PoA Chapter Eleven

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Harry asks a question I’ve been asking for a while: why hasn’t anyone told him his parents died because their best friend betrayed him? I love it when I can identify with Harry.

Yes, Harry never asked. But you’d think that would be a big part of the story, especially once Sirius becomes front page news. We know why the people charged with being his handlers haven’t told him, but you’d think it would be gossip.

I guess the WW rumor mill is like the Hogwarts one. Very respectful of plot surprises!

The Trio don't talk about it during dinner because Percy is near them. I never noticed how much of a negative thing Percy is even in PoA. It's like the same thing that makes him so misguided and awful in the next three books is supposed to be clear now.

Meanwhile, Fred and George have set off dungbombs because they’re in high spirits. Fifteen years old.

I'm probably not supposed to be thinking now about that poor guy to whom they gave boils this year while he's stressed out about his OWLS.

Harry looks at his photo album and for the first time wonders about the best man. That is some impressive tunnel vision there, Harry. You never wondered that before, really?

A hatred such as Harry had never known is coursing through his veins. We will become very familiar with this feeling of Harry's in his future. It's his amazing power of love!

Peter resembles Neville in Harry’s imaginings, because he didn’t think to look for Peter in the album too, even though he obviously would have been there.

Come to think of it, there is a parallel there. Neville and Peter are both dismissed for being pudgy and uncool. Both are completely underestimated yet wind up being the most impressive people on their respective sides. And both continue to basically be dismissed as hangers on that make the cool people look good for being nice to them.

Harry starts to lecture Hermione and Ron about what they would do if their parents were killed by a guy...I might as well out myself here and say that if that were me I really don’t think I’d have any desire to strap on a gun and going looking for the guy myself. That’s why I’m a coward.

Ron tells Harry that Pettigrew’s mother only got a finger of him back. This is presumably to remind us about the missing finger but more importantly, did Ron just admit that he’s known more of the story than he’s ever told all along? Whoa!

Double whoa—Peter has a mother? I suppose she must have been killed off.

Just realized that Harry’s talking about Lucius giving Draco information on Sirius because he was in Voldemort’s inner circle when really it’s family history for Draco.

Hermione tearfully tells Harry his parents wouldn’t want him looking for Black. Harry says he’ll never know what they wanted because thanks to Black he’s never spoken to them. Excellent use of the orphan card there, Harry. Bravo.

Just then there’s a nice little moment of Crookshanks flexing his claws and Ron’s pocket quivering. That’s the good thing about rereads.

Ron suggests they visit Hagrid. WTF, Ron? Are you trying to make everything worse? Thanks a lot. I’d rather have Hermione read us whatever essay she’s writing.

I just realized that Herimone’s having her homework spread out over 3 tables is probably supposed to show that she’s got three timestreams worth of homework.

I’m sorry, who on earth decided that Hagrid had no responsibility for the attack in question? Of course he had responsibility. He’s the frigging teacher.

Oh wait, I see, it’s Dumbledore who told them he had no responsibility. Hagrid could have fed somebody to the hippogriff and he’d still have no responsibility as far as Dumbledore was concerned.

Sirius, not so much. If you’re going to go being more loyal to your friends than Dumbledore, what do you expect?

Dumbledore must really want Buckbeak executed so he’s pretending it’s out of his hands.

Yes, the animal's going to be "executed" to make it as clear as possible that we’re supposed to be seeing Buckbeak tried like a human for a crime. A crime for which he is innocent because the author cleverly made "I attacked him because I didn’t like his pointy ferret face when he insulted me" an animal instinct.

But Hagrid said Buckbeak wasn’t a bad hippogriff, Ron says. Yes, because Hagrid is a great judge of good and bad hippogriffs.

Btw, what does that even mean? Sorry, this whole thing just obsesses me. Usually in that context he'd be saying this was OOC for Buckbeak, but of course that's not true. He absolutely can be counted on to attack people if they say something insulting. But in this series it seems to just hook into the whole "good kid" vs. "bad kid" set up. When he attacks people he has a good reason and it's not a sign of a bad character.

