OotP Chapter Twenty-Three

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*Why would Dumbledore not meet Harry’s eyes? It is a mystery! Especially since there's no way Harry can ask him that very question: "Eyes up here, Twinkles. Look at me when I’m talking to ya!" Gryffindors are brave, but very indirect in their personal relationships. It's Snape the Slytherin who camps out in front of somebody's door to apologize.

*The tainted feeling Harry feels is really...unexpected. For me, anyway. It just surprises me hearing Harry think of being "tainted" so he can’t sit next to "innocent people." Makes me wonder about his framing the world that way—who does he consider "tainted" and not fit to sit with "innocent people?" (Think I can guess.) ETA: Good thing he had that exorcism in DH. Now he's pure as the driven snow again.

*Harry’s thoughts on how Voldemort is somehow possessing him and thus he attacked Mr. Weasley don’t make sense, but they mostly just point out the idiocy of the adults here. How could anybody not think it was important to tell this kid what’s going on? After all, it's his head! Plus, they must know Harry's not the most logical thinker, or overly calm, and he pretty much always jumps to the conclusion that he’s got to take care of everything (it doesn’t occur to him that since he overheard the idea that he’s possessed from an Order member, if it were unsafe for him to be at Order headquarters he wouldn’t be let in). Remember how he went after the Philosopher’s Stone after being told it was safe? Yeah, me too.

*Oh wait. The adults in this series probably do think he's a logical, calm thinker. He's Harry Potter and so superior at all things good! The Philosopher's Stone episode just proves that.

*I do hope, btw, that the reason Harry is really convinced of this is that he’s beginning to figure out that his own attitudes are not innocent or healthy in themselves, and could be hurting him while he’s just blaming them on Voldemort. Maybe it’s me, but whenever I hear about somebody worried about things being "unclean" it sets off a little alarm bell.

*ETA: Ha ha ha! Harry figuring out his own attitudes aren't innocent and healthy. Bwahahaha! I am too stupid to live sometimes.

*Phineas gets a lot of Malfoy-tag-words associated with him!! He leans against the side of his portrait the way Malfoy leans against the tree at the QWC, his pointy beard is mentioned again and he speaks "lazily." He’s also watching Harry with amusement, probably affecting the relaxed attitude. ETA: And in the end, he'll claim a sort of slimy credit for his house that they don't deserve. Yup, totally a Malfoy.

*These kind of words, are I believe a big reason for SexGod!Draco in fanfic. As much as people insist he’s supposed to be ugly in canon, he’s usually described as a very vibrant physical presence, and leaning against something in a relaxed way and speaking lazily=seductive. Unfortunately in canon we never get to see much of Seductive!Slytherin because Draco, Lucius, and heavy-lidded-when-she-isn’t-nuts Bellatrix are the only characters who show any hint of it and their sucky qualities far outweigh anything else.

*Phineas and Snape share a hatred of teaching and a fondness for insulting kids with names like "dolt" and "dunderhead." Pointing to another one of those weird disconnects about Slytherin. Snape, Draco and Phineas seem to be under the impression it's the brains house (opposed to the brawn of Gryffindor) when in fact Slytherin is the dunderhead house. Have they just not noticed that?

*I mean, one could point to Gryffindor as producing Neville and Peter, who are both sort of timid, but Neville is actually totally brave and Peter's pulled off the most ballsy and daring stunts in canon. The dumb Slytherins, by contrast, really are just dumb and totally devoid of cunning.

*Naturally, Harry disregards every sensible thing Phineas just said. Go Harry! You know, I have to say, this is one of the reasons it bugs me when Harry’s OotP personality is summed up by "he’s a teenager!" No, he’s a very specific kind of teenager. A recognizable kind, but not the only kind.

**snicker* Harry won’t go to Hogwarts, because he’s sure he will maim or injure anyone he’s near. So he’ll go to the Dursleys. You know, the Muggles who are even more vulnerable than wizards. Voldemort wouldn’t hurt them—he loves Muggles!

*Really, why not go back to Hogwarts and bunk with Draco for Christmas hols, Harry? Kill two birds with one stone!

