as speaking in a drunken titter.  There is more drinking of mead.  Eggnog is served.  A woman in a painting drank too much.  There is a painting of drunk monks.  A professor offers a student his choice of butterbeer, wine or mead.  Two teachers get drunk in the presence of a student.  The student is in fact, pretending not to drink and refilling their cups.  A teacher surrounded by sherry bottles.  Her breath smells of it.  The headmaster often goes out for a drink.
Frightening or Intense Things – There are corpses, dead bodies, that have been bewitched to do a dark wizard’s bidding.  Two people visit a house where there is evidence of a great struggle including red stains on the wall.  People are disappearing.  Children are biten by werewolves, stolen from their parents and made to hate wizards.  A very trusted person explains that he has tricked people into sharing confidences.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

I don’t know if Book Five is actually the longest Harry Potter book, but I can tell you that it certainly feels like it.  I’m excited and more than a little intimidated by the 870 pages. Last month I mentioned that completely independent of my concerns regarding content, I don’t feel these books are a great fit for classroom reading especially for lower grade students.  A large part of that is their length.  When students read independently in the classroom we want them to be developing a wide variety of skills and we want them to be exposed to a wide variety of text styles.  Even a lightning fast reader will take a very long time indeed to get through a nearly nine hundred page book working in the small time increments allowed in school.  And during that time, it will be hard for those students to be reading anything else.  No other authors, no other genres just all Harry Potter, all fantasy, all Rowling, all the time.  Often class assignments rely on the expectation that students will finish a book (some book, any book) within a given period of time.  It’s important that students be able to talk about whether or not the ending surprised them, or at what point in the book they realized they’d hit the climax.  Imagine having to complete this book before answering those questions.

So.  Order of the Phoenix is dark.  From nearly the beginning, Harry is in danger.  And it’s unclear really, whether it’s worse that he’s in danger, or worse that the government (the Ministry of Magic) believes him to be a self-aggrandizing liar and is actively disparaging him in the press.  As the book continues, it looks more and more like the real enemy of the good is not the Death Eaters, but rather everyone who seeks to minimize the danger and demonize Harry and Dumbledore.  This book is nothing if not tense and depressing.

It’s hard to write up because for much of the book,  there’s really nothing distinctly violent, gory or overtly scary going on, it’s just a general feeling of foreboding.  Rowling can certainly write mood well.  But that’s not to say that the book is short on actual violence or death, because it’s got those two.  As with the rest of the series, the book features a final good vs. evil showdown and as in the prior book, people will be hurt and someone will die (yes, I’ll tell you who in a spoiler below).  The tone of the book is also going to affect how difficult it is to separate readers from the book.  There is very much a sense that if you just keep reading you might be able to get to a point where you feel comfortable again, where you can feel safe and more relaxed.  The tension and foreboding almost compels readers to keep going, because they might want that feeling to end.

Aside from the content, this is a difficult book to read based on the reading level. It is complicated to try to figure out who is really working for whom and trying to determine who can be trusted.  Much like Book 4, a lot of inference will be required and if readers aren’t up to that, the book will be very confusing, particularly the final action sequences.

Age Recommendation: I would suggest that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was most appropriate for students in Grade 6 or higher.  The vocabulary is varied; the plot is endlessly complex and it requires a great deal of emotional maturity.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – Harry’s buttocks are mentioned.  One of Ron’s brothers is spending a lot of time with a girl.  A house-elf snogs a pair of men’s trousers (luckily no man was in them).  A girl’s boyfriend is mentioned.  A fourth year girl is dating someone.  Harry kisses someone.  There is some awkward asking out on dates.  A coffee shop is full of couples holding hands, some are kissing.  There’s some romantic game playing – people getting jealous, trying to make others jealous.  There’s a boy-girl cheek kiss. A professor’s graying underpants are seen.  A student wonders if a man forced a woman to marry him.
Profanity – “moron,” “ruddy hell,” “effing,” “for god’s sake”, “damn” multiple times, “git,” “dammit,” A man was “swearing,” “moron,”
Death, Violence and Gore – Dudley throws stones at children.  Harry has nightmares where he begs Voldemort not to kill Cedric and where he begs his parents to save him.  An agitated witch says she’s going to kill someone, she’ll flay him alive (she will not do these things).   Dudley hits Harry.  A previous attempt on Harry’s life is mentioned.  A house appears to have the shrunken heads of house-elves mounted on the wall. An owl bites someone to the point of bleeding.  A goblin family was murdered.  A house-elf wants his head mounted on the wall.  Voldemort has a new weapon, the kids speculate about what it might be.  There is a bag of dead rats.  A dagger is displayed in a cabinet.  Someone’s brother died and was a Death Eater prior to death.  Harry is told about many wizards that were killed before: one who was only in bits, other whose body they never found, one who it took 5 Death Eaters to kill.  Mrs. Weasley faces a boggart who turns into each of her loved ones, dead (so they are not dead, but she still sees their corpses).  There is much fear about the potential for future loss of life and discussion of past loss of life.  A tabloid claims the Minister has had goblins drowned, dropped off buildings, poisoned and cooked in pies.  There’s a ghost with a partially severed neck.  There are definitely repeated references to the student who died.  A type of magical creature would gouge out human eyes with their fingers if given a chance.  Students threaten each other. A magical creature cuts someone with sharp nails.  A student is punished by having to write something repeatedly in his own blood.   A girl gets a nosebleed and then accidentally takes something that makes her bleed more and ends up covered in blood.  The professor of Divination continues to see Harry meeting an early death. A student suggests poisoning a teacher.  Harry talks about feeling like you are about to be murdered tortured or watch a friend die.  Harry’s owl is hurt.  A character’s hair is matted with blood, his face is bruised and his body is covered with cuts, many still bleeding.  Some giants were killed by wizards, others killed each other.  A giant is beheaded.  A giant wears a necklace of human bones.  Flesh strips itself from the bones of a dead animal (actually, something that is invisible to most is eating the flesh).   A girl wants to know if her boyfriend could have survived if he had known more defensive magic.  In a dream someone sees a snake attack a man, feels ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feels warm blood and seeing blood splatter on the floor.  

