Deathly Hallows, Chapter 16: Godric's Hollow

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Is everybody still with me? I know it was hard to get through that last installment. Unfortunately, not much happens in this chapter, either. We have to plow through it before we get some excitement in chapter 17.

This chapter starts with a sickeningly sweet illustration of the Holy Family Potter Family Memorial Statue. Lily is holding baby Harry on her left, while she and James, on her right, gaze adoringly at their child. They all have little patties of snow on their heads, which makes them look like they’re wearing halos. *gag* That particular ornament would be the last headgear I would imagine James Potter wearing.

Harry is so freaked out by Ron’s desertion that it hits him like a death. Ron’s empty bunk is “like a dead body in the way it seemed to draw his eyes.” Harry has to keep telling himself Ron is gone for good, “as though repetition would dull the shock of it.” He thinks, “He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone and he’s not coming back.” That’s what you say when somebody dies.

But Ron is not dead. He’s better off than they are, living with his family in a real house, eating good food in full meals whenever he wants. Ron is the one who is part of the living world as it’s commonly understood, with Harry and Hermione wandering through--and dragging us through--a bizarre purgatory of searching but never finding, wanting but never getting, their emotions dulled, drifting like dementors from one location to another, trying to suck out the soul of meaning from this mindless quest, a meaning that always remains just out of reach.

The Deadly Boredom continues as the Hs set up a new campsite. They take gender-stereotyped attitudes towards Ron’s absence, with Harry being constantly angry and Hermione crying nonstop. This is so boring, I want to punch both of them just to relieve it. They might not feel better, but I sure would.

This is so totally phony: Harry’s reaction to everything is to throw a tantrum. Hermione didn’t act like she cared that much for Ron for, oh, I don’t know, forever? Yet they’re devastated by his--I almost said, “death”--absence? I think what they’re really feeling is fear, anger, frustration, and physical/mental/emotional exhaustion because of this fruitless hunt they’re on. But it’s too scary to admit to their real fears--that they’re not up to the job, that Saint Albus screwed them over by leaving them ignorant--so they sublimate their feelings into grief over Ron’s leaving, which is expressed as anger and sadness. That’s not to say they aren’t really grieving, just that’s greatly exacerbated by their other problems.

Harry starts map-stalking Ginny, watching her dot move around Hogwarts, even hoping the intensity of his staring will break into her sleep so she’ll know he’s obsessing over thinking about her.

Okay, that’s just creepy. I admit, I can imagine Snape doing such a thing with Lily, if he’d had this map when they were teenagers. But we’re supposed to regard him as “greedy,” “controlling,” and “obsessive.” He’s supposed to be an example of what not to do with the girl you love. Yet here again, we have Harry behaving the same way as Severus probably would in the same situation, yet apparently we’re supposed to regard Harry’s inappropriate actions as--what? An outgrowth of his loneliness? An expression of love? His desire to protect his girl? Whatever it is, it’s not creepy, controlling, possessive, obsessive, “greedy,” or any other of those baaaaaaad things it would have been if Severus Snape had done it with Lily. Not when Harry’s doing it.

For that matter, James probably did map-stalk Lily when they were teenagers. In SWM, he sounds like a potential batterer, with his “teasing” threat to hex Lily, and his offer to leave her greasy friend alone if she’ll go out with him. It’s common for batterers to make “joking” threats of violence, or to force their women’s compliance by threatening the loved ones, human or animal, of their women. So Harry’s spying on Ginny is just another case of, “like father, like son.” Sorry, Harry, Snape is right about you two again.

I don’t care what JKR says: It’s not okay if a Gryffindor does it! It’s not okay if anybody does it. Whoever does it, it’s sick behavior, the sign of unhealthy dependency, poor boundaries, immaturity, and serious control issues--self-control, as well as a desire to control the “loved one.”

