PoA Chapter Two

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That’s Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake, not Harry’s. You might get confused when he starts blowing people up.

So the Dursleys have bought Dudley a happy summer present. A new TV in the kitchen so he doesn’t have to walk too far from fridge to TV. I hope Dudley doesn’t become overweight from such a sedentary, high-fat lifestyle.

Harry has no interest in TV and never misses it when he’s at school. Neither does Hermione. Exploding Snap FTW! (Seriously, that’s how they spend their time instead. When they’re not polishing narrow sticks of wood.)

Dudley has piggy eyes and five wobbling chins and eats continually. All sure signs of a lazy, greedy character.

Vernon shows a rare flash of logic when he complains the TV news hasn’t told anyone where Sirius Black has escaped from, so they have little way of knowing where he might be. Unfortunately this is only to draw attention to it for us so we’re prepared to learn he escaped from Azkaban.

I say a flash of logic because let’s face it, this kind of report would demand telling viewers exactly what this guy did and when and why nobody’s ever heard of him if he’s the scariest criminal ever.

Harry disdainfully thinks that Petunia would love to call the hotline number. You have to give her a break there, Harry. Muggles lives are really boring. We don’t have half as many sticks to polish.

Vernon goes on about capital punishment, being all conservative and setting himself against Harry’s more liberal view of granting people total absolution based on what their choices show him they are, and the cozy knowledge that those who oppose him will be punished forever in the afterlife. Those in between will be punished by Hermione with facial scarring.

Harry’s been forced to call Aunt Marge “Aunt” all his life despite not being blood related to her. On the one hand—so what? Otoh, that’s strange for the Dursleys, isn’t it? Wouldn’t they make a point of not letting Harry call her the same thing as Dudley since Harry’s not actually their child?

Aunt Marge rarely leaves her house because she can’t stand to leave her precious dogs, the adjective there making it clear that she cares about them more than people. Ironically, compared to Hagrid she’s a reasonable pet owner.

Ripper kept Harry treed until past midnight? I’m surprised the dog didn’t wind up strewn all over England via accidental magic. And that no neighbors came by and put a stop to that.

The Dursleys are far too nice to Dudley and far too mean to Harry. If they could only balance the two, they’d be good parents.

I’m impressed Vernon was able to find a Victorian school for Incurably Criminal Boys in the late 20th century to which he could pretend to send Harry. Unless he made up the name himself, in which case I’m impressed by his Dickensian turn of phrase.

Harry is also genuinely impressive in bargaining with Vernon to sign his permission form. Until he forgets to make Vernon sign the form right then and there. D’oh! So close, Harry!

Hedwig looks reproachfully at Harry for telling her to clear off. Get used to getting screwed in this relationship, Hedwig.

Aunt Marge has a moustache. Why am I not surprised?

You know who won’t be growing any moustaches later in life? Ginny Weasley Potter that’s who!

Let’s pause and take a snapshot of Dudley walking—I mean waddling—down the hall. His hair’s plastered to his fat head and his bow tie is barely visible under those many chins. He also has a fat fist. He’s just a big blobby thing jiggling through the house, that Dudley. I’m shocked he never actually fell through the floor.

Aunt Petunia quietly dies inside watching Ripper drool on the kitchen floor. She hates animals, which doesn’t speak well of her. To be fair, I love animals and I’m not so fond of bodily fluids on the kitchen floor either.

Marge owns a dog with an evil-tempered bulldog that chases Harry. The theme of animals and their pet owners who don’t take responsibility for them is starting off strong!

Btw, when Harry got treed by Ripper? It was for accidentally treading on his tail. So we’ve already had one example of a kid accidentally provoking an animal attack by being careless. Only in one case the animal’s a jerk and so is his owner and in the other the animal’s a victim and so is his owner. Guess which is which?

Harry tries to smile at Aunt Marge and gets accused of smirking. Can’t help but make me wonder if this explains why Slytherins are incapable of smiling normally. A smirk is in the eye of the beholder.

Aunt Marge goes off on namby-pamby, wishy-washy nonsense about not hitting people who deserve it. Is this one of these cases where we spend the first couple of chapters criticizing the Dursleys for attitudes we’ll celebrate once we get to Hogwarts? Because Harry et al. totally agree with Marge here.

Speaking of which, Aunt Marge with her Colonel neighbors and bulldogs seems like she’d adore Hogwarts. But since she doesn’t belong there according to her blood, she ought to just stop that.

