CoS chapter 4

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

*Life at The Burrow was as different as possible from life at Privet Drive.. Because wizard houses are just inherently more interesting.

*Ingenious really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic.
You think they'd have died out by now without it. What's that? Survival of the fittest? No clue what you're talking about, Harry.

*Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things about whenever Harry entered a room. Well, that explains Tonks being so clumsy in OOtP.

*Ginny's blushing with her face "glowing like the setting sun". In future books the only time that will happen is when she furiously unleashes her Supercool Powers against anybody who dares contradict Harry.

*Dumbledore already knows Harry's at the Burrow. Doesn't miss a trick, that man. Yep, Fake!Moody's gonna have a hard time putting one past him!

*Because the new DADA teacher assigned all of Lockhart's books it's clear she must be a witch. And a fan of Lockhart. The books couldn't be assigned because they, y'know, actually have some value related to DADA.

*Molly expects they'll have to get Ginny's things second-hand. Funny how, despite the kids leaving home regularly, earning for themselves, and the nest becoming smaller, the Weasleys' financial situation never seems to improve.

*Percy wearing a knitted tank top? OMG Muggle clothes? In the house, in front of Molly? No wonder the family hates him.

*Hermione sends a prim reply to Ron's letter, asking him how Harry is, and not to do anything illegal so as not to get Harry into trouble. It's things like this that convince me of the argument that Ron and Hermione really have nothing in common except their devotion to Harry.

*Percy stays shut up in his room all the time. This is because he's writing letters to Penny btw, not because he already disassociated himself from the rest of family.

*Fred wonders what Percy does in there, no doubt imagining Percy practicing his signature over and over. And he also comments on how Percy didn't gloat about his 12 OWLs at all: a wise move, seeing as how he'd have to face the twins' wrath if he had done so.

*Harry says the Dursleys would think it an excellent joke if he got lost in a chimney. OMG they're so evil. Not like Fred and George who thought Montague getting lost the Cabinet was hilarious.

*Mwahaha! Harry sitting in a closet in Borgin and Burkes! Textual evidence that Harry hasn't come to terms with his attraction to the Dark Arts.

*How did Lucius Malfoy know that Hermione beat Draco in every exam? I doubt he keeps track over which students are smarter than Draco. Has Snape been giving reports (as someone suggested) to drive a wedge between father and son?

*Draco Fans: Aww, poor widdle Draco, he gets no lovin from his Daddy....
Lucius Fans: He's training the future Malfoy heir! And he's lookin mighty fine while he does it!
I still don't get why Lucius is selling all his Dark Arts stuff, what with his great influence in the Ministry. And haggling? Pureblood aristocrats haggle (over illicit potions, no less)?

* So I've heard arguments that the emphasis on "mister" and "manor" in Borgin's sneering speech suggests that the Malfoy's are really not that rich, and the manor is just a done-up version of Grimmauld Place. Lucius just got up in the ranks through friendship with the likes of Fudge, and his money wasn't enough to get him out of Azkaban was it?

*Hermione's parents come to Diagon Alley in the hope of sharing their daughter's magical life. Don't waste your time Mr. and Mrs. Granger.
You won't be seeing much of her, now she's rejecting the Muggle world and trying to carve a place for herself among the Weasley household.

*'Course he's very ambitious Percy. Not like the rest of the family. Ron seeing glory in the Mirror of Erised, the twins putting in hard effort into the joke shop, is different. Percy's ambition is not like the rest of family at all.

*Lockhart shows off his media management skills pulling Harry into the limelight. That's probably why Dumbledore hired him. That, and he wanted to induce Snape to wash his hair....

*Ginny tells Malfoy to leave Harry alone. OMG, how sassy. How brave of her to stand up for her man! Of course anytime Pansy pipes up in defense of Malfoy, she's just being sycophantic and vapid and brainless.

*Both Lucius and Draco make snarky comments about the Weasleys' poverty. Arthur and Lucius exchange stiff insults about what exactly disgraces a wizard. Then they proceed to disgrace themselves utterly by getting into a "display of Muggle dueling".
Ironically, the Grangers are the only adults with any dignity in this chapter.

*Lucius gets hit with an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. Remind me to put up my essay proving this all foreshadowing to Lucius' escape from Azkaban using poisonous mushrooms.

*Hagrid gives his speech about the Malfoys having Bad Blood. You know, because he has no skeletons in his ancestral closet.

*How come all the information about blood prejudice we get is from Hagrid? Somebody suggested that Hagrid is very conscious about his own Giant blood, and therefore sensitive to all blood prejudice in general. So to downplay the fact that he's ashamed of his own bloodline, he's always hitting out at others.

*Funnily enough, this brings to mind many slash-versus-het arguments. I love how fandom has its own ways of discrimination. Life imitates Art?

