HBP Chapter Three

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*This is the chapter where Dumbledore’s a total asshole, isn’t it? ::sigh:: ETA: Leading up to the big revelation of his central character, no doubt!

*Harry snores! And he sleeps with his mouth open! His room’s a mess! He’s so human and flawed—get it?

*Btw, I’m just going to assume that although he’s waiting for Dumbledore to pick him up he hasn’t showered in four days.

*If anybody wants to have a quick argument about “fug” and whether it’s a typo or a real word, and whether if it’s a real word it’s the right word to use here, here’s your time. Harry’s sleeping. He won’t mind.

*I know I already mentioned him being a slob but…apple cores? That’s gross. I’ll bet there’s owl droppings all over everything too. ETA: Owls don't leave droppings. They make pellets! Somebody corrected me about that and now I pass on the wisdom. Sorry, owl family!

*So the prophecy is fabled? People didn’t know about it before? Why not, since Dumbledore helpfully had it officially placed in the MoM? Isn’t this the type of thing everyone is supposed to find out about, like Harry and the Philosopher’s Stone?

*ETA: Now that the series is over does anyone really have a sense of how Harry is/was perceived by the WW at large?

*Some are going so far as to call Harry Potter “The Chosen One” because being wizards we don’t know that’s Keanu Reeves. And that it’s a really bad cliché. ETA: Perhaps they stole the title from a Muggle movie. It was so inferior they had to make it better by making it Wizard.

*Scrimgeor has a “ravaged face.” This is a world where pretty much everything can be cured, yet we’ve got all these Gryffindor men walking around with scarred faces. Don’t tell me that’s not intentional.

*So…does Augusta Longbottom think Neville is a friend of Harry’s because Neville pathetically talks about him all the time, or is she, like everyone else, just desperate to drop Harry’s name? ETA: It really is a happy ending for Neville that he probably spends the rest of his life distantly approved of by Harry Potter. Enjoy that mild approval, Neville. You earned it.

*The Ministry has come up with tons of new security for Hogwarts. They do not know a man is coming to destroy their petty plans for protection. His house is Slytherin and his name is Señor Draco. ETA: Next year access to Hogwarts is pretty much universal. Go figure.

*Dear Harry, if it is convenient to you… Oh man, Albus is laying it on thick. Like he cares if it’s convenient to anyone.

*Harry had not packed. And before you criticize him at all he didn’t pack because he’s an orphan and doesn’t trust anyone to really care about him or for anything to work out well ever. There. Bet you feel badly now for suggesting he might have packed.

*He’s also completely forgotten to warn the Dursleys. Also because he’s an orphan and...well, because it’ll be funnier if the Dursleys get to gape when Albus shows up.

*Harry notes that Vernon can tell Dumbledore is a man difficult to bully. Somehow he manages to do this without considering that this is because Dumbledore is a bigger bully.

*And so begins Dumbledore’s plan of “Bait the Muggles to show what a great guy I really am to Harry so maybe he forgets that I didn’t care how the Muggles treated him until I needed him.”

*ETA: Oh man, Dumbledore must be getting such a thrill out of this scene. It all makes sense now, doesn't it? He's been given a semi-justified reason to show Muggles that Magic is Might. Then he'll go home and play it over in his mind as a sex fantasy. (A naughty GAY sex fantasy!)

*Btw, the Dursleys are all still ugly. So I guess they’re still bad people.

*Sadly, I find myself getting my hopes up that the Dursleys will get a chance to show Harry how little they care that Dumbledore has died next year, but presumably Ron and Hermione will descend on their house and move in to bully them for weeks in his place. This will go over with all the readers who haven’t figured out they themselves are Muggles yet.

*ETA: Don't know how I couldn't have seen fanboy!Dudley coming.

*The glasses knocking against the Dursleys heads makes me so angry, and makes Dumbledore such a dick, it makes me want to climb into the book and tell him off. And push Ginny out a window. Even though she hasn’t appeared yet.

*ETA: Because it can't be said enough: Magic is might. But at least he's not indulging in homosexual sex here, so he's still good!

*Harry couldn’t suppress the suspicion that Dumbledore is enjoying himself with his Muggle-baiting. Well, of course he is. Here he has to be a good liberal all the time and pretend to think well of Muggles. You can imagine his joy when he finds a family of Muggles who have annoyed him so he can magically bully them while telling himself it’s not anything like Death Eaters doing it. Like the Weasleys, Dumbledore has earned himself some righteous Muggle-baiting through all his lip service to Muggle Protection.

*ETA: A year later, when Harry is freaking out over the possibility that Dumbledore had a life a century before meeting him, he will never that I recall use this scene to "prove" to himself that he really was about Muggle domination all along. Because come on, they really did deserve it.

*Dumbledore says Sirius's will was discovered. Could that sound more fake? How long did it take you to write that will before you discovered it, Big D? And he left Harry everything, you say? And you'll take care of that for him?

*ETA: The MoM takes care of Albus's will and Albus takes care of everybody else's. Harry's not going to get to actually read Sirius's will or anything, even the parts relating to him. Anything Sirius might have had to say to Harry can be relayed through Dumbledore (probably cutting out anything irrelevent, i.e., personal).