Aunt Marge on breeding: If there’s something wrong with the bitch, there’ll be something wrong with the pup —” I hope everyone’s paying attention here. This is exactly the type of thing that’s going to be proven so incredibly untrue in the rest of the…oh, wait. That’s mostly true to an alarming degree. Err…Sirius Black! Sirius was the white sheep of his family! Totally proves heredity is nothing! Pay no attention to everyone else!

Maybe I’ve read too much slash, because I wish Harry would find some other way to keep his mind off Aunt Marge than by thinking about do it yourself broomstick care.

Last night of the visit: Everybody has a huge face except Harry. It’s like Harry the teaspoon at a table with three frying pans. And a horse. (That’s Petunia.)

Harry starts to lose it over Marge’s words about his father, though sadly I can’t really empathize with him. Obviously she’s being rude and cruel, but it just feels like one of those moments where you say: Look, you know it’s not true, so don’t let it bother you. Especially since the guy Marge is describing is in some ways an improvement over the real James.

At least Harry’s more recognizable when he’s overcome with rage.

Aunt Marge also has piggy eyes. It must be a Dursley trait. Or a fat people trait. Their eyes are either piggy or gooseberry. Their eyes either sink into or pop out of the fat on their fat faces.

Petunia and Lily, of course, have no resemblance to each other at all. Given the way looks seem to work in this series, I wonder if one Evans parent was really homely and the other really attractive.

Now that he’s started going berserk, Harry figures he might as well go completely psycho and points his wand at everybody. Sectumsempra! Oh wait, he doesn’t know that one yet. Damn!

“She deserved it!” Harry says. Let’s have none of that namby-pamby, wishy-washy nonsense about not blowing up people who deserve it!

Unfortunately this incident will require yet another Ministry scene, because remember, the government only exists to irritate YOU.

Btw, Vernon has been bitten by Ripper, so we’ve also already had our first animal attack.

It is a very nice image of Harry leaving the house with his ridiculous bird cage and broom, dragging his trunk with him, probably huffing angrily down the street and getting no further than half a block before he has to stop.

Things that happen twice:

Harry and Vernon would both like Marge to control Ripper. Later we’ll see similar problems with Crookshanks (and Buckbeak). Aunt Marge refuses to believe her pet could do wrong, the same attitude taken by Hagrid, Hermione and Ron in the book.

The book starts with Harry resenting having to call Aunt Marge family when she’s not. He’ll end the book by meeting his only real family in canon, a guy who isn’t actually related to him.

The Ripper incident remembered here will again appear in OotP when Snape teaches (or tries to teach) Harry Occlumency.

Aunt Marge’s thoughts on dog breeding, and the resemblance of the 3 biological Dursleys, are setting up a book that introduces backstory about James where Snape will see resemblances between him and Harry.

Aunt Marge falsely accuses James of being a good-for-nothing—false accusations will be a theme throughout the book (Crookshanks, Sirius, and everyone keeps claiming Buckbeak).

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!

Azkaban
The Wizard prison, Goyle. Honestly, if you were any slower you’d be going backwards.
Status: Misfire. It comes up a lot, but we never go there. We hear it will drive anyone mad, but people keep returning from it no worse for wear.

Sirius Black
Status: Fired and missed! He turned out to be an important guy from Harry’s past, but had no part to play in Dumbledore’s plan, so got shoved out of the book through a curtain—which is also a dud. The veil, that is.




The Borgnine Proviso
He’s playing Aunt Marge.

Informed Attributes
This chapter is a great early example of the kind of violent love Harry will become known for in later books.

Jason’s Rule of Explosive Endings
Well, eventually he had to blow something up to get out of the house, after all. Might as well be Marge.

Jabootu Score: 3

Comments

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

You forgot about one pet that got out of control: Lupin.

You could think of Draco/Buckbeak as sort of echoing the Prank. Snape was being obnoxious and the Marauder's pet werewolf went after him. Afterwards, Snape was given the bulk of the blame for the incident, rather than Black--who allowed the attack, and Dumbledore, who refused to take proper responsibility for introducing a wild animal into Hogwarts (for a few night every month).

I have to say that I do like one thing about JKR's mindset. Her animals are animals. And they don't take sides on the whole good/evil divide. The "evil" people may deserve their punishment more, but they don't really get attacked because they deserve it but because animals are inherently dangerous.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The entire Marauders quartet was a matter of animals getting out of control. Remus was the most obvious, but didn't they think of Peter as a pet rat they could use to scout the castle (who got the Slytherin common room onto the Map?) and stop the Willow who unexpectedly developed an agenda of his own to their detriment? Sionna Raven described Sirius and James as a dog and his boy - and when the dog acted on his own he messed things up.

