PS Chapter Fourteen

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*AKA, another dumb idea of Hagrid’s that’s supposed to be endearing. This is the chapter where Hagrid goes from lovable dolt to criminally stupid and never looks back.

*Quirrell’s getting pale and thin. He must be a werewolf. That’s the only condition in the Wizarding World that can make you either.

*Snape was sweeping around in his usual bad temper, which surely meant the Stone was still safe. What a great sum-up of Snape’s role in the series, eh?

*Harry and Ron are kind of adorable trying to encourage VoldemortHead!Quirrell. Though it’s things like this that make you wonder about all the claims that Harry’s got great instincts about people and therefore must be right about Snape.

*A rare moment of Hermione seeming actually insecure—she’s revising because you need to pass your exams to get into second year.

*Harry’s looking up Dittany in his Herbs and Fungi book. It’s like every chapter has dozens of little shout-outs to later, more important scenes in canon.

*Okay, more likely there are only so many things the woman’s going to invent or look up so they’re going to get used again, but still it’s neat that Dittany has some meaning. It makes you feel like you’ve moved up several grades in school along with Harry.

*Hagrid’s lurking around the library in a big coat. Oh, I saw a thing on the news about people like him. Keep him away from the computers and make sure he keeps his pants on.

*Hagrid tells Ron not to go shouting about secrets. Much like Sirius, he’s better at giving advice than following it. Unlike Sirius, he’s not much good at giving advice either.

*True to form, he seems to be carrying his illegal egg around with him.

*Ron claims Hagrid’s breaking the law breeding a dragon, though he’s got lots of Internet Lawyers who’ll explain the law is more of a guideline and when you’re super good with animals and love them a lot like Hagrid, it’s not doing anything wrong.

*Hermione butters Hagrid up and he folds like a paper canoe. It’s probably a good thing Harry didn’t meet Hagrid when he was a lot younger. If he’d spent more than five minutes looking up to him, it might be a sad day when he realized he really is the idiot that Malfoy kid said he was.

*Gryffindors are such good friends, btw. Those nasty Slytherins say when people are inadequate, but our heroes always find a way to manipulate them while pretending to be their friends. Which of course is why Slytherins are supposed to be the cunning house. They’re only cunning in the bad way.

*Oh good, Hagrid will be slaughtering chickens to feed the dragon. He gets cuddlier by the minute.

*So now they have something else to worry about—what might happen to Hagrid if someone finds out he’s keeping a dragon. Good thing dragons are harmless and couldn’t possibly be unhappy in captivity. Then they’d have more things to worry about than Hagrid’s sorry ass.

*You can see why Hermione should have started revising a month ago. It takes her three weeks to do enough tables and color-coding before she can begin the studying.

*Now I’m picturing her faced with question on the test and only being able to write that the answer, whatever it is, is orange.

*Hee! Malfoy’s stopped dead to listen to them. I’ll bet the Marauders were just as bad at advertising their secrets. Snape didn’t have a chance.

*Norbert looks like a crumpled black umbrella when hatched. Which is pretty adorable. But the last time any pet of Hagrid’s will be so.

*Hagrid refers to himself as Norbert’s mummy. Is anybody else uncomfortably thinking about the horsefucker wank?

*Malfoy has seen the dragon. Which pretty much makes him the worst person in the scene. Not the guy breeding illegal animals.

*Hagrid’s neglecting his job for the dragon. Something tells me whether Hagrid does his job or not matters next to nothing.

*Harry says Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment. Rather than sounding ominous, it kind of points out that Malfoy’s not gone to anyone or threatened anyone about the dragon. Bastard!

*Ron gets a serious dragon bite, and Hagrid tells him off for frightening the thing. Six books later people will still not have gotten the fact that Hagrid’s a moron.

*They agree to Charlie’s idea—anything to get rid of Norbert and Malfoy. Oh yeah, Malfoy’s just breathing down their neck here. I hate the way he’s…well he’s not actually done anything but he’s got this look on his face that makes them all nervous.

*Meanwhile, Ron turns out to be poisoned, which is turning into a nasty habit for Ron. He needs to be more careful. And apologize to Hagrid.

*Malfoy’s come to see Ron and laughingly threatened to tell Madam Pomfrey what really bit him. Ron’s sure it’s revenge over the Quidditch match. Dear lord. Draco, you’re going to have to make yourself a sandwich board that says, I WANT TO SEE THE DRAGON TOO, PLEASE. IF YOU LET ME COME ALONG I WON’T TELL. SEE I HAVEN’T, HAVE I? Or else these three are never going to get it.

