Back with my own chapter :)
Jan. 14th, 2006 02:25 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockMany thankyous to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
q_spade for offering up her own chapter summary. In the meantime, here's mine for the same chapter.
*Not sure I like the chapter title much. Make your puns more funny in future!
*Curiously, it is taken to be Percy's fault that Mrs. Weasley is crying. What kind of insensitive oaf would storm from the house after his siblings saw fit to throw food at him instead of trying to be civil? Only moral cowards would make any attempt to be civil, I'm sure. Ginny, Fred and George, meanwhile, know what fun is all about - and nothing is more fun than acting like idiots :(
*Mrs. Weasley seems to have decided - consciously or not - that Harry is the Percy substitute around here. Not that she didn't treat him as a surrogate child anyway, but her response to Ron's comments about Percy ("it's not really a loss, is it?") is to go and huggle Harry. Mmm.
*The Fat Lady painting is a Christmas boozehound, as described in earlier books also. I can just imagine Phinneus Nigellus giving her teh_scorn about that kind of behaviour. Perhaps with a Blaise-alike bitchface :)
*"Won-Won!" Yes, Lavender's turned into the Pansy from Pansy-bashing Dracofic. It's all there, the utter revulsion, the attempt to make her out to be a fool, the clear indication that he prefers someone else. It just so happens to have been a Gryffindor relationship, and not a Slytherin one. Draco and Pansy, meanwhile, apparently continue as ever.
*Hermione, very much avoiding the whole issue of Ron, also thinks there must be a more reasonable explaination for the Draco/Snape exchange. The foreshadowing smells of prawns today. Harry is so very distressed by Hermione's insistence on disbelieving him that he exclaims; "We'll see who's right...you'll be eating your words, Hermione, just like the Ministry." How forthright Harry is!
*Despite not being able to Apparate in the castle (as we are told every time the skill is mentioned), Ron still wants to learn so that people will know he's capable. A bit like owning a flash car you can't drive, I suppose.
*Seamus has a cousin called Fergus. I wonder at the great font of Irish names his family must be. Not that I dislike the name, but it's just so "Just so's you don't forget he's Irish", really.
*Harry is besieged with questions about Apparition. In fact, he has to make up excuses so that he can slip away for his Dumbledore lesson, because who knows how long the questions might have gone on for otherwise? He might have never stopped!
*It turns out Cornelius Fudge was also keen to have Harry on the Ministry's side in the days before he was booted out. I do wonder if it wouldn't have been a better tactic for him, after all, to whip up terror and distress at the mere speculation that Voldemort was back. It would have done wonders for the Prophet, that's for sure. How else does the Daily Mail get such a healthy circulation if not for the constant scare-mongering headlines that suggest "asylum seekers" are out to steal our jobs, children and souls? The public appears to love a good fright.
*Dumbledore jinxed Dawlish again "with the greatest regret". Ooh yeah. Really belive you.
*He is also milking the whole situation for all that it's worth by telling Harry that it's still not the time to tell him how the hand injury happened. Just get on with it!
*Harry is in a silent RAGE that Dumbledore doesn't believe him about Draco. WOE! He'll show them all, you wait and see!
*Tom Riddle, like Draco, was made a Slytherin almost instantly. Mmm, foreshadowing. Goes well with oatcakes :)
*Despite being clearly as mad as a balloon when Dumbledore met him, none of the other staff could understand this, and just thought he was a nice young man. It's amazing how only some people are just blinded to reality, isn't it? Perhaps it's all down to Dumbledore's "extraordinary brainpower", as he puts it. Of course, he never told any of the other staff the stuff he'd heard, because he wanted to give Tom a chance. But he didn't blindly trust Tom or anything! He kept a close eye on Tom, it just so happened that Tom was very guarded with him. Well, isn't that convenient?
*Tom Riddle, upon searching in vain for any magical Riddles, found that he was related to Slytherin through the name "Marvolo". Is there actually no other family that might bear that name? It'd suck if there was. You thought you were related to Marvolo Gaunt, descendant of Salazar Slytherin - but it was some other random Marvolo! Shit, your whole philosophy down the toilet!
*The Gaunt's house - it's a bit like Miss Havisham's. Except without the wedding dress *pictures Morfin in a wedding dress*
*Morfin unwittingly gives Voldemort directions to the Riddle household, and thusly assists him in the murder of his own father and paternal grandparents. Then Voldemort makes Morfin confess to the crime - a flaw in the concept of catching underage magicians is revealed as it is shown that magic detected in a house does not come with a name attached. Someone ought to do something about that, those loopholes could fit a scooter through.
*You can tell when a memory's been tampered with - the contents of the bottle seemed "congealed" to Harry. Nice.
