PoA Chapter Three

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Sure enough, a few streets away Harry collapses, unable to pull his trunk. Soon he’s panicking since he’s got nowhere to go and has just done serious magic that’s against the law. I’m sure by the end of the series Harry will have learned to control these kinds of impulsive outbursts. It’s not like he’ll come close to killing someone or throw any Crucios or be complimented for same.

While he waits for a deus ex machina, Harry indulges in another “life as an outcast” fantasy. These fantasies actually work early in the series, though, because he still believably feels genuinely powerless.

Props to Harry for his plan to bewitch his trunk, tie it to his broom, cover himself with the cloak and fly to London. Try to imagine DH Harry coming up with a plan that practical and proactive. It can’t be done.

This scene where Harry and Sirius first come face to face is surprisingly touching when you know the end. Except shouldn’t Sirius be stalking the Weasleys instead? Maybe he was just pulled in Harry’s direction because everything revolves around him eventually.

The Knight Bus appears, run by a teenaged, pimply Stan Shunpike, future Death Eater.

Stan drops his professional manner and starts talking in a cockney accent. With a delightful speech pattern like that he could never be evil!

Harry gives his name as Neville Longbottom, which is, like, symbolic because Neville could have been the prophecy boy. And also because we now know that Neville is much more heroic.

Let’s think about Stan for a minute here, since he did become kind of a confusing character for people like me who think the good guys are very often nuts. The only thing we know about Stan’s politics is that he once “bragged” to a girl that he was a DE. Which would indicate he thinks that’s something impressive. But everyone on the good side seemed to dismiss the idea he could be straight off—why? Because Stan’s stupid and bumbling? Aren’t many DEs the same? Because he has an accent and speaks in slang? Like Crabbe and Goyle? Why are people like Harry so convinced he couldn’t join Voldemort based on a few conversations as he drove a bus? Harry’s offended anyone would even investigate him.

Stan refers to the Muggles contemptuously as “Them.” Nope, no possible bigotry there.

Okay, to be fair, being contemptuous of people for not having magic isn’t considered bigotry in this universe. After all, Muggles really are inferior. And they really don’t notice nuffink, they don’—especially when it’s magically invisible. And if they do notice, they don’t remember they did once they’ve been memory charmed. Idiots.

Harry recognizes Sirius from the Muggle news. Again—who is this boy? He saw that news report a week ago. DH Harry can’t place a picture of Grindelwald from one chapter to the next.

Sirius is the most infamous prisoner ever? Is that just because everyone Harry knows must be described in exaggerated terms? Given what we see Wizards do it doesn’t seem like he should be that big a deal.

I love the little dig at Muggle guns here: “a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other”—as if Wizards don’t use wooden wands to do everything but kill each other several times a day. Muggles are just so violent.

Harry thinks Sirius looks like a vampire. Must be because he’s the sexiest of the Marauders.

Sirius allegedly murdered 13 people with one curse. Kind of puts Avada Kedavra to shame, doesn’t he? How come the DEs weren’t throwing those around in the final battle? Or at the MoM?

Come on, nobody mentions that Sirius was James Potter’s best friend? Wouldn’t that be part of the story any time it was told? Given how interested people allegedly are in the minutia of Harry’s life you’d think all the stories would include that. But it’s like everyone’s interested in Harry and not at all interested in anybody with any relationship to him except briefly Hermione. (And even she gets forgotten soon enough.)

Harry refers to Hagrid as one of the bravest people he knows. Hmmm. He’s also the stupidest. I think the two are related.

Of course Hagrid’s braveness will be outstripped by Snape, the bravest man Harry ever knew blah blah blah.

Harry worries on the bus about whether he’ll be put in jail for what he did. In a shocking twist, no one immediately appears to take the focus off his own wrongdoing and put it on someone wronging him. He actually sits there thinking that he’s in trouble without drowning it in thoughts of how justified he was and the pleasure he feels at Aunt Marge’s suffering. Who is this kid?