*ETA: You can tell Sirius isn't amazingly clever like Dumbledore for the way he just leaves Harry all his possessions including his slave. As opposed to, like, leaving him a pez dispenser, a drill bit and a copy of the Catcher in the Rye and letting Harry figure out he's inherited everything from those clues.

*More gold for Harry—phew! The world needs more heirs to fortunes who actually deserve it.

*By the way, Lupin’s been reduced to donating pints of blood for money, but I’m sure he’d want Sirius’ money to go to you. Rich Pureblood money should stay in the family. ETA: Seriously, why does Remus feel inadequate as a parent? It's a mystery!

*Vernon reminds us how awful he is by looking greedy at the idea of Harry being left a house. Harry, naturally, accepts his second fortune in gold with dignity by not caring at all. Unlike, say, crass, Muggle ME, who would be wondering if I could pay off my student loans. This is why money should stay with money. Thank God Ron isn't here.

*Now that Sirius is dead, Harry is free to love him the way he knows best, by making wild, violent gestures in the direction of his enemies. When he was alive he had to, like, speak to him and stuff and he didn’t care for that.

*"It would have been better manners to drink it, you know." Fuck you Dumbledore. Seriously. Fuck you with your own dead black hand. *pushes Ginny out the window because she would think this was hilarious.*

*ETA: It really is creepy the way that "manners" in the WW really are just ways of bullying and intimidating people. They have no concept of what they're really supposed to do, which is make other people feel welcome and comfortable.

*Kreacher’s back. ETA: Enjoy him while he lasts. He and Dudley are about to drink the Kool-Aid that makes them Harry sychophants. Actually, maybe it's not so much Kool-Aid as golden Harry Polyjuice.

*Petunia shrieks. Nothing this filthy has entered her house in living memory. Um, I beg to differ. Harry lives right upstairs.

*So if Sirius hadn’t left a will Kreacher would have gone to Bellatrix? That was pretty stupid on the Order’s part, wasn’t it? Or is Dumbledore lying because he wants Harry to have Kreacher for some reason? When in doubt, it’s usually best to assume DD is lying.

*So. Harry’s a slave-owner now. I’m sure Hermione will have something to say about that. After two books of non-stop SPEW it’s sure to just come to a head in this book. Funny how it doesn’t enter Harry’s head here. Could this be the shape of things to come?

*ETA: There are no words for my response to this whole storyline in the books. By which I mean there are tons of words compulsively written by me all over the 'net.

*Dumbledore helpfully suggests Harry could let Kreacher work for him. So Dumbledore gets another house elf out of the bargain. Always gets something out of the deal, does Dumbledore.

*Hagrid would be delighted to have Buckbeak live with him. I’m sure he’s learned his lesson about being recklessly stupid with animals. That is, he’s learned that if other people are recklessly stupid enough to get bitten by them, it’s not his fault.

*The Ministry would never guess Buckbeak is the same hippogriff they once sentenced to death why, exactly? I would think it would be obvious to anyone. Do all hippogriffs look alike to them? Speciests.

*ETA: The Ministry would never guess because they know that was the plot of PoA and is no longer needed.

*Harry finds his invisibility cloak under the bed. Dude, what did he do in that room in two weeks?

*ETA: I was going to say "Wouldn't it have been bad luck if Harry had actually lost his invisibility cloak the many times he was careless with it since it turned out to be a Deathly "still the stupidest name ever" Hallow? Then I remembered that if Harry had actually lost his cloak Hermione he might have had to actively search for it himself in DH and we couldn't have that.

*Since this is the last time Dumbledore will be speaking with the Dursleys, he takes the opportunity to make a big ridiculous speech about how their treating Harry badly was an affront to him. I think he waits until after Kreacher’s gone to do this because Kreacher (ETA: at this point in the story, natch) would have totally called him on the hypocrisy.

*ETA: None of which is as crazy as the speech Dumbledore probably *wants* to make here about how Muggles are allowed on this planet because of the good will of Wizards like him.

*He also zings the Dursleys on their horrible upbringing of Dudley. Trivia question: which of these two cousins is going to eviscerate a fellow student before year’s end?

*ETA: Dudley's eventual ability to recognize Harry's superiority is of course a result of Harry's presence in his life (or the state of his soul at birth) and not the Dursleys' parenting.

*Dumbledore says he and Harry are now stepping out into the night to pursue that flighty temptress, adventure. Amazingly, Harry does not turn back around and remain with the Dursleys on the grounds of extreme gayness. ETA: ::sigh:: That really is Dumbledore being gay, isn't it.



Designated Hero
See that guy teasing the family like a cross between the bully football player and the Mafia don intimidating witnesses? That’s our epitome of goodness.

Informed Attributes
He’s our epitome of goodness because of how much he cared about Harry being brought up in a loving home. He cares enough to scold his abusers at least two weeks before Harry’s never going to see them again.

IITS
Blood doesn’t matter. Except that actually it’s being with family that’s protected Harry all these years. Except that his real family are the Weasleys who love him. Except that he has to live here…look, IITS, okay?

Superfluous Racking
Dumbledore’s doing this throughout the scene because he’s such a badass with his wand and look at how scared the Dursleys are.

Final score: 4

p.s. I feel funny about using this mood. I almost feel like it should be retired in honor of potterstinks