Finally Harry has to admit the truth: He doesn’t know his head from his ass what he’s doing, where he’s going, what he’s looking for, when or if he’ll ever find it, or whom to ask for help. He doesn’t even know what to do with whatever he finds if he ever finds it.

We now pause for a word from our sponsor, Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. This book is of much better literary quality, although it possesses equally warped morals:

Scarlett: All I know is that you do not love me and you are going away! Oh, my darling, if you go, what shall I do?

Rhett: I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can’t.

My dear, I don’t give a damn.

The Hs get so desperate for company they regularly bring out Phineas’s painting so they can talk to him. “Harry was even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind.” Hah! You don’t fool me, mister! You miss Severus Snape. You’ve gotten used to his sarcasm and the way he pushes you to be better. Without his whiplash tongue flogging you along, you don’t know how to act. Phineas is Harry’s substitute snotty Slytherin. If I were a Snarry fan, I could also see this as confirmation of that ‘ship.

They wander around some more, and time passes until it’s December. Harry waits until they’ve had a good meal of food Hermione sneaked out of a store under the invisibility cloak. It says she dropped the money for the food into an open till, but I don’t buy it. I worked for years in a grocery store, and tills are never left open if they have money in them. It’s possible Rowling means “drawer without money in it” rather than “till holding money.” That would be dumb, too, since anybody could just come along and take the money with no one the wiser.

Where are they getting this money, anyway? They’ve been on the run for almost three months without going to a bank. Even with Hermione’s savings, they should have been out of money a long time ago. Again, it’s possible one of them has an ATM card and a regular bank account, but that’s never been mentioned, and they both show such contempt for “muggles,” I should think they wouldn’t want any such lowly accoutrements of modern life.

Harry is about to broach the subject of Godric’s Hollow again when Hermione brings up the DH sign written in her copy of Beedle. She suggests visiting GH because, as the birthplace of Godric Gryffindor, it would be a reasonable place for Dumbledore to have hidden the sword. Silly Hermione. That would be logical. These are wizards you’re dealing with, remember? The people who, by your own admission, “haven’t an ounce of logic.”

With a plan to work on, Hermione goes all anal retentive again, insisting they practice Disillusionment and Apparating and Disapparating under the cloak. She even steals hairs so they can use Polyjuice. Where did she get that? I thought it took a month to brew, and it’s not as if she has brewing facilities or the other ingredients handy. Did she pack some Polyjuice? How long does it keep? I was under the impression from previous books you had to use it right away.

When the Hs arrive in GH, they’re surprised to realize it’s Christmas Eve. I find it very strange that, among all the junk Hermione packed, she didn’t bring along a pocket calendar, particularly since we’ve seen in previous books how much keeping a schedule means to her.

They pass the Potter statue, which turns from an obelisk with names of war dead on it into the Potters, and back again as they leave. That must be some charm on it, if it can sense when magical people are passing by and change, then change back on its own.

They reach the church, and as they plow their way through the snow in the cemetery, they find the graves of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore. Harry imagines visiting the graves of his and the Headmaster’s families together with Dumbledore, “of what a bond that would have been, of how much it would have meant to him.” Precisely, Harry. To you, not Dumbledore. Your feelings don’t matter. Haven’t you figured that out yet? “But it seemed that to Dumbledore, the fact that their families lay side by side [technically incorrect] in the same graveyard had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant, perhaps, to the job he wanted Harry to do.”  Got it in one, kid! He didn’t care about you. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but getting you dead so he could get Voldemort dead and eliminate the competition conquer evil once and for all.

Hermione finds a grave with the DH symbol on it, and nearby the grave of James and Lily. The dates indicate James married an older woman (by two months). In one of the few passages in DH I not just liked, but respected, Harry starts crying at his parents’ grave, the air so cold the tears freeze on his face.