I have to say that I do like one thing about JKR's mindset. Her animals are animals. And they don't take sides on the whole good/evil divide. The "evil" people may deserve their punishment more, but they don't really get attacked because they deserve it but because animals are inherently dangerous.

It's that 'good' animal lovers accept the injuries lovingly. Or expect everyone else to do so.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha! Lupin is a pet out of control, or at least his werewolf half is.

One of the things I think is annoying about the Buckbeak set up is that he actually is acting like a human when he attacks Draco, only because he's doing what everyone would want to do to him for exactly the same reason.

But in general the crazy thing about it is that Hagrid is immediately exonnerated, while Draco and Buckbeak then battle it out for who's 'at fault' (with Draco losing). The two parties who have built in excuses for not being responsible (one's an animal and one's a 13-year-old with no experience with animals) are the only two concentrated on. The guy paid to be responsible gets a pass straight off. Nobody even suggests that Hagrid might save Buckbeak if he blamed himself.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Nobody even suggests that Hagrid might save Buckbeak if he blamed himself.

I know. That's one of the things that gets me about that plotline. I've actually wondered if this isn't what Lucius might actually have been *aiming* for. Hagrid's protected by Dumbledore? Well, maybe he can get him out of that job as a teacher by targeting the hippogriff.

However, Hagrid didn't think of it, and if Dumbledore did, then he presumably cares more about Hagrid's job than Buckbeak's life. Not that Dumbledore wouldn't prefer to keep Buckbeak alive, obviously; he just cares more about Hagrid keeping his job as a teacher.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Of course Lucius, being Lucius, used the situation in order to have a "reason" to be haunting the Ministry and build himself some new influence, now that he was off the Board of school Governors.

But yeah. If Hagrid had taken the blame he's have probably been put on probation, which Kettleburn seems to have had done about half a dozen times in an average year, and taught for decades.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Of course Lucius, being Lucius, used the situation in order to have a "reason" to be haunting the Ministry and build himself some new influence, now that he was off the Board of school Governors.

Oh, yes. I really like your theories about what Lucius was up to during PoA and GoF.

It would be tempting to say that Hagrid and Dumbledore inadvertently helped Lucius by refusing to take responsibility and protecting Hagrid, respectively. Lucius could probably have found another reason to spend a lot of time in the Ministry, though.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Oh, he undoubtedly would have. Draco handed him one by acting the fool and getting savaged by what was basically a wild animal. But he'd have found some issue that he needed to weigh in on at the Ministry.

This one was much better than something he might have invented himself. Here he had a perfectly legitmate reason to enact the concerned parent, over an incident that had indeed taken place before a whole class group of witnesses.

The Hagrid angle is just plain odd, however. Only the term before Lucius had been where to see the fellow packed off to Azkaban on suspicion of being involved with the monster that was petrifying children. And yet we never get any impression that Lucius Malfoy bears Hagrid any persona grudge. Even though Hagrid must have become groundskeepter during the time that Malfoy was at Hogwarts. No impression of any kind of backstory at all.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

The Hagrid angle is just plain odd, however. Only the term before Lucius had been where to see the fellow packed off to Azkaban on suspicion of being involved with the monster that was petrifying children. And yet we never get any impression that Lucius Malfoy bears Hagrid any persona grudge. Even though Hagrid must have become groundskeepter during the time that Malfoy was at Hogwarts. No impression of any kind of backstory at all.

Hagrid is the weakest link, in a lot of ways, so he keeps getting hit when Lucius or someone else wants to get at Dumbledore. In CoS, his personal history and fondness for dangerous animals leads to his getting unjustly sent to Azkaban. In PoA, his lack of responsibility causes him trouble. In GoF, Rita Skeeter writes a negative article about him because of his giant ancestry, and because he was irresponsible and cross-bred dangerous animals illegally. In OotP, Umbridge put him on probation on the grounds that he didn't teach very well, and possibly again because of his ancestry.

So, I don't know that there really needs to be a backstory between Lucius and Hagrid. Lucius may well not regard Hagrid as anything more than a pawn. He wouldn't be the only one.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Oh -- it was Fudge who was behind sending Hagrid to Azkaban. Lucius was there to tell Dumbledore the governors had decided to suspend him. Not that I think Lucius objected to Hagrid's being sent to Azkaban, particularly after Hagrid shouted accusations at him in front of the Minister and Headmaster. But we don't know that Lucius did anything to focus any attention on Hagrid in particular.

Er. Although Hagrid does dislike Lucius. Hagrid *greets* him in that chapter with:

“What’re you doin’ here?” said Hagrid furiously. “Get outta my house!”

