HBP Chapter Twenty-Eight

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*If you give yourself a fruity little nickname, Severus, you get yourself a fruity little chapter title.

*ETA: Flight of the Prince indeed. This is practically Snape taking flight out of the story. Which might be a wise move except we know he'll return to get his head stuck in a bubble and get bitten by a ruddy great snake and die.

*Of all Snape’s moments in canon, his grabbing Malfoy by the scruff of the neck--the scruff of the neck! has got to be one of my favorites. Years of Snape/Draco moments leading up to Snape seizing him up like a kitten and rushing him to safety.

*ETA: Good thing I liked that last moment, huh? By the next book they're relationship has deteriorated to something more like two guys who sat next to each other at a corporate trust-building seminar and never saw each other again.

*Amycus and Alecto are panting excitedly. Now that they’ve killed Dumbledore it’s time to celebrate with soup!

*I’ve read many imo misguided conversations about how Dumbledore wasn’t really killed by Snape here, or that wasn’t an AK, and I swear one of the reasons is that Harry’s still frozen until this chapter. But JKR actually doesn’t say the exact moment he’s unfrozen. She just has him realize it when he’s already unfrozen magically and numb with emo!shock.

*ETA:Yeah, pretty much killed by an AK. They can't take that away from you, Snape!

*Harry throws the Invisibility Cloak aside immediately, because it’s a real disadvantage to fight Death Eaters when you can see them but they can’t see you.

*ETA:So Gryffindor. What's the point of picking people off if everybody doesn't know it was you when they tell the tale? Or sing the ballad?

*The Death Eater buckles from his Petrificus Totalus, such is the force of Harry’s anger. I’ll bet he cast the curse in CAPSLOCK.

*ETA: I guess since the guy didn't spit at anyone it wasn't self-defense-y enough to require a Cruciatas.

*Snape and Malfoy have forced their way through the fight unscathed. It’s kind of wonderfully romantic the way Harry’s trapped on the other side of the fight watching his two most popular slash partners disappear round the corner, possibly never to return.

*ETA: Nope, never to return. At least not in the form they were in in this book. It's like they got sent to some sort of shock therapy over the summer to get back in line.

*So who does petrify Greyback? The line isn’t assigned to a person—or even given an adverb. Harry’s wand isn’t raised and we never hear who saved him. Snape seems to have disappeared. Surely if Ginny did it we’d hear how pretty she was or how sassily she delivered the words?

*Harry’s then distracted by Ginny’s hair flying like flames in front of him—oh for god sakes! Enough!

*Amycus is "locked in combat" with Ginny, by which we mean he’s hexing her and she’s dodging which is a different thing.

*Harry hexes Amycus before he can finish his compliment to Ginny, so I guess we’ll have to imagine what he was going to say. "Pretty Mary Sue who’s stolen my heart?" "Pretty girl with a sassy temper that shows how much you care about others?" "Pretty love interest with a Seeker’s build—I’ll bet you’re great at Quidditch?"

*ETA: I guess I should at least take this moment to be grateful that Ginny was on that bus to shock therapy camp too and won't be back in quite this form in DH.

*Jinxes apparently hurt when thrown during dramatic battles. Good to know.

*Harry has no time to answer Ginny’s question of where he came from. But surely he does have time to tell her how her hair dances like flames when she fights.

*McGonagall shouts "take that!" during fights. McGonagall is so old school, yo!

*Ron’s also fighting, his hair dancing like tiny flames. ETA: Like Heat Miser!

*The Order seems to totally outnumber these Death Eaters and they’re helped by teenagers with liquid luck, yet the DEs seem to be winning. Guess this is payback for the MoM last year.

*ETA: Is it me, or does it seem like the DEs would have been even more hopelessly outnumbered at the final battle? There never seems to be more than 30 on the outside.

*Neville’s semi-tragically wounded but not dead as usual, and directs Harry to Snape and Malfoy running past...why? Did one of them kick him in the stomach? (Hey, Snape might not see him again! He might have.)

*What, doesn’t Neville have any report on how pretty Ginny was in the fight? This is why you're not the hero, Neville.