This reminds me of something I heard years ago about an American woman whose husband died in World War II. She chose to have his body buried in France rather than shipped home, and she never visited France. When their son was a young adult, he expressed a desire to visit his father’s grave, so they made a trip there. When they got to the graveside, the widow began crying as if her husband had just died. She believed she had gotten over his death long ago, so she didn’t understand where this sudden upsurge of grief came from. She later realized that because her husband had been buried overseas, she had never accepted the reality of his death. Subconsciously, she was convinced he was still alive somewhere and would someday return to her. It was only when she saw his grave that she realized he was truly dead and was never coming back. The grief that had been held in suspended animation for decades was finally released.

That is what is happening to Harry in this scene. When Hedwig and Moody died, we got histrionic nonsense, with phrases like “he could not take it in,” “a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang,” and “his insides clenched like a fist.” Grief was expressed as if it were Irritable Bowel Syndrome, with Harry seemingly traumatized by the not-unexpected deaths of two beings he either rarely paid attention to or barely knew. But with his parents, he just cries, like a normal person. His sorrow perhaps too deep for conscious thought, he doesn’t feel anything. He’s just looking at the grave when the tears suddenly come. He wonders what their bodies must look like now, knows they don’t realize their living son is at their grave, and briefly wishes he were buried with them. Although it’s expressed in clumsy, bloated language, his sorrow is genuine. In a book that alternates Perfect Storms of overwrought emotionalism with Dust Bowls of overly detailed, stultifying boredom, this passage is an eye of the storm, standing out for its honesty and sheer rightness. If J K Rowling ditched the florid language and always wrote with such sincerity and sensitivity, she would be a formidable writer indeed.

Harry feels inadequate because he didn’t bring anything to put on his parents’ graves. Hermione intuits this and kindly conjures a wreath of Christmas roses. They walk out of the cemetery together, their arms around each other. This is a lovely scene to end the chapter with, and very appropriate for the peaceful feeling of Christmas Eve.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Now you have me wishing that The Power Lord Voldemort Knows Not had been the power of electronic banking. Harry converted half his Gringotts gold to Muggle money last summer, and now he can sneak into the homes of Muggles with internet connections (or did they have internet cafes by 1997?) and transfer funds to resistance cells all over Britain! To do... something clever JKR didn't think of.

Probably a third of Harry's classmates also have relatives in that cemetery, some of them killed by DEs (I forget - were some Macmillans and Abbotts mentioned as being there?). For the wizarding-raised, it probably is essentially meaningless to have relatives buried in one of the handful of cemeteries they all use. So I don't fault Dumbledore for not seeing it as a meaningful connection.

On the other hand, he does know that Muggle-raised Harry doesn't know where wizards generally are buried, may not know where his parents specifically are buried, and probably has no way of visiting on his own. Since Dumbledore as headmaster is ultimately acting in loco parentis for Harry while he's at Hogwarts, he ought to have at least informed Harry of his parents' burial site first year and given him directions on how to visit should he wish.

So should the Weasleys, who were more involved in Harry's day-to-day care. Was Molly just determined not to "upset" Harry with all that morbid death stuff? Was it on Dumbledore's orders not to mention it if Harry didn't bring it up? Why didn't it occur to Harry until now, anyway? Besides JKR wanting to save it until the most dramatic moment, I mean. You'd think seeing someone die (GoF and OotP) plus hearing a prophecy that it's you or some other guy has to die would naturally bring him to wondering about his parents' graves, what with all those thoughts of mortality on his mind.

But otherwise, the scene was handled so much more deftly than much of the rest of the book that it just makes me all the more disappointed in the book. What it could have been!

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the reason this scene feels more "real" than most the rest of the book is because Rowling was drawing on her own experience of grieving for a parent. But for most of the rest of the book, she had to rely on clichès because she's not empathic or imaginative enough to, respectively, write sensitively or originally. For that matter, Harry's obsessing over dead Dumbledore could be a sublimated form of JKR brooding over her mother, wishing Mum was there to share in her daughter's success and give advice.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

"...This chapter starts with a sickeningly sweet illustration of the Holy Family Potter Family Memorial Statue. Lily is holding baby Harry on her left, while she and James, on her right, gaze adoringly at their child. They all have little patties of snow on their heads, which makes them look like they’re wearing halos. *gag* That particular ornament would be the last headgear I would imagine James Potter wearing...."

