Harry Potter Abridged! GOF Chapter 3

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

[Life at the Dursleys goes on as usual.]


Petunia: Alright, come and get your tasty, nutritious grapefruit for breakfast!

Dudley: But Muuuuuuuuum, this is destroying my propensity to act like a nasty, slobbish, lazy Fatty McFatfat!

Petunia: Orders from your school nurse so quit your complaining!

Harry: Cheer up, Dudley- if you can get thinner you just might turn out to be an alright guy!

[Just then, Vernon gets a letter from the Weasleys.]

Vernon: Not this shit again.... Harry, we need to talk!

[Vernon drags Harry to the living room.]

Vernon: So... yeah. Those wizard friends of yours sent me a letter: “Dear Mr. Muggle. We want to take Harry to the Quidditch World Cup. We will take Harry there NO MATTER WHAT! Signed, Mrs. Weasley. PS: If we used too many of your bliddy stamps you can pay the cost.”

Harry: Well that’s saying something considering the envelope is covered in stamps!

Vernon: Do your friends have any idea that they look positively functionally retarded?

Harry: Well, they say the same thing about you.

Vernon: So who is this Mrs. Weasley, anyway?

Harry: She’s my best friend’s mother, of course!

Vernon: Yeah, yeah. Whatever. And... what is Quidditch?

Harry: It’s a game played on broomsticks that every one of us loves even though it makes no sense.

Vernon: Honestly, the stories you bring under our roof. You’re mighty ungrateful, considering everything we’ve done with you over the years.

Harry: Yeah, well... you guys are abusive! Oh, by the way, I’ve been telling my mass-murderer godfather that.

Vernon: ...Are you serious?

Harry: Yeah, he’s not happy. So let me go to my friends the Weasleys’ or I’ll tell him about the time you beat me with all sorts of-

Vernon: We did no such thing!

Harry: He doesn’t know it!

Vernon: Aye, aye, aye... alright, go hang out with your wizard friends, then! See if we care!

Harry: Alright, then I will!

[Harry then returns to his room to gorge himself on the sweets that his friends sent him.]

Harry: [Excessively twee] Ooh, goodie! I gets my sweeties today! I shall rise above the oppression- starting with my delicious birthday cakes that my friendses have sented me! *Gurgles* By the way, these cakes really should be getting rotten or moldy by now, but whatever.

[Just then, a tiny gray owl enters the room with a letter.]

Harry: You’re Ron’s owl, aren’t you? This is interesting. It says here, that they’ll be picking me up at five on sunday. Hermione is going to stay with them as well- convenient! Oh, and Percy is boringer and stupider than ever. Why do I get the feeling every single one of these events is orchestrated to get my trio together?

[Harry writes his eager reply and sends it back with the little owl, Pig, before sending Sirius a note with Hedwig explaining everything that’s been going on.]

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

I'm convinced that if only Harry had ended up anywhere but Gryffindor (and with a mentor other than Twinkles) the whole Voldieplot would have been resolved sooner (and possibly with significantly less involvement from Harry, who would ave had a more normal school experience).

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

That's a huge problem which horrified me, the rampent unchecked bullying in the school that's almost tacitly endrosed. I'd have been dead in Hogwarts, I seriously would have been targeted as much as you. I sucked at sports, I wasn't especially popular and I liked to read. Maybe I'd have been a happy little Ravenclaw with no semblance of plot, but In Gryffindor, I'd be eaten alive.

It will come up in two chapters, but no authority figures ARE strict but fair. Molly's twins run roughshod on her and her attempts to disciplne are more for a joke. McGonagall may call for order, but her students are the most disordered ones in the school. Yes, we see her try to discipline in year one when the students are caught out of bounds, but the punishment seems just plot service.

The problem is, JKR can't write parody and reality together and expect us to distinguish.

Dursleys? Straight out of Roald Dahl to the point where I was looking for a magical chocolate factory.
The school is meant to be a parody of the school we all had, that teacher who was ancient and old and droned on and on and called you by your dad's name.

Problem is, then you can't take her seriously when she says Dumbledore's a great guy.

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

The problem is, JKR can't write parody and reality together and expect us to distinguish.

Excellent observation. That really sums up most of the problems.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I felt like the first book was a cheerful little parody of an English boarding school. When people get pushed out of windows and bounce, it's hard to take a Dark Lord seriously.

I will say, she's amazing in that she stirs up so much debate, so much love and hate.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Re: Minerva.