*And Ron apparently gave Malfoy a book because Malfoy pretended to want to borrow one, and it had Charlie’s letter in it. Ron needs to spend less time with Hagrid. The stupid is beginning to rub off on him.

*Speaking of Hagrid, yeah, this is totally a guy you’d want working with animals and kids together.

*Along with Ron’s poisoning, we’ve got Malfoy’s being pulled by the ear—it’s HBP’s greatest hits!

*Would it be a stupid question to ask why Hagrid is making the three children smuggle out his dragon? Shouldn’t he be doing it? He’s allowed to walk around the school at night, and it’s his damn dragon.

*So a lot of people seem to think that Malfoy was planning to get the Trio in trouble here, but isn’t he obviously just trying to join them and see what’s up? McGonagall clearly caught him, he didn’t go to her to tattle. If he was going to tattle he’d have gone to Filch or Snape.

*Hermione does a jig over Malfoy getting detention. He hasn’t actually done anything to Hermione at this point. It’s more than he exists.

*Charlie’s friends were a cheery lot. Suddenly I’m picturing a whole group of handsome, muscled, fabulous guys in tight shirts singing while they hook up the harness. Harry’s just a little too young to appreciate them as he will soon.

*And then they get detention. Filch pwns!!





Designated Hero
You know what would be easier than smuggling the dragon out at night? Letting it stay with Hagrid until one day he doesn’t come to work and they go inside and find his charred bones by the fire. That would take care of both of them.

Idiot Picture
Oops! I gave Malfoy the note with all our secret plans on it! But at least we’ve got our Invisibility Cloak…until we forget it at the top of the Tower.

Informed Attributes
This is Malfoy’s most villainous chapter. In which he does…surprisingly little and gets punished for it.

Final score: 3

Signs of things to come: Hagrid gets a dangerous pet and it’s supposed to be cute he blames kids who get bitten by them. Ron’s get the least patience with Hagrid. Dittany! Ron poisoned. Ear pulling. Malfoy getting detention from McGonagall. Hagrid slacking off on his job when something else catches his interest. The kids having extra stress trying to save Hagrid’s job and Hagrid not appreciating it. General Hagrid idiocy. It’s the Grawp before the Grawp.

Comments

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Also, I can't really see any other reason for why he chose CoMC.

They chose COMC? I always presumed that no one would willingly choose to be around Hagrid unless they were being forced on pain of failure, like it's a requirement at that level.
Draco's significant silence at the dragon question is awesome, though, I'm gonna be reading cheesy fics about him having one as a pet for the next week.

even though that means pretending to actually be his friend in front of Mme Pomfrey.

LOL, poor Mme. Pomfrey was probably thinking ‘Aw, the kids are bonding between the houses!’

No, I take it back, the worst thing is that he shows absolutely no sense of guilt or remorse of having put the kids in that situation in the first place

Especially since there's such a fuss made about how miserable they are over this punishment, which is technically partially for stuff they didn't do - not just the sneaking out, but McGonagall's under the impression they've purposely set up Malfoy and Neville.
The 150 points are taken, they're ostracised by the whole house, Neville's crying himself to sleep (of course, I get the feeling that's not a hard thing to cause), no-one will speak to the Trio, the Slytherins are being OMG teh meaniez11!
Hagrid saying 'Dude, it was me' wouldn't be guaranteed to change anything, although with Dumbledore and McGonagall's liking for retroactively switching punishments to rewards, I wouldn't rule out; but he just sits there like a log and lets them all suffer for something that's mostly his fault without so much as an ineffectual 'Eh, guys, I feel really shitty, but there's no need for us all to suffer!'

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I am seized with sudden affection for Mme Pomfrey!

I think Hagrid may be a sociopath who does not understand that his Cute Pet Harry and co. have like, emotions any more complex than his dog's.

Which makes me even sadder that yes indeed, everyone chose CoMC, which we did see from Grubbly-Plank's one class might have been a very cool and interesting thing, particularly for someone who does seem to be a) canonically very interested in a dragon and b) whose snowy owl gets several special mentions. MaybeDracolovesit.

Of course, second time around when everyone knew what they were getting, nobody chose it. And that will make me forgive JKR a lot of the H/G, it really will.

[teratologist.livejournal.com]

I think Hagrid may be a sociopath who does not understand that his Cute Pet Harry and co. have like, emotions any more complex than his dog's.

It occurs to me that if you just assume every single person in the series is a sociopath until they actually do something to make you think otherwise, it suddenly becomes a much more coherent, albeit disturbing, read.