 Someone’s parents were tortured until they went insane.  A man was strangled.  There are some purely joking references to killing oneself or someone else.  Because people are being killed and a weapon is being sought, there’s obviously talk about how people died and what will be done with the weapon.  A student is cause to bleed through a curse or jinx.  A professor throws a student away from him, pushing him to the floor.  Students are hit over the head with their school supplies.  A student carries a knife.  The caretaker gets permission to whip people. A magical creature gnaws someone’s fingers.  A creature is tied up in ropes.  There are lots of nosebleeds.  A centaur is attacked by his herd.  A giant is violent just by virtue of his size.  A man is thrown through the air.  A pet dog’s body is limp.  The Cruciatus curse which causes intense pain is used again.  A student is grabbed by his head and his hair his pulled.  He is thrown into a desk.  Centaurs shoot arrows at humans. Centaurs shoot a giant with arrows; he bleeds. A girl has several scratches on her face.  Someone has a bloody lip.  Someone else has a wound above the eye.  There is a room containing brains. Someone is hit in the face.  Orders are given that Harry’s friends can be killed.  A witch is shot with purple flame and she collapses.  A wizard is kicked in the face. A wizard is bleeding from the mouth.  A girl breaks her ankle.  A girl is sent across a room.  A brain attacks someone.  The Cruciatus curse is used to torture a student.  A man is bleeding from the head.  Many seem to feel glee at causing others pain.  Someone close to Harry is killed .  The killing curse is used (unsuccessfully it seems).  A hippogryph is injured.  There is a long and detailed explanation of the plan that caused the death of the aforementioned person. There’s a prophesy which has a lot of death in it. It tells a character that he alone will have to be responsible for the death of another, which you know, means that character will have to become a murderer.   A girl’s mother died while doing magic.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Dudley smokes.   A wizard smells of drink and tobacco, his eyes are bloodshot. There are empty wine bottles. Students are pretty sure they could be served underage.  One wants to try firewhiskey.  A house-elf drinks too much.  An adult drinks firewhiskey.  A professor carries an empty sherry bottle.  There’s another discussion of underage students buying firewhiskey.
Frightening or Intense Things – The Dursleys go out and tell Harry he may not touch anything or eat anything.  Then they lock him in his room. People are attacked by dementors which are creatures which suck all of the joy out of you and try to take your soul.  The government is trying to discredit people who tell the truth.  The government out and out states that those trying to put the truth forth are liars.  A man on the right side of the fight is sentenced to time in prison.  There are concerns that Harry might be controlled or possessed.   There is copious bullying.

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire by J. K. Rowling

Here it is folks, Book 4.  In all of its Harry Potterish glory.  Now is where things get real as the children say.  Right here in this 700+ page tome is where Rowling gets serious.  No more cutesy boarding school antics and be prepared please, people will die.  (Not readers!  Characters in the book!)

This time, the book opens with a triple murder.  Or at least a story about a triple murder. Evidently three members of a family are found dead by their maid and their gardener was arrested for it. Over the course of the first 15 pages, we learn of another murder and witness yet another. So the death count is at 5 (plus a threat on Potter’s life) all before the end of the first chapter.

Much of the book focuses on the Triwizard Tournament, a tournament which was once discontinued because of the high death toll.  It very quickly becomes clear that the tournament really is terrifically dangerous and may even be used as a way to put certain people in harm’s way.  The tournament also marks one of the first times that Harry experiences people turning against him.  Of course, in earlier books Malfoy and Snape dislike him, but in Goblet of Fire he has to deal with people who like him being unsupportive (a theme that will continue into the next book).

