16 HP Philosopher’s Stone

[chantaldormand]

Sorry for disappearing for months, but my offline life went off the rails. Hopefully things will calm down now.

Ch16 Through the Trapdoor

>With title like this, there is only one possible outcome of this chapter. *Sigh*

>I love logic here: Fluffy sounds ok through the door=the Stone is safe! Even back in the first book our protagonist is little blood thirsty brat. +1 to Leap of Logic

>I call BS on it being hot in classrooms. Not only it’s, what? June?, in Scotland, but also the lessons are in medieval castle. I don’t know what kinds of castles Jo visited, but I have yet to find one where it’s hot in summer.

>How do Anti-Cheating enchantments work? Do they only prevent me from copying answers from students sitting next to me or do they also stop me from using my premade answer sheets? Or perhaps it informs teacher that I’m cheating? This is the kind of stuff I want to know more about, not your penchant for abusing animals Jo!

>Harry mentions what was expected of him during exams, but since he doesn’t tell us if he managed to do what he was asked to do, I won’t give him any Spell Count points.

>Also Hogwarts has time to teach kids how to make pineapple tap dance, but no more useful subjects like maths.

>I was going to ask why would anyone need Forgetfulness potion, but then I came up with a potential usage for it. Not a nice one, but still.

>Somehow until his trip to forest Harry didn’t have constant Voldie migraine. I’m trying to figure out if Harry is so psyched up by what Firenze told him that he has imaginary scar pains or if Jo screwed things up by trying to keep her cards too close to her chest.

>Harry if I were you, I would go to nurse. God knows what kinds of parasites live in the forest.

>Of course Harry has to over-dramatise his situation instead of admitting that he is too nosy for his own good.

>A quite curious coincidence: in this book shortly after his History of Magic exam Harry decides to push the plot of this book. In OotP during his History exam Harry gets the vision.

>Someone tell the twins that they shouldn’t molest the squid!

>One would think that a kid growing up with Durslays wouldn’t be so superstitious. We know why Harry’s scar hurts, but him assigning meaning to it is bizarre. +1 to Leap of Logic

>”“Don’t you think it’s a bit odd,” said Harry, scrambling up the grassy slope, “that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it’s against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don’t you think? Why didn’t I see it before?” I’m torn on this one. On one hand Quirrell knows just how to bribe Hagrid for information, so this time there is real logical connection. On the other hand the way Harry comes up with this one is BS. +1 to Leap of Logic

>So Hogsmeade does exist at this point. Also, in meantime Hagrid gained another title: Gamekeeper.

>LOL Tom took a page from Dumbledore’s book. Get them drunk and then start asking questions. It’s shame that Harry doesn’t take notes.

>LOL even Harry admits that it is easy to get Hagrid to talk after he is drunk.

>Harry, the fact that after almost month of sitting on this information the criminal didn’t steal the stone should tell you something. Also what about your oath?

>A school where students do not know where is headmaster’s office. Wonderful.

>Minerva: Why do you want to see a headmaster of the school?
Harry: We want to file in a formal complain about certain teacher sending us into dangerous situation.

>Heh, Floo, Phoenixes, Portkeys and Apparition weren’t invented yet so Albus can pretend he is busier than he is in reality.

>Good thing that Minerva didn’t see what her colleagues contributed to protecting the Stone or she might not be so calm.

>I just can’t understand how Harry ties his shoes each morning. Not only his plan was obviously going to fail, but also he didn’t even try. Why the heck he didn’t use invisibility cloak for the stake out?

>Why the heck would the culprit wait until night? Tell one of your colleagues that you need to run some errands in London, pretend to leave, comeback covered by some fancy spell to hide your presence and strike in middle of the day!

>Woah Harry, how about we sit down and talk this over a cup of tea and gallon of calming potions?

>Harry is so psyched up by what Firenze told him that he is convinced that Voldemort is going to destroy Hogwarts and kill him. It’s so bordering on hysterics that I half expect him to start hyperventilating. +1 to Leap of Logic

>Harry is convinced that not only he can get past the protections around the Stone, but also will be able to protect it from ‘Snape’.

>If my teacher gave me 112% for a test I would start to ask very pointed questions.

>Poor Neville. He tries to warn troublemakers, he gets punished. He tries to stop troublemakers, he gets punished. He simply cannot win. +2 to Crime Count for assaulting another student and breaking curfew, +1 to Spell Count for Hermione.

