deathtocapslock | PoA Chapter Fourteen

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PoA Chapter Fourteen

Seems Sirius has escaped again from the castle. At least that's what we're told this by the woman who insisted there was no way he could get into the castle to begin with as long as there was a mentally challenged portrait standing guard. No reason not to take her word for it.

The kids see signs of more security, a slight improvement over the no security we've seen previously. BTW, WhereTF is Dumbledore?

I like that they're teaching the front doors to recognize Sirius' picture. That’s funny.

Funny but also wonderfully dumb, like they’ve just figured out they ought to start locking the front door if they don't want the maniac to walk in a third time.

Harry's noticed that the one big tunnel that leads straight into the school hasn't been closed up or guarded. Naturally he doesn't tell anyone. Irrelevant, really.

Ron backs him up on this, speculating that if Black broke into Honeydukes they'd hear about it. Um, why? The only reason you two knew he'd broken into Hogwarts was that he did something crazy when he was in Gryffindor Tower where you sleep. He could have been living off stolen blood lollies at Honeydukes all this time for all you know. And even if you did hear about a candy store break-in there's no guarantee you’d hear about it before Sirius had slit your throat. It's not like you’d pick it up on Twitter while the break in was in progress.

Harry and Voldemort both refuse to take it as a given that if they tripped over something in Hogwarts, it's quite possible lots of other people over the years have too. In Voldemort's case this seems to be due to arrogance. With Harry it's just plain lack of imagination. Oh, and also greed. He wants the passage open so he can buy candy. How come nobody ever plays the Ten Tongue Toffee trick on him?

Ron’s clearly enjoying the experience of being of more interest than Harry, who never ever enjoys any sort of attention that he gets.

Oh wow. Ugh! Horrible Americanization here! The text file I'm reading is the US version and it has Ron saying, "I rolled over…and I saw him standing over me…like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair…holding this great long knife, must’ve been twelve inches…and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I yelled, and he scampered." (Italics mine) Jeez, guys, I know scarperedisn't an American expression but a kid wouldn't say that the knife-wielding maniac scampered away like a bunny.

Meanwhile, Neville's humiliated for his mistake when he almost ought to be praised for shedding light on exactly how bad the security system was here.

What humiliation is in store for the person who hired Sir Cadogan, a guy who not only made the passwords as hard as possible for the kids but didn’t change them when he knew a week's worth had gone missing? Let me guess, was it the same guy who enlists Hagrid to be a bodyguard?

Hagrid sends a letter to Harry to meet him for tea. I'll try to take comfort in the fact that it isn't tear-stained at least, but it's a meager comfort.

Ron thinks Hagrid wants to talk about Black. As if Hagrid would ever want to talk about something relevant or interesting.

Harry and Ron feel guilty about forgetting to care about Hagrid's professional troubles. It's not like Hagrid’s ever felt guilty about forgetting—or dismissing—their troubles of any kind.

Hagrid actually wants to talk about Hermione. He begins by defending her cat, saying it was just doing what all cats do. Except whether or not cats naturally eat rats, if YOUR cat eats YOUR FRIEND’S rat, you apologize, feel bad and take responsibility for it as its owner. That goes double if your monster slices somebody's arm open.

I am sympathetic to Hermione here, but she actually was the one who separated herself over the Scabbers thing—at least from Harry. Harry made an overture once he got his Firebolt back (self-serving as that is) and then she snapped at him just for saying Crookshanks ate the rat. Not that Harry couldn't talk to her again, of course, if Harry cared enough to make the effort. But it was Hermione who stormed off from him.

Still, it's a switcheroo over the fight, pretending that the fight was over both boys being angry at Hermione because of what her cat did when Hermione has so far refused to consider that her cat could have done anything. Like when Harry goes around sure Seamus is making a stand against him on the Voldemort question when he was really angry that Harry insulted his mother. Eventually Seamus seems to wind up agreeing with Harry's version.

Even though I do feel sorry for Hermione, I hate the way we're naturally back in Hagrid's world where the true victims are the person who didn't lose their only pet who didn't harm anyone (as far as they know) and didn’t get physically attacked. Without ever pausing for any sympathy for the people who did suffer those things.

What about poor Ripper who probably missed his dinner keeping Harry up in that tree? It must really hurt Aunt Marge’s feelings that Harry's angry about that.

Hagrid says he thought the boys cared about their friend more than broomsticks or rats. I'm not sure why since Hagrid's role in the books is mostly centers around his caring more about his hippogriff, dragon or spiders over his friends and students.

