HBP Chapter Twenty-Two

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*A burial for somebody we couldn’t care less about. What a shock, it’s a Hagrid chapter!

*LOL! I’m going to miss Harry and his moods that are failed to be lifted even by the approach of summer. Stop trying to out-emo Malfoy, Harry. You may have done it last year with your brooding, fiery rage, but this year your life is an Archie comic. Accept it.

*Hagrid sends Harry a note reminding him that he thinks anything he feels the Trio owes it to him to feel too.

*Hagrid says Harry and Ron know how special Aragog was. Special. That’s one word for it.

*You know, usually I think of Malfoy as the character who says what everybody’s thinking about Hagrid, but to be fair he really shares that job with Ron. What else do these two have in common? Oh right, they’ve both spent time in the infirmary thanks to Hagrid.

*Harry notes that tears have fallen onto the parchment. Probably because Hagrid writes all his letters with a magical weeping pen for extra guilt: "Dear Dumbledore, ::sniff sniff:: I’m righ’ sorry ‘bout squashin’ that firs’ year ::snuffle wail:: when I got drunk an’ sat on him. I s’pose you’ll be ::small spray of snot:: wantin’ me outta yer hair…"

*Hermione can’t imagine what’s more important to use the luck potion for than this memory—you haven’t seen the memory, Hermione.

*Hey, why doesn’t Harry use it to find out what Malfoy’s up to? Oh. IITS.

*Really he’s been wanting to use the potion to break up Dean and Ginny. As opposed to wanting to use the potion to get lucky with Ginny.

*JKR finally finds time to drop in some actual war news about the Montgomery sisters—but only in service of giving Tonks a reason to be wandering the halls. Or sort of a reason.

*Hermione vaguely says she heard the Montgomery parents refused to help the DEs. Don’t ask me what she was supposed to help them do or why or how. The DE don’t actually seem to do anything that I can see. Certainly nothing it seems they’d need some random person’s mother to help them do.

*Surely Werewolves don’t kill? asks Harry. Because when one hears "werewolf" the last thing one would think of was excessive violence.

*Ron says they kill when they get "carried away" but isn’t it far more logical to say that they only just bite and infect when they’re interrupted during an attack? Wolves don’t go around just biting as many things as possible.

*I think I’ve asked this before but…they have bells at Hogwarts? A regular school bell seems incredibly out of place in a castle.

*There were only three of them in Potions: Harry, Ernie, and Draco Malfoy, who gets two names because he’s so damned spoiled!

**snuggles three baby Potions boys*

*Interesting. Ernie speaks sycophantically and Malfoy doesn’t crack a smile on his thinner, greyer face. Harry always needs to have somebody sucking up to the teacher so he can be superior to them.

*Harry notices no air of smugness and superiority like Draco had on the train. Um, Harry? The train was like 8 months ago. You’re just now noticing the superiority wearing off?

*Harry manages to conclude the loss of smugness means the mission’s going badly, but does not link this to his looking ill or consider just how badly it might be going. That’s our Harry “What, you mean Cho was crying because she was sad?” Potter.

*Note he also doesn’t try to fit it into his own narrative of events. Malfoy looked ill after the necklace, now he looks thin after the mead. It’s like he’s just completely forgotten the two murder attempts. Him and everyone else in the school except Malfoy.

*Harry doesn’t tell Slughorn the sprig of peppermint wasn’t his own inspiration. Which doesn’t make him a cheater at all! Or a plagiarist!!11!

*Ernie is really determined to win me over in this book. First the leaping pirouette and now the purple dumpling in the bottom of his cauldron.

*Malfoy’s hiccoughing solution is graded merely passable. But he made it out of the regular book so Malfoy wins!

*Ron suggests that thinking you’ve taken FF is the same thing as really taking it, which is probably true in a universe where "confidence" is pretty much enough to do anything. (Note that Malfoy, not being a Gryffindor, has "arrogance" not "confidence.")

