OotP Chapter Six

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

* When George pops into Harry's dark bedroom, sits on his bed and asks, "Got there yet?" my mind went straight into the gutter. I read too much wank fic, apparently.

* Ron locks the door because Kreacher comes in at night. We've heard about him many times now--can't say JKR doesn't give everybody enough of a chance to figure out they should be paying attention to him when they're not.

*ETA:Unfortunately, it's more like she acts like everything and everyone is important so in the end we've got a pile of extra parts that go nowhere.

* Everybody is imagining this fabulous weapon that Sirius, "let slip." Let slip? How do you "let slip" something that's fake? More like, "Lied about to start us firmly down the wrong path for the whole book only to get disappointed in the end."

* "Size is no guarantee of power," said George. "Look at Ginny." SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP with the incessent Ginny exposition. When the twins developed this obsession with her we will never know, but apparently she's some sort of goddess to them now. This is actually their second reference to her-they've already hinted that the little minx is waiting up for Hermione to tell her everything she heard at the meeting. Also first mention of the infamous "bat-bogey" hex so we know Malfoy will Not Know Who He's Dealing With at the end of the book.

*But then, I guess in this story there's no other character who could possibly illustrate the idea that size is no guarantee of power. It's not like the hero is an undersized boy himself who took out a supervillain when he was an infant.

* "Half an hour later Harry and Ron, who had dressed and breakfasted quickly..."
Dressed and breakfasted? ::sigh:: He still hasn't showered, has he?

* You know, if you're trying to clean the house, you'd think keeping a wild animal that eats dead rats in the bedroom would be a bad idea (but marks to Sirius for being childish enough to want to keep Buckbeak in there).

*Hermione defends Kreacher by saying he's probably too old to clean the house properly but he seems more devestated by the loss of his family than anything, and trying to keep things just the way they were. Harry's messy room was also tied to his frustration and anger over his helplessness. I swear the good guys are physically incapable of crediting people who don't like Dumbledore with any positive human emotion.

*ETA: Everybody should listen to Hermione. Kreacher, you're dead to me.

*In general, things like the doxy cleaning started to annoy me the first time I read this. It takes SO LONG for Harry to even get to school, and I felt like there was just too much cutesy wizard stuff that wasn't necessary. The doxies are just Yard Gnomes II.

*Doxies are poisonous, and Fred pockets one to experiment with the venom for...candy. I'm sure it's a much nicer poison than the stuff Lucius was selling in CoS. It's funny poison. They're just trying to make people sick, not actually kill them. And of course kids will only take this themselves to get out of school. It's not like anybody would ever get the idea to slip it to other people WITHOUT giving them the purple half. Well, if they do the twins surely should not be held responsible.

* Harry grinned. He had forced the Weasley twins to take the thousand Galleons prize money he had won in the Triwizard tournament... Uh-huh. Forced them. They wanted to earn the money themselves doing honest work, you see.

*I used to be happy when kreacher showed up. Now I know everything he's saying is really code for "OMG, be nice to me and I'll worship you forever!" Dead. To. Me.

* Kreacher says Sirius broke his mother's heart, though Sirius claims she has no heart. Sirius and his mother are so carbon copies of each other. Btw, I think he's hurt Mummy took him off the family tree just as she was hurt when he left. Sirius is just as obsessed with obliterating people from his family tree as they are.

*ETA: Not that we'll ever find out what happened there. All you really need to know is that Regulus would have loved Harry as much as Kreacher does. Yay.

* It's kind of funny Sirius describes how he spent holidays with the Potters, who adopted him, as a result of his having had enough of his own family. Wonder how Hermione would describe the reason she spends holidays with the Weasleys, her own adopted family...

*Sirius' family might have been bigots, but I'll bet he was also an adolescent nightmare. Rights for Muggleborns? Whatever. I hate you Mummy!