Many people consider this to be the first of the “scary” Harry Potter books, just because it features what they consider the first death.  I suppose in a way it is the first death, because it occurs in the present rather than the past.  Here’s something to consider.  If your children have seen the movies, assume they know this is coming.  That they have some level of mental preparation for it.  But for a child who is reading the books for the first time with no prior exposure, it can come as a bit of a shock, because in children’s books*, characters aren’t usually killed off wily-nily.

Aside from the gloom, doom and danger, there’s a significant jump in reading ability required.  The first chapter jumps from the past to present, through a few rumors and requires a vast, vast amount of inferring on the part of the reader.  We should infer that the character addressed as “Your Lordship” is Voldemort, but would a child know?  As the book progresses, there are an increasing number of characters to keep straight.  There are the main core characters that children will be familiar with from the prior books, but there are also students from other schools, wizards who work for the Ministry of Magic, assorted Death Eaters (supporters of Voldemort)  and various others.  And it is actually necessary to keep them all straight, because at the end, when all is revealed, there are an awful lot of questions of identity and questions of loyalty, all of which will make no sense if you can’t remember who is who.

There’s definitely a continued theme of not being sure who you can trust, especially when it comes to adults.  The Dark Arts teacher is going to teach them things that the Ministry believes they should not yet be taught, but the headmaster thinks they should know, which shows a questioning of authority (which will only ramp up in the next book).

The ending of this book is incredibly scary for many, with a scene in a graveyard and resurrection of evil and random thoughtless death. You might even just flip through those last chapters. Start at thirty-two, Flesh, Blood and Bone and see how you feel about it. The next book is even darker in tone and a bit scarier. So what you’re dealing with, really, is that the end of this book is not a happy ending. It’s foreboding and chilling. But if you choose to continue, things really aren’t going to get better, so you can’t just push past this dark bit and expect things to go back to funny and light next. Because they won’t and they don’t. For some, they tend to fixate on the last bit they’ve read, and if you stop here, you’re leaving them with quite a worrying scene. If you stop after book three, it’s not nearly as nerve wracking.

*Is this a children’s book?  Is it?  Should it be filed J in libraries?  I don’t know.  Probably?  But I do think there’s a point at which the series is far more YA appropriate. Which brings me to…

Age Recommendation: I do think there are some fourth graders who are advanced readers and emotionally mature who could handle reading this book, particularly if they have an adult they can talk to about it. I would say in general though, that it’s a much better fit for a fifth or even sixth grader. I would also say that this right here is where you would stop (or pause rather) if your child is in any way young for the series or prone to being upset by things.

