Deathly Hallows Chapter 26

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Gringotts

It’s time for the big heist to begin. A single long, coarse black hair (plucked from the sweater Hermione had been wearing at Malfoy Manor) awaits its immersion in Polyjuice Potion. As a longtime reader, I can’t help remembering that the last time Hermione put something off her clothing into Polyjuice, it turned out to be cat hair. It would be really funny if she turned into Bellatrix’s lhasa apso this time.

The crowning touch, Harry reminds the others, is that Hermione will be carrying Bellatrix’s own wand. Which was stolen several weeks ago at Malfoy Manor. But Bellatrix would never tell anyone that. Never.

Weeks of planning.

Hermione is frightened to hold Bellatrix’s wand. She tells Harry in a low, deeply emotional voice that it feels all wrong. Harry nobly doesn’t tell her “I told you so,” since he experienced the same thing with that random Snatcher’s wand from Chapter 20, but he sort of wants to.

This narrative-sprite is really doing Harry no favors. He’s having to do so much negative commentary that Harry just ends up looking bad. Either he’s imagining his friends mocking him for caring about an elf, or he’s reminding us that Hermione’s a big know-it-all bitch.

Harry must really miss Snape and Draco since they usually do this kind of stuff for him. And then Harry can look good by getting all indignant about it.

Come to think about it, the major problem with this book is the really the lack of Draco and Snape. They were both better foils for Harry than Voldemort, who is a very boring villain (at least to me), but when you put either Draco or Snape in a scene with Harry, you know there are going to be some sparks flying.

Without them, Harry is reduced to sparring with Ron, Hermione, and a gobin. It’s just not the same.

Hermione reminds us that Bellatrix’s wand tortured Neville Longbottom and killed Sirius and broods because Mr. Ollivander sent Luna a new wand. We get a glimpse of Luna practicing in the back yard with it while Dean Thomas watches gloomily.

Sorry, kids. If you wanted a new wand, you should have spent three months in a dark room with a sick old man. Otherwise, you just don’t deserve one.

Anyway, Harry looks at Draco’s wand, which feels oh-so-good in his hands. Why, he just has to touch it for it to get all excited and tingly. See? Harry has better chemistry with Draco’s wand than with his best friends.

Griphook comes in and Harry grabs the Sword of Gryffindor and moves it a little closer. Way to build that trust, Harry!

Harry can’t wait to leave. He’s tired of being all cooped up in the small bedrooms and worrying about being overheard, and most of all, tired of being around Griphook.

I can’t get over how consistently ungrateful Harry is when he’s someone’s guest. He was stomping all over the Burrow because Molly kept giving him chores. He couldn’t wait five minutes to leave the Tonks house. Now, he’s resenting the size of Bill and Fleur’s bedrooms and ordering them to stay in their rooms.

Oh, by the way, Bill’s given them a tent to replace the one they lost. I’ll bet he didn’t get much thanks for that.

I would say that Harry’s just a terrible guest, except that he did help Fleur to make dinner and stuff. So, he isn’t terrible, but I’ll bet that the cottage was a lot cheerier once he left.

Part of Harry’s bad mood comes from the Trio’s inability to figure out the practical steps in double-crossing Griphook. Ron isn’t smart enough to come up with a plan, Hermione is to “ethical” to scheme, and, frankly, I don’t feel like helping Harry either. Brat.

God, I wish Snape were here. He’d nip this idiot goblin-cheating plan in the bud and probably give Harry detention to boot.

So, the night passes with Harry beginning to worry that their plan will fail—that they’ll have forgotten to plan for something… Now why would he think that? Could it be because every other plan the Trio have come up with in the past nine months has failed miserably?

The only plan that really seemed to work in the whole book was the one by that mysterious person who left the Sword of Gryffindor for Harry and Ron to find. That plan worked like gangbusters. Too bad they don’t have that person around to help them out with their complicated bank heist.

As Harry waits for Hermione, he notices that green shoots are already coming up on Dobby’s grave. And his one regret in leaving seems to be that he’ll have to leave the brave little dead elf behind. He fingers his neck pouch, remembering the blue eye and wondering…

It’s funny. Harry never really seems that fond of people until they die.

Hermione arrives, looking like Bellatrix and complaining about how disgusting Bellatrix tasted as Polyjuice. Maybe that’s how the Sorting Hat figures out how to place students. It tastes them. If they taste like boogers or vomit, they go into Slytherin. If they taste like delicious (or smell flowery) they go into Gryffindor. Ravenclaws are either sugary or acidic. Hufflepuffs taste like potatoes.

