Deathly Hallows, Chapter 27: The Final Hiding Place

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

The dragon continues to fly all day. It’s in remarkably good shape for an animal who’s been chained up, probably for years. Don’t a dragon’s muscles atrophy with disuse?

Ron notices they’re losing height, and Harry suggests they jump as soon as the dragon flies low enough over a lake for it to be safe for them to leap off into the water. They do so and swim for the shore. The dragon lands on another shore of the same lake.

HRH are burned all over from the enchanted treasure, and Hermione breaks out the dittany to heal them. That must be one supergiant economy sized bottle to heal all their wounds. Of course, she’s also brought clean robes for all of them, as well as bottles of pumpkin juice. What, no sandwiches, chips, fruit, and dessert? You’re slipping, girl!

Harry takes the Horcrux out of his pocket and they all look at it, wondering how to destroy it, now that they have no sword. There’s an unintentionally funny bit when Ron condemns Griphook as a “double-crossing little scab.” Hah! You’re just PO’d he screwed you over before you got to screw him over, Ron.

HRH are laughing hysterically over their narrow escape when Harry suddenly gets an exceptionally violent and vivid Voldie-vision. A Gringotts goblin is very reluctantly informing the Dull Lord about the break-in and theft of the cup. Voldy becomes so enraged he AKs the goblin, then starts killing everybody within cursing distance. Bella and Lucius show their good sense cowardice by throwing others behind them as they charge frantically out of the room.

Wow. I knew Voldy was a poor villain, but only someone as dumb as--well, actually, dumber than--Harry would slaughter his own followers. Whom does Voldy think is going to fight for him if he kills everybody? How is he going to recruit new minions once this story gets out? Magical people are dumb, but they’re not that dumb. On the plus side, this is undoubtedly one of the few times in his life Snape will be happy to have been stuck at Hogwarts dealing with dunderheaded students.

Conveniently, it seems the Voldie-visions are strictly one-way, despite Dumbledore and Hermione’s worrying. That’s unfortunate. This whole series would have been far more interesting if the connection were two-way. Imagine Voldy knowing when Harry went to the mall and going there to kill him. He could take out some filthy muggles at the same time! Come to think of it, since Harry is so weak-minded, surely Voldy could have not just spied on him, but also taken over his mind, at least some of the time. Think of Voldy controlling Harry in Hogwarts and at the Burrow, forcing him to curse out all the teachers and alienate his friends. Or Harry could kill a few people and end up in Azkaban. Sure, he might be telling the truth when he says Voldemort possessed him, but could the authorities really take the chance of allowing him to roam free? These and other lovely possibilities will never see the light of day because Rowling was too lazy and incompetent to write something that logical and imaginative.

Voldy goes on and on about his Horcruces and how great he is. He even rewrites history, casting himself as the killer of Dumbledore. Maybe he’s codependent and sees all his DEs as extensions of himself, so when Snape killed Dumbledore, it was like Voldy was doing it. (Does that mean when Voldy later kills Snape, it's like committing suicide?) Regarding the Horcruces, he wonders how “the boy” knows about them. Does Harry know what and where they are? Does he know how to destroy them? Surely someone as “important and precious” as Voldy himself would know if pieces of his soul had been destroyed. In a true divine intervention version of deus ex machina, Voldy mentally goes through his list of hiding places one by one, so Harry can check them off and know where to go for the last one.

You couldn’t have done this, oh, I don’t know, 300 pages ago, Ms. Rowling? Sure, the story wouldn’t have happened in accordance with the school year, but so what? It would have been vastly preferable to have a tight story rather than a bloated one. Or you could have done what va32h did in DH Redux and have Harry fall into a coma for three months. Sure, he sat on his can obsessing over the Booby Prizes for the same length of time, but that arouses contempt rather than sympathy in the reader.

After Harry comes out of his trance, he tells his friends what he saw and insists on going to Hogsmeade right away. Hermione protests they need a plan, as if she were some duffer Hufflepuff, air-headed Ravenclaw, or sneaky Slytherin. How did the Hat ever allow this girl to be put in Gryffindor, the House of suicidal jocks with poor impulse control?

They all hide under the cloak--I swear, that stupid thing is the ultimate deus ex machina in these books--and Apparate away. Actually, the text says, “[T]hey turned together on the spot into the crushing darkness.” I’m now imagining a new art form called Invisibility Cloak Dancing, in which people dance together under a cloak. There could be competitions, like ballroom dancing, and even a TV series called Invisibility Cloak Dancing with the Stars. However, someone would have to come up with a way to see under or through the cloaks to know what the competitors were doing. Maybe they could use the magical equivalent of 3D glasses.

This was a blessedly short chapter, only 10 pages. We’re all long past needing a break--especially me!