Weirdly, I can picture Hagrid giving this speech to the boys if Hermione was their single mother. She's got all this work to do and she's so worried about them and is trying to keep them safe and they need to be more appreciative and clean their rooms…

Hermione was really upset when Sirius nearly stabbed Ron. After he's married Ron probably hires people to regularly injure him in an attempted murder since it's like the only time Hermione can express an uncomplicated affection.

Ron says he wants Hermione to get rid of her cat, which is just stupid. Deal with the dead rat and move on. But then, Ron and Hermione can never let it alone with each other. Soulmates.

Hagrid says people can be stupid about their pets and the narrator has the class to tell us that he said this "wisely" and then pan over to Buckbeak to be ironic. It’s not that the series doesn't get that Hagrid’s an idiot, it just seems to present his idiocy as a virtue.

And again, to keep hammering on it, when Hagrid says that people can be stupid about their pets the text means him and Hermione, not Ron and the Malfoys (if we think of Draco for a pet for a second there). Has Hagrid counseled Hermione to apologize to Ron at all? Because his situation is just as analogous to Hagrid and Buckbeak's.

Then we’re back to Quidditch. Phew! Not a word about the one interesting thing going on in the book.

Hermione pops up again to say that if Harry goes to Hogsmeade again she'll tell McGonagall about the map. Ron basically tells her to shut her fat mouth or he'll shut it for her. He must really be in love!

Harry stands there and says nothing. Jeez, Harry.

OMG! Not only does he do nothing, he just checks to see if Hermione's gone before he goes back to planning his escape. It's creepy the way Ron is sometimes there to be a jerk so Harry can enjoy the benefits without being the jerk himself. Ron's useful all right. Make no mistake.

This was probably another one of those moments where Harry was privately approving of Ron's words, like with Ginny and Dean.

If I were Hermione I would never want to be with anyone who talked to me the way Ron talks to her here, btw. But I guess it turns Hermione on or something.

Hermione sounds like the reasonable one here, but don't be fooled. She's still not going to tell McGonagall about the passage. If she can see the danger in the Firebolt why does she have no problem with a secret passage nobody knows about? It's not as if Black—like everyone else—wasn't once a student at the school.

Uh-oh, here comes Neville. Look, Nev, Harry’s busy. Go away and come back when a snake needs killing.

Harry ditches Neville. You can see why Neville’s such a loyal friend to him.

Did Harry bring a coat this time? Or is it no longer Christmas so there's no need for cold weather?

They go to the post office. Exciting! But nonsensical! You don't actually need a central post office when you send letters door to door with your bird. So just for a few paragraphs, pretend that owls are like stamps.

The tiniest owls are used for local deliveries only, because being tiny means you can’t fly far. But you can still hold a letter several times your own weight.

I think JKR just wanted to put in that she knew that owls have breeds and that one of them is called the Scops owls.

Harry and Ron go to a joke shop and buy a lot of stuff that does not seem worth the money. Totally worth risking your very life, there, Harry.

Seriously, when you consider all the stuff Ron and Harry could be doing given they have magical powers, the idea that it's a treat to spend the day in an ordinary village looking at owls just like they have at school and buying the magical equivalent of plastic vomit is kind of unbelievable. Harry isn’t even a joker. What fun does he have with this stuff?

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle appear, naturally talking about the awful Hagrid plot. Whatevs.

I realize that JKR is doing the right thing by bringing everything back to the plots, such as they are, but wouldn’t it be cool if just once Malfoy walked up and was saying something completely unrelated to Harry's life? Like, "…up the courage to tell his mother but then his dad got sick again and you know whenever Theo tries to talk to her about the possibility of his dad not…" before he snapped into "What are you doing, Weasley?"

Harry throws mud at Malfoy from under his cloak. Did no one at this school ever suspect that Harry had an invisibility cloak? I guess if the words "Time Turner" have never come out of Ron’s mouth even after watching Hermione study for 3 classes at once we can’t expect to hear Malfoy say "invisibility cloak" just because he’s discovered a guy who’s never without his bff standing alone on a hill right before he’s hit with mud by an invisible person.

Oh wait, Malfoy does figure it out. It just takes him until HBP. Here he's just for some reason scared of Harry's face even though he’s got every reason to just say, "Oh, I see, you’re under a cloak."

Or else Malfoy is just more horrified by disembodied heads than disembodied feet.

Harry wonders if anyone would believe Malfoy if he told them about this wondrous occurrence. Again, Harry, magic. Malfoy didn’t actually see anything that wondrous, by the rules of the world in which you have lived for 3 years.