*Slughorn had lovely hair, back in the day. I bet when he was a little boy, all the old ladies would coo over his lovely hair :)
*He also has "little feet". You know what they say about the size of a man's feet, right? (Small feet, small shoes). And he was fat back then, too. Just so's we're all aware of the fat and its place in history.
*Harry has to notice that Riddle is the most handsome in the room. Does it get yer chest monster going, Harry? Eh? Eh? It is noted that all the other boys (no girls, apparently - perhaps they weren't ginger enough for teh_Slug at that time) cast Tom admiring looks also. Perhaps the idea of the Slytherin dorms being a hot bed of...hot beds has some basis in canon after all. If only v. tenuously :O
*The Sluggish memory has been tampered with! Oh noes, what a thing to do to hard-working mind-readers who only want to help save the world with hours of dreary backstory! Personally, I can't quite see why Dumbledore couldn't tell Harry about Horcruxes all on his own - especially since the memories don't seem to add much to the plot except by way of filler. Not that I hate them, just that they could be trimmed considerably without losing anything much. But hey, if we're going to use the Felix Felicis for something, why not for a drawn-out goose chase involving a humourously drunken Slughorn? Yeah, it's all about tightness of plot round here.
q_spade for offering up her own chapter summary. In the meantime, here's mine for the same chapter.*Not sure I like the chapter title much. Make your puns more funny in future!
*Curiously, it is taken to be Percy's fault that Mrs. Weasley is crying. What kind of insensitive oaf would storm from the house after his siblings saw fit to throw food at him instead of trying to be civil? Only moral cowards would make any attempt to be civil, I'm sure. Ginny, Fred and George, meanwhile, know what fun is all about - and nothing is more fun than acting like idiots :(
*Mrs. Weasley seems to have decided - consciously or not - that Harry is the Percy substitute around here. Not that she didn't treat him as a surrogate child anyway, but her response to Ron's comments about Percy ("it's not really a loss, is it?") is to go and huggle Harry. Mmm.
*The Fat Lady painting is a Christmas boozehound, as described in earlier books also. I can just imagine Phinneus Nigellus giving her teh_scorn about that kind of behaviour. Perhaps with a Blaise-alike bitchface :)
*"Won-Won!" Yes, Lavender's turned into the Pansy from Pansy-bashing Dracofic. It's all there, the utter revulsion, the attempt to make her out to be a fool, the clear indication that he prefers someone else. It just so happens to have been a Gryffindor relationship, and not a Slytherin one. Draco and Pansy, meanwhile, apparently continue as ever.
*Hermione, very much avoiding the whole issue of Ron, also thinks there must be a more reasonable explaination for the Draco/Snape exchange. The foreshadowing smells of prawns today. Harry is so very distressed by Hermione's insistence on disbelieving him that he exclaims; "We'll see who's right...you'll be eating your words, Hermione, just like the Ministry." How forthright Harry is!
*Despite not being able to Apparate in the castle (as we are told every time the skill is mentioned), Ron still wants to learn so that people will know he's capable. A bit like owning a flash car you can't drive, I suppose.
*Seamus has a cousin called Fergus. I wonder at the great font of Irish names his family must be. Not that I dislike the name, but it's just so "Just so's you don't forget he's Irish", really.
*Harry is besieged with questions about Apparition. In fact, he has to make up excuses so that he can slip away for his Dumbledore lesson, because who knows how long the questions might have gone on for otherwise? He might have never stopped!
*It turns out Cornelius Fudge was also keen to have Harry on the Ministry's side in the days before he was booted out. I do wonder if it wouldn't have been a better tactic for him, after all, to whip up terror and distress at the mere speculation that Voldemort was back. It would have done wonders for the Prophet, that's for sure. How else does the Daily Mail get such a healthy circulation if not for the constant scare-mongering headlines that suggest "asylum seekers" are out to steal our jobs, children and souls? The public appears to love a good fright.
*Dumbledore jinxed Dawlish again "with the greatest regret". Ooh yeah. Really belive you.
*He is also milking the whole situation for all that it's worth by telling Harry that it's still not the time to tell him how the hand injury happened. Just get on with it!
*Harry is in a silent RAGE that Dumbledore doesn't believe him about Draco. WOE! He'll show them all, you wait and see!
*Tom Riddle, like Draco, was made a Slytherin almost instantly. Mmm, foreshadowing. Goes well with oatcakes :)
*Despite being clearly as mad as a balloon when Dumbledore met him, none of the other staff could understand this, and just thought he was a nice young man. It's amazing how only some people are just blinded to reality, isn't it? Perhaps it's all down to Dumbledore's "extraordinary brainpower", as he puts it. Of course, he never told any of the other staff the stuff he'd heard, because he wanted to give Tom a chance. But he didn't blindly trust Tom or anything! He kept a close eye on Tom, it just so happened that Tom was very guarded with him. Well, isn't that convenient?