Hermione transfigures Ron’s features to disguise him. Something we know she excels at because she was top of the class last year when they were learning it. So… she could have disguised any of them, at any time, in the last year. With a real disguise and not just exaggerated botoxing. Any time.

So…. they didn’t really need to sit under the Invisibility Cloak for weeks on end to observe wizards going in and out of the Ministry. Nor did they really need to kidnap or poison Ministry employees. They could have simply transfigured themselves to look different and walked through the visitor’s entrance.

Nor did they need to steal Muggle hairs in order to visit Godric’s Hollow.

Sorry, I was so busy ranting there, I almost missed Harry making a gay joke. Commenting on Ron’s disguise, he says, “Well, he’s not my type, but he’ll do.” No. We know Harry’s type. His type is hawthorn with a unicorn-hair core.

Once they leave the cottage, Griphook climbs up on Harry’s back. “Epitome of Love” Harry pauses to note how much he dislikes the feeling of Griphook touching him.

They land in London with Harry and Griphook underneath the cloak and go through the Leaky Cauldron where Hermione almost immediately blows it by being too polite to Tom, the bar man.

Now I’m wondering why Hermione was chosen to impersonate Bellatrix. It’s Polyjuice. It’s not like we haven’t had cross-gender Polyjuicing before. JKR’s been sneakily introducing the idea that Ron is good at imitating people in this last book (although I don’t recall this being one of his talents previously). And, as we recall from HBP, Hermione is terrible at acting.

We enter Diagon Alley, which has been turned into a Dickensian nightmare. Ragged and maimed beggars plead for knuts and to insist that they are wizards. They are.

Well, they don’t come up to "Bellatrix." Instead, they try to run away. Except for one man in a bloody bandage who lunges at her, demanding to know what happened to his children.

So… these would be half-blood children? I mean, if he’s in Diagon Alley, then he must be a wizard. If he’s a Muggle-born wizard, then his children would be half-blood—unless he married another Muggle-born? What would they be then? Quarter-blood? I’m kind of confused now that I’m reading this for the second time.

I’m always hung up on the status of Half-bloods, because of the whole Half-Blood Prince thing. Was Snape wholly accepted into Slytherin, or was it conditional? Were this random wizard’s children taken away and placed with a Pureblood family? Or were they sent to Azkaban? Or were they disappeared? If he’s Muggle-born and his wife is Pureblood, wouldn’t they stay with her?

While I’m obsessing about this now, I actually didn’t give a hoot the first time I read this. It’s weird that I was very upset about such off-stage deaths as Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones, but now JKR has the entire cast of Les Miz hobbling around Diagon Alley and I. Just. Don’t. Care.

Ron blasts the demanding man away, and even the well-off wizards start running away from Hermione. Then, she’s greeted by Travers, and overplays the haughty act, since he’s a Death Eater. Not only is he a Death Eater, he’s one of the ones who came to Lovegood’s home looking for Harry.

Acting. Hermione Granger’s Kryptonite.

Travers is already surprised and suspicious because the news is that Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand was stolen and that she’s currently confined to Malfoy Manor for screwing up Plan Keep Harry Potter from Escaping While He’s Tied-Up and Locked in the Cellar Without a Wand. But Hermione manages to allay his doubts by acting snotty.

When he finds out that “Bellatrix” is heading toward the bank, Travers decides to accompany her and to throw out a gratuitously racist remark about goblins. Because Death Eaters are the racist ones. We can’t forget that.

Meanwhile, Harry is still stressing out over the goblin cooties he’s getting from Griphook.

They arrive at the bank to find that the normal goblin guards have been replaced by wizards wielding Probity Probes.

“Ah, Probity Probes,” sighs Travers theatrically, “so crude—but effective!”

Where did this character come from? Oh, duh. Les Miz. I forgot.

Anyway, Harry (at Griphook’s urging) confunds the guards so that they allow “Bellatrix” to pass without probing her. Just imagine the scene from Star Wars when Obi Wan Kenobi uses his Jedi powers to keep the Storm Troopers from checking R-2 and C3PO. I know that image leapt immediately to my mind when I read this.

They pass through the doors and Harry remembers going into the bank for the first time as a child. Never did he think he would someday come here to steal! It is kind of ironic, because that was the same day that Quirrell tried to steal the Philosopher’s Stone. So, the readers have never really been to Gringotts on a day that it wasn’t being burgled.