Snape's collected a few more slimy things in jars to his office, adding to the threatening atmosphere. It literally says that. Slytherins are so Goth. Remember how in DH we suddenly hear that their common room is full of skulls?

Dark Magic honestly does seem to be shorthand for vaguely Gothic taste. If you don't have that you could be a gang raping Quidditch team and it would still be good clean fun.

Uh oh. Harry's been caught. You know what that means. Start feeling unjustly persecuted quickly Harry! Avoid any passing thought of accepting punishment!

Snape lectures Harry on how everyone's trying to keep him safe and Harry just doesn't care and goes where he wants. If he hasn't yet appreciated that people want to keep him alive, why would he appreciate it when one of them is Snape?

Harry flies into a rage at Snape insulting his dad, even though Snape's insults aren’t really that bad. Nice callback to Aunt Marge, though, giving Harry a reason to be primed to be sensitive about it.

Snape is often wrong in saying Harry is like James, but if you get out of Harry’s head you would see a guy not completely unlike James. Yeah, there's times where the text is jumping up and down to show that all of James's bad qualities should be mapped onto Malfoy, but Harry's in there too.

Snape tells Harry about the Prank played on him back in school, making it as usual sound like a far better story than the one we eventually get in DH.

Harry claims all the junk in his pockets came from Ron last time he went to Hogsmeade. Snape says it’s very touching Harry’s still carrying them around after all this time—LOL Snape!

Harry tries to pass off the map as old parchment. Snape agrees it's very old. I can’t help but wonder if the Marauders didn't intentionally make it on an ancient parchment—just to add to the pirate atmosphere. (Pirates were all about good magic.)

Snape makes another crack about treasured gifts from Ron.

I would laugh at Snape's cheesy attempts to make the map work, but given how Lupin reveals himself to Harry at Shell Cottage ("It is I, Remus Lupin!") it's obviously just the way you're supposed to do these things so shut up.

People often claim that SWM was a big surprise and turnaround for James? And I've never gotten why. The Marauders are bullies in this scene through the map. They immediately start picking on Snape's personal appearance.

I mean, it's clever that we assume that the voices are just taking Harry's side or are against Snape because he's hostile to the map or something, but what's actually going on—as we know by the end of the book—is that Snape's getting picked on as the ugly outcast just like he used to be and Harry's one of the Marauders in his eyes. Of course Snape sees Harry as James here.

Lupin, like any good teacher, starts lying to cover Harry's ass. Because God forbid Harry just get a detention for sneaking around, or even worse have to say how he got out and so tip someone off to the hole in school security.

Lupin gets to tell Snape (later) that he should let all this stuff from their past go, even while passively removing himself of responsibility for the map's picking on Snape now. Snape does need to get over this stuff, but he has good reason to see MWPP as being the same as ever to him. It's not like any of them ever apologize for being asses or admit they did anything wrong. We know Snape can be just as much of an ass, but pretty much every flashback shows us scenes where Snape's minding his own business and they target him for bullying. I can't imagine a scene where Snape effectively hurt any of them. TL;DR, Snape’s stunted and pathetic, but they never grow up either.

Lupin’s all innocently "full of Dark Magic? I think it’s just childish" about the map. Which is probably the best definition of Dark Magic we'll get. Old-fashioned, good-natured bullying of repulsive kids is just childish fun! It's you people who are into Dark Magic. Our anger is righteous. Yours is the sign of a festering sore on the soul.

It still surprises me that something as small as Peter's sycophantic behavior is a sign of his ultimate badness, but James's and Sirius's cruelty is a dead end and something we're all supposed to identify with or brush off because they’re 15.

Lupin goes on covering up, denying that Harry got the map from him, though Snape would naturally have good reason to think that he did get the map from him.

Really, it's a pretty huge honkin' coincidence that he happened to get the map from unrelated people the same year Lupin showed up. And I doubt Lupin went to see Snape later to more earnestly assure him that he wasn't behind it. So Snape is left feeling like he was being played again. And it really would look like Lupin was helping Harry get away from security and protecting Sirius.

Reading this again I remember why Snape comes across as so sympathetic. He causes a lot of his own problems, but other characters like Harry, James and Sirius never have to do penence, acknowledge the reality of other people or admit they are wrong the way Snape did. Traumatizing other people sometimes actually does lead to those people not trusting you and striking back years later. (Which is why in my personal canon right in the middle of a big toast at Hermione's wedding a rather nasty word broke out in pustules all over her face.)

That's why this scene is really fun.

