The Deathly Hallows Sporking Community

Emergency Post

gehayi — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:13:03 GMT

Just making a post to save the comm and all its incredibly detailed sporkings. I'd hate to have the comm annihilated for inactivity, and LJ is going to start deleting inactivate accounts soon.

Also, communities are considered inactive if they have only one new post with no comments. So please...comment on this post to let LJ know we're still here.

ETA: I've already said this in a couple of comments, but I'm adding it to the original post. LJ edited their announcement. This is what they initially said:

A journal is defined as inactive if it has not been logged into for 24 consecutive months and has only one post (i.e., the welcome post). A community is defined as inactive if has not been updated for 24 consecutive months.

Now it reads:

A journal is defined as inactive if it has not been logged into for 24 consecutive months and has only one post (i.e., the welcome post). A community is defined as inactive if has not been updated for 24 consecutive months and has only one entry and no comments.

The bolded clause wasn't there when I saw their first announcement. I'm guessing there were objections.

Time For A New Product

exhpfan — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:59:51 GMT

I don't know how many ex Harry Potter Fans there are in the world caused by the extremely disappointing Deathly Hallows, but it seems clear to me that it is time for a New Product to replace Harry Potter in the Witch and Wizard fantasy genre. I am not an author. I don't read fanfiction, and I'm not making this post to advertize or suggest any particular book or series. I am just curious how many ex Harry Potter fans are still around reading fanfiction and just waiting to go back on the Harry Potter fansites and compare the idiotic Harry Potter plot in Deathly Hallows to a more realistic and reasonable witch and wizard plotline.

"All was Well"

erastes — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:39:16 GMT

I consider that, in years to come, this particular phrase will be discussed and dissected by people more educated than I, and will (if Potterfiction stays as popular) be considered to be one of the greatest literary lies ever. For me it ranks along with "All animals are created equal" and will – just as that phrase was shown to be a nonsense –lose any credibility it has.

For this discussion, I'm using the book only. Not chats or filler information about things that Jo knows.

There's so much wrong with the assertion that all is well I hardly know where to start. But start we must.

Wizard Society.

What has changed here? Anything? It sure doesn't look like it.

So I'm assuming that House Elves are still enslaved by wizards, Goblins are still uneasy about wizard ownership of Goblin-made treasures, the Centaurs are still being ignored and shoved into reservations. Werewolves are dangerous three days a month, there is a potion available to remove their threat, but instead they are still being treated as animals. Look how relieved everyone is that Teddy isn't a werewolf. Giants have been fighting with Voldemort, so THEY aren't likely to be forgiven for that.

Wizards then, have learned nothing about treating the other sentient races with any more respect - or, yanno, as EQUALS. This is more wrong when you look at the fact that it's quite likely that most of these races are older than humans, so to the sentient races, Britain is no better than America or Australia when it comes to infiltration and assimilation. I'm not completely surprised about this, though - although I'm disgusted - because the Last Stand was so...insular. I wrote a drabble a few years back concerning the Last Battle, and I completely over-estimated its size and grandeur. I imagined that every wizard and witch who had ever loved Hogwarts would come rushing to aid - imagine one curse screamed by a thousand throats? But it was literally - what? twenty or so adults and perhaps a hundred kids. Yeah. Right. Oh - and some desks.

So, keeping the whole thing so very secret like this (I would imagine that no-one even knew about it outside Hogsmeade until it was all over) there was no reason to change anything. Why should they? There's nothing wrong with the society is there? Carry on as normal. Lets just ignore people like Umbridge who didn't have to be evil to start ethnic cleansing, or Runcorn who will probably only say he was "obeying orders." Somehow it seems more important to introduce Harry Potter: The Next Generation, than to reassure us that all is, actually, well.

There will still be the Wizengamot. There will still be the right of imprisonment without trial. There will still be the right of execution without trial. There will be no "right to remain silent" as it's so easy to force the "accused" to speak against their will.

The place is still a self-obsessed, blinkered "oligarchy" where cleverness might be the traits that they once sought in their leaders, but the leaders have been weaker and weaker until Fudge. Kingsley is a hopeful force, but I still think he's too tied to The Order of the Phoenix (and consequently DD's apron strings and portraits to be making any of his own decisions. What's the betting that there's a portrait of D in the Minister of Magic's office?

So no. No change there it seems.

Hogwarts

Surely there will be changes here? I looked towards the much advertised Epilogue with hopeful eyes. Lessons must have been learned, I thought. But … What do I see? The Sorting continues. It was inconceivable! I think this shocked me more than a lot of other things I read. The Sorting Hat CLEARLY says more than once, as we are told, that he considers the Sorting to be wrong, and for an artifact to advocate its own redundance means it really must have meant it. So why is no-one taking any notice?

I blame Minerva more a little in this instance. She was never a pro-active deputy head, never believed much of anything Harry said, didn't like to act without Dumbledore's presence or authorisation. I can see that she would never be the type of headmistress who would be brave enough to overturn 1000 years of tradition. But frankly it NEEDS it.

How can Slytherin ever regain their face? Not only were there many children (now all grown ups and presumably sending children of their own to the school) of Death Eaters in the House, but the misconception that they refused to fight against Voldemort will remain in the consciousness of the Wizarding World. When the lists of the dead and the fighters were named in the newspapers after fight - or when a memorial was raised at Hogwarts for the dead - there will be no Slytherins, and that will be a daily slap in the face for the House. Enough perhaps to lead to further dissent. Minerva did completely the wrong thing by throwing the entire House out without 1. Asking if anyone would like to stay (where's the redemption, Jo?) or 2) even checking with Slughorn - who did stay himself.

So, everything's still the same. There's pre-conceptions of house traits, there's bullying and there's "Gryffindor is best" still in the minds of our older and newer generation.

Not only is the Sorting still in place but the prejudice that goes hand in fist with the Sorting is still clear and present - even in so-called "liberal" families like the Weasleys. "If you're not in Gryffindor, we'll disinherit you, but no pressure" says Ron to his child. JKR shows clearly with this one sentence that she remembers nothing about being a child - or that she was never actually bullied at school. I tend to think this because of all the so-called "japes" of the Weasleys which are never described as bullying, but which clearly are. Apparently for JKR, bullying is only "bad" when done by the Slytherins. Whereas I (as a bullied child) recognise it very clearly in ALL of the other houses, particularly the ostricisation of Harry whenever they suspected him of foul play.

A New Dark Lord – or worse?

It's 19 years later and OMG are the conditions ripe for new trouble. Young Scorpius doesn't really stand a chance of being a good guy, does he? There'll be so much resentment in the Malfoy house. We never hear what happens to Lucius but I can't see how he stayed out of prison, money or no money. Draco probably had to take over the reins of his family too young, and his own sense of self-worth will be forever coloured by a boy who failed to do anything but offer himself as a sacrifice and then fail to die. I hardly see him telling Scorpius that it doesn't matter what House HE'S in, can you?

I found it interesting that Harry's kids didn't know the family history. Won't that be interesting for James or Albus or Lily to find out? You know what kids are like: WHY didn't he tell us? WHY does he like James/Albus more than me? WHY can't I go to Hogwarts when the BOYS can? What's all this about a wand, anyway?

But I see more trouble than a New Dark Lord. With their spectacular blinkered behaviour, failure to address any of the rottenness at the core of their own society, wizards are fated to continue to reap the rewards of their own idiocy, over and over again until someone with the balls to take charge, rips aside the faux-Victorian hypocrisy, and drives a fresh liberal wind through their world. Unless they do I can see major problems with the Sentient creatures, and I think that the next revolution that comes will drive from that direction, because there are - as far as I can see - far more creatures out there than there are wizards and I would imagine they are very very sick of being treated as third class citizens, kept down, CONTROLLED.

"All was well" - Fairly obviously not. But let's be honest, who is thinking this? Yes, Harry. Harry who has shown that empathy begins with an M and that nothing matters in the world, if it's not directly affecting him. He has the nuclear family, and a recreation of everything that he's lost or thinks he's lost. He can stay in the cocoon of his own making, and he doesn't have to think about the bigger issues. Of course - All Is Well for one selfish little toad. It always will be.

So - what do you think? There's a great many more reasons why I think All Isn't Well, but I'd like to hear some of yours.

Rec List.

gehayi — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:22:30 GMT

The post-spork discussion will be up later. In the meantime, this is where you can post recommendations for fic and art that deal with plotholes Rowling never filled, with the Wizarding World at war, with the aftermath of the war, with AUs and dystopias, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth...you get the idea.

Some stories have been suggested already, and are listed here. I've added a few others. As other suggestions are made, I'll add them to the master list. I figure that will be easier to find later; I don't think anyone likes having to scramble through comments for rec links.

MASTER LIST

Fanfic

At the Lord's Door by gehayi. In the afterlife's waiting room, Dead Dumbledore meets up with the other dead people of the series, and hears quite a few unwelcome truths about himself. Written pre-DH. Warning: not flattering to Canon Dumbledore. At ALL.

Awkward Questions by Amanuensis1. Scorpius Malfoy wants to know why he doesn't have a godfather. Gen.

Back Again, Harry? by Jedi Buttercup. WIP about a Harry who had gained all the Hallows and chose to use them by going back in time to his first year to prevent all those deaths.

Bewitchments and Charmes by sshg316. Books have always been Hermione's friend ... until one literally binds her to the insufferable Draco Malfoy. Freeing themselves seems impossible — will they be able to overcome the past or will they be stuck together forever? (Draco/Hermione)

Bonding Through House Elf Murder by Chess. A one-shot about the Black family when they were little. Author's summary:Bellatrix and Sirius try to stop Regulus and Kreacher from bonding. Yeah right, kids.

Chosen by gehayi. Written because I wondered what would happen if Harry died at the beginning of the seventh book. And then I wondered what would happen next.

Coda to an Epilogue by sarahtales. Read this one NOW, as it's coming down in September, along with a fair number of her other stories.

Deathly Hallows, Personal Version by va32h.

Deliver Me From My Friends by minkhollow Potterverse/Neverwhere crossover.

Dialogues With a Hat by jaelle_n_gilla. Neville, the two times he wore the Sorting Hat.

Disrupting Rituals by r_grayjoy. Illustrated by artisticentropy. EWE (Epilogue? What Epilogue?). Some rituals should be disrupted -- and perhaps even replaced with others. Warning: contains bondage, rimming, orgasm delay, dubious consent and snark. (Snape/Harry, NC-17)
[Note to LJ: the story takes place six years AFTER the seventh book, which makes Harry twenty-three years old and thus very definitely of age...even in California.]

Elanor_X's Favorite Fics' List.

Engineered Collisions by Anonymous. Provides a very unique explanation for Snape's survival, deals realistically with the epilogue developments and explores the phenomenon of Dumbledore's 'clever' planning going spectacularly wrong while hurting many innocents. Again. (Ron/Hermione, Snape/Hermione)

Epilogue by arrmaitee. The Jerry Springer version of the Epilogue, that is.

Everything's Fine, Beautiful Marchesa by Fidelia. Translated from the Russian. Draco writes a letter to his father.

femgenficathon's Harry Potter Stories for 2007. And 2006. And 2005.

The French Connection by Anonymous. Addresses the question of Snape's survival and deals with the lingering aftereffects of war and loss. All is not instantly well.

Get a Life by camillo1978. Deconstructs the 'happy' epilogue to reveal all the rot beneath. It also addresses the need for Wizarding laws to be overhauled and the question of Goblins' Rights.

The Golden Age by Arsinoe de Blassenville. What happened between the end of the war and the epilogue. WIP. Highly recommended.

Harry Potter Book 7: THE TRUE STORY by 0freedom. Another DH parody; this one goes chapter by chapter, and has LOLcat Bellatrix among other things.

The Human Condition by CK Talons.

In the Closet by Michi_Chu. Romance. Read the author's non-warning, as I can't improve on it.

In Vino Veritas by ellid. Order + Severus gets raucously drunk. Warning for grindylow abuse. (Snape/Lupin, Ron/Hermione, Tonks/Ginny)

In Which Severus Snape Learns That There Is Not One Afterlife by montavilla. The title says it all. Author's Warning: Rated XC for excessively good Snape.

A Letter from Prof. Snape by nehalenia. Snape tells a fan how much Jo got wrong.

Like Minds by skree-ratling. Mafia non-magic AU. (Snape/Lupin)

Lupin-Snape Resurrection Fest by various authors.

The Men that I Used to Sport With by Anonymous. Deconstructs all the flaws in the epilogue and also explores a number of plotholes from canon regarding the Resurrection Stone.

Mistful's Other Fics. As I said, read them now, because they'll only be around until September 2008.

Mum's Privilege by Amanuensis1. Ginny keeps naming the children after dead people. Harry/Ginny, post-DH, remembering Snape. Gen.

My Death? Complete Exaggeration by Mnemosyne. "The reports of my death were a complete exaggeration." (Snape/Lupin)

Never More by stasia. Competent, mature Harry in a supporting role. (Snape/Lupin, Harry/Ginny)

The One Who Survived by guardians_song. Harry really should have paid a LOT more attention to that flayed baby...

Ouroborous by lettered. A fic written about the Epilogue, and the way events have spun round, and round again. Creepy.

Plan B by gehayi. Voldemort lost the war...but Tom Riddle didn't. Written pre-DH. Gen.

Platform 9.99999999999999999999... by trickofthedark. In which Albus Dumbledore endures a rather special kind of Purgatory. Gen, aside from one slashy kiss.

Potterdammerung by Diogenes-Sinope. Deathly Hallows in fifteen minutes. And it's funny!

Random Mutterings at the Back by underlucius. Commentary by two Random Death Eaters--the Nobby Nobbs and Fred Colon of the wizarding world. Gen.

The Road Less Travelled by scoradh. Next-gen story focusing on Albus Severus. (And Dudley's child goes to Hogwarts.)

Shoulders of Giants by underlucius. (Dystopic AU, Lupin/Snape)

The Sacrifices Arc by Lightning_on_the_Wave.

Severance Pay by Carfiniel/Innerslytherin. Competent Tonks. (Snape/Lupin, Lupin/Tonks)

Severus Snape and the Disorderly Deathly Half-True Print by florahart. Snape tells Jo how much she got wrong. (Snape/Harry)

Severus Snape and the Half-Blood Prince by montavilla. Snape's backstory, as told through his own eyes. There's thirty chapters of story, so you'll have to go back a page to start at the beginning.

Snupin Santa stories by various authors.

Those I Can Save by bronze_ribbons. (Version illustrated by trickofthedark can be found here. (Lupin/Snape)

The Truer Office of Their Eyes by bronze_ribbons. Lupin, Tonks and Andromeda discuss what went wrong in DH. (Lupin/Tonks)

Untitled Potterverse/Sneakers crossover that absolutely, positively should not work. Except that it does. by minkhollow.

What We Did On Our Summer Holiday: A Comedy in Six Cities and Seven Acts by sahiya. (Harry/Ginny, Hermione/Ron, Ginny/Luna, Luna/Neville, Harry/Hermione/Ron, Ginny/Luna/Neville, Harry/?)

***

Fanart

The Comic that sydpad is TOTALLY NOT DOING.

And, because they kind of go together, seductivedark's stories based on sydpad's art. They start here, with Interview.

Epilogue -- Nineteen Years Later

gehayi — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:12:50 GMT

The Crapilogue was sporked by enolabloodygay. Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

***

Nineteen Years Later...

In which the Famous Five Meet the Secret Seven in Gull Cove...or something. And everything is just Grrrr-eat! And it makes me want to barf.

Oh good – it's still 1950, even though we have done the whole misty screen bit, everything's gone wavy, calendars have appeared on the screen, pages have been torn off to indicate the passing of time and –did anyone bring lashings and lashings of ginger beer?

No? Damn.

Must be...er, 19 years later than when we last saw Harry, two pages ago. Doesn't time fly? And now it's the future. I'd work out what year it was, but I've lost the will to live, never mind read. As for typing...I'm only doing this for you, kids!

Anyway, it's some time in the future, even for us, and global warming has obviously been sorted out as September now has autumnal frosts, just like it used to when JKR and I were kids and the first day of school was cold and crisp and the long hot days of summer were behind us and we couldn't find our punctuation. But we weren't best-selling authors then, were we, Jo? And I'm still not, but what's your excuse?

Anyway, here we all are, on a day crisp as an apple (anyone want the first bite? There's probably maggots in it.) and the Family Potter are bobbing (I'm not even going to make the obvious joke about it being a street not a bloody ocean) across the rumbling street and Little Lily whines she wants to go to Hogwarts NOW.

Well, you can't, you stupid brat – even Harry knows that and has told you so – get over it.

Finally the commuting Muggles get a mention – they look at the owls!

But don't get too hung up on this mention of Muggles in London – we're British, we can ignore this sort of thing and get back to reading the Financial Times or (more likely) 'The Sun'.

It's true. Honestly.

James and Albus (still got the adoration of DD, I see, despite all that has gone before) are arguing about the possibility of Albus being in Slytherin. Does the great, good and grown-up Harry Potter point out that one of the bravest men he ever knew, who did more to bring down Voldemort than he did, was a Slytherin?

Of course not. Really, don't be so daft. Harry is forever frozen in time, as emotionally developed as er, well as a five year old, as far as I can make out. Why would he ever give credit to Severus Snape?

Harry Did It All. Single-handedly. Honest.

Ginny, who has obviously turned into Molly Weasley in the intervening years, tells them to be quiet – how useful of the woman. And James catches her eye. Difficult catch that – no doubt he'll be Seeker in Gryffindor's Quidditch team before the term's out.

James makes his apparently suicidal dash at the wall (please note the Muggles take no notice. I did tell you they wouldn't).

We're left on the platform with Albus begging for reassurance that his parents will write to him. Please note that Albus is a sensitive soul and we know what that means. Ginny treacherously tells him how many times they wrote to his brother (is no secret sacred to this woman?) and Harry actually says something vaguely reassuring too – I think he thought he was to talking to Gred and Forge when he said 'Your brother – he likes a laugh' but maybe I am reading too much into this.

They now approach the barrier and Albus winces. Why? As they brought Lily along to say goodbye to him, I presume they brought him along to say goodbye to James, so why would he be wincing? He knows it works.

And now they're on the platform, which was obscured by clouds of white steam. Why? I actually remember steam trains and even if you had several of them on the station, you could still see perfectly clearly.

But I suppose it makes it more romantic and gives them an excuse to avoid Percy, who is possibly the only person in the books to ever admit he was wrong. But he was boring too, so let's not waste time on someone who actually showed a bit of character growth.

Eventually, the wizards who obviously can't get rid of a bit of steam find who they are looking for. It's Ron and Hermione! Has everyone who fell in love at school stayed with their childhood sweethearts?

How unlikely. And how dull!

Pointless dialogue ensues (when doesn't it?), allowing Ron to be the comic turn once again and ending in 'no pressure' on the 11 year-old children facing their first term at Hogwarts. Nice one, you pathetic, emotionally stunted bunch.

Ooh look – there's Draco. Funnily enough, his son looks just like him, as does Harry's son. Have they started cloning wizards now?

More pressure and prejudice is inflicted on the children. Well done, Jo – let's not ever keep an open mind. Heaven forbid that anything should change in Potterverse, even after what is apparently the most important war ever waged.

Ron warns his daughter, Rose, (is this the first name that hasn't been handed down from dead characters? Oh no, there was Draco's son, Scorpius. And if calling him that isn't setting him up to the bad boy of the future, I don't know what is.)

Sorry, got caught up in Jo-style rambling there. Ron warns Rose not be friends with him and Hermione, who has obviously been warped by long contact with Ron and Harry, is half amused. No more open-mindedness or fairness from her then.

Anyway, after further evidence of extreme prejudice from the Trio, James comes back to tell us Teddy is snogging Victoire. Lily (bless-her-little-cotton-socks-I-don't-think) thinks how lovely it would be if they got married!

How much more incestuous do you want the wizarding world to be? In a few generations they'll be so inbred we'll be calling them King Harry James Albus Sirius and Queen Lily Molly Hermione Virginia.

Anyway, it's made perfectly clear that Teddy is already practically part of the family – well, that's a relief; given his past performances, I expected Harry to forget all about his obligations and responsibilities to a child made orphan by his actions.

Finally the kids start getting on the train. Are we finally going to get to the end of this singularly pointless epilogue and be able to throw the book away for good? I do hope so.

James (like his namesake) dashes heedlessly on to the train where he will no doubt join the sycophantic bunch of friends he has, who will applaud his bullying as it is disguised as good natured fun and practical jokes.

Albus (sensitive little soul that he is) hangs back to say goodbye properly and also to confide his biggest fear to his father 'What if I'm in Slytherin?'

As Harry bends down to reassure him, we find that Albus has inherited Lily's eyes. Thank God for that, I thought Harry was hanging on to them like the selfish git that he is. Finally, Harry tells Albus that Severus was a Slytherin and one of the bravest men he ever knew – but only for Albus and Ginny's ears – Heaven forbid that he should say it out loud to other people. He also tells him the Hat takes personal preference into consideration – something he had never told any of his children before. Still keeping the secrets Harry? Well done. Good boy.

Have a chocolate drop for learning from DD's mistakes. Not.

