HBP Chapter Twenty-Six: "The Cave"
Mar. 26th, 2014 10:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
for-diddled.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslock* I don’t know why, but whenever I read this chapter’s title it makes me think of My Immortal. “Harry was expecting Dumbledore to take him to the 3 bromsticks, but instead they went into………… DA CAVE!!!!!!!”
* Tom must have had some pretty awesome wizarding skills to magically get himself and two other people down the cliff at age ten. Harry, naturally, can’t do this after his sixth year at wizarding school, and has to climb down the muggle way.
* Wait, so how can you tell that a place has “known magic”? I don’t think we’ve been given any indication before that you can sense where a magical enchantment has been cast. Maybe it’s just a super special power that only Dumbledore has.
* So Harry and Dumbledore swim through the water to enter the cavern. For some reason this fact strikes me as rather Freudian.
* Dumbles works out where the concealed entrance is by running his hands along the cave walls, which again is something we’ve never seen before. What is this skill? And why isn’t it taught at Hogwarts? Maybe Dumbledore’s just been slipping curiosity-reducing potion into the Hogwarts pumpkin juice for the last x number of years, and doesn’t teach people how to recognise magic in order to reduce his chances of being found out. Naturally now that Voldemort’s come back the Headmaster needs to keep people even more docile than usual to stop them questioning his war strategy, so he’s been upping the dose over the past two years. That explains why nobody really cares about the attempted murders, and why Ron and Hermione don’t want to investigate the Draco mystery. (Harry does because his deep and enduring love for Draco is even stronger than the curiosity-killing potion.)
* “‘Harry, I’m sorry, I forgot,’ [Dumbledore] said.” Yeah, well done Professor, forgetting that your favourite pupil and the only hope of the wizarding world is catching hypothermia right next to you. What was that you said last chapter about caring for the safety of your students?
* “Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury.” Yeah, but if you’re going to have to fight off a horde of inferi, being physically injured isn’t that good a situation to be in.
* That said, a little bit of blood wouldn’t hurt you that much, especially not since you could magically heal yourself immediately afterwards. Why not make it a really big payment, like having to kill somebody to get in? That way no good guy could ever get to your Horcrux, because they’d all be too noble (alright, alright, stop laughing) to do so.
* I’m not sure why Dumbledore thinks that trying out a spell which is bound to fail and alerts whatever’s guarding the Horcrux to your presence is “a very good idea”, but oh well.
* “‘Magic always leaves traces,’ said Dumbledore.” Not that you need to know what these traces are, Harry, or how to recognise them, even though you’ll be spending most of next year hunting for a series of hidden magical objects, and being able to tell where somebody’s cast a spell would be very helpful for that sort of thing.
* Dumbles said that weight won’t be an issue when crossing, because Voldie would care more about magical power, and bewitch the boat to only take one wizard at a time. Erm… if you say so, Dumbledore. I mean, sure, maybe he has done that; then again, maybe he hasn’t, or maybe he has, but in such a way that the boat will still capsize if it’s overloaded. You’re taking an awful risk based on a guess about a boat you just discovered thirty seconds ago, aren’t you?
* Speaking of wild guesses: “I do not think you will count, Harry: you are underage and unqualified.” Gosh, how convenient that Voldemort tied his super security system to the government’s statutes about when you can and can’t perform magic unsupervised.
* “Voldemort’s mistake, Harry, Voldemort’s mistake… age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimated youth,” says the man whom even death can’t prevent from manipulating his teenage protégé.
* The corpses floating in the lake are pretty cool, but seem suspiciously similar to the Dead Marshes from The Lord of the Rings.
* I’m not sure why wizards would view death as this great unknown mystery, when their world is full of ghosts, sentient portraits of dead people, and a stone able to summon back spirits from the afterlife.
* Yes, Voldemort, guard your precious soul-fragment with creatures which can be defeated by a basic fire-making spell! That’ll work as a security arrangement.
* So OK, Dumbles, maybe Voldemort wouldn’t want to immediately kill somebody who tried to drink the potion, but again, you’re taking a big risk based on nothing more than speculation and guesswork.
* It would kind of serve Dumbledore right if it turned out that the potion was in fact a poison which takes immediate effect, and he keeled over and died as soon as the first drop touched his lips.
* Wait, so if Voldemort would want to question anybody who gets this far, why didn’t he set up some kind of alarm system to go off when somebody tampers with the potion? He clearly doesn’t check his Horcruxes regularly, so anybody who did get this far would probably be incapacitated and die slowly anyway, in which case why not just fill the basin with poison to be on the safe side?