*Tom Riddle, upon searching in vain for any magical Riddles, found that he was related to Slytherin through the name "Marvolo". Is there actually no other family that might bear that name? It'd suck if there was. You thought you were related to Marvolo Gaunt, descendant of Salazar Slytherin - but it was some other random Marvolo! Shit, your whole philosophy down the toilet!
*The Gaunt's house - it's a bit like Miss Havisham's. Except without the wedding dress *pictures Morfin in a wedding dress*
*Morfin unwittingly gives Voldemort directions to the Riddle household, and thusly assists him in the murder of his own father and paternal grandparents. Then Voldemort makes Morfin confess to the crime - a flaw in the concept of catching underage magicians is revealed as it is shown that magic detected in a house does not come with a name attached. Someone ought to do something about that, those loopholes could fit a scooter through.
*You can tell when a memory's been tampered with - the contents of the bottle seemed "congealed" to Harry. Nice.
*Slughorn had lovely hair, back in the day. I bet when he was a little boy, all the old ladies would coo over his lovely hair :)
*He also has "little feet". You know what they say about the size of a man's feet, right? (Small feet, small shoes). And he was fat back then, too. Just so's we're all aware of the fat and its place in history.
*Harry has to notice that Riddle is the most handsome in the room. Does it get yer chest monster going, Harry? Eh? Eh? It is noted that all the other boys (no girls, apparently - perhaps they weren't ginger enough for teh_Slug at that time) cast Tom admiring looks also. Perhaps the idea of the Slytherin dorms being a hot bed of...hot beds has some basis in canon after all. If only v. tenuously :O
*The Sluggish memory has been tampered with! Oh noes, what a thing to do to hard-working mind-readers who only want to help save the world with hours of dreary backstory! Personally, I can't quite see why Dumbledore couldn't tell Harry about Horcruxes all on his own - especially since the memories don't seem to add much to the plot except by way of filler. Not that I hate them, just that they could be trimmed considerably without losing anything much. But hey, if we're going to use the Felix Felicis for something, why not for a drawn-out goose chase involving a humourously drunken Slughorn? Yeah, it's all about tightness of plot round here.
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Date: 2006-01-14 05:13 pm (UTC)So damn creepy. It's not so much Harry has finally found a family, but that Harry and the Weasleys luckily have co-dependent weirdness.
*"Won-Won!" Yes, Lavender's turned into the Pansy from Pansy-bashing Dracofic.
Yup, Ron's gone and made the relationship that you *wish* the guy you liked had with the girl that isn't you...only in real life it never works out that way. In real life Ron would probably have a more normal relationship with Lavender and might even--gasp!--like her more as he got to know her. Luckily this is Hermione's world, so of course any girl that isn't her is a complete idiot no one could stand. Ron's just getting practice to be worthy of worldly Hermione!
A bit like owning a flash car you can't drive, I suppose.
I see many of those in Ron's future, especially after he hits 40.
Seamus has a cousin called Fergus. I wonder at the great font of Irish names his family must be. Not that I dislike the name, but it's just so "Just so's you don't forget he's Irish", really.
Seamus cracks me up, his Irishness is so relentless. Sure and Fergus is a shamrock hunter, is he.
*He is also milking the whole situation for all that it's worth by telling Harry that it's still not the time to tell him how the hand injury happened. Just get on with it!
Dumbledore plays Harry like a fiddle in this book. And there's no flattery too grand that Harry won't lap up.
You can tell when a memory's been tampered with - the contents of the bottle seemed "congealed" to Harry. Nice.
Btw, this has been change in fandom to mean that it's possible to tamper with memories and make them look just fine, if you're super evil or super talented. Sorry, I've just read all these theories lately where people seem to have decided this whole section of HBP proves that you can tamper with memories,when it clearly says the opposite.
He also has "little feet". You know what they say about the size of a man's feet, right? (Small feet, small shoes). And he was fat back then, too. Just so's we're all aware of the fat and its place in history.
The fat and the little feet make Slughorn sound like such a perv. Well, I mean, when taken with the roomful of young boys and candy and all.
Personally, I can't quite see why Dumbledore couldn't tell Harry about Horcruxes all on his own - especially since the memories don't seem to add much to the plot except by way of filler. Not that I hate them, just that they could be trimmed considerably without losing anything much. But hey, if we're going to use the Felix Felicis for something, why not for a drawn-out goose chase involving a humourously drunken Slughorn? Yeah, it's all about tightness of plot round here.
