Harry Potter Abridged! HBP Chapter 13

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

[Katie goes to St. Mungo’s. Everyone in the school not directly involved thinks she was the one targeted]

Harry: I’ll bet Draco knows the truth! Why don’t we try to force a confession out of him?!

Hermione: For the last time, we’ve got no proof!

Ron: Yeah!

[Dumbledore’s meeting arrives]

Harry: I really hope he’s here. [Knocks on office door]

Dumbledore: Come inside.

Harry: Oh, good! You are here!

Dumbledore: Yes, I am. Now have a seat.

[Harry sits down obediently]

Dumbledore: So, you saw what happened to Katie?

Harry: Yes.

Dumbledore: She’s going to be in the hospital for a long time, unfortunately. She was lucky she only touched the necklace briefly—if she’d put it on she would have died in agony then and there. Fortunately Snape was able to prevent the curse from spreading throughout the school.

Harry: Snape?! You let Snape have the necklace?!

Dumbledore: And why not, after all? Snape is skilled against the Dark Arts.

Harry: Yes, but—never mind. What exactly does the necklace do?

Dumbledore: It vaguely kills people.

Harry: That’s it?

Dumbledore: Something like that. But it’s of no importance.  Katie shall make a full recovery, eventually.

Harry: Good, good. By the way, Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, and he gave Katie the necklace!

Dumbledore: [Snickers] Draco, a Death Eater? No, I don’t think so.

Harry: It’s true! I know it’s true! He’s evil! Evil I say!

Dumbledore: Well, never mind that now. I’ll be investigating anyone I think might know anything, and in the meantime I’ve got more proof for you that Voldemort was a totally deep, complex character whose backstory was tremendously important!

Harry: Oh, joy.

Dumbledore: So, anyway, after being abandoned by Tom Rid Senior, Merope traveled to London where she pawned off the last family heirloom.

Harry: Do we have proof of this?

Dumbledore: As a matter of fact, yes. Right here.

[He calls up the memory of someone named Caractus Burke from the Pensieve]

Memory: So, anyway, I just bought this super-special-awesome one-of-a-kind locket of Slytherin off a girl I met in the street. I gave her ten galleons. Too bad it was worth far more than that! Ahahahahaha!

Harry: You mean…he cheated her for money?

Dumbledore: Something like that.

Harry: But why on earth would a witch sell a prized heirloom when she could have just acquired whatever she needed by magic?

Dumbledore: Well, you see, sometimes when witches are depressed enough they lose their capability to do magic. Remember this. It’s important. Anyway, she would eventually die and leave her son behind. She didn’t love him enough, see. And even if she did, those slimy Slytherins were always too weak to choose life over death. This is my worldview and it’s entirely self-consistent, by the way. It’s also completely different from your mother’s sacrifice, because she was a True Gryffindor!

Harry: Wow, that’s horrible! To abandon a child!

Dumbledore: What?! Are you feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort? The man who killed your parents?!

Harry: No, don’t be silly!

Dumbledore: That’s a good boy. Now, let’s have a look at one of my memories.

[He empties his memory into the Pensieve, and he and Harry enter]

Harry: Wow! Dumbledore, you were so hot back then! I love your suit!

Dumbledore: Thanks for that….

[Eventually, the Dumbledore in the memory comes to an orphanage and requests a meeting with Mrs. Cole]

Mrs. Cole: You called?

Dumbledore: Yes, quite. I’m here about Tom Riddle, a boy you’re taking care of. I’d like to offer him a place at my school.

Mrs. Cole: Your school?

Dumbledore: Yes, my school. He has the qualities we’re looking for.

Mrs. Cole: And what qualities might that be?

Dumbledore: [Takes out wand] Oh, just a little something called—Imperio!

 Mrs. Cole: Yes, Master?

Dumbledore: I want you to tell me everything you know about this Tom Riddle. Tell me all about how he came to you and what he’s been up to since.