I guess part of growing up is growing out of that childish notion that everyone might not validate your rightness all the time.

Don’t worry, this Harry hasn’t gone completely insane. He’s not, like, worried about Aunt Marge or feeling disturbed by the loss of control, whatever the cause. He’s not disturbed by the kind of violence his rage wrought or planning to control himself in the future. But just the fact that he’s expecting punishment without getting all the more angry and therefore getting even angrier at Aunt Marge herself is, well, strange for Harry.

Fudge assures Harry Marge’s memory has been modified. For some reason they don’t modify the Dursleys’ memories. As badly as the Dursleys behave, they do somehow get themselves better treatment than most Muggles. Maybe constantly lobotomizing the Dursleys would be too creepy even for JKR.

Harry actually reminds Fudge he ought to be punished. Just think about that for a second. Harry’s reminded someone he *ought to be punished.*

Fudge explains that justice in the Wizarding World is completely based on who you know and what they need from you at the moment, and right now Fudge wants to suck up to him. Harry’s fragile sense of accountability gives up the ghost, never to be seen again.

The shocks just keep coming. Harry thinks it’s unusual that the Minister of Magic would get involved in a matter of underage magic. By DH he’d find it odd if the Minister of Magic wasn’t involved in anything Harry did.

Fudge refuses to sign Harry’s permission slip for Hogsmeade, though, because he’s not his parent or guardian and rules are rules even if laws are suggestions. W.T.F.?

I’m assuming his refusal is really a hint that he’s trying to keep him at school because of Sirius, but I love that it can be hidden because this is actually believable in this world, that the MoM would have powers that extend to arbitrarily applying laws to suit himself, but not so far as to signing school permission slips.

Hedwig’s waiting for Harry. She’s a very smart owl. Just not smart enough to ditch Harry before she gets killed.


Things that happen twice:

We hear again about Hedwig being an awesome pet who loves Harry because of the animal theme—a theme that also applies to Sirius the animagus too.

Harry dreams of a life of woe after his mistake, much like he did in PS/SS after he went after Neville’s Rememberall.

This is the second time Harry gets hauled in for underaged magic so that we can see that Fudge is giving him special treatment.

The first of many false name scenes. This time Harry gives his name as Neville Longbottom, the other boy born at the end of July to people who thrice defied Voldemort.

By the end of this chapter Harry has already worried far more about getting in trouble for accidentally blowing up Aunt Marge than he worried about accidentally eviscerating Malfoy. For those who think he shows no development.

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

Stan Shunpike
Status: If you think it was fired you're probably a bad guy. He's so obviously innocent!
Stan winds up some sort of poster child for unfair arrests, but might also be one of the few people in Potter history arrested while actually being guilty.

Sirius Black
Status: Fired.
Remember when his name was mentioned in PS/SS? Bang!

Ripper
Status: Fired.
When Snape sees this memory in Harry’s head we can totally say, OMG, I remember that story about Ripper from back in PoA!





Atomic Grenade
Invented by Peter Pettigrew, apparently.

"Fruit Cart, Fruit Cart!"
I’m sure plenty of fruit went rolling when the carts jumped out of the way of the Knight Bus.

Idiot World
Seriously, the Minister of Magic shouldn’t be getting involved in cases of underage magic. Yes, even if the kid was involved with some weirdness involving Voldemort or is possibly being stalked by the prisoner you’re trying to capture only for some reason you don’t just tell him that.

IITS
I guess maybe Peter just never taught the other DEs how to easily take out a dozen people with one spell without even aiming at them.

Nut o’ Fun
If Harry’s got to sit and stew about his problems, he might as well do it in a purple bus with magical powers.

Jabutoo Score: 5

Comments

[tevye-cat.livejournal.com]

Where are you getting the timeline for Nott? I haven't heard any of this. Is it from an interview, or something? Sorry to just jump in here, but I'm genuinely curious.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Albus mentions Nott and a couple of other supposed DEs staying at the Hogs Head with Tom when Tom came to ask for the DADA post.