* Also, why does Dumbledore not try just pouring the potion on the ground, or even using the goblet to scoop out the Horcrux? Or does the Gryffindor code say that only recklessly brave ideas can be considered?
* So Harry tries to get Dumbledore some water, and accidentally ends up raising a whole lake full of zombies against them. Oops. Hey Potter, why didn’t you try conjuring water straight into Dumbledore’s mouth? Sheesh.
* Dumbledore says it’s “quite understandable” that Harry panicked and forgot to use fire. He’s right, of course, but he’s also highlighting how woefully unprepared Harry is for finding Horcruxes. You’d want to train him up almost like you train soldiers, so that when things start getting hairy he can keep his cool and take appropriate measures almost without thinking about it. Sending Harry as he is now to go after Horcruxes is like dragging somebody from high school, putting a gun in their hands and drafting them into a special ops unit without any basic training.
* “‘I am not worried, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. ‘I am with you.’” Even though Harry just panicked in the face of an Inferi attack and Dumbledore had to save the day. What a toady that man is.
* Tom must have had some pretty awesome wizarding skills to magically get himself and two other people down the cliff at age ten. Harry, naturally, can’t do this after his sixth year at wizarding school, and has to climb down the muggle way.
* Wait, so how can you tell that a place has “known magic”? I don’t think we’ve been given any indication before that you can sense where a magical enchantment has been cast. Maybe it’s just a super special power that only Dumbledore has.
* So Harry and Dumbledore swim through the water to enter the cavern. For some reason this fact strikes me as rather Freudian.
* Dumbles works out where the concealed entrance is by running his hands along the cave walls, which again is something we’ve never seen before. What is this skill? And why isn’t it taught at Hogwarts? Maybe Dumbledore’s just been slipping curiosity-reducing potion into the Hogwarts pumpkin juice for the last x number of years, and doesn’t teach people how to recognise magic in order to reduce his chances of being found out. Naturally now that Voldemort’s come back the Headmaster needs to keep people even more docile than usual to stop them questioning his war strategy, so he’s been upping the dose over the past two years. That explains why nobody really cares about the attempted murders, and why Ron and Hermione don’t want to investigate the Draco mystery. (Harry does because his deep and enduring love for Draco is even stronger than the curiosity-killing potion.)
* “‘Harry, I’m sorry, I forgot,’ [Dumbledore] said.” Yeah, well done Professor, forgetting that your favourite pupil and the only hope of the wizarding world is catching hypothermia right next to you. What was that you said last chapter about caring for the safety of your students?
* “Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury.” Yeah, but if you’re going to have to fight off a horde of inferi, being physically injured isn’t that good a situation to be in.
* That said, a little bit of blood wouldn’t hurt you that much, especially not since you could magically heal yourself immediately afterwards. Why not make it a really big payment, like having to kill somebody to get in? That way no good guy could ever get to your Horcrux, because they’d all be too noble (alright, alright, stop laughing) to do so.
* I’m not sure why Dumbledore thinks that trying out a spell which is bound to fail and alerts whatever’s guarding the Horcrux to your presence is “a very good idea”, but oh well.
* “‘Magic always leaves traces,’ said Dumbledore.” Not that you need to know what these traces are, Harry, or how to recognise them, even though you’ll be spending most of next year hunting for a series of hidden magical objects, and being able to tell where somebody’s cast a spell would be very helpful for that sort of thing.
* Dumbles said that weight won’t be an issue when crossing, because Voldie would care more about magical power, and bewitch the boat to only take one wizard at a time. Erm… if you say so, Dumbledore. I mean, sure, maybe he has done that; then again, maybe he hasn’t, or maybe he has, but in such a way that the boat will still capsize if it’s overloaded. You’re taking an awful risk based on a guess about a boat you just discovered thirty seconds ago, aren’t you?
* Speaking of wild guesses: “I do not think you will count, Harry: you are underage and unqualified.” Gosh, how convenient that Voldemort tied his super security system to the government’s statutes about when you can and can’t perform magic unsupervised.
* “Voldemort’s mistake, Harry, Voldemort’s mistake… age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimated youth,” says the man whom even death can’t prevent from manipulating his teenage protégé.
* The corpses floating in the lake are pretty cool, but seem suspiciously similar to the Dead Marshes from The Lord of the Rings.
* I’m not sure why wizards would view death as this great unknown mystery, when their world is full of ghosts, sentient portraits of dead people, and a stone able to summon back spirits from the afterlife.
* Yes, Voldemort, guard your precious soul-fragment with creatures which can be defeated by a basic fire-making spell! That’ll work as a security arrangement.