The goblins seem shocked to see “Bellatrix” and ask for identification. As Hermione tries to bluster her way through that awkward moment, Griphook warns Harry that the goblins are on the lookout for impostors. The only thing to do is for Harry to cast Imperio. Which Harry does—for the first time in his life.

I get the feeling that this is vaguely… significant here. Harry has a swarthy, dirty, long-fingered, monkey-like goblin on his back, telling him to do things that Harry wouldn’t otherwise do. Again, it’s like Harry’s made some metaphorical deal with a demon in order to get the precious Horcrux. And now he’s being pushed by that deal into Unforgiveable Dark Magic.

I’ve read a theory that JKR had Harry cast the Imperio here (and the Crucio later) in order to build up suspense for the final duel. In this theory, we’re supposed to worry (or assume) that Harry will use Avada Kadavra to try and defeat Voldemort, since he’s already cast the other Unforgiveable Curses. I dunno. We were told way back in Book 1 that Harry’s big superpower was love. So, I never thought for a second that Harry would even try to use the A.K. That would just be… dumb.

But JKR does highlight this Imperio cast with this line: A curious sensation shot down Harry’s arm, a feeling of tingling warmth that seemed to flow from his mind, down the sinews and veins connecting him to the wand, and the curse it had just cast.

So… Draco’s wand gets off on those Unforgivables. Heh. I guess that makes it doubly not Harry’s fault. First, he’s being told to use Imperio by a goblin, and then the wand itself starts bonding with him because of it. It’s not Harry. It’s the wand.

Harry then casts the curse on Travers to keep him from questioning Hermione’s wand, and, after getting some clankers and shaking off other employees, the imperiused goblin, Bogrod, takes them into the vaults. Once there, Harry pulls off the cloak, admits his Imperius curses might not be very strong (since you have to mean them) and curses Travers and Bogrod again.

He sends Travers off to hide. The image of Travers trying to wiggle into a crack in the stone wall is the one I remember best from this chapter. It’s very disturbing to me. I can’t help hoping that he was found quickly and de-cursed.

The Trio and goblins pile into a cart and set off towards the Lestrange vault. They hurtle down, down, down, deeper in the earth than Harry ever was before… in those two times he’s been to his vault. After a hairpin turn, they see a waterfall ahead. Unable to stop, they are drenched by the water, which strips them of all the concealing spells and dumps them out of the cart.

As a defense against break-ins, this isn’t as effective as you might think. They are no longer concealed and Harry has to recast the Imperio (which again gives him a pleasantly powerful feeling), but the thieves simply continue on by foot. After a few turns, they come upon a huge, blind dragon guarding the oldest and richest vaults.

The dragon is more pitiful than frightening. It’s blind, chained, and it’s been trained to dread being slashed with hot swords when it hears “Clankers” rattling. So, rather than fearing for our heroes, I’m feeling sorry for the gigantic monster in their way. But that’s consistent throughout the series. I felt sorrier for the werewolf chasing him than I did for Harry in PoA. Fluffy was kind of cute. The centaurs were cool and interesting. Even the giant spiders seemed cuddly.

The thieves rattle the Clankers and the dragon retreats and Bogrod lets them into the vault. After they are in, the door closes behind them, but Griphook assures them that Bogrod will let them out again.

Hmm. It strikes me that, if the Trio was intent on stealing a cup from Bellatrix without alerting Voldemort, it was pretty dumb to bring the goblins into the vault with them. Did they think the grubby little monkey men wouldn’t notice what they took? Plus, leaving Griphook outside the door without the sword would give them a better chance of his letting them out again.

Well, never mind. They start looking and it turns out that all the treasure in the vault has been cursed to a) replicate itself a dozen or more times and b) burn. So, now they are trapped in a vault stuffed with treasure, looking for a cup or maybe something else, and if they touch anything they get burned and possibly buried.

After several minutes of anxious searching (and some mishaps), the vault is getting unbearably hot. Fortunately, Harry spots the cup on a shelf. Unfortunately, it’s too high to reach and he’ll just burn himself if he does reach it. They try to Accio the cup, but that doesn’t work.

Harry gets the inspiration to use the Sword to hook the cup, which isn’t a bad idea, except he still can’t reach it, so finally—irony of ironies—Hermione uses Levicorpus, the spell she so vehemently protested in HBP, to hoist Harry into the air. In doing so, Harry hits a suit of armor and starts a chain reaction of replicating, burning treasure. He manages to hook the cup with the sword, but Hermione, Ron, and both goblins are drowning in a sea of red-hot gold.

