HBP Chapter Twenty-Four: "Sectumsempra"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Ron and Hermione are “both satisfyingly impressed” by the way Harry managed to get the memory… by, erm, dosing himself up on a potion that gave him super-high levels of luck. Yeah, real skilful there, Harry.

* It’s a good day for Hermione – she gets to feel superior at Ron because he was too cowardly to break up with Lavender, pleased that their relationship broke up anyway, and amused by the knowledge that she was instrumental in making this happen. If only she could find some excuse for righteously branding a nasty word across Lavender’s face, her day would be perfect.

* It turns out Ginny and Dean split up, too. Harry “thought there was a rather knowing look in [Hermione’s] eye as she told him that, but she could not possibly know that his insides were suddenly dancing the conga.” I don’t know, Harry, I wouldn’t put it past her to learn Legilimency and go around mind-reading people – for the greater good, of course…

* Harry and Ron have spent the whole class talking and consequently haven’t learnt anything. So obviously, if he gets savaged by a hippogriff, he totally deserves it.

* Harry’s interior monologue is being a bit presumptuous here, like of course Ginny’s going to go out with him if he asks, and the only issue is how Ron might react. The idea that Ginny might not actually want to go out with him at all doesn’t really seem to cross his mind.

* Harry’s curiosity about Katie even drives Ginny from his head. Wow, he must be curious. I mean, he normally spends so much time thinking about his crushes.

* “In his mind’s eye he watched a parade of Crabbes and Goyles prance past, all transformed into girls.” Now there’s an interesting slash-fic idea if ever I saw one. :p

* It would be a complete waste of Felix Felicis to try and get into the RoR, says Hermione. Because obviously, if you’re trying to guess the precise formula of words which will let you into a room, incredible luck isn’t going to help you at all.

* Although if they want some more FF, is there any reason why Harry can’t just take a swig of the stuff and ask Slughorn for another bottle? Or even just use some of his inherited fortune to buy some? I’m sure there must be professional potion-makers he could buy from.

* Of course, the Trio were perfectly happy to spend months brewing a ridiculously complex potion in COS, so I’m not sure why they don’t consider doing so now. I mean, come on, they’re the wizarding world’s only hope for stopping the most powerful dark lord in a century, they need all the advantages they can get.

* Dean’s upset that his relationship with Ginny has ended. Ginny on the other hand is totally fine and perky. Of course.

* Harry keeps getting hit by Bludgers because he’s too busy looking at Ginny to keep his eye on the, er, Snitch. And no, I don’t know why looking at the Snitch all the time would help him to avoid a completely different ball, either.

* “The run-up to this crucial match had all the usual features,” not least another desperate attempt to convince us that (a) Gryffindor actually have a chance of losing the Cup, and (b) Quidditch is really important and we should totally care about how well Gryffindor does.

* Harry still hasn’t forgotten about Malfoy. I wish the readers could, because then this whole Quidditch subplot might stop seeming so pointless and uninteresting by comparison.

* Only kidding, Quidditch subplots have always been pointless and uninteresting since at least POA.

* Harry finds Draco and Moaning Myrtle an “unlikely coupling”. Clearly he hasn’t been reading enough fanfic.

* Harry sees Draco crying, leading him to realise that, even if he doesn’t like him, Malfoy’s still a human being with emotions and difficulties just like Harry, and Harry should try and get past his dislike and treat him as a fellow person. Lol jk, they have a fight and Harry doesn’t feel a twinge of sympathy even when he cuts Draco’s chest open.

* Not sure how Harry and Draco can keep missing each other from opposite sides of the bathroom, but whatever.

* Wow, Malfoy must really be speaking slowly if Harry can say “Sectumsempra!” in the time it takes Draco to say “-o”. Maybe it’s that Malfoy theatricality making him cast all his spells in a villainous drawl.

* Oh look, that mysterious spell marked “for enemies” turned out to be quite dangerous. Never saw that one coming.

* So what’s the significance of this “incantation that sounded almost like a song” which Snape uses to heal Draco? Is it some ancient spell which predates the introduction of single pseudo-Latin words? If so, is Snape’s description of Sectumsempra as “dark magic” a piece of evidence in favour of the theory that dark magic is older, less “tamed” magic?

* So Draco goes to the Hospital Wing, and Harry immediately forgets about how he almost murdered him, instead focusing on the far more important question of what will happen if his Potions crib sheet gets taken away.

* Not sure why Snape doesn’t insist on going with Harry to the Gryffindor Common Room. Surely he must realise that Potter might try and switch books or something?

* I like the foreshadowing with the tiara and Vanishing Cabinet inside the ROR. Then again, given that Harry doesn’t use the textbook again, this whole hiding it scene is kind of pointless.

* Harry runs back, and arrives with a “searing pain in his chest”. Which is a coincidence, because that’s probably how Malfoy’s feeling right about now.