*Harry goes on, ignoring the mute cries of the people on the ground calling him to come back. The mute call only total drama queens like Harry can hear.

*The floor is soaked with blood, and yet nobody seems to be bleeding except Bill. Is this blood all from Bill? Did Fenrir hit an artery?

*ETA: Maybe they're just bleeding to death from the pain of it all. I've heard Wizard anatomy makes that somehow possible.

*Harry wonders if the Order has secured the Cabinet, but they actually might not know about the Cabinet. The RoR presumably, but not necessarily the Cabinet. Unless of course they skipped out singing "We came through the broken Vanishing Cabinet" which I honestly would not put past Death Eaters.

*ETA:I'd like to remind everyone here that next year it turns out Malfoy could have just said "I need a room with a secret tunnel to Hogsmeade" and that would have worked.

*Harry knocks down some Hufflepuffs in pajamas on his way to catch Snape and Malfoy, a moment that seems to pretty much sum up Hufflepuff’s role in the series.

*The doors have been blasted open for dramatic effect. There must be a special Alohamora for nights like this.

*Above the blasted doors the DEs have scrawled GINNY WEASLEY IS ALL THAT in sparkly blood.

*Oh, here’s one thing bleeding...the Gryffindor hour glass is leaking rubies, sweet rubies, precious rubies! So I guess the House Cup will be canceled again this year.

*ETA: You know, mentioning things like the House Cup hour glasses just reminds me of that "maybe the Houses should reunite" idea, which isn't good.

*Not Hagrid too! Harry prays, trying to drown out the prayers of hundreds of readers saying "Please Hagrid too! Please get Hagrid!"

*Hagrid escapes—this time. We’ve got that red stage of Alchemy coming up in the next book. First Black, then Albus—your days are numbered Rubeus.

*ETA: Dammit. Even alchemy can't bring down Hagrid.

*The blond DE is aiming curse after curse at the gamekeeper—oh thank goodness! Someone’s demoted Hagrid back to some sort of servant gamekeeper.

*Harry tries to hex Snape with a clear shot from behind and misses. Guess the puppet master drama gods are collecting payment for that improbable rolling-around-without-looking-at-all-but-still-taking-out- two-Death-Eaters-for-good-at-once-with-one hex.

*Snape, who already had me when he grabbed Malfoy by the scruff of his neck, seals the deal by shouting Run Draco!

*A-ha! Harry finally catches up to Snape. He’s got him! Now he can have Snape...err, can have Snape hand Harry’s own arse to him without breaking a sweat. Oops.

*ETA: Nice that Harry actually never came anywhere near Snape as a dueler. Until after the book ended, of course, at which point I'm sure he became the greatest dueler of all time.

*Hagrid’s yelling about his dog in the background as his house burns. It’s amazing how Hagrid can take a situation guaranteed to get my sympathy, a dog in a burning house, and still annoy me with it.

*As I’m sure everyone realizes, Harry’s "Cruc—" makes it clear he doesn’t have it in him to cast a Crucio because he’s good. Malfoy’s "Cruc—" made it equally clear he could cast it because he’s evil.

*ETA:LOL! Yes, I actually wrote that the first time! Remember when we didn't know that Harry's casting torture curses showed that he was good because he was badass enough to do it but chose not to? Except for, you know, when he chose to?

*Harry yells at Snape to fight back, probably assuming his not killing Harry here as he clearly could is further sign of his evil. He’s trying to annoy Harry to death!

*ETA: The Slytherins except Voldemort have probably all just noticed by now that by some magical fiat Harry wins all fights.

*In the next book Harry will probably be longing for a chance to fight Snape one on one for once like he was with Malfoy earlier. Fights where Harry does really badly don’t count.

*ETA: How silly of me, thinking Harry would think about Snape barely at all in the next book. He's left him far behind by then.

*Harry calls Snape a coward for not fighting back. Err...Harry? I know it goes against your six years of Gryffindor training where older students beat up younger ones who are outnumbered, but generally not attacking someone you can just contain easily is considered the opposite of cowardly.