Harry reaches down to pull Griphook (who has disappeared except for his fingers) out of the gold. Then Harry releases himself from the Levicorpus spell, which wasn’t the smartest thing to do, since it drops him and Griphook right back into the burning, rising tide of treasure. Harry drops the sword and Griphook retrieves it, swinging it high out of Harry’s reach—and throwing the cup into the air.

So, Harry now has to choose between grabbing the Sword or grabbing the cup… He goes for the cup, which starts replicating and burning him, but he keeps hold of the original cup, so good for him.

Finally, the door opens (no thanks to our heroes; it’s the goblins coming to catch them), and they ride out of the vault on top of the gold. Harry puts the cup in his pocket and tries to get the sword again, but Griphook has already jumped off of Harry’s back and disappeared into the crowd of goblins, crying, “Help! Thieves!”

When I read this for the first time, I was mentally cheering Griphook on. I didn’t give a darn about the Trio. I knew they’d get out of this. But I didn’t know if Griphook was going to come out okay. I was delighted that he made off with the Sword because I was so disgusted with Harry for trying to cheat him.

Pardon me while I rant for a bit, but this is another one of those things I just can’t make up my mind about. It seems to me that JKR bends over backwards to make Griphook sympathetic—yet I’ve seen posts from fan that howl with indignation about Griphook’s treachery in grabbing the sword and leaving the Trio to their fates.

This is how I see Griphook as a character:

We see him briefly in PS/SS and he makes little impression beyond being part of this new magical world.

We hear earlier in the book that he was fired because he wouldn’t do things “unbecoming” to a goblin. Which I took to mean he wouldn’t lower his ethical standards for the Death Eaters. Also, he lied to the Death Eaters, allowing Voldemort to believe he had an important artifact when he only had a copy. As far as Harry’s side is concerned those are good things to do.

When we find him again, he’s in really bad shape from having been on the run and there’s something seriously wrong with his legs. Nevertheless, when Harry asks him to lie about the Sword, he does so without question. Another good thing for the good guys. For which he gets slashed across the face.

Later on, he expresses surprise that Harry respected an elf and bothered to save his life. Then—although it goes against his principles and he’s risking being branded a traitor by his people, he agrees to help Harry break into a Death Eater’s vault. All he asks in return is the sword (which he believes properly belongs to the goblins).

All this makes him a compelling character. He’s risking a lot for Harry’s cause and not asking all that much in return. Also, as Jim Smith pointed out, he probably would have been fine with getting the sword at some point in the future if Harry had explained things a little. Yet Harry feels the need to cheat Griphook with a technicality that wouldn’t pass a child’s ethics test.

So, it doesn’t matter how much Harry calls him swarthy, bloodthirsty, or dirty. That doesn’t make Griphook look bad at all. It just makes Harry look like an asshole. (Oh, is he dirty, Harry? Maybe that’s because he’s been on the run for six months, just like you have—except without the tent, a wand, or a pair of shoes! By the way, I notice that you didn’t shave for months, even though someone gave you a magic razor and your tent came with plumbing.)

It’s really the same thing with Marietta. From the beginning of her arc, we see that she’s reluctant to join the D.A. She only does it to please her friend, and we later learn that her mother works at the Ministry and she’s under great pressure to support Umbridge. We see her terrified and disfigured in Dumbledore’s office. She’s obliviated, and then physically shaken by Umbridge… how could a reader not feel sympathetic for this girl?

When Harry later notes with satisfaction that her face is still scarred, it’s hard not to start hating him.

I can’t reconcile the two JKRs. Is she the one who wrote such sympathetic villains and it’s just her fans who can’t separate their feelings from Harry’s? Or is she the one who, in interviews, expresses satisfaction at Marietta’s continued suffering?

So yes, I was cheering Griphook as he triumphed over the bad wizards trying to cheat him. I would be even happier if, like in last chapter’s DVD Extra, he had been actively working to double-cross them all along. Serve them right.

Back to Harry, the Trio don’t have any choice but to fight their way past the crowd of goblins. They do so and Harry gets the idea of escaping on the back of the dragon. He magicks away the chains from the dragon and climbs up on its back. It probably would have been smarter to reverse that order, but it doesn’t matter, because he and the others manage to climb aboard before the dragon realizes that it’s free.

I had imagined, for some reason, the dragon heading straight up through the rock, but it doesn’t. It heads through the existing passage (which makes more sense, duh), blasting through with its fiery breath when the tunnel is too small. Harry hears the rock crashing behind them—which implies to me that those goblins might be getting buried in the rubble. Great. And all those bank vaults are probably going to be inaccessible for awhile.

