Deathly Hallows, chapter 10

[anehan]

Kreacher's Tale

* "The gried that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death..." What is this? Grief? From Harry?

* Oh, Harry, of course you were just a tool to Dumbledore. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to realise.

* Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts. Does this mean that, however many portraits of a person there are, only one of them can house the actual person? Does this also apply to things like Chocolate Frog cards?

* Sirius has pictures of sanctily clad women on his bedroom walls. He isn't gay. Definitely not. Being gay is only reserved to old, asexual headmasters.

* In the picture of the Marauders, Pettigrew is plump and watery-eyed. How could the Potters not have realised that Pettigrew was evil with all the evidence of his appearance?

* Lupin looks shabby even as a teenager. Is the guy constitutionally incapable of looking neat?

* Lupin also has "the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included". "The same air"? When else has he had that air? I don't like this, making Lupin look so pathetic. But I guess it's on par with the rest of the book.

* Sirius has used the Permanent Sticking Charm to keep his posters and the photograph on the walls. I would have thought he'd have wanted to take his things with him once he left his home, but I guess a teenaged rebel like him just had to leave them all there to annoy his parents.

* Aww, wee Harry on a toy broomstick. *is ded from cute*

* "Wormy." *sporfle*

* From Lily's letter, it looks like the Potters were already under the Fidelius Charm when Harry turned one, yet Pettigrew didn't betray them until Halloween. What's up with that? Or am I supposed to believe Voldemort waited three months to attack them on Halloween? Perhaps it was a magically auspicious time.

* Ooh, all these tantalising hints about Dumbledore, making it all since like some grand mystery.

* Lily writes her g's the same way as Harry. I didn't realise handwriting was hereditary.

* BTW, why did Dumbledore take James's Invisibility Cloak? Didn't he trust James to stay put if he had it? That was probably wise.

* Snape really is obsessed with Lily, to go to the trouble of ransacking Sirius's room to get her signature and a picture of her. Pathetic.

* So all of Moody's anti-Snape enchantments were for nothing. Snape managed to get into the house anyway.

* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?

* Harry wants to know the truth about Dumbledore. Tell me, Harry, how exactly does that help you defeat Voldemort? You know, the main task you have?

* OMG, why is Rowling so determined to make Harry emote? It seems to me that Rowling is really bad at writing intense emotions convinvingly. That's why she has to resort to things like chest monsters.

* And R.A.B. is found. Harry only needed to be beaten upside the head with anvils to realise who it was. If Hermione had known Regulus was a DE who got cold feet, she would have guessed R.A.B.'s identity right away. I guess we can't expect higher brain function from Harry.

* Sirius and Regulus both seem to have been rebels. Sirius rebelled against his family; Regulus rebelled against Sirius.

* Regulus tried so hard to be everything Sirius wasn't, I wouldn't be surprised if he joined the Death Eaters just to spite Sirius.

* Regulus was rather less handsome than Sirius was. And Harry would notice this why, exactly?

* Ahahahaa, now your "cleaning" of the house comes to bite you in your arse.

* Kreacher is "the house-elf Harry had so reluctantly inherited from Sirius". Don't worry, Harry. Before long you'll come to appreciate the benefits of having your own slave.

* Sometimes I wonder what Mundungus Fletcher did in the Order. I understand why the Order would have him, but what was in it for him, apart from the Black family treasures?

* Ron is knowledgeable about elf magic. I love it when Ron comes across as the pureblood that he is. It reminds me that there is this wide cultural gulf between Ron, and Harry and Hermione. They quite literally aren't from the same world. I know this aspect isn't usually emphasised, but there's bound to be all kinds of cultural clashes in marriages between the purebloods and the Muggle-born.

* Harry wonders how Voldemort could have made the mistake of forgetting that house-elves have different magic from humans. Hermione provides her view: "Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice, just like all the pure-bloods who treat them like animals." Now you're just being stupid, Hermione. Ron just demonstrated that it's the pure-bloods who know about house-elf magic, not Muggle-borns. And Voldemort was practically a Muggle-born.