Mrs. Cole: Well, his mother came to us one winter, see, and she died shortly after he was born—once she’d had sufficient time to name him and make a long, melodramatic speech about how distressing it was that he’d never know what it was like to have a mother and she’d never know what it was like to have a child. Very strange. She’d named him Tom Marvolo, after his father and grandfather, but nobody by either name ever came looking for him. Ever since that day strange things have been happening at this place. There’s a lot of bullying in this orphanage, of course, and Tom has claimed to be the victim but we think he’s been giving as good as he gets—or at least, I don’t think it’s an accident that one of the kids’ rabbits turned up strangled, or that two other kids returned from an outing with him completely traumatized. [Pause] Is there anything else, Master?

Dumbledore: I’d like you to take me to him, so I can have a word.

Mrs. Cole: Yes, Master.

[She leads Dumbledore to a back room, where a young Tom is sitting and reading]

Dumbledore: Hello, Tom Rid!

Tom: Agh?! Who are you?! Why do you look so weird?!

Dumbledore: My name is Dumbledore. I’m here to offer you a place at my school.

Tom: Your…school? You mean…like…a lunatic asylum?

Dumbledore: No, nothing like that. I mean, a school. A school for magic.

Tom: Magic, huh? As I think of it, that would explain why weird things happen around me so much.

Dumbledore: That’s right. You can do magic. Because you’re special.

Tom: I’m…special?

Dumbledore: Yes, you are.

Tom: I’m special! I’m special! Ahahahahahahaha! I knew it all along! [Does a happy dance]

Dumbledore: Yes, quite.

Tom: Say, you can do magic too, right? I wanna see what it looks like when a grown-up does magic! Show me, show me, show me!

Dumbledore: I don’t give magic demonstrations to just anyone, you know.

Tom: Oh, please oh please oh pleeeeeeeease?

Dumbledore: Very well. [Sets Tom’s wardrobe on fire]

Tom: Aaagh! My clothes!

Dumbledore: Calm down—it’s just an illusion. [He waves his wand, and the flames vanish]

Tom: That’s a relief.

Dumbledore: Hey, look at that box. [Points to a box in the wardrobe] I wonder what’s in there?

Tom: Don’t! That’s private!

Dumbledore: I’m ignoring you. [He picks up the box, in which he finds three old toys]  Are these your toys?

Tom: Ah…well…you see…. I’m innocent! I didn’t do it! The other kids gave them to me! They were…just…presents! Yeah! That’s all!

Dumbledore: Oh, please—no denial that specific is ever true. You stole these from the other kids, didn’t you?

Tom: …Yes….

Dumbledore: Well, then you’ll just have to give them back, won’t you?

Tom: [Crestfallen] Yes, I suppose I will.

Dumbledore: Don’t worry—once you get to Hogwarts you’ll be able to have your own wand and robes and books and toys and practical joke equipment….

Tom: But how? I haven’t got any money.

Dumbledore: There’s a fund that can help pay for your supplies. Here, I’ve got some of that money here with me right now. [Hands Tom a bag]

Tom: Wow, it’s so shiny!

Dumbledore: Don’t get too attached. It’s money, nothing more. Anyway, you’ll want to buy your supplies in a place called Diagon Alley. I can help you get there—

Tom: Oh, that’s not necessary—I find my way around London all the time. I can shop for myself.

Dumbledore: What?! You have the gall to refuse help from me, the great Albus Dumbledore?! Surely your soul must be a dark hole of evil!

Tom: Aaagh! Now I want to go with you even less!

Dumbledore: Fine, be that way. If you wish to indulge your evil impulses by refusing my help and advice, I should tell you that you can get to Diagon Alley via the Leaky Cauldron. You’ll be able to see it, though the muggles around you won’t. Ask for Tom the Barman, and he’ll tell you where to go.

Tom: Yeah, I think I can keep that straight.

Dumbledore: Wonderful! I’ll see you at Hogwarts, then!

Tom: Yeah! I’ll see you there! Oh, I just can’t wait to learn magic! [Reflects for a moment] Wait…there’s one more thing.

Dumbledore: Yes, Tom Rid?

