HBP Chapter Twenty-Two: "After the Burial"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Another Hagrid chapter this, although unfortunately he’s not the one being buried.

* As if Ron weren’t pathetic enough already, he’s started hiding behind Hermione whenever he thinks Lavender might be coming.

* And as if Hagrid weren’t irritating enough already, he’s now trying to guilt-trip Harry, Ron and Hermione into breaking school rules in order to attend the burial of a monster which tried to eat two of them on the only occasion they ever actually saw it.

* Well, at least Ron and Hermione react like normal people, and get all annoyed.

* “‘What on earth is more important than this memory, Harry?’ asked Hermione.” Lots of things, really, which is a shame because Rowling really tries to big it up.

* It’s a pity none of them think of using Felix Felicis next year, when they’re travelling round the country searching for the Horcruxes.

* I like the way Harry concludes that Ernie was “determined to outshine [him] for once”, because Harry’s obviously the centre of everyone’s universe, and everyone else spends all their time either admiring or envying him.


* Also, note how Harry doesn’t feel even the slightest twinge of guilt that his unfair advantage is letting him easily outshine everybody else in the class.

* Hermione passed her Apparition test, and Ron failed. Wow, didn’t see that one coming.

* Of course, Felix Felicis, like the Time Turners, is one of those things that everybody has to randomly forget about most of the time or else it would break the plot with it awesome power. I mean really, why do not hear of it being used any other time? Like, say, why doesn’t Voldemort give his DEs some when they go to capture Harry? Or why doesn’t Dumbledore teach Harry or Hermione to brew it? They are pretty much the wizarding world’s only hope, thanks to Dumbledore’s crazy strategy, so he should really be trying to give them every advantage he can.

* Dumbledore trusts Hagrid, so he can’t be up to anything too bad… Erm, if you say so, Professor Slughorn. Personally I think I’ll need a bit more evidence, if it’s all the same to you.

* Hagrid wants to give Aragog a “proper send-off” – a proper wizard send-off, obviously, not a proper spider send-off. Still, I suppose Hagrid’s only ever bonded with anthropomorphised fantasies and not real animals, so it’s kind of fitting that he treats them accordingly when they’re dead.

* Slughorn uses the opportunity to steal some of Aragog’s venom for personal gain without bothering to ask Hagrid first, and a satisfied smirk spreads across his face. Our Good Slytherin, ladies and gentlemen.

* Both Slughorn and Hagrid start drinking, but Harry, “his way ahead illuminated for him by Felix Felicis, knew that he must not drink.” Wait, how on earth does “lucky” translate to “getting told what to do by a potion”?

* Hagrid’s face darkens as he remembers how Tom Riddle had had him thrown out of school. Yeah, how unfair that was. I mean, sure, Hagrid could easily have ended up killing students through his reckless disregard for others people’s safety. The point is that he didn’t, and until he did, there’s absolutely no justification for expelling him. Taking precautions to stop people being hurt in the first place, as opposed to merely reacting when they are, is never the right course of action.

* Hagrid uses unicorn hair to bind bandages when animals get hurt. Not that he ever offers any to Madam Pomfrey for treating injured students, or even to any of the students who get injured in the course of his crazy schemes. Hey, there’s a limited supply, and you gotta keep your priorities straight, after all.

* Well, I suppose that Harry managing to do a non-verbal charm he’s never succeeded at before counts as luck. The Felix Felicis giving him “a little nudge”, though, is just silly.

* “Felix was telling him that Slughorn would remember nothing of this in the morning.” Oh, so apparently FF’s a fortune teller now. FFS.

* Slughorn’s pudgy fingers remind Harry of an overgrown baby, just to make sure we get the message that even the canonical Good Slytherin is a pathetic loser.

* Why is he so worried about handing over the memory again? Presumably Voldemort already knows that Slughorn’s got the memory, so if the Dark Lord wants to stop the memory getting out, he’s already got ample motive to bump Slughorn off. And it’s not like the memory actually makes Slughorn look that bad, so it’s really weird of him to worry over what Harry and Dumbles might think of him for it.

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/As if Ron weren’t pathetic enough already, he’s started hiding behind Hermione whenever he thinks Lavender might be coming./

Oh, for the love of – can anyone tell me what the point of this Ron/Lavender subplot was? Other than to trumpet to the reader that Ron/Hermione is the OTP? We already had jealous shenanigans from Ron and Hermione in GoF, when Hermione went to the ball with Viktor Krum and Ron had a crush on Fleur. Was this subplot really necessary? Especially when it degraded both Ron and Hermione?

/And as if Hagrid weren’t irritating enough already, he’s now trying to guilt-trip Harry, Ron and Hermione into breaking school rules in order to attend the burial of a monster which tried to eat two of them on the only occasion they ever actually saw it./

Yeah, at this point, it’s not endearing or funny anymore. It just shows how disconnected Hagrid is from his image of his animal friends. Of course, we don’t know if Ron or Harry ever told Hagrid that Aragog and his family tried to eat them, but still.