*You really do almost expect Harry to start rending his garments and pouring ashes on his head he’s so over the top in his self-pity. "Ron’s afraid to be in the same room with me! Except when he’s sleeping peacefully in the next bed over! I’m a danger to all who come near! Phineas must be here to make sure I don’t attack anyone with a chainsaw! Someone stop me before I kill again!"

*Meanwhile the actual werewolf is the calmest, most easy-going fellow in the house.

*Just as I hope Harry’s fears of being a violent monster are really his unconscious warning him about his very real and personal rage, I’m hoping his fear of being unclean is his unconscious telling him to shower more regularly./childish joke

*People are happy in the house. Sirius is singing. Harry is sitting in his room taking "savage pleasure" in the idea that he’s letting them all keep talking about him behind his back. Someone get this kid an lj--and an iPod at least so he can download the appropriate music for all this angst!

*Mum and Dad are "a bit disappointed" that Hermione told them she’s staying at Hogwarts to study instead of going skiing. Yeah, just a bit. Apparently skiing "isn’t her thing." Why do I suspect her parents came up with skiing because they knew she’d never just come home to spend time with them and they were trying to tempt her with something special, and are currently sitting in a lodge somewhere accepting they just can’t compete with wizards? It’s even sadder that the poor fools don’t know where she is. They think she’s at Hogwarts, really she’s with her new, better family.

*ETA: Who would have guessed the Grangers were getting off lucky here? At least they remember who they are.

*Hermione says, "[My parents] want me to do well. They’ll understand," and then "briskly" suggests going upstairs. I think the "briskly" indicates she really is trying to silence guilty thoughts on this. She says they will understand, not that they do, and "they want me to do well" sounds pretty sad and lame. She’s the one who obviously presented it as being about her doing well in school, and seems to have guilted them by saying all the kids who were serious were staying at school (so by bringing her home they’d be hurting her)...and of course it's a big lie, she isn't at school and she isn't studying.

*ETA: How sad that I'd like to think that all this is building up to Hermione's chilling mind-wipe of her parents in DH, but now I think it's laying the ground for self-sacrificing Hermione. Look how nobly brisk she is about her personal sacrifice of blowing off her parents! If she dies after she mind-wipes them they won't spend the rest of their lives mourning her! How sad is that for Hermione?

*Now that Mama Freud is here, everyone’s silly misunderstandings become clear. Hermione tells Harry to stop feeling all misunderstood and gets him talking.

*The two girls are confident in this conversation, while Harry and Ron are looking at their feet and getting flustered, presumably because they are the ones with the emotional depth of teaspoons. ETA: Welcome to the future, boys. Men are stupid, women take care of them. For their wedding gifts Ron and Harry probably got matching boxed sets of "Home Improvement."

*"Lucky you." Ginny’s such a badass. *kicks character in the shin*

*I love how Harry’s made to feel ashamed for not remembering her trauma, but as far as I recall there’s never been any hint of Ginny feeling indebted to Harry for saving her arse when she got suckered in by the wizarding equivalent of an Internet predator. Times like this I miss Jerk!Harry who would have told her off ("Oh right. How could I have forgotten you were possessed when I almost got killed saving you from your evil boyfriend". How rude of me.")

*You can't deny they're a perfect couple, though. The only reference we ever get to Ginny's possession is how everybody should feel sorry for her trauma while she herself is written as remarkably cheerful about putting several of her classmates into comas and almost killing them.

I also almost wish we still had the diary so we could see exactly how Tom seduced her: "Dear Ginny—What a beautiful poem. You are just like a caterpillar struggling to become a butterfly!" But then, that was PS-GoF!Ginny, whom I liked. This Ginny would have honestly impressed Tom with her awesome evilness.

*Harry’s mood swings back up again, and his previous black cloud is now just a crazy memory. Sirius, too, is no longer sullen. It’s nice that Harry and Sirius get to be hormonal teenagers together. For them, anyway. Maybe not so much of a pleasure to live with for others.

*They don’t open their presents under the tree with everybody all together? How odd (to me, anyway). Ron says he got a "good haul this year." Because Ron's kind of grasping. You may not have noticed. It's very subtle.