*The Grangers are shaking with fright. It's a wonder that they let their child go to the WW for half the year; they must have noticed the hostility from Lucius Malfoy. But remember, they're very supportive parents. Not negligent at all.

Comments

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

*Percy wearing a knitted tank top? OMG Muggle clothes? In the house, in front of Molly? No wonder the family hates him.

You know, its interesting, Percy really wasn't hated by the fam until Ginny attended Hogwarts. Everyone kind of got along in the first book and the teasing didn't seem out of hand. I bet they all blamed Percy for Ginny's problem.

*'Course he's very ambitious Percy. Not like the rest of the family. Ron seeing glory in the Mirror of Erised, the twins putting in hard effort into the joke shop, is different. Percy's ambition is not like the rest of family at all.

They hate Percy because he is upfront about his ambition, he doesn't try to laught it off. That is where he makes his mistake. If he denigrated all his triumphs and talked them down, the twins would have loved it and left him alone.

*Lucius gets hit with an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. Remind me to put up my essay proving this all foreshadowing to Lucius' escape from Azkaban using poisonous mushrooms.

That would be an interesting storyline. Dementors can't see people tripped up on shrooms. I have a vision of Lucius wandering wide-eyed, drooling and high out of Azkaban with his blond hair flowing all around. LOL XD

[galaxianomiko.livejournal.com]

Percy wearing a knitted tank top?

You know, the first time I read this I imagined "knitted" as the kind of colorful yarn thing Molly might make, and wondered what the hell Percy was thinking.

Percy stays shut up in his room all the time. This is because he's writing letters to Penny btw, not because he already disassociated himself from the rest of family.

Did anyone else's mind go straight to the gutter throughout the Percy thread in this book? Later on, when Ginny "caught him doing something" I nearly laughed my guts out.

Ironically, the Grangers are the only adults with any dignity in this chapter.

Frankly, I'd love to see this chapter from their perspective.

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else's mind go straight to the gutter throughout the Percy thread in this book? Later on, when Ginny "caught him doing something" I nearly laughed my guts out.

*grins* I totally missed that. Want to take a guess at what Fred and George were doing in their room, when the rest of the family kept hearing explosions?

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

How did Lucius Malfoy know that Hermione beat Draco in every exam? I doubt he keeps track over which students are smarter than Draco.

Lucius comes across as a baller (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=baller). He's a thug livin' large – and like any smart thug, he wants a better life for his kid than the life he's livin'. So yes, it's totally plausible to me that he keeps tabs on how Draco's doing academically. Education as the key to a better way of life is a strong working class/middle class ethic, suggesting Lucius is NOT to the manor born.

I'd also venture to say his strong sense of competition w/r/t Draco and Hermione indicates humbler roots; people born into money tend to be more laissez-faire about such things, since their future's already taken care of in most circumstances. Perhaps Lucius can't really promise Draco that?*

It also makes sense that Borgin's taking the piss by referring to Lucius in "aristocratic" terms – true to baller style, his source of income is unknown.

And haggling? Pureblood aristocrats haggle (over illicit potions, no less)?

In many cultures haggling is a perfectly normal way to do business, whether one is rich or poor. To be fair, it's not a terribly aristocratic thing to do – but is Lucius an aristocrat? We don't know.

Lucius gets hit with an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. Remind me to put up my essay proving this all foreshadowing to Lucius' escape from Azkaban using poisonous mushrooms.

Free your mind and your ass will follow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin), or so I've heard! ;D

*Of course, by the end of OOTP we know he can't.

[teratologist.livejournal.com]

So once again, Harry is Dubya (complete with Daddy's old friends randomly showing up to bail hiss ass out) whereas Draco is somewhat closer to Richard Nixon or like that.

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

Lucius comes across as a baller
Heh, now I'm getting all these images of Lucius in baseball hat and gold chains around his neck. Real bling!

true to baller style, his source of income is unknown.
All the more leeway for fandom to come up with er....unflattering means of income, which make for good crack fic ;-)

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

How brave of her to stand up for her man!

Oh, it was probably easy since she's possessed by the author at this point.
Ginny, who's hung out with Harry for what, two weeks, recognises how uncomfortable he is with his fame (as opposed to say, Ron, his best friend, who doesn't get this as late as GoF - perhaps because Harry's uncomfortableness with attention is only present if it's bad. He somehow overcomes all that natural modesty when he's in front of 800 screaming Quidditch fans.)
Isn't Ginny the one who was 'goggling at him like a zoo exhibit' in PS? She seems more like one of those 'President of the Fanclub' types who earnest lecture people on how only they know how their favourite celebrity feels.

Life at The Burrow was as different as possible from life at Privet Drive. Because wizard houses are just inherently more interesting.

No, because Privet Drive was vaguely hygienic.

