OOTP Chapter Twelve: "Professor Umbridge"
Apr. 22nd, 2011 06:46 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock* “Does he think he’ll turn into a nutter if he stays in a room with me too long?” Given that you threatened to curse him yesterday, he probably thinks you’ve already turned into one.
* So having favoured Harry over Seamus, Ron’s now reluctant to keep his brothers in line. A prefect should really be more impartial.
* Nice to see Harry and Ron dismissing the prospect of uniting with the Slytherins out of hand like that. And to think that some people say Slytherins aren’t treated like proper members of the school!
* So Angelina’s only holding try-outs for Wood’s replacement, whereas Harry will make everybody try-out next year. Is this something that varies depending on who’s captain, or did JKR just make up the “everyone tries out” idea to add some Ron-related angst in Book 6?
* Note how Ron’s already decided that he won’t like Umbridge before having one lesson with her. As it is he’ll be proved right, but still, it’s not like they’re giving her much of a chance, is it?
* “‘Leave me out of it,’ said Ron hastily.” Nice to see him undermining the authority of his fellow-prefect like that, isn’t it?
* As if the prospect of taking exams which determine whether or not you stay at school isn’t stress enough, Fred and George go and give people boils. Charming.
* As an aside, how does the exam system in Hogwarts work? In some ways it seems like GCSEs/O-levels, but if this were the case we’d expect quite a few people to leave school after taking them and take up jobs, rather than study to NEWT level. Or is it more a case of them being necessary to progress to NEWT level, but otherwise not really affecting your final qualifications, a bit like some university exams?
* Poor Ron, wanting to be an Auror. He’s spent his entire school career being overshadowed by Harry, and now he’ll spend his entire professional career being overshadowed, too. What he really needs is some time working/travelling without Harry or Hermione, so that he can become more confident and discover that he can actually cope without them. I doubt JKR would give him that, though.
* Besides, Aurors are, like, the élite. You can’t be one of them unless you’re really good. Or unless you’re the Chosen One, in which case you are entitled to take up whatever job you want. And get your friends into the Aurors, too.
* Ugh, Hermione’s so easy to manipulate. “Oh, you’re so clever, please lend us your notes.” She really ought to stop helping them, or at least scale back her help to a level where she’s not practically doing their work for them.
* Although I am rather attracted to the idea that she’s subconsciously trying to make herself indispensible to the boys due to her deep-seated insecurity. Especially given what happened to her when she last seriously stood up to them, over the broom in POA.
* So Harry meets Cho, makes a complete faux pas and reminds her of her dead boyfriend. Ron quickly steers the conversation away onto something more happy, i.e., Quidditch, before Cho can get too upset. Nevertheless, Ron is apparently the insensitive jerk around here, not Harry.
* And Ron and Hermione keep bickering about it all the way to Potions class. I’ve heard of couples getting into friendly arguments, but really, this is just ridiculous.
* Snape has apparently come to expect a high pass level from his students, suggesting that he’s actually quite a good teacher, after all.
* No matter how “worthless” Harry’s potion is, Ron’s has to be even worse.
* For Divination, they work from The Dream Oracle, by Inigo Imago. Which makes me wonder: where do people get the time to research all this complicated magic stuff and write up books about it? Apart from teaching positions in Hogwarts, there don’t really seem to be any academic jobs in the WW, and there aren’t enough wizards to make writing books a viable way of making a living (which perhaps explains the lack of wizarding fiction – there just isn’t a big enough audience for such works to be profitable). But surely a regular day job wouldn’t leave much time for research, so perhaps there’s some form of Ministry grant to allow people to take time off work and research these topics, or the people who do so are all wealthy enough that they can afford not to work full-time.
* Keeping a dream diary doesn’t seem as onerous as Harry and Ron seem to make out. After all, it’s not like most people have many dreams, and I’d be surprised if they’d end up remembering more than one or two over that whole period.
* Professor Umbridge’s wand is “unusually short”. Freudian, anyone?
* Knowing the WW, those kids really need a Defence class involving some considerations of the ethics involved. Like Umbridge’s. Still, no wonder they don’t take to it. Ethics? Pah! What sort of cowardly thing is this?
* Picking a fight with a teacher like this seems a bit OOC for someone like Hermione. Maybe the real Hermione Granger’s been drugged and locked in a magical trunk with the real Ginny Weasley, and has now been taken over as JKR’s sock-puppet.
