COS Chapter Twelve: "The Polyjuice Potion"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Sincere apologies for the lack of postage over the past few weeks; suffice to say that, whilst I’d be happy to log on regularly, RL seems to have other ideas.

 

* Slytherin are so evil that even the thought of being there is enough to make Harry feel sick. These books are such a good argument for tolerance, don’t you think?

* “Harry was just thinking that all he needed was for Dumbledore’s pet bird to die while he was alone in the office with it” just makes him sound so self-centred. Never mind about the dead bird, or Dumbledore losing his beloved pet, I might get in trouble for it! Even though I’d have no motive in killing it and it was pretty obviously sick before I came in.

* Fawkes is usually very pretty, just in case we were worrying that Harry might end up having his life saved by something ugly.

* Given what we now know about Dumbledore’s views on personal loyalty, the emphasis on the word “faithful” looks rather sinister.

* Any guesses on why exactly Hagrid needs to carry the rooster around with him in the castle?

* That’s right, Harry, don’t tell DD about that mysterious voice you heard! Heaven forbid that you might actually help him solve the mystery before anybody is seriously hurt.

* I think it’s rather sweet that Crabbe and Goyle are staying behind with Malfoy. They really do seem to care about each other. (Well, until the abomination that is DH, that is.)

* Harry’s glad that most people are leaving, despite the fact that this’ll narrow down the potential list of suspects and make it more likely that they’ll be caught.

* “[Harry] was tired of people skirting around him in the corridors, as though he were about to sprout fangs or spit poison; tired of all the muttering, pointing and hissing as he passed.” I wonder if that’s what the Slytherins feel like all the time?

* I have to admit, F&G’s heir of Slytherin routine is pretty amusing. But since it’s so different to their usual brand of “humour”, I think I can like it without feeling too guilty.

* I wonder why Fred, George and Ginny have decided to stay? Is it because the fine Mr. Weasley had to pay means they can’t afford to take them, and they’re too proud to admit the real reason?

* I’m sure that the teachers of Hogwarts appreciate Percy staying behind to help them, even if Harry doesn’t.

*How rude of the Dursleys to send him a toothpick like that, especially when Harry gave them an expensive luxury hamper bursting to the brim with Honeyduke’s finest chocolate. Or nothing. I forget which.

* BTW, it seems odd to go to all the trouble of sending Harry such a silly little present. Unless DD sent Hedwig to keep bothering them until they sent something…

* Ron gives Harry a book about Ron’s favourite Quidditch team, rather than something Harry would be expected to be interested in.

* I hope Mrs. Weasley gave her real children presents which were at least as good as the ones she gave Harry.

* F&G have bewitched Percy’s Prefect Badge to make it say “Pinhead”. Oh, the hilarity!

* Crabbe and Goyle eat four helpings of pudding. Harry and Ron, who aren’t greedy pigs, limit themselves to three.

* Hermione’s telling the Slytherins that Millicent Bulstrode came back would backfire spectacularly once they realised that Millicent had not in fact returned, and that they had, therefore, been tricked.

* It’s a shame that nobody’s written a HP/Hercule Poirot crossover fic, in which Poirot investigates the Polyjuice incident. He’d probably solve the mystery within half an hour, and then work out who’s petrifying all those students for good measure.

* Ron and Hermione are prepared to knock out two of Draco’s friends based on extremely flimsy evidence. Remember this is HBP, when they refuse to believe that Draco’s up to something, despite having much better evidence than they do here.

* At least Harry and Ron didn’t strip Crabbe and Goyle. Be grateful for small mercies, I suppose.

* Millicent Bulstrode is “no pixie”, apparently, which seems like a polite way of saying “fat”. Outside of fandom, are there any pretty Slytherin girls, or are they all fat and ugly?

* You’d have thought it wouldn’t have been beyond the Trio to change into their new clothes before taking the Polyjuice Potion.

