deathtocapslock | OOTP Chapter Twenty-Two: "St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries" (Reply)

* Mrs. Norris hissing at them is quite interesting.
I can’t help but remember how in Lord of
the Rings all the animals got upset every time the Nazgûl came near. Maybe Harry’s
recent semi-possession has left an even stronger trace of evil around him than
usual, and this is worrying the nearby animals

* Going to Dumbledore’s office makes me wonder where
the heads of house have their offices. I don’t think we ever hear of anybody
going to McGonagall’s office with their problems, so it seems that Gryffindors
at least have no teacher to turn to if something goes wrong.

* Actually, that goes without saying. They wouldn’t
want to encourage any weakness in the Gryffs by giving them outside help with
their problems. Survival of the fittest is the way forward. Social Darwinism
red in tooth and claw.

* Dumbledore seems to be confusing “not letting on
that he cares about Harry” with “averting his eyes whenever Harry’s in the room
and refusing to ever look at him”. Even if Dumbledore thought of Harry as just
another pupil, you’d still expect him to look the boy in the face when they
were having a direct conversation. No wonder Harry feels so weirded out.

* Just a minor and pedantic nit-pick here, but would
Dumbledore really use the term “Heads”? It would seem much more in-character
for him to use the full “Headmasters”.

* I really can’t imagine what the point of checking
that instrument was, unless it’s to make Dumbledore look wise and mysterious.
Although knowing Dumbledore, that would probably be reason enough for him to do
it.

* Mrs. Weasley’s clock isn’t all that “excellent”.
It just tells you that your family member is in danger, not what sort of danger
or what you can do about it. All it can do is make you feel worried and
impotent.

* This scene would be much more poignant if Mr.
Weasley had actually died.

* I’m not sure why Phineas would need to fake being
asleep like that, unless he’s unbelievably lazy and doesn’t want to help Arthur
in any way. Perhaps being a Slytherin he just has a compulsion to try and
deceive people whenever he can.

* Apparently Sirius’ house is “much more convenient
for the hospital than The Burrow.” I’m not sure why, given the forms of magical
transportation available to them. Concepts of distance must be pretty
meaningless when you can magic yourself halfway across the country in less time
than it would take to walk down to the local shops.

* As an aside: I think JKR said in one of her
interchangeable interviews that inter-continental Apparition is very difficult.
Does anybody know if this is a distance thing, or is there some magic about
continental boundaries that makes Apparition difficult? If it’s the latter,
then we’d have the seemingly rather odd situation of it being easier to
Apparate from London to Athens than from Gibraltar to Tangiers; if the latter,
then why not just say “long-distance Apparition” rather than specifically
“inter-continental Apparition”?

* Ah wait, I suppose Dumbledore can’t look directly
at Harry, because when he does Harry wants to murder him. Although I’m not sure
why it happens now specifically – Harry’s been carrying a bit of Voldie’s soul
around for most of his life and not wanted to attack Dumbledore like this
before now, so it can’t be that, and Voldemort doesn’t seem to have enough
control over Harry’s mind to deliberately make him feel things like this. Maybe
it’s just coincidence, like when he was doing detention with Umbridge. Maybe
Voldie’s angry that Arthur’s still alive. Or is it just the after-effects of
the vision, making Harry feel what Voldemort would feel in the situation, and
being somehow triggered by direct eye contact?

* Also, Harry wanting to bite Dumbledore seems a bit
slash-y to me. I suppose that a H/DD subtext would fit the whole “spurned
lover” thing Harry’s got going in this book.

* Sirius is “unshaven”. To be fair, I think that if
I were woken up in the middle of the night and told that one of my friends had
almost been killed by a giant snake, I might have more pressing things to worry
about than having a shave.

* Sirius is being unusually clever for a Gryffindor,
and not just rushing off without thinking of the consequences. No wonder he was
killed off at the end of this book; he just isn’t ~~stupid~~ brave enough to
share in Harry’s post-Voldemort utopia.

* “‘We don’t care about the dumb Order!’ shouted
Fred,” showing why he isn’t mature enough to join it.

* Fred’s insult makes Sirius go pale, which is more
of a negative reaction than we ever see him having to Snape’s taunts.
Nevertheless it’s Snape Harry will blame for Sirius’ death, not the Twins.

* Of course, this is the scene where Kreacher goes
to see Voldemort, isn’t it? Sort of clever of JKR to drop a hint here that only
becomes important in the second time round.

* That line “When he [Harry] paused for breath”
makes it sound like he hadn’t breathed at all while recounting the story to
Sirius. He must have been really eager to tell him.

* Tonks and Mad-Eye turn up, once again showing how
wizards find it impossible to imitate the clothing habits of the people they
see every day. For all that Rowling portrays Muggles as bumbling buffoons,
wizards often seem even stupider.

* The disguise for St. Mungo’s seems quite clever,
until people start to wonder why the shop is taking ten years to refurbish.

* Harry’s lived in the wizarding world for five
years now; he shouldn’t go all slack-jawed with amazement every time he sees a moving
shop-window dummy.

* Like the Ministry, St. Mungo’s seems far too big
for a society which makes do with one wand seller, one bus and two clothes shops.

* I think JKR said in one of her interviews that a
warlock is a wizard who’s especially good at fighting. If so, I’m not sure how
Harry can recognise one just by looking at him. Maybe his Gryffindor senses pick
up the aura of martial power around him, or something.

* According to Ron, Doctors are “those Muggle
nutters who cut people up”. I’m really not sure what to make of this. Is this a
widespread attitude? Has wizards’ knowledge of Muggle medical procedures not
changed since 1692? What do Muggle-borns think of this attitude? And wouldn’t
the children of a Muggle-loving eccentric have a more accurate picture?

* I quite like the theory that St. Mungo’s was once
located at Hogwarts as a sort of hospital-cum-medical school. It would explain
how Dilys was able to go straight from being a healer to being headmistress of
Hogwarts.

* On her website, JKR said that “jinx” is a term for
a spell that does damage, but which isn’t serious enough to be called a curse.
Though I’d have thought that eating your feet would be curse-level seriousness
rather than jinx-level, personally.

* St. Mungo’s could really do with a more sympathetic
receptionist.

* Also, I hope they have lifts there, because making
a man whose feet are being eaten walk up four flights of stairs would just be
cruel.

* The entrail-expelling curse sounds rather nasty to
me – like some form of torture, or an extra-painful way of killing somebody –
so I’m not sure why Mr. Rackharrow got a portrait for it. Maybe he threatened
to use it on the hospital’s governing body if he didn’t get a picture
somewhere.

* Willy Widdershins evading justice like that is
disgraceful, and not at all like getting somebody off in return for Quidditch
tickets.

* Arthur’s getting all exited at the thought of
seeing the Muggles. Because really they’re just like animals in a zoo, there
for any interested wizards to come and gawp at.

* So Mr. Weasley’s bed is at the far end of the
ward, meaning that the extendable ears would have to go right across the room
to hear his conversation. Luckily, though, nobody notices these pink bits of
string snaking their way across the floor.

* “‘Yeah, well,’ said Moody, ‘there’s something
funny about that Potter kid, we all know that.’” This is, of course, correct,
but not just for the reason Moody thinks.

* Although if they think Harry might be possessed,
I’m not sure why they think that it’s a good idea to let him stay in the Order
HQ.