*ETA: Harry never does learn this lesson, does he?

*Ooh, and Snape makes this point himself using the Gryffindor Marauders as an example. That one’s going to go over Harry’s head, I’m afraid. "What would I call my father? A proud stag of a Gryffindor who hated the Dark Arts, of course. Just like me and my friends when we outnumber people. Is this a trick question?"

*ETA: Not like Snape and his Slytherin friends, of course.

*Snape interrupts his final DADA lesson to Harry (God I wish we’d seen more of those, preferably instead of shipping scenes) to yell to the Death Eaters in a frou-frou way: It is time to be gone, my merry men! To Sherwood Forest! The Half-Blood Prince must fly!

*Just in case Harry doesn’t get it, which he doesn’t, Snape then stops a DE from torturing him.

*ETA: I think if I were Snape I might have let that one go. Crucio isn't even that bad, you know. As long as you eventually stop it. And you're doing it in self-defense. Like if somebody spits at your teacher.

*Not only does this not make any impression on Harry, but he feels no shame in wallowing in the oh-so-terrible-pain of a spell he was about to cast on somebody else. Yeah, I know it was Snape who just killed Dumbledore, but the point is that it’s torture.

*ETA: Why was anyone shocked when Harry cast this spell with a quip the following year?

*Harry now hates Snape as much as Voldemort himself. Seems like that would require a surge of affection for Snape, doesn’t it? Voldemort’s not the one he fantasizes about torturing.

*ETA: A surge of hate that will quietly go away before DH. Maybe it was just gas.

*So Harry goes for Sectumsempra, his new favorite spell. The one he’ll use when this is all over and he becomes a serial killer who stalks and kills pretty blond boys in men’s rooms, always seeking to capture that first great rush of using it against Malfoy.

*ETA: Seriously, I think he did. But nobody ever caught him because a) Wizards are completely inept at investigating anything, b) Harry's the head of the police, c) He only goes after Slytherins so killing laws aren't all that strictly enforced for them.

*Boy, Snape gets really mad about people using his spells against him, doesn’t he? I kind of hope it turns out his friend Lily taught them to James—bitch.

*ETA: Not that Lily was bitchy at all. Ever.

*One more clue for the DDM!Snape pile—Snape looks at Harry with the same hatred he looked at Dumbledore, only he doesn’t kill him. Cause maybe the first time he hated what he had to do, and did not hate Dumbledore. (No accounting for taste.)

*ETA: Though why he wouldn't is beyond me.

*It’s good Snape delivered those frou-frou lines to the DEs earlier—you can’t just come out with "I, the Half-Blood Prince!" out of the blue. You have to work up to it.

*Harry’s all begging to be killed by Snape, who let’s face it might actually be able to do it, unlike Voldemort. How funny would that anti-climactic ending have been? CHOSEN ONE KILLED BY BITTER POTIONS TEACHER: "He mouthed off in class one two many times!" says killer. With lots of quotes from Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy. And one from Hermione complaining about Harry being a big Potions fake sixth year that she said without knowing she was bitching to a reporter.

*ETA: And yet not half as anti-climactic as camping for months?

*Yeah, Snape’s howling like the dog in the burning house really doesn’t make much sense for ESE!Snape.

*ETA:Or real!Snape, now that I've read DH. I guess he's howling about Lily for some reason.

*Harry gets dazed by Snape’s S&M whip spell. He’ll probably look that one up in the HBP book once he comes to again.

*Buckbeak surprises me by making him dislike him more than I did in PoA or OotP. I hope the ferrets form a food dish army and bring him down. Dook dook!

*ETA: I'm just going to think that happened. Or maybe during the battle Grawp used him to escape.

*Why is Buckbeak screeching at Snape so much? Because once again all animals must adore Harry because they sense his inner-awesome even if he doesn’t like them?

*Hagrid looms above Harry, blocking out the stars...and any hope of getting out of this chapter with dignity. Speak ter me, Harry! Speak ter me!

*It’s good to know Hagrid doesn’t know how to put out fires with magic, what with all the fire-breathing animals he no doubt brings to class.