Buckbeak, it turns out, has been lying in the corner all this time without anyone noticing. Okay. How big is this thing? Big enough to fly two people around.

Hagrid explains he couldn’t leave him tied up in the snow for Christmas, probably thinking that the Christmas part is what would really make the wild animal sad.

The Trio doesn’t see any particular harm in Buckbeak just because they saw him attack someone for calling it a "big, ugly brute" while petting it. Iow: He didn’t hurt any of us. What harm could it be? WTF is up with Lucius making an official complaint about him?

Hagrid announces the guys who decide these things are all in Lucius's pocket, as they always seem to be even though it never pans out for Lucius. Who does Lucius think he is favoring his stupid only child as much as Hagrid cares about one of his pets?

Hagrid really is supposed to be right of course. The only reason anyone would have for executing Buckbeak is that they’re DE-sympathizers or being bribed or caving to the first two groups.

Harry can’t bring himself to berate Hagrid about Sirius now that he sees how sad he is. Figures it would be at exactly the same moment I wish somebody would suggest Hagrid suck it up for once and not blame everything on the nearest kid handy.

Hagrid’s killed all the flobberworms. But this isn’t a tragedy, as they aren’t interesting. Nor have they performed any special liking for our heroes.

Wow, think about that. In his funk over somebody thinking of killing his one animal he wipes out a whole pack of other animals through irresponsibility and general neglect.

Hagrid moans about his days in Azkabanand mentions the day he had to let Norbert go as one of the saddest in his life. Yeah, remember that day when Hagrid was being stupid with animals and Harry and Hermione got detention for it? Hagrid’s just always the victim.

The narrator reminds us that Norbert was the baby dragon Hagrid won at cards. It fails to remind us that wasn’t it also in the game of cards where Hagrid blabbed about Fluffy? Or am I remembering that wrong?

Everybody starts helping Hagrid in his defense, because naturally Hagrid won’t be doing it himself.

Funny that nobody ever considers Hagrid’s defense to just be Hagrid taking responsibility for the whole thing, which you’d think would help, wouldn't it? The animal should be found innocent because his owner put him in a dangerous situation, gave shoddy safety instructions and wasn't watching carefully.

The kids don’t manage to find anything where a hippogriff got off in this sort of case, probably because people usually do put down animals that attack people. Damn. You’d think there would be some special book out there full of cases where animals savaged people everybody kind of wanted to savage themselves. I’m sure they’d find a precedent there.

Props to Sirius for being classy enough to give Harry his broom for Christmas instead of flying it in through the dining hall.

Not sure where Sirius got the money to buy this thing. Can he just walk into the bank and withdraw from his own account without anyone being suspicious? Did he do it in dog form?

Ron thinks Dumbledore sent it anonymously because if he openly spent hundreds of dollars on a student "some git like Malfoy" might "think" it was favoritism. I’m not ready to believe that JKR doesn’t mean that to be ironic, but the jokes about favoritism do kind of sit on the idea that favoritism towards our favorites is okay.

It’s great the way Ron has a whole list of people at the school he honestly believes would spend a ton of money on a broom far better than Harry needs just because poor Harry Potter broke the one he had and has plenty of money to buy another.

Look, Harry shouldn't have to ride a broom without mysterious sentimental value.

Ron happily announces Harry’s broom costs more than all the Slytherins' brooms put together. You remember, those brooms we were supposed to look at with disgust because they were vulgar display of wealth. Harry wins again!

Hermione keeps looking darkly at Harry’s broom as if it, too, had been criticizing her cat. LOL. Just had to write that because it’s funny.

I can’t imagine why Trelawney doesn’t usually come to meals when McGonagall spends the whole time making snarky remarks about her second sight.

::sigh:: Why doesn’t somebody do that to Hagrid?

A first year goes red at being addressed by Dumbledore—a rare treat for any student not a close personal friend of Harry’s.

Ha ha. Hermione’s right. The broom was indeed sent to Harry by Sirius Black.