* At least Dean acknowledged that Moody “turned out to be a maniac”, but doesn’t seem to dwell on it too much because “we still learned loads”. Which seems… somewhat worrying, TBH. Sort of like a Muggle saying “Yes, well, I know Myra Hindley turned out to be a mass-murderer, but she taught me loads of great childcare tips.”
* So Professor Umbridge states that Voldemort’s return is a lie, which seems to be the Ministry line. But never does anybody suggest that Harry killed Cedric himself, despite him having the means, motive and opportunity, and despite the fact that Cedric’s body doesn’t seem to bear animal attack marks on it. Perhaps it’d just be too difficult for Harry to rebut, and hence would get in the way of JKR’s planned storyline.
* “Well, I’m glad you listen to Hermione Granger, at any rate,” says Professor McGonagall, somewhat ironically, given that Hermione’s the one who started the trouble.
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Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 05:14 pm (UTC)I think Snape if he lived would think about that and I don't doubt that he'd remind them of it at some point:
"Thank you for the help, Miss Granger...I really appreciated your efforts in trying to save my life."
"But, there wasn't much I could have-"
"Done to save my worthless life," he finished the comment for her, his tone darkening.
"That is not what I was going to say," she replied, "I didn't have anything with me that would have helped you and there was no time."
"I am aware I was doomed, but here I am, quite alive," he when on a sneer very evidence on his face.
"Yes, I see that you are alive, though we're not sure how you are alive...but when you were dieing we thought you were with Voldemort, a loyal Death Eater and we didn't think-"
"Clearly thinking about me was not top priority was it," he cut in again, "and I was the evilest of men so I deserved to die horribly."
"No, thats not what I-"
"Not even a mocking attempt to save me." he went on, ignoring that she had even spoken, "Though you did rather well at conjuring a flask to take my memories away. There is no doubt you are quite...ah...effective when you want to be."
"If we could have saved you we would have." she insisted, sounding annoyed.
"Ah yes, such hero's that you three are."
Hermione narrowed her eyes.
"And you were all in hurry obviously, no time to think about saving a mans life, not a man such as myself. But, it was quite enough time to conjure a flash, take my memories and rush away to save the world."
"I did...look back." was the only thing she could think to say.
"Such a moving moment I'm sure...thank you so much for giving my dead body one longing last look."
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 05:53 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 06:05 pm (UTC)I just don't see Sev being particularly nice to any of the trio if he had of lived, in fact I think he'd be nastier than usual. So I could see him giving the trio a hard time on their life saving skills.
I could even see him giving Minerva a hard time with all that dagger throwing she did at him when he got tag teamed by all the heads of house - I feel like he'd totally rub it in that she tried to kill him.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 11:19 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 11:30 am (UTC)I see next to nothing really shown where Snape is actually giving favoritism to Slytherins. We only get that word of mouth right? What did Severus actually do in reguards to showing favoritism. Ignoring certain things his students might do?
Okay fine, I can take that. But seriously, McGonagall and Dumbledore bend rules for Harry and sometimes even OMG, break them. HOW the hell is Severus worse?
And with McGongall the first thing is Quidditch where she breaks school rules - an anyone imagine that because of Quidditch McGonagall might have ignored James bullying. And lets not forget the twins who were also Quidditch players.
So if Severus is playing favorites with his students, one can see who he might have learned that from. Lets not forget that McGonagall was Severus' teacher as well - so is there any question that he had already read the book on how to work the system by the time he became a teacher and head of house.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 01:01 pm (UTC)The point thing aside I think they operate in similar ways as heads of house, but Snape is a quintessentially Slytherin variant on McGonagall.
I don't envy either of them their jobs. Specifically with Professor McGonagall, can you imagine being in charge of a group of teenagers who believe that taking outrageous risks and stunts is not only a virtue but a mandatory requirement?
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 06:35 pm (UTC)That's a good point I'd never considered. I'd always figured there was bribery involved. Both James and Sirius came from rich families who could have made "contributions" to the school when their sons acted up. Even after Sirius got kicked out by his parents, he still had money from his uncle. We have no direct evidence that occurred, but the wizarding world is very corrupt, and doing favors for your friends does happen in other contexts. *coughArthurWeasleycough* Such things also commonly happen in RL. For those reasons, I think payoffs make a lot of sense.
The Potters and Weasleys were also Dumbledore's supporters, so I'm sure he was inclined to cut them a break just for that reason. "You support me; I let your kids off the hook when they misbehave."