*Hagrid says something about Dumbledore and Harry feels a searing pain. I suspect the weirdo kind of pain only Dumbledore knows about that you can bleed to death from.

*ETA: Luckily that searing pain will be replaced by whining doubt in Dumbledore's worthiness soon enough.

*Harry tells Hagrid Snape killed Dumbledore on page 556. Hagrid smacks Harry over the head with his umbrella for spoiling him.

*Hagrid, Harry and Fang walk towards Dumbledore’s body. I have a sudden wild hope that Fang will rush up to Dumbledore and start chewing on him.

*There’s a crowd around the body. But first they must get through the crowd of admirers surrounding Ginny.

*Harry feels the aches and pains of the hexes that hit him, but in a detached way, as if someone near him was suffering with them. Which having lived with Harry for six books now I know would mean he wouldn’t notice them at all.

*Harry looks down at the greatest wizard he not only has met but will ever meet. Jeez, that’s the most depressing thing in the chapter. Dumbledore really was not that great.

*ETA: So. Not. Great.

*ETA: Though it's great the way Harry goes from that kind of hypberbole to doubting the guy completely when he finds out he was friendly with Grindelwald when they were neighbors as kids.

*Harry tries to comprehend that Dumbledore will never again speak to him or help him...in the final two chapters of each book.

*ETA: Dammit, Harry, for getting our hopes up that Dumbledore woudln't speak to you or help you in the final chapters of the book? He'll be back against next year telling us what to think even more than usual.

*Greatest wizard ever, but didn’t notice that the locket in the bird bath wasn’t the one they were looking for. That’s got to hurt.

*ETA: Greatest gay wizard ever: because he was totally celibate. Being gay isn't about having sex with members of your gender, people! Dumbledore was the braver kind of gay who dared to care about other men platonically without touching them physically. That's what the homophobes really fear!

*Harry reads a note in the locket from RAB, who already seems like a much greater wizard than Dumbledore. House of Black rulz!!!

*ETA: Meh. He's okay.

*My one regret is that I die never knowing the wonder that is Ginny Weasley. –RAB

*Harry neither knows nor cares what the message in the locket means, which I think we all would have guessed without being told it.





Designated Hero
Mostly it’s Harry himself suffering from this one here, not seeming to realize he’s outclassed by Snape.

"Fruit Cart, Fruit Cart!"
Hufflepuff means "fruit cart" in old English.

Hero’s Death Battle Exemption
Harry trusts this rule so much he doesn’t even notice Snape saving his arse.

IITS
Looking back, you really would think super smart Dumbledore would have noticed that locket had no S on it, wouldn’t you? If he’s going to recognize Tom Riddle’s signature magic and be uppity about the blood?

Informed Attributes
Snape, you coward! Not even brave enough to take out a kid you’ve already beaten with one hand tied behind your back!

Jason’s Rule of Explosive Endings
Before we go, how about we set Hagrid’s house on fire?

Ken’s Second Rule of High Altitude Mortality
I didn’t give this one in the last chapter, but it actually does fit. This is the only AK we’ve ever seen blast somebody off their feet, apparently just so that he can fly over the battlements instead of just hitting the wall.

The Stealth Monster Rule
My, Buckbeak. What dramatic entrances you make!

Misdirected Answering
All that swearing vengeance against Snape? Just forget about it, will you?

Final score: 9

H/D cliché count: Snape taking care of Malfoy in a paternal way!

Slytherin liquid count: The floor slippery with blood, blood trickling from Dumbledore’s mouth, the Gryffindor rubies spilling out like blood from a wound, reference to the green goo Potion, Harry’s eyes burning with tears and Harry and Hagrid squirting jets of water out of their wands to put out Hagrid’s burning house.

Comments

[oscarthewild.livejournal.com]

Well, thank God the characterization was consistent. :)
Campbells' is recruitng Death Eaters? That's unusual, I suppose, but soup is always good, especially when it's cold outside.
Y'know what? I wish Ferret!Draco would make a return. He was so adorable.