CoS Chapter Ten

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*Lockhart’s now just acting out his adventures in class. Harry has had to play a simple Transylvanian villager, a yeti and a vampire. Now Rowling’s just being cruel by not showing us the Slytherin classes where Malfoy is volunteering for all these parts. For all of Harry’s good qualities, you know he’d be a terrible actor. Draco’s probably got costumes and funny accents and everything. ::sulks::

*Today’s essay question: Explain how it’s a good to create a charm that turns a werewolf back into a man knowing Lupin is coming.

*I’ll bet Lockhart signs Hermione’s note with his joined-up writing. ::sigh:: Poor Lockhart. In this universe annoying Harry is far more dangerous than teasing a werewolf.

*Lockhart was Seeker too? I’d forgotten that. Guess it is the position for show-offs, after all.

*Ron says Lockhart will sign anything that stands still long enough. Hee! Ron’s got it going on in CoS.

*Some Potions in Hermione’s book are almost too gruesome to think about. Those are the ones Hermione copies to use on those who cross her later. I’d hate to think how gruesome a Potion would be for Hermione to think it too gruesome for her enemies.

*So, I think some people believe that Hermione’s pink cheeks and shining eyes when she tells the boys they’re chickening out is due to her really worrying about being a Muggleborn. To me it seems like she’s just excited over the prospect of making the Potion.

*Ron suggests Harry should just knock Malfoy off his broom—omg, Ron’s totally telling Harry to murder Malfoy!!

*Harry wakes up thinking about how fast the Slytherin brooms are trying to convince us there’s any possibility of Gryffindor losing, and that their brooms are somehow totally more unfair than his own special broom.

*Apparently Malfoy’s buying his way onto the team has become canon as far as the Gryffindors are concerned. Though you’d think they’d appreciate that. If the Slytherins have a Seeker who isn’t up to snuff, shouldn’t they be easy to beat?

*Oh and also, they want it more badly than Slytherin. Because good people always want to win more than bad people. Which is why there’s really no point in showing any more Quidditch at Hogwarts.

*Everybody’s anxious to see Slytherin beaten. Funny how at Hogwarts it’s such a given this would be so, while in fandom Slytherin attracts this loyal fanbase of Muggles.

*The fuss being made about the Slytherin’s speedy brooms is truly ridiculous. Harry’s on a Nimbus 2000. How much faster is Malfoy supposed to be? The difference must be miniscule compared to the difference between the 2001s and Harry’s professional Firebolt.

*George hits the Bludger towards Malfoy, which is just part of the game, unlike it would be if dirty Slytherin hit one towards Harry.

*Good luck finding that Snitch with rain on your glasses, Harry.

*Slytherin’s winning, which means their superior brooms are doing their jobs and not that they’ve done anything themselves at all. Seriously, they might as well not even be on the brooms.

*Harry tells Fred and George that with them flying around him the only way he’ll catch the Snitch is if it flies up his sleeve. Which I’m sure it would do, if necessary, to make sure Harry won.

*As hard as it would be to pinpoint the greatest example of Gryffindor or Harry dumbassness, the moment where Harry wants to play with the rogue Bludger instead of just having it replaced with a regular one has to be in the top 5.

*Oh no, if Harry’s playing with a rogue Bludger surely Malfoy will be the one to catch the Snitch. There’s no hope for Harry now surely.

*Malfoy hasn’t seen the Snitch because he’s "laughing at Harry." Yup, totally down to Malfoy doing something wrong. It’s not like the Snitch is in his blind spot and Harry himself only saw it because he turned around to glare at Malfoy instead of look for the Snitch himself.

*The Bludger breaks Harry’s arm but somehow doesn’t knock him off his broom. Harry wins the game with a broken arm and then faints in a manly way. I’m literally embarrassed for the Gary-Stu-ness of it. It’s like the only difference between Lockhart and Harry is that poor Lockhart is his own Gary Stu.

*As much as I enjoy Harry’s arm waving pointlessly, don’t think this makes the last sequence any less shameless, JKR.

*Hermione wants to know how Malfoy fixed the Bludger. I’d totally be asking why on earth Harry didn’t have it replaced.

*Honestly, all the little digs at Crabbe and Goyle being stupid just don’t hold up when you see these guys play Quidditch. It’s a point of honor to win when the Slytherins have jinxed the Bludger!

*And Malfoy gets yelled at…though, oddly, yelled at in a way that makes him seem like an actual member of the team and not someone who bought his way on. Shouldn’t there be some other player mentioned here, who should really have the job or something?