* I wonder, did Regulus really change his mind about everything Voldemort represented? The turning point for him seems to have been the way Voldemort treated Kreacher. First he was all about what an honour it would be to serve the Dark Lord, and he eve volunteered Kreacher for the work. But then it was only a little while after the business with Kreacher that he decided to go against Voldemort. Was he already disillusioned when he volunteered Kreacher, doing that merely to garner more information on what Voldemort was doing? Or did he really decide to die just because Voldemort left Kreacher to die?

* Oh, poor Regulus. What a horrible way to die. I wonder why he chose to die there, when he didn't have to. Was he so convinced that Voldemort would get him that he chose this way as the lesser of two evils?

* Wasn't there a body of a man in the water when Harry and Dumbledore went to the cave? Or do I remember incorrectly?

* I love how Kreacher tries to bow to Hermione but can't quite manage it.




Box Picture:
Kreacher is The Sacrifice. Voldemort is The Evil Dark Lord. (He has red eyes, by the way.)

Informed Attributes:
The anti-Snape enchantments work. Really.

Light Bulb Moment:
R.A.B.! I know who he is!

McGuffin:
I must know the truth about Albus McGuffin Dumbledore!

Selling Wood:
Harry emotes. (This seems to become a permanent feature.)

Final score: 5.

Comments

Part One

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

How difficult would it have been for Wormtail to be thin and cute? Or even plump and cute? Then ended up a mess due to 12 years as a rat. Bad people being unattractive and the reverse for good people is unbelievably clichéd. Lily is slim and lovely, while Petunia is thin and scrawny. It’s like the film makers who felt that the films had to become drab and grey, as they became ‘darker‘. Suddenly it’s dirty smocks for Dumbledore. As if a man can't wear magnificent velvet and still be a manipulative s.o.b. Thieves don’t actually wear stripy t-shirts, masks and carry sacks marked ‘Swag’ (apologies to non-Brits). If everybody’s looks reflected their characters, the world would be an easier place to live in.

Lupin is a subset of the above - attractive = good, unattractive = bad, and shabby = dangerous creature? Maybe he was proud, but he had two wealthy friends - couldn’t they fork out for a new set of robes to put over his tatty everything else?

I don’t understand anything about the whole Potters in hiding, AT ALL. On top of what you’ve pointed out, why didn’t Snape predict that ‘his’ perfect Lily was too maternal to watch her child die and just ask Voldemort to STUN her. It’d save Voldie the hassle of arguing with her, Snape would still have Lily around to refuse to come near him, and we’d have had Harry dead. Result! Also, why didn’t James become his own secret keeper, as Bill apparently was in DH? He’s such a brilliant and *popular* Wizard, why did it not occur to him? You’d think that that rule was only invented for DH! Also, how did Dumbledore, and the rest of the Wizarding World know that Harry was ‘The Boy who lived’? For all he knew, Voldemort killed James and Lily, then was called away urgently. Harry, unattended, then fell out of his cot and cut his forehead open. Nobody was there, nobody *knew* for sure - Dumbles must have just guessed. Funny if he was wrong. I expected something key to have happened at Godric’s Hollow, I thought there‘d be a big reveal. Sigh.

I cringed over Snape in DH. He had a complete character makeover ( him and a cast of thousands), and it was a mistake. Or maybe he just hid his inner idiot from us for 6 books. From a cool, snarky bully to yet another two dimensional plot device. Well done JKR.

I said before that it should have been possible to have a 2nd secret keeper in waiting, who’d automatically take over on the death of the current Secret Keeper. JKR had so many things happen to move along the plot, such as it was, and 90% of them made no sense at all. Surely it made more sense to maintain this neutral place to meet up (though there wasn’t much in the way of Order meetings in DH, that we saw anyway.)

I presume Moody put the enchantments up within hours of Dumbles plunging from the Astronomy Tower - constant vigilance! Maybe Snape managed to get into the house later, because Moody was DEAD and any spells he created therefore null and void - or they should have been. Don’t ask me why they still seemed to be working. Though as to why the Order didn’t go in there the day after Moody’s death and secure the place - I’ve got nothing.

Harry remains a self indulgent, whiny little punk. With the blessed absence of the Ginny Monster for 95% of this book, I was able to re-connect with my Harry Hate once more. Everything’s always about him, how it makes *him* feel bad. Ron gets upset because he fears he isn’t good enough. It never occurs to Harry that he isn’t good enough, that he achieves nothing on his own. The only thing he does in this book is die - and as Sirius points out, that’s like falling off a log. I bet if Harry tried that, he’d miss.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

Sorry - ranting at length, as always!