Things that happen twice
Hagrid again depends on the Trio to help him out of his problems.
Harry gets yet another top of the line racing broom from an anonymous donor.
Baby’s first hatred greater than he’s ever known before coursing through his veins. Get used to that feeling, Harry.
Not the last joke about Harry being favored and it being cool sometimes.


It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Peter and Neville are totally connected! Neville will be a traitor.
Status: Put that gun away and apologize to Mr. Longbottom.

Three tables of homework
Status: Fired in three timestreams!

Know what Pettigrew’s Mother got back?
Status: Fired. She got back an important way to distinguish Scabbers as Peter Pettigrew.

Thirteen at a table! Ron will die! Harry will die!
Status: Well, Harry did dramatically go off to his suicide and Ron got poisoned. Basically the usual thing where it depends on the interpretation.

Malfoy knows...he says if it was his family…
Status: Fired, if with blanks. Malfoy kind of would do exactly what Harry did in a similar but not as righteously heroic situation. Only not heroically.




Designated Hero
Yeah, I feel really sorry for Hagrid here. Luckily the heroes have taken on the quest to make sure he suffers no consequences for what happened in his class at all.

Idiot World
Do I even want to know how one mounts a defense for a hippogriff? Wouldn’t you just watch Draco’s memory—or Hagrid’s memory—and decide that Draco deserved it?

Misdirected Answering
Harry might be distracted by Hagrid’s animal woes, but I’m not.

Spring-Loaded Cat
We’ll be seeing a lot of these.

The Stealth Monster Rule
Oh, there’s a giant hippogriff in the room and we just didn’t notice until it started loudly slurping up blood.

Jabootu Score: 5

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I'd like to pick #1. :-)

But none of these manufactured reasons are implied in that one sentence of Dumbledore's that Rowling puts in his mouth to explain why we had to slog through seven books of Harry Potter. Fans like you have to do Rowling's work and insert your own theories. That's just lazy writing, cheating, isn't it?

Lazy writing/ cheating

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

All those who have remained fans of the series, regardless of the whole mess of Deathly Hallows, prefer the first on that list as well. The interpretations get progressively less favourable to Dumbledore as you go down the list.

My interpretation is that Dumbledore decided Harry must die at the hands of Voldemort, immediately after V's rebirth in Goblet of Fire.

Remember how V seemed to pass out briefly in Deathly Hallows after using Avada Kedavra on Harry? The way the blood protection tie seemed to work was by yanking V away from the living world when Harry was killed... as it happened though, V was still anchored to Earth by the snake Horcrux, so both he and Harry survived. JKR tells us that Harry may not have survived however. It was like Harry was subjected to a game of Russian Roulette, whereas V was certain to survive because of the snake Horcrux.

The earliest Dumbledore could have known about the Harrycrux was the end of Chamber of Secrets. Perhaps he was looking for ways to spare Harry during Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. Harry and V had no blood bond then, so Harry being killed would not have yanked V away from Earth, even if the other Horcruxes had been destroyed.

Re: Lazy writing/ cheating

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Actually, from what Rowling has him say at the opening of the whole series, it is easy to believe that he suspected the Harrycrux from the the time of the debacle at Godric's Hollow.

Which is probably why we was so insistent that Tom wasn't gone.

It was the existence of the other Horcruxes that he tries to convince us he never suspected until the end of CoS. And given that he lies like a rug, I'm not sure that I believe him. He certainly doesn't *appear* to have done anything about it between then and HBP.

Re: Lazy writing/ cheating

[oryx_leucoryx]

I think Albus thought the Harry crux was the only Horcrux from day 1. Then after COS he thought Harry was the accidental back-up to the diary (in both cases Albus believed Tom meant to make some other Horcrux at Godric's Hollow but Lily interfered). Only after Harry's report from the cemetery he realized there were more, but the person who could have told him what Tom's plan had been - Horace Slughorn - had already gone into hiding when Albus started looking for answers.