*Dobby’s hands are still bandaged from ironing his hands months ago?

*Oh Harry, please kill Dobby. It’s like the British illustrator put him on the cover of the last book just to spite me.

*Harry’s anger ebbs away in spite of himself. That’s a bit shocking. If there’s one thing about Harry’s anger, it’s that it’s quick to rise, slow to ebb.

*Dobby sets up passing someone a sock as giving them freedom. Must make doing the laundry a bit complicated.

*Dobby then claims that Harry Potter means so much to the "lowly, the enslaved, the dregs of the Magical World!" Who exactly is Dobby talking about here? Because House-Elves don’t consider themselves any of those things. Nor do they care so much about Harry.

*Dobby then goes on to give Harry what seems to be a false impression of what it’s like to be a House-Elf, as if he’s representing his kind in some way in the way he fawns disgustingly over Harry.

*It’s like if Colin Creevey considered himself a mouthpiece for Muggleborns.

*Dobby cracks himself over the head with a water jar, but unfortunately remains conscious.

*Harry learns it was Dobby who both didn’t want him at Hogwarts and fixed the Bludger. Could he perhaps be wrongly accusing Malfoy of anything else? Ha ha. Just kidding. Of course he doesn’t.

*Colin Creevey is found with a bunch of grapes on his way to visit Harry. No doubt hoping to climb into bed with him in the soft darkness of the Hospital Wing and let Harry nibble them from his fingers.

*The grapes remind me of that Jack the Ripper theory where William Gull did it. Grapes figured prominently into that. Poisoned grapes.

*Dumbledore takes Colin’s camera, hoping he got a picture of his attacker. Clearly Dumbledore doesn’t know Colin’s camera isn’t supposed to work at Hogwarts!

*McGonagall asks who opened the Chamber. Dumbledore corrects her that the question is how. I don’t know, Albus. Isn’t the "who" the answer to the "how"?





IITS
Why don’t they just get a different Bludger?

Selling Wood
Lo, I am an illiterate Transylvanian villager. (points to chest and stiffly indicates mountains) Won’t you please help me with my illness, sir?

Final score: 2

Signs of things to come: Don’t think Slytherin’s ever going to get any closer to winning than this, ever. And Harry will keep assuming he was right about Malfoy even when he wasn’t.

Comments

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Yes, I love the way Draco is told off. It has such an air of 'Malfoy, you are a damn fine seeker, but please pull your head out of your ass!' which makes so very much more sense than what other people apparently heard, which is 'I can't scold you, I'm too afraid of Lucius Malfoy, but when he's in jail and you're skiving you'll totally be off the team... no, wait' or 'If only we hadn't let you buy your way onto the team. Next time we'll use our reserve player, the fabulous William!'

Does JKR really ever sit and think that Gryffindor. Wins. Every. Match. When. Harry. Is. Conscious. Does she? I do. So often. It makes me cry.

You know, if you say 'the Deathly Hallows' a lot of times fast it sounds not unlike 'the Dead House Elves.' 'Sall I'm saying.

I'm getting a total picture of Mrs Black throwing a dirty sock that Kreacher dropped carelessly after him, and Kreacher catching it, and both of them staring at each other and then saying quickly: 'That never happened. Let us never speak of it again.'

Dobby is talking about the Fan Club, the dregs of the world: i.e., Ginny, Romilda, Colin and himself. It makes sense, Magpie! Let the elf talk!

Fabulous as ever, though don't make the Harry/Colin image burn in my head anymore, I beg you!

[meritjubet.livejournal.com]

that their brooms are somehow totally more unfair than his own special broom.

Because when Lucius Malfoy buys 7 brooms it means that they tainted good as he was/is a DE. It's cheating. And not all like what happened in PS when Harry became Seeker. Then in PoA, Harry gets the Firebolt, and all his worries about Draco's broom being better than his just fly away.

*Good luck finding that Snitch with rain on your glasses, Harry.

You wonder why no one else on the team told him the charm, and yet later Hermione does.

*Harry’s anger ebbs away in spite of himself. That’s a bit shocking. If there’s one thing about Harry’s anger, it’s that it’s quick to rise, slow to ebb.

Harry just likes it when Dobby acts all submissive ;)

Considering how many species are aligned themselves with Voldmort, you have to wonder if Dobby is more than a bit deluded. I mean, more so than usual.

[papier.livejournal.com]

Ron says Lockhart will sign anything that stands still long enough. Hee! Ron’s got it going on in CoS.