Tom: That’s not my name, you know. It’s Tom Riddle.

Dumbledore: Whatever.

Tom: Well…I can talk to snakes, see. They tell me I was born to die.

Dumbledore: Oh, that. It’s probably just a sign that you’re destined to become an evil scumbag. If you aren’t one already!

Tom: Hey! That’s not very nice!

Dumbledore: Oh, well—see you at Hogwarts!

[Older Dumbledore then pulls Harry out of the Pensieve]

Dumbledore: So, how was that for shedding light onto the complex, multifaceted psyche of Lord Voldemort?

Harry: Well…it sort of seems as though you were bullying him and his caretaker—

Dumbledore: Oh, please! He was bad even at that young age, couldn’t you tell? He was already strangling rabbits and abusing children! And he refused my help in Diagon Alley! Can you believe the nerve of him?!

Harry: You have a point with that last one, I suppose.

Dumbledore: It all translates to the present day, where he’s an evil dick just for the hell of it and refuses to even consider anyone his friend. Because he’s evil.

Harry: Alright….

Dumbledore: One bit of information I’d like you to pay attention to is his penchant for stealing stuff and squirrelling it away. This will come into play later.

Harry: I’ll keep that in mind. [Looks around the room] Dumbledore, the ring you had. It’s gone.

Dumbledore: Don’t worry your pretty little head about that ring—it’ll reappear when I want it to reappear.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, you see, sometimes when witches are depressed enough they lose their capability to do magic.

Also, sometimes when the plot requires to get rid of a character for a while, the most brilliant witch and her two little boys will forget all about magical ways to obtain (more) food.

Yes, Tom was strangling rabbits and torturing kids but what matters is the stealing. And that he refuses Dumbly's assistance. But nothing matters enough to warn the headmaster or the staff, because surely showing a bully how to bully with magic will cure him.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Also, the possession of male gonads appears to immunize one from the magic-sapping effects of depression. At least it never seems to effect Severus Snape, and if anyone is depressed and heart-broken in this series it’s him.

So much to hate.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Such an awful chapter.

Historically the must dangerous time for a woman was child birth and there after. I guess most women weren't brave enough.

Yes, those women who live in poverty who die after child birth would have made it if they were only brave enough!

I need to look at the book (if I can force myself), but I think Mrs. Cole was willing to warn DD as Tom's future school representative with out DD having to use magic on her.

Dumbledore: [Snickers] Draco, a Death Eater? No, I don’t think so. We later learn Dumbledore knew all along Draco has been ordered to kill him. DD is sure he isn't at risk, so what if a student gets hurt. Can you image a principal of a school justifying the fact he knew a student intended to kill him, and that student had severely injured another student; but hey it's ok the principal was never in any danger.

Letting Tom go by himself is completely irresponsible. Especially if DD thinks the kid is trouble.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Dumbledore: [Snickers] Draco, a Death Eater? No, I don’t think so./

And when Dumbledore reveals at the end of this book that he knew all along that Draco was working for Voldemort, Harry will have little to no reaction whatsoever.

/Dumbledore: Well, you see, sometimes when witches are depressed enough they lose their capability to do magic./

And only witches, since we never see Sirius Black or Neville Longbottom lose their magic. Pretty much the only instance of wizards ever doing so are inmates in Azkaban, who become so depressed from the constant proximity of dementors that they lose the ability to do anything.

/It’s also completely different from your mother’s sacrifice, because she was a True Gryffindor!/

Well, it is different…in the sense that Merope wasn’t given a choice to live. She wasn’t facing an evil wizard who was trying to kill her child. Her enemy was her own body. So, no, Albus. The situations are NOT the same.

/She’d named him Tom Marvolo, after his father and grandfather/

Does anyone else find it sad that Merope named Tom after her father? From what we’ve seen, she must have been suffering Stockholm Syndrome to want to name her child after the man who treated her that way. Unless it’s a tradition in the Gaunt family for the middle name to be the same as the grandparent’s name. At least before HBP, the fact that his middle name was Marvolo was to create the anagram of “I am Lord Voldemort” and to differentiate him from his father. Now, I don’t know why Merope would want to associate her child with her father unless a) Stockholm Syndrome or b) tradition wins out, no matter how awful the namesake was.