Next time: a diagnosis for Ariana Dumbledore

Comments

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

After Harry comes out of his trance, he tells his friends what he saw and insists on going to Hogsmeade right away. Hermione protests they need a plan, as if she were some duffer Hufflepuff, air-headed Ravenclaw, or sneaky Slytherin. How did the Hat ever allow this girl to be put in Gryffindor, the House of suicidal jocks with poor impulse control?


A lot of this book comes across like a RPG video game. Hmm, Hogsmeade is mentioned, better mark that in the Quest Log. Quick travel to Hogsmeade, the mission will begin when we arrive. THere's even dittany as a general purpose Healing Potion - medicine was never that simple in the other books. And the Voldyvisions are just cutscenes triggered whenever Harry gets enough XP.

Ron notices they’re losing height, and Harry suggests they jump as soon as the dragon flies low enough over a lake for it to be safe for them to leap off into the water. They do so and swim for the shore.

Without further injuring themselves, or drowning (despite being wounded, tired and not ever learning to swim at any point previous)

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

A lot of this book comes across like a RPG video game.

Yeah, finding the Horcruces is like a hidden object game where you acquire a dozen objects, but only one of them is useful. Hermione deciphering the rune book is like a mini-puzzle you have to solve to get the next clue. Along the way, they meet people who give them info to solve the next puzzle, and so on.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Be fair. We've known Harry and Ron could swim since GoF, and well enough to support another person while they were doing so. Hermione is a slight wild card, but she is Muggleborn and in my experience parents (at least those who are middle-class or higher) are expected to teach their children to swim for safety reasons, if not for pleasure. That still leaves the soft water issue, but magical folk seem more durable on average than normal humans. *shrugs*

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Actually, we've no idea whether Harry can swim when he isn't using gillyweed. Considering that the substance can make one breathe underwater without lessons, it could also help one swim if one doesn't know how. Doesn't necessarily mean one could still do it without the gillyweed - especially since the person would no longer have a tail or webbed fingers. Harry swam like a merman in GoF, not something he could actually accomplish here.

That all said - the Weasleys have a pond that has been mentioned as a place to play. Presumably, Harry would have learned there. I certainly cannot see Petunia paying for lessons.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

In the book at least the gillyweed wore off before he got back to shore, but there's no mention of him needing Ron's help. Both he and Ron were busy helping Gabrielle, who, if she could swim at all, couldn't do it well.

I think Petunia would pay for lessons for Harry, or at minimum have Vernon or herself teach him. Unless she could rent the private use of a pool for several hours over several weeks so Dudley could have private lessons, it would quickly become very public knowledge (and gossip) that she was outright neglecting the safety and well-being of her nephew. Hand-me-downs, taped glasses, and even sending Harry to his room (cupboard) inordinately often can all be attributed to strained finances, Harry's carelessness, and his own misbehavior. But ignoring such a basic safety skill? When she took care to make sure her own son was protected? Oh, no. Respectable People simply do not do such things.

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

The Dursleys are Roald Dahl grotesques, not people.

And the text of GoF clearly states when Harry is in the prefect's bathroom that they Dursleys never paid for swimming lessons for him, "undoubtedly hoping he would drown someday."

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

I didn't remember that line. He was still moving through the water just fine during the challenge, and Ron wasn't dragging both him and Gabrielle toward shore once they surface. Maybe he did learn at the Weaselys'.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Although doesn't it also say something like "He could do a couple of laps at the pool, but an hour in the Lake was something else entirely"? So it sounds like Harry has picked up basic swimming skills from somewhere. Maybe from school? I remember at Primary School we used to have swimming classes once a week at the local swimming pool, so maybe Harry's school was the same.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The goblin must have walked from London to Wiltshire because it took him all day to make it. Meantime, Voldie et al never suspected anything was amiss because they can't bother following the media while running a war.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Following the media is too mugglish, so it's beneath them. They kind of remind me of the French at Agincourt, who stayed up all night before the battle, wearing their armor because they didn't want to get it dirty by taking it off and resting. Then they wondered why they lost. In the same way, wizards care more about living up to some artificial standard of what they should be than they do about winning the war. In both cases, style matters more than substance and practicality.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

Now that is stupid, especially considering the armor would get dirty during the battle anyway ....

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Bella and Lucius show their good sense cowardice by throwing others behind them as they charge frantically out of the room./

So, it looks like Barty Crouch Jr. was wrong (again). There is a way to block the AK curse: other people’s bodies.

/I knew Voldy was a poor villain, but only someone as dumb as--well, actually, dumber than--Harry would slaughter his own followers. Whom does Voldy think is going to fight for him if he kills everybody? How is he going to recruit new minions once this story gets out?/

Not to mention that if Bellatrix hadn’t sprinted for the door, Voldemort could have killed her. She’s one of his most faithful Death Eaters, she spent years of misery in Azkaban rather than renounce him, and she was one of the Death Eaters who he held up as an example to other Death Eaters, who he promised would be rewarded beyond “their wildest dreams.”