* Ever since reading Draco Dormiens, I’ve always imagined Harry surreptitiously checking to see whether Goyle is bigger than he is.

* And now they’ve got to find the Slytherin common room. Gee, guys, would it have been impossible to find that out before you took the Potion? Even if you don’t arouse suspicion by not knowing where it is, you’ll waste valuable time trying to find it.

* All this makes Ron’s quip about Goyle being dumb look rather silly.

* I don’t know why, but I’ve always thought that this Ravenclaw girl was Penelope Clearwater. Perhaps she’s just been meeting Percy in one of the disused dungeons.

* Whoever she is, her reply to Harry and Ron is rather rude. Is that what the Slytherins are treated like all the time? It’s a shame Harry and Ron never consider this, and maybe get a bit of sympathy for the Slytherins.

* The Slytherin password is “Pureblood”, just to remind us that they’re all racists, and, therefore, evil. Never mind that Slytherin’s most famous alumni, Tom Riddle and Severus Snape, were both halfbloods, and in Tom’s case, there was no way to know whether he was a muggleborn, pureblood or half-blood.

* The Slytherin common-room doesn’t look particularly luxurious, which seems odd for a supposed bastion of aristocratic privilege. Perhaps it’s like that to try and inculcate some humility into the children, like the fag system in old British public schools.

* I think it’s rather sweet of Mr. Malfoy to send his son newspaper clippings like that. “Here, Draco, let’s both laugh together at these guys!” I still think it odd that such an evil bully as Draco apparently is wouldn’t make greater use of it to humiliate Ron. Maybe he’s not so bad after all.

* Mrs. Weasley has threatened to set the family ghoul on reporters, apparently not realising that that sort of action is extremely bad publicity.

* Draco’s theory about DD hushing up the attacks is probably correct; at any rate, nobody seems to refer to them much in later books.

* Do racists normally go on about how much they hate [insert ethnicity here] as much as Draco’s doing in this scene? It just comes across as really false and over-the-top, at least to me. Perhaps he’s twigged that there’s something wrong with “Crabbe” and “Goyle”, and is deliberately acting oddly in order to see if they notice.

* Draco wishes that Hermione would get killed by the monster. Knowing what she’s going to become in later books, I can’t help but wonder whether that might not be for the best after all.

* For all Harry and Ron’s jokes about C&G being thick, they seem to be arousing Draco’s suspicions by being slower on the uptake.

* Harry and Ron are “hoping against hope that Malfoy hadn’t noticed anything.” I wouldn’t count on it, guys; he seems like a good Potions student, so he probably remembers what Snape said about the Polyjuice Potion; Harry and Ron were the least convincing Crabbe and Goyle imaginable; a boy who can notice Harry’s foot slipping out of the invisibility cloak for a split second would almost certainly notice his best friends changing into somebody else before his eyes; and the real Crabbe and Goyle would tell him that they weren’t there. He probably knows what happened, and feels really annoyed that DD doesn’t do anything about it.

* What’s the point of Cat!Hermione? It doesn’t advance the plot, it doesn’t contribute to characterisation, and it doesn’t add to the atmosphere of the story. Perhaps it’s to stop people questioning her plan by making them feel sorry for her.

* “Madam Pomfrey never asks too many questions…” Given what goes on in Hogwarts, maybe it’s time she started.

 

Comments

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

And who the h*ll taught Molly the AK anyway? I thought it was an Unforgivable, and thus outlawed.

Hm. At least Molly didn't stand there whimpering helplessly and offer herself in trade for Ginny?

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

It wasn't an AK! The AK is GREEN and DEATH-CAUSING and EVIIIIL. (note the link to Slytherin). Her spell was RED and DEATH-CAUSING and STILL AWESOME. (note the link to Gryffindor)

At least Molly didn't stand there whimpering helplessly and offer herself in trade for Ginny?