/Dumbledore: I’d like you to take me to him, so I can have a word./

In other words, nothing that Mrs. Cole has told him will deter him from insisting that Tom go to Hogwarts.

/Dumbledore: There’s a fund that can help pay for your supplies./

Yet somehow, fifty years from now, Ron Weasley is not granted access to it. Was it discontinued?

/Tom: Oh, that’s not necessary—I find my way around London all the time/

So, apparently, it’s not just Dumbledore who will let an eleven-year-old wander alone by himself in London. And, of course, it’s not like Knockturn Alley is right next door to Diagon Alley.

/Dumbledore: Wonderful! I’ll see you at Hogwarts, then!/

Dumbledore: Don’t worry, I won’t tell any of the staff about you for some reason!

[oryx_leucoryx]

So, apparently, it’s not just Dumbledore who will let an eleven-year-old wander alone by himself in London.

I don't think it was unusual for kids that age to find their way on their own in the city where they lived in the days before cars were the go-to mode of transportation. At 11 (in the 1970s) my friends and I were capable enough to use the buses. And London has an underground.

[oryx_leucoryx]

However we are speaking of summer 1938, when people were still hoping a war could be averted by appeasing Hitler. During this time I expect kids were still freely going about their business.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Tom Riddle was in 5th year in 1942-3, 50 years before Harry's second year. Therefore he started school in September 1938.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

The Blitz began about a week after Tom Riddle began his third year at Hogwarts, and tapered off in May, a few weeks before he had to return to his (bombed out, or possibly just evacuated) orphanage. Bombing of London and other parts of Britain continued, no longer at the intense level that historians now label the Blitz, but people living through it had no way of knowing that the most intensive bombing was over.

It’s entirely possible that Tom returned to find the orphanage already evacuated, with the muggle bureaucrats believing that he had already been sent to live in Scotland, and the Hogwarts administration relying on their students’ families to handle any dislocations due to the muggle war, not bothering themselves about the student without a family to look after him. One wonders what the muggleborn students and their families did.

Oryx is right about kids in previous decades being allowed a lot more independence than they are now. I can’t say how it would be in a city the size of London, but I grew up in the Sixties in a town of 16,000, and I wandered around everywhere on my own, despite the fact that I have a genetic defect that means I can break a leg by falling off a log (that was my third broken leg; number one was slipping and falling on the sidewalk, and number two was tripping over a rug). My mom told me later that she and my dad worried a lot, but they felt that repressing my independence was not the right way to have me grow up.

[oryx_leucoryx]

From the age of 10 I lived in a city of over 200,000 and it was common for kids to come and go, ride public buses all over town. My husband grew up in Buenos Aires, and even during the dictatorship of 1976-1983 he was expected to find his way by public transport.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Joining the discussion on childhood - I lived in crowded suburbs (we moved a lot) of a major city, walked to school from the age of six, walked to the park a mile away, rode my bike all over creation and, later, walked to the shopping center, all alone, no problems. Even in my school days, the 1960s, kids owned jack knives and carted them to school. Things weren't different, in fact, we're safer now than we were back then, but parenting seems to have changed.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Expectations from parents changed. See the case of the Meitiv family - the aprents were investigated for neglect because they let their kids walk home for about amile or so.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

That’s insane! My grade school was exactly one mile away from my home. It was my usual walk. People have turned into such cowards. I hate to pull a Gryffindor and sneer at cowardice as if it were the worst vice in the world, but really!