Which of course is nothing like Rowling signing a bust in her hotel room when she completed TDH.

Everybody’s anxious to see Slytherin beaten. Funny how at Hogwarts it’s such a given this would be so, while in fandom Slytherin attracts this loyal fanbase of Muggles.

She can't possibly say that there aren't one or two cheering on the Slytherin badboys. Those attention whores Gryffinwhores are far too clean-cut for most teenage girls' fantasies, I'm afraid. I think I would've adored Malfoy at school.

Good luck finding that Snitch with rain on your glasses, Harry.

How do they even stay on?

[saylee.livejournal.com]

*Lockhart’s now just acting out his adventures in class. Harry has had to play a simple Transylvanian villager, a yeti and a vampire. Now Rowling’s just being cruel by not showing us the Slytherin classes where Malfoy is volunteering for all these parts. For all of Harry’s good qualities, you know he’d be a terrible actor. Draco’s probably got costumes and funny accents and everything. ::sulks::

Hee! I thought of this too. Someone needs to write that.

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Hermione’s pink cheeks and shining eyes is due to her really worrying about being a Muggleborn. To me it seems like she’s just excited over the prospect of making the Potion.

Especially since when Ron points out the Muggleborns are going unprotected from the Wrath of Malfoy (ironic that Buckbeak gets the benefit of the Trio’s expert legal analysis but they’ve already tried, convicted and doubtlessly picked out punishments from their awesome new book for Malfoy already) while they spend months on this potion (which will do nothing to stop future attacks and can only rule out one person as a culprit rather than suggest other ones) Hermione glares until he agrees that making it is the best idea, even though Muggleborns’ safety is what she claims to be doing it for.
I also love the awesome examples of Hermione-logic here (not to mention the crashingly obvious manipulation tactics with the chickening out jibe ala Back to the Future) with her ‘OMG, threatening Muggleborns is way worse in moral terms than brewing a difficult potion!’ Is it worse than drugging someone’s food and stealing their bodies? Is the person who’s the point of all of this theft and kidnapping actually guilty? Those aren’t the issues! (It’s so hilarious now the OotP movie is coming out to see the directors and writers blathering about how it’s liberalism at Hogwarts vs. Umbridge’s conservatism, like Hermione wouldn’t be thrilled to enforce her own little Patriot Act. ‘It’s up to you, but I think 9/11 is worse than reading somebody’s letters!’)
Not to mention the obligatory forced ‘I don’t want to break rules’ (bit contrived that Harry would be objecting to this, too, so much so that Ron points it out.)

How much faster is Malfoy supposed to be?

The thing I like is that in the movie, they couldn’t really show how fast the brooms were in comparison to Gryffindor’s (probably because the laws of physics never apply to Quidditch. Can you imagine the brief – ‘You need to show these brooms going very fast in an obnoxious way, and these going very fast in a talented way, and the rules of fouling, scoring and the entire game – why would investigating a fixed Bludger mean the team who it’s fixed on forfeit? Why did Gryffindor forfeit in PS? – depends on what colour the team is wearing. You should film this 20 times or so, but try to keep it interesting and suspenseful as to whether Harry wins, Ginny wins, Ron wins, or Harry falls unconscious.’) so they just have the Slytherins doing a flying V, ala Mighty Ducks. Awesome.

Yup, totally down to Malfoy doing something wrong.

Funny how Malfoy’s taunting Harry is what loses him the game here (in JKR terms) unlike when Harry taunts Harper in HBP and wins.

It’s not like the Snitch is in his blind spot and Harry himself only saw it because he turned around to glare at Malfoy instead of look for the Snitch himself.

If he hadn’t have been laughing, his third eye would have spotted the object behind his head. Stupid Malfoy! Morality always trumps science.
I also like how Harry diving at Malfoy so he moves out of the way (so if Malfoy hadn’t be the despicable coward we know he is, would Harry have just squished him in his ardour for the snitch? Surely his natural sense of fair play would prevent this?) would is a legal move (the same way as diving at a commentator is perfectly acceptable and the epitome of sportsmanship) unlike the SRS BUSINESS that was Flint blocking Harry in PS. (Monster!!1)

I’m literally embarrassed for the Gary-Stu-ness of it.

I know! It’s like she was worried because she’d already used Harry having the amazing luck of catching the Snitch in his mouth, and Harry beating all records in PS, so here she had to really, really show how awesome he is, but it’s just like that old Blackadder joke (On the Jewish new year? For ninepence? A bare fortnight after the dreaded horse plague of old London town?) It’s not enough that Harry has to win on an inferior broom, or while it’s raining, or while he’s being pelted with cursed bludgers, or with a broken arm. It has to be all four, at once.

