Deathly Hallows, chapter 20

[anehan]

Xenophilius Lovegood

* Ron is elated, because someone is on their side! Someone is helping them! Oh, how I would love to see his face when he realized it was Snape all along.

* One Horcrux down! says Ron. If I were him, I wouldn't be quite so cheerful about it. It's past Christmas already, and they haven't made any progress beyond destroying that one Horcrux.

* The Trio gets back to discussing the possible locations of the Horcruxes, despite the fact that they have already discussed that subject to death. Only now it's somehow different, because they've got someone helping them! Rejoice!

* Oh yeah, the Taboo. One more thing in which Dumbledore did Harry a disservice was to encourage him to use Voldemort's name. He should have known it was possible to track someone by what they say. Names apparently have power.

* But if names do have power, why haven't we ever heard of magic done using names before? Or have we and I'm just not remembering it? I'm reminded of the Wizard of Earthsea that handles the power of naming things very well.

* I think Ron's hope that it was Dumbledore who was helping them with the doe and the sword is not at all consistent with Dumbledore's character. It's true that Dumbledore liked to be mysterious and not give straight answers, but he also liked to get credit for what he did. Anonymity wouldn't be Dumbledore's choice at all. No, anonymity spells Severus Snape so clearly that I'm surprised Hermione at least doesn't figure it out. It's not that Snape doesn't want recognition but that he's used to going without it.

* BTW, does anyone know whether Snape got an Order of Merlin posthumously? Has Rowling said anything about it? Or is the only tribute to him the name of Harry Potter's second son, a name he has to share with that old bastard, Dumbledore? *gags*

* Of course Hermione would recognize what Harry's new wand was made of. What wouldn't our know-it-all know. Probably she was a joiner or carpenter in her former life.

* Harry has forgotten Ron's fear of spiders. I think that's quite a feat, considering their adventure is CoS. Just goes to show how much attention Harry pays to his best friend.

* I think Harry is unfair in comparing a visit to Xenophilius Lovegood with their visit to Godric's Hollow. Hermione has a perfectly valid reason to see Mr Lovegood, whereas Harry just wanted to visit his parents' grave in Godric's Hollow. As if he couldn't have done it after the war was over. Or before it started. But no, he had to get a burning desire to do it in the middle of a war. Really, sometimes I feel the poor boy's brain has been permanently damaged by the connection to Voldemort.

* Harry asks if the symbol was important, wouldn't Dumbledore have told him about it before he died. Really, the boy is addle-brained. Has he already forgotten how many important things Dumbledore did not tell him? Like the location of the Horcruxes or how to destroy them?

* Mr Lovegood doesn't want them to come in. Warning bells ring! Except in the minds of the Trio.

* Of course the know-it-all has to make an issue of the Erumpent horn, as if she could afford to alienate Mr Lovegood.

* Oh no, Harry is getting sentimental over Ginny. And I thought we had been spared this when he passed the Burrow without getting maudlin.

* Ah, let's bludgeon us with the fact that Xenophilius Lovegood is eccentric. Wrackspurts, Gurdyroots. Plimpsies. What else? It's really getting very tiresome.

* Really, if Mr Lovegood's reluctance in helping them hadn't given them a warning, then the fact that Luna didn't immediately come to meet them should have given them a clue that not everything was as it should have been.

* Another chapter in which nothing happened. I don't really know why I bother to do these recaps when you can't even get anything juicy out of the chapters because they are so boring.

Comments

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

I thought that Voldemort introduced the Taboo when he took over at the Ministry?

Dumbledore didn't tell Harry about the diadem because...um...no, I've got nothing. You are 500% right. Surely in his 80 odd years of hanging at Hogwarts, he spoke to the Ravenclaw ghost? Surely he'd have a rapport with her by the time he needed to investigate the Ravenclaw artifact? Maybe he kept quiet for a laugh?

It would have been better if Dumbles had thought there were 3 Horcruxes - Locket, ring and diary and he died believing that the job was done (apart from Harryhorcrux, who he planned to warn once the locket was retrieved/he turned 17).

When Harry discovered that the Locket was a fake, HBP would have ended on a cliff hanger. Then early in DH, the Trio would realise through thorough investigation (Ho!)that Voldemort had created six horcruxes, not three and they'd have to work out where and what they were from scratch. That would have been far more more exciting/interesting then loitering in tent. It would be worth dropping the Cup memory for an interesting story, and Dumbledore would look as if he was well meaning, but wrong - not a complete and utter b******

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I thought that Voldemort introduced the Taboo when he took over at the Ministry?

I think you're right there. Probably used something akin to the Trace... you know, that ancient piece of magic we only learned about it DHs because, until then, the Ministry could only trace magic done at a location without knowing who cast it.

But there has to be some reason why people were afraid to speak Voldemort's name. Did he have some mini-version in place and DEs willing to go after the miscreants who used that name? Sort-of like, "Speak of the Devil and he appears?" Only in this case it would be his minions who appeared, not himself.

If that's what she was going for, the set-up was there but never the pay-off. We're left to wonder if there was a real reason or if it's just some superstition, or if Voldy read in the paper about people speaking out against him and sent DEs in after the fact, which would make people reluctant to use the name where others could hear and report that they'd done so.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

As a fan-w*nker, I assumed (because JKR certainly never clarified it) that the Taboo had been used in the distant past by a previous Dark Lord(s). The practice was outlawed and faded into myth/history, but the purebloods from older families, who were bought up steeped in the traditions of the magical world, retained the cautious 'tradition' of not using the names of famed and powerful practioners of evil. Developing this habit would protect them and their children - no matter how young - from activating it by mistake if it should ever be introduced again. Maybe the habit, already entrenched, spread even further when Grindelwald was on the rise - just in case.

I was so sure of this, that I'd forgotten it came from my imagination - why JKR didn't clearly link the Trace to the whole 'You-know-who' thing, I don't know. That's been established since the beginning of the series - who'd care if it was only named in DH? Instead she made it look like brand new magic, in a book there was far too much of that.

Anyway, well meaning Dumbledore was probably keen that the new generation was free of these old fears, so encouraged Harry, as their representative, lone hope and future King, to break free of them - a serious miscalculation. Alternatively, the old toe-rag did it on purpose to speed him to his death taking the Harry-Horcrux with him.

Or he did it for a laugh.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

And when I say the Trace, I mean the Taboo!

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

"Surely in his 80 odd years of hanging at Hogwarts, he spoke to the Ravenclaw ghost?"
He didn't even need to ask her to know about the diadem, all he had to do was to talk to Flitwick.
And I'm talkng about its existence not how it was lost which was something only Ravenclaw's daughter knew.