/Slughorn uses the opportunity to steal some of Aragog’s venom for personal gain without bothering to ask Hagrid first, and a satisfied smirk spreads across his face. Our Good Slytherin, ladies and gentlemen./

Well, despite whatever positive qualities Slughorn may have, he’s still a Slytherin, right? He has to be slimy or morally questionable in some fashion. Isn’t that one of the House requirements?

/Wait, how on earth does “lucky” translate to “getting told what to do by a potion”?/

The same way that “taking a luck potion that anyone can ingest and anyone can brew” equals “Harry is the only one who can get the memory from Slughorn,” I guess.

/Hagrid’s face darkens as he remembers how Tom Riddle had had him thrown out of school. Yeah, how unfair that was. I mean, sure, Hagrid could easily have ended up killing students through his reckless disregard for others people’s safety. The point is that he didn’t, and until he did, there’s absolutely no justification for expelling him./

Sure, Tom didn’t report Hagrid out of the goodness of his heart (and was a hypocrite to boot since he too was keeping a dangerous animal at school). But that doesn’t mean that Hagrid wasn’t wrong or horribly reckless for keeping a dangerous animal locked in a box at school. Why didn’t he just release Aragog into the Forbidden Forest? Aragog would’ve had much more space to move around, would have been safely away from students and teachers, and Hagrid could have visited him whenever he sneaked out of the castle. Instead, Hagrid keeps him in a box in a place where anybody could pass by and he still thinks that he shouldn’t have been punished for it? If Percy Weasley or Neville had been in Tom’s place, they would’ve reported Hagrid too, and not because they were framing Hagrid or wanted to get him into trouble, but so they could protect the students.

/Slughorn’s pudgy fingers remind Harry of an overgrown baby/

Even though Hagrid is really the most childish of the three.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

Still, one could argue that's not entirely Hagrid's fault. Has anyone ever really encouraged or expected him to 'grow up'?
As far as I can see, the only one in his life who might have is his father, who died when Hagrid was twelve or so(can't remember his exact age). Dumbledore, who seems to have become something of a surrogate father, didn't, possibly because at first it didn't occur to him to, and, later, because it wasn't convenient for him. After all, an emotionally-mature Hagrid might have started questioning Dumbledore ....

[sunnyskywalker]

Not to mention, does Harry really need magically-induced luck to tell him that maybe he'll be better able to manipulate Slughorn if he isn't sloshed himself? I mean really. "Gee, will I do better at x if I'm drunk or sober?" almost always has the same answer no matter what x is, and Harry's old enough to know it.

I wonder if anyone in the DA during Year 7 thought to ask the RoR for supplies to brew their own Felix, or for ready-made stuff? Or could they have asked the house-elves to fetch ingredients if the room couldn't provide? If so, obviously they didn't start using it until after the failed attempt to steal the sword. Unless failing was actually the luckiest outcome for some reason, like the possibility of Voldemort tracking it to Harry's location somehow?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Read Terri's take on it. The whole sword adventure was (in her version) planned by Severus as an excuse to send the fake sword to Bella's vault, thus disguising the whereabouts of the real one.

[night-axe.livejournal.com]

* Of course, Felix Felicis, like the Time Turners, is one of those things that everybody has to randomly forget about most of the time or else it would break the plot with it awesome power.

What's really sad is that this whole, ridiculously overpowered plot device could have been omitted if Harry was just a little less useless. Harry isn't cunning, but he can be opportunistic. Let Hermione, who is cunning, suggest inviting Slughorn to Aragog's funeral. I'm sure she'd guess that the greedy slimeball can be tempted with acromantula venom. It's a foregone conclusion that there'll be lots of booze at the funeral, because Hagrid's a drunk. Harry only has to stay sober enough to ask Slughorn some leading questions (and guilt trip him because Liiiiiiily). Which, as sunnyskywalker says above, Harry should have been able to figure out without a potion to tell him.

it’s not like the memory actually makes Slughorn look that bad, so it’s really weird of him to worry over what Harry and Dumbles might think of him for it.

Maybe it's not them he's worried about? I mean, Harry's moral judgment can't mean much to him, and he's not fool enough to think he's got any cred to lose with Dumbledore. But what if word got out? Regardless of what actually happened there's a fair chance he'd be known as the guy who told Voldemort how to make himself immortal.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

"...does Harry really need magically-induced luck to tell him that maybe he'll be better able to manipulate Slughorn if he isn't sloshed himself?..." - Sunnywalker

Add to the fact that Harry is actually only 16 years old here. The UK's laws are for a lower age than in the USA, however 16 yr-old Harry is not covered by them in this case (or at Sluggie's party). Not to mention that nothing is added to the 'American' version of the books to explain to young impressionable readers that the laws might be different in the UK.

As per Wikipedia (my bold): Between the ages of 5 and 17, it is legally permissible for children to drink alcohol at home or at a friend's house with the permission of a parent or legal guardian.
The minimum age for the purchase of alcohol is 18. People aged 16 or 17 may consume wine, beer or cider on licensed premises when ordered with a meal.[1] In England and Wales, it must be an adult who orders;[94] however, an adult doesn't have to be present to order alcohol with a meal in Scotland. The legal age for the purchase of alcohol from an off-licence (store/supermarket) is 18. (The legal age to buy liqueur chocolates is 16, but this is rarely enforced.)