* So Snape gives Harry a few detentions for being “a liar and a cheat” (not even for almost killing Draco! WTF?), and Harry’s reaction is to bitch and moan about it to his friends. I mean, seriously, what is up with this boy? If I were in Harry’s position, I’d be on my knees in thanks that I wasn’t going to be expelled.

* Harry feels “sicker, he was sure, than Ron ever felt in his life” because his team might lose an intra-school sports competition. Not because his recklessness had endangered the life of a fellow-student. Urgh, just… just urgh.

* So Pansy Parkinson’s been to the Hospital Wing “vilifying” Harry. Not that she’d need to, really, I think his actions vilify him quite well enough on their own.

* Apparently “the looks on the Gryffindor team’s faces when he had told them he would not be able to play on Saturday had been the worst punishment of all”. As opposed to, say, the look on Draco’s face as he lay dying on the toilet-room floor.

* Now Harry’s worrying that Ginny and Dean might get back together if he’s not there to keep an eye on them. Can this boy get any more narcissistic?

* Also, even though Harry’s heard Malfoy say that his life’s in danger if he doesn’t carry out his task, nobody bothers talking about this new piece of information. Normally I could chalk this up to trauma at the realisation he’s nearly killed someone causing Harry to forget things, but Harry clearly isn’t traumatised at what’s just happened.

* Also, this chapter must be quite bad for H/D fanficcers. Even when Draco’s almost been killed, Harry still prefers to talk and think about his potions book and about the upcoming Quidditch match.

* Harry’s pet attack harpy valiantly rises to his aid, defending his use of deadly spells in the face of an Unforgivable Curse. Even though a less dangerous spell, like Stupefy or Expeliarmus or Petrificus Totalis, would have been just as effective in self-defence, so there’s really no need to go around slicing people’s chests open.

* “‘Oh, don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch,’ snapped Ginny, ‘you’ll only embarrass yourself.’” Wait, where does Hermione’s apparent reputation as a Quidditch ignoramus come from? We’ve never seen any signs of ignorance on her part. Or maybe Ginny’s just using “doesn’t understand Quidditch” to mean “not obsessed with Gryffindor winning at Quidditch”, in which case I suppose Hermione, like every sane reader on the planet, doesn’t really understand Quidditch.

* So Harry ends the night feeling “unbelievably cheerful” and not at all guilty about almost murdering somebody.  Fun challenge: imagine what the narrative voice would say if Draco almost killed Harry and spent the rest of the evening laughing and joking with his Slytherin friends.

* The Gryffindors are “most unhappy that their Captain had got himself banned from the final match of the season”. As opposed to, say, the fact that their Captain had almost flipping murdered someone in the bathroom. Eurgh, I know I keep going on about this, but everybody’s reactions are just bizarre. It almost reads as if the chapter was originally written so that Harry had genuinely done something minor and his being stopped from playing Quidditch was actually unfair, the Sectumsempra bit being added later and never really integrated properly into the surrounding narrative. So reactions which would have made sense if Harry had been treated harshly now seem disturbingly callous and lacking in empathy.

* Copying up records of your dad’s old school days doesn’t sound that unpleasant actually. Personally I’d be interested in seeing all the things my parents got up to.

* Oh, it looks like Gryffindor won anyway, so Harry doesn’t even have to suffer the torment of knowing that he caused his team to lose a sports match. Phew!

* TBH I think that if Ginny ran towards me with a “hard, blazing look” I’d run as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

* Naturally, the first thing Harry does after kissing Ginny is look around to make sure that his rivals are all feeling suitably humiliated.

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/I do find the idea of having a YA hero who's smarter and more useful when he's high/

*snorts*

/Why make such a big deal of "Expeliarmus" being Harry's signature spell? If it is; shouldn't he have used it here too?/

You’d think so. After all, he uses it with Voldemort, his sworn enemy, the man who has been trying to kill him since day one. But no, Draco gets sliced and diced by Sectumsempra, Amycus Carrow gets blasted with the Cruciatus Curse, but all Voldemort gets from Harry is the Expelliarmus Spell, over and over again. For some reason, Harry doesn’t try Sectumsempra or the Cruciatus Curse on him.

/Harry not being able to play a stupid game is more important then all that./

I think that Harry was trying to compare his feelings to Ron’s reactions to Quidditch, not his overall life experiences. But if so, then that sentence should have been worded differently. Also, is this really a good time to compare yourself to Ron, Harry? After all, Ron never came close to killing anyone.

/H/D fandome tends to squick me out./

A lot of the Harry/Draco doujinshi squicks me out, because they use the same scenarios that you’re describing. Harry is usually the dominating, eerily smiling seme who forces the delicate, vulnerable Draco, the uke, to have sex with him. And scarily enough, most of this sort of doujinshi was written and drawn before HBP.

/Well, he couldn't have heroically brandished the captured Snitch, now could he? Showing off your prize Ginny is almost as good./

Is this much different from how James saw Lily?