[(Anonymous)]

(it’s so hilarious now the OotP movie is coming out to see the directors and writers blathering about how it’s liberalism at Hogwarts vs. Umbridge’s conservatism,

They are? I am SO glad I'm out of the fandom enough to have missed this.


like Hermione wouldn’t be thrilled to enforce her own little Patriot Act. ‘It’s up to you, but I think 9/11 is worse than reading somebody’s letters!’)

I've said from the start that Hermione + 20 years = Umbridge.

Not to mention the obligatory forced ‘I don’t want to break rules’ (bit contrived that Harry would be objecting to this, too, so much so that Ron points it out.)

*♥s Ron*

so they just have the Slytherins doing a flying V, ala Mighty Ducks. Awesome.

The Slytherin flying V was the only thing worth watching so far in any of the quidditch scenes.

Funny how Malfoy’s taunting Harry is what loses him the game here (in JKR terms) unlike when Harry taunts Harper in HBP and wins.

OMG! Dont' you GET IT? Harry doesn't taunt, that just wouldn't be the Gryffindor thing to do. He was OBVIOUSLY just giving advice. Or something.

It’s not enough that Harry has to win on an inferior broom, or while it’s raining, or while he’s being pelted with cursed bludgers, or with a broken arm. It has to be all four, at once.

LOL! Feel a bit like we've been the ones hit by the bludger.

[artystone.livejournal.com]

That was me.

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Hermione wants to know how Malfoy fixed the Bludger. I’d be asking why on earth Harry didn’t have it replaced.

Yeah, surely this is the point where Hermione would embarrass herself and not get why Harry was so heroic and finished the game.
Hermione probably wants to know so she can fix games herself, or rather for the appropriate male avatar.

you know he’d be a terrible actor.

Yeah, and it's not like he can't pretend (he can play up to Lockhart and Slughorn for information), so I must presume it’s because he thinks it’s faggy is too modest. (Poor Ron is so burdened by machismo that he's revolted by an overly-large quill.)
It sort of shows how the WW is so crashingly literal and traditionalist that someone like Lockhart, who’s a great actor (and writer, even if the stories aren’t his own) gets slotted into the heroic mould. Even his homework assignment (compose a poem) is the closest to creativity any of the other teachers get.

Lockhart was Seeker too? Guess it is the position for show-offs, after all.

LOL! Also, more proof of Lockhart's evil: he knows which houses are playing, but doesn't take sides.

their brooms are somehow totally more unfair than his own special broom.

I like the phrase about the Slytherins’ brooms being ‘the fastest brooms gold could buy.’ Like Harry’s was paid for with love and hugs. Money’s just not as important to him, since he never has to spend it himself.

Everybody’s anxious to see Slytherin beaten

So is this because the rest of the school’s appetite hasn’t been sated by the underdog Gryffindors ‘winning’ the House Cup and want to see them get a Quidditch one too; or because the rest of the school is fiercely just and object to shiny new brooms that aren’t Harry’s?

the British illustrator put him on the cover of the last book just to spite me

Apparently that might be a goblin. *crosses fingers and toes*

If the Slytherins have a Seeker who isn’t up to snuff, shouldn’t they be easy to beat?

Yes, a seeker has to have more than a rich father! Like a rich father who was also good at Quidditch. Or a talent that was suddenly announced with no foreshadowing whatsoever five books in. Or really, just authorial intervention will do.
That, and Gryffindor have ‘better people’. I like the wording of that. Normally it’d be ‘better players’, one would assume, but it’s fitting for this universe that it’s couched in moral terms.

Malfoy’s buying his way onto the team has become canon as far as the Gryffindors are concerned.

Yeah, I can’t decide if this is them being sheep-like, bitter or just JKR’s presumed view being adopted by all characters.
It’s so charming the way they refer to people they dislike as slime or scum, though. Very different from ‘mudblood’.
(Wood is actually sort of creepy for such a one-dimensional character. He doesn’t care about his own players, Fred reckons he’d have like to have taken out the whole Slytherin team, he’s a poor loser, he sees the worst possible view of everyone…)

the only way he’ll catch the Snitch is if it flies up his sleeve. Which I’m sure it would do, if necessary, to make sure Harry won.

Yeah, that’s not so funny when the Snitch has flown into your mouth, really.