At long last, the students are swarming on to the train and saying goodbye to their parents. Stay with me, people – the end is finally in sight!

People are staring at the Potter/Weasley tribe and apparently Albus doesn't know why. Oh come on, even if Harry hadn't spent the last 19 years boasting about it, the kid must have been brought up in a cupboard under the stairs not to have heard about it from other people. Maybe he was. Maybe Harry thought it would be character-forming for him – it worked for Harry, after all!

Ron does 'comic relief' again and dispels the tension that I wasn't feeling.

The train pulls out and Ginny tells Harry he'll be all right. Of course he will, in case anyone had forgotten, the egomaniacal, ever-so-slightly-insane megalomaniac is DEAD!

Duh-eh-ah-duh. Dead. No more Voldemort – as JKR heavy-handedly reminds us with yet another mention of The Boy Who Bores Me's lightning scar.

It's not hurting any more. All is well.

Too right it is – I've reached the end of the most pointless five pages of Ms Rowling's prose and that's saying something!

Can I have my ginger-beer now?

***

Only it's not! Hurrah!

Tomorrow we will be discussing exactly why we think "All was well" should go down as one of the greatest literary lies ever.

Chapter Thirty-Six -- The Flaw in the Plan

gehayi — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:33:38 GMT

Tonight's spork is by bee_in_a_garden.

***

Chapter Thirty-Six -- The Flaw In The Plan

A EULOGY BEFORE WE COMMENCE SPORKING THE FINAL CHAPTER. I think it deserves a eulogy not only because this is the end of the series’ major story arc, but because this is the part where I kill it. With fire.

So, I know we’ve seen a lot of chapters that were badly written, and I just have to say that this one lives up to the standard set by the rest of the book. The problem is not the grammar as much, although as usual there are paragraph-long sentences with too many commas; the problem is really the fact that this is the climax, THE final battle, The End of the series, the Big One, and she hasn’t built it up well at all. So when she gets to this point, she’s got all this infodumping that she needs to do to explain to us what’s going on. The end result is the momentum comes to a huge lull as the characters essentially stop action, face the audience, and rehash the plot and explain everything. The previous chapter in the Train Station of Hallmark Death™ was also a lull and a DD-explains-it-all scene, but that at least fit with what I think was intended to be a timeless and surreal atmosphere. This is supposed to be an action chapter! It’s horrible, the inevitable end product of what’s been a poorly written book that does not at all fulfill the promises or hints of the first few books. The epilogue makes it worse.

Okay, so by now the eulogy censors have figured out this is more of a roast of the soon-to-be-deceased than a eulogy, so I’ll make it quick.

I also take huge issue with the fact that the climax of the Harry Potter series, which has been so popular not so much for the plot and writing as it has been for the world creation (and understandably so, back when the books were well edited), is completely dependent on a fairly major magical principle that we didn’t learn about until this book. Um. Yeah. You’d think we’d have learned about the wand owner thing in Book Two during the Dueling Club when they were first taught Expelliarmus, at the very latest, if not in Book One. So this chapter, which is supposed to conclude the series, already doesn’t really fit the rest of the books. It’s not satisfying at all!

Amen. All right, end of eulogy. Let’s hit the buffet.

***

We start off with Harry coming back to the painful, hard, physical world from his trip to the glowy, soft-edged Train Station of Hallmark Death™ or The Matrix Train Station or the “All aboard the Exposition Express!” chapter. Blah blah blah. Oh, let me just point out that it would be unlikely that the “smell of the forest filled his nostrils” if his mouth was also “gaping” open like the limp haddock that he is. Harry would be breathing through his mouth, not his nose.

JKR then tries to convey suspense by describing the sounds and voices that Harry can hear in such a way that we sense worry and disconcertion among the DEs (because Voldie has collapsed). However, for some reason, she does so by describing Bellatrix speaking “as if to a lover.” Not as someone worried about her lover, mind you. So I was initially confused, because I thought they were just being in hushed awe and worshipful because Voldie FINALLY killed the famous Harry Potter. Then it turns out the descriptions were supposed to be hinting that this was a scene of alarm and that something was wrong! Whiplash!

Harry cracks a lid and guesses that Voldemort collapsed when he AK’d Harry and came back as Harry came back. Sure, Voldie didn’t pass out when any of his other soul fragments were destroyed – would have been a dead giveaway that he might need to check up on his horcruxes – but whatever. I’ve given up trying to figure out the rules. Although, I can’t help but wonder where Voldie went and what happened to him while he was out. Was he in Harry’s mental train station but in the body of the gross Voldie-baby? Or did he go to his own imaginary place? If so, what would he have seen and who would he have talked to? It’d have been funny if Dumbledore also appeared to him. I imagine the experience would have gone something like this:

Voldemort: *dazed* Hey, what’s going- …Oh, no. Not you.

Dumbledore: Yo, wassaaaaap. I am pompous and high-handed and believe my manipulative decisions are justified on behalf of the “Greater Good.”

Voldemort: And I thought once I had you killed that I’d finally be rid of you.

Dumbledore: I warned you, strike me down and I will become more powerful than…wait…uhhh, I mean, repent, Scrooge! Feel some remorse! Change your evil ways before it’s too late and you end up like me, Albus Percival Wulfric Jacob Marley!

*Slytherin pops up*

Slytherin: You know what? I think YOU should repent, Dumbles. You’re the one who had such a Frodo-Gollum complex that you gave Voldie here the benefit of the doubt when he was CLEARLY a power-hungry psychopath, just because you had to believe there was hope for him and thus for yourself.

Dumbledore: Shut up, before I throw this god-damned harp at you.

Slytherin: Bring it on, you creepy old man! I can’t believe they even let you on the grounds, much less become headmaster of Hogwarts!

Dumbledore: I’m the creepy old man??!! U dye naow plzkthnx!!1!!

*Dumbledore and Slytherin start beard-pulling*

Voldemort: *sighs* You see? This is why I kill people.

Anyway, although Voldemort has been trying and failing to knock off Harry for seventeen years, he sends Narcissa over to check Harry’s corpse instead of doing it himself. Narcissa. *headdesk*

“Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry’s face, pulled back an eyelid, crept beneath his shirt, down to his chest, and felt his heart.”

TEH COMMAS!!! And teh creepy.

Narcissa asks Harry if Draco’s alive and in the castle. He says yes, and she thanks him by stabbing him with her nails. Alas, it is not fatal. For this exchange, JKR has Narcissa’s mouth an inch from Harry’s ear. I think all the closely watching people might be suspicious – if not of collusion, at least of necrophilia.

Narcissa straightens and pronounces him dead, which I don’t understand. The reason given is that the only way she’d be able to get into Hogwarts and find her son is “as part of the conquering army.” Yeah, sooo…doesn’t that mean she should AK Harry on the spot so they win? Won’t a secretly alive Harry mean more fighting and possibly losing? The sense, it is not making!!

Voldie is thrilled and starts the Cruciatus mojo on what he thinks is Harry’s corpse, which I also don’t understand, because corpses can’t feel pain. Of course, it seems Harry doesn’t feel any pain either, as the Cruciatus Curse has no effect on him besides tossing him around. Why? I’d guess that he is actually dead. Either the rest of this book is a post-mortem hallucination, or he’s an Inferius that thinks he’s alive. Or maybe he’s just back in the Matrix and doesn’t realize it.

They make Hagrid carry Harry back. Hagrid basically washes/purifies/waters plant!Harry with his tears, which seems to have Biblical overtones to me…Narnia overtones at the very least. Someone keeps vigil, usually women, and they weep over the body. A little later, they look for the body and it won’t be there! And then voilà, the dead person is back to life! Harry is even referred to as their savior later. At least it’s Hagrid instead of a woman. Still, I’d like to bury Harry in a hole and see if he’s still there after three days.

“Branches caught at Harry’s hair and robes, but he lay quiescent, his mouth lolling open, his eyes shut, and in the darkness, while the Death Eaters crowed all around them, and while Hagrid sobbed blindly, nobody looked to see whether a pulse beat in the exposed neck of Harry Potter…”

What, not even Fenrir? Also, yet another run-on sentence of dooooom. Thirdly, quiescent is an adjective, quiescently is an adverb. It’s either he was quiescent or he lay quiescently. And if Harry’s mouth is lolling open, he hasn’t gone into rigor mortis yet. Let’s pose him!

After passing the centaurs (check their flanks – they all have bumper stickers that say “FORESHADOWING” in big block letters), Harry can tell they’ve reached the edge of the forest by “a freshening of the air.” I’ll grant you smells can be distinctive, but physical borders like where a forest and meadow meet =/= smell borders. Dementors patrol the “outer trees,” whatever that means.

Harry is not affected by the Dementors because “the fact of his own survival burned inside him, a talisman against them, as though his father’s stag kept guardian in his heart.”

Wait, so first the Cruciatus Curse doesn’t hurt him, and now Dementors don’t affect him? Just because he had a near-death experience? Okay. JKR told me that NDE’s give you immunity from the pain of bad memories, so that’s how I intend to process all future emotionally traumatic events. Remember, I owe everything to JKR!

Voldie stops and gives the castle grounds the surrender speech. Crickets can be heard chirping, and Voldemort swears to never do stand-up comedy again.

They move on. Voldemort is wearing Nagini like a boa (Haha!! Get it?? Just kidding, boas constrict, Nagini is poisonous). Now they’re out on the grounds in the “slowly lightening darkness,” which confuses me because earlier Harry could tell the forest was thinning because he could see it getting brighter behind his eyelids. Plus Harry’s been able to see quite a bit through his slightly cracked-open eyelids for it being so dark. Nice consistency.

“The Death Eaters came to a halt: Harry heard them spreading out in a line facing the open front doors of the school.”

Wow. Considering the last time you opened your eyes all you could see was the castle far off in the darkness, that’s some great hearing, Harry. You could tell the Death Eaters were in a line, and in front of the doors, and that the doors were open, all with your eyes closed. Truly, you are The One.

“Any moment, the people for whom he had tried to die would see him, lying apparently dead, in Hagrid’s arms.”

“For whom he had tried to die.” Haha, what a failure. Geez, Harry, you can’t do anything right, can you? Besides, lying around in other people’s arms is about the same level of action that you’ve had throughout this book.

People come out of the school to ogle Harry’s body. First scream ~~of joy~~ goes to ~~a thrilled Moaning Myrtle~~ McGonagall, who I’d just like to say rocked back when her characterization was intact. More screams from Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, and everyone starts verbally abusing the DEs. Voldemort casts a silence spell on them and has Harry put at his feet, all symbolic-like. Ron breaks the charm with the completely illogical statement “He beat you!” and everyone starts shouting again. This ability to break/doge/avoid Voldie’s spells and the DE’s curses is a recurring Plot Point throughout the rest of the chapter. Voldie recasts the charm.

Voldie says Harry was killed trying to save his own skin like a coward, which everyone knows is false because that would be the smart thing to do (Hey, when you’re the symbolic rallying point of “the good guys” and crucial to their morale, you gotta take care of yourself. Death would be highly irresponsible).

Neville breaks out of the crowd and gets disarmed by Voldemort. So doesn’t that mean that Neville’s wand is now Voldemort’s, and then since Voldemort is later killed by his own curse, it’s still Voldie’s even after he dies, or at best, Harry’s? Poor Neville may be able to use his wand, but it will always belong to someone else. Right? Have I mentioned how much I dislike the way JKR did this wand thing?

Bellatrix describes Neville as “the boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?” He really does sound like he should have been the hero of this book. I mean, what’s Harry doing right now, huh? Flopped out like a fish, instead of using the element of surprise to AK Voldie’s bony butt. I mean, Harry still has his wand, nobody’s paying attention to him, and he’s right there!! And he does nothing, while Neville runs right up to Voldemort and gets disarmed and is still facing him down. Honestly.

Anyway, Voldemort offers Neville a chance to become a Death Eater just because he’s pureblood, and Neville tells You-Know-Who to stick his wand you-know-where. Voldemort conveniently summons the Sorting Hat under the pretense of talking about how there will be no more sorting and how the only house will be Slytherin (although it’s clearly just a deus ex machina way of giving Neville a weapon to kill Nagini), paralyzes Neville, puts the hat on Neville’s head, and sets it on fire.

“Screams split the dawn, and Neville was aflame, rooted to the spot, unable to move, and Harry could not bear it: He must act-

And then, many things happened at the same moment.”

See, Harry was ABOUT to act, but then some stuff happened. The centaurs and Grawp and some animals show up, which couldn’t have possibly been foreshadowed any more obviously, and the fighting begins again.

Neville breaks the body bind and pulls Gryffindor’s sword out of the hat – WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?? Griphook is going to very put out – and does a Julia Child imitation, but without the booze. Chop chop chop. The horcruxes are down, I repeat, the horcruxes are down. Yay, Neville!

Hagrid notices that Harry’s body disappeared, but nobody else really seems to care.

Harry himself wanders around under the invisibility cloak, casting Shield Charms like some kind of wacky guardian angel, and then, led by Kreacher, the house elves bust onto the scene with meat cleavers and knives. Rockin’. I love the few paragraphs describing this scene. Tiny malicious elves stabbing people in the legs - it’s great.

Family and friends of Hogwarts students and the Hogsmeade villagers also show up to reinforce the “good guys.” I like to imagine this party includes the Slytherins who McGonagall kicked out earlier for no reason other than prejudice, but I’m probably just deluding myself. The DEs are being swamped.

Harry runs off and finds Voldemort “smiting all within reach.” Hee hee, “smiting.” Harry can’t get a clear shot, so instead JKR uses him to list all the other dueling pairs or groups, which is basically a Harry Potter series main character roll call. It’s just JKR bringing up all the old characters for a final goodbye.

Molly Weasley duels with Bellatrix. It’s fab and all, but I never understood why from a literary standpoint Molly got paired up with Bella. I mean, Neville would have been the obvious choice to defeat Bellatrix, but I guess he got the snake in a big symbolic moment proving that even a pureblood can be a True Gryffindor™ if he chooses to be, as well as reinforcing that this should have been his book. Harry has Sirius’s death to avenge, but he gets Voldemort. Tonks would have been good too since Bellatrix is her aunt and Sirius was her cousin – it could have been the renegade Blacks against the nasty Blacks - but JKR randomly killed her off. I don’t know. But people like it, so I guess it all works out anyway.

Afterwards, Voldemort gets all mad when Bellatrix dies (I assume she dies; earlier it said “both women were fighting to kill,” but the description just says “she toppled.” After all, Molly couldn’t KILL anyone, what kind of message would that send? You can tell who bad guys are because they kill people, except the good guys do it too, except it’s okay when they do it because it’s for “the Greater Good”? Haha, no author would suggest that! OH WAIT). So, Harry casts a humongous Shield Charm to protect an unwitting Molly from Voldemort’s angry smiting, forcing the dramatic reveal.

HARRY POTTER’S ALIVE!!! THE SHOCK!

Anyway, since it wasn’t a shock to the readers, pretty much immediately JKR drops the shock and cheering thing as we segue into the ending of “Dune.” Only with a super-talky Paul Atreides. As Harry and Voldemort circle each other for what was about to be an exciting, tense finale, all momentum ceases as JKR takes this opportunity to fill in some plotholes, meaning we get to read Voldemort and Harry yak it up for a ridiculously long time. Way to kill the mood.

Anyway, JKR explains why people were able to break Voldemort’s silence charms and full body binds earlier in the chapter…it’s because when he got hit with the AK, even though he didn’t die, Harry totally sacrificed himself for them, just like his mother, so they’re all like totally protected from Voldie and the DEs. Or something. Then Harry goes on to pimp Dumbledore, and explains how because Voldie doesn’t understand love, he totally missed the whole Snape loves Lily thing, Snape was a double agent and you had noooo idea, lol.

Also? Deathstick.

Yeah.

Anyway, throughout the conversation there is much repetition from Voldemort along the lines of, “You may be right but I am still the best because I crushed those powerful people like bugs, love didn’t save them, love never saved anybody, love’s such an old fashioned word, why can’t we give love give love give love give love...”

Harry tells Voldemort to “be a man” – something about not wearing boas as accessories - and try for some remorse to fix the whole soul-splitting thingy, which Voldie naturally refuses. Then Harry goes on to explain to the readers – ahem, I mean to Voldemort - Dumbledore’s plans and practically diagrams the path the Elder Wand has taken. Seriously, I’m expecting PowerPoint slides any minute now. Does Rowling think her readers are retarded, or what? The infodumping is getting really tiresome and uninteresting.

After leading us around, Harry gets to the point, although I still have to cut out a lot of blah blah blah that should have been edited down as filler: “The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy.” And then, “I overpowered Draco weeks ago.” And then, the sole reason why I took this chapter:

“So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” whispered Harry. “Does the wand in your hand know its last master was disarmed? Because if it does…I am the true master of the Elder Wand.”

“I know what you're thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

I laughed so hard.

Yeah yeah, so golden flames, bang, the Elder Wand is flying towards Dirty Harry who catches it “with the unerring skill of the Seeker.” I hope you enjoyed that throwaway phrase, because that was the exciting culmination of all the Quidditch development throughout the series. Voldemort’s AK rebounds on himself, and, with all his horcruxes destroyed, Voldemort/Gollum is now is diminished to Tom Riddle/Smeagol, and is dead, dead, dead as a doornail, dead as Julius Caesar, really most sincerely dead.

Yay! It’s all over, and allegorical dawn breaks with its allegorical golden light. It’s alternately party time and crying time now. Harry is described as their leader, symbol, guide and savior. Don’t think about the rest of the book and whether Harry actually is any of those things, because it will hurt your brain. The “he must speak to the bereaved, clasp their hands, witness their tears, receive their thanks” line makes me nauseous. JKR tries to show how the Wizarding World has changed and isn’t discriminatory and all that anymore by showing how no one’s sitting according to house, or species, or anything, but don’t worry, outside this token scene things will be back to normal in no time.

Luna shows once again that she is one of the few sensitive and perceptive characters in this series when she helps tired Harry escape from his terrible duties and those darn needy people. Looking to spend time with those he’s closest to, he passes over the supposed love of his life and instead goes for Hermione and Ron. I’ll also mention that he also walked past Neville, with the sword of Gryffindor, “surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers.” It really does feel like that the actual Harry Potter story here was Neville’s which has been going on parallel to this, and mentioned in the same book, but not followed.

Ron has an actual funny line when he hears Peeves singing “We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter’s the one/And Voldy’s gone moldy, so now let’s have fun!” and deadpans, “Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t it?”

Oh, and suddenly “the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced [Harry] like a physical wound every few steps. Most of all he felt the most stupendous relief, and a longing to sleep.” See? There was grief in there, right before relief and sleepiness.

They go up into the headmaster’s study to satisfy Harry’s fetishes, and as they enter there is an explosion of applause from all the portraits around the room. I can actually hear the swelling music and the clapping and the panning soar of the camera showing the portraits and Harry’s Oscar-worthy-I-promised-myself-I-wouldn’t-cry face, which means I’ve watched waaay too many movies.

Nigellus says to remember that “Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be forgotten!” Yeah, nice try JKR, but Snape and Slughorn are the only ones I can think of on the good guys side…the majority of actual Slytherin House students were ordered out and not even given a chance, and the DEs are overwhelmingly Slytherin. Not to mention Voldemort. And I’m not even sure where Draco, Narcissa and Lucius fit at this point. But it’s true, what with JKR making “bad guys” = Slytherins, I’m sure Slytherin’s contribution to this war will not be forgotten.

Skip sappy description of portrait!Albus, go to where Harry becomes a Roman senator and self-importantly hushes the portraits by raising his hands. After they fall silent he says, “Friends, Romans, Countryman…” and asks DD if it’s a good idea to leave the Resurrection Stone lost in the forest. DD says it is, and that not going back for it is a “wise and courageous decision.” Once again, Harry is heroic through non-action.

Harry says he’ll keep the cloak, but that he doesn’t want the Elder Wand. He uses the Elder Wand to repair his old wand, and then declares he’ll put the Elder Wand “back where it came from.” Where would that be? Dumbledore’s grave (ew)? Godric’s Hollow? Anyway, Harry seems to think that if he dies a natural death, its power will be broken, because the previous master will never have been defeated.

I think that’s stupid. Better make sure you’re never, ever hit by a disarming spell for the rest of your life, Harry, or else the Deathstick has a new owner. Also better make sure you die a natural death. Which I’m sure you will, because it’s not like people who hear about how you defeated Voldie will come from all over the globe to try and defeat or kill you in order to the get the wand…yeah, that would never happen.

You could just, you know, break it.

~~Boromir~~ ~~Denethor~~ Ron kind of has doubts about giving up the power of the ~~One Ring~~ Elder Wand, but Hermione thinks “Harry’s right.” Harry says he doesn’t want any more trouble, and the chapter finishes with Harry wondering if Kreacher will bring him a sandwich in bed. *Facepalm.* And thus ends the series on a poignant and profound note.

…

Grrr, why won’t these matches light??? Oh yeah, they’ve been saturated by my tears of pain.

Chapter 35 -- King's Cross

gehayi — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:35:38 GMT

In which Harry is mostly dead, Voldemort's soul is ignored for no particular reason, and Albus Dumbledore Lies About It All To You.

