HBP: Chapter 4 - Horace Slughorn

There are an awful lot of slug references in Harry Potter and virtually none of them are good. This does not bode well for Horace...

Harry's scar is oddly quiet this year as is Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore claims it is because Voldemort is using Occlumency against Harry but is that the case. Why am I more worried about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when we don't see him then when he makes his presence known. What is he doing?

What happened to Dumbledore's hand? JK keeps mentioning it but never explains it. Must be important.

Dumbledore has this odd way of telling us exactly what is going on in a way to make us think he is not telling us the truth. The time-turning scenes of PoA are one example. So it made me very concerned when he said this: "You have not asked me, for instance, what is my favorite flavor of jam, to check that I am indeed Professor Dumbledore and not an imposter... For future reference, Harry, it is raspberry... although of course, if I were a Death Eater, I would have been sure to research my own jam preferences before impersonating myself." (61-62)

Odd. Dumbledore doesn't recognize Horace's dragon blood although in PS we learn he, along with Flammell, were responsible for finding the 12 uses of dragon blood. What are the 12 uses of dragon blood?

We find out that Slughorn used to teach Lily and she was one of his favorite students. We later learned that he taught Potions. Hmmm who else do we know who was good at Potions? Must have spent a lot of time together during their time at Hogwarts. Bet he wasn't happy when she married James.