Re: Lazy writing/ cheating

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

That works. It makes more sense than anything that Rowling tells us. But it makes Abus out as a fool. Which she would probably hotly deny, but one can't have it both ways.

Re: Lazy writing/ cheating

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, assuming Tom was a Dark Lord worthy of the name, even if he had never been much into immortality, he would have made a Horcrux upon learning of a prophecy that mentions a vulnerability before going to take care of his weakness. So Albus should have started looking for the one Horcrux back in 1981 at the latest and should have run across either the ring or the cave (without the locket), or even the diadem sometime during the 1980s. Once he found the one he might have been justified in believing it the only one besides Harry until much later.

Re: Lazy writing/ cheating

[oryx_leucoryx]

The earliest Dumbledore could have known about the Harrycrux was the end of Chamber of Secrets.

I disagree. During the missing 24 hours there was an interval during which Hagrid was not with Harry - when he talked to Minerva and told her where he was taking Harry. During this time Dumbledore had an opportunity to examine him without Hagrid's knowledge. I'm of the opinion Dumbledore knew of the Harrycrux from day 1 and that was the reason he did not interfere with the Dursleys' custody of him when he got Arabella's reports of his treatment at their hands. He was planning on raising Harry as his personal suicide bomber and needed him to be loyal only to him. This is also why he chose Hagrid, rather than say, Minerva to be the one to bring Harry his letter and take him shopping, despite the fact that Hagrid stands out in the Muggle world, is inexperienced with this task (he didn't even remember to tell Harry how to get to the magical side of the train station) and is limited (both legally and ability-wise) in performing magic. Because Minerva would have asked questions. And was potentially a person Harry might come to trust and rely on independently of his relationship with Albus (especially if she were to lose trust in the headmaster over Harry's upbringing). Also, she can't be relied upon to feed Harry the 'right' prejudices (Dumbledore is the greatest ever, Slytherins are scum, Muggles are non-persons) - not that she isn't similarly prejudiced, though to a lesser extent, but she knows better how to set her prejudices aside when not provoked. With the bonus that Hagrid can be used to dangle the Philosophers' Stone as potential bait to Harry.

If option one is correct Dumbledore has yet to come up with an explanation that does not fall apart upon examination regarding Harry's placement.

Also, we know Dumbledore was lying to Harry during the Horcrux lesson because he did not want Harry to suspect that he was a Horcrux. Dumbledore knew Voldemort must have had a Horcrux in 1981 or else how could he have survived a rebounding AK? (The Philosophers' Stone only prevents death from aging, illness and injury, it can't counteract an AK.) If so why didn't he start looking for it? Because he knew where it was - at 4PD. (He may have thought Voldemort meant to make something else into a Horcrux and things went wrong.)

Personally I hold with a combination of options 3 and 5 with the possibility of 4 being thrown into the mix. All are in character of Albus and fit his actions.

I concur

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

That would give Dumbledore an adequate motivation for placing Harry at the Dursleys. It is shocking how little a fanfic writer would have to alter Dumbledore to make him the archvillain of the series instead of Voldemort.

Re: I concur

[sunnyskywalker]

And to make Snape's ultimate plan to eliminate both Dumbledore and Voldemort. He could still be mean, petty, and motivated in part by Lily - Dumbledore put her in the crosshairs with his Order of the Phoenix and then failed to protect his agents, after all.

[oryx_leucoryx]

That's just lazy writing, cheating, isn't it?

I think Rowling had 2 options: Make Albus' motivation clear within the story (for example by adding a few unambiguous lines to the King's Cross chapter) - and include a coherent explanation of those of his actions that contradict this explanation - or leave him ambiguous and *shut up*, never interpret her story and characters in interviews.

[eir-de-scania.livejournal.com]

Fans like you have to do Rowling's work and insert your own theories. That's just lazy writing, cheating, isn't it?

*** No, it's what happens when an inexperienced author is left to complete a long complex story without any editorial input, or even a beta reader. someone to ask the "why" and "how" and "WTF" questions while the MS is being written.