And he almost killed her.

Yeah, Tom, I can’t imagine why so many of your followers jumped ship after your supposed demise. If even one of your most devoted followers can’t catch a break with you and isn’t rewarded for her efforts, why should the average Death Eater expect anything from you?

/Come to think of it, since Harry is so weak-minded, surely Voldy could have not just spied on him, but also taken over his mind, at least some of the time./

Yes, that could have been a consequence of Harry not learning Occlumency. And since Harry is a Horcrux, it should have been even easier for Voldemort to possess him.

/He even rewrites history, casting himself as the killer of Dumbledore. Maybe he’s codependent and sees all his DEs as extensions of himself, so when Snape killed Dumbledore, it was like Voldy was doing it./

Or maybe he considers himself the killer because it was his plan that led to Dumbledore’s death. Which, if that’s the case, shows him to take more responsibility for his actions than Dumbledore does.

/Does that mean when Voldy later kills Snape, it's like committing suicide?)/

Pfft, I could see that sentence appear in a Snape/Voldemort fanfic. :P

/Surely someone as “important and precious” as Voldy himself would know if pieces of his soul had been destroyed./

And in the movie, he did. Just like how Harry was able to sense Horcruxes in the DH films.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

So, it looks like Barty Crouch Jr. was wrong (again). There is a way to block the AK curse: other people’s bodies.

Good one! Thanks for my laugh for the day. :D

Or maybe he considers himself the killer because it was his plan that led to Dumbledore’s death.

Yes, I considered that. I was being facetious.

Which, if that’s the case, shows him to take more responsibility for his actions than Dumbledore does.

OTOH, Dumbledore isn't stupid enough to kill off his own followers--not while he still has a use for them, anyway.

And in the movie, he did. Just like how Harry was able to sense Horcruxes in the DH films.

You mean like those dogs who can smell when somebody has cancer, or is about to have an epileptic or diabetic seizure? That makes sense. The movies had to stay within a certain length. They couldn't be uselessly bloated like the book. Too bad Rowling didn't use those devices herself. DBP would have been both shorter and more interesting.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Wow. I knew Voldy was a poor villain, but only someone as dumb as--well, actually, dumber than--Harry would slaughter his own followers. Whom does Voldy think is going to fight for him if he kills everybody? How is he going to recruit new minions once this story gets out? Magical people are dumb, but they’re not that dumb.

Maybe the effects of the Horcrux hunt have started to catch up to him. There's already been a lot of speculation that Tom's mental acuity and stability decreased from making so many Horcruxes and/or being discorporated. However, the very function of a Horcrux means that although forcibly torn from their natural position, they are still somehow connected with Tom. At this point, three of them are gone. Whatever stabilizing they affect they'd had, no matter how minimal, was lost with them. I think this reading is supported by the fact that when Tom learned the diary Horcrux had been not merely lost, but destroyed, he still had enough self-control to not slaughter everyone in wand-reach however terrible his anger. Instead he opted for a very calculated, targeted revenge, while continuing to squeeze every last drop of use he could out of Lucius and his family.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

That's a very clever idea.

And in fact, Tom even waits to set up his revenge until Lucius is of no further immediate use to him. Further evidence that at that point he was still able to subjugate his passions to his self-interest. Indeed, if the memory Harry saw of his visit to Godric's Hollow was accurate, back when ALL of his Horcruces were intact, he had enough self-control not to pause to indulge in a harmless little spot of child-murder on the way to eradicate the Prophecied One--business before pleasure, and all that.

Too bad we have no reports on Tom's actions during HBP--we'd have expected an intermediate stage.

[oryx_leucoryx]

There is still the question if the difference comes from the magical effect of almost half the Horcruxes being destroyed or the knowledge that there is an active campaign to hunt them down. When he learned of the diary's destruction he knew the reason had to do with the other functions of the diary, and even the Old Fool wouldn't realize just how many such items were around.

How much do we know of Tom's actions between the destruction of the locket and receiving the news of the theft of the cup? What can we learn of his dealings with Gellert in the prison cell, Dumbles' tomb and the residents of Malfoy Manor during the past month?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Pumpkin juice???

I'd missed that one.

Yeah, if she'd thought to cadge pumpkin juice from Bill and Fleur, where's, not just their picnic dinner, but the rest of the food supplies for another 3 months' camping? Hermione doesn't know that it'll all be over tomorrow, and she's already experienced that starving does not add to the Trio's efficacy!

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Ron and Harry couldn't think of that - meal prep is a girl's job!

It would have been nice if Bill and Fleur packed some supplies to give them.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

You mean Fleur, surely.

Meal prep is a girl's job--complaining about her deficiencies in doing so is a man's.....