Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the sixth of the seven Harry Potter novels, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Nick reveals the real life model for Severus Snape, Rowling’s Chemistry teacher at Wydean Comprehensive, and his remarkable story and melancholy end. John reviews Rowling’s version of the so-called ‘Hero’s Journey,’ how she re-makes it into a life-after-death ‘Harry’s Journey’ ten step dance we see in every book — except for Half-Blood Prince with its two chapters before we begin at Privet Drive and its ending without a Dumbledore Denouement or trip to King’s Cross.

New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here’s what we’re doing:

On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth’ in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR’s Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling’s twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author’s writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphor. The ‘Lake’ is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed’ is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

The five HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Tomorrow? It’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the penultimate novel and alchemical Rubedo of that series. See you then! Links from today’s Lake and Shed conversation:

Much more on John Nettleship, the ‘Real Life’ Severus Snape

How Harry Cast His Spell (John Granger)

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