HBP Chapter Twenty-Five

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*The fact that Harry is going out with Ginny Weasley is the talk of the school. Because two stuck-up jocks choosing to date each other is far more interesting than the school’s golden boy almost killing someone in the boy’s room.

*Oh, excuse me. Far more interesting than Harry being "involved in scenes of horrific Dark Magic." As an innocent by-stander. Damn that Malfoy and his obsession with the stuff.

*Unless, of course, the gossip goes something like, "Harry Potter must be seriously closeted. First he tries to kill Malfoy after some kind of spat in the boy’s bathroom, and then he grabs himself the nearest girlfriend to cover."

*ETA: How gallant!

*Harry and Ginny are a nightmare as a couple. How many hours a day do people have to hear them do the popular couple shtick? And how much are Ron and Hermione getting paid to pretend to roll around laughing at their lame jokes?

*So Ginny doesn’t take crap from Ron and she doesn’t let anybody tell her who she can snog in public. I think we get it. Enough, please.

*ETA: If there's one thing good about DH it's that Ginny II goes away. Ginny III might be a sort of weird throwback to the girl who represents hearth and home during wartime with a thin veneer of 20th century spunk on top, but she's better than this girl.

*And by the way Ron, I’m really sorry you’ve been given this completely fake dialogue out of a 1950s educational film to recite to your sister in the 1990s.

*ETA: It's funny the way people would often object to Ron being the insensitive idiot to prop up Harry's ships in fanfic. It's pretty canonical.

*And then Hermione gets in on the act, "The truth is you don’t think a girl could be clever enough to be the Half-Blood Prince!" Jesus, Hermione. Of course a girl could be clever enough. It's just that the Half-blood Prince is obviously far too interesting and important to the storyline to be a girl. Keep up, would you?

*Hermione has, of course, been researching who the Half-blood Prince is. She must be so thrilled to finally have something to investigate. Nothing but boring questions like "Who killed Ron or Katie?" all year. Finally she can sink her teeth into the Potions Whiz Identity Caper!

*Harry wants to know if Ron thinks he’s mad wanting the book back. Mad? No. Worried for his well-being would be more like it. I think he’s accepted years ago that Harry’s a stone-cold bastard.

*Please let Ron’s and Harry’s quick protestations of how the spell Harry used on Malfoy "wasn’t great" be a set up for something in Book VII. Sure I’m probably fooling myself, but the Montague scenes that played out and now I’m hopelessly hopeful.

*ETA: Yeah, you're fooling yourself. But isn't it cute the way I thought that might happen? Especially knowing that any "Harry and Dark Magic" arc is ultimately leading up to that gallant Crucio?

*Ron happens to mention Malfoy healed all right and was back on his feet in no time. So Malfoy’s return to class and the first time he saw Harry since he was staring up at him through a film of blood wasn’t worthy of a mention?

*ETA: I'm seriously considering that theory about Malfoy having in some way died in that bathroom. Snape re-animated him to keep himself from dropping dead because of the vow. The re-animated Malfoy retained his obsession at the time of his death--that is, to fix the cabinet--but once that was over faded into a half-life limbo.

*Harry agrees Malfoy’s fine, but his conscience gives a little squirm thinking about almost killing him. A little squirm. As opposed to the way his conscience ached at something really important in the last chapter. What was it? Oh yes, he wanted to ask out Ron’s sister.

*ETA: Honestly, I've no idea why Harry's conscience is squirming at all. I had assumed that eventually he would explain it to us when the storyline resolved, but apparently it is resolved here. Why is his conscience squirming?

*Well, enough of that talk of Malfoy—back to complaining about those dreadful detentions. ETA: Guess that'll fix that out-of-whack conscience.

*Honestly, I’m tempted to give JKR the benefit of the doubt here. I do think it’s quite possible that everyone not talking about what happened to Malfoy could be on purpose, that they just can’t deal with it and won’t until something forces them to in the next book.

*ETA: See what happens when I give JKR the benefit of the doubt! I get Deathly Hallows, unforgivables being a sign of the badass coolness of war and Harry as Jesus.

*Harry thinks Snape might be purposefully keeping him from Ginny. You go, Snape! He can’t stand the H/G either!

*ETA: Ew. I just realized that Snape's obsessed with Lily and Ginny is Lily II--which is why Harry's obviously her true love. What does Snape think about Ginny? Does he just deny the similarities between the two most perfect girls in the world or does Ginny make him uncomfortable?

*Not to mention Snape gives the author an easy way to tell us how great it would be if Harry was spending time with Ginny without actually having to write it. You think telling and not showing is bad? Do I need to type out the forced, lame banter of the beginning of the chapter again to remind us of the bullet we’re dodging with the telling not showing?

*Harry’s walking by the RoR to get to Dumbledore’s office. This seems to imply it’s not quite as strange for Tonks to be in that vicinity when she found Dumbledore wasn’t in his office earlier.

*Trelawney didn’t know students knew about the RoR? How drunk was she all last year?

