PS Chapter Twelve: "The Mirror of Erised"
Aug. 12th, 2016 07:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock* I bet muggle children feel so inferior now, when they compare the draughty, ice-cold Hogwarts castle to the central-heated hovels they live in back home.
* “Ron and his brothers were staying too, because Mr and Mrs Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie.” Ginny, presumably, has to fend for herself over Christmas.
* I’m not sure why Dumbledore is making Hagrid carry the Christmas trees inside, given that any of the teachers could just levitate the trees and take them in quicker and more easily.
* Then again, Albus does also make Filch clean the castle by hand, when any magic-user could vanish the rooms clean in a trice. Maybe he just gets off on seeing people struggle.
* Harry hates both Malfoy and Snape, inaugurating the long tradition of him trying to work out whom he hates the most.
* The trio have “been through hundreds of books already” without finding Flamel, because apparently card catalogues aren’t whimsical enough for the wizarding world.
* I’m surprised they haven’t yet found any reference to Flamel, though. Even if they’ve only been looking through books of recent magical history, you’d have thought at least one of them would have referenced him, if only in passing.
* Madam Pince seems a bit OTT, kicking inoffensive students out of the library. It’s not like Harry was damaging the books or disturbing other library users.
* Actually, couldn’t Harry ask Madam Pince if there are any books mentioning Nicholas Flamel? He could tell her it’s for a piece of History of Magic homework or something.
* Harry and Ron immediately lose interest in looking for Flamel once the holidays start, because even at this early stage they’re a pair of layabouts who can’t do anything without Hermione nagging them.
* Ron starts teaching Harry wizard chess. This is exactly like muggle chess except more sadistic, and therefore better.
* I hope Ron enjoys beating Harry at chess, because it’s the only thing he’ll be allowed to beat Harry at, at all, ever.
* Ron’s pile of Christmas presents is much bigger than Harry’s. Just to remind us that Harry’s the underdog here, in case his free broom, rule-bending place on the sports team and private hoard of gold have caused us to forget.
* Ron’s fascination with Harry’s 50p is a bit OTT, especially for a kid whose father is supposedly obsessed with muggle artefacts. What, so Mr. Weasley never once brought any muggle money home with him?
* It’s a pity they don’t study Classics in the wizarding world, otherwise Dumbledore might have read about the Ring of Gyges and realised that giving an eleven-year-old the ability to essentially do anything and get away with it is almost certainly going to be a very, very bad idea.
* Harry’s jumper is better than the others’, because Mrs. Weasley obviously makes more of an effort if you’rerich and famous not family. I wonder how her real children feel about this.
* Not only is Ron’s jumper worse than Harry’s, it’s in a colour he hates. No wonder he ends up so insecure.
* The Hogwarts Christmas dinner sounds kind of wasteful – we’re not told exactly how many people stayed for the holidays, but it’s almost certainly not enough to eat “a hundred fat, roast turkeys”.
* The narrative voice pauses for a bit to express contempt for the “feeble Muggle [crackers] the Dursleys usually bought”, because obviously crackers which send live rodents flying through the air are far superior.
* The fact that we need to be specifically told that the balloons in Harry’s cracker are non-explodable says a lot about wizarding society.
* Despite allegedly being a normal human male, teenage Harry never once considers using the Invisibility Cloak to spy on the girls’ changing rooms.
* Dumbledore’s been spying on Harry looking at the Mirror. Because that isn’t creepy at all.
* “Ron and his brothers were staying too, because Mr and Mrs Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie.” Ginny, presumably, has to fend for herself over Christmas.
* I’m not sure why Dumbledore is making Hagrid carry the Christmas trees inside, given that any of the teachers could just levitate the trees and take them in quicker and more easily.
* Then again, Albus does also make Filch clean the castle by hand, when any magic-user could vanish the rooms clean in a trice. Maybe he just gets off on seeing people struggle.
* Harry hates both Malfoy and Snape, inaugurating the long tradition of him trying to work out whom he hates the most.
* The trio have “been through hundreds of books already” without finding Flamel, because apparently card catalogues aren’t whimsical enough for the wizarding world.
* I’m surprised they haven’t yet found any reference to Flamel, though. Even if they’ve only been looking through books of recent magical history, you’d have thought at least one of them would have referenced him, if only in passing.