Note: This is from the British edition. Readers of the American edition may notice some differences in the text.

Chapter Thirty-Five -- King’s Cross

He lay facedown, listening to the silence.

You know, I never thought of Harry as an Ingmar Bergman fan.

He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there.

Most people would conclude that being "perfectly alone" (as opposed to what? Imperfectly alone? Alone is alone, man!) meant that "nobody else was there." Harry James Potter, however, is not one of them.

He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.

I, on the other hand, am absolutely certain that Harry is not all there.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all,

Or maybe in the not too distant future/ somewhere in time and space.

it came to him that he must exist,must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface.

Descartes! Harry: "Cubito ergo sum. I lie down often. Therefore, I am."

Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.

Presumably, therefore, if Harry were to be put in a sensory deprivation chamber and felt nothing, not even his own body, he would disbelieve himself out of existence.

Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Harry became conscious that he was naked.

NOT MY FAULT, LJ. TAKE IT UP WITH THE AUTHOR.

Convinced as he was of his total solitude,

There is no such thing as total solitude, because there is no such thing as partial solitude. Either you're alone or you're not.

this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly.

Notice the progression of thought:

"Hey, I exist!"

"Oooh, I'm naked!"

"Hmm, the possibilities are intriguing."

He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.

It's Harry's solemn, careful, plodding concentration on matters that gets to me. "I have a body. Hmm, I wonder if I have eyes? Oh, what to do, what to do? Wait, I have a brilliant idea! I shall OPEN them. And if I can open them and I can see, then I have eyes!"

Honestly, Harry. Just open your eyes and stop making such a production number out of it. Please. If he were alive, even Busby Berkeley, king of huge production numbers, would thank you.

He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before.

Because all the mist he'd experienced before had been a lovely shade of chartreuse.

His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings.

This is what we in New England call "a pea-souper fog."

The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

So he's lying on white linoleum. Got it.

He sat up. His body appeared unscathed.

Though with all this cloudy vapor not forming into surroundings, he couldn't really tell...

He touched his face. He was not wearing glasses anymore.

Possibly because his soul doesn't wear glasses, d'ya think?

Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled.

I have to admit that the first thing I thought was, "Okay. Not only isn't Harry alone, whoever else is there is wanking off." And the next sentence just supported this idea:

It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent.

I cannot make this stuff up, folks.

After seven years of dorm life, Harry knows what a guy jerking off sounds like, so he's embarrassed. Well, the text actually says that Harry thought the noise was "furtive" and "shameful," but you get it and I get it.

He also wishes that he had clothes, and clothes, in the form of robes, appear somewhere unspecified in the nonexistent surroundings. Great, Rowling. That brings the entire scene to life for me. Harry puts the robes on and then starts wondering if he's gone to the Great Room of Requirement in the Sky.

No, really. It says that.

He stood up, looking around. Was he in some great Room of Requirement?

Harry then starts telling us a little about what the place looks like:

A great domed glass roof glittered high above him in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace.

Or maybe it was King's Cross Station. You'd think that Harry would recognize it instantly, since he's only ever been to and from one train station in his entire life. But Rowling is being coy, alas, so Harry can't do anything half so sensible.

At this point, Harry spots the thing making those noises. It's a small child, as naked as Harry was a few minutes ago, and badly wounded—its skin has all but been flayed off. It's lying under a seat in the train station, weak, abandoned, sobbing and struggling to keep breathing.

Harry is scared of the kid, even repulsed by it. He doesn't want to go near it, so naturally he forces himself to go near it, for no reason that I can discern. He also gets close enough to put out a finger and touch if he wanted to, but he most emphatically doesn't want to. The book tells that he feels "like a coward," and I heartily agree. I mean, the kid has faced a three-headed dog, zombies, soul-sucking demons, Death Eaters and an insane undead snake-man hybrid...and now he's scared of a wee kidlet?

Although it's never specifically stated in this chapter, the wounded toddler is, apparently, Voldemort's soul, or at least the fragment of it that was attached to Harry's scar. Where the other fragments attached to the other Horcruxes/Horcruces are, I have no clue. Everyone talks about Harry "destroying" those fragments, but since Old Dumb and Dumber also refers to THIS fragment of soul being destroyed when it is quite manifestly here and in a great deal of pain, I think we can ignore the notion of piecemeal soul destruction. When canon contradicts itself, no one is under any obligation to believe it.

At this point, Dumbles walks in, looking absolutely fabulous, darling, in "sweeping robes of midnight blue." Nice to know that death hasn't overcome his keen fashion sense. He tells Harry that he, Harry, can't help Voldybaby. Since this is precisely what Harry wants to hear, he immediately abandons any attempt to show kindness and compassion to an immature and wounded soul, and starts talking to Dumb and Dumber without once wondering what any sane person would: "Hey, did he see me naked?"

Dumbledore calls Harry a wonderful boy and a brave, brave man, probably because Harry ended up dead. Personally, I won't be convinced until Harry ends up dead and STAYS dead. It's not really a case of "giving his life to save others" if the mortal hero suddenly acquires a "get out of death free" card.

Harry and the Dumb One sit down. Harry stares at Dumbledore, because we might have forgotten from last chapter that the Dumbledores have white hair and white beards and blue eyes...you know, your basic Generic Fantasy Wizard. It's going to be absolutely vital that the Dumb One had eyes that twinkled. Nod nod.

Anyway, Harry, being Harry, states something insanely obvious--"You're dead." Not content with that, Harry wants to know if he's dead, too.

Well, gee, Harry, what do you think? You've just been hit with something called the Killing Curse. Do you really think that was conducive to your continued health?

Dumb and Dumber tells Harry that he doesn't think Harry is dead. At least, not on the whole. Like Miracle Max, the Dumb One distinguishes between mostly dead and all dead.

Harry doesn't get this. At all. Frankly, I'm with him.

He then does something that makes no sense...which is par for the course in these books.

Harry raised his hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there.

Riiiight. He can feel the existence of the scar. Good grief, it's a flat, black, jagged line on his forehead. Keloid scarring isn't involved.

Harry then says that he deliberately let Voldemort kill him. Which I maintain is stupid. All Voldemort has to do is toss the semi-corpse to his minions to bury alive, order all of Harry 's supporters into the Great Hall, and then take them all out with a Blasting Curse or two. What could Harry do about that at the moment? Even if he did come back from the dead, he'd return to a world irrevocably changed.

Dumbles, however, thinks that Harry letting Voldemort kill him was the best thing since sliced bread. He also goes all Mysterious Mentor Guy, insisting that Harry tell him what he says Harry already knows. Since Harry normally doesn't even know facts that he has been bloody well hit over the head with year after year after year, I have good reason to believe that Harry knows bugger-all.

However, to cut to the chase, this is how things break down, according to Dumbles:

1) Harry let Voldemort kill him.
2) In killing Harry, Voldemort killed the part of his soul that was attached to Harry's scar.
3) Harry's soul and the bit of Voldemort's soul are now separated.
4) Because of the resurrection potion that used Harry's blood, Voldemort and Harry are now bound by blood. Voldemort, in essence, is Harry's life support system, giving the dead boy's soul a back door into life.

This last bit annoys me beyond the telling of it. I mean, I had every drop of blood in my body replaced when I was in hospital. It didn't end up binding me to my blood donors. But somehow, it bound Harry and Voldemort. Because it's maaaaaaaaaaaagic. God, I hate that as an excuse.

Dumbledore gets all excited by this:

Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily’s protection inside both of you!

That doesn't make any sense to me at all, and it never has. Lily died for her son, not his blood. The spell should attach to him, not to various body parts.

“I live . . . while he lives? But I thought . . . I thought it was the other way around! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?”

I rather doubt it's the same thing, Harry. After all, you're dead and he ISN'T. That would seem to disprove Trelawney's prophecy, wouldn't it?

During all this, Harry keeps noticing the wounded child-soul and wanting to help...though not enough to get off his fat arse and actually do anything. Double-D is of no use whatsoever, telling Harry that the injured soul is beyond the help of either of them, and that there is no help possible for it. Yes, Dumbledore, that's the way. Stifle a motivation to help that extends beyond Harry himself or his friends. I knew I could count on you to do the wrong thing.

Dumbles continues his monologue telling Harry that Voldemort's soul was unstable because he'd ripped it apart so much—"so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child." All I can say is that Rowling must never have read any true-crime books by FBI profilers if she's having DD think that a simple, clean killing that involves no torture, mutilation or pain is the worst thing EVER. I'm not saying that the murders of James and Lily were good, but honestly, I don't think they even count in the top fifty where ultimate evil is concerned.

He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived.

No! Harry would only be the "would-be victim" if he had wanted to be Voldie's victim. Since he didn't want anything of the sort, the correct way to phrase this would be "Voldemort's intended victim who had survived."

Dumb and Dumber then continues to babble about how Voldemort doesn't value certain things—like fairy tales or house elves--so he doesn't bother to understand them.

This would be fine if Harry ever had tried to understand either. However, it was Hermione who kept reading the fairy tale book, thinking that it might contain some valuable clue, and it was also Hermione who pointed out to Harry for three books that being nice to Kreacher might be a good idea. Harry only started considering Kreacher and the fairy tale book of potential value when he began to think in terms of what he could get from either—information and Mundungus in the first case, and the Deathly Hallows in the second. I'm pretty sure that Voldemort knows all about that level of selfishness.

Harry's all, "Wait a second—you knew this? You ALWAYS knew this?" And Dumbles is all false modesty and "Well, I've always been a good guesser."

Harry then asks him why his wand broke Voldemort's borrowed wand. After six paragraphs--one of which asks a question, three of which are mostly filler, one of which rehashes the Voldemort-used-your-blood-and-got-Lily's-protection-as-a-side-effect issue, and the last of which talks about Voldie attacking Harry in the cemetery of Little Hangleton—Dumb and Dumber finally gets down to cases. Sort of. According to the Dumb One, who wasn't there, Harry was unspeakably brave the night that Voldemort attacked him, because he "had accepted, even embraced, the possibility of death, something Lord Voldemort has never been able to do."

Uh, yeah. Seems to me that I recall Harry dodging behind a tombstone or two, hiding, trembling and wishing that he was safely back at Hogwarts. That doesn't sound like "embracing death" to me. Oh, wait! We can ignore that! It's ONLY canon!

Your courage won, your wand overpowered his.

No. That's not what happened. The Lexicon states what did:

"When two wands are forced to duel that have core material from the same single creature, the result will be 'Priori Incantatem,' a display in sequence of the last spells one of the wands cast. Which wand will show the spell effect depends on the willpower of the two wizards involved."

Both of their wands had cores from the tailfeathers of Fawkes the phoenix. As the two wizards tried to harm each other, a golden beam filled with little golden droplets connected their wands. After that, the battle was rather like a video game—namely, who could get a droplet into his enemy's wandtip first? Courage had nothing to do with which wand defeated the other. Will power, alertness, concentration, good hand-eye coordination...those, I'll buy. Courage, no.

The Dumb One then starts practicing his favorite form of exercise...jumping to conclusions.

“I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort’s wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself.

I repeat what I said in HBP. What you BELIEVE, Dumbledore, is not necessarily true.

Furthermore, we've seen evidence that wizards can and do use other wizards' wands. Depending on the wizard, this can work very well, fairly, or not well at all—and this despite the idea, vaunted in this book, that a wizard who overcomes another wizard's wand MUST become the master of that wand.

But the powers of a wizard's magic are not in the wand, as Dumbledore seems to be saying. A wizard or witch is born with the ability to do magic, and manifests magic as a child, before acquiring his or her first wand. A wand is a tool for focusing magic—and some wizards, especially the older ones, don't even use that.

So basically the notion that Harry's wand could have vampirically drained Voldemort of some of his magical abilities is utter rubbish.

So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy,

Harry's wand and Voldemort's wand have been described as "brothers" because they both had cores from Fawkes, but I really doubt whether Harry's wand considered Lord Voldemort a relative.

and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him,

It was so disgusted by the author's ignorance of her own canon that it had no choice but to throw up magic all over Voldemort.

magic much more powerful than anything Lucius’s wand had ever performed.

Translation: Lucius's' wand couldn't clean up the magical vomit, because cleaning was strictly for house elves.

Harry asks a Most Excellent Question—if his wand was all that and a bag of chips, how come Hermione smashed it?

“My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic.

Say what? Potterverse has laws of magic now? Did Rowling read a Dresden Files novel between HBP and DH and decide belatedly that having laws of magic would be a good idea?

And once again, Rowling is trying to eat her cake and have it, too. Harry's wand is a perfectly ordinary wand--except when it deals with Voldemort, and then it totally isn't.

Harry, Master of the Obvious, then tells DD that Voldie killled him (Harry) with his (Dumbledore's) wand. Dumbledore hastens to tell Harry that Voldemort failed to kill him, which is idiotic, because Harry is demonstrably dead. He is going to come back to life, certainly, because Voldemort is still alive...but the thing is, you can't come BACK to life if you haven't been un-alive first.

Harry asks Double-D where they are. Dumbledore, who seems to be striving to get on my nerves, asks Harry where he thinks they are. Harry says that they're at King's Cross. Dumbles gets all "good heavens, is it, I had no idea!" Even Harry thinks that DD is being infuriating, and immediately asks him about the Hallows. This is enough to wipe the smirk off of Dumbles' face and make him look like a very old, guilty and worried child with his hand stuck in the cookie jar.

“Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not telling you?

If Harry were a normal, believable teenager, the answers to those questions would be "No" and "No."

Harry, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes.

Which was, it seems, an accurate assessment of Harry. As soon as he found out about the Hallows, he lost all interest in the Horcruxes.

Then Dumbledore really lays on the bullshit:

I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man.”

Well, if by "better" you mean selfish, reckless, stupid and passive to the point of inactivity. Seriously, name me one heroic thing the brat has done in this book. And anything rash that endangers other people does not count. (That would include Harry's death, by the way. )

Harry, not unnaturally, wants to know what the fuck the Dumb One is talking about. The Dumb One, of course, can't say straight out "I wanted the power of the Hallows and completely messed up my life and the lives of everyone around me." That would involve honesty, and Albus Dumbledore could not possibly be honest—either with other people or with himself. He must always present himself in the best possible light. If he can't present himself as being kind, he'll claim to be wise, and he can't be wise, he'll put on a great act of being humble.

So instead, he blathers on about the Hallows being “A desperate man’s dream!” and “Real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools. And I was such a fool. He also tells Harry that Harry already knows all of his secrets. Because telling Harry that he already knows everything and doesn't need to think about a man whom Harry cannot bear to admit is flawed is going to encourage deep philosophical contemplation. Of course it is.

Dumbles then asks Harry if he, Dumbledore, was better than Voldy-cakes.

“Of course – how can you ask that? You never killed if you could avoid it!”

*coughARIANAcough*

Dumbles says that he tried overcoming death too. Harry feels that having and using Hallows is a lot better than having and using Horcruxes.

We then begin Another Dumbledore Monologue. Yawn.

Okay, so Gellert Grindelwald wanted the Hallows too, according to Dumbles. Forget their passionate devotion to world domination and each other that everyone and his brother has mentioned—nope, the main thing young Gellert and young Albus had in common was an obsession with the Hallows. Grindy only came to Godric's Hollow because ~~his Great-Aunt Bathilda invited him after his expulsion from Durmstrang~~ of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore the place the third brother had died.” And Ignotus Peverell was the ancestor of James Potter, which is how Jamie-boy got the Cloak in the first place.

Also, according to Dumbledore, Harry was born in Godric's Hollow, which strikes me as unlikely. Supposedly the Potters only moved there a week before their deaths, and Harry was a LOT more than a week old when his parents died.

Dumbles tells Harry that he knows Harry has guessed why he had James' Cloak, and then proceeds to tell Harry what Harry hasn't even speculated about until now. Basically, James brought his Cloak to DD a few days before he died, and Dumbledore hung onto it, even though it wasn't his. Harry says that the Cloak couldn't have helped James and Lily survive. Apparently he's forgotten all the times that he, Ron and Hermione concealed themselves beneath the Cloak and saved their necks.

If Dumbledore hadn't greedily glomped onto the Cloak, James would have had it when he needed it. Harry might still have parents.

The Dumb One then proceeds to tell Harry about Ariana. First he tells Harry that he should despise him. Way ahead of you there, Dumb and Dumber. Second, he rehashes a bit of what Aberforth said, because Rowling will never say something once if she can say it four times. Third, he admits that he resented having to take care of his sister:

“I was gifted, I was brilliant.

...I was intelligent, smart, bright, superb, magnificent, Einsteinian, a veritable genius. Someone take away this woman's thesaurus!

I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory.

*covers the annoying old fool with Turtle Wax and proceeds to polish him* There. Now you can shine.

*tosses him a DVD copy of Glory as well*

Then the self-justifications start. Oy, do they ever start.

I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine.

Harry, a remarkably selfless person? HARRY?

*nearly chokes on her own laughter*

...what do you mean, that wasn't a joke?

Then he begins talking about Grindelwald:

You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.

He's omitting the fact that he was writing advice to Grindelwald on enslaving the Muggle population, rather than killing them. And that it was all for the greater good. In fact, he's making it sound like everything bad was Grindelwald's idea, and he was just caught up in the moment. Coward. Liar.

It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards.

Because only wizards count, y'know. Muggles aren't really people. They don't bleed if you kill them. </sarcasm>

He also says that the Deathly Hallows were at the center of their plans for political power. Yeah, I know that every politician I've ever heard of builds his ambitions on legendary objects whose existence can't be confirmed. Personally, I suspect that Grindelwald wanted power, and hey, if he could get the Hallows as well, that would be great. Dumbledore is the one who seems fixated on the Hallows themselves...to the point where, when one came into his hands accidentally, he couldn't let it go.

The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to power!

Okay, that is just stupid. Only one person at a time can be the owner of a wand, and only one person at a time can wield it. So I don't see how both of them could use the Elder Wand. Were they planning on becoming conjoined twins?

The Resurrection Stone – to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi!

If Dumbledore knows that the Stone can create Inferi, why does he say later that Voldemort didn't know what the Stone was? He certainly created Inferi. A whole lake of them.

To me, I confess, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders.

"Hi, Mum! Hi, Dad! Listen, I'm just going to summon you back from the dead so that you can take care of my crazy sister, not me! You don't mind giving up Heaven for that, do you?"

After admitting that neither of them thought much about the Cloak beyond "we need it to complete the set, and once one of us has it, he'll be invincible," Dumbles starts talking about Ariana's death. The way he puts it is interesting. He doesn't say Grindelwald killed his sister. But he sure tries to give that impression.

Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being.

This fits what Aberforth said about Grindelwald suddenly starting to torture him. I would say that getting into an argument and torturing your opponent constitutes losing control. Especially when the penalty is a one-way ticket to Azkaban.

And Ariana...after all my mother’s care and caution...lay dead upon the floor.”

It's a strangely passive way of putting it. Aberforth described a much more active scene. He was being tortured; Grindelwald was doing the torturing; Albus wasn't trying very hard to stop the torture; and Ariana just wanted it all to end, because it was upsetting her.

And he and Aberforth have already said that Albus Dumbledore had good reason for wanting Ariana dead and gone.

But telling the truth isn't important to Dumbledore. It's all about him and his public, even though right now, he only has a public of one.

The Dumb One continues to try to blame Grindelwald without exactly saying that Grindy killed Ariana.

He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him.

Schemes for Muggle TORTURE. Which Dumbledore had encouraged, and helped him plan. Here's a clue, Harry—slavers and torturers are not generally considered heroes!

Dumbledore then claims that over the years, someone-or-other—just who is not clear—offered him the position of Ministry of Magic several times over. Dumbles claims that he turned it down because, in his own words, that :

I was not to be trusted with power.”

Uh, yeah. Let's see how many positions of power the man held, shall we?

1. Advisor to the Minister of Magic
2. Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot (temporarily demoted, also later restored)
3. Founder and Secret Keeper, Order of the Phoenix (both the original and revived organisation)
4. Grand Sorcerer
5. Headmaster of Hogwarts
6. Order of Merlin, First Class
7. Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards (temporarily voted out, later restored)

Harry, of course, argues that Dumbledore would have been a much better Minister of Magic than the previous two whom, by some strange coincidence, Harry didn't like. Dumbles reiterates that power was too much of a temptation, and says that Harry is a better leader because he had leadership thrust on him, blah blah blah.

“I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher –”

“You were the best ---”

Oh, shut up, Harry. You never HAD Dumbledore as a professor. By the time you came along, he was administration, not staff. Do try to remember some facts, will you?

The Dumb One then tells Harry that he was afraid of Grindelwald. Not because the Grinch could kill him, or because of the horrific curses he might plague the Dumb One with. No. Something a lot more basic.

You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister.

There were three of you. One was torturing. One was being tortured. And one was you. Who do you think did it?

I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life.

Oh, sweet Jesus! YOU MURDERED HER. At least have the guts to own up to it!