*ETA: There's a real consistent theme of people assuming they're the only people who know about this room even when you're using the version of it that's filled with PROOF THAT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS ROOM!

*I’m sorry; I’m having a hard time following what Trelawney’s saying here. The subplot where she sinks into alcoholism just cracks me up so much! Apparently people are starting to make accusations about it!

*ETA: I supposed her alcoholism was cured when she started hurling crystal balls at invaders though. Confidence cures all.

*Trelawney hazards a guest that the whooping she heard in the room was male. Malfoy would like me to point out here that whooping is often done in the falsetto, and that his voice changed somewhere around third or fourth year and could in no way be mistaken for a female voice normally.

*Good of Trelawney to call out "Who’s there?" and get thrown out of the room. Many alcoholics would have just hidden their own bottles and snuck out of the room again without being seen. Most, probably.

*I love that Harry’s so obviously critical of the way Trelawney handled herself here so that she didn’t find out exactly what was going on in the room. Because his own year-long investigation has gone so much better.

*You’d think Trelawney and Harry would do a little bonding over the fact they’ve both been warning DD of the same thing all year and he’s been ignoring them. Not that this will keep everyone at the end of the book from thinking they’re all lost since DD knows all and has been keeping everyone completely safe for years and trusting him to take care of everything was the only thing standing between the world and total ruin.

*ETA: And they're right to think that, of course. Dumbledore's flaws just make him ever more complex and deep while being brilliant.

*Firenze’s been laughing at Trelawney’s predictions too. Firenze being a ground-breaking character in that he is both literally and metaphorically a horse’s arse.

*ETA: The centaurs randomly declare themselves for Harry in the last book, right? Good thing they got over themselves.

*I’ve got to stop here for a second and be amazed that Wizards haven’t come up with a magical cure for bed bugs.

*Harry suddenly begins to pay attention to Trelawney. Wait, let me guess, is she talking about something directly important to him? I’m a Seer too!

*Snape! Snape! Snape! I’m sorry, but Snape the Eavesdropper is one of those moments you expect but it doesn’t make it any less cool that it happened.

*ETA: If there's one thing consistent in the series for me it's that stuff we hear about from the past is always cooler than what we see play out either in the present and in flashbacks.

*I was recently reading this conversation with people who honestly do not see the importance of Harry/Snape in canon. I’ve no idea how you can question that when a piece of information about Snape being the eavesdropper causes Harry to have waves and waves of raging emotion roll over him. The same kid who almost killed Malfoy and seconds later was worried about his science grade.

*ETA: Now I want to go back and find those people and ask how they got so brilliant. They actually predicted Snape getting shoved out of the spotlight he'd had for 6 books in Deathly Hallows! I bow to their far greater insight as readers. Or at least readers of writers as tricky (is that the right word?) as JKR.

*As much as I don’t like Dumbledore much, I kind of love wondering what it must be like to be him and have Harry come bursting into the room. His whole life in his office is probably punctuated by Harry and Snape making just these kinds of furious entrances. The door’s probably got cushioning charms on it.

*ETA: Of course now we know that most of those furious entrances were planned by Dumbledore so he's probably grinning with anticipation right before they come in and posing himself to make it look like he's surprised.

*LOL! I also love Dumbledore’s, "Harry, you were never a good Occlumens" given the fact that Harry’s probably standing there with steam coming out of his ears that float up over his head to spell out SNAPE.

*Makes a bit more interesting to me on this read, btw. Early on we always got scenes of Draco clearly trying to keep his emotions in check with tell-tale signs like spots on his cheeks. But even then I suspect, given this now canon bit of his personality, that he may have been disconnected from the emotion itself, not knowing how it was coming out physically. Now he may be crossing that hurdle into actually be unreadable at times. Which JKR probably thinks is a sign of evil along with the rest of the fandom, but I like a lot. And it’s not fanon.

*ETA: Or maybe none of it really meant anything and Draco, like everyone else, is readable when Harry needs to read him for the plot and unreadable when there's nothing going on with him inside.

*Harry puts up a violent struggle against the CAPSLOCK OF DOOM, and fails.

*Harry wants to tell DD he’s a foolish old man for trusting Snape. My Seer powers tell me somebody else is going to tell Dumbledore that later…

*ETA: Honestly, why didn't Dumbledore just hint to Harry that he had Snape's balls in a vice somehow? It's true, Harry would enjoy it and it would make him like Dumbledore even more.

*ETA: Not that I consider it OOC that Dumbledore didn't do that. He always likes to have a cover of "I'm just so compassionate I'm too good for this rotten war" over all those balls he's got in a vice. Greater good, y'all.

*Harry’s worried DD won’t take him along if he doesn’t master his anger, despite the fact that DD earlier made a big speech about how hate made Harry strong. And Harry told us how he wasn’t afraid because of his anger at Snape.

*ETA: And it's not like Harry's anger at Snape will ever have a seriously bad effect on his actions.

*Dumbledore explains how Snape couldn’t have known the people Voldemort would kill were Lily and James, Gryffindors with actual worth They might have been Slytherins, and that would have been good for us!