*Harry walks through the portrait hole and accidentally gives yet another blow to the slowly dying Ginny and Dean relationship. I’ve said it before, but for all everyone’s "all teenagers have lots of short romances—don’t judge Ginny!" defenses of the tediousness of the romance plots Hogwarts romances seem to hang on like grim death. Why are these couples together so long? For the sake of the plot kids?

*Does anyone else find it hilarious that JKR invented herself a canonical deus ex machina? "Hmm…it would be far too fake if Harry just ran into Slughorn—wait, what if that’s the point—that it’s fake?" And thus Felix Felicitas was born!

*During chapters like this you wonder if JKR ever regretted just not giving the Gryffindors an actual plot for this book, because finding ways for them to kill time until Malfoy’s ready in June seems like it might have ultimately been harder.

*Harry tells Slughorn he’s off to see Hagrid, because the best thing now is to tell the truth. Err…except that isn’t the truth. Apparently for Harry truth=one level of lie up.

*Slughorn knows Dumbledore trusts Hagrid to the hilt (?!) so he can’t be up to anything dreadful. Which is a bit like saying that you know Tom Cruise thinks Scientology is awesome, so it couldn’t be stupid and crazy.

*Harry invites Slughorn to come along to the funeral to get some venom from Aragog. After all, Harry’s only using Hagrid’s grief as a way to get the FF, why shouldn’t it be of some use to Slughorn too?

*Who thought they were going to wrap Aragog in a Kleenex and flush him down a great big magic toilet?

*Hagrid says Aragog would have been touched Harry was there, proving that Hagrid once again has bonded with his ideal fantasy of Aragog instead of the real thing.

*The other spiders won’t let Hagrid near their webs now that Aragog’s gone, because even monstrous spiders find him annoying.

*Hagrid says he had trouble getting Aragog out of the forest because the spiders usually eat their dead, but he wanted to give him a proper send-off. Note that a "proper sendoff" naturally means a wizard send-off. It’s hardly proper for a spider to have a spider send-off—much better he be harvested for some Potions ingredients and be an excuse for a bout of drinking. I believe Aragog’s Apparition license does say he was an organ donor.

*Hagrid takes time out of sobbing to indicate that he of course does know that he risked getting Harry in trouble by asking him out and is ready to blubber and whine to Harry about that if necessary.

*Ah! The Slytherin’s arrived—in fancy clothes with an armful of liquor!

*Why am I not surprised Slughorn owns a cravat?

*At first I thought Slughorn was bringing all the booze to try to get Hagrid drunk and then suggest he offer Slughorn some venom, but he just steals that. So I’m left to assume that he brought the booze solely in order to get Harry drunk and molest him.

*Harry once more tries to make us believe that Hermione really does still care about that house elf business.

*Slughorn calls Ron Rupert, which is still not as much of a cinematic tribute as Hermione’s punching Malfoy in the face.

*FF tells Harry not to drink tonight. I actually don’t think that’s FF so much as some dim memory of Harry’s from his Muggle childhood where they went to an assembly about "Good touches and bad touches" and "why you shouldn’t let strangers get you drunk."

*Hagrid tells the story about how he raised a man-eating monster in school, the moral being that Tom Riddle contrived to have him thrown out and he totally didn’t deserve it at all. Sure Hagrid’s spider could easily have killed Myrtle. The point is that he didn’t!

*Hagrid reveals he uses unicorn hair to bind wounds if a creature get hurt. If a kid gets hurt he just gets annoyed. No wasting of unicorn hair on them!

*Harry notes that Slughorn is looking around Hagrid’s cabin for stuff to add to his collection. Unlike Harry who’s watching Slughorn to see how he can pluck a memory out of his brain. Or Hagrid who’s looking out for ways to get everyone to feel sorry for him. What a lovely Trio these three make.

*Hmm…well, I guess if I stretch the definition of "luck" I can accept Harry’s being able to do a charm nonverbally that he’s never been able to do that way before counts. But it’s a stretch.

*Btw, we’ve been told that magic can’t create food and stuff out of thin air, right? But a refilling charm rather makes you wonder why anyone ever buys more than six bottles of any kind of drink in their life.

