The second half of this movie was really confusing. I’d pretty much forgotten the book by this point, so this is all pretty new to me.
When I couldn’t figure out what happened, I rewound the movie to the point where it got confusing and turned on subtitles and watched it all again, hoping to understand more this time.
Here’s what I’ve sort of pieced together. At least, this is my prevailing theory. When Harry got into a wand fight with Draco, he used a spell at the end where Draco was bleeding all over the bathroom floor. That spell must have come from the margins of the potions book marked up by the Half Blood Prince (spoiler: Snape). So even though it’s a potions book, the scene where they showed a whole bunch of drawings all over the book was supposed to show us (I think) that the book had more than just potions recipes. That’s why in the scene after Malfoy, Ginny comes over to Harry and tells him he has to make sure he hides the book where no one can ever find it (including himself). And then she goes and hides it and kisses him, so that he’s all disoriented and forgets the fact that she knows where the book is hidden.
Overall, I’m not sure if I’m a fan of this whole movie being sepia-toned. By the end of the movie it was very distracting. After Dumbledore’s death, Harry looks out from the tower with Hermoine at his side and looks at the ugly sepia-toned scenery with absolutely no colors discernible at all, and says “I never realized how beautiful this place was until now”. Apparently Harry really loves the color orange, and Hogwarts was never yellow/orange in color until now, so he didn’t appreciate its beauty.
Fuck this movie, and fuck this book.
Luckily, I love the seventh book, so I’m still looking forward to the next two movies.