Yeah, you notice that? See, this is why a guy like Snape can't be the hero of the books (or maybe even Draco), because he'd point that out. Especially since Dumbledore seems to know what's in the memory beforehand.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 05:44 pm (UTC)*"Won-Won!" Yes, Lavender's turned into the Pansy from Pansy-bashing Dracofic. It's all there, the utter revulsion, the attempt to make her out to be a fool, the clear indication that he prefers someone else.
Yes, really. Who would have thought when people were criticising demonising one half of the ship's canon love interest for the purpose of furthering the romance plot that it would be something that would make its way into the *books*?
*Harry has to notice that Riddle is the most handsome in the room. Does it get yer chest monster going, Harry? Eh? Eh?
So did you know that Riddle was apparently HANDSOME? Shocker.
It is noted that all the other boys (no girls, apparently - perhaps they weren't ginger enough for teh_Slug at that time) cast Tom admiring looks also. Perhaps the idea of the Slytherin dorms being a hot bed of...hot beds has some basis in canon after all. If only v. tenuously :O
That whole section made the slashers v. v. happy.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 02:59 am (UTC)Wouldn't it be great if Professor "I am a wizard, not a baboon with a stick" Flitwick made house calls? He could be Super Wizard Nanny to the three twins.
There's a bare possibility, I suppose, that JKR isn't completely endorsing the younger Weasleys' self-righteous vindictiveness. She hasn't written Percy as some heartless careerist who despises his family. (His terribly misguided but well-meant letter in OotP came from the same place as his running to help Ron to shore in GoF, where the narrative sympathies were, imo, on his side.) She could have shown Arthur as being shocked and hurt by the fight, rather than coldly resentful for reasons that are clearly based on his own issues rather than Truth and Justice. I have a very faint hope that JKR, unlike her characters, understands that sometimes people just get estranged from their families and there's no point in looking for someone to blame.
Harry is besieged with questions about Apparition
So...Side-Along Apparition was another of Harry's extra special privileges? I mean, you'd think there'd be a few more underage students who've Apparated with their parents when they were out of Floo powder, or something. Maybe Apparition is some sort of metaphor for sex, here *scrubs Harry/Dumbledore from brain*
It turns out Cornelius Fudge was also keen to have Harry on the Ministry's side in the days before he was booted out
Query: Dumbledore refused to let Fudge or Scrimgeour talk to Harry on the subject. Why not Scrimgeour? Dumbledore must know that Harry would have told either of them to sod off no matter what. By refusing to let Scrimgeour see Harry, he antagonized the man for no good reason and he seems more smug about it than anything. It's like he's holding Scrimgeour responsible for the Fudge administration's mistakes.
Dumbledore jinxed Dawlish again "with the greatest regret". Ooh yeah. Really belive you.
Hahaha yes. Dumbledore simply hates using his powers, or his general vast superiority, to harm or humiliate others. I'm sure he died a little inside at what he did to the Dursleys. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Albus and Aberforth were the Fred and George of their day.
-L
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 06:47 am (UTC)*lightbulb* It...it's all so clear now! Polyjuiced!PansyxRon? Someone *must* have written this fic by now.
He kept a close eye on Tom, it just so happened that Tom was very guarded with him. Well, isn't that convenient?
Yes, it's very convenient how nobody but Dumbledore ever seemed to notice anything amiss. Come on, Jo, you're not helping your case here. If Dumbledore is, improbably, the only one to know that something's wrong with this guy (since he was a kid!), doesn't it sort of make it MORE apparent that he's a dumbass for not doing anything about it all along?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 04:46 pm (UTC)What's to stop anyone from suggesting Dumbles was simply discrediting a younger, handsomer competitor for the hearts & minds of the Wizarding World? We know Tom/Voldemort does very fucked-up things – there's absolutely no question he's extremely dangerous. Yet we only have Dumbledore's commentary as to WHY, and only his interpretations of other people's memories via the pensieve. What happened that really made Tom become Voldemort? Because sorry, that kind of psycho isn't born – it's MADE.
And his story falls apart for me in that Dumbledore never warned anyone about Tom. How could the previous Headmaster or any of the other professors possibly been able to try and help Tom if they weren't aware there was a problem? How were they expected to do their jobs? It's as if Dumbledore didn't WANT Tom to be helped or saved. Why?
I don't expect any resolution on that score, mind you – it's Rowling's book and she'll tie up loose ends as she sees fit! But it'd be nice to hear Tom/Voldemort's perspective on the matter. Or better yet, someone who's had experience with both sides (Hello Severus!).