Lupin figures that as long as he's covering for the map, he'll randomly cover for Harry's trip into Hogsmeade as well. Uncle Lupin is just handing out the free passes today!

Lupin's astounded Harry didn't hand the map in, even though he's not going to hand it in either.

And he's not going to tell anyone about the passage either. WTF?

Lupin warns Harry not to expect him to cover up for him again. Well, why on earth are you covering up for him the first time, you silly werewolf? Oh right. Wants to be liked.

Harry feels a smidge badly about being so cavalier with his safety now that Lupin brings up his parents dying to save him. Harry Potter: Cares more about the feelings of dead people he doesn’t remember than his living best friends.

I would add that Harry also takes the same advice totally differently depending on who is saying it, but that goes without saying.

They run into Hermione and Ron gets ready to mouth off again, but it turns out she's actually bringing the next cliffhanger. Buckbeak's going to be executed. Look, I don't care. Ron doesn't care. Harry doesn't care. They just admitted earlier that they don't. So this isn't a cliffhanger.

Things that happen more than once:
Ron thrives under unexpected attention, as he will again in OotP.
First trip to the Shrieking Shack.
First Hagrid, now Hermione suffers from people expecting her to take responsibility when her pet hurts someone else.
Harry goes to Hogsmeade again the same way.
Harry flies into a rage when someone criticizes his father.
Second version of the Prank.
Lupin shirks his duty as an authority figure, screwing Snape in the process, just like he does in SWM.
Lupin saves Harry from the consequences of his irresponsibility the way the Trio will now save Hagrid from his.
Snape, otoh, ought to realize the Prank was all his fault, as presumably Malfoy should take all responsibility for the Buckbeak thing. I'm sensing a house pattern here.
Neville's to blame for the school’s stupid security measures just as Malfoy's to blame for Hagrid's stupid security measures.
Meanwhile, four people in a row decide not to tell anyone about the more obvious hole in the security system.

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
My dad didn’t strut!
Status: Fired in Harry’s face. Harry’s dad struts so fine he tutors roosters on weekends.

Who are those guys who made that map?
Status: Fired, obviously, in a few chapters.

The Prank!
Status: Fired, but not before everything's arranged to make Snape mostly responsible. He practically plays a Prank on himself. James barely noticed.

Sirius slashed the curtains around Ron's bed
Status: Fired. The drapery will have their revenge. Mwahahahaha!

Jabootu Score:

Designated Hero
Hermione shows herself willing to sacrifice her only friends to keep one of them safe. Ron goes Stanley Kowalski on her ass. Our designated hero? Doesn’t even think of stepping in to defend her.

Also James Potter, according to Snape. Don't you dare say he saved his life!!!

Misdirected Answering
Let’s see, Harry, Ron and Hagrid have talked about Hermione and his hippogriff. What else could there be to talk about? Oh yes, Quidditch!

Jabootu score 3

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Maybe Lupin is responsible for the Twins suddenly deciding to give the map to Harry. He could have told himself that gee, Harry seems a bit more sensible than he and James and co. were at that age, so probably he'd just use it to avoid Snape and maybe explore the kitchens, and surely Harry deserved something from his father... typical stupid rationalizations. Then Harry sneaked out and Lupin went d'oh, bad plan after all! Time for damage control! Which is why he didn't tell anyone either. (How he convinced the Twins, I don't know, unless they just "suddenly" came down with an "inexplicable" urge to give Harry a great present.)

I totally want to hear Draco's gossip about Theo now.

Randomly, maybe the post office is more like an owl rental service than an actual post office? If Errol finally kicked the bucket, how would the Weasleys send mail? Perhaps Xenophilus would appreciate a Muggle letter encased in stamps, but I doubt anyone else would.

The security mess in this book is one point where HBP actually handles something better than other books in the series. Hey, maybe we should have some magical protections around the school so people can't get in! No one has ever thought to institute these emergency security measures in all 1000 years of the school's existence! Draco has to work to sneak people in, and a broken cabinet in a hidden room does seem like something it's possible to overlook as a hole in security.

The drapery will have their revenge. Mwahahahaha!

Hee! How did we ever miss that clue at the time?

The drapery clue is so awesome in retrospect.

So much about this book is reminiscent of HBP it turns out, but it is kind of funny that there's all those security measures in HBP and nothing in PoA when they know someone is actually breaking into the school!

The drapery will have their revenge. Mwahahahaha!

Hee! How did we ever miss that clue at the time?

I think I'm missing it now; I've clearly forgotten something from my sole perusal of the book many years ago. I look forward to Sister Magpie doing all the work and pointing it out to me in a future review!

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