Because the new DADA teacher assigned all of Lockhart's books it's clear she must be a witch.

Sexist jokes = Gryffindor chivalry.

How did Lucius Malfoy know that Hermione beat Draco in every exam? I doubt he keeps track over which students are smarter than Draco.

I know, this is so ridiculous.
I mean, I get the always-utilitarian Rowling approach - here you can show how Draco's not achieving as highly as his father expects (and unlike Neville and Harry's failures, it's unlikely to be down to a lack of confidence/poor teaching either! It's 100% inferiority!) and how awesome Hermione is, and how pureblood prejudice is wrong since this one random Muggleborn is better than this one random pureblood, blah blah; but it's just like 'Okay, did the school send Lucius every person's grade? Does he go into the governor's office and bellow "Show me the marks of Hermione Granger and/or any other Muggleborns with grades higher than my son's, I'm gonna make a graph on Microsoft Excel!'

In future books the only time that will happen is when she furiously unleashes her Supercool Powers against anybody who dares contradict Harry.

Oh, I'm sure even then she's 'cool' as ever, her freckleless alabaster face's only change a narrowing and glowing of her chocolate brown eyes.
I miss Old!Ginny :(

Lockhart shows off his media management skills pulling Harry into the limelight. That's probably why Dumbledore hired him.

Isn't it implied at the end that Dumbledore knows all about Lockhart's memory-charming people? (Wow, Albus, that doesn't make you look omnipotent so much as a neglectful psycho.) Perhaps it's all an elaborate scheme for revenge justice? As well as getting rid of the snake and putting Harry in a position where his life depends on being loyal to Dumbledore.

Has Snape been giving reports (as someone suggested) to drive a wedge between father and son?

Apparently Snape's not as biased as he looks (which isn't very, to be honest, but I'll obey the ever-present narrator for a second) since Hermione's apparently doing better at Potions than Draco.

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

"Show me the marks of Hermione Granger and/or any other Muggleborns with grades higher than my son's, I'm gonna make a graph on Microsoft Excel!"

Excel – the bane of my workday! ;)

I really don't see how it's so difficult for Lucius to find out who his son's competition is – parents like that always seem to know who to throw in their kid's face. Word gets around.

Perhaps because Hermione's a Muggleborn, fellow parents may have gossiped about her & Lucius picked up on it. Also, at this point he's still a governor of the school – which could be a way to gain access to that kind of info.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

Dear lord, thank you!

I really don't see how it's so difficult for Lucius to find out who his son's competition is – parents like that always seem to know who to throw in their kid's face. Word gets around.

Brilliant. Couldn't have put it better myself. It's definitely not uncommon for parents to know such things, especially those in higher authority, like on the school board and the like. Grades are always taken into account when judging teachers and even Headmasters.

Also, I do find it hard to believe that Draco is doing just the second best in everything. There has to be one or two other students who are better than him in some subjects. Hermione's name came up likely because she IS the best student at Hogwarts thus far and teachers would be more inclined to talk about her intelligence. If she was smart enough, she could easily garner the attention of the higher-ups.

Why, oh why, don't people ever think of these things?

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

Has Snape been giving reports (as someone suggested) to drive a wedge between father and son?

After book four where there was that wide gap between the two books, this idea might, might, have carried some weight.

Now, it's just laughable.

Why would a wedge be needed? Lucius clearly did not expose Draco to the Death Eaters even after Voldemort came back. Only when Lucius was removed did Voldemort grab up Draco. And that was only to use the kid as part of Lucius' punishment. Lucius protected Draco from that part of his life and the kid was largely innocent of it, save for some likely remarks as to the rightness of the Death Eaters or whatever was brought up at the dinner table.

Aside from that, Lucius and Snape got on just fine even during the fifth book when it was assumed that Snape was a known traitor to the Death Eaters as per Voldemort's speech at the end of GoF.

There are just so many reasons and I'm really not awake enough to go through them on a point-by-point basis.

The idea is just so laughably bizarre given what we know of canon.

[saylee.livejournal.com]

Lucius clearly did not expose Draco to the Death Eaters even after Voldemort came back. Only when Lucius was removed did Voldemort grab up Draco. And that was only to use the kid as part of Lucius' punishment. Lucius protected Draco from that part of his life and the kid was largely innocent of it, save for some likely remarks as to the rightness of the Death Eaters or whatever was brought up at the dinner table.

I kind of wonder if Lucius maybe suspected that Draco wasn't really cut out for the Death Eaters.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

It's very likely. Or that Lucius just didn't want Draco involved at all in that part of his life due to all that it entailed, such as murder, manipulation, etc. If anything, I'd assume he'd want his one and only heir kept out of things just because Draco is the only one he has left to him, aside from Narcissa, of course. But Draco has to stay alive to further the Malfoy lineage.