>Aside from elven tier gymnastics, Harry is also great at mimicking voices.

>So Quirrell left this door open for bonus drama points, right?

>Guys I’m not sure you understand full weight of the situation; you are about to challenge fully trained wizard who has decades of experience and vast knowledge of Dark Arts. You on the other hand are bunch of untrained kids who knows only handful of spells. 

>If there is no way to climb down or up, how do they feed the troll? Wait if the troll is second last, shouldn’t Quirrell already know how to get past Fluffy? Not to mention that shouldn’t Voldie already know how to deal with Cerberus? A ten year old me knew that! I think I’m getting headache. +1 to Death Count for Fluffy’s bite +1 to Crime Count for entering into forbidden corridor

>No, Harry you are lucky that your professors picked defences that can be beaten by a group of determined first years. +1 to Death Count. +1 to Spell Count for Hermione for flames

>Why the heck water is “trickling down the walls”?

>It’s shame that Harry doesn’t have Divination class at this point. Can you imagine what Sybil would contribute?

> In this chapter Harry is acting even rasher than usual. He was first to jump onto hungry plant, first to test just how vicious the keys are... Do you have a death wish? +1 to Death Count.

>Now instead of trying, I don’t know, blasting doors off the hinges; the trio decides to play along.

>How nice of Flitwick for supplying you with brooms. How nice of Quirrellmort for not destroying all of them to prevent anyone from following him.

>It’s time for Ron to shine! Better make it count Weasley.

>The trio doesn’t even test if they have to play their way across the room. Or if they can simply fly over the chessboard on their brooms. +1 to Death Count.

>Poor Ron, he have just experienced his first serious head injury in the series. More to come.

>I have this ongoing theory that each time Ron gets serious head injury he gets stupider. I’m not sure, but I think that in almost every book he gets good hit on his head.

>H&H do not stop to check if their friend is alright. With friends like these you don’t need enemies.

>And here Harry should get clue that something about his reasoning isn’t right. How a guy who fainted after informing the school that there is a troll on loose, provides a troll as a protection?

>On side note, is this the same troll that trio knocked out or a different one. I mean logically it should be different one, or Quirrell would have to deal with Fluffy, but can you imagine Quirrellmort smuggling a new troll into the school? Not to mention that appearance of second troll would be very suspicious.

>I want to both congratulate Snape and scold Jo. Snape managed to write an interesting rhymed riddle, Jo on the other hand instead of describing the table and letting readers try their hand at the puzzle, not only fails to describe it well enough to try to imagine it, but also instantly provides an answer which is disappointing. +1 to Death Count

>Yeah Hermione, wizards fail at logic and during this read through you have proven that you deserve this title.

>At this point muggels are looked down on, but there are still some positive qualities about them. By the time HBP rolls in, muggles act like victims of lobotomy experiments.

>Again, why the heck did Quirrell leave enough of potion to let anyone go to the Mirror Room? If I were him I would take the returning potion with me and smash all other bottles to slow down potential reinforcements. For that matter why Severus didn’t fill all containers with poison and force Albus to carry with himself correct potions?

>If I were to be honest, out of all protections I can see only chessboard and the potion puzzle being somewhat effective. Every other obstacle can be beaten by Hogwarts’ student who finished at least their first year. Chessboard’s effectiveness heavily depends on if you can avoid game by flying over it, how easy are the figures to destroy and how good you are at chess. I can imagine an experienced wizard being able to put out the flames without risking poisoning from failing to solve the puzzle, so there is that.

>Now Harry believes that he can only hold Snape off. Fast forward a few years and his ego balloons to the point where he thinks he can beat Severus.

>”Well- I was lucky once, wasn’t I?” That is very arrogant of you Harry, especially since you don’t know how you survived the first time. +1 to Leap of Logic

>Hermione feels that she has to ensure Harry of her loyalty to him. The level of sucking up here is sickening. Also another major anti-intellectual ad from Jo. You are welcome!

>DUN DUN DUN! Our hero realises he was wrong! Does that mean he will apologise to Severus? Or learn anything from it? We shall see in the next chapter!

Crime Count: 3

Death Count: 5

Freud Would Be Proud: 0

Leap of Logic: 5

Uncovered: 0

Spell Count: 2 for Hermione