*Of all the heroic things Harry’s done in canon I think staying in a cabin with these two giant leaky-eyed drunks ranks up there with the worst of them.

*In his drunkenness, I half-expect Slughorn, upon being asked if he liked Lily to say, "I don’t imagine anyone who met her wouldn’t like her…very brave…very funny…total Mary Sue. We had to like her. ‘Twas in the script."

*Harry says FF tells him Slughorn won’t remember any of this in the morning and I see no reason to not believe FF now.

*For some reason I love it when Harry says "Of course I am" to being the Chosen One.

*Honestly, why does Slughorn the Slytherin have to be such a pussy in such a silly way? Why would it be so dangerous for Voldemort to find out Slughorn helped Harry when it isn’t dangerous for Voldemort to know perfectly well he’s walking around with this memory and could spill it at any second? It somehow seems like the polar opposite of Hermione’s pointless lie in PS/SS that she seems to tell only to get herself into trouble.

*Harry tells Slughorn to be brave. He waves a pudgy hand to remind him that as a fat person, he’s really just an overgrown baby and must be treated as such.

*Slughorn hands over the memory to Harry, which is…well, not really brave at all but Harry has to pretend it is to appeal to Slughorn’s vanity or something. Because we all know even Slytherins, especially a Good Slytherin, secretly want to be brave like a Gryffindor. That’s why Harry can’t, like, appeal to his pragmatism even if it would seem more persuasive.

*Slughorn begs Harry not to think too badly of him when he sees the memory. Am I remembering this memory wrong? Because I don’t recall Slughorn coming off badly in it. It’s not like he gave Voldemort the idea for Horcruxes even.

*Phew! Glad we’ve dealt with this Slytherin finally so we can get back to the real ones good ones bad ones.





The Cricket Rule Day-for-Night
Pretty much!

Designated Hero
Thrill as our hero gets some big old guys drunk and manipulates them!

IITS
For the last time, says Hermione firmly, just forget about Malfoy. She says it firmly, because that’s ITS too.

Idiot World
Only in an idiot world could this memory be so important and require so much page time to get.

Informed Attributes
Aww, Hagrid’s made an armband. He’s just like a big kid truly crying over the loss of his pet. Except really he’s a big dumb narcissistic adult who demands other people participate in his fantasies at personal risk to themselves.

Ken and Andrew’s Rule of Plot Holes
Ken and Andrew’s rule of plot holes meets its match in Felix Felicitas, the Plot Hole Antidote! I mean it to be contrived!

McGuffin
You just need to get that briefcase—err, memory Harry. What’s in it? Errr, nothing that great, actually. Probably better if you don’t actually open it.

Misdirected Answering
Whole. Entire. Chapter.

Final score: 9

Slytherin Liquid Count: Hagrid’s tears, tears that smear ink, Slughorn’s alcohol, Harry’s refills of the alcohol, drunken Hagrid and Slughorn, Slughorn’s tears, Aragog venom, liquid luck, Malfoy’s hiccoughing solution, Harry’s euphoria potion.

H/D cliché alert: Harry notices Malfoy’s getting pale and thin.

Comments

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

For all everyone’s "all teenagers have lots of short romances—don’t judge Ginny!" defenses of the tediousness of the romance plots Hogwarts romances seem to hang on like grim death.

Yeah, seriously. I had a four-day relationships when I was seventeen. I'd be much less likely to judge Ginny for short romances. The fact she apparently strung along boys who cared about her for months on end while hoping this behaviour would win her the Chosen One, that's something I judge her for. Oh Michael Corner, my man, you traded up like a mad thing.

During chapters like this you wonder if JKR ever regretted just not giving the Gryffindors an actual plot for this book

Oh, how I want to read Draco Malfoy and the Half-Blood Prince, for serious. My poor ill baby, your Potion was good, you have no special book and no time to study and your health is failing under the stress, but damn it you actually listened when the actual Half-Blood Prince was teaching Potions!

