deathtocapslock | 05 HP Chamber of Secrets (Reply)

Ch5 Whomping Willow

>Oh god, this is the one of the most convoluted chapters in this book, isn’t it?

>Funny thing about Harry’s whining about his situation at Privet Drive: I can imagine smarter Harry being able to cooperate with Petunia to make his stay in her house more bearable. It wouldn’t be home, but he could live comfortable.

>The way I see it, the whole family is trying to court Harry. At this point it doesn’t matter if Harry is interested in Ginny, Weasleys are going out of their way to make Harry emotionally entangled with their family. Does this count as grooming? *shudders* +1 to Crime Count

>Now, my friends my be outliers, but most of families with multiple kids I know prepare for travel much earlier. Like a day before departure.

>Why the heck Weasleys don’t take Floo to the Diagonal and grab taxi from there? +1 to Leap of Logic

~~>Why Arthur feels he needs to remind Harry that he isn’t supposed to talk about his illegal car with Malfoys?~~

>I’m amazed that not only Arthur went back for fireworks, but he also gave them to his trickster sons. Father of the year, ladies and gentlemen. +1 to Leap of Logic

>What the hell is tricky about walking through magical wall? It’s not like Ministry isn’t going to Obliviate any witness.

>Apparently Molly learned from the whole “guests first”. Too bad the plot disagrees with her.

>Harry has frontal collision with plot. Literally

>”Ron ran to pick Hedwig, who was causing such scene that there was a lot of muttering about cruelty to animals from the surrounding crowd.” I swear Jo’s level of self-awareness makes Harry Dresden look like Tibetan monk.

>Why they are panicking? They have friggin owl so they can send letter to school. They can even go to The Leaky Cauldron. Sure it would take them some time, but that option is on the table!

>Apparently, once upon time Dursleys gave six year old Harry pocket money. He probably bought a Lovecraftian monster with it.

>I’m amazed that between those two, Harry ends up as a voice of reason. Not for the right reasons, but still.

>”We’re stuck, right? And we’ve got to get to school, haven’t we? And even underage wizards are allowed to use magic if it’s a real emergency, section nineteen or something of the Restriction of Thingy…” Two things: a) this is sophistry. Honestly Ron fits in Ministry better than Rowling realises and b) last I checked being late to school isn’t emergency or teenage me would be breaking all kind of laws just to get to school on time. +1 to Leap of Logic

>All boys needed to do was to calmly sit at the station and either wait for Arthur and Molly or for reply from Hogwarts.

>It doesn’t take much for Ron to convince Harry that stealing the flying car and using it to fly after Hogwarts Express is great idea. +2 to Crime Count

>There is no way that nobody would notice a car that was parked by King’s Cross station suddenly vanishing. We are talking here about one of the busiest stations in the Great Britain. +1 to Uncovered

>I’m not even going to touch the invisibility thing. That is guaranteed headache in making.

>+1 to Uncovered for “faulty Invisibility Booster”. Do you think this also was Dobby’s handiwork?

>Apparently you can follow Hogwarts Express straight to Hogwarts. I’m sure that in late XX century in GB steam locomotives are so common that no muggle would be curious enough to try to learn what this train’s destination is. +1 to Uncovered +1 to Leap of Logic

>With all shenanigans I’m surprised that they didn’t end up almost crashing into a plane.

>Harry the glory hound once again rears his head. This time he daydreams about other students’ reactions to his rule breaking parade.

>Either Potterverse is Flat Earth or Jo has no idea how... probably anything works. This time our heroes are hot, while flying above clouds.

>Apparently, now cars can be tired. I knew that car was secretly a transformer!

>Why the heck they didn’t try to land in the lake, if they noticed that car was malfunctioning? It’s safer than almost crashing into castle or crashing into the Willow. +1 to Leap of Logic

>That landing should absolutely have killed all passengers of the car. Especially the owl. +1 to Death Count. +1 to Crime Count for damaging school’s property.

>Ron gets his mandatory head injury out of the way early this school year, so he can agree to even more insane plans that his friends came up with.

>If Freud was alive, he would send Rowling a fruit basket for this book. +1 to FWBP for the broken wand.

>And then in act of revenge, sentient tree murdered our protagonist. The End. Not. +1 to Death Count.

>Is it bad that I’m rooting for a murderous sentient tree?

>And then the transformer managed to finally break mental shackles and save our super passive heroes.

>The Car is so done with our heroes, that it decides to kick them and their belongings out and pull runner. At least one sentient being in this story is smart enough to do so!

>Poor Hedwig. It’s miracle that with all tossing around during last 24 hours she didn’t sustain serious injuries.

>I like how narrative is vague about what ‘Harry and Ron’ (note Hermione and Neville are not included) did to help their House win the House Cup. It’s almost like author realises that the infamous scene from PS looks very bad.

>Also Hagrid once again drinks deeply from his goblet. What happened to swearing off drinking, huh?

>I love Severus in this scene!

>”“So,” he said softly, “the train isn’t good enough for the famous Harry Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley. Wanted to arrive with a bang, did we, boys?”” Oh Irony, you are sweet, sweet mistress.

>Somehow in time span needed for Hogwarts Express to reach the school a journalist managed to collect statements from witnesses, write article, send it to editor who in turn made whatever adjustments were needed, send it to print AND owl post managed to bring this issue of Prophet to Snape. It’s like a metaphor for the series: we are stuck with our passive and helpless protagonist, while somewhere out there, there are much more interesting things happening.

>Can you imagine how much more interesting these books would be if we saw Harry’s shenanigans from outside POV?

>+1 to Spell Count for Minnie for lighting the fireplace

>Once again Harry is unusually emotionally affected by Albus. He met this man twice and acts like Dumbledore is his pissed off girlfriend. +1 to FWBP +1 to Leap of Logic

>For the second time during the same summer Harry brakes law concerning usage of magic around muggles and not only our protagonist isn’t expelled, but only gets a warning from the headmaster. Oh and Durslays get notification about his adventures. Yeah Albus, that will show him! +1 to Leap of Logic

>Snape gets kicked out of his own office. Lovely.

>Minerva gives our brave adventurers a detention. Thought this time it’s not looking for lost unicorns in the middle of the night. Kinda disappointing Minnie.

>Ron is bleeding from “cut over his eye”. This does not get treated. If I wasn’t adamant about not counting potential deaths of other characters, I would award him 3 points for just this chapter. +1 to Crime Count for Minnie not dragging Ron to medical personnel.

>Heh, remember the discussion in comment section of the previous entry? Minerva just “pointed (her wand) at Snape’s desk” resulting in food and drinks appearing. While I’m sure somebody will try to convince me she placed order with House Elves to bring some food, I’m just going to +1 to Spell Count for Minerva.

>So did our heroes learn anything from this adventure? Nope! All thanks to admiring house mates who start to congratulate them just as they enter the common room. I swear Griffindors should be renamed to ‘Enablers’

Crime Count: 5

Death Count: 1

Freud Would Be Proud: 2

Leap of Logic: 7

Uncovered: 3

Spell Count: Minerva: 2