Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trivia
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100 free Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Half-Blood Prince is the book where the series stops being about school. Rowling had planned it for years, reused a title she had once meant for Chamber of Secrets, and was seriously upset writing the ending. Bookmakers suspended betting on who would die after a rush of money from the town printing it, and a Canadian court banned fourteen shoppers from reading copies sold a week early. These 100 questions cover the novel and David Yates's 2009 film. The easy tier sticks to the plot: the Unbreakable Vow, Slughorn, Felix Felicis, the orphanage, the cave, the fake locket and R.A.B. The middle asks about the Greenpeace paper, Jim Dale's audiobook record, Bob Hoskins's audition, the Cliffs of Moher and the Norwegian snow. The expert tier reaches for the 1.4 million Amazon pre-orders, Richard Stallman's boycott call, the eight-month delay that handed November 2008 to Twilight, and the only Oscar nomination for cinematography the series ever got. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something on a miss. Play it alone or print it for a Potter night.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Bloomsbury published Half-Blood Prince in Britain, but which company released it in the United States?
Scholastic
Scholastic. It printed a record 10.8 million copies for launch day and still had to rush another 2.7 million into print after the first weekend.
Q 02Half-Blood Prince's first-day sales broke which earlier book's record?
Order of the Phoenix
Order of the Phoenix. The fifth book sold 5 million US copies on its first day; the sixth sold 6.9 million, a launch that took in more money that weekend than any film in American cinemas.
Q 03Which 2006 prize passed from The Da Vinci Code to Half-Blood Prince?
British Book of the Year
British Book of the Year. Half-Blood Prince took the awards' overall prize, while their children's category went that year to Anthony Horowitz's teenage-spy novel Ark Angel.
Q 04In Half-Blood Prince, who makes an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy to protect Draco?
Severus Snape
Severus Snape. The vow also binds him to carry out Draco's mission if the boy fails, and on the tower it is Snape who steps in and kills Dumbledore.
Q 05Which spell from the Prince's textbook does Harry cast on Draco in their bathroom duel, nearly killing him?
Sectumsempra
Sectumsempra. The Prince's note said only 'For Enemies', so Harry had no idea it would slash Draco open, and the detentions that followed made him miss the Quidditch final.
Q 06Which of Hagrid's creatures dies in Half-Blood Prince, giving Harry his chance to win Slughorn's memory?
Aragog
Aragog. Slughorn comes to the giant spider's burial for its valuable venom, and after an evening of toasts with Hagrid he finally hands Harry the true memory.
Q 07In Half-Blood Prince, what is the luck potion Harry wins in Potions class called?
Felix Felicis
Felix Felicis. Harry only pretends to slip some into Ron's drink before a Quidditch match, and Ron plays brilliantly on nothing more than the belief that he is lucky.
Q 08In Half-Blood Prince's Pensieve memories, where did the young Voldemort grow up?
A Muggle orphanage
A Muggle orphanage. His witch mother died there within an hour of giving birth, so nobody around him understood his powers until Dumbledore arrived to offer him a place at Hogwarts.
Q 09In Half-Blood Prince, what did the teenage Voldemort ask Slughorn about in the memory Harry must retrieve?
A Horcrux
A Horcrux. Slughorn was so ashamed of having explained them to the boy who became Voldemort that the version of the memory he first handed over had been tampered with.
Q 10Which cursed heirloom leaves Dumbledore's hand blackened and withered throughout Half-Blood Prince?
Marvolo Gaunt's ring
Marvolo Gaunt's ring. Dumbledore tracked it to the ruined shack of Voldemort's mother's family, and the curse he set off by putting it on withered his hand for good.
Q 11In Half-Blood Prince, which Gryffindor student is nearly killed by a cursed necklace?
Katie Bell
Katie Bell. Under the Imperius Curse she was carrying the package to Dumbledore when it tore, and she lived because the necklace only brushed her skin through a tiny hole in her glove.
Q 12In Half-Blood Prince, whom does Ron start dating to spite Hermione?
Lavender Brown
Lavender Brown. She takes to calling him 'Won-Won' in public and sends him a gaudy chain spelling out 'My Sweetheart' for Christmas, a present Ron cannot stand.
Q 13In Half-Blood Prince, what nearly kills Ron in Slughorn's office on his birthday?
Poisoned mead
Q 21Bets on Half-Blood Prince's big death were suspended after wagers from a town handling which job?
Printing
Printing. A flurry of bets on Dumbledore came from Bungay in Suffolk, home of a big book printer, so a bookmaker froze the market for fear the manuscript had been read.