*Harry asks DD if he hasn’t noticed people Snape hates tend to end up dead. As a reader I tend to notice how Snape keeps alive the people he hates. Some of them die despite his help. Harry keeps on ticking just to annoy him.

*ETA: I forget, does Harry actually challenge him on that "He couldn't have known who Voldemort would kill?" Seems like they both just accept that if it had been someone faceless it would be okay. Not, btw, that I think that's bad on JKR's part since she's got to keep the focus where it needs to be. As much as I might have responded to that statement by pointing out that doesn't make Snape any better it would seriously derail the plot she's got going. Everything really has to come back to Harry to matter.

*ETA: "I trust Severus Snape completely" says DD. Not sure he really should given the situation but okay, he trusts him completely. Since he's Dumbledore he'll be right.

*Dumbledore shames Harry for suggesting he doesn’t take the lives of his students seriously. Except for Katie and Ron, whose lives had to be risked. And those people I mentioned in the last book where I said something about not caring about faceless people dying if I could bring you a little happiness. ETA: LOL! And Harry's own life, which he thought might need to be sacrificed. And...well, let's face it. Dumbledore really doesn't take the lives of his students seriously.

*Actually, when Dumbledore says, "Please don’t suggest I don’t take the safety of my students seriously" in my head I hear Harry responding with that line from Violet’s father when Willy Wonka claims he takes good care of his guests: "Yeah, you took real good care of that August kid!"

*Dumbledore tells Harry he’s to obey his every command without question. So it’s business as usual, then.

*ETA: Next year Dumbledore will have even more fun from beyond the grave watching Harry trying to obey his confusing and obscure commands without question.

*Hermione has the courtesy to look terrified at what Harry is telling her to do even as she’s supposed to think Harry’s crazy and nothing important could come from Malfoy.

*Harry gives the FF to Ron and Hermione and tells them to share it with Ginny. Does Ginny really need a bottle of golden liquid luck? Doesn’t she pee the stuff?

*Harry will be fine, he’s with Dumbledore. That’s it, Harry. You don’t want to grow past the childish trust in Grandpa. That’s how you go evil.

*ETA: Seriously. You do not want to grow past that childish trust in Grandpa. Grandpa made his mistakes when he was younger so you don't have to.

*Hermione and Ron really know the drill don’t they? They’re piling on the stunned, the awestruck, and the horror for Harry before he goes off into the sunset, literally.

*Dumbledore says how he often goes into town for a drink…or he appears to. Dumbledore, you badass sneaky super spy you!

*ETA: Reading that line now I imagine what he's really doing is going into town for some sad sexual encounter in Knockturn Alley that he feels ashamed about later.

*Harry reveals he hasn’t got an Apparating license, because he feels it’s best to be honest. Because Harry always feels it’s best to be honest when it really doesn’t matter. That way you rack up honesty points and your important lies don’t count. Having grown up Catholic, I know how this works.

*In this case it’s an especially good time to be honest because this entire journey started with Harry being born less than 17 years ago, making him ineligible for a license. Which Dumbledore knows perfectly well.

*I’m still a little confused about Harry’s big honesty moment until Harry reveals that "I don’t have a license" is code for "I am bad at Apparating and don’t know that I’m up to this journey." Luckily Dumbledore seems to understand. Well, that proves he’s really a Gryffindor. Of course he understands that in Gryffindor culture you would never admit you can’t do anything physical like Apparating in this kind of situation. So what you do is suggest you’re worried about doing something illegal. Obviously nobody would really care about doing something illegal, so the other person is clued in that it's code for shameful inadequacy.





The Cricket Rule / Day-for-Night
Working hard on that atmosphere as Dumbledore and Harry leave. The night’s got to be as pleasant as possible for us to destroy!

Designated Hero
The kid whose conscience is more bothered by asking out a girl related to his best friend than almost killing someone.

IITS
If you’ve snuck into a room to hide something so that you won’t be seen, and find someone else in the room, why would you call out to them?

Idiot Picture
How many people have been warning Dumbledore there’s something he’s missing that’s going on this year? "He’s probably got a pile of "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States" briefs stuffed in his desk too.

Informed Attributes
That Dumbledore takes care of everybody!

Ken and Andrew’s Rule of Plot Holes
Wait, so Snape only heard the first part of the Prophecy? Then how did Trelawney see him get thrown out? ETA: That will never ever be explained.

McGuffin
Used to good use here with Harry and Dumbledore leaving just as Malfoy gets the Cabinet working.

Misdirected Answering
Well, sure Snape told Voldemort there was a baby out there he ought to kill—-but he didn’t know it was you so he wasn't being so bad!

"Watermelon, watermelon, cantaloupe, cantaloupe"
"And stay out!" Oh, hello Dumbledore. I just wanted to remind the readers that I exist tending my bar full of murmuring patrons as the saucy bar maid I am before I get mentioned in the chapter after next. Have a nice night!

Final score: 10

Slytherin liquid count: Drunk Trelawney, Liquid Luck, Dumbledore pretending to go out for a drink whenever he’s being cunning.