Dumbledore tells Harry that he was scared of meeting Grindy because he "thought" that Grindy knew what scared him. Frankly, I think it was more a question of Grindelwald knowing damned well what had happened, and Dumbles not being able to face it. Gellert Grindelwald, after all, was under no obligation to preserve Albus Dumbledore's' bubble reputation.

Scared of having the truth come out and being disgraced, the Dumb One stalled for very nearly the whole of World War II.

Think about that.

This is how he puts it:

I delayed meeting him until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer.

Because just waiting for Grindelwald and his ideas to go away while millions died wasn't shameful at ALL.

People were dying

See?

and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could.

Translation: "It got to the point where he was so powerful, people were wondering why I didn't do anything. And I had to try or look like the complete chickenshit that I am."

Dumb and Dumber says that he won the fight AND the wand. Because that's really the point for him—acquiring a Hallow. Not saving human lives. By the way, how did he manage to win the fight when Grindelwald was wielding a wand that couldn't be beaten by any other wand?

Harry, of course, is still busy proving that denial is not just a river in Egypt:

Harry did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who struck Ariana dead. He did not want to know, and even less did he want Dumbledore to have to tell him.

Why doesn't he want to know? Why can't he face it? It's not as if he and Dumbledore associated much before sixth year, and every time Harry asked Dumbledore a question or disagreed with him during sixth year, Dumbles threw a snit fit. God forbid anyone should disagree with the great and glorious Dumbledore!

Harry's reacting like an erotomanic who's being forced to confront reality. He's got this whole relationship with Dumbledore built up in in his mind, and the truth is, they were never that close. And now that he's seeing that Dumbledore isn't this perfect, idealized figure that he wants Dumbles to be, and he can't stand it.

There's a term for this. Cognitive dissonance.

At last he knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked in the mirror of Erised,

His dead parents alive again to take care of Ariana? His sister, dead but forgiving him for her murder? The Hallows themselves?

Harry—who is finding it easier and easier to ignore the wounded soul of Voldemort—tells DD that Grindelwald lied to Voldemort about the Elder Wand. Apparently Grindy was the old guy who kept showing up in Harry's Voldie-Vision in Chapter 23, the one who told Voldemort that he didn't know where the Elder Wand was, and who told Voldemort that he'd never own the Elder Wand, anyway. Since the old guy is never named in that vision, and since I never knew who the hell he was aside from a random dude that Voldemort murdered, I'm relying on the Lexicon to identify him. Dumbles gets all weepy about the possibility of Grindelwald feeling remorse and being redeemed. It's a Hallmark Moment.

Harry mentions that the Dumb One tried to use the Resurrection Stone, which leads to Dumb and Dumber seguing into yet another weepy monologue. This time he talks about how, having just found a Horcrux, he forgot that the ring WAS a Horcrux. This is a special level of stupid even for a wizard, but I think we're all agreed that Dumbles is more than capable of such idiocy. He's the wizarding world's Dubya, after all.

Anyway, according to him: I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry, I was. . . .

Which probably isn't very sorry. I mean, he's still grasping at straws of justification here. To quote Margaret Mitchell, "I think that you're like a thief who isn't a bit sorry that he's stolen but who's very sorry indeed that he's been caught."

Dumbles then tells Harry that he, Dumbledore, was unworthy to unite the Hallows, or some damned thing, because while he won the Elder Wand while saving ~~his reputation~~ others, he grabbed the Cloak out of what I call greed and what he calls "vain curiosity," and he wanted to use the stone to, y'know, RESURRECT people, rather than committing suicide by Dark Lord. Dumbles insists that because of the reasons that he united the Hallows, they wouldn't have worked properly. Apparently the Hallows care deeply about the morals of the people who bring them together.

Harry can't figure out why he should stay mad at Dumbledore—though I'm perfectly willing to give him a list. He also asks the Dumb One why he had to make this so bloody hard. After telling Harry that he hoped Hermione would slow Harry down, he makes another speech. Bottom line is that he was scared that if Harry got hold of the Hallows, he might want them too badly and go after them for the wrong reasons. This begs the question about why DD told Harry about the Hallows at all. He also claims that Voldemort didn't know what the Resurrection Stone was. I repeat what I said before—Inferi. Gellert Grindelwald wanted to make an Inferi army with the Stone. Voldemort DID make an Inferi army. I think we can conclude that Voldemort knew what the hell the Stone was.

Blah blah your wand beat his in the cemetery blah blah he borrowed Lucius Malfoy's wand blah blah this didn't work blah blah you are far superior to Voldemort blah blah WE HAVE HEARD ALL THIS BEFORE, ROWLING.

Oh, and the Dumb One planned to make Snape the master of the Elder Wand by letting Snape kill him, but that didn't work.

Harry finally figures out that he has to go back to the world of the living. Dumbledore says that he has a choice between that and boarding a train—which will take Harry, as he says, "on."

Now, this is very interesting. Harry can go on to the afterlife. Dumbledore, however, appears to be stuck at King's Cross, along with the mutilated soul of Voldemort.

Here's my theory, for what it's worth.

I think they're each other's hell. Like in Sartre's No Exit. Because take a look at the situation. Voldemort is the one who never knew what love was, and now he's there in the form of a helpless, wounded, damaged child. Shades of Ariana.

And the only person who can take care of him is his old nemesis, who murdered such a child for being inconvenient. And only by loving that child, and teaching it how to love, can they both be redeemed...

At this point, however, Dumbledore hasn't figured this out. He's still, "Oh, nothing can be done for Voldemort's soul. There is no help! Ignore it!"

This is probably far too subtle for Rowling, but I like the idea. So that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Harry and Dumbles are still discussing whether or not Harry should come back. Harry is not thrilled by the idea. Voldie has the Elder Wand, after all.

“I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it.

And a chance that he won't be finished for good. And a chance that nothing will happen at all. Because Dumb and Dumber can't promise anything.

Harry looks at the sobbing, whimpering soul of Voldemort. This doesn't please the Dumb One, who begins to lecture. AGAIN. Merlin's beard, can we sew this man's mouth shut? Please?

““Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love.

Uh...that would be Voldemort, wouldn't it?

“By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart.

"Then again, you may not. Who knows? Who cares? I'm pontificating here!"

And this is the point at which Harry Potter turns into either Jesus Christ or Buffy the Vampire Slayer , because he consciously decides to return from the peaceful world of the dead to a world full of pain and the fear of loss for The Good Of All. (Well, Buffy didn't actually decide this, but once she was back in Sunnydale, she had to decide to live all over again.)

Before Harry returns, he wants to know if this is real or imaginary. Dumbledore answers, one last time, with the cryptic. God, how I hate the cryptic.

““Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”

So somehow the Killing Curse never killed Harry at all. It just knocked him out and gave him a happy hallucination. Good to know, Rowling. Really good to know.

Chapter 34 -- The Forest Again (Part 1)

gehayi — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:13:17 GMT

This chapter is by quinby. There will be another spork of this later--her computer, Adams, decided to live up to his name and be obnoxious and disliked. That is, he crashed, taking the whole spork with him. So I started work on it, in case quinby couldn't redo the spork in time...and when she sent me this, my version was three-quarters done.

So you get two sporks of the same chapter.

***

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen to Harry Potter's ~~Musetta's Waltz~~ End! This is, well, let's just say that this chapter had to come, and when it did, I almost applauded at the end. Harry himself, however, rather wore on me. He kept saying the same thing and the same thing and wbing all woeful that he had to die.

First, stop it, Harry. You know that you have to fight this guy. You knew that you might have to die. Why the hell are you angsting about it? You are not Anakin Skywalker, your love is not going to make you sacrifice everything you love. You are not Angel from Buffy, you will not go insane and destroy the world if you have a moment of happiness. You are not Roger Davis, you don't have a death sentence, and your girlfriend didn't slit her wrists. Get. Over. Yourself.

Dumbly gave you a job to do, and sure you didn't realize he was actually a bastard, but that doesn't mean you have to regale the rest of us for ages and eons on end about it. Shut. Up.

Now, we actually get something of interest. When Harry sees Colin's body, he thinks that the boy must have sneaked back in. DUH. I could have told you that. Colin's like Harry in that he would do just about anything for his beliefs. Of -course- he was going to go back. Harry would have done the same thing if he had a moment to think of anything other than his stupid angst. *sigh*

Neville is still holding out hope that Harry doesn't give himself up. How adorable. As much as the boy's been through, he's still hoping that Harry has something up his sleeve, and everything'll be alright. Neville, you've been through a lot of shit. You've seen a lot and you have the scars to prove it. Where'd this strange optimism come from? Harry's going to give himself up. He's not the shiny hero you want, sorry.

After a short detour to Harry's Hormone Shack, and the House of Memory (Hagrid's hut), he finally opens the snitch, and takes out the resurrection stone.

Now, the stone doesn't really bring people back. Harry compares it to the dream!Riddle from the diary. Hold on a moment. That means they're not real. If they're not real, what are they? A hallucination? Huh. It's a thought at least. Anyway, they re-assure Harry that it will be alright and he will be joining them soon.

*yawn* Right. His parents and Lupin and Sirius act as Patronuses (Patroni?) and protect him from the Dementors. Eventually, he sneaks up on the Death Eaters, he drops the stone and reveals himself in a moment that, well, it makes a lovely moment. ... If it wasn't Angstmonkey Potter.

The Death Eaters squee for a moment, Hagrid (who aten't dead), and then Voldy and Potter stare down.... AND IT'S OVER. Bloody hell.

If anything, though, it was a bit anti-climactic. A flash of green, and it's over.

Too bad it's not the end of the book. I think we're all Pretty Damned Tired of it.

Chapter Thirty Three--The Prince's Tale

erastes — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:44:38 GMT

This endeavour having caused erastes to have a nervous breakdown, she’s had to take herself off to a remedial writing course where she is being soothed with the cool application of the proper use of colons and gentle repetition of sentence structure until she recovers.

Her spork therefore will be conducted by our old friends The Random Death Eaters (1 and 2) who some of you may not have met before. You know them, though. The ones who joined up because the uniform was cool, (“it was! Leather and pointy hats”) or because they thought they could get girls (“well we did.” “Yeah, if we Stunned them”) The ones that always lurk around at the back (“well, wouldn’t YOU? You saw what happened when they told him about the vault”) and the last ones to volunteer for anything… They are the Nobby Nobbes and the Fred Colon of the Bad Guys. Keeping out of the rain, keeping out of trouble. They may never be famous but they might just make it through this alive.

Voldemort once said that he was often defeated by Luck and Chance, so lets give these boys names for once.. I introduce Chuck, and Lance, the Random Death Eaters.

Chapter Thirty-Three
The Prince's Tale

In which we are supposed to believe six impossible things before Breakfast.

1. That a potions expert who worked as double agent with a psycho with a big snake wouldn't be saturated with antidote.... I'll let you work out the others.

Harry remained kneeling at Snape's side, simply staring down at him, until quite suddenly a high, cold voice

Chuck: Oo er. It’s His Nibs.

Lance: Don’t worry. Harry won’t realise who it is. He never does. May I ask how Nagini killed Severus, but Harry survived her bite?

spoke so close to them that Harry jumped on his feet, the flask gripped tightly in his hands, thinking that Voldemort had re-entered the room.

Chuck: Wow. That’s one clever flask.

Lance: I used to have one like that. I had to smash it. Never stopped bloody singing.

Chuck: It’s funny that the flask recognises Sir’s voice immediately when Mr too-lucky to live often has great trouble working it out.

Voldemort's voice reverberated from the walls and floor, and Harry realized that he was talking to Hogwarts

Chuck: Harry was talking to Hogwarts? My head hurts. Who’s writing this tripe? Jeffrey Archer?

Lance: At least he went to prison.

Chuck: But not for offenses against the English language.

Lance: Shame. A good dose of Azkaban would suit both Jeff and Jo.

and to all the surrounding area, that the residents of Hogsmeade and all those still fighting in the castle would hear him as clearly as if he stood beside them, his breath on the back of their necks, a deathblow away

Chuck: He's invented the magical loudspeaker! Now that would have been a handy device for the school, don't you think? Hang on… Is this movie canon or is it in the books?

Lance: The only canon I remember was a made up one of Filch’s

Chuck: I think that’s the only one Jo recalls, too.

"You have fought," said the high, cold voice, "valiantly.

Lance: You have chosen…… wisely.

Chuck: You watch far too many Muggle films

Lance: I won’t be watching this one, that’s for sure.

...Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery."

Chuck: He never used to talk about himself in the third person did he?

Lance: I don't think so, it's caused some problems for Greyback and the Snatchers too. Everytime He Who Must Not Be Named (and, you'd think the clue would be in the name, wouldn't you?) refers to himself in the third person, they have to choice but to SWOOSH to his side. Can be a bit awkward when he's practising his speeches in the bath.

Chuck: Do you think that Peter’s resurrection potion from Little Hangleton went wrong and His Nibs is becoming a house elf?

Lance: I wouldn’t mind if he stuck to one or the other, but to constantly change form first to third is just showing a lack of finesse. Dobby was better at it than he is.

Chuck: Dobby was better at a lot of things.

Lance: Ewww! You didn’t!

Chuck: Hey! Don’t you judge me. He was unemployed! And if you can't love your Elf, who...

Lance: SHUT UP!

Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen.

Chuck: *raises hand* Oh, Sir! I do! I do! Let me!!

Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.

Lance: *coughs* Yeah, right. Sooo. Moaning Myrtle, Hepzibah Smith, Susan Bones' grandparents, Dorcas Meadows, Lily and James Potter, Bertha Jorkins Cedric Diggory , Charity Burbage, 'Mad Eye' Moody, Gregorovitch, Gellert Grindelwald, Severus Snape…

Chuck: Don’t forget all those when they told him about the vault…

Lance: I don’t.. All those were a waste, Sir? Some of them were loyal! Some of them were only telling you the truth!

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately.

Lance: You know I know that you say I watch too many films but if I didn’t know better I'd think this was a hoax along the lines of The Wizard of Oz. Sir is allegedly speaking, but if Idiot-boy were to go up to one of the wall hangings and twitch it aside, he'll probably find Lucius Malfoy working a big machine.

Chuck: I’d like him to work my big ma….

Lance: Do you mind? He tells Harrykins to give himself up.

"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity.

Lance: Oh I do love it when he gets all illiterate.

Chuck: Alliterate, you moron. It’s JKR who’s the illiterate one. Anyway, can we get on with the plot? Voldemort challenges Harry to come to him or he'll start killing everyone, one by one.

Lance: Now, grateful as I am that they didn’t think of this, but I do happen to know that the Muggles have armies.

Chuck: Where do they keep them?

Lance: I know you want me to say “up their sleevies” but I’m trying to make a point here. You know. Commandos?

Chuck: No underwear? HUBBA!

Lance: *sigh * No. With guns and tanks and long range shells! Granted, His Nibs and us brave minions might be able to kill a good many, turn the tanks into hippos and rifles into bunches of flowers but I wouldn’t be surprised if Might conquered Magic. It simply isn't like the English government to put up with this crap, and if the Ministry kept them out of it, then more fool them, I say.

Lance: And Ron and Hermione tell Harry not to go. You’d think they’d be pushing him in Sir’s direction, after the Carry on Camping book. Oh he's still rambling on...

Treat your injured. "I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself.

Chuck: So he's just noticed, huh? SNIP! While Sir gives his ultimatum. Harry looks down at Snape and

He did not know what to feel, except shock at the way Snape had been killed, and the reason for which it had been done.

Lance: Blech. What a horrible sentence. And of course he doesn't know how to feel, he's not a real boy.

They crawled back through the tunnel, none of them talking,

Chuck: or… silently?

and Harry wondered whether Ron and Hermione could still hear Voldemort ringing in their heads as he could. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest…One hour…

Lance: JKR must think the readers have no memory at ALL.

Small bundles seemed to litter the lawn at the front of the castle

Chuck: I did those! My handiwork, that.

Lance: They are children!

Chuck: Hey! I heard what they did to that group in the Ministry! They threatened me with Jellylegs Jinxes! I had to defend myself!

There was no other sign of Grawp or of his attacker.

Lance: Well, if the story had one good outcome, it was that. Did anyone work out the point of Grawp yet?

The castle was unnaturally silent. There were no flashes of light now, no bangs or screams or shouts.

Chuck: Wow. I wonder if that's because it was silent?

The flagstones of the deserted entrance hall were stained with blood. Emeralds were still scattered all over the floor,

Lance: Grab them! They'll save you from a job at McMagic Burger, Ron! How could they see them, please? Isn’t it pitch dark? They go into the Great Hall next. All the tables have been STOLEN!

Chuck: You told me to make a fence with them.

Lance: I told you to FENCE them, you idiot!

Harry could not see Fred's body, because his family surrounded him. George was kneeling at his head; Mrs. Weasley was lying across Fred's chest

Lance: but apart from Fred’s head and his chest, he couldn't see Fred at all.

Chuck: What’s Harry doing?

Lance: What Harry does best. Nothing. Watching. Running away. He doesn't even comfort that blind kid.

Chuck: What blind kid?

Lance: The one who went out with him last year.

Harry reeled backward from the doorway. He could not draw breath. He could not bear to look at any of the other bodies, to see who else had died for him. He could not bear to join the Weasleys, could not look into their eyes, when if he had given himself up in the first place, Fred might never have died… He turned away and ran up the marble staircase

Lance: Brave Sir Harry!

Chuck: *sings* He is packing it in and packing it up, And sneaking away and buggering off, he's going upstairs, to have a big mope...

Lupin, Tonks… He yearned not to feel… He wished he could rip out his heart, his innards, everything that was screaming inside him…

Lance: Oh please. Now he gets empathy? I thought he spelled it with an M for Moron. And he only had to ask, I'd have ripped out his innards for him. Accio Innards!

The castle was completely empty; even the ghosts seemed to have joined the mass mourning in the Great Hall.

Chuck: One hates to nitpick; one isn't an orang-utan, but if everyone was in the Great Hall then the castle wasn't empty. Maybe the Great Hall isn't in the castle now.

Lance: And can you believe that Snape passworded his office "Dumbledore"?

Chuck: I can believe that a hell of a lot more readily than I can the Lucky Boy coming up with it. He really did love that old man, didn't he. Yuk. Rita was right - that relationship was unnatural.

Lance: Says the man with the Elf-love.

Chuck: Oh God. This is the garden of Gethsemane isn't it? I feel ill. Now - I didn't want the Little Git to get any help, but don't you think it strange that ALL the portraits were empty when Harry got up into Snape's office? I mean DumbleBORE was allegedly fond of the Oik-that-lived, wouldn't you think he would have hung around to give Harry some of his advice? At this crucial time?

Lance: Well then, it wouldn't be Harry's choices that defined him, would it?

Chuck: *laughs* Yeah, right. He really fell for that crap, didn't he? Dumbles really was an evil bastard, wasn't he?

Lance: And of course, Borem-all has to EXPLAIN IT ALL later, and he can't do it now... That would spoil the suspense!

Chuck: What suspense?

Lance: Oh yeah, right. Right so Brave Sir Harry decides to run away even further.

To escape into someone else's head would be a blessed relief… Nothing that even Snape had left him could be worse than his own thoughts.

Chuck: Oh I don't know. Look in the bottom drawer. I'll say something for His Nibs though, if the sneaker was on the other foot, and HE had to present himself to Harry within an hour to save lives, he wouldn't be FARTING ABOUT sticking his head into other people's memories. Why not have a stiff one.

Lance: Please!

Chuck: A DRINK I mean - and watch a DVD while you are at it? Phone for pizza and a stripper. After all, no-one's DEPENDING ON YOU, ARSEHOLE.

and without hesitating, with a feeling of reckless abandonment,

Lance: Reckless and Abandoning. Yep. That sums his personality up.

as though this would assuage his torturing grief, Harry dived. He fell headlong into sunlight, and his feet found warm ground.

Chuck: Has he lost his shoes and socks?

When he straightened up, he saw that he was in a nearly deserted playground. A single huge chimney dominated the distant skyline.

Lance: Oh one of those dreams. Very phallic

Chuck: SNIP! as Harry fails to recognise young Snape despite having seen him twice before in visions and Pensieves. And Lily proves that despite everything JKR says wizards CAN fly.

Lance: Sir can fly.

Chuck: Yes, but he's SUPER. I hear he's going to wear his underpants outside his robes next.

Lance: Wait a minute... This is YET another Newspaper device isn't it?

Chuck: Yep. And I bet the readers are sick to death of them. It seems that Jo is completely incapable of letting Harry and the readers learn ANYTHING directly.

Lance: SNIP! Snape tells Lily she's a witch.

Harry wondered why he did not take off the ridiculously large coat, unless it was because he did not want to reveal the smock beneath it.

Chuck: I don't know why. Would an 9? year old boy care? And smocks were in fashion in this era.

Lance: SNIP! as Snape tells Lily she's a witch. Didn't he do this already?

Snape, and even with his poorly cut hair

Chuck: I don't get this - Harry's hair was almost shaved off in book one and it grew back. You'd think Snape's would too.

Lance: HUGE SNIP! as we are told all about Sev's everlasting love for Lily Evans and the quite understandable want to have her, over the dead bodies of James and Harry.

Chuck: *sniffles* I thought it was sweet.

Lance: Don't tell lies.

