deathtocapslock | HBP Chapter 5: An Overdose of Gin (Reply)

In which Fleur is the best non-Slytherin character in the book so far, by virtue of not being a total ass.

- Meet Emo!Tonks. Her purpose throughout the book is to: a)serve as a red herring, b)set things up for the untimely R/T at the end of the book, and c)make people miss Punk!Tonks.

- Molly gives her opinion re: Slughorn, basically saying that he must not be all that if he ignored Arthur's then-underage milkshake: "The Ministry's littered with Slughorn's old favorites, he was always good at giving leg ups, but he never had much time for Arthur - didn't seem to think he was enough of a highflier. Well, that just shows you, even Slughorn makes mistakes."

I'm sure Slughorn's opinion of Molly would be something like this: "Molly Prewett? Yes, she was quite the feisty one back in the day - much like her daughter is nowadays, you might say! - but I heard she married that Muggle otaku, Woosley. And here I thought she was ambitious; guess that shows you even I get it wrong sometimes."

- Anyone else think that Arthur's promotion was Percy's idea? It's a department with an overlong name, with a decent amount of subordinates, and completely unrelated to Muggles. Naturally, Arthur hates it. And Molly loves it.

- The Weasley clock has all hands pointing to Mortal Danger, thus robbing it of any practicality it might have. One wonders why Molly carries it around if it won't help her this time. Or why it doesn't point to MD whenever anyone Apparates, for the reasons [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] so eloquently put.

- Arthur's dearest ambition, as we find out here, is to find out how airplanes stay up. Keep in mind that this is the Ministry's resident Muggle expert. Truly, Slughorn missed out on recruiting this clearly driven man.

- I agree with Molly in that the Metamorph-Medals sound like the sort of thing F+G would find funny; yeah, they wouldn't do it since they have a business to protect now, but they would still find it funny.

- The dazzling sunlight seemed to poke him hard in both eyes. Dirty connotations, ahoy!

- And here are Ron and Hermione, meeting Harry together for the fourth time in a row (ANVIL!!!11). Ron's first impression of this book is "loud and excited", Hermione's is reproachful, and the book shocks all by sticking to said first impressions.

- "I know someone who's worse than Umbridge." Hi, Ginny!

Keep in mind that at this point she's still Ron's sister, and not the Hogwarts Queen of Sass. There will be a test later.

- And here comes Fleur, with her own back-up chorus doing Ethereal Elvish in A Minor. Aware that Certain People are going to get away with giving her childish nicknames, her agent managed to get her a big production of an entry number. Why, she even makes Harry straighten up a bit, so to speak.

One might have hoped that she would have lost the atrocious accent, but that's too much to hope from Rowling, sadly. At least Fleur never goes about how le mond est composé de causalité.

- Credit where it's due, Ginny has it right on the reasons behind Bill/Fleur: they both love the adventure and the glamour. Not to mention that they put a lot of value on family (witness Fleur volunteering to stay at the Burrow, even though the women there treat her like shit) and are devoted to driving Molly Weasley insane.

- For some reason that escapes ~~everyone~~ me, Harry and Hermione find Ginny's nickname for Fleur the height of wit. This despite Harry having no quarrel with Fleur. Now, I might have found it funny if the nickname were something like "Flirt Delaskirt", but "An Excess of Flirt" might have led to a lot of disappointment in many corners of the fandom.

And yes, Ginny, Fleur is totally wrong for treating you like you were three, what with your creative nicknames and your mocking her.

- I have mentioned elsewhere that HBP!Fleur is a lot like Anya from Buffy, in that they are both greatly devoted people who offend while trying to be polite, and are more-or-less outsiders to their group. Also, Ginny is a lot like Dawn, in her acting like she were a third her age while still expecting people to take her seriously. As well as getting a new personality which everyone insists she had all along, of course.

- The Trio gets a moment of bonding together as Harry shares the Prophecy of Overrated, its contents surprising no one. This touching moment of unity and friendship will not be followed up on much through the rest of the book, as everyone gets busy with their hormones.

- "They're definitely owls". "And there are three of them". "One for each of us". With such staggering combined intellect, it is clear that the Trio shall surely prevail.

- To no one's surprise, Harry did well at the OWLs he was meant to do well at. Ditto Ron, though he got no Outstanding due to lack of Crowd-Pleasing Trump Card. And Hermione, of course, got O's at everything but at Harry's subject, since no silly girl can be better than Harry at what Harry's best at.

- And because no Harry-narrated chapter is complete without the requisite Harry!Angst, here's one about how he'll never be an Auror because of his grade in Potions. Nevermind that a)there's no way Snape's role is diminishing now, what with the stuff seen in Chapter 2, and b)if Slughorn is the new Potions teacher (which he is), there's no way Harry won't be interacting a lot with him.

Next week: Draco! Plus Hagrid and the Twins, not that anyone's looking forward to meeting them.