* Madam Pince seems a bit OTT, kicking inoffensive students out of the library. It’s not like Harry was damaging the books or disturbing other library users.
* Actually, couldn’t Harry ask Madam Pince if there are any books mentioning Nicholas Flamel? He could tell her it’s for a piece of History of Magic homework or something.
* Harry and Ron immediately lose interest in looking for Flamel once the holidays start, because even at this early stage they’re a pair of layabouts who can’t do anything without Hermione nagging them.
* Ron starts teaching Harry wizard chess. This is exactly like muggle chess except more sadistic, and therefore better.
* I hope Ron enjoys beating Harry at chess, because it’s the only thing he’ll be allowed to beat Harry at, at all, ever.
* Ron’s pile of Christmas presents is much bigger than Harry’s. Just to remind us that Harry’s the underdog here, in case his free broom, rule-bending place on the sports team and private hoard of gold have caused us to forget.
* Ron’s fascination with Harry’s 50p is a bit OTT, especially for a kid whose father is supposedly obsessed with muggle artefacts. What, so Mr. Weasley never once brought any muggle money home with him?
* It’s a pity they don’t study Classics in the wizarding world, otherwise Dumbledore might have read about the Ring of Gyges and realised that giving an eleven-year-old the ability to essentially do anything and get away with it is almost certainly going to be a very, very bad idea.
* Harry’s jumper is better than the others’, because Mrs. Weasley obviously makes more of an effort if you’re
* Not only is Ron’s jumper worse than Harry’s, it’s in a colour he hates. No wonder he ends up so insecure.
* The Hogwarts Christmas dinner sounds kind of wasteful – we’re not told exactly how many people stayed for the holidays, but it’s almost certainly not enough to eat “a hundred fat, roast turkeys”.
* The narrative voice pauses for a bit to express contempt for the “feeble Muggle [crackers] the Dursleys usually bought”, because obviously crackers which send live rodents flying through the air are far superior.
* The fact that we need to be specifically told that the balloons in Harry’s cracker are non-explodable says a lot about wizarding society.
* Despite allegedly being a normal human male, teenage Harry never once considers using the Invisibility Cloak to spy on the girls’ changing rooms.
* Dumbledore’s been spying on Harry looking at the Mirror. Because that isn’t creepy at all.
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Date: 2016-08-15 03:07 pm (UTC)It's really odd when you consider how much in the background Ginny seems to be in earlier books and it makes me wonder just how much of the Harry/Ginny romance was planned in advance. She's not given much attention in this book, she does gain a more prominent role in the second book, but then after the whole Chamber of Secrets adventure is over and done with, Ginny just slides back into the background until OotP. That's really why her larger presence in HBP seems so sudden. Her avid interest in Quidditch was never focused on in GoF (in fact, as many people have pointed out, she fell asleep during the Cup), her experience with Tom Riddle is only mentioned once in OotP, she seemed to be over Harry to the point of no longer stuttering in front of him, and was overall treated as a minor character. If Harry/Ginny was endgame all along, then why was Ginny such a minor character?
/Harry hates both Malfoy and Snape, inaugurating the long tradition of him trying to work out whom he hates the most./
And Voldemort, the man who *killed his parents* and was thus indirectly responsible for Harry's childhood with the Dursleys, is never on that list. Heck, I think that Harry showed more anger towards Sirius when he thought that Sirius had betrayed his parents than he did towards Voldemort.
/I hope Ron enjoys beating Harry at chess, because it’s the only thing he’ll be allowed to beat Harry at, at all, ever./
And even then, it's not like Ron's skill at chess will feature prominently in any of the books afer this. He beat Harry once, in one thing, in one book, and that's it. It's not like each book has a chess-related challenge where he turns to Harry and Hermione and says, "Don't worry, I've got this."
/Harry’s jumper is better than the others’, because Mrs. Weasley obviously makes more of an effort if you’re rich and famous not family. I wonder how her real children feel about this./
Ron is the only one whom we see be insecure about this. We don't see the reactions from any of the other Weasley kids. Also, I think that at this point, it's supposed to be a nice gesture: treating an orphan kid like he belongs to a family by giving him gifts. But when the series goes on and Mrs. Weasley consistently favors Harry over Ron, then it's no longer sweet and just looks unfair on her part.