I used to have a siggy on an HP site that stated something like 'If in the end we get a St. James, I think I'll just puke.' I was referring to the idea that 'James changed' which for me would just encourage the idea that young girls should go ahead and fall for 'bad boys' because if they insist on it enough they will change for them.

I suppose this was our early warning that Harry is supposed to be a Christ symbol - he sure wasn't for me! THIS statue surpassed even my fears of how JKR might whitewash James. Truthfully, as a christian, I was insulted and appalled to have such a clear parallel made between these particular people (whom I felt were quite unworthy) and Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.

As for Ron's leaving - I found it pretty blasé. I never really 'felt' Harry's anger or Hermione's pain. It just wasn't written that well for me. Harry's anger was nothing compared to his anger at Ron & Hermione in OotP.

And I totally agree that James probably used the Map to watch Lily. Unsure whether Snape would have or not if given the chance. We don't have any indication that he tried to watch/stalk her in any other way, but I do think that the Map actually encourages bad behavior.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I wouldn't have felt so awful about James if we were ever given a clear view of his transformation and his transformed self. We know he joined the Order and got married and played with his infant son. We don't know that he did anything useful or half-decent in his capacity as Order member. For all we know it was all pranking Slytherins and other tasteless 'jokes'. And as a family man he wanted to go hang out with friends, away from his wife and child while the family was in danger.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that’s the problem. We’re told that James reformed, but we don’t actually see it. We get Sirius and Remus admitting that James still went after Snape even after he and Lily began dating, we get him wanting to hang out with his friends while his family is in danger, and we see him rush at Voldemort without a wand. Really, would it have been so hard to have a scene that showed that James did become a better person? That he actually was heroic in some capacity, other than being killed by Voldemort?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"I suppose this was our early warning that Harry is supposed to be a Christ symbol - he sure wasn't for me! THIS statue surpassed even my fears of how JKR might whitewash James. Truthfully, as a christian, I was insulted and appalled to have such a clear parallel made between these particular people (whom I felt were quite unworthy) and Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus."

Yeah, well... in my experience, hack writing comparing the heroes to Jesus, Mary, et. al. (regardless of whether the comparison is truly appropriate) is actually fairly common, because the bad writers think it makes it clearer that the protagonist is special and a hero that way. Hell, I've been MSTing a book in which the author tries to get us to compare a bloodthirsty monster who murders people for fun and transforms moronic, childish girls into monsters for him to sexually abuse to Jesus for no other reason than that he was born from a mother (most such monsters are machines who were built fully-formed).

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Well, if that's all it takes to be like Jesus, I guess we're all Christ-like. Even test-tube babies have surrogate mothers.

What book is that, BTW? It sounds interesting, in an OMG-I-can't-believe-how-bad-this-is kind of way. And where are you sporking it? I'd like to read it.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

The book is called Twisted! and you can find my take on it over at the community Das_Sporking.

[sunnyskywalker]

It's a shame that, if she just had to use some special Divine Family motif, she didn't at least go for a different one. Osiris/Isis/Horus, maybe, since that story has some rebirth/resurrection bits and some vengeance bits, and the parallel could definitely use some vengeance bits. Not that it fits very well at all, but at least it fits better.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Vengeance bits? What are you suggesting? *gasp* You-you're not saying Harry is vengeful, are you? Because he is totally loving and forgiving and not at all vindictive. You've obviously read the books wrong if you think otherwise. ;-)

[sunnyskywalker]

Silly me, of course what Harry feels isn't vengeance, it's deep and everlasting love! Strong emotions of many stripes get compared to fire and other burning things, so it's easy to confuse them, right? ;-)

[sunnyskywalker]

And his actions are totally love, too, obviously. Nothing says love like foregoing easily putting a temporary paralysis spell on an enemy in favor of torturing them. It shows how much you care! That, or is one of those minor lapses which we all experience from time to time, on alternate days.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Ask any domestic abuser--the opposite of love is benign indifference, so abuse shows the victim that the abuser really deeply cares.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. So are you suggesting the reason James and Sirius tormented Severus was because they were in love with him? I've read fanfics that had that premise: James and Sirius were furious because they had the hots for Severus, but he was indifferent to them, so they attacked him because negative attention from him was better than no attention at all.