*Sirius also seems to still be angry over Mummy liking Regulus best. Not that he wants his mother to love him at all, cause he HATES HER GRRRR! Anyway, we hear the WW was generally supportive of Pureblood control before Voldemort showed he was crazy, and it makes me wonder if now wizards aren't resentful of Dumbledore using that to push his own policies. ETA: As it turns out, the WW have no minds of their own, so really no.

*ETA again: Not that it matters whether or not Mummy loves you when you've got Harry Potter!

* Sirius also tells us his great-grandfather was the least popular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had. He can just tell. It's in Hogwarts, A History I guess.

*Naturally Harry buys it.

* Kreacher is supposed to obey everyone on the tapestry, which makes it quite practical that some family members aren't on there. Sirius was once, and Kreacher seems to take that to mean he must obey him somewhat. I used to have some speculation here, but of course none of this means anything once Kreacher belongs to HARRY FREAKIN' POTTER, at which point he'd probably gladly slit Draco's throat if Harry told him too. I hate House Elves.

* If the house elf heads are hung up in the hallways as I think they were, presumably it's considered an honorable death. Pretty sick, but it doesn't seem intended to be disrespectful, so I can believe the house elves think it's the way things should be, like a warrior put to death honorably or something. You can see why Hermione's plans of giving them cake and sending them out into the world in disgrace freedom would seem so insulting. The Muggle hunting idea cracks me up.

*So I guess Wizards have some sort of embalming/taxidermy spell? Which is why these heads haven't rotted?

* According to Sirius, this house is the safest place in the world. Why again does Harry live at the Dursleys?

* [Harry] had not thought about the hearing once since dinner the previous evening; in the excitement of being back with the people who liked best... LOL! Those would be the people he's been raging about since he got here.

*Seriously--that's not affection, Harry, it's just your natural miniscule attention span.

* Harry and Sirius continue to compete in the "Life sucks" department. When Harry says he can't go back to the Dursleys, Sirius must reply they must be really bad for Harry to want to live at his house (which is horrible too!).

* George steals a biting snuff bux, if we're keeping score. More Nuts o'fun.

* Sirius is contemptuous of his grandfather's Order of Merlin and promptly explains Grandpa just gave the Ministry money. Because nobody in Sirius' family can ever deserve anything honestly, ever. He's so much better than all of them. They buy Orders of Merlin just like Malfoy bought his place on the Quidditch team. Sirius is such a baby here--which you might think might get proven wrong, but it won't really. No, the Regulus story doesn't really do that.

* Kreacher watches as the personal items of people he loved are thrown away while they're insulted. Hermione does not jump to his defense, which is probably good because it would just be condescending and deny Kreacher's feelings even more than Sirius does. ETA: Kreacher really doesn't love anyone, because he's a stupid House Elf who isn't Dobby.

* Harry rightly describes "cleaning" the house as waging war--and I think we should all take note of what that entails. The Purebloods are wiped out of their own home, their history erased and their families destroyed. Let's do the Weasleys next.

*ETA: Wait until you see how wonderful the house is when it's been fully cleansed and the Golden Trio move in and spread their Gryffindor glitter-cooties. It's awesome!

* On page 110 of the UK edition, Mrs. Weasley tells Harry to wash his hair. Well, somebody had to.



Designated Hero and villains
Sirius vs. the rest of the Black family. For somebody who doesn't care about family history, he can tell us why each and every one from the Middle Ages on was evil and had no heart while advocating wiping them out in response. Also, Fred and George.

Informed Attributes
Did I mention my sister Ginny is an Atomic Grenade?

McGuffin
Ooh, I'm so glad Sirius let slip about that weapon. Let's hint heavily that it's the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb, and wonder at its size and shape. It's sure to be amazing after this build-up!

Misdirected Answering
At least we know how to get doxies out of curtains.

Nut o’ Fun
I hearby dub this place House o' Nut o' Fun. What kind of evildoers would actually destroy this stuff??!!

My score: 7 1/2