To be fair, this is what she said of the Marauders: "Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright of course--exceptionally bright, in fact--but I don't think we've ever had such a pair of troublemakers--"

It's Hagrid who compares them favorably to the Twins.

And Minerva doesn't actually seem to like the Twins that much either, however well they play Quidditch and however much that excuses things in her eyes.

Remember her reaction the one time a twin was brutal right under her nose. (Beating up Malfoy after the Quidditch game, OotP)


She was wearing a Gryffindor scarf, but tore it from her throat with shaking hands as she strode toward them, looking livid.

"In!" she said furiously... quivering with rage as she threw the Gryffindor scarf aside onto the floor.

"Well?" she said."I have never seen such a disgraceful exhibition. Two onto one! Explain yourselves!"

"Malfoy provoked us," said Harry stiffly.

"Provoked you?" shouted Professor McGonagall, slamming a fist onto her desk so that her tartan biscuit tin slid sideways off it and burst open, littering the floor with Ginger Newts. "He'd just lost, hadn't he, of course he wanted to provoke you!"

They explain to her the nature of the provocation, and she "bellows" at them in return.

I don't know what the usual punishment for assault would be, but Draco wasn't hurt, and given how light most Hogwarts punishments seem to be, a week's worth of detentions as a start seems consistent. (Harry got 6 Saturday morning detentions from Snape for almost killing Draco the next year.)

So, yes, Minerva's guilty of favoritism towards her house and of giving preferential treatment to Quidditch stars, but she DOESN'T like bullies or bullying, and I think if she'd been given any administrativae support she'd have tried to eliminate it.

And she does show off Hermione's good work in the first Transfigurations class and award her "a rare smile." And Minerva's the one who interceded with the Ministry of Magic to get Hermione the Time-Turner 3rd year, calling her a model student. (Which she may have done for Percy as well--how many OWLs and NEWTs did he pass?) And Minerva indirectly praised Hermione to Harry in that interview when she warned him to keep his head down around Umbridge.

And, who did choose Percy as prefect? Surely not Dumbles.

So, we have some evidence that she likes bright and studious pupils--she's just terrible at producing them, or at least at making her house behave when not under her direct gaze. But the only time we ever saw her actually root for chaos over order was under Umbridge.

But I repeat--with administrative support, which would include pointing out where she's not as impartial as she likes to think she is, she might have been a decent teacher.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

You make excellent points, and it does show that Minerva can be effective when she wants to be, but the amount of bullying that's done is harrowing. We truly can't expect her to be everywhere, but it seems like unless you do it under her nose, she's not going to proactively stop it.

That's what annoys me. I know she can't stop what she can't see but she doesn't seem to investigate much.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Of course, JKR apparently hates history, so it's no wonder that she has it being taught by a dull, out of touch teacher who is also undead for some reason. What's weird is that most real life history teachers I have met are quite passionate about their subject and really go out of their way to try to show students that it isn't just a mindless jumble of names and dates.

But then, the approach that is taken to history at Hogwarts is pretty much the same as the approach for most of the other classes- memorize some stuff and parrot it back, possibly with the use of a wand. I guess I can't blame Binns for being dull- the only difference between his class and say, Transfiguration is that there isn't any animal cruelty to entertain the kids with.

I'm a historian and know that the first thing any oppressive regime does is to destroy and rewrite history books and install teachers who will only teach what is 'politically approved'

Well said. This is part of why I am so strongly opposed to censorship- it takes away the right of the people to know what actually happened. Though I suppose the fact that I want to go into Library and Information Science probably has a lot to do with it too. ;-)

[sunnyskywalker]

That reminds me that I haven't ranted about how JKR portrays Pince and the library enough... Can you imagine if she'd actually taught the kids some research skills? The series would have been a lot shorter, for starters! Or even if she'd just been shown to be reasonable in expecting the kids not to damage school property or disturb others who were trying to study. (Why they can't have magically-separate "loud" and "quiet" sections is beyond me. It can't be that hard.)

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

You know I agree with you totally on the whole issue of Slytherins as Evil/Gryffindors as Elect. What really makes me ragey in particular though is (as I think you've pointed out elsewhere) JKR uses pasted-on Nazi imagery as a cheap way to get us to confuse Slytherins and Death Eaters and thus hate them all, but then turns around and characterizes Slytherins as untrustworthy and threatening but weak using *classic* antisemitic stereotypes. (Which of course she also uses for the goblins....) That makes me want to break things.