[sunnyskywalker]

Or love for a third party or a concept, maybe. "We love Truth and Justice so much that we just can't leave their mortal enemy alone!"

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

And his actions are totally love, too, obviously. Nothing says love like foregoing easily putting a temporary paralysis spell on an enemy in favor of torturing them. It shows how much you care!

You make the Cruciatus sound like a Hallmark card: "Cruciatus--When you care enough to send your very best curse." :D

[sunnyskywalker]

I would dearly love to see that line of Hallmark cards now.

"Imperius--Because I want to help you do what's best for you!" Crouch Sr. gave Barty 10 of those...

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

It really bugs me that Harry didn't give the map to Ginny... though maybe he would have if the wedding hadn't been ambushed and he'd been able to say goodbye properly.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Ambushed? A proper good-bye? Nice excuse, but.....

Hermione had ber bag packed with everything she considered essential (books not food....). If Harry was unprepared for departure at an instant's notice, that wasn't because it wasn't possible to predict that might suddenly be required of them.

Further, afterward.... Even if the WW has no network of post-owls for hire (since Hedwig is dead), and if there's no Floo-access from 12 Grimmauld, if Harry had thought of this contingency and wanted to give his "love" such a pronounced advantage, Harry still could have made it work.

Sent Kreacher to the Burrow with a package.

Alternatively, apparated to near Hogwarts, hidden the map somewhere accessible but hidden, and sent his Patronus to Ginny with a message about where to find it and how to use it.

As far as I can tell, the reason Harry didn't give the map to Ginny (or to the DA in toto), who could have used it to assure her/their safety (instead using it himself, the sicko, to stalk her in absentia), is, he couldn't be arsed to think for so much as a moment about her, or their, probable needs.

Our hero! Yet another tribute to the Power of Love Harry exudes.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

You're right, there were plenty of ways that Harry could have sent the map to Ginny or somebody else in the DA. But I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning for why he kept it.

Just a couple of months earlier, in chapter 25 of HBP, Harry gave the map and his supply of Felix Felicis to his friends before he went to the cave with Dumbledore, and he specified that Ginny should take some of the potion. So I think that it is generally in character that Harry cares about the safety of his friends, or at least Harry is meant to be a character who cares about the safety of his friends.

I know that we try to stick with Watsonian explanations here, but I suspect that it simply never occurred to Rowling that the DA should have the map. After all, nobody else ever suggested giving the map to the DA, either, even though Hermione, Ron, George, Fred, and Remus, among others, all knew of the map's existence.

Maybe we can fanwank that the twins made their own copy of the map at some point and gave it to Ginny.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the laugh! I loved your reference to Harry as a sicko. The real Potter legacy: The men have sicko attitudes towards "their" women.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Did any one ever even bother to tell Petunia where her sister was buried?

She finds out her sister is dead through a note left with the baby. There is no mention of any follow up.

Would anyone from the wizarding world have contact the Dursleys about the funeral or any of the arrangements?

Rather they planned and prepare their hero's memorial with no consideration for the mere Muggles. Dumbledore was probably in charge. Did he think as Lily's sister Petunia wouldn't feel the loss? That she might want the chance to say goodby?

The grave is in an area that muggles live - not just wizards. It would have been easy to let Petunia have a small say.

If Petunia was completely shut out it gives her another reason to resent the wizarding world that stole her sister from her.