[sunnyskywalker]

They can order Butterbeer at age 13, and Hermione's statement that it's not strong stuff indicates that it is mildly alcoholic. So I can believe that laws are different in the wizarding world. There weren't any laws against kids drinking in the 1690s iirc, and maybe they haven't made much change on that front - ie it's now illegal for the kids to buy "strong stuff" until they're 15 or 16 or consume it without some sort of adult supervision, but nothing more? (Not that this helps much for the reactions of the more rule-abiding young Muggle readers, who might not have put the pieces together and might just be baffled that Harry's considering not breaking the law as a remarkable good idea.)

Regardless, Harry (a) started off in the Muggle world, where there are more stringent laws, and (b) has had more than enough experience to know people usually don't function as well at delicate and mentally involved tasks when drunk! And it's not like all the adults he knows are like Hagrid and Trelawney, to give Harry the misleading impression that sobriety is an unusual cognitive advantage over an adult's "normal" state. I just do not follow his thought process here, except to wonder just what kinds of ideas Felix is giving him. Recklessness, hm?

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Didn't the Dursley's tell him his father was a worthless drunk?

In PoA Aunt Marge says: "They go and get themselves killed in a car crash (drunk, I expect) -"

So until Hagrid visits when Harry was eleven Harry would have heard from the adults around him that his father was a drunk. When Marge makes the statement in PoA I don't think it would have been the first time it was implied (if not stated out right) that drinking was involved in his parents death. Shouldn't that have affected his attitude about alcohol?

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

It was implied (if not stated out right) that drinking was involved in his parents death. Shouldn't that have affected his attitude about alcohol?

Well, there are kids who take up smoking despite the fact that it killed one or more of their parents (my brother, for example), so it's not always a rational thing, unfortunately.

I'm not against alcohol, but I was sort of surprised that JKR showed the kids drinking alcohol so often, even if it was "pretty weak" stuff. Drinking was never really necessary to the plot, and it would be easy enough to avoid putting it in. But her idea of "role models" always has been wacky.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

To be fair, whilst drinking under the age of 18 is technically illegal in Britain, public opinion is pretty neutral on the matter, and I find it difficult to imagine a 16-year-old being prosecuted for drinking in a private setting with two adults supervising him. So I don't think it's really surprising that even muggle-born students would be fine with it. That said, I agree it's stupid that Harry needs a potion to tell him that not being sloshed will make his task easier.

ETA: Also, I'm not sure how strong "not very strong" is meant to be in reference to Butterbeer. Given that we never actually see any human characters get drunk off it, I'm inclined to think that it's either so weak that you'd either find it impossible to get drunk off it (i.e., <0.5% ABV), or so weak that you could get drunk, but only if you really tried (so even during an extended social drinking session you'd still feel fine). And whilst Winky does get drunk from Butterbeer, we don't know how elves' bodies react to alcohol. If they have a naturally lower tolerance, then this, combined with their small size, might mean that house elves can get drunk where humans would find it impossible.

[night-axe.livejournal.com]

(Reposted b/c I got spamtrapped)

* Of course, Felix Felicis, like the Time Turners, is one of those things that everybody has to randomly forget about most of the time or else it would break the plot with it awesome power.

What's really sad is that this whole, ridiculously overpowered plot device could have been omitted if Harry was just a little less useless. Harry isn't cunning, but he can be opportunistic. Let Hermione, who is cunning, suggest inviting Slughorn to Aragog's funeral. I'm sure she'd guess that the greedy slimeball can be tempted with acromantula venom. It's a foregone conclusion that there'll be lots of booze at the funeral, because Hagrid's a drunk. Harry only has to stay sober enough to ask Slughorn some leading questions (and guilt trip him because Liiiiiiily). Which, as sunnyskywalker says above, Harry should have been able to figure out without a potion to tell him.

it’s not like the memory actually makes Slughorn look that bad, so it’s really weird of him to worry over what Harry and Dumbles might think of him for it.

Maybe it's not them he's worried about? I mean, Harry's moral judgment can't mean much to him, and he's not fool enough to think he's got any cred to lose with Dumbledore. But what if word got out? Regardless of what actually happened there's a fair chance he'd be known as the guy who told Voldemort how to make himself immortal.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"Hagrid wants to give Aragog a “proper send-off” – a proper wizard send-off, obviously, not a proper spider send-off. Still, I suppose Hagrid’s only ever bonded with anthropomorphised fantasies and not real animals, so it’s kind of fitting that he treats them accordingly when they’re dead."

And this becomes quite horribly offensive if you consider that Aragog's kind are not only sentient but sapient. Which means that presumably they have some sort of cultural reason for eating their dead, in addition to a merely biological one. Essentially, Hagrid is implying that their way of doing things is objectively wrong, and that only his culture's way of doing things is correct or worthwhile.

Which sounds rather a lot like colonists' attitude toward native cultures in the lands they conquered.