Malfoy gets yelled at…though, oddly, yelled at in a way that makes him seem like an actual member of the team and not someone who bought his way on.

And shouldn’t the machiavellian Slytherins threaten to kick him off now? They’ve got the brooms, what do they need the player for?
(I do kinda like the whole Slytherin hierachy thing, like how Flint will dive in front of Malfoy to save him from the psychotic twins, but also bitch him out captain to junior team member – and gee, for a guy who can be bought for seven brooms, he’s being awfully ballsy pissing off his money connection. And for a kid who bought his way onto the team, it’s funny that Malfoy’s taking it, looking ‘not happy’ rather than smirking and knowing that Flint has to keep him around.
It’s that much more honest than in Gryffindor where they have this equality pretense, but also defer to the richest/famous/most talented.)

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Colin Creevey is found with a bunch of grapes on his way to visit Harry. No doubt hoping to climb into bed with him in the soft darkness of the Hospital Wing and let Harry nibble them from his fingers.

This and Dobby wiping Harry’s forehead as he sleeps is genuinely frightening.

Harry learns it was Dobby who both didn’t want him at Hogwarts and fixed the Bludger.

Hilarious how Dobby implies all along that this entire plot is about Harry, and will cheerfully let every Muggleborn in the place die without so much as a warning as long as Famous Mr. Potter is alright. Sort of a meta-commentary, really (especially with Dobby chipping in to explain how every one of Harry’s lines or actions is noble/valiant.)

Dobby’s hands are still bandaged from ironing his hands months ago?

He probably reopens the scabs and reapplies the bandages every couple of days to look appropriately emo. (Me, I find it weird that Lucius flogs Dobby, himself. Weird, and disturbing.)

Oh and also, they want it more badly than Slytherin. Because good people always want to win more than bad people.

Now, now, Gryffindor also trained harder. Like spying on Slytherin’s practice. That must have been rilly, rilly difficult!
But yeah, Gryffindor will always want it more, even when they’ve beat Slytherin for six years running.

Dobby claims that Harry Potter means so much to the "lowly, the enslaved, the dregs of the Magical World!" Who exactly is Dobby talking about here? Because House-Elves don’t consider themselves any of those things. Nor do they care so much about Harry.

Especially since while Dobby thinks of himself as inferior to Harry, he certainly doesn’t have the regular House Elf belief about automatically serving one’s human masters. He’s this odd sort of Innately Good Other, really (like Krum, complete with cringeworthy Liberal Statements. Krum gets to like Britain so much better than his dreadful home country and to apologise for being foreign, whereas Dobby is acceptable as a slave since he automatically understands the ‘right’ beliefs – hating Malfoys, deserving payment, beatings being wrong – but doesn’t get so uppity that he doesn’t genuflect to Dumbledore and Harry. Freed slaves are okay as long as they still know that they’re the dregs of the world.) so he inexplicably lacks the loyalty and adherence to the beliefs of his family that the other elves have but has completely bought the whole self-image of elves as being worth less than people.

The fuss being made about the Slytherin’s speedy brooms is truly ridiculous. The difference must be miniscule compared to the difference between the 2001s and Harry’s professional Firebolt.

Or Draco’s old Comet 260 and Harry’s Nimbus 2000.
But yeah, I like how in POA, Wood’s encouraging Harry to get a Nimbus 2001 (OMG teh tool of the aristocracy!!1!) If it’s only a year old, that’s totally fair and accaptable. I’m sure everyone at Hogwarts will be able to match that. (Doesn’t Harry’s superior broom do it’s job and accounts for Harry’s win against Cho and Malfoy?)

If there’s one thing about Harry’s anger, it’s that it’s quick to rise, slow to ebb.

Heh, I think it’s because Dobby, like Hagrid before him and Harry himself, is a master of over-doing the emotional blackmail and hysteria, and there being no subtlety among the Gryffindors, they respond more sympathetically to this than they do behaviour with a modicum of dignity.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to wonder why, *why* we think so poorly of Ginny 2 for never (in our hearing, anyway) saying anything nice to or about anyone but Harry.

I mean it's not like she's the only one. About the only person Hermione has ever said anything *nice* about other than Harry was Eloise Midgin, for all that she defends Percy, and any teacher she's ever met. (Apart from Umbridge.)

Maybe at the end of the whole series it *will* turn out to all be the fantasy of an autistic kid shut up in a closet.

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking the same.

Will the Chosen One enter the veil and end up back in that cobwebbed closet?