And this is also the book where Hagrid says "Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that — no Malfoy’s worth listenin’ ter — bad blood, that’s what it is..." Still, that could simply be Hagrid disliking Lucius for his DE past.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

That's fair enough. Even though Hagrid can barely read, the news that Lucius Malfoy had been caught as a DE probably was news he wouldn't have forgotten. Even after a decade.

My own impression, which may be off, is that Lucius probably looked down his nose at Hagrid, as a mere servant, and paid no further attention to him while at Hogwarts. And afterwards was perfectly willing to see him continue as groundskeeper.

In this case it was Albus who was not keeping his pet under control.

[oryx_leucoryx]

So the list of out-of-control pets in the series:
Ripper - Marge's. Trees Harry, bites Vernon. Marge doesn't see any wrong in either. She even gives him alcohol.

Aragog - was raised by Hagrid. Was wrongfully suspected in Myrtle's death, but in any case was a class XXXXX magical creature (known wizard killer). For raising him in the castle Hagrid was expelled and forbidden to do magic. Was released into the forest, where Hagrid brought him a female companion, allowing the formation of a huge colony of murderous animals. (These animals caused some distraction during the battle. Their most significant action was the capture of Hagrid.)

Fluffy - introduced by Hagrid, brought into the castle with Dumbledore's approval. Not exactly out of control - was kept chained, but a student that wandered into his reach was in danger.

Norbert(a) - hatched by Hagrid. Bit Ron and caused him to be hospitalized, caused some minor fires in Hagrid's hut. The kids recognized the danger and arranged for transportation to a suitable place, though in the process they brought the dragon into the castle without any precautions to prevent it from getting away. (For their age and level of training the kids were reasonably OK, considering that neither Hagrid nor Charlie thought of any of that, but really it would have been more responsible to give Norbert a sleeping draught or something prior to transfer.)

Buckbeak - raised by Hagrid, chosen by him for demonstration to kids on their very first COMC lesson. Slashed Draco (who wasn't following directions - but how clear were those?). After a lengthy procedure was sentenced to be put down but was smuggled away by the kids (and Sirius). Eventually returned to Hogwarts, attacked Severus in HBP and the giants in DH. Hagrid retained his teaching post.

Skrewts - bred illegally by Hagrid. Caused burns to students who were required to care for them. Being experimental creatures correct method of care was not known. All but two died over the course of the year. One was used in the Triwizard maze. Fate of last remaining one unknown. Hagrid retained his teaching post.

Does Grawp count as a pet?

Remus Lupin - arrangements for keeping him in the area while transformed made by Dumbledore (if he was taken off grounds anyway, why not Apparate him home?) These arrangements were sabotaged by the Marauders, who set him loose on castle and Hogsmeade residents. Remus admits to *many* close calls. Severus nearly killed. Neither of the Marauders were held responsible (but Severus was forbidden or prevented from talking). No changes were made to Remus' arrangement. While Remus claimed to be haunted by the 'what ifs' (yet still remained irresponsible with his potion) Sirius didn't think much of it except that it served Severus right.

Peter/Wormtail/Scabbers - thought of as somewhat useful pet by his friends. Until he went and betrayed them to death or imprisonment respectively. Became a pet of the Weasleys. Was better as a rat than as a human.

Crookshanks - Hermione's. Developed murderous behavior towards Scabbers (but he had a good reason?). Hermione didn't believe he could have possibly killed Scabbers.

Trevor - Nevile's. Keeps escaping yet Neville does nothing to prevent him from getting where he does not belong. Neville even brings him to Potions class, where his presence could distract students or interfere with their work, where he might end up in a cauldron, destroy potions, cause explosions and what not. Used by Severus to teach Neville a lesson - I hope he learned it. (Do we ever see Trevor again after this lesson?)

Any others?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, probably any number of random creatures tormented by the twins(most notably that salamander) but I don't know that we could call them pets.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

How about Arnold the Pygmy Puff-Skein whose sole purpose in life was to show Ginny's maternal as an animal lover?

And, didn't the twins do something to a pet puff-skein of Ron's once?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Used it for Bludger practice. They'd have all been pretty young, since it was early in the series that we were told of it. But still.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Reviewing oryx's post, which was about out-of-control pets, would that make the twins out-of-control pets?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Out of control, certainly.

One belatedly feels a degree of respect for Peter Pettigrew for managing to dodge them for close to a dozen years. I mean, I'm sure Percy was far more protective than Ron, but it would have still taken some dodging.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

And without biting them, which I'm sure would have meant his end.