Of course we don't even know whether they had started even calling themselves DEs back then.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Nott was one of the DEs who was at the Hog's Head when Tom Riddle was interviewing for the DADA job with Dumbledore, shortly after the latter became headmaster. The time of this interview is probably the winter of 1956-7 based on Minerva's statement that in December 1995 she will have been teaching for 39 years. If you think the date when Minerva started teaching is unrelated to Dumbledore becoming headmaster (for instance if Dumbleodre taught a different subject for a while) then the interview can be placed later, but in any case it took place shortly after Tom's return to the country and before the war even started officially.

[tevye-cat.livejournal.com]

Okay, I remember that whole Hog's Head thing, but I in no way remember Albus testifying against anyone and them getting off in the 1950s. The only Death Eater trials I can remember being mentioned in canon are after Voldemort gets himself vaporized. That's what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear. And, didn't Albus refer to them sarcastically as Tom's 'friends' in that scene? I don't think they were openly calling themselves Death Eaters at that point anyway.

[oryx_leucoryx]

OK, so Dumbledore knew Nott was a Death Eater whenever it was that Voldemort interviewed (the name of the organization was already in use back then) and in GOF Fudge says Nott was cleared. Which means he was investigated at some point. And Dumbledore was member of the Wizengamot. So either he kept mum (why?) or he said what he knew and it still wasn't enough. Perhaps Nott's story was that he was a member when he was much younger and he left or something, and there was no evidence of recent involvement by him.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Here's another place where one of Rowling's pronouncements on how the world works makes no sense at all.

Albus claimed at the end of CoS that hardly anyone knows (or remembers) that "Lord Voldemort" was once a Hogwarts student named Tom Riddle.

Excuse me? In a society the size of what she claims the WW is? Given that we are dealing with an organization which was almost exclusively made up of his old school followers and their descendants? Nobody knows?

Is he supposed to have come back with his new face and new name and reeled them in with a con and they had no idea who he was. We never get any plausible reason to believe that this is how he put together the original DEs. I think they all knew *exactly* who he was, and were, if anything, impressed that whatever he had been messing with was powerful enough to have had such visible effects.

But even the WW needs to have actual crimes as reasons for putting people behind bars during peacetime. During the war, i suspect that there may have been few trials indeed, since most perps were caught in the act and packed off before teatime. But when names came up in investigations of *other* people then you had to be able to draw a clear line between the names and the crimes.

By that time it would have been easy to say "well, yeah, we were at school together, and he got in touch after he was traveling abroad for a number of years and we kept in touch, and I agreed with what he had to say. I mean I've known that all my life, but well, it was all just talk, wasn't it? And unless you had a witness to put you at a crime scene how was anyone going to prove it? It would have been way too late for Priori Incantitum.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Albus claimed at the end of CoS that hardly anyone knows (or remembers) that "Lord Voldemort" was once a Hogwarts student named Tom Riddle.

One of the people who certainly knew the identity of this newcomer calling himself Voldemort was Albus himself. The one who insisted people call him by his real name 'Voldemort'. Why not by his actual real name 'Tom Riddle'? A non-mysterious name, and one that does not appear in 'Nature's Nobility'? Well, Rowling wanted to keep that revelation to her second book and wrote herself into a corner. Because she has Dumbledore collaborating with Riddle in keeping his identity and ancestry secret and supporting his mystique. Was that to make sure Dumbledore will always be needed to save Wizarding Britain? Or to conceal his failures in the past from letting him attend Hogwarts without warning anyone on staff, his failure to mention that Tom had the ability to control a beast that could have killed Myrtle and attacked the other students, perhaps also failures to expose the man who murdered the Riddles and Mrs Smith and who framed Morphin and Hokey.

DiaryTom says he was known as Voldmeort to his close associates in his school days. I wonder what he told them about his ancestry. The second generation find it plausible that he was a pureblood (Bellatrix thought the idea he wouldn't be one was preposterous).