JKR should have finished the note in the locket off with a small crest, not initials. That way, the Trio’s confusion over the writer’s identity would be justified, not make them look like a bunch of idiots. Then when Harry was in Regulus’ room, he could see it and realise it was RAB’s personal crest - problem solved. The way JKR did it, how many fans (at least the ones who go online) didn’t know full well who RAB was? She gave away far too much at the end of Book 6, with this and the excess of Horcrux details and there were no genuine surprises in Book 7. Apart from when she butchered her own canon.

Regulus - the less attractive brother because he’s not as noble - yawn. You'd have to be bad to be less noble than Sirius. In his own way I think Regulus was at *least* as worthy. Also, how did Regulus find out what the Horcrux was? Did Voldemort tell Kreacher? Why didn’t he send Kreacher away to a safe place, then try to blame the theft on him?

Ron, knowledgeable about his own world - as it should be. Hermione talking loudly even when she doesn’t fully understand - tiresome. Harry - happy to forget that this elf was as responsible for Sirius’ death as Harry himself - wtf? I wish Kreacher had handed over the locket, then betrayed them and they had to flee Grimauld Place because of that, not Hermione/Yaxley. Then we could have skipped Narrow Escape number 3 (of 800), the bloody Ministry nonsense.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

* "The gried that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death..." What is this? Grief? From Harry?

* Oh, Harry, of course you were just a tool to Dumbledore. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to realise.

I guess the second answers the first - Harry thought he was really special to the old Machiavelli.

* In the picture of the Marauders, Pettigrew is plump and watery-eyed. How could the Potters not have realised that Pettigrew was evil with all the evidence of his appearance?

Gryffindor's fault - not wanting to believe the worst about anyone... see Dumbledore...

Never mind...

* Harry wants to know the truth about Dumbledore. Tell me, Harry, how exactly does that help you defeat Voldemort? You know, the main task you have?

It started with biographies assigned in Harry's second-class Muggle school that didn't seem to notice his mistreatment by the Dursleys, then moved on to reading Woodward and Bernstein's book about Watergate when he was ten, then Dumbledore, Muggle-lover that he is (as long as the Muggles remember their place) continued the practice with Reality!Riddle Pensieve. He's hooked. Downright hooked. Someone get him a twelve-step.

* Sometimes I wonder what Mundungus Fletcher did in the Order. I understand why the Order would have him, but what was in it for him, apart from the Black family treasures?

He knows when people are not home and so their stuff is alone and unguarded. And, all being Order members hail and well met, they've of course told him just how to get through their defenses so,in case they're laid up at St. Mungo's, he can bring them that book they were reading.

Ron just demonstrated that it's the pure-bloods who know about house-elf magic, not Muggle-borns. And Voldemort was practically a Muggle-born.

Yes. Too bad Rowling forgot to point that out.

Was he [Regulus] already disillusioned when he volunteered Kreacher, doing that merely to garner more information on what Voldemort was doing? Or did he really decide to die just because Voldemort left Kreacher to die?

It's because sometimes, they Sort too early. *blech*

* I love how Kreacher tries to bow to Hermione but can't quite manage it.

Probably arthritis or sciatica or an allergic reaction to perfect swots.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Why hadn't Dumbledore told him? Why hadn't he explained? (about the stuff in his will)
Very good questions, Harry. You might add: Why didn't you ask him how to destroy Horcruxes?

Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts. Does this mean that, however many portraits of a person there are, only one of them can house the actual person? Does this also apply to things like Chocolate Frog cards?
I think so. In PS, Ron tells Harry, dumbles can’t be expected to hand around his card all day long.

Lupin looks shabby even as a teenager. Is the guy constitutionally incapable of looking neat?
No – his shabbyness is part of his character and Rowling would never stand for inconsistency in that department.

* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?
It can only be supposed they couldn’t keep up with the ever changing rules, either.