Chuck: Hey. Read the tee-shirt. DEAF-EATER, remember? I'm supposed to be EVIL.

he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone…

Chuck: High on a hill stood a lonely Severus.

Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air.

Lance: Oh that's nice. Dubbledore gets a Speshul Snowflake Apparation effect. Trust him to show off.

Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees

Chuck: I don't see what the connection is with the first part of the sentence to the second part.

Lance: Perhaps Snape worships the God of Lightning?

Chuck: Thor?

Lance: Yes, thank you, I am a little. It's these new leather pants.

and his wand had flown out of his hand. "Don't kill me!"

"That was not my intention."

Lance: Not yet, anyway.

Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.

Chuck: Its GOD!

Lance: Well, he thinks he is.

Chuck: And JKR.

"Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?"

Lance: Well, this is interesting. His Nibs and Double-dealing in cahoots were they? VERY interesting.

You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down – kill them all – "

Chuck: Yanno, I never understood why Sir didn't kill all the boys born in July, to be honest.

Lance: Is any of this understandable?

Chuck: Good point.

Lance: Double-dore says he will keep them safe. Or rather he doesn't.

Please." "And what will you give me in return, Severus?"

Chuck: Was this your first Grooming, Albus?

"In – in return?" Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, "Anything."

Lance: Apparently not. SNIP!

"I thought…you were going…to keep her…safe…"

Chuck: Safe? Since when has anyone been safe around Dumbledore?

"She and James put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore. "Rather like you, Severus.

Lance: Yes. They did. So does everyone. They put their faith in YOU!

Chuck: The Pensieve thing goes on... and on... retro-filling like MAD....

"You are a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon…"

Chuck: You think? If you think that, plankton-brain, why don't you change the system?

Lance: Disgusting that ones entire life is based on which house you belonged to, and any attributes you have are ampliied. Surely it would be better to put Slythie possibles into Gryffindor and so on, so they could learn OTHER traits and appreciate them.

Chuck: *looks at Lance as if he's never seen him before.*

Lance: What? I do think about this stuff, you know.

Chuck: Hurrah! DD's killed himself! Severus thinks he's an idiot.

Harry could tell that he wanted to say more on the subject of Dumbledore's cursed hand, but the other held it up in polite refusal to discuss the matter further

Lance: Yeesh. If you can unscramble that sentence you are a better man than I, Bungitin

. Scowling, Snape said, "The Dark Lord does not expect Draco to succeed. This is merely punishment for Lucius's recent failures.

Chuck: Magiviagra, Lucius! It will stop any of those sort of failures!

Lance: They yak about Draco for a bit and Sev shows that he understands Draco a little better than Dumb-One.

"If you don't mind dying," said Snape roughly, "why not let Draco do it?"

"That boy's soul is not yet so damaged," said Dumbledore. "I would not have it ripped apart on my account."

Chuck: This flies completely in the face of Sprout leading Neville and others to kill via Mandrake. Perhaps this only happens when you do it with a wand. I don't think there's much hope for Draco's soul after what he did in the last book

Lance: Severus agrees to kill Dumbledore. I'm surprised that there wasn't a line of volunteers, to be frank.

Chuck: More backstory, which isn't very interesting. Harry has Lily's eyes, Sev hates him, Sev loves Lily. Yadda Yadda Yadda--- and we are back at the camping trip OF DOOM.

"Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor

Lance: Jumping into a pond will do nicely, then. Heaven forbid that Severus use his prestigious skill like he did in book one with the Potions Riddle. Ah yes - Hermione solved that, didn't she? Severus did his best to kill Harry, in fact most people did, but .. oh well.

Chuck: Can we go now? Is that it?

Lance: Yep. That's it. All is well.

Chuck: You think?

Lance: Not really. Not for them. But for us? Yes. All we have here are perfect conditions for a New Dark Lord to emerge in a few years.

Chapter Thirty-Two -- The Elder Wand

gehayi — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:23:04 GMT

Today's spork is by quinby.

***

Chapter Thirty-Two -- The Elder Wand

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen to Final Fantasy Harry Potter. This entire chapter reads, to my eyes at least, like the end of a Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts video game. You have to fight everyone you've already fought again, almost ad nauseum. So, here we go, the remind of everything and everyone who's annoyed us at school before. Or, well, almost everything. *cough*

When we join our ~~anti~~hero, Fred has just been killed. Damnit. Now, this has probably been said by the previous sporker, but, it bears repeating. Why, Jo? Why did you have to kill just one of the twins? It makes no frelling story sense. They're a set. You can't just have one or the other of them. In fact, if you kill one of them, the remaining one is going to hurt worse, because such a large part of him is gone. George shouldn't have to suffer than much. It's not fair to him. I wouldn't be surprised if he drinks himself to death or something. They should have gone out with a bang. Together.

Dead!Fred is dead, but his death is quickly drowned out by ~~Aragorn's~~ Aragog's spider bebes, who have somehow inexplicably joined in the fight. Now, I haven't been reading the rest of the chapters very carefully, but, um, what? Why do we all of a sudden have spiders attacking Hogwarts? If I remember Book Two right, the spiders said that they'd eat anyone who came within eyeshot. If the Death Eaters had penetrated the ~~Pointless~~ Forbidden Forest, they would have been eaten. Not to mention that you can't exactly -convince- man-eating spiders to do anything. If they don't want to go fight, they won't. They'll just eat the food that stupidly wandered in. I would berate Jo for her lack of logic, but I think that's beyond useful now.

After leaving Dead!Fred where a suit of armour used to be, Percy runs off in a cloud of rage, leaving Hermione to pull Ron behind a tapestry. And, in a lovely display of teenage hormone, Harry thinks she's attempting to snog Ron. Huh? I haven't been in a scary lethal battle, but I do know the difference between holding someone back and embracing. After a bit of Hermione and Ron arguing, Harry's brain turns back to his hormones, and he's yet again pining for Ginny. *sigh* Worrying is alright, but sheesh.

Hermione then gives an impassioned, desperate plea to the boys, saying that they're the only ones who can end it. Lovely conceit there, Hermione. You're getting a case of Petra Syndrome. (For the un-initiated, Petra is a character from Ender's Game, who started as one of the few girls in a military environment (and an amazing badass to boot), but changed in subsequent books to a whiny baby-factory.) You think you're the only one who can do anything, but that's the illogic of the wizards for you.

To continue the Ender's Game metaphor, let's look at Harry's connection to Moldy Shorts. In the Enderverse, the more connected two people are, the more connected their souls. Everyone has lauded the connection between Harry and Voldy almost ad nauseum, so it's not a surprise that Harry finds it simple to find Voldy. Here's something else, though. If one logically looks at the connection, Harry should have been able to find the Horcruxes just by looking for the bits of Voldy's soul in them. He has a connection to Voldy thus he has a connection to Voldy's soul. Interesting thought.

Moving on, Harry sees Darth Moldy in the Shack meditating on his wickedness and talking to ~~Alice~~ Lucius Malfoy. It seems that the Git has lost his son. (Oh, la, what a loss.) Malfoy thinks that Voldy should go find Potter himself. Nope. Bad idea. Voldy "knows" that Potter will find him. Instead, Voldy asks Malfoy to go find Snape. Malfoy flees, frightened (Malfoy? Scared? That doesn't exactly fit. He's stared down more. But then again, it's good to see him as an actual human being. Poor boo.)

Zoom out to the Trio in the thick of the battle. Harry explains it all, Hermione's outraged that Voldy's sitting on his ass, and then each of them in turn throw caution to the winds and say they'll go. Two Death Eaters break up the moment, and Hermione comes up with an amazing spell. The battle rages on as the Trio run around under the Cloak. McGonagall has a herd of rampaging desks, Draco gets his ass saved, but gets a bloody nose. Neville comes by with plants, and Professor Trelawney starts doing one of the most useful things shes ever done by throwing crystal balls at Death Eaters. All in all, as battles go, it's rather a lovely description.

However, as things go, it just gets worse. The Spider Swarm is still coming, but Hagrid, oddly true to form runs out to keep people from hurting the spiders. *sigh* Hagrid, seriously. For once, can you -not- be scarily attached to strange animals? The spiders, true to their form, jump on the Large Food Source they're greeted with, and, well, we all know what will likely come of that. To add to the Old Friends Gone Wrong tour, a quite grown-up Grawp comes out of the woods and attacks anything hurting Hagrid. Harry still wants to save Hagrid, everyone realizes that Grawp is actually a giant, and the monster attacking the castle now attacks the giant.

And then, what else would appear, but a pack of Dementors. The trio show their impotence in the face of despair, and are now saved by Luna, Ernie and Seamus. Harry is so caught up in himself that he has to be reminded by Luna how to make a Patronus. Dangit, Harry. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and get the damned thing done. You've been training for basically seven years for this moment. Get going. And Jo? Enough with the Trail of Enemies Past. This is starting to feel like a Final Fantasy boss battle where you have to fight everyone you've fought before on your way to the end. (Or, perhaps that's just because I've been playing too much Kingdom Hearts.)

In a sadly misplaced reversal of a previous moment, Ron forgets his magic and longs for Crookshanks. Hermione reminds him that he's a wizard, and Ron floats a twig to stop the tree. Harry hesitates, but is pushed through the (now even smaller!) tunnel by Ron, who comes behind him with Hermione. Scurrying through the tunnel, he emerges out the other end covered in the cloak and eavesdropping.

Snape and Voldy are talking, Snape pleading to find Potter and bring him to the Dark Lord. Then, however, we get to the meat of the matter. Voldy asks Snape why the wand isn't working, and pontificates about how very good he is at magic, and how the wand just isn't doing it for him. *cough* Poor Voldy. He's wand impotent. I really don't want to know what he's like in the sack. Anyway, Voldy goes on and on, in true Dark Lord style wondering what will happen when he meets Potter. Can he kill Potter? Will he be able to perform well... oh, wait. Sorry. Got carried away.

Anyway, Voldy keeps pressing Snape on why the wand isn't doing it for him. He reveals, though, that the wand isn't working because it is actually Snape who should be wielding the wand. Oh. Maybe that's why Dumbles was so insistent that it was Snape who kill him. Snape wasn't going to use the wand. Or, perhaps Dumbles wanted Snape to use the wand. At the very least, Dumbles had to realize that making Snape the master of the wand would be signing the man's death warrant. Lovely man. *disgusted face*

Voldy waves the wand at Nagini's enchanted cage, and she obeys her master, biting Snape. Lacking remorse, (well, duh. The man doesn't know the meaning of the -word-), he puts Nagini back in her cage, and goes off into the battle with a wand that "would now do his full bidding". Wait. If Harry and Voldy are so connected (and Voldy has sensed Harry before), why didn't he know that Harry was around? How could he just walk by and not do anything. A couple possibilities here. First, that he wanted a larger scene when he killed Harry, or second, that he didn't know. I'm putting my money on third: Rowling didn't want it to end here. It would be a bad end, so, well, logic goes out the window again.

After Voldy's gone, Harry and the Trio approach the dying!Snape and in true Video Game style, something's happening to the dying man. A silver memory appears, and Harry catches it in a bottle Hermione conjured. After asking Harry to look at him, he dies.

... anti-climactic if you ask me. The battle being over we go on to ~~the cut scene~~ whatever is in the memory.

That, though, is for other minds than mine.

Chapter Thirty-One -- The Battle of Hogwarts

gehayi — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:15:29 GMT

anitaray went off on vacation without sending us Chapter 31. Consequently, erastes sporked it.

***

In which everyone forgets they are wizards from time to time, Hagrid turns into someone else completely and hundreds of children are marched to their death.

Chapter Thirty-One -- The Battle of Hogwarts

The Castle is being evacuated and Minnie is in charge.

Every eye, living and dead was fixed upon Professor McGonagall

Except Harry's of course, as he's looking for Ron and Hermione.

"there was a smattering of applause" as Ernie (who isn't described as pompous [what's going on?]) asks about staying and fighting.

Well, Minerva, I have to say that when it comes to rallying the troops, you rather suck. Smattering? Get Harry to do a speech – I would! Isn't he supposed to be the one they are all fighting for?

"If you are of age, you may stay." said Professor McGonagall.

Hmm. Of Age or not, I'd still want to tell my parents that I'm about to be squished. Obviously Duty of Care does not apply to Hogwarts. And while we are on the subject there's a whole WORLD of Magic out there, and you could have been pretty damned sure that everyone knew that this showdown was going to happen. Why wasn't every wizard in the wizarding world (not just Britain) carrying something like the fake galleons that Hermione invented so they can run to the battle?

"What about our things?" called a girl at the Ravenclaw table. "Our trunks, our owls?" "We have no time to collect possessions." said Professor McGonagall

Of course not, because it's not like you can use MAGIC to summon them, is it?

"The important thing is to get you out of here safely."

And where are you going to send all these kids (some as young as 11) for safety?

Hogsmeade! Of course! Hmm. Shall I list what's actually wrong with this idea? There are several hundred students to the best of our knowledge and with the best will in the world they aren't going to fit into the pub. And if they go outside at night? Caterwauling Charms, Death Eaters and Dementors!

May one say: "Room of Requirement"? "We require a safe place for several hundred scared children."

Why am I not Ruler of this World again?

"Where's Professor Snape?" shouted a girl from the Slytherin table.

Yeah, because no-one else likes Snape at all, in the world, except Slytherins – despite having won the heart of an innocent girl. It makes you wonder, really, in a fanfic way, what he did to the Slythies that was so nice.

Enter Harry! And of course now people aren't watching Minnie.

SNIP! As Voldemort is perfectly reasonable and asks for the head of ~~Alfredo Garcia~~ Harry Potter. By Midnight. Mwahahahahah. If no-one was up before, Voldie, they sure are now. How does this magical tannoy work then? When did Wizards throw their voices like this? Why wasn't it used in the school before? Or was it and I didn't notice?

The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him forever in the glare of thousands of invisible beams.

Aw everyone is smiling at him. They WANT him to die. So do I.

Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he

Who he? The figure?

recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, "But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"

You are a WITCH, Pansy, no-one needs to grab him. Er hello? Wands?

Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement.

Of what? Ew.

The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins.

Why bother with the "not Harry"?

All the school protects Harry. Don't ask me why. Minnie is unimpressed with Pansy.

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson." said Professor McGonagall in a clipped voice. "You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the rest of your House could follow."

gehayi pointed this out to me. I – and many others had always believed that no Slytherins OPTED to fight, however this makes it clear that McGonagall never gave them the opportunity – she threw them out. It's bloody weird, really, isn't it? Considering that Andromeda was in Slytherin. And Regulus. And Phineas. And Sluggy. Who doesn't leave.

SNIP! as all the other children leave to get slaughtered in Hogsmeade and McGonagall completely fails to save Colin Creevey's darling little life. I think I cried over Colin.

Harry isn't hunting Horcruxes, he's lost his ~~brains~~ friends

"Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"Haven't you found -?" began Mr. Weasley, looking worried.

This is the sort of stupid question I get asked at work all the time. If he's looking for them, ergo the hasn't found them.

But he broke off as Kingsley had stepped forward on the raised platform to address those who had remained behind.

Hurrah. Perhaps we'll get a rousing Henry V-style speech now. Go for it Kingsley! Ah, apparently not.

"We've only got half an half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout and McGonagall are going to take groups of fighters up to the three highest towers - Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor - where they'll have good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells.

Arrows might be a good idea, too. Boiling oil. Guns. Hey – why doesn't anyone think of guns?

Meanwhile Remus," he indicated Lupin, "Arthur," he pointed toward Mr. Weasley, sitting at the Gryffindor table, "and I will take groups into the grounds.

Why? Why why why? Better to stay INSIDE, force them into a bottleneck and pick them off one at a time. Oh, forget it. No-one's listening to me. Kingsley sets Gred and Forge to organize the defence of the secret passages.

How does Kingsley know about them? And why isn't Filch invaluable here? He's a Squib, granted, but I'd say that man knows that school as well as the Weasley Brothers.

Harry is still standing around gormlessly and Minnie has to remind him as to what he's supposed to be doing. Spit Spot, Potter, you haven't got all night!

"Potter," said Professor McGonagall, hurrying up to him, as students flooded the platform, jostling for position, receiving instructions, "aren't you supposed to be looking for something?"

"What? Oh," said Harry, "oh yeah!"

He had almost forgotten about the Horcrux, almost forgotten that the battle was being fought so that he could search for it: the inexplicable absence of Ron and Hermione had momentarily driven every other thought from his mind.

*headdesk* Note he's not WORRIED about them. He's just worried that he doesn't know where they are, which isn't at all the same thing.

In fact she has to tell him twice.

He then admits what we've been saying all along. He's missing his brains.

Without Ron and Hermione to help him he could not seem to marshal his ideas.

Voldemort thought I'd go to Ravenclaw Tower.

So why haven't you already done so, dumbo?

SNIP! while he suddenly has the first major thought in the book and wonders if the clue might be a ghost. He has to find Nick and weirdly, Nick tries to hold his hand, which was cute. But … I had to pick my jaw off the FLOOR for this next bit.

"Nick, you've got to help me. Who's the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"

I mean – how long has this moron been at the school? This proves without a shadow of a doubt that the boy has no natural curiosity, no interest in anything that doesn't directly affect him. You see, for the last few books Harry has been banging on about how he's considered Hogwarts his real home (which is crap because of the direct conflict with the Dursleys' house) but he's never bothered to read anything about it, never really even explored it. I always found it utterly unbelievable right from year one that no-one knew where the other common rooms were. How difficult was it to spot people giving passwords to paintings and doors and that sort of thing?

Anyway, it's just stupidity veneered on top of idiocy. The fact that kids don't find out who the ghosts belong to is pathetic, because kids DO that sort of stuff. From day one. I can't imagine the sort of school that JKR went to. /rant

And then, even worse – Nick has to describe her to Harry.

"That's her over there, Harry, the young woman with the long hair."

In case he didn't know what she looked like despite probably seeing her daily for six years. I'm surprised Nick doesn't say something. ANYWAY. Harry runs after her.

She consented to pause, floating a few inches from the ground. Harry supposed that she was beautiful, with her waist-length hair and floor-length cloak, but she also looked haughty and proud. Close in, he recognized her as a ghost he had passed several times in the corridor, but to whom he had never spoken.

HEAD

DESK

Then, in case we hadn't grasped the fact that we've been told ONE PARAGRAPH AGO (or the fact that JKR obviously considers her readers to be utter morons) we get this:

"You're the Grey Lady?"

No. Nick was lying to you, moron-boy.

She nodded but did not speak.

"The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"

"That is correct."

Her tone was not encouraging.

I'm not surprised. She probably heard Nick tell him this once and wondering why he's such a gimp. I wish she'd said "No, that's not me," though. Watching Harry run in circles a bit longer would have been funny.

"You are hardly the first student to covet the diadem." she said disdainfully. "Generations of students have badgered me -"

*snorts *

British alternate term for American vulgar term Beaver.
Badgers have a stripe on the forehead, Beavers or Pussy are parted with a pink stripe i.e. the labia or pussy lips.
One can also go badger baiting!
"Wouldn't mind licking her badger"
Or, "I fancy going badger baiting tonite."

"This isn't about trying to get better marks!" Harry shouted at her,

No shit, Sherlock. Do you think she's as stupid as you? And way to make friends and influence people, Scarhead. Just yell at her until she fesses up.

"You're [Ravenclaw's] daughter?

Will someone explain to me why Hermione doesn't know this please? Oh .. yes, of course. This is another handy deus ex machina, innit? Where's Dobby when you need him?

"While the diadem bestows wisdom," she said with an obvious effort to pull herself together, "I doubt that it would greatly increase you chances of defeating the wizard who calls himself Lord -"

Felix might be handy. Why isn't there some of that around? Am I being unreasonable again?

SNIP!As Harry shouts at The Grey Lady and she fesses up. She stole the diadem and lived in the forest or something, because nothing helps you talk to the trees like a natty tiara. This "tale" is more stupid than the book, actually. And her mother was so desperate to see her daughter again she sent a knife-wielding maniac to find her.

"He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with him, he became violent. The Baron was always a hot-tempered man. Furious at my refusal, jealous of my freedom,

What freedom? And why doesn't the Baron have any? Why are we even interested?

he stabbed me."

Yes, that always says love. Steel through the heart.

"The Baron? You mean -?"

The Red Baron!! Someone call Snoopy!

"The Bloody Baron, yes,"

Curses!

"When he saw what he had done, he was overcome with remorse.

I love you, darlin' I'll never do it again. But seriously why are all these wizards using knives? Why doesn't just ONE person use an Entrail-Expelling curse, I REALLY wanted to see that done.

He took the weapon that had claimed my life, and used it to kill himself. All these centuries later, he wears his chains as an act of penitence ... as he should," she added bitterly.

Chains? Since bloody when? And Jo said that ghosts became ghosts because they were afraid of Death. Guess Mr Mort is going to be haunting Harry for a while then. But killing yourself doesn't equal "afraid of death," I'm afraid.

SNIP! Rowena explains the Albania connection. One plot hole closed out of 2000. Not bad. Then he makes one of his "clever" leaps and realises she must have told Tom.

