A source from the set today revealed to me that the scene being shot was Professor McGonagall telling Ron and Harry that they can take Potions for their NEWTS. This scene involved 200 extras, ranging from First Years to Seventh Years.

That is the first day of classes. McGonagall spots Harry and Ron along the wall, just chilling, acting like teenage boys, and calls to Harry and asks him what he is doing. He tells her he and Ron have a free period. And she asks him why he isn't in potions. She goes through the same explanation as in the book about how he can take potions now that Snape is not teaching it. That she says something funny, like "go take Mr. Weasley with you, he is enjoying himself a little too much over there." (major paraphrasing)

PrinceWatch episode 3

Scott: Oh, and then another question that crops up related to that I just thought of is – was there anything about the OWLs or the grades they got or Harry’s ambitions to be an Auror?

Rachel: No. No, In fact that was the only mention of the OWLs what so ever that – I was almost surprised they talked about them but didn’t talk about them. (laughs)

Scott: ‘Cause I thought they would use the scene when I had heard about it too, just briefly go over how he had ambitions to be an Auror, and the grades he got on his OWLs.

When Hermione is around the Amortentia, the last thing she trails off with is that she can smell spearmint toothpaste.

Now to the subject of how Harry gets the potions book. Harry and Ron arrive in potions, and Slughorn tells them to go to the cabinet to take one of the extra copies he has. They open the cabinet which has several ratty old books and one virtually new one. Harry and Ron scramble in a typical teenagish way for the nice copy, which of course, Ron gets, leaving Harry to settle for one of the tattered old ones. When they begin to make the Draught of Living Death we see Harry open his books and the camera pans over the marked up pages.

They all start to make there potion and we see Hermione and Ron struggling to cut up the sopophorous bean. The camera then shows us the handwritten addition in the book (Harry may read it to himself out loud, I can’t remember for certain) “Crush with flat side of dagger, releases juice better than cutting.” After he crushes the bean, looking excited, Hermione, whose hair is becoming increasingly messy, frizzy and puffy, leans to him and asks him how he is doing that. He tells her what the handwritten instruction says to do, and she says something like, “but that not in the official instructions” and starts rereading her own book frantically.

When Slughorn later declares Harry the winner and presents him with the Felix Felicis in front of the class, Ron and Hermione look annoyed and the whole class claps very unenthusiastically, while Harry with a huge shameless grin on his face accepts the bottle of potion.

Trailer and Sneak Peek screencaps

Another picture shows Slughorn handing Harry the bottle of Felix Felicis.

Rachezee discussed the above picture in .

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Scott: So, we have a picture then – uh, another one that was released, of the potions class – this one is just Harry and Slughorn by themselves, he appears to be handing him the bottle of Felix Felicis and is that correct Rachel?

Rachel: Yeah. The class is on the other - you know, is looking at them, so…

Scott: Oh. Ok. We were wondering why it’s just the two of them.

Rachel: They’re standing in front of them.

Meesha: …so this is just the different angle.

Test screening viewers confirmed that DADA classes were cut.

No DADA class at all. The only class we actually see is potions.

Rachezee discussed non-verbal spells in the film during her appearance on PrinceWatch, saying they are there, but not explained.

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Rachel: But there’s no non-verbal spells or anything. So...

Scott: Well it sounds…

Rachel: I – I actually…

Scott: …like they don’t have the spells…

Rachel: Well they use them, but never talk about them. (laughs)

Scott: (laughs) Yeah, true. (laughter)

Meesha: They’ve actually been using non-verbals the whole time, so …

Scott: Yeah

Rachel: In fact – in fact it was used a lot during the movie and I couldn’t actually tell if anything was going to be added later. ‘Cause it seems like there were – there were times that – that there should have been words, like… I – I thought it – And they just didn’t use them at all. But – and there’s a lot of epic – then again through out the movies there’s always been, like, spouts of magic without wands and weird things like that (laughs)

There will be a scene where the trio sit around the common room and discuss the Prince's book.

Alternate View

A test screen viewer has described the context of this scene.

Later in the common room the trio sit around (Ginny is somewhere around) and Harry is reading the Potions book. He notices the spell for Sectum Sempra and tries to show this to Hermione and Ron. Hermione gets upset/annoyed and says that she wants to see whose book it was. She jumps up and tries to grab in from him. Harry holds it back out of her reach but Ginny who comes from behind Harry grabs it and backs away and says she also wants to know who wrote that stuff in the book. She quickly flicks to the back and then reads out loud, “This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince.”