*But wait, how did Ron get a good haul? Doesn’t Ron just get maroon socks, lint and shame?

*Hermione’s presents well and truly suck. In case it's not obvious, this should be taken as kind of adorable.

*Sirius and Lupin give Harry a set of books together. This means...nothing really. Except perhaps that Sirius gets Harry presents and Lupin doesn’t, but since Sirius couldn’t leave and the whole Order is apparently giving presents to Harry this year he asked Remus to shop for something for both of them.

*Anyway, the two Marauders are naturally encouraging the DA. Also note that there’s a good side to Voldemort possessing you: Harry’s never gotten this many Christmas presents in his life!

*Because he's been very deprived, you know!

*Hagrid gives Harry a present he can’t use because it’s dangerous. Just keeping score here, for everybody who thinks Hagrid’s protests about things not being dangerous are supposed to be accurate.

*Percy sends back his Christmas jumper—bum bum BUUUUM. And Lupin steps in to calm Molly down—Lupin’s role as emotional pacifier is getting a little creepy. It’s a wonder nobody writes Lupin/Molly.

*The twins say he’s going to "cheer her up," which strikes me as funny. It makes it sound like Lupin’s going to tell her jokes and do silly impressions until she dissolves into giggles. Lupin's not exactly Mr. Cheerful.

*Bellatrix seems to be Kreacher’s favorite. ETA: Seems to be. Kreacher's favorite is whoever has the dog biscuits.

*So Hermione comes into Kreacher’s house, representing something he thinks is an abomination. She assists in throwing away or destroying all mementos of the people who are dear to him. But she’s gotten him a Christmas present. Isn’t that nice? It’s too bad Voldemort doesn’t quilt. It would do loads to ease the tension between him and Harry. ETA: I'm too stupid to live again. Of course Hermione's totally not crazy at all in giving Kreacher a quilt.

*ETA: So why isn't Kreacher falling all over Hermione? Is is just so we can pretend Harry is amazingly sensitive to other races later on?

*Btw, the first time I read this yes, I did know Kreacher’s disappearance was very very important. Best thing about Christmas for me, it was!

*"Of course, he might have crawled into the airing cupboard and died, but I mustn’t get my hopes up." Sirius, you have signs of your family wit in there somewhere.

*The Underground doesn’t run on Christmas Day? Interesting fact.

*Mundungus offers the kids a stolen car, which is perfectly appropriate for visiting Arthur. As long as no gold’s changed hands, he’d have no trouble looking the other way on this one. It’s stolen AND magicked? Excellent!

*Molly snarls at the idea of Arthur being treated with Muggle remedies, and does not like traveling without magic. She’s so Petunia, I love it.

*As soon as Remus sees a fight brewing he strolls over to the werewolf. *Pets Self-Preservation!Remus.*

*Hermione is so not a Muggle. "Well, [stitches] do work on non-magical wounds," she said fairly. Um, I think fair would be more like, "Stitches are a perfectly reasonable way of treating wounds. How do you think your regular cuts heal if not by the skin growing together? They just don’t work on these because Arthur’s wound is completely wrong for a snake bite this is some sort of magical thing." Fair might also be, "You know, to a Muggle drinking Eye of Newt for a medicine is just as crazy, and it wouldn’t work on them." Where’s Hermione’s glare of reproach when Muggles are being shown disrespect? Is it against her philosophy to ever educate wizards about Muggles because she likes the Weasley’s shaved-monkey version?

*All the healers are brutal-looking. Is that a nod to something like 19th century medicine? It’s funny, but I wonder what's the background behind it.

*Ron, as usual, looks like the clown when a wizard mistakes his freckles for a disease (for a second there I thought he might have acne). Doesn’t Ginny also have freckles, or has her skin turned creamy? I think there’s some sort of charm around Ginny that subtly protects her from ever looking less than cool in any scene. ("Marisoobalis!")

*Is this supposed to be a set-up for the incredibly stupid "ghoul pretends to be Ron" nonsense that slows down the plot even more in DH?

*That Lockhart scene is disturbing. Yes, I know what he was trying to do to Harry and Ron. I still wince reading about it.