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 05:39 pm (UTC)You know, I've always wondered how Slytherin managed to originally win the House Cup by the end of first year after Draco had lost so many points. *Did* McGonagall give Draco back his points after he'd had detention? Or did his Housemates try as best as they could to make up for Draco's loss? Or did Slytherin House already have a huge amount of points for some reason and Draco's punishment did nothing to hurt them in the long run?
/Punishing Neville for 'being so abysmally stupid to lose his cribnote with the passwords'? Totally unfair./
I agree, poor Neville didn't deserve her wrath. Why was it such a crime for him to make a list of the passwords so that he wouldn't forget them? It's not his fault that Sir Cadogan was so difficult. Sure, it was careless of him to leave the list lying around, but he probably thought that the worst case scenario would be that a student from another House would find it, not an escaped convict. Instead of blaming Neville for Sirius Black breaking into Gryffindor Tower, Minerva should have wondered how Sirius Black broke into *Hogwarts.* Shouldn't *that* be the primary concern?
/She *doesn't* come down like a ton of bricks on the Marauders for being such obnoxious bullies./
What's worse is that she remembers them fondly despite the fact that Snape, one of her coworkers, was repeatedly bullied by them. Where exactly was Minerva when James was hexing everybody for kicks? Where was she when James was humiliating Severus? Did Minerva know about the Prank or Dumbledore tell her the same lie that Lily echoed to Snape?
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 06:40 pm (UTC)Not only that. Just how stupid was the Fat Lady's portrait? Surely she realized this haggard-looking grown man wasn't a student and didn't belong in the Tower. Why did she let him in? Even if she'd recognized him as an alumnus, he still didn't belong there in 1993-94. There's no point in having "sentient" portraits guarding the student housing if they're just going to let anybody in anyway.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 03:06 am (UTC)I agree, poor Neville didn't deserve her wrath. Why was it such a crime for him to make a list of the passwords so that he wouldn't forget them?
Too true, especially as that list of passwords was stolen from *inside* the Gryffindor tower - Neville certainly hadn't left it in an unsecured area. If he tried to bring this up with her, though, I'm sure she wouldn't have believed him. As has been discussed before, McGonagall is just as unjustly harsh towards Neville as Snape is.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-25 04:29 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
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Date: 2011-04-25 02:54 am (UTC)She wasn't punishing Draco for lying, she was punishing him for being out of bed after curfew. I don't see why she should necessarily believe Draco for a far-fetched story about first-years smuggling illegal dragons, either.
Although, did Draco mention Hagrid at all in that scene? If he merely said that Harry, Hermione and Ron had got their hands on a dragon, then McGonagall would have good cause to think he was lying.
But if he mentioned Hagrid then things would be different. McGonagall probably went to school at the same time as Hagrid and was in the same House as him, so she would have known about his monster-related hobbies. In this case she should have followed up any mention of dragons with a proper investigation.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 06:05 pm (UTC)That's actually the premise of most SS/HG fan fics I've seen...they have Hermione returning to the Shack to rescue Severus, and then most of the stories have her later becoming his apprentice or aiding him in his studies/research in some manner. The Hermione in these stories is usually presented as an "older and wiser" Hermione, who realizes how much she doesn't know and starts really learning from Snape, and so hence the relationship between the two characters deepens.
IOW, these stories do an almost total rewrite of Hermione to the point that she may was well be labled an OFC...
But ya know, since she just conjured a flask without doing much else, to me that would sort of put a damper on the relationship he has with any of the trio.
Well it goes back to the discussion of Hermione re: smart vs. intelligence.
She's smart enough to figure out to conjure a flask in time to capture Snape's memories; OTOH, she does not have the intelligence to think of any other spell/charm/potion that may actually save Snape's life.
"Yes, I see that you are alive, though we're not sure how you are alive...but when you were dieing we thought you were with Voldemort, a loyal Death Eater and we didn't think-"
"Clearly thinking about me was not top priority was it," he cut in again, "and I was the evilest of men so I deserved to die horribly."
And again, Hermione was not intelligent enough to consider that Snape may have had even more useful information than was in the memories he gave them; she had no idea what was in those memories, it could have turned out that Snape only managed to get out some, but not all, of the memories, resulting in a bigger puzzle.
With Snape dead, they'd have no way of knowing what he had been trying to tell them. If they'd kept him alive, they could have questioned him further. But all Hermione could think of was Harry, who was only focused on one thing, and it wasn't Snape.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 07:04 pm (UTC)Even more than that, she's immoral and selfish. Remember in PoA, when the Trio knocks Snape unconscious and there's blood trickling down from beneath his hair? Her only response was "Eek, eek. We're going to get in trouble for attacking a teacher, maybe even expelled." She didn't give a damn about the fact she might have seriously injured or killed someone. Her concerns were all about herself.
