Deathly Hallows, chapter 9

[anehan]

A Place to Hide

* Alas, it's Friday again, and I must read another chapter of DH. Luckily I have some oat biscuits in the oven. They may not compare to what Molly would whip up, but perhaps they'll make the reading of this chapter more palatable anyway, since I don't have any alcohol handy.

* The protective enchantments around The Burrow have broken. I still don't understand how this and the DE attack on the Ministry are in any way connected. If the Order can manage to ward houses so well that even Voldemort himself can't get in (and where were these enchantments when the Potters were attacked in 1981?), surely they can keep a few Death Eaters away without the Ministry's help.

* Hermione just side-along Apparated Harry and Ron with her. Wow! Isn't Apparating supposed to be difficult? (Or did that go down the drain with do many other things?) I would imagine side-along Apparating would be doubly difficult.

* I still find Hermione's mother act a little disturbing.

* Though maybe I shouldn't judge Hermione too harshly. Someone must prepare the Trio for their guest, and since the boys display an unforgivable lack of interest in it, I guess the duty falls on Hermione.

* Harry is about to say that he wants to get back to The Burrow to help everyone there (especially Ginny). Is this supposed to show Harry's caring nature? Because to me, it shows his lack of brains.

* Hermione says Voldemort's name, and lo and behold, here are some Death Eaters. Snape was right when he warned Harry against saying Voldemort's name. What bugs me is that there's never been any indication that saying someone's name would enable that someone to find them. It should be something that every wizarding child would know (that would be the reason why everyone calls Voldermort You-Know-Who), but the Muggle-born would be ignorant of it. But here's Ron, not reacting in any way to Hermione's saying Voldemort's name.

* The larger of the DE is quite huge. Remember, all the baddies are fat. Or ugly. Or fat and ugly. Or if they are neither, at least they'll look like a vicar in dress robes.

* This is something British, and I'm sure I've heard this before, but I can't remember it: what are the "building society savings" that Hermione had?

* Ron recognises the big DE as Thorfinn Rowle. The reader has never heard of Thorfinn Rowle and wonders where Ron has got his mad DE-recognising skillz.

* Hermione has never done a Memory Charm. She's only planted fake memories on her parents' minds, a feat that usually takes a powerful wizard to do. I am reminded of Hermione the Dark Lady.

* It's not Hermione's fault that your jeans are too tight, Ron. That's what you get when you expect mommy to do everything.

* You can't put the Trace on an adult wizard, says Ron. You can't, or you shouldn't since it's illegal?

* I wonder, how is the Trace put on wizarding babies? Do the Ministry send someone to visit every newborn baby? What about the Muggle-born? I can imagine Muggle parents going all googly eyes over the random stranger who came to visit them at the hospital to mutter pseudo-Latin over their baby's crib.

* "Harry felt contaminated, tainted: was that really how the Death Eaters had found them?" Oh my god, kill me now. Harry is emoting. The guy's capability of wallowing in self-pity is really quite astonishing. Where's that communal sick bucket? I need it.

* Even if Harry had the Trace on him, the DE couldn't have found them through it since none of them used magic. Oh, come one, Hermione, you should have figured that out.

* Yes, Harry, Snape's just one Death Eater, but as he, like every member of the Order, is now a Secret Keeper for 12 Grimmauld Place, he can have the place crawling with Death Eaters if he so wants.

* A Tongue-Tying Curse and a figure of Dumbledore. Is that all the famed Moody could come up with? I can just imagine Snape sniggering to himself over the patheticness of it all.

* Harry thinks of Ginny as family. *eyeroll*

* Voldemort uses the royal "we" to refer to himself. *giggles*

* Poor Draco, to be forced to use the Cruciatus Curse. He, unlike Harry, doesn't enjoy it.

* Harry calls Draco by his first name in his mind! Wheeeeee!

* Mmm, the biscuits taste lovely. Like fudge with oat flakes in it.



"Fruit Cart, Fruit Cart!":
Cappucino cup!

Informed Attributes:
The anti-Snape enchantments at 12 Grimmauld Place are soooo scary.

Ken and Andrew's Rule of Plot Holes:
Protective enchantments. Can they or can they not keep Death Eaters at bay? Alas, the answer depends on plot needs.

Nut o' Fun:
Draco! Wheeee! Though it wasn't so much fun for him, poor baby.

Selling Wood:
Harry emotes. Again.

Final score: 5.

Comments

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

>>>Here, it seems as if Snape can't take anyone with him who hasn't been told the secret himself. But with Hermione and Yaxley, that suddenly changes. <<<

To say nothing of the Ministry supposedly being able to trace Apparations in Chapter 4 which is why we got that *stupid* 7 Potters business, and yet in Chapter 11 Lupin tells us that the only way to trace an Apparation is to grab the person apparating.

This isn't the only issue on which Rowling decided she was entitled to have it both ways in this book, either. But yeah the whole concept of magical tracking is one that she has repeatedly fallen flat on her face over. Usually by trying to have things both ways.

The taboo is bad enough. But at least it comes across that the technology was always there -- just no one had any reason to try to use it for anything.

The Trace is complete rubbish. The only way that it could work is that it was something like a magical macro that activated when the Hogwarts Quill recorded a magical birth. And if that were the case where were the Ministry boffins who were supposed to be putting right the accidental magic that Harry (or any underage wizard) was doing for 10 years out among Muggles before they *got* to Hogwarts? No one ever seems to have seen hide nor hair of any of them.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

And even at that the bloody Trace *ought* to be registering whether the *child* is the one doing the magic it's registering. WHat is the point of it if 3/4 of the magical children in Britain have at least one magical parent if the Trace only registers magic performed in the child's *vicinity*.

I mean, it might make some sense if it were Tracing *wandless* magic, since that's the kind the Ministry has to go and undo. And that would have let Dobby's hover spell register as Harry's, but if wandless, then why is the kid being blamed for it, instead of it being assumed that it was accidental?