Half Blood Prince The Musical

Scene 8: Snape's Classroom

(Enter Harry, Ron and Hermione. They've just come out of Snape's classroom, all the other students are standing around, pretending to be talking, laughing, threatening, throttling etc.)

Hermione: (Singing) Oh Harry, oh Harry, oh Haa-rryy!

Harry: Yes?

Hermione: How can you say you still fancy Draco,

After he attacked you in such a brutal fashion?

Harry: I know he didn't really mean it,

It was but a crime of passion!

Hermione: Harry, the swine stomped on your nose!

Harry: It could have been worse

He might have stepped on my ...toes.

(Hermione despairs visibly at the cheesy rhyming.)

Ron: I can't believe you jinxed Snape during class.

Harry: Wasn't it funny, the way he fell on his ...

Hermione: (Interrupting) OK, OK. There's no need to resort to crude, childish lyrics.

Ron: Damn! (Takes out a piece of paper detailing his idea for a solo and starts making some alterations. Snape emerges from the classroom door behind them.)

Snape: Don't forget your detention. Saturday night, my office, Potter.

Harry: (Stage whisper) Greasy, evil, smelly son of a ... (Normal voice) I won't forget, Professor.

(Harry, Ron, Hermione and all the other students exit, leaving Snape on his own.)

Snape: Damn kids. They have no idea what I have to put up with on a daily basis. I know they all hate me, and that's how it's supposed to be, but don't they realise it's not easy being mean?

(Lights dim except for a spotlight on Snape. He produces a microphone from his robes and perches himself on the stool that's just materialised on stage.)

IT'S NOT EASY BEING MEAN

Snape: (In a light, crooning tone) It's not that easy being mean

Having to spend each day ... a hissing bat

When I think it could be better being nice, or kind or good

Or something much more admirable like that

It's not easy being mean

It seems you blend in with so much other nasty stuff

And people tend to flip you off 'cause you're

Always giving detentions, or spouting guff

But means's the way of the world

And mean can be fun and full of glee

And mean can be big like a troll, or tough

Like a dragon, or smart like me

When mean is all there is to be

It could make you wonder why,

But why wonder why wonder,

I am mean and it'll do fine, it's beautiful

And I think it's what I want to be

(Snape takes one meaningful at the audience and then exits, taking the stool with him. Lot's of sympathetic 'aaww's'. Suddenly Fleur runs on with her guitar.)

Fleur: Ha! You think zat was a song? I vill beat ze greasy pants off 'im. Une, Deux, Trois!

(Quick blackout, curtains close. Sounds of spells going off and a great deal of swearing in French. Noise lessens and curtains come back up.)

Scene 9: Slughorn's Classroom

(Slughorn is standing in front of the whole class, just beside a huge cauldron. A huge flame rises beneath the cauldron, dramatic music strikes up and Slughorn starts circling the cauldron.)

Slughorn: (In a booming voice) In the cauldron boil and bake,

Fillet of a fenny snake,

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witch's mummy, maw and gulf,

Double, double boil and ...

Hermione: (Interrupting) Just hold on a second, that's not even singing!

Slughorn: Yes it is.

Harry: No it's not. It's chanting if anything. Whoever heard of chanting in a musical?

Slughorn: It worked pretty well in the film.

Ron: What film?

Slughorn: You know ...the third film.

Hermione: Whatever. Anyway, if you try it with the full, unedited Shakespeare text, you'll find that at that pace the chant doesn't work rhythmically.

Slughorn: (Scoffing) Oh come now, miss, who was the last person to do Shakespeare without editing the text?

Some kid in the back: Kenneth Branagh?

(General murmurs of agreement from the room.)

Harry: Aren't we straying from the point of this scene?

Ron: I didn't know it had a point.

Slughorn: The point is you two don't have copies of 'Advanced Potion Making', so I'm supposed to give you the two copies from the store cupboard.

Harry: Oh yes, that's right.

(Slughorn goes to get the books. As he takes them out, the orchestra play several loud, booming notes that create a sense of doom.)

Hermione: (Sarcastically) Oh, that was subtle.

(Slughorn gives the books to Harry and Ron.)

Slughorn: Now then, I'd like you all to turn to page 10 and have a go at the Draught of Living Death. I know it's more complex than anything you have attempted before, and I don't expect a perfect potion from anybody. The person who does the best, however, will win little Felix here, which, if I didn't explain before ...

Harry: You didn't.

Slughorn: Is a potion that makes you lucky.

(Music starts; Ron jumps up with a microphone and a blonde wig.)

Ron: I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky ...

(Hermione makes a cutting motion to the orchestra. They stop. Ron realises that the whole class and audience are staring at him.)

Ron: Not appropriate?

Hermione: On many levels.

Slughorn: Off you go!

(The whole class start making their potions at double speed, accompanied by traditional sped-up music. Just before the music ends, Slughorn walks down the row of cauldrons at double speed, stopping at Harry's when the music stops. This whole sequence sounds better when it's not being described step by step as a stage direction. Use your damn imagination.)

Slughorn: The clear winner! Here you are then -one bottle of Felix Felicis. Use it well!

(Everyone starts to leave the classroom. Ron stays behind.)

Ron: How the bloody hell ... (to someone in the wings) I can say that on stage, can't I? Dominic! It's OK to say that on stage, isn't it? Oh good. How the bloody hell did you do that?

Harry: Got lucky, I suppose.

(Ron exits. A spotlight appears on Harry as he opens his book at the back cover and looks at it.)

Harry: "This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince".

(Harry exits. Curtains close.)