And again, Hermione was not intelligent enough to consider that Snape may have had even more useful information than was in the memories he gave them; she had no idea what was in those memories, it could have turned out that Snape only managed to get out some, but not all, of the memories, resulting in a bigger puzzle.
That would make such an incredibly cool fanfic!
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 07:48 pm (UTC)Pretty sociopathic, isn't it? But then with the mind-raping her parents thing, I guess maybe it was just a taste of what was to come? How did I not pick up on this as a kid? Perhaps it reflects the childish view that teachers aren't really people outside of class or something like that?
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 08:07 pm (UTC)Yes, it's a common premise. There are also stories where Severus guilt-trips Hermione over not saving him (and they still end up together) or stories where he agrees the kids couldn't have saved him (he was saved by Fawkes in some of those or by something he set in motion himself or some other magic that was beyond the kids' reach). Also stories where they meet again many years later under very different circumstances. Also stories where Hermione and Severus already had some kind of mentorship/friendship/something else (whether single or two-sided) by the time they are in the Shack. Hermione had a lot of potential, I'm not throwing her away just because Rowling thought she was perfect in every way and didn't give her the moral growth she needed. And she does have a lot to offer to Severus, so it goes both ways.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-23 09:54 pm (UTC)(faints) More excitement in the DTCL - the drama unfoldes....
Severus sneers at the idea of himself and Granger in a romantic relationship, "Does everyone want me to shack up with the bushy headed buck toothed know-it-all?" he asked in exasperation.
"Honestly, Severus. She got her teeth fixed, or have you forgotten?" says KarentheUnicorn.
"I haven't forgotten anything, madam." he announced, eyeing KTU suspitiously, "Why would I want that...girl...Besides she needed me to point out the obvious to her so she could take the initiative to fix her own teeth."
"Many people say you were terribly mean to her when that teeth incident happened."
"Oh yes, I'm mean," he mutters, "everyone wants to throw me to the fire for saying I saw no difference...the damn girls parents are dentists and they could not fix her teeth? Who is the horrible person here really?" he askes, sounded afronted.
"You are not completely Horrible Severus."
He makes a noise that suggests he doesn't care about her opinion.
"Hermione Granger is not ugly you know, she's improved and isn't 11 years old anymore."
"I do not have any interest in that silly girl." he grumbles unhappily.
"She's an adult now, Severus."
"That doesn't make her shag worthy or that I should consider it."
"You never know you might have a lot in common. You might like her as a grown up."
"Yes, if I was really drunk and under the Imperius Curse." he replied coolly.
just having some fun =)
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 12:12 am (UTC)She had absolutely nothing to offer Snape, and those fans who insist on pairing her with him end up making tons of excuses for her, and change her so much that she effectively becomes an OFC...
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 12:29 am (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 12:01 pm (UTC)To me thats a reason why Hermione becomes a popular paring with him because she's a character they already know. No matter how OC she might get in terms of her character, because she's been labled Hermione in the story people are more willing to accept it.
I wonder how it would work if you take one of those really good SS/HG stories and make her character someone else.
People don't want to invest in something they don't know very well.
So maybe on some level it's just a product of being easier to jump into the story where you don't have to figure out a new character and that it's a what if situation.
And I know the OC world is filled with what people like to call Mary Sue, etc. But for me I don't see how IF someone cared for Severus, really cared for him and was on his side that it can't work with an OC just as easily as it can with Hermione.
Hermione is not the only fountain in the world of being fiercely loyal. To me that reasoning only works because she is a HP character, readers know and thats the reason it works for a lot of readers.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 03:14 pm (UTC)Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 12:41 am (UTC)This is pretty true, though, for any of the characters that Severus usually gets paired with.
I would hate to see Severus with any of the other main characters as they're written in canon.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 01:18 am (UTC)I would hate to see Severus with any of the other main characters as they're written in canon.
My thoughts exactly.
As I mentioned in another post, I don't see Snape having a romantic and/or sexual relationship with anyone, because the torch he still carries for Lily burns too hot and too bright.
Re: SSHG
Date: 2011-04-24 01:58 am (UTC)One would hope, though, that, had he survived the snake bite, he would have eventually been able to move on and find someone else to love.
Re: SSHG
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