*In fact, it’s worse for me than Neville’s parents, who have dignity and didn’t "deserve it." I wonder if the sudden disappearance of Lockhart’s fame is supposed to be a sign he didn’t deserve it, or an uneasy thought about fame itself. It was only three years ago. You'd think people would assume he was injured in some romantic, heroic way.

*That’s four people addled longterm in this book: Lockhart, who got hit with his own spell when trying to curse someone else, the Longbottoms, who were cursed by DEs for information because they were Aurors/OotP members, and Montague, who is pushed into the cabinet as a member of the IS for trying to take points.

*Neville’s been telling his grandmother all about kids who barely remember him when he’s not standing in front of them. That’s so much more humiliating than his parents being crazy. ETA: Did I say humiliating? No, it's a sign of the worthiness of Neville.

*ETA Again: And Neville is totally out-creeped by Luna's Wall o' Pretend Friends in DH anyway.

*Neville’s grandmother keeps pushing him to tell everyone about his parents and Neville doesn’t want to. He says he’s not ashamed and I don’t think he is. His grandmother reacts to Alice’s pathetic present in a brisk, nurse-like way, but Neville seems to see her much more as a person.

*Why is Neville so uncomfortable at people finding out about this? Is it that his grandmother keeps telling him how he’s not as good as his parents and he feels he doesn’t live up to them? Like they just add more stress to him when what he wants is just regular parents? He’s not interested in them as heroes, just as people (differently from the way Harry thinks of his parents)?

*::sigh:: I loved Elkins’ ideas about Neville opting out of the wizard warrior culture. Grandmother seems to only remember/talk about his parents as Aurors and martyrs. Her way of processing and accepting their fate does not seem to suit Neville, and her constantly telling him he’s not as good as her "real" son is pretty brutal. I wonder what the reason for it is, though. Does she harbor some anger to have Neville instead of Frank? Is she trying to protect him from Frank’s fate by telling him he can’t be an Auror? ETA: I'll miss these possibilities. Neville just proved himself by living up to his grandmother's demands for a warrior son.

*ETA: I wonder what Neville would have been like with Narcissa for a mother--you know, the mother who doesn't reject her child for not being violent enough. No wonder Draco turns out so badly!

*I wonder if Neville’s grandmother treats Frank differently than she treats Alice. I wouldn’t be surprised.

*Lockhart—LOL. This is one of those times the British word is just so much funnier than the American equivalent, which I think would be, "I didn’t learn cursive writing" or "I didn’t learn to write script." (Unless there are Americans who say "joined-up writing" and I’ve just never heard it.)



Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
Didn’t Harry just spend 20 minutes thinking about all the things Hermione, Ginny and Ron are telling him about possession? Why are they suddenly more believable now?

IITS
In fact, I just have a hard time buying Harry’s line of thought on possession anyway. It’s so strange to begin with why drop it because Hermione tells him you can’t apparate in Hogwarts, it’s in Hogwarts, a History? I would add many of Harry’s other nonsensical thoughts, but since they’re supposed to be nonsensical they don’t count.

Also, as churlish as it seems to admit it, if you’re a nurse with a talkative patient who wanders out of his bed, I doubt you’d mistake anyone you found him out in the hall with for personal visitors. JKR had to get them into the ward somehow, and as ways go this one’s pretty effective.

Idiot Picture
Why does no one with information share it with the person who clearly needs it? Molly has an excuse because she’s focused on Harry looking pale and her instinct is to treat him like a child, but that’s part of her personality.

McGuffin
So the weapon isn’t Harry...but what is it really?

POV Shots
Another one in this chapter, in Harry’s dream. Ah, the time he’d save if he just explained his dreams to people and they explained back how Voldemort maybe wanted to get into that room so Harry shouldn’t go there himself. But where’s the fun in that?

Final score: 5.3

Comments

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

Neville *is* the grandson she wants. She just needs to give him space to show it. Her real fears about Neville aren't true.

Yeah, the typical copout. Like when a character insists love and friendship matter more than money, they win a load of money at the end of the movie anyway. Or a team that value hard work, loyalty, honesty and friendship over winning at all costs, will win anyway.