Sirius and Regulus both seem to have been rebels. Sirius rebelled against his family; Regulus rebelled against Sirius.
The weird thing is, she really SEEMS to have written it this way. The respective teenage bedroom décor screams “that will show you” in both cases. But when all is said and done, Slytherin still seems to be the house of the bad somehow, although we have plenty of evidence all through the books that the kids decide on their house based on personal sympathies and grudges instead of any moral choices.

Sometimes I wonder what Mundungus Fletcher did in the Order.
I think that is pretty clear: getting protection from Dumbledore against magical law enforcement. Every little crook needs a Godfather to wangle the things with the local cops…

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

* "The gried that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death..." What is this? Grief? From Harry?

LOL! We need to amp up the grief so that we'll believe it matters whether Dumbledore loved Harry before Harry's parents were born.

* Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts.

Ah, another one of those magical ideas that makes less sense the more you think about it.

* Sirius has pictures of sanctily clad women on his bedroom walls. He isn't gay. Definitely not. Being gay is only reserved to old, asexual headmasters.

What's funny is I agree with the anon that this is just supposed to be generic rebellion. Unfortunately het boy-lust is so weirdly compartmentalized in this series it's hard to understand. She's gone out of her way to explain that Sirius had no girlfriends because he was "too busy" being rebellious, so the idea that it occurred to him to be rebellious by having girlfriends is hard to buy. You wind up with the idea of Sirius putting up all these pictures for show without actually being interested in women. DH remains the most R/S book in the series for me. (And they were Muggle pictures, weren't they? That's even grosser since presumably the rebellion is that he might have sex with Muggles, who are like animals.)

* Lupin looks shabby even as a teenager. Is the guy constitutionally incapable of looking neat?

Isn't the whole idea supposed to be that he's shabby because he can't get a job to support himself because he's a werewolf? His parents didn't have that problem.

* Lupin also has "the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included". "The same air"? When else has he had that air?

Since we need to have Lupin being bizarre in this book to fill up pages when we aren't camping. Suddenly every time Lupin walks in the room all Harry can see is his big ole' fear of love.

* Sirius has used the Permanent Sticking Charm to keep his posters and the photograph on the walls.

Just like his mother.

* From Lily's letter, it looks like the Potters were already under the Fidelius Charm when Harry turned one, yet Pettigrew didn't betray them until Halloween.

I know there's some whole question about the timeline there, but as usual I can't follow it. Like how Lily is writing to Sirius to thank him for a gift he would have sent months ago or something?

* BTW, why did Dumbledore take James's Invisibility Cloak? Didn't he trust James to stay put if he had it? That was probably wise.

I think he just took it because he's all overcome with Hallows-lust. It's his fatal flaw, you know. (It's a metaphor for gayness.)

* Snape really is obsessed with Lily, to go to the trouble of ransacking Sirius's room to get her signature and a picture of her. Pathetic.

So. So. Pathetic.

* So all of Moody's anti-Snape enchantments were for nothing. Snape managed to get into the house anyway.

Yes, that Snape must be pretty damned powerful to get past that security!

* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?

You shouldn't wonder that, though. That way lies madness!

* Harry wants to know the truth about Dumbledore. Tell me, Harry, how exactly does that help you defeat Voldemort? You know, the main task you have?

If his main task is making it seem like something is going on in the book and filling up hundreds of pages before June it helps a lot!

Now you're just being stupid, Hermione. Ron just demonstrated that it's the pure-bloods who know about house-elf magic, not Muggle-borns. And Voldemort was practically a Muggle-born.

Thank you, yes!

* I wonder, did Regulus really change his mind about everything Voldemort represented? The turning point for him seems to have been the way Voldemort treated Kreacher.

It seems like he just like the other Slytherins. They suck and are fundamentally drawn to Voldemort, but they can be saved by loving somebody. For some reason this is some saving grace. Snape has Lily, Regulus had Kreacher, the Malfoys have each other.

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

* From Lily's letter, it looks like the Potters were already under the Fidelius Charm when Harry turned one, yet Pettigrew didn't betray them until Halloween. What's up with that? Or am I supposed to believe Voldemort waited three months to attack them on Halloween? Perhaps it was a magically auspicious time.

Oh the solstice, definitely. Vold was probably waiting for the event while catching up on some last minute tenting he had to do.

Sometimes ya just gotta camp! Ah Wilderness!