I actually am a coward when it comes to risky activities (because things that are only slightly risky for people without brittle bones are highly risky for me), but taking a one-mile walk without adult supervision is not a highly risky activity for kids who have been taught to watch out for traffic. One wonders how these poor coddled kids are ever going to exist on their own.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I actually am a coward when it comes to risky activities (because things that are only slightly risky for people without brittle bones are highly risky for me),

That's not cowardice. That's just good sense and taking reasonable precautions, like somebody with a hereditary tendency to cancer getting more frequent screenings than most people.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

True, but being rationally cautious about legitimate risks has made me over-cautious in almost everything. One doesn't accomplish much without taking some risks.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

My mom was overprotective, but we walked to church and back, about half a mile each direction, from the time I could remember. Sometimes, we'd stop at Foster's Freeze for a dip cone. I was taught to look both ways well before starting school. Every kid was, at some point before they turned six.

Have read about the Meitivs. They were cleared of the first charge, but the one where the kids were grabbed by the police and kept in the car for hours before their parents were notified is still open. Really, really crazy.

Even in the HP books, the kids have a lot of free range. Harry and Dudley play outside, Harry knows his way around his neighborhood, and so does the well-loved and coddled Dudley. In Harry's case, maybe the Dursleys are hoping he'll get kidnapped, but not in Dudley's case. I'm wondering now if this is reflective of Rowlings' view of things, or if this accurately reflects the 1990s. Since we lived in a small town, then in the country for a good part of that decade, I don't know what was normal for more urban settings.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

See the case of the Meitiv family - the aprents were investigated for neglect because they let their kids walk home for about amile or so.

It's worse than that. They were allowed to walk three blocks alone, from the local park to their house. The kids are six and ten. Not surprisingly, the parents are immigrants, so they haven't been infected by American paranoia about child safety.

When I was five, I walked half a mile to and from school alone. I feel sorry for modern kids. They have all this great technology, but they lack the freedom we had. BTW, the Daily Show did a segment on "free-range parenting" one day this week.

Fanfic recc

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

If anyone's interested, search for "Für Das Größere Wohl" by "Tim the Enchanter" on harrypotterfanfiction or mugglenet fanfiction for a very brilliantly written historical AU of a Hitlerjugend turned Durmstraung student whose racist worldview starts to crack because although he's an Aryan in a magical school that also contains Jewish and Slavic people (A youthful Kakaroff being among them), he's also a Muggle-born in a world chock-full of pureblood bigots.

[sunnyskywalker]

Little Tom will have the added complication of Wizarding London being at least semi-foreign, though. Sending an 11-year-old off to some shops in Muggle London is one thing; sending him to a place where the customs are different and also there are all sorts of cursed books and such just lying around waiting to melt your face if you wander into the wrong alley seems like something that should at least give a responsible school administrator pause. Would it have killed Dumbledore to pull rank on a kid and insist on giving him an orientation just for the one afternoon?

Of course he might just not appreciate how different Muggle London and Wizarding London can be. Maybe if Tom had fallen into a vat of flesh-eating slug repellent, Dumbledore would have been all, "Alas, what a random accident! Why didn't he know magical gardening supplies were so dangerous? I thought it was obvious to everyone!"

Or maybe he hoped something would happen? Not outside the realm of possibility.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who thinks that if someone with actual analytical skills like Sherlock Holmes or Will Graham would've made so much more out of the same immersive experience the Pensieve would provide of Tom Riddle?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Do you mean using the technology in general or of the specific memories Dumbles showed Harry? Don't forget Dumbles had at least some control of Harry's range of exploration and was biasing Harry's interpretation.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

I meant if someone like Sherlock (who needs no further introduction) or Will Graham (for those who don't watch "Hannibal", he has a hyperactive, nigh-superpower level empathic quality that he uses to pick up ALL of the clues left in a crime scene and reconstruct the process of the crime by basically becoming the culprit for the duration of the act) had the privilege to relive a period of detailed history like that while in the Pensieve, they would've picked up way more stuff that was in the scene and come to more specific conclusions, plus they'd take no BS from anyone else and would refute their spoonfeeding. Sherlock would've made deductions from the room and Tom's appearance and the like, while Will would've been able to look into Tom's mind while still being a non-interactive observer.

But then again, the bar set by Harry was really too low.

(It's a real pity that the film HBP only did so few memory scenes; the audience would have had so much to observe by themselves.)