I might be wrong about the dead goblins, though, because they can hear clanking behind them. So… the goblins are running after the dragon clanking their metal noisemakers that the dragon is trained to move away from. Oh dear. Logic.

The dragon bursts out of the tunnels and into the lobby of the bank as the Lez Miz chorus runs away screaming. It forces its way through the metal doors, ruining them, and then flies up into the air, our heroes clinging to it like three stray pieces of toilet paper.

This could spell disaster for the entire wizarding economy. Face it, Gringotts is too big to fail!

Fan Service:
Gringotts returns and so do dragons!
Hoyay abounds as Harry bonds with Draco’s wand!

Fan Slappage:
There’s no specific slappage in this chapter—except the normal assaults on our intelligence.

DVD Extras:
INT: DAY – SHELL COTTAGE KITCHEN

The cozy kitchen seems particularly airy and fresh on this spring morning.

Bill sits at the table, fixing a fishing net. Fleur is making cookies as Luna comes in with some flowers. Dean follows, having held open the door for her. He carries a milk pail.

LUNA
Hi! What happened to Harry and the others?

FLEUR
(grumpily)
Zey dizzappeared dis morning.

She pulls a tray of hot cookies out of the oven and puts a second tray in.

BILL
They’re off with Griphook. But they didn’t say where or why.

Luna tilts her head thoughtfully as she puts the flowers in a vase.

LUNA
I expect that they’re off to break into Gringotts.

DEAN
What? What makes you think that?

LUNA
Well, they’ve been planning something for weeks. And, since they always chase me out of the room, it’s probably something illegal and dangerous.

BILL
Which breaking into Gringotts would be.

LUNA
Yes, and Griphook used to work there. I also noticed that Hermione saved this long, black hair from Malfoy Manor, which must have belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange. When Bellatrix was torturing Hermione, she kept yelling about something in her bank vault.

Luna helpfully transfers cookies from the tray to a platter, as Dean pours glasses of milk.

LUNA (cont’)
So, I figure they must have decided to plan a break-in with Griphook in order to steal something from Bellatrix Lestrange.

FLEUR
Zat sounds plausible. Certainement.

DEAN
What would they be looking for, though?

LUNA
Something valuable. I was thinking it might be a Horcrux.

FLEUR
A what?

LUNA
A Horcrux. It’s when someone takes a piece of their soul and puts it into an object—like a stone or a book.

DEAN
Can people do that?

LUNA
Oh, yes. Daddy told me about them. He thinks that's how He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came back from the dead.

BILL
But it’s absurd. Horcruxes are no more real than Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

FLEUR
What?

BILL
It’s some kind of animal that Luna keeps insisting—

FLEUR
But of course zere are Crumple-‘Orned Snorkacks. Zere is a Snorkack Preserve in Provence! Eet is world-famous!

BILL
There…. What?

FLEUR
(throwing up her hands)
Ze Eenglish! If it doesn’t exist in the London Zoo, zen it muzz not be real!

LUNA
(nodding)
Daddy says English wizards are especially close-minded.

FLEUR
Oui. But… (glancing sideways at Bill) …zey are also very ‘andsome.

She goes to Bill, plants a kiss on his mouth and then feeds him a bit of cookie. Bill rolls his eyes at Dean, commiserating.

BILL
Yes, we’re pretty, but stupid… (squinting quizzically at him) Which one are you, again?

DEAN
Dean Thomas. (pause) I’ve been sleeping on your couch for six weeks? (as Bill still looks blank:) I dated your sister for almost a year?

BILL
Really?

DEAN
Never mind. I barely remember I exist, myself.

He bites gloomily into a cookie.

FADE OUT.

Comments

[papier.livejournal.com]

We enter Diagon Alley, which has been turned into a Dickensian nightmare. Ragged and maimed beggars plead for knuts and to insist that they are wizards. They are.

Is she actually trying to suggest that living on the streets of Diagon Alley is far preferable to a Muggleborn than going back to their Muggle parents/siblings for help? Presumably they're not all lone-child orphans?

God dammit Rowling why must you suck so hard.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Is she actually trying to suggest that living on the streets of Diagon Alley is far preferable to a Muggleborn than going back to their Muggle parents/siblings for help? Presumably they're not all lone-child orphans?

Unfortunately all the Muggle relatives were memory-charmed and no longer recognize their wizard kin.