Yeah...I guess. I hate how it happened, I hate how she managed to unrealistically best Bellatrix, but at least she fought her damndest.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was a modified cooking spell or something (oh gods, that's probably what JKR would say if asked!) For all we know, Molly was as interested in modifying spells as Snape, but never got a chance to show them off outside the kitchen until then.

But yes, where did she learn it? Is it really as easy as pointing and shouting? And if so, how high is the wizarding world's murder rate?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Right now without having the book here at work I can only go by memory. What sticks out in my mind is Harry thinking something like: he knew what would happen next or knew what was coming; or there is this implication that there was going to be a killing spell of some sort coming from Molly's wand. I even think it's described as a curse. The way I remember it Harry also compairs it to how Sirius died.

I really don't remember the color (need to go back and reread that section)

But Bellatrix death is if I remember rightly how the AK spell kills people.

And we have seen the curse behave differently depending on who casts it. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Severus' killing curse made Dumbledore lift up off the astronomy tower floor out so his body would fall. For some reason I'm remembering that Dumbledore was sort of sitting or had slid down the wall and was in sort of a sitting position.

And as far as I remember the killing curse was always before and after that portrayed as just making the person drop dead. There shouldn't have been any lifting up or moving of the body except that it drops dead.

So if the color of molly's spell was different the outcome of whatever curse she cast was pretty similar to the AK.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

The colour of the spell is left unstated. As was the spell Bella hit Sirius with - it seems like the parallels with Sirius' death are being drawn in order to create some subliminal ambiguity over whether the spell was lethal (I'm not sure if JKR intended that or is a good enough writer to have the idea in the first place, or whether I'm just looking too far into this).

I've seen theories that Snape was getting Dumbledore's body away from DEs who might desecrate it, but given that dropping it from the Astronomy Tower should have done quite a bit of damage itself, and that his first words after the killing are "Out of here, quickly" so they can escape the castle's defenders, I'm not convinced.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

The colour of the spell is left unstated. As was the spell Bella hit Sirius with - it seems like the parallels with Sirius' death are being drawn in order to create some subliminal ambiguity over whether the spell was lethal (I'm not sure if JKR intended that or is a good enough writer to have the idea in the first place, or whether I'm just looking too far into this).

I kind of have a feeling that JKR wasn't going to spell out the AK curse when Molly was doing it. I theorize that is why it's explained the way it is, without the words in text spelled out.

For a lot of Voldies, we get to see the words spelled out, I don't think all of them but it just feels to me like she avoided purposefully spelling it out to show molly using the words. Thats my take on it anyway.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Which also leaves us with the result that Molly Weasley can use non-verbal spells, but the Dark Lord, the only man Dumbledore will emerge from behind his desk to face in combat, he who has progressed further than anyone down the path to immortality, has to call all his attacks like a child.

[oryx_leucoryx]

and that his first words after the killing are "Out of here, quickly" so they can escape the castle's defenders

Actually his intent was to get the attackers away fast so they won't linger and duel the defenders.

Severus' AK lifted Albus up because he put a lot of emotion into it.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

And who the h*ll taught Molly the AK anyway? I thought it was an Unforgivable, and thus outlawed.

Apparently all you need to do is 'mean it' to use an unforgivable.

My wondering is, what is the difference JKR presents us with in DH than using a gun on someone? Unforgivables by good and bad people in DH don't seem to be any different from how a Gun would be used.

It doesn't seem to make a difference if you are a good character, all you have to do is mean it and you can pull the magical trigger. Thus it sounds to me there is no skill at all involved in magical spells that are supposed to be way more advanced and complicated than the basic stuff taught at school.

In DH wand magic doesn't seem any different than Harry/Molly/whoever waving a gun around and shooting people. We're shown at some point in the series that Harry has trouble doing unforgivables but in DH he seems quite able but also quite unaffected by doing those so called 'evil dark' spells to other humans.

There is no real qualification on dark magic, JKR effectively removed it when she allowed her 'heros' to use spells that we were told multiple times are 'evil' or 'dark magic'.