Q 22Bloomsbury printed Half-Blood Prince on part-certified, forest-friendly paper after a campaign by which group?
Greenpeace
Greenpeace. Its campaign had held up the Canadian edition, printed entirely on recycled paper, as the model, and Bloomsbury answered with paper that was 30 per cent Forest Stewardship Council certified.
Q 23A supermarket accidentally sold 14 copies of Half-Blood Prince early in which Canadian province?
British Columbia
Poisoned mead. Slughorn had meant the bottle as a Christmas present for Dumbledore, and Ron survives only because Harry shoves a bezoar down his throat.
Q 14In Half-Blood Prince, Ron turns cold towards Hermione after learning she once kissed whom?
Viktor Krum
Viktor Krum. Ron's sister throws it at him in a row after he catches her kissing Dean Thomas, jeering that he has about as much experience as a twelve-year-old.
Q 15Whom does Harry begin dating late in Half-Blood Prince?
Ginny Weasley
Ginny Weasley. In the novel Harry kisses her in front of the whole party after Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup without him, then breaks it off at the end of term to keep her from becoming a target.
Q 16Which spell does Draco cast at Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower, unknowingly winning the Elder Wand?
Expelliarmus
Expelliarmus. Draco only disarms the weakened headmaster, yet that simple charm, not the Killing Curse that follows minutes later, decides the Elder Wand's loyalty in the final book.
Q 17In Half-Blood Prince, what does Harry discover about the locket he and Dumbledore took from the cave?
It is a fake
It is a fake. Dumbledore had drunk a whole basin of tormenting potion to reach it and came home too weak to defend himself, all for a copy somebody had swapped in years before.
Q 18In Half-Blood Prince, what initials sign the note hidden inside the locket from the cave?
R.A.B.
R.A.B. The final book reveals them as Regulus Arcturus Black, Sirius's younger brother, a Death Eater who lost faith in Voldemort and went to his death trying to undo his master's work.
Q 19Rowling had once considered the title Half-Blood Prince for which earlier book?
Chamber of Secrets
Chamber of Secrets. Rowling pulled crucial information out of that book's first draft because its proper home was book six, and the discarded title waited there with it.
Q 20Who succeeds Cornelius Fudge as Minister for Magic in the opening chapter of Half-Blood Prince?
Rufus Scrimgeour
Rufus Scrimgeour. He later asks Harry to be seen backing the Ministry and is turned down flat, sneering that the boy is 'Dumbledore's man through and through'.
British Columbia. The province's Supreme Court then barred the 14 buyers from even reading their own copies before release day, and they were asked to hand the books back.
Q 24What new title does the Daily Prophet give Harry at the start of Half-Blood Prince?
The Chosen One
The Chosen One. A year earlier the same paper had smeared Harry as an attention-seeker; once the Ministry admitted Voldemort was back, it began hailing him as the one wizard who could finish the job.
Q 25Which retailer reported a record 1.4 million advance orders for Half-Blood Prince days before its release?
Amazon
Amazon. The figure pooled orders from its websites around the world, and before a single copy had shipped the retailer declared the book its biggest new product launch ever.
Q 26Stephen Fry reads the British Harry Potter audiobooks, but who narrates the US edition of Half-Blood Prince?
Jim Dale
Jim Dale. America's voice of Hogwarts is an Englishman too, best known at home for the Carry On comedies, and his reading of the sixth book sold more than 165,000 copies in its first weekend.
Q 27Which stand-in Keeper cracks Harry's skull with a Beater's bat during a Quidditch match in Half-Blood Prince?
Cormac McLaggen
Cormac McLaggen. Playing while Ron is in the hospital wing, he grabs a Beater's bat to show the team how it is done and knocks out his own captain, all to Luna Lovegood's dreamy commentary.
Q 28Which film moved into the November 2008 release slot that Half-Blood Prince vacated?
Twilight
Twilight. Summit pulled its vampire romance forward from 12 December into the empty weekend, with Robert Pattinson, Hogwarts' own Cedric Diggory, in the lead.
Q 29Half-Blood Prince's five-day worldwide opening broke a record set by which superhero film?
Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3. The costliest Potter film, at an estimated $250 million, sat finished on the shelf for eight months and still opened bigger worldwide than any film before it.
Q 30Which film kept Half-Blood Prince from being the highest-grossing release of 2009?
Avatar
Avatar. Half-Blood Prince out-earned every other 2009 release worldwide, until James Cameron's film opened that December and went on to pass his own Titanic as the biggest earner ever.