* So OK, Dumbles, maybe Voldemort wouldn’t want to immediately kill somebody who tried to drink the potion, but again, you’re taking a big risk based on nothing more than speculation and guesswork.
* It would kind of serve Dumbledore right if it turned out that the potion was in fact a poison which takes immediate effect, and he keeled over and died as soon as the first drop touched his lips.
* Wait, so if Voldemort would want to question anybody who gets this far, why didn’t he set up some kind of alarm system to go off when somebody tampers with the potion? He clearly doesn’t check his Horcruxes regularly, so anybody who did get this far would probably be incapacitated and die slowly anyway, in which case why not just fill the basin with poison to be on the safe side?
* Also, why does Dumbledore not try just pouring the potion on the ground, or even using the goblet to scoop out the Horcrux? Or does the Gryffindor code say that only recklessly brave ideas can be considered?
* So Harry tries to get Dumbledore some water, and accidentally ends up raising a whole lake full of zombies against them. Oops. Hey Potter, why didn’t you try conjuring water straight into Dumbledore’s mouth? Sheesh.
* Dumbledore says it’s “quite understandable” that Harry panicked and forgot to use fire. He’s right, of course, but he’s also highlighting how woefully unprepared Harry is for finding Horcruxes. You’d want to train him up almost like you train soldiers, so that when things start getting hairy he can keep his cool and take appropriate measures almost without thinking about it. Sending Harry as he is now to go after Horcruxes is like dragging somebody from high school, putting a gun in their hands and drafting them into a special ops unit without any basic training.
* “‘I am not worried, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. ‘I am with you.’” Even though Harry just panicked in the face of an Inferi attack and Dumbledore had to save the day. What a toady that man is.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-03-31 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-31 10:36 pm (UTC)And I agree with annoni that if anyone could override others' requirements--especially student requirements--it would be the legitimate Headmaster, although he might need to have a fairly good idea what it was he needed to override.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-01 03:51 am (UTC)Hmm. Maybe if Albus saw the diadem he wouldn't realize its significance? Harry did eventually make the connection, so if Tom's request to hide the diadem worked through mentally influencing people to not notice it such influence (if it existed) was limited in its scope.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 06:32 pm (UTC)My take on the RoHT is that it's essentially the ultimate lost-and-found/supply closet (and one with some incredibly powerful preservation charms built in at that). In addition to whatever cleaning supplies or food the elves stock it with, there has been a nigh endless stream of students and staff hiding their secrets there. I'd also wager that this is where the elves stash any lost, unwanted, or unclaimed items. Hogwarts was built ~1000 years ago. Meaning, depending on when the RoHT was built, it has had up to One Thousand Years to accumulate odds and ends of varying degrees of worth. Furniture that is worn out or merely out of style. Books considered unfit for the library or left behind by students. Etc. etc....
It is this vast supply of materials and items that lets the Room of Requirement function as it does. The person outside the Room paces, focusing on what they want, and the Room provides the items that best fit that request from its tremendous reserves. This would explain things like why books provided for the DA looked worn and second hand. They were. It also keeps the Room from being ridiculously overpowered. The only reason it seems unlimited at this point is because it has accumulated so. Much. STUFF over the centuries it has something to offer for almost anything anyone would want.
And it really is what the person wants that it responds to, not what they require. What Harry needed for the DA was somewhere Umbridge and her flunkeys couldn't enter, but what he presented to the Room was a desire to have somewhere private to learn defense. The RoR really is misnamed in that sense. (Though since "The Room of Desire" sounds like something out of erotica I suppose it's not the worst name name they could have picked...).
Because of this I'm not sure Riddle ever found the RoHT proper. He did not WANT to find a glorified supply closet. He wanted to find grand secrets and chambers that would open for no one but HIM. So he might have found the RoR, and he might he have figured out that it could supply him with items he couldn't have obtained anywhere else in the castle, but he might not have seen the Room's more mundane aspects if he really didn't want them to be there. The Room really is wonderfully obliging like that.
Dumbledore might have overestimated Riddle and assumed that of course he found the RoHT and of course he wouldn't stash a bit of his soul in the school junk closet. He'd use something grand, like the Chamber of Secrets - which was, in a roundabout way, where the Diary was meant to end up. No need to waste time searching the RoHT.... Or it could be that Dumbles doesn't know the full capabilities of the Room either. The elves might, but they have fairly limited needs of it themselves, and they usually don't volunteer information without prompting. How likely is it that Dumbles would stoop to ask house elves how his own castle works?