I keep reproaching myself for loving Draco so much in this book, since in this one he actually did terrible things, like almost killing Ron and Katie, and I like Ron and, you know, disapprove of murder. And yet I thrill to someone's bad choices actually having terrible consequences! For themselves, that is, not Sirius' bad choices having terrible consequences for Snape, or Harry's bad choices having terrible consequences for Draco. The evidence Draco is actually feeling something makes me melt, given that everyone else is too wrapped up in giant spiders/Ginny or Ron Weasley to have a drop of mercy or remorse in their veins. Oh God, HP characters, I want to love you, I don't want to be Filch yelling for punishment, please feel something! (Okay, no, I never loved Hagrid. He may perish. Bury him alongside Aragog, his chosen life partner!)

I half-expect Slughorn, upon being asked if he liked Lily to say, "I don’t imagine anyone who met her wouldn’t like her…very brave…very funny…total Mary Sue. We had to like her. ‘Twas in the script."

Things have also come to a sorry state when I wince at well-deserved snarkery, since Lily may be my favourite female character at this point. Defending someone she didn't personally like because it was the right thing to do! Catch Ginny Weasley and her great compassion doing that, she would have done the Bat-Bogey Hex on Snape's private parts once James Potter had his underpants off. Oh, Lily, Lily, I wish you had lived. If your son had eviscerated someone and you heard about it, you would have bitch-slapped him until he (at the very least) made sure the kid he'd eviscerated was OK. And made him apologise. And withered any horrible redhaired pretenders talking about how it was great Harry had something good up his sleeve with your scorn!

You know, I think Aragog was pretty special. He decided not to kill humans while living in Hogwarts: Hagrid clearly made no effort to restrain him, even though he must've known that Aragog's kind naturally ate humans. Wow, had it been a less principled spider Hagrid adopted, the spider and the basilisk together could have emptied Hogwarts and then Hagrid and Voldemort's pets could have had a death match! I find it extremely amusing that the monster spider seems to have been the one with the sense of responsibility and proper behaviour. As opposed to Hagrid. (Oh. Now I am feeling sorry about Aragog's death. Ew, a trait in common with Hagrid, get it off me, get it off!)

Wow, Sister M, sorry about all the ranting, I think this chapter being filled so full of Hagrid's false idiotic sentiment when all I want to see are the characters having normal human feelings kind of made me delirious. Excellent as ever!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I want to read Draco Malfoy and the Half-Blood Prince, for serious. My poor ill baby, your Potion was good, you have no special book and no time to study and your health is failing under the stress, but damn it you actually listened when the actual Half-Blood Prince was teaching Potions!

OMG, it's true! You know that he just sat at Snape's feet and listened to him talk about this stuff outside of class too. And then totally repeated stuff Snape said as if it was something everyone knew.

And yet I thrill to someone's bad choices actually having terrible consequences! For themselves, that is, not Sirius' bad choices having terrible consequences for Snape, or Harry's bad choices having terrible consequences for Draco. The evidence Draco is actually feeling something makes me melt, given that everyone else is too wrapped up in giant spiders/Ginny or Ron Weasley to have a drop of mercy or remorse in their veins.

Someone else in the thread alerted me to the fact that mike_smith has begun doing a reading of PoA and I ran over there. He said he didn't understand why everyone in the media didn't talk about this sort of thing all the time. To quote Mike: " What I want to know is why it isn't talked about all the time, though. To me, if a guy asked a fan "What's this Harry Potter thing all about", the Aunt Marge incident should be incorporated into the answer. "Oh, he's a boy wizard who attends a magical school, and he's completely devoid of remorse." Anything else should take a back seat, I think. Unless he's done something even worse in the parts I haven't read yet."

And that's why he's fabulous. Also I think he has wished for Hagrid's death already by chapter two.

It really is scary that Aragog was the more principled of the two there. But then, that's usually the way Hagrid likes things--it's always up to the other creature to keep them out of the trouble. Kids, dragons, giant spiders...

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

"Unless he's done something even worse in the parts I haven't read yet."

And he has!