Discrimination of Sorts Mr. Dursley does not want a “swotty little nancy boy for a son” which sort of reeks of anti-gay sentiment. And then of course, there’s the continued racism against Muggles. Really, many wizards are against anyone (or anything) that is not pure wizard.  House elves are back, with their improper speech and ideas about not wanting to get above their station and lack of appropriate clothing and not actually wanting to get paid! There’s a lot of talk about how their conditions do not need to be improved because they like their work.  Hermione insists they are uneducated and brainwashed and deserve better lives.  A house elf who has been freed refuses to sink so low as to take pay.  I don’t know.  There are parallels to be drawn to how whites perceived slaves, but I know a lot of people think it’s silly to go there.  I just don’t love that Hermione is considered so ridiculous for trying to remedy the situation.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – There are beautiful dancing female things called veelas which seem to be able to control men’s wishes.  A wizard refuses to put on pants saying he likes a breeze around his privates.  A woman’s drawers are exposed.  A boy is reputed to be handsome.  A girl is so pretty that she renders people speechless.  Hagrid fancies a lady.  A newspaper erroneously reports that Harry is in love with Hermione.  There is a ball and therefore much discussion about how to ask someone to go.  Boys are turned down by the girls they’d like to invite.  Girls ask Harry to the ball.  There are a lot people being snippy because they did not get to go with the person they liked or they did not have the time they imagined.  A female ghost spies on Harry in the bath.  He protests that he’s not wearing anything.  The ghost mentions that she’s seen another boy in the bath too.  A girl kisses two boys on the cheeks, twice each.  An article in a magazine claims Hermione is Harry’s girlfriend but that she has captured his and another boy’s attention through use of love potions.  A girl saw a boy and girl kissing.  A girl eyes a boy with great interest.
Profanity – “damn” used multiple times,  “git,”  Ron tells Draco to do something he “never have dared to say in front of Mrs. Weasley, “good lord,”  “hell,”
Death, Violence and Gore – There’s a story of a triple murder.  A woman was delivered to Voldemort and killed.  A man is killed for overhearing something.  A man plunges into the ground and requires reviving by mediwizards.  A man is hit in the face by a bludger and it broke his nose and caused there to be blood everywhere.  A man’s arm is bleeding profusely.  A man has a bloody nose.  It is made very clear that Voldemort and his supporters killed for fun.  That in particular they killed non-wizards for fun.  Torture is mentioned as well.  There are rumors that dead bodies are removed from the woods around the Quidditch Cup. Ron jokes about pushing someone off a glacier and making it look like an accident. A magical creature can burn you, sting you and suck your blood.  There is a curse that can kill you.  It has no countercurse and no way to block it.  There is a complete detailed run down of Harry’s parents’ murder and exactly what took place.  Harry and Ron predict bleak futures for themselves while goofing around doing a class assignment.  Ron claims he will drown and/or be trampled by a hippogriff, while Harry claims he will be decapitated.  The floor of the owlery is covered with regurgitated skeletons of small rodents.  There is reason to believe Harry has been entered in the Triwizard tournament by someone who wishes to see him dead.  Harry worries he’ll break his neck.  It is repeatedly pointed out that wizards often get killed in the Triwizard tournament.  Harry throws a badge and hits Ron in the face.  We learn that people in July are in great danger of sudden violent deaths.  Harry is cut on the shoulder.  A boy is badly burned on the face by a dragon.  Dobby bangs his head on the table very hard for revealing information.  Giants are violent murderous beings. Giants have been responsible for mass Muggle killings.  Many giants were killed by Aurors. A girl’s dead body is not found for hours after her death (this is a death we are aware of in a prior book).  It is made to seem that if Harry cannot rescue one of his friends, that friend will die.  Hermione receives letters that cause her physical harm.  Hagrid receives letters saying that he should be killed or that he should kill himself.  A student is attacked and stupefied. Someone is lifted by his robes and slammed into a tree.  Someone is dead (we don’t know who – just hear a voice saying “he is dead.”  A man has seen another man torture people.  Another man was killed in the struggle when he was captured.  Another man helped murder people while another forced people to do horrific things.  A character’s parents were subjected to the Cruciatus Curse which causes immeasurable pain.   They became insane.  Some of the good guys authorized the use of violence against suspects.  Prisoners in Azkaban often die and the dementors get excited right before a death.  A mother dies not long after her son.  From the sound of it, a student uses the cruciatus curse on another student.  He is stopped before permanent damage is done.  A giant spider attacks.  A student falls from a height and his leg is bleeding and cannot support his weight.  Harry feels intense pain from his scar. <spoiler>Cedric is killed at the end of the Triwizard Tournament</spoiler>  A man cuts off his own hand it seems, he later extends a bleeding stump.  Harry is stabbed.  A man killed his own father.  A woman died giving birth to her child.  Another person is caused extreme pain through the cruciatus curse. A man is said to take a lead in torture.  Harry is subjected to the cruciatus curse.   Shadows and ghosts of those killed emerge.  Yet another man kills his own father.  He then transfigures his father’s dead body into a bone and buries it.  A man’s soul is sucked out by a dementor.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Drunken yells are heard at the Quidditch World Cup.  Horses drink only single malt whiskey. One boy is offered mulled wine, another requests it.  A professor drinks from a hip flask.  Another has a tankard.  A painting because tipsy from eating chocolate liqueurs.  A house elf seems to be intoxicated on butterbeer.  There’s talk of how it’s not strong, but too strong for a house elf, which makes me wonder if the kids should really be drinking it. The house elf passes out and is covered up by other elves.
Frightening or Intense Things – Evidently a man who has seen Voldemort screamed so loudly that he never heard the words that killed him.  Dementors, the soul-sucking fiends introduced in Book 3 are mentioned again.  A group of drunken masked wizards capture several non-wizards, including children and trap them and spin them about.  People must take refuge in the woods during this riot.  A neon skull and serpent, the sign of Voldemort appears to the crowds.  Evidently this appeared every time Voldemort and his followers killed someone.  People would find it above their homes and know to expect the worst.  People’s memories are altered so that they don’t remember upsetting or disturbing things.  A teacher is scary looking, missing a large chunk of his nose.  A student is temporarily turned into a ferret. Another teacher threatens to turn a student into a ferret.  There is a curse that allows someone to be completely controlled.  That person could be made to do anything, including causing his own death.  There’s another curse that causes excruciating pain. Harry and the other champions have reason to believe that those closest to them are in grave danger.  A man seems to have lost his mind.  There is a physical description of Voldemort that is a bit gruesome.  Again a trusted adult turns out to be responsible for trying to kill Harry.  A man has been trapped, imprisoned, stunned and controlled.  A man has an insane grin when discussing being called by his master.  It is clear he takes joy in evil.  An illustration of a skull with a snake emerging from the mouth is featured at the start of chapter 36.