[Sidenote: TBH, I am uncomfortable with the use of "whore" as a derogatory term, in any situation. But on everything else I am with you here. Dumbledore is possibly the only character in the series I truly hate.]

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

JKR's not alone in that respect, pasting Nazi or Soviet imagery onto things because it looks cool or creepy is a cheap tactic done by many book and film makers.

[sunnyskywalker]

Even if you leave the early books as-is, I could see a good author writing Harry as a badly damaged kid who nevertheless has a chance to grow and heal some (you know, working on imagining how others feel and realizing they're important for their own sake, learning to analyze others' actions to realize that someone disagreeing with you doesn't necessarily hate you and want to get you and might eve be right, that sort of thing). And it could go tragically, with it clearly shown how the Hogwarts experience damages him further to the point where he's dangerous (excuse me, "gallant"), or you could go the happy ending route where he does do better. Either would have been better than what we got.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize! I enjoy your rants. :-)

[leniarianna.livejournal.com]

I love your rants, too. I've learned a great deal from reading them over the years.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I love your rants!

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Fourthing the enjoyment of rants!

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase a classic Smokey Robinson song, I fifth that emotion. You also do yourself an injustice: Calling yourself "Verbal Diarrhea Girl" implies what you're saying is crap, but it's not. Seriously, one of the pleasures of writing my song parody, "Love Died," was in imagining what you'd have to say about it. Then you didn't even comment. I was so disappointed! :-(

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I suppose in year 1, a dark Lord tumor wouldn't be running around school and a highly dangerous magical object wouldn;t be used as bait in a place filled with children, and the ward puzzles would be sufficently hard that three 1st years could do it working together.

In year 2, a competent professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts would be hired and Harry would have mentioned he's hearing strange voices and can talk to snakes and a professor would have put it together and armed himself with a rooster.

In year 4, an imposter DaDA teacher would be noted and removed. A tournement risking the life of an underage student would be cancelled.

Is that what you mean?

[oryx_leucoryx]

That's the general direction, yes, depending how much the AU setting differs from canon. Terri is writing an AU where Harry is in Slytherin with Severus as an involved (but still secret to anyone but Harry) guardian/mentor with Albus still attempting to run his Byzantine plots against Tom. But even if Harry somehow landed in Hufflepuff (impossible, I know) - he'd learn to trust Sprout with important things and not try to solve everything with no adult intervention. Also, he'd have the views of a larger body of students, including more mature students. So he'd learn to act more sensibly. And whoever his mentor ends up being, at some point s/he'd have to break with Albus once the pieces start coming together.

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe if the Hat took wasted potential into consideration? Like, "this kid could have been a good team player and hard worker if he hadn't had such an awful childhood in a cupboard, so I'll put him in Hufflepuff where he can get extra help developing those skills and learn that he really can belong." Or something.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

If Dumbledore were not the Headmaster would Lucius Malfoy send the diary to Hogwarts? Lucius Malfoy seemed more interested in getting rid of Dumbledore than hurting Harry.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Why couldn't he just outvote him out?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Oh! You just sparked a thought that made sense of something.

Some of us had earlier speculated that Dobby's upset over Lucius's plot only made sense if he expected Harry to have been the recipient of the diary. But then when Arthur decked Lucius in Flourish and Blotts, Lucius saw red and planted the diary on Ginny instead.

And yes, we thought the point was probably to get rid of Dumbles.

But--we're assuming that Lucius didn't know exactly what would happen, only that the diary would cause the student it was given to to open the Chamber of Secrets and release Slytherin's monster to attack Muggleborns. (It's a safe assumption--he'd never have let Draco attend that year if he knew what would be loosed was a Basilisk.)

Why would he want Harry involved in that? Sure, Harry's going to be Draco's Quidditch rival now Draco's on the team, but that hardly seems a reason to implicate the child in a crime.

Except--Harry is Dumbledore's protege, as was amply demonstrated at the end-of-year feast. Dumbledore was, moreover, solely responsible for Harry's having been raised by Muggles. If Harry is caught opening the CoS and releasing a monster against Muggleborns, it disgraces Dumbledore (and his policies) just as Ginny's involvement, if known and thought voluntary, would disgrace Arthur.

And we saw from the Barty Crouches just how hard an official can fall if he seems to be such a poor parent that his own child flings himself headlong into the very evil the father most rants against.