Yes, Harry thought. Tom Riddle would certainly have understood Helena Ravenclaw's desire to possess fabulous objects to which she had little right.

Other than it was her mother's and would probably have passed to her when Rowena died, which was imminent.

"Well, you weren't the first person Riddle wormed things out of." Harry muttered. "He could be charming when he wanted..."

Harry! You little minx! This one line has just spawned a bazillion Pottermort fanfics. Did you go back into the diary when we didn't see?

So, Voldemort had managed to wheedle the location of the lost diadem out of the Grey Lady. He had traveled to that far-flung forest and retrieved the diadem from its hiding place, perhaps as soon as he left Hogwarts, before he even started work at Borgin and Burkes.

*Glares* That's for those of you who couldn't be arsed to read the last page or two. Shame she didn't do the entire book in this way.

But the diadem, once it became his precious

His PRECIOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...

OK! So all we have to do is find it before ~~Shelob catches us!~~ something awful happens!

CRASH! Hagrid and Grawp have managed to make it through the reinforced charms and protection. Wow. I won't bother to question this as there's no sense to any of this from now on. What am I talking about from NOW on - when DID it make sense?

it was midnight. The battle had begun.

Did it surprise anyone else that Voldemort did the Fair Play thing? Has he been taking lessons from Jas. Hook?

"Blimey, Harry," panted Hagrid, "this is it, eh? Time ter fight?"

Yes, Hagrid. Use that stunning intellect.

"Where're we goin'?" puffed Hagrid, pounding along at Harry's heels, making the floorboards quake.

In a wooden castle?

"I dunno exactly," said Harry, making another random turn, "but Ron and Hermione must be around here somewhere. . . ."

Based on WHAT? He's still looking for R & H when people are dying and he has information that can help stop that?

The first casualties of the battle were already strewn across the passage ahead: The two stone gargoyles that usually guarded the entrance to the staffroom had been smashed apart by a jinx that had sailed through another broken window. Their remains stirred feebly on the floor, and as Harry leapt over one of their disembodied heads, it moaned faintly. "Oh, don't mind me...I'll just lie here and crumble...."

It's OK. Despite the fact that you are sentient statues, Mr dead-from-the-neck up Harry had no intention of minding you. If you were the crumpled body of COLIN CREEVEY he would simply step over you. It's not like he knows a Reparo spell, or anything. But thanks for dying, because you gave him a CLUE!

He knew, at least, where the Horcrux sat waiting for him....

Tom Riddle, who confided in no one and operated alone, might have been arrogant enough to assume that he, and only he, had penetrated the deepest mysteries of Hogwarts Castle. Of course, Dumbledore and Flitwick, those model pupils, had never set foot in that particular place, but he, Harry, had strayed off the beaten track in his time at school – here at least was a secret area he and Voldemort knew, that Dumbledore had never discovered –

Wait, wait, wait... This is assumption on a grand scale, Potter. Gargantuan scale! Model pupils? Only he and VM know about the L-Space? (is there anything original in this book?) And WHERE is he getting all this from? Jesus! Talk about author intrusion. In fact, from this point on, Harry IS JKR. There is no other explanation.

...Professor Sprout, who was thundering past, followed by Neville and half a dozen others, all of them wearing earmuffs and carrying what appeared to be large potted plants.

"Mandrakes!" Neville bellowed at Harry over his shoulder as he ran. "Going to lob them over the walls – they won't like this!"

No - they'll be DEAD, Pomona. Until they use a Silencio of course.

and another death: Hagrid's characterisation. Hagrid runs off after his dog. *rolls eyes* This is HAGRID, Jo. He - although God alone knows why - LOVES Harry. And now, at this perilous moment, he's running off after his dog (who is notoriously cowardly and will find a safe cupboard to sit in) instead of looking after The Boy Wonder.

Harry thunders on and meets up with Alberforth! Oh Hai, Abe! He's here to have a moan. I love Abe.

"I've had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Potter!"

No probs. They'll be dead now, no doubt.

"And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Slytherins hostage? There are kids of Death Eaters you've just sent to safety. Wouldn't it have been a bit smarter to keep 'em here?"

You think that's stupid, Abe? Just read the book and see the other stuff.

"It wouldn't stop Voldemort,"

*sigh* That's NOT the point, Gumby. It might stop his minions, though.

"and your brother would never have done it."

This would be the brother with the Hitler fixation?

Anyhoo. The portable brains rock up, with "things" in their arms, and a broomstick. Which seems random and pointless and...turns out to be random and pointless, as they don't use either of these things again.

SNIP! As Ron and Hermione have the very idea that I had right at the beginning when they were discussing how to kill Horcruxes. Basilisk fangs. Sheesh. They could be useful to kill other things too, yanno. Like flinging them at Death Eaters. Of course they have to explain all this to Harry in words of one syllable because he seems to have forgotten everything about Basilisk fangs. And apparently Ron has turned into a shit hot mimic and that's all it takes to speak Parseltongue. I would head desk again but I'm already concussed. However - when he hisses at Harry...

Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise.

....

....

Warning! Warning! Does not compute! Does not compute! *explodes* The circular logic will kill you. If he's doing it well enough for the chamber to open, then Harry would understand what he said, and he wouldn't hear a "horrible strangled hissing noise"!!! ARGH!

Ron makes small talk.

"So what's new with you?"

They go into the Room of Requirement where there are two Witches (Tonks and Granny ~~Weatherwax~~ Longbottom) who should be out there fighting. Why aren't they?

Also Ginny whose promise has been assassinated by being the Girlfriend who must be protected.

"Is everyone okay?" said Ginny and Tonks together.

"'S far as we ~~care~~ know," said Harry

Apart from the gargoyles, the ominous screams and the trembling castle. Despite the fact that the battle has been going on for about 15 minutes and it's pretty obvious the castle has been breached? No worries, mate! Fergeddaboudit.

SNIP! as the three women rush off to fight, and Ron (sneaky bastard, he should have been in Slytherin) decides to worry about the elves. This (not unnaturally) makes Hermione love him. He's really learned from that book.

Harry does what he does best. Shouts at them.

" Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted.

Never mind it's their first and could be their last kiss, you insensitive git.

"Yeah – right – sorry –" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.

Aw...Pink fangs!

Grawp is roaring his displeasure, which isn't very useful. Go SMASH! Has anyone worked out the point of Grawp yet? Is it like a code, or something?

"Let's hope he steps on some of them!" said Ron as more screams echoed from closeby.

Now this is something that I've been thinking about - the pure blood thirstiness of the kids. Mandrakes are being thrown indiscriminately, Ron wants people squashed. i know that I've been avocating Fiendfyre-ing people, but I'm old and cranky. I'm not 17 and I am not in danger of splitting my soul if I kill someone. gehayi tells me that she read a quote from someone that said that the best way to win a battle was to ensure that even if you lost, your enemies had to become so much like you to win than in essence, you won anyway.

It seems to be happening here, that's for sure.

Ginny turned, helpless, to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Haalp! Haalp!

SNIP! As they leave ~~Penelope Pitstop~~ Ginny out on her own to fend for herself and they open the Room of Crap. Was there some reason they couldn't take her with them?

Draco's here! Hurrah! Some bloody excitement at last. It's hard to tell if he was already in here (impossible, as the room was something else before) or he came in later. Seeing as how Harry couldn't get in when Draco was in working on the cabinet, I really don't know how this works.

[Harry] could not hear Ron or Hermione anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem.

Shouting has always been your friend before, Harry. Or...perhaps you could use Sonorus? Why is it only the reader that remembers this crap?

"So how come you three aren't with Voldemort?" asked Harry.

Way to tell Voldie where you are, idiot boy. The word has a curse on it - TABOO, remember? Bloody hell, I've turned into Hermione.

Harry...could not believe that he was this close, and was going to be thwarted by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Neither can anyone else in the universe.

He began edging slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out...

"So how did you get in here?" he asked, trying to distract them.

"I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year," said Malfoy, his voice brittle. "I know how to get in."

Point One of "Malfoy and Chums are better at magic than Potter™

"We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion Charms now!

Point Two of MACABAMTP™

And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"

Crabbe squashes Ron. Point 3.

Harry heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized wall: He pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, "Finite!" and it steadied.

What rampart? And what's that colon doing there? And is that a proper spell? Isn't it Finite Incantatum?

SNIP! While the Henchmen decide they ain't taking orders from Malfoy no more, and Ron appears not to be squashed.

Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe's curse missed him but hit the stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upward and then dropped out of sight in the mass of objects on which the bust had rested.

Please stop using punctuation you can't understand, Jo. And since when is it a tiara?

"STOP!" Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive –"

Crucio won't kill him, Malfoy. Surely your ~~lickable~~ father told you that?

SNIP! For another pointless, inaccurate, boring wand fight, where the bad guys are trying to kill, the good guys are trying to stun and Harry only knows Expelliarmus and everyone misses everyone else

BIG FIRE COMING! Point 4.

It was not normal fire; Crabbe had used a curse of which Harry had no knowledge.

Wow. I'm amazed. /irony.

As they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive, sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of fiery beasts: Flaming serpents, chimaeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up into the air into their fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno.

Is Gandalf around? Did this remind anyone of the flood at Rivendell?

SNIP! [Harry] raked the firestorm below, seeking a sign of life, a limb or a face that was not yet charred like wood. . . .

Where are the faces that ARE?

SNIP! While they escape. Too Boring To Spork.

There was silence, apart from panting and coughing.

Which wouldn't make it silent.

Then a number of huge bangs shook the castle, and a great cavalcade of transparent figures galloped past on horses, their heads screaming with bloodlust under their arms.

They have bloodlust under their arms?

Harry has forgotten about the diadem/tiara and is worried about Ginny. Hermione has to remind him he has it. She explains that the Fiendfyre must have killed it, and then she has to explain the Fiendfyre.

1. When did Crabbe get to be the God of Hell Fire? This is a student who was too stupid to do more than grunt throughout most of the this book.

2. If there's such a thing as Fiendfyre, WHY couldn't Hermione use it to destroy stuff - are we saying Crabbe is more intelligent than Hermione? And why aren't people using it to KILL people?

"Shame he wasn't concentrating when they mentioned how to stop it, really," said Ron,

Shame no-one used Finite. Or whatever it is now.

Percy and Fred appear, and kill Thicknesse by spines, which is a little unfair considering the poor man was Imperioed. But then suddenly he's described as a Death Eater, which surprised me totally.

Fred dies. I would have cared. I should have cared. I liked the twins a lot but by this point in the book, I was glad someone had.

Chapter Thirty -- The Sacking of Severus Snape

gehayi — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:08:23 GMT

Today's sporking is by anitaray. She's on vacation until February 20th.

***

Chapter 30: The Sacking of Severus Snape

In which Harry runs about hither and tither watching other people do stuff, and Voldemort chills for a bit. A LONG bit.

… Harry's scar burned savagely, the starry room vanished from sight, and he was standing upon an outcrop of rock beneath a cliff, and the sea was washing around him and there was a triumph in his heart – They have the boy.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman!

Also, WTF are you still doing at the entrance of the cave, Voldie? Did someone put Impedimenta on this guy? Because seriously, let's track his movements, OK?

TRIO	VOLDIECAKES
Fallen off the dragon's back, relaxing on the island beach.	Chillin'.
Harry can haz vision?	Finds out trio stole the cup, goes postal on Bella's ass.
Harry shares vision; trio analyses vision.	Chillin'.
Apparate to Hogsmeade	Chillin'.
Set off the Caterwauling Charm, hide from DEs and fend off Dementors.	Chillin'.
Rescued by Aberforth. Eat large but simple dinner.	Chillin'.
Aberforth shares long sob story of Albus, Ariana and Grindelwald.	Chillin'.
Neville shows up.	Chillin'. 'Cause he doesn't fear Neville like he should, the retard!
Neville tells trio what's been happening at Hogwarts all year.	Chillin'.
Many happy reunions and more stories at the Room of Requirement.	Chillin'.
Harry can haz vision?	Apparates to Gaunt shack, finds ring missing, criez.
Arguments and conversations in RoR.	Cryin'.
Luna, Dean, Fred, George, Lee and Ginny show up.	Cryin'.
Happy reunions, arguments and pointless conversation.	Cryin'.
Luna mentions the Diadem, people scoff, Harry's inetersted.	Cryin'.
Harry can haz vision?	Flying to the cave.
Harry & Luna dodge teachers and corridor patrol to reach Ravenclaw Tower.	Flyin'.
Luna answers riddle, they enter the Ravenclaw common room.	Flyin'.
Alecto catches Harry and alerts Voldemort.	O HAI! I IZ FINALLY AT CAVE!

Anyway. Luna stuns Alecto, and expresses surprise at how noisy the spell is. Uh, no, Luna, you just suck at casting it.

Then the ceiling of the common room begins to tremble, because the contractor the Hogwarts founders hired ripped them off and used papier mache instead of stone to build Ravenclaw Tower. Luna's spell was so craptastically loud, it apparently woke every single Ravenclaw and brought them crowding into the common room.

Then one brave little first-year darted up to her and prodded her backside with his big toe.

"I think she might be dead!" he shouted with delight.

*huggles* I love dumb kids. I wish Alecto would come to and AK his ass. :) Just to show him what "dead" really is.

And now Harry can haz vision again! Anybody wanna guess how far from the entrance of the cave Voldycakes has gotten in the time it took for *ALL OF RAVENCLAW* to wake up, get out of bed, assemble in the common room and make darling remarks about Stunned Alecto?

Anybody?

He's flying again. Flying across the lake. Hasn't even reached the basin.

I think it's because he was distracted by the hot lesbian babes doing it in the totally secluded sweet spot right at the entrance of the cave, you know? But I shouldn't say that in this fandom, I guess? Let's make it hot gay dudes. OK, then.

Back in Ravenclaw Tower, Amycus shows up on the other side of the Ravenclaw door and tries to bully the door into letting him in with such profound observations as "Garn!" and "Shut it!" and "Open the door!". Once again, JKR shows all the subtlety of a troll in the characterisation of these DEs. Cowardly, bullying, dumb or inarticulate = evil. We get it, Jo!!!!!

McGonagall shows up, pwns the Ravendoor as well as Amycus, and enters the Ravenclaw common room. Ravenclaws flee at the sight of Amycus, who goes postal when he sees Alecto lying Stunned.

"What've they done, the little whelps?" he screamed. "I'll Cruciate the lot of 'em …

In which we are told the verb form of the Cruciatus Curse. Somehow, this just seems like bad grammar to me. Ugh.

Yadda yadda yadda... McGonagall and Amycus talking...

"Why would Harry Potter try to get inside Ravenclaw Tower! Potter belongs in my House!"

Beneath the disbelief and anger, Harry heard a little strain of pride in her voice and affection for Minerva McGonagall gushed up inside him.

Hold on to it, Harry. You'll need this pride to justify what you're going to do in 5... 4... 3... 2...

... aaaaand GO!

Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, "You shouldn't have done that."

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, "Crucio!"

And here follows the most shattering line in the whole series this side of "We sort too soon":

"I see what Bellatrix meant," said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, "you need to really mean it."

Ah, Harry. *Hand over heart*. You've grown into such a gallant, chivalrous boy. Look at you, defending a defenceless woman's precious honour by horribly, deliberately torturing a retarded idiot (who says "garn" and "gorn") with an Unforgiveable Dark curse... for the egregious sin of defiling her sacrosanct robes with his vile sputum. Bravo! Bravo! *weeps*

And now McGonagall is going to kick the shit out of him for doing that...

"Potter, that was foolish!"

"He spat at you," said Harry.

"Potter, I -- that was very -- gallant of you – "

... or maybe not. WTF?! McGonagall is some simpering airhead female now?

Anyway, Harry warns McGonagall (though I think at this point she's a polyjuiced crossover parody character from South Park, just like all the rest of them) that Voldemort is on his way to Hogwarts.

Which, by the way, is a filthy lie. Because Harry can haz vision again:

In a distant part of Harry's brain, that part connected to the angry, burning scar, he could see Voldemort sailing fast over the dark lake in the ghostly green boat ... He had nearly reached the island where the stone basin stood ...

ALL THIS WHILE, people! He was just flying across the lake this whole time! He STILL hasn't reached the basin!

Maybe he's Inferi-sexual, too? I wish Harry could have some visions of *that* instead of all this pointless chillin', cryin' and flyin'.

Harry comes to again, and tells McGonagall he needs to find Ravenclaw's lost Diadem. McG is still a bit stunned, but not so stunned that she can't start casting Unforgiveable curses herself, following Our Brave Hero's excellent example – because, of course, she has forgotten how to use "Stupefy" or "Petrificus Totalus" or "Expelliarmus" or any of the million other NON-Dark NON-Unforgiveable spells she knows...

Before Harry or Luna could act, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet, pointed her wand at the groggy Death Eater, and said, "Imperio."

The sole purpose of the Unforgiveable, as far as I can see, is to make Amycus confiscate Alecto's wand and hand it over to McGonagall. Seriously, way to defang your most "dangerous" and "complicated" spells, Jo! First you use Patronuses for text messaging, and now Cruciatus as revenge for spitting, Imperius to disarm your opponents?

How about Avada Kedavra for zapping those pesky mosquitoes next?

Anyway, Harry suddenly haz vision again, and Voldemort has FINALLY reached the damn stone basin and found it bereft of Horcruxes and fake-Horcruxes alike. I wish Dumbledore and Harry had failed to get the fake-Horcrux out of there in the first place, just so I could see Voldiecakes's reaction when he figures out he was pwned by Regulus Black of all people. Damn. Now he'll just think Dumbledore and Harry did this one, too.

[/vision]

Pointless conversation. McGonagall is insisting that Harry should get out of the school, until Harry drops the D-word and suddenly McG is all impressed and shit that it's not really Harry rushing into danger by himself, he's doing it on Dumbledore's say-so. That settles it, then.

They plan to evacuate as many underage students as possible out from Aberforth's bar (really, if you can put a Caterwauling Charm over the whole village of Hogsmeade, why not put one INSIDE all the homes and shops, too? Did Voldemort think NOBODY inside of Hogsmeade would allow Harry into their homes? Not even Albus Dumbledore's own brother? Hell, so many of the shops are boarded up and empty – like Honeydukes and Zonko's – that Harry wouldn't even need anybody's help evading the Caterwauling Charm if he'd only just had some brains.

Wait, I think I answered my own question... Voldemort seems to be quite aware of just how dumb Harry & Co. are.

Anyway, they all get out of the Ravenclaw common room to start getting the castle's defences up, evacuating people, etc. But wait! There's somebody in the corridors! Who could it be? Surely not -

"It is I," said a low voice.

From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape.

Hallelujah! At the tail-end of Chapter 30 comes the most enigmatic, engaging, elusive, erotic, ebullient (er... I just ran out of applicable e- adjectives, sorry) character in the series. He wants to know if McGonagall has seen Harry. Ooooooooh... this could get interesting...

And then he stays on screen for all of two pages. Granted, he fights something nifty with McGonagall, but as soon as Flitwick shows up, Snape flies away. (What is up with Flitwick and Snape anyway? In HBP, too, Flitwick miraculously lost consciousness while talking to Snape...)

With a tingle of horror, Harry saw in the distance a huge, bat-like shape flying through the darkness toward the perimeter wall.

And he has left a...

Snape-shaped hole in the window.

...

Really, Jo? You're going for cartoon humour when you've got your most enigmatic, engaging, elusive, erotic character FINALLY on the page, fleeing though he may be?

Ah, well, time to cut to Harry's vision, where he sees Voldemort flying back over the Inferi-infested lake water. And, inexplicably, Voldemort's BOAT bumps into the "shore" of the lake. Huh? Wasn't he flying this whole time?

"Professor, we've got to barricade the school, he's coming now!"

No, I think you have a couple of hours still before he can get here, Harry, judging by his general speed...

So all the head teachers get together and decide on plans of action, going over how Voldie's just about to show up, how the school is in danger, how they need to protect it, AGAIN. Sprout goes off listing all the OMG!scary plants she can use against the Death Eaters. Yeah, Sprout, but they're all PLANTS, ok? And the most dangerous of them, Devil's Snare, was defeated in minutes by three first-year kids in the first book of the series. Hagrid siccing monsters on the DEs would be slightly impressive, this certainly is not.

Flitwick goes and starts chanting "enormously complex spells" through a window, "harnessing the power of the wind" against Voldemort and the DEs. Again, this would have been so much more impressive if only Jo'd taken the time to SHOW, not TELL. We never hear of this horrible wind power again, so I'm just going to assume Flitwick's spellwork is shoddy.

McGonagall is off animating the suits of armour. This is so corny.

Noticeably, Slughorn is the only head teacher without a plan or even determination to kick Voldie's ass.

"My word," he puffed, pale and sweaty, his walrus moustache aquiver.

All right, the Slytherins are all cowardly custards who shake in their moustaches like jelly. We get it, JO!!!!

Harry and Luna run back to the Room of Requirement. There are a whole new bunch of people there: Kingsley and Lupin and all his old Quidditch buddies and the Weasleys. Everybody's asking him, "What's going on?" so Harry has to explain ALL OVER AGAIN everything we've just seen, heard, read, and had explained to other characters repeatedly throughout this chapter. Voldemort is coming. People are getting ready to fight. Ba dum bum bish.