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Was that to make sure Dumbledore will always be needed to save Wizarding Britain? Or to conceal his failures in the past from letting him attend Hogwarts without warning anyone on staff, his failure to mention that Tom had the ability to control a beast that could have killed Myrtle and attacked the other students, perhaps also failures to expose the man who murdered the Riddles and Mrs Smith and who framed Morphin and Hokey.
Yes, I think so.

But isn´t it possible that Dumbledore wanted to drive Voldemort insane by (a) ringing the bell of the Trace put on the name inside his head as often as possible, and (b) reminding him that he, DD, did not fear him and wanted him to come and duel? ;o))

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

You mean the Taboo. The Trace is only on underaged wizards. And frankly, I don't think there was any kind of Taboo the first time around. I don't think Tom had the resources to impose anything like that until he had the *Ministry's* resources at his command.

*However* the fact that the Ministry could do something like that, and probably had at some point in ww history is probably why people were so squeamish about speaking of him in the first place.Because nobody knew just how personally powerful Voldemort was -- and he certainly wasn't going to say anything that might reassure them!

Of course it renders Albus's whole "bravery" in saying the name totally bogus since Albus was behind the wards at Hogwarts and even if Tom *could* send minions to carry away anyone who used his name, no one was going to be apparating in to do that *there*.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

The Taboo, yes. Thank you, I knew I got somethink wrong. :-)
So you think Voldemort or his DE were not appearing whenever somebody had spoken the V word and the fear originated from something similar the ministry had done in some another case? Hmm... pity, it was such a lovely mental image: "Who was it? Eeee, YOU, Dumbledore, again. Stop it. I am NOT going to Hogwarts." :-D

[oryx_leucoryx]

I think what we see in DH is that the Taboo was a new thing that Voldemort did not have in the first war and only installed when he took the Ministry over - it is used for the first time the night of the wedding (that's how Dolohov and Rowle found the kids in the cafe), Kingsley and the others are caught by surprise by it. When Remus visits the kids in 12GP he still doesn't know what it is and how it works (he doesn't know how the kids got found), when Ron gets them to stop saying Voldemort he had no reason except that it felt wrong. Only after his stay at Bill's he knew that there was actual magic connected with saying Voldemort's name.

In the first war Voldmeort did not control the Ministry so had no way of building such a mechanism. At most, and this is entirely fan speculation, he may have been monitoring people saying his name near people with Dark Marks - if true he could know which of his own servants were interacting with Dumbledore and some of his close supporters.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I rather suspect that the mark itself always worked as we saw it in GHs. The connection went both ways and that the DEs could call him if needed -- although I suspect they soon learned that that was only to be done by prearangement.

It's not much of a stretch to extrapolate that it also served as a listening device, but we haven't really got any evidence to support the hypothesis.

But, yeah, clearly the Ministry *can* impose something like the Taboo. I'm just unconvinced that anyone *but* the Ministry ever had the resources to do it.

But knowing that such a thing is possible would be enough to give a lot of people the whim-whams. The ww is pretty gutless, after all. No wonder they place such a hig premium on anything that looks like courage.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, the fact is that Tom himself didn't *know* that he was a halfblood until he tracked Morfin down and got the story from him. And he didn't do that until he was about 15.

He clearly expected as much, but he was probably secretive enough to not share that suspicion with anyone once he picked up how the "ruling class" felt about mixed blood. All he would have said is that his mother died and he was sent to a Muggle orphanage.

Indeed, until his 4th year, he may have still been under his first impression that it was his father who had been magical, since if his mother had been she would have lived. But it wasn't until he finally started looking through the genologies for wizards named Marvolo that he got onto the trail of the Gaunts. It was Morfin that told him of his glorious Slytherin ancestry.

[oryx_leucoryx]

He did wear the Peverell ring when he acquired it. In Terri's fics his version is more or less that he was the bastard son of a pureblood family, he met his relatives during the summer, they are not yet ready to acknowledge him publicly but they did give him this family heirloom.