And I know the example has been used before that this is war and you gotta do what you gotta do but having the heros lower themselves to use the same exact tools/methods/ideals as the evil characters makes the whole thing questionable.

Dumbledore may say it's the choices in life that determine who you are; but I disagree, I think it's what you actually DO. Not what you say, or if you decide you are a good guy or evil guy. At the end of the day you can make all the choices you want but it's what you actually DO that would determine what you really are.

So I have to wonder about the aspect JKR was presenting by having her good/hero do evil magic.

I think on some level JKR was trying to show Harry and her good characters as being flawed but how many flaws/actions does it take before your good characters look just as morally corrupt as the supposed evil you're intending for them to end. And I think a lot of what I've read in deathstocaplock seem to share that question on a lot of issues in the series.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

He said it was our choices that show what we are, not that determine what we are. The inherent goodness or badness of a person, their inborn moral underpinning, is shown through the instinctive choices they make. In some ways, he's right - the sort of choices we make reflect our world-view. In the instance he referenced for Harry, though, Harry didn't have the knowledge to actually make an informed choice - begging the hat to send him anyplace but Slytherin. He had heard bad things from people he liked but, he had no personal knowledge that Slytherin was evil or dangerous or wrong. He was operating on prejudiced views which were not his own so, in this case, Harry's choice actually showed that he was an eleven year old child who relied on opinions of people he favored, like most eleven year olds do. When we get older, though, and have experiences behind us which directly reflect on the choices with which we're presented, we have some background which shows through the choices we make. In that case, though, the background helps us to make our choices.

If DD had said our choices determine who we are, I wouldn't disagree with him. Each choice we make in life determines the next part of our journey - go to college or rob a bank - college > degree (in many cases, that is, not counting dropping out) > job, perhaps in a different area or even country > meeting different people > possibly marrying someone you would never have met where you grew up > ... versus: rob a bank > getting caught > prison > stain on your permanent record > not being bondable > not getting as good a job as you otherwise would have > greater chance of poverty > ...

It's free will v. Determinism. In free will, your choices determine who and what you become; in Determinism, your character and life have already been determined, along with the choices you will make, before you were born and you can't do anything but follow those pre-set plans. Dumbledore's statement seems to favor Determinism, IMO.

[oryx_leucoryx]

It is illegal to cast on humans, but in principle nothing prevents Molly from using it as a garden-gnome extermination spell.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Are we told then that's it's only illegal against humans? *curious* I don't recall that, but haven't reread GoF for a while. My memory seems to think that Croody got permission for educational demonstrations or just didn't give a hoot. But not sure.

[oryx_leucoryx]

'Moody' says casting Unforgivables on a human being earns one Azkaban sentence. Leaving open the possibility that they are OK to cast on non-humans. (I wonder if that includes beings such as house-elves, goblins or part-humans.)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Are we told then that's it's only illegal against humans?

According to Harry Potter Wiki ( http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Avada_Kedavra_Curse ):

After the Wizards' Council was reformed into the Ministry of Magic tighter restrictions were placed on the use of certain kinds of magic. The Killing Curse was deemed by the Ministry to be dark magic, and, along with the Cruciatus and Imperius curses, were declared "unforgivable" in 1717. The use of any of these three curses on a fellow human being would result in a life sentence in Azkaban...

During the First Wizarding War, when Barty Crouch Sr. was in charge of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he fought violence with violence, and legalised the three Unforgivable Curses for Aurors against the Death Eaters in order to win the war. This was repealed once the war was over, as it was no longer necessary...

When Lord Voldemort took over the Ministry, the three curses were once again legalised: this time every wizard and witch had the right to use them as they pleased...

So it sounds like the AK was only "unforgiveable" if used against a human being; conceivably one could use it to exterminate cockroaches, garden gnomes, centaurs or giants without repercussion. :-/