Everybody rushes off to fight, except for the Weasleys, who have Family Issues to settle.

"You're under-age!" Mrs. Weasley shouted at her daughter as Harry approached. "I won't permit it! The boys, yes, but you, you've got to go home!"

And this is why I cannot stand Molly Weasleys's stinking, hypocritical guts. Most everyone else in the family (except for Fred, bless him) chimes in and agrees with Molly. Ginny pleads and begs and stamps her feet instead of giving them all the finger and stalking out of the room with her wand held high. By the end, she's reduced to tears, and she looks at Harry:

She looked at him beseechingly, but he shook his head and she turned away bitterly.

"Fine," she said

Ginny, darling, repeat after me: "MY EX-BOYFRIEND IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME. I WILL RESIST MY AUTHOR-PRESCRIBED STEREOTYPE. FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN."

The farce of Ginny's life is interrupted when Percy finally shows up and apologises to his scummy family. Fred, darling boy that he is, is the first to speak to Percy and he moves to embrace him, but–

[Molly] ran forwards, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug.

The paragon of motherhood, ladies and gentlemen.

While the Weasleys reconcile, Lupin and Fleur are shouting about, weirdly, over a photograph of baby Teddy Lupin. I honestly don't get the point of this sequence. Couldn't they have simply left the room if it was making them uncomfortable to be around the Weasleys' very private moment? There IS a battle going on outside, and they're needed.

But whatever. Reconciliation is done. Ginny gets to stay in the RoR. And Harry has another vision. Voldemort has finally reached Hogwarts. Just to recap:

HARRY	VOLDYCAKES
Watched teachers talk about the battle situation.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched Flitwick do spells.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched Sprout hatch her diabolical plant plans.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched Slughorn sputter.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched McGonagall animate the suits of armour.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched people in the RoR rush off to battle.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched the Weasleys argue, reconcile, make out, whatever.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Watched Lupin brandish his son's photograph.	Chillin' outside the caves.
Haz vision.	Apparated to Hogwarts.

[Voldemort] was looking through the high wrought-iron gates with winged boars on pillars at either side, looking through the dark grounds toward the castle, which was ablaze with lights.

Eh? Voldemort had winged boars with pillars on either side of him? He was looking THROUGH the dark grounds? And if the castle is ABLAZE with light, wouldn't at least some of it, I don't know, spill onto the dark grounds??

Dammit, Jo!

And so ends the saga of the "Sacking" of Severus Snape. Where the eponymous character, muchly awaited by fans, was on screen for a total of, oh, two minutes, and the rest of the chapter was spent pointlessly, repeatedly "analyzing the situation" where Voldemort is "about to show up" at Hogwarts, which he only does after taking 8 hours to check that he's missing two Horcruxes.

Next: More pointless stories, more muchly beloved characters skewered, STILL NO SNAPE OR VOLDEMORT ON SCREEN.

Chapter Twenty-Nine -- The Lost Diadem

gehayi — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:15:25 GMT

Today's chapter was team-sporked by quinby and minkhollow.

***

In which JKR crams the book we all wanted to be reading into half a chapter, the DA's remnants have out-thought the Trio, and Ravenclaw has the best common room ever.

Chapter Twenty-Nine -- The Lost Diadem

Good morning, ladies and gents, and welcome to Neville Longbottom and the Year from Hell, otherwise known as The Book That Should Have Been.

This chapter is, in many ways, the most frustrating chapter in the entire frelling book. Why, might you ask? Simple. This is what we -should- have been reading and hearing about instead of the Camping Trip of Doom. Come on, Jo. We don't need to re-hash Two Towers. (Frodo, Sam and Gollum.... Frodo, Sam, and Gollum... oh look! It's a Gondorian! ... Frodo, Sam, and Gollum.... Pity we already had 'OH GOD IT'S A GIANT SPIDER RUUUUUUUUN' in Book 2.)

That being said, Rowling is actually doing something that I thought she'd stopped way back in book five or so. When she begun the series, she had a lovely ability to hint that things were deeper, wider, and more intense than she actually said. That came out in this chapter stronger than it has in a while. She knows what happened, but why the frell couldn't she just tell us? Who knows.

Now, however, it's details time. The chapter starts with Neville appearing out of a portrait and looking like something out of a horror film. Pleasantries are exchanged, Aberforth is snarky (partly about the Trio's ability to keep themselves alive), and Neville leads the Trio into the new Super-Sekrit Passage (TM) into Hogwarts. Along the way, he gives the Trio a plotdump about life at Hogwarts, and nearly everyone reading the book tears their hair out, as Life During Wartime > Nature Trail to Hell (only in 2-D at the moment, but if they IMAX this film as well...).

But they've used you as a knife sharpener

So the Carrows have forgotten they're wizards as well, apparently. I'd have thought they could bully people with spells just as effectively.

Luna sending a message to Neville really is adorable. Yes, I somewhat ship them. They really would be good for each other. (Also, Neville's grandmother kicking ass would've been awesome to...you know, actually read about.)

Note to JKR: We are not so dense as to need a suspense buildup before you tell us Neville's been living in the Room of Requirement. The two books before this established the Room's qualities well enough that we can guess where he'd be hiding and still on campus, especially with the likelihood and reality of others needing to hide. In any case, once they get there, the Trio get a hearty welcome, and everyone asks what they've been up to all this time. No, guys, don't ask. You'll find yourselves wondering if that was really all there was.

"...I went through it and met Aberforth. He's been providing us with food, because for some reason, that's the one thing the room doesn't really do."

"Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," said Ron to general astonishment.

Um. Ron? Props on the knowledge, but this is the wrong time. Stop sounding like ~~your girlfriend~~ Hermione. We're reminded for the fourth or so time that the Trio broke into the bank and got away on a dragon. (Jo, this isn't Short Attention Span Theatre. We remember what happened three chapters ago, honest.) Harry has a bout of VoldieVision, conveniently reminding him there's a Horcrux to find in the building; the DA assumes Harry's going to lead them in Glorious Hijinks, and offer to help with whatever he's there to do.

And...there we are doing it alone again. Lovely, Harry. Perhaps help would actually...oh, I don't know, help? Also, I really don't see why being so secretive about your Mission From ~~Glod~~ Dumbledore is really all that necessary. Surely it wouldn't hurt to tell the DA what's going on; at the very least, Neville's as bound to this prophecy business as Harry is. (Thank you, Neville, for making that selfsame point.) But here I go forgetting this is Rowlingland again.

Anyway, more people start trickling in, having got the word on the old DA Galleons (amazing how well the charm's held up, isn't it?). Everyone's still expecting a big fight; Ron protests that the Trio's going to be Very Very Quiet, but for the Greater Good (the Greater Good!), and that goes over like a lead balloon. Good to know someone in this madhouse is still showing some sense.

Ginny gave Harry a radiant smile: he had forgotten, or never fully appreciated, how beautiful she was, but he had never been less pleased to see her.

HARRY. This is -not- the time for hormones. Keep it down, boy.

Harry's mouth fell open. Right behind Lee Jordan came Harry's old girlfriend, Cho Chang.

...Particularly what sounds like hormones DIRECTED AT YOUR EX. It's a wonder Ginny didn't catch on then, considering how venomous she gets over the 'who's leading Harry to the common room?' thing.

Ron and Hermione finally convince Harry he doesn't have to figure out his Mission From Glod alone - though he still doesn't plan on telling people exactly what all the rush is about. The Ravenclaws in the room go through a bout of Cat Macroese almost by necessity ('lost diadem is lost!'). Cho offers a visual aid, despite the likelihood the genuine article's long gone, though Ginny's possessiveness leaves Luna giving the directions. (Me, I'd have had one of the guys do it, if I were that concerned about my boyfriend being stolen.)

I love the riddles for the Ravenclaw dorm. For once, Rowling does it right. The phoenix and flame metaphors are rather apropos because of all of the coming out of nowhere everyone is doing lately. (And, well, phoenixes are always lovely.)

And...sheesh. Lovely common room. Mmmmm.

"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure". Now there's a double entendre. Wit could just be knowledge, or it could be 'wit', as in a witty joke. Hmmmm. Could explain the quizzical look on the statue.

Harry then proves why the Hat didn't even consider putting him in Ravenclaw:

Harry stepped out from under the Cloak and climbed up onto Ravenclaw's plinth

Yes, leaving Luna under the Cloak protects her - which is more thought than the Trio spared her back at Xeno's house. But really, Harry, PEOPLE ARE AFTER YOUR ASS TOO. Frankly, if a Death Eater hadn't popped up after that moment of stupidity, I would have been upset.

Ms. Carrow activates her Dark Mark (...no, brain, she and her brother are NOT the Wonder Twins, MAKE IT STOP), and the chapter ends there, on something more closely resembling a cliffhanger than what we got before Story Time and Betrayal With Xeno. Returning to the Two Towers comparison, perhaps this covers 'OH GOD IT'S A GIANT SPIDER RUUUUUUUUUUUUN.'

Chapter Twenty-Eight -- The Missing Mirror

gehayi — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:29:52 GMT

In which the Trio has a run-in with Dementors, Death Eaters can't tell stags from goats, Aberforth reveals some unpleasant truths about his brother, and the other Prophecy Boy finally makes an appearance.

Note: This is from the British edition. Readers of the American edition may notice some differences in the text.

Chapter Twenty-Eight -- The Missing Mirror

It took honest-to-God effort for me to spork this chapter. At this point, I was tired of HP7 in general, weary of the blatant stupidity of wizards in particular, and sick of the fact that about half the book could have been thrown in the trash bin without any change in the actual events.

The chapter starts with this line:

Harry's feet touched road.

I've heard of feet touching ground before, but never "road." The American edition makes slightly more sense, as Harry's feet there touch THE road. For my part, I wondered why Harry didn't merely land or materialize. It would have made more sense...oh. Wait.

We then get a long line. A ninety-word-long line. I want you to see the whole thing in its entirety, so that you'll get the full impact.

He saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the outline of black mountains beyond the village and the curve in the road ahead that led off towards Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart, he remembered with piercing accuracy, how he had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore, all this in a second, upon landing -- and then, even as he relaxed his grip upon Ron's and Hermione's arms, it happened.

Now, let's examine this, bit by bit.

He saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street:

First, it's never been called the Hogsmeade High Street before. Second—let us be fair—Harry hasn't seen the village all that often. Students aren't allowed into Hogsmeade until third year, and Harry didn't have a signed pass at first, or the Map, so he didn't start attending when everyone else did. Hogsmeade outings have been canceled now and again from Book 3 through Book 6, thanks to crises at the school. So, all in all, Harry's seen Hogsmeade, what, ten, twelve times in his whole life? That's not the same as something he grew up with, or that he saw every day for six years of schooling. Ten times in four years really doesn't seem frequent enough to create "aching familiarity."

dark shop fronts

I can see the shop fronts being familiar, but dark shop fronts shouldn't be unless all the Hogsmeade stores are shutting down due to a recession.

and the outline of black mountains beyond the village

Keep in mind that this is the same boy who, in Chapter 7 of DH, insisted that Voldemort couldn't be in a village in England because a village with "a mountainous horizon and the outline of the little village cradled in a deep valley" "didn't look like anywhere in England."

and the curve in the road ahead that led off towards Hogwarts

I'm really not certain why the road is being described, especially as Harry and his friends aren't going to end up using it.

and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks,

Making it the only place in the whole village that's lit up. Gee, could the bad guys be there, do you think? Especially as they don't seem to be familiar with the spell Nox, or with the concept of blackout curtains.

and with a lurch

"You rang?"

of the heart,

Oh.

he remembered with piercing accuracy,

Interestingly, Rowling has Dumbledore say something similar about his memory in Chapter 13 of HBP: "This time," said Dumbledore, "we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate.

I believe both of these lines are responses to fan criticism of her errors, which have grown more egregious as the books have progressed. I repeat what I said last time:

"You know, Rowling, if the memory is detailed and accurate, you won't have to tell me. I'll notice on my own. The fact that you're telling me this ahead of time makes me suspect that you know it's neither, but that you hope I'll believe you and not the evidence of my own eyes."

how he had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore,

A flashback to the end of Chapter 26 and the beginning of Chapter 27 of HBP. Just in case there's someone who's starting the series at the seventh book, you know.

all this in a second, upon landing

It's certainly taken more than a second to figure out what's going on, though, hasn't it?

-- and then, even as he relaxed his grip upon Ron's and Hermione's arms, it happened.

We get all the way to the end of this torturously long sentence, and the only thing we find out at the end is that "it happened"? WHAT happened?

The air was rent

Last year's rent!
This year's rent!
Next year's rent!
Rent rent rent rent rent
We're not gonna pay rent!!
'Cause everything is RENT!!!

by a scream that sounded like Voldemort's when he had realized the cup had been stolen:

Delete colon. Replace with a full stop. Using colons does not make you cooler, Rowling. Especially when 99% of the time, you don't use them properly.

Also, how does Voldemort sound when he realizes that a Horcrux-cup has been stolen?

It tore at every nerve in Harry's body, and he knew that their appearance

What appearance? The appearance of the nerves? That's what it should mean, according to the sentence structure.

had caused it.

SNIP! as a dozen or so "cloaked and hooded Death Eaters " run out of the Three Broomsticks. There are only two things wrong with this. One—cloaks, hooded or not, are normal attire for wizards. Two—wouldn't most people want to know what was causing the screaming noise? Harry's right, as it turns out..but assuming that Death Eaters are Death Eaters because they wear cloaks is hardly logical.

Harry prevents Ron from trying to cast a Stunning Spell, as they are outnumbered, and even a Death Eater could figure out that a Stunning Spell coming from nowhere means "Invisibility Cloak." One of the DEs tries casting, "Accio Cloak," but as everyone in the vicinity is wearing a cloak of some kind, the spell isn't specific enough and doesn't work.

That's my theory, anyway. That theory may be wrong, however, because it makes sense.

The Death Eaters figure Harry's not using his Invisibility Cloak—which is logical, as not using the Cloak would be abysmally stupid, and Harry has always been a prime example of the House of the Bold and Stupid, as minkhollow calls it. So they split up and start doing a street-by-street search.

Hermione suggests Disapparating NOW, which indicates to me that she is the single member of the Trio with any brains. Harry says no, as the Death Eaters must have done something to trap them here. Um, Harry? I know your mentor was Dumbledore, but jumping to conclusions without actual proof didn't serve him too well in the end, did it? You could try to escape, at least!

One of the Death Eaters suggests letting loose the Dementors, because who cares if Harry's soul gets eaten? A mindless, soulless husk will just be that much easier for Voldemort to kill.

Harry is upset by this. Oh, not because of the prospect of being soul-sucked and having his mind and personality stolen. He already has Hermione to do his thinking for him and he never had much personality in the first place, so this is just life as he knows it. What does upset him is the notion that they'll have to cast the Patronus Charm, which will betray the fact that they're here to cast it.

Hermione tells Harry yet again that they need to Disapparate. Good girl, Hermione. You know, I honestly believe that this is why the pureblood racists hate Muggleborns so much; Muggleborns retain the ability to reason for longer than purebloods or halfbloods. Hermione has come up with every goddamned idea in this book, while the boys have just been sitting on their thumbs.

But alas, Harry's decision to follow Hermione's advice comes too late, for here are the Dementors, and either they or the Death Eaters have made the air turn solid. Despite this, the kids have no problem moving. Or breathing. Neat trick.

Also, it appears that the Dementors are all natural Deluminators, because look what happens next:

Light was sucked from the environment right up to the stars, which vanished.

That's right, y'all. Dementors can suck the light away from stars that are millions, billions, even trillions of light-years away. Rather like the way that they suck all sense out of this scene, in fact. I mean, anything that can suck the light out of something that far away has to be either the most powerful entity in the universe or an ambulatory black hole. Why are they following Voldemort again?

Hermione then grabs Harry's arm and they turn toward something unspecified. I'm not sure why they can do this. The air is SOLID. Shouldn't they be frozen like flies in amber?

Despite the solidity of the air which should paralyze all and sundry, as well as the utter blackness of a world in which the sun has turned into an extinguished cinder and all life as we know it dying, the three kids soldier on, groping their way down a side street. The Dementors, who evidently aren't stopped by solid air either, glide down the street toward the Trio.

And how do these brilliant young adults know the Dementors are there? By the rattle of their breath? By the bone-chilling fear seeping into the three of them? Oh, no. The teenagers know that the Dementors are here in this completely lightless world because—that's right—they can SEE them.

Then, around the corner, gliding noiselessly, came Dementors, ten or more of them, visible because they were of a denser darkness than their surroundings, with their black cloaks and their scabbed and rotting hands.

Yeah. Because black clothes are extremely visible in complete darkness. They're practically phosphorescent. And what, exactly, is "denser darkness"? Thicker darkness? More stupid darkness?

Harry deduces that the Dementors can sense fear. It's not really necessary to deduce this, as it was established back in PoA, but then so much continuity has been murdered, chopped up and danced upon by now that I really shouldn't complain. It's just that...I've read stories where continuity could actually be presumed to exist. Shocking, eh?

In any event, Harry decides, after several paragraphs describing the Dementors, that he doesn't want to be Kissed by a soul-eating demon, no matter what happens. That he actually has to ponder this consciously for any length of time is amazing. I think that your average Muggle would have reached that conclusion the instant the Dementors appeared and would be speeding toward Madagascar by now.

It baffles me that Harry doesn't think of simply walking out of Hogsmeade and, once he and his friends are outside of the village boundaries, Apparating to, say, in front of the gates of Hogwarts. But then, where would we be if more than 0.01% of this book made sense? Aside from reading a much more enjoyable book, that is.

Finally, he casts his Patronus. The Dementors scatter, and the Death Eaters are delighted; they have a rough idea of where Harry is now. Especially since the Dementors have retreated and the stars are re-kindling.

Because it is impossible that Harry be able to save his friends himself OR think of a way out of this, it is now time for a deus ex machina. That particular role has been assigned to Aberforth Dumbledore, who opens the door to the Hog's Head bar just as Harry and company are passing, and calls out, "Potter, in here, quick!" After all, there's no way that Harry could possibly know that anyone was trying to save him if that person didn't endanger himself by using Harry's name.

He obeyed without hesitation: the three of them hurtled through the open doorway.

All right. I don't mind that Harry took a chance and bolted for the nearest door. I really don't. I don't even mind that he dragged Ron and Hermione along for the ride. I think that the word that bugs me is "obey"--because seriously, who does Harry think he's obeying? That's right. He doesn't know.

Aberforth, whom I'm going to call Abe because Aberforth is too long and any attempt to call him Dumbledore will just get him mixed up with his brother, tells the kids to go "Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!". He then goes out on the street where the Dementors are. I confess my first thought was, "Oh, no, not ANOTHER one who's going to die for Harry."

Anyway, the kids go up to a very poor sitting room. There's a "rickety staircase" that leads up to it, and a "threadbare carpet" so I guess we're supposed to deduce that Abe is poor. Apparently working for the Order of the Phoenix doesn't pay—well, anything. Harry also notes the existence of a single lit candle—WHY don't wizards use things like gaslight or kerosene lamps if they can't use electricity?--and a picture of a little blonde girl who's staring at the room "with a kind of a vacant sweetness."

What follows is idiotic, so I'm just going to condense it.

Abe: That's my Patronus you're following, you oiks! Hey, what do you think I'm going to do if you bring Dementors round?

Death Eaters: That was a stag.

Abe: That wasn't a stag, it was a goat! *zaps up goat Patronus*

Death Eaters: *cannot tell a stag from a goat*

Readers With Dirty Minds: *wonder just why Aberforth's Patronus looks like a goat*

Death Eaters: Well, someone was out on the street after curfew...

Abe: Uh, that was my cat?

Death Eaters: So you or your cat set off the alarm?

Abe: So what're you gonna do about it? You want a piece of me? Huh? Huh? You gonna send me to Azkaban?

Death Eaters: *completely forget how to cast Imperio, Crucio and Avada Kedavra at their opponents*

Abe: And where are you gonna make your drug deals if not in my pub?

Death Eaters: Everywhere?

Abe: *sneers*

Death Eaters:*exit stage left, pretending it was their idea all along*

Abe comes back in and calls the three of them bloody fools for coming to Hogsmeade in the first place. I think that it was at this point that I began to love Aberforth.

Then, in the light of that single spluttering candle, Harry discerns that "[b]ehind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue." Go on. Try to tell the color of someone's eyes by the light of no more than a single candle in a dark room. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

Harry immediately deduces, based on the color of the man's eyes and the existence of a small hand mirror on the mantelpiece, that he's been seeing Abe's eye in the shard of mirror, not Albus's. He also leaps to the conclusion that Abe sent Dobby. Hey, I thought that Dobby was a free elf who didn't obey anyone's commands. What happened to that?

Harry gives Abe the news that Dobby is dead, and that Bella killed him. Abe is apparently one of the seven fans in the multiverse who liked Dobby, for he's sorry about this.

We then get dialogue that's rather like an FAQ:

Q. For the benefit of those fans who don't read your interviews, Ms. Rowling, who IS this guy?

A. This is Aberforth Dumbledore, the barman of the Hog's Head.

Q. Where did Aberforth get Sirius's mirror?

A. He bought it from Mundungus Fletcher at Albus's instruction.

Q. Did Aberforth send the silver doe?

A. "Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Did you just not notice that his Patronus is a goat?

Abe gives the kids food (bread, cheese and mead), because Ron is hungry. After everyone has eaten and the two boys are sitting "slumped dozily in their chairs," Abe brings up the problem of what to do to get the kids out of town. He suggests waiting till dawn, donning the Invisibility Cloak, walking out of Hogsmeade, heading into the Mountains-That-Should-Not-Exist-According-To-Harry, and Disapparating from there. He informs that they might see Hagrid and his annoying brother in the process, which may be why Harry doesn't want to do this. Grawp is a good incentive for not bothering.

Harry says that they aren't budging, and that they have to get to Hogwarts. Abe says that this is stupid—which it is, but when did that ever stop Harry?--and that what Harry really has to do is get the hell out of Dodge. Harry tells Abe that Albus wanted them to do this, which gets Abe quietly pissed off. After a rather odd description in which Aberforth's "momentarily opaque" glasses are compared to "the blind eyes of the giant spider, Aragog," Abe tells the kids the facts:

"My brother Albus wanted a lot of things," said Aberforth, "and people had a habit of getting hurt while he was carrying out his grand plans.

Have I mentioned that I love Aberforth? Seriously, this has been true since the first book and this is the first time anyone has had the balls to say this to Harry's face.

Abe reiterates that what Harry needs to do is flee the country, and to forget about Albus's plans and schemes. Harry insists that Abe just doesn't understaaaaaaand, and that Albus left him a job.

"Did he now?" said Aberforth. "Nice job, I hope? Pleasant? Easy? Sort of thing you'd expect an unqualified wizard kid to be able to do without overstretching themselves?"

I love Abe for saying this. On the other hand, we're less than ten chapters from the end. Shouldn't I feel by now that Harry IS qualified, rather than thinking that he's just blundering his way through this book and that if he succeeds, it'll be purely by accident?

Harry says that it's not easy and that he can't give it up. He also can't explain why he can't. He protests that Abe is in the Order so he's fighting Voldemort. Abe says that he was in the Order but that that's over with now that Voldemort's won, and repeats that Harry needs to run now, and take his friends with him. There's more, but it's all pretty repetitious.

Hermione breaks up the monotony by asking if the little blonde girl in the picture is Ariana. Abe doesn't want to talk about it and makes a comment about her reading Rita Skeeter's book. Harry says that Elphias Doge spoke of Ariana. Abe comments about Doge:

"Thought the sun shone out of my brother's every orifice, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the looks of it."

Best two lines in the book.

Harry then thinks about how he doesn't want to doubt Dumbledore:

He had made his choice while he dug Dobby's grave, he had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust.

I'd rather have a hero who can think as well as act, instead of one who merely trusts blindly without understanding what he's trusting in.

He had no desire to doubt again; he did not want to hear anything that would

Make him think?

deflect him from his purpose.

Same difference.

Hermione proclaims that Dumbledore loved Harry a lot, even though there's no proof of that. Seriously, what did DD ever do that displayed disinterested affection for the boy? Everything he did was calculated to create a hero who was willing to die.

Abe says that lots of people that Albus loved ended up worse off than if he hadn't bothered with them. Then he begins telling Ariana's story:

"When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, set upon, by three Muggle boys. They'd seen her doing magic, spying through the back garden hedge: she was a kid, she couldn't control it, no witch or wizard can at that age. What they saw scared them, I expect. They forced their way through the hedge, and when she couldn't show them the trick, they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it."

Now, at this point, I have to mention a book called My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews, © 1982. (I urge you to click on the link. There's an excerpt from the first chapter about halfway down the page.)

In My Sweet Audrina, the title character, who is nine at the time, is ambushed and attacked by three boys on a shortcut home. Audrina tries to get away but can't; the boys are older and stronger than she is. Eventually, the three boys rape Audrina and leave her unconscious and bleeding under a tree. Audrina loses her memory, not only of the beating and rape but of her whole life, and her parents build up a false set of memories for her so that she will believe she's the second Audrina in the family and that her former self is an older sister of the same name who died.

Let's examine the similar characteristics in these stories:

My Sweet Audrina	Deathly Hallows
The character's name is Audrina.	The character's name is Ariana.
The character has "chameleon hair" of many shades that nevertheless looks blonde.	The character is blonde.
The character is a small girl (aged nine).	The character is a small girl (aged six).
The character was attacked by three boys.	The character was attacked by three boys.
The character was attacked in a forest near her home.	The character was attacked in the back garden of her home.
The boys rape the character, in addition to beating her.	The boys "got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak."
The character is kept home and not allowed to go to school until she can function as a different girl from the one who was raped.	The character is kept home and not allowed to go to school.
The character's father feels his daughter has been murdered by the beating and rape.	The character's brother Aberforth says that the assault "destroyed her."

Now, if this were a fanfic on Fanfiction.net or on LiveJournal, I'd say that having such a similar character having such similar experiences to another such character in a similar plot was, at the very least, titchy. But since Rowling has more money and more attorneys than God, I'll satisfy myself and her lawyers by saying that the story of Ariana Dumbledore is "derivative." Highly, highly, HIGHLY derivative.

Aberforth continues with the story.

"It destroyed her, what they did: she was never right again.

I think we can all agree that something worse than your average beating went on. Western society doesn't have a widely accepted concept of "beaten until you lose your mind." The motif of the girl or woman who loses her mind due to the trauma of rape, however, is common. I think that's the motif Rowling's using here—even though she's being painfully coy about it. For God's sake, Rowling, I think that most kids have heard of rape. And how controversial is it to indicate that rape is a bad thing?

She wouldn't use magic,

Er...Rowling? You've been at some pains ever since PS/SS to tell the audience that little kids don't have all that much control over their magic. Even the stuff they can consciously do can easily go wrong—like a slug that grows much larger than intended. And plenty of other magic is involuntary—like Harry making an ugly jumper shrink, or making his hair grow back after a bad haircut.

So saying that Wee Ariana had the ability to consciously choose not to use her magic—unlike every other wizarding kid in the world—is annoying. And dead wrong. And shatters continuity.

But hey, when did you give a damn about things like that?

but she couldn't get rid of it;

Well, duh, of course not, since magic is something you're born with. Either you're a witch or wizard, or you're not.

it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control it,

You mean like, oh, EVERY OTHER MAGICAL KID who can't control it?

and at times she was strange and dangerous.

Somehow, I think that Molly Weasley might think that that was a perfect description of her twins as children. And not only as children.

But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless.

A sweet and innocent victim who is also a serious threat. Does not compute, Rowling. Does. Not. COMPUTE.

Aberforth says that his father found and attacked the boys who "destroyed" his daughter. Despite being imprisoned in Azkaban, he never told anyone the motive for the crime:

if the Ministry had known what Ariana had become, she'd have been locked up in St. Mungo's for good.

*blink*

So WHAT?

Why is this even an issue? I could see Muggles fearing hospitals and asylums in the nineteenth century. Witches and wizards, not so much. Mediwizards and Healers could mend broken bones even during eras when a compound fracture was a death sentence, so I'm thinking that just maybe their mental wards weren't torture chambers. And unlike, say, the unfortunate Longbottoms, Ariana wasn't the way she was because of a curse. She was traumatised because of physical injury, not mad as the result of a torture spell. The Healers might well have been able to do more for her than her own family could.

They'd have seen her as a serious threat to the International Statute of Secrecy, unbalanced like she was, with magic exploding out of her at moments when she couldn't keep it in any longer.

As opposed, say, to Harry Potter, who inflated Great-Aunt Marge and made her float away into the sky? Or the Trio riding a big freaking DRAGON?

Aberforth goes on, telling the Trio that he and their mother tried to keep Ariana relatively placid and happy. Abe could get her to eat, and could calm her down, and let her help him feed the family's goats when she was in a more peaceful mood.

"Not Albus, he was always up in his bedroom when he was home, reading his books and counting his prizes, keeping up with his correspondence with 'the most notable magical names of the day,' Aberforth sneered, "he didn't want to be bothered with her.

What a wonderfully active and helpful kid. Not. Keep in mind that Harry will later tell Dumbledore that he was all brave and noble and good, and will name his second son after him.

Then Ariana turned fourteen (making Abe fifteen and Albus seventeen), and she and Kendra had a quarrel. Ariana lashed out, and killed her. I kind of wonder what a kid, even a crazy magical kid, could do against a fully-trained adult witch. Also, given that Ariana's mother knew that her daughter's magic could go violently haywire at any time, why wasn't she using Shield Charms 24/7? You'd think that would be basic protection—the equivalent of a padded helmet--but this question, like so many others, is cast aside as so much rubbish.

Harry doesn't want to hear anything about Ariana's arguments or Kendra's Unfortunate Demise, of course. No, really, it says that in the text.

Harry felt a horrible mixture of pity and repulsion; he did not want to hear any more, but Aberforth kept talking

My guess is that Harry doesn't want to hear it because it's Not All About Him.

Aberforth then explains that Albus couldn't go gallivanting all over the world now that Mumsie was dead, and that he decided that he was going to be the head of the family now. Keep in mind that Albus was seventeen, while his brother and sister were fifteen and fourteen, respectively, so this "head of the family" business went over about as well as Percy's siding with the Ministry rather than Harry did with the Weasleys. I can just hear Aberforth yelling, "You're not the boss of ME!"

After a few weeks of this, Grindelwald showed up at Godric's Hollow, visiting his Great-Auntie Bathilda, and hit it off with Albus instantly.

And looking after Ariana took a backseat then, while they were hatching all their plans for a new wizarding order and looking for Hallows, and whatever else it was they were so interested in.

That's an odd phrase for a wizard to use, isn't it? Brooms don't really have a front or a back seat.

Grand plans for the benefit of all wizardkind, and if one young girl got neglected, what did that matter when Albus was working for the greater good?

Honestly, I wish that I could turn Albus into a toad now, so that he could be in body what he is in soul. Selfish prick. He never changed, either. Whether the person was Ariana, James, Lily, Harry, Snape, Sirius, Cedric Diggory or Moaning Myrtle, Albus Dumbledore was always more than willing to let someone else suffer for his ideals.

Shortly before Abe had to return to Hogwarts, he had it out with his brother, telling him that Ariana couldn't be moved from place to place while Albie and Grindy scurried from town to town, speechifying. He was absolutely right, too; a mentally ill child would need structure and constant care. She'd need it all the more after accidentally killing her mother. But neither Albus nor Grindelwald liked that notion. Too much work that didn't fulfill their personal ambitions. Grindy, of course, dressed that up in prettier words:

He told me what a stupid little boy I was,

"Little boy." Oh, yeah, I'm sure that went over very well with fifteen-year-old Aberforth. Especially since Grindelwald was no more than sixteen.

trying to stand in the way of him and my brilliant brother...didn't I understand, my poor sister wouldn't have to be hidden once they'd changed the world, and led the wizards out of hiding, and taught the Muggles their place?

Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, because it sounds like the Muggles are in charge, tyrannizing over wizards. And that simply isn't true. Muggles don't know that wizards exist. Even the International Statute of Secrecy, which everyone is so unaccountably afraid that Ariana will violate, is imposed by wizards. It's the wizards who are choosing to remain in their little ghettoized world, hiding from people who vastly outnumber them and whose technology is just as powerful as magic, in its own way.

I had to read this next bit several times before I realized what had happened.

"And there was an argument...and I pulled out my wand, and he pulled out his, and I had the Cruciatus Curse used on me by my brother's best friend---and Albus was trying to stop him, and then all three of us were dueling, and the flashing lights and the bangs set her off, she couldn't stand it--"

Okay. Now. Reconstruct the crime scene. Aberforth was lying on the floor, being tortured by the worst pain in existence, one that can drive you insane in a couple of minutes. Grindelwald was doing the torturing, which means that all of his focus, attention and magic are on Aberforth. Albus is...well, let's be honest. He wasn't trying very hard to stop Grindelwald, because all that it would take to stop Grindy would be the Full-Body Bind, a Stunning Spell, or Expelliarmus. And Mr. Brilliant, winner of all the prizes for academic excellence, would know that.

Doesn't really fit the "the three of us were dueling" scenario, does it? I suspect that's a lie Aberforth told himself to make life more bearable, because look what happened next.

Ariana, upset by the noise and the lights, did something—we're not told what--to try to stop what's going on.

The only person free to do anything to her was Albus Dumbledore.

And it's already been established that, unlike the other two, Albus had good reason to want his sister dead. Aberforth only had a couple of years to go until he was of age; Ariana was going to be mentally ill, and dependent on her brothers, for what could be a very, very long life. Furthermore, mentally ill relatives do not look good when you're a politician. Mentally ill relatives who have been concealed from public eye for years can develop into scandals.

I think that DD saw his baby sister as the ruination of all his hopes and dreams. Not only was her life blighted, but his would be too, because of her.

And so he murdered her.

Small wonder Grindelwald left the next day. He could see the handwriting on the wall; if he stayed, there was a good chance that he—who'd already earned a bad reputation--would be blamed for the girl's death. Not to mention that DD, like any wizard, could easily muck about with his memories, implanting a false memory that Grindelwald had killed Ariana. DD could even implant the compulsion to confess, as young Tom Riddle did to Morfin Gaunt.

And after that, Aberforth says, his brother was free. His burden was dead, and he could do what he wanted.

Harry, who is, in the words of Blackadder, "as thick as a whale omelet," still does not get it. He says that when Dumbledore unnecessarily drank the potion in Cave Horcrux, he started screaming, 'Don't hurt them, please...hurt me instead.'

I recall nothing of the kind—just Generic Angsty Muttering and Screaming(TM), for the most part. However...examination of my spork of the Cave Chapter reveals that Dumbledore spoke the following rather telling words:

"Its all my fault, all my fault," he sobbed. "Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I'll never, never again ..."

Not words of blame. An admission of guilt.

Harry insists that the words that Dumbledore did not speak indicate his pain and suffering at seeing Grindelwald torture his brother and sister.

"He thought he was watching Grindelwald hurting you and Ariana...it was torture to him, if you'd seen him then, you wouldn't say he was free."

Now, there's nothing in either the words that Dumbledore spoke or the ones that Harry made up to indicate any of those details. Harry should write novels. He seems to have far more imagination than his creator.

Aberforth, who knows that Harry is currently starring in Clueless, asks him how he can be certain that he wasn't every bit as expendable as Ariana, in Double-D's eyes?

Hermione repeats that Dumbledore loved Harry. Aberforth doesn't buy it. He demands to know why Dumbledore didn't warn Harry about danger, or advise him to hide to keep himself safe.

I'm with Aberforth. Even if you think that one person might be the key to solving everything, if you cared about them, you'd still want to keep them safe. And you would try to find a way to solve the problem AND keep that person safe. It's human nature.

Harry starts channeling Albus at this point.

"sometimes you've got to think about more than your own safety!

Harry, you've NEVER thought about your own safety. Or anyone else's. Which is, you know, not a good idea in war. There are a couple of things called strategy and tactics. Maybe Ron could explain them to you?

Harry babbles about "the greater good" some more. I swear that Rowling became addicted to Charmed on her last tour of the United States. He also accuses Aberforth of having given up, which is rather stupid, as Aberforth already told him that. He then starts lying through his teeth:

"Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who

He did? All I recall is his mentioning Horcruxes. There was nothing in there about how to find, identify and destroy Horcruxes. (Horcruces, it should be, in proper Latin.)

and he passed the knowledge on to me.

Liar. So, Harry, if "he passed the knowledge on" to you, how come you've had such a tough time finding and destroying Horcruxes for, oh, THE WHOLE BOOK?

Harry proclaims that he'll continue on this course until he wins or dies. Evidently the concept of victory bought with self-sacrifice is completely alien to him. He also says that he knows that this could end in his death, which the readers figured out back when he was eleven.

Harry then basically orders Aberforth to help him.

"If you can't help us, we'll wait 'til daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us - well, now would be a great time to mention it."

Which leaves Aberforth with no choice, really. I mean, if he doesn't do anything, these three will go out at dawn, do something pointlessly stupid, and get captured by the Death Eaters. Again.

So he walks up to the painting of Ariana and tells her "You know what to do." Ariana walks down a long tunnel painted behind her until finally she vanishes from sight. Aberforth tells the kids that everything is guarded now—secret passages, walls, the school itself. Dementors and Death Eaters everywhere. Aberforth also wants to know how they're going to do anything with Snape, Amycus Carrow and Alecto Carrow running the school, but he seems to feel that that's the Trio's lookout at this point.

At this point Ariana reappears, and now there's someone else in the painting with her—someone with long hair, ragged clothes and wounds on his face. I think this was supposed to harken back to PoA Sirius, actually. Ariana and Random Portrait Person walk closer and closer and closer to the canvas until finally all Harry can see are their heads.

And then, unaccountably, the portrait swings open like a door, revealing a tunnel. Also, the Random Portrait Person turns out NOT to have been a talking portrait at all, but an image of Neville Longbottom, who was walking through the tunnel beneath the portrait. Why he turned into a figure in a portrait is anyone's guess. I'm more puzzled by the fact that it was necessary to send Ariana to Hogwarts on the grounds that Neville might be there by her portrait, waiting for her to appear, and then have him come back with Ariana to the Hog's Head, when all Aberforth really had to do was open the portrait, show the Trio the tunnel, and tell them to follow it to Hogwarts But I guess that would have made way too much sense.

At any rate, Neville climbs out of the tunnel, jumps from the mantel and starts shouting enthusiastically, "I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"

*rolls eyes* Yeah, Neville. Harry's here. And he had to have his incompetent ass saved—yet again—by someone else.

You, on the other hand, rock. You've been taking a stand against evil, been leading an underground student movement, withstanding torture, and going into hiding when it seemed that you would be killed or bundled off to Azkaban.

You are a hero. Harry is a zero. See, Rowling? You used to be able to tell the difference.

Chapter Twenty-Seven - The Final Hiding Place

erastes — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:12:14 GMT

In which JKR proves that she can even make dragon riding dull, Voldemort kills more than the messenger and Harry makes (yet) another stupid decision

Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Final Hiding Place

Please welcome the Dragon Riders of Yawn....

So the Trio are clinging desperately to the dragon as they take off. I'm sure that this has been mentioned in the previous spork, but I have to say that it's bloody charming to have a sentient creature chained up all its life in the dark so it goes blind, and the only time it gets any attention from other life forms is when they torture it. What a LOVELY universe this is!!

If I'd been that dragon I would have turned in the air and had a quick Trio snack before flying on. Just sayin'.

Plus – it's been stated in chapter 26 that the dragon had had a "long confinement" so I think an explanation of how it has the muscles to fly, (particularly as it covers about 500 miles in one flight) would be in order, please. But as has been said before in this sporkage - "it's magic." So of course that explains everything.

And anyway that would make sense, (and most of this chapter doesn't), and as needs to escape, we can't have sense.

There was no means of steering; the dragon could not see where it was going,

Don't know why not, its described as partially blind.

and Harry knew that if it turned sharply or rolled in midair they would find it impossible to cling onto its broad back.

Note this. "broad back"

Nevertheless, as they climbed higher and higher, London unfurling below them like a gray-and-green map, Harry's overwhelming feeling was of gratitude for an escape that had seemed impossible.

It IS impossible, Harry. Being in the air doesn't make you safe from Death Eaters, especially breaking out of a very public place like a BANK – I'm sure you'll be chased any… moment… now…

*waits patiently for Death Eaters on brooms*

Crouching low over the beast's neck, he clung tight to the metallic scales,

There are things to cling onto? But I thought there wasn't any place to cling?

and the cool breeze was soothing on his burned and blistered skin, the dragon's wings beating the air like the sails of a windmill.

*sings* The wings on the dragon go round and round, round and round, round and round!

Behind him, whether from delight or fear he could not tell. Ron kept swearing at the top of his voice, and Hermione seemed to be sobbing.

Why? Why why why? Oh silly me for asking you, Harry, it's not like you care.

After five minutes or so, Harry lost some of his immediate dread that the dragon was going to throw them off, for it seemed intent on nothing but getting as far away from its underground prison as possible; but the question of how and when they were to dismount remained rather frightening.

And the pursuit? *peers hopefully backwards*

He had no idea how long dragons could fly without landing,

Basically because you didn't pay attention at school, you git, never opened a book or studied anything that didn't interest you. That's when you weren't cheating.

nor how this particular dragon, which could barely see,

Oh – NOW it's partially blind again.

would locate a good place to put down.

Now I have to interrupt here with a bit of basic dragon lore. Not JKR's dragon lore, but general well-know by Muggles dragon lore. They are generally known to be sentient, dangerous and intelligent, charming and tricksy, imbued with human speech and with a love of riddles.

Granted JKR's dragons aren't like that, but surely to Glod it's worth a shot? No-one thinks of talking to the poor beast, and yet they didn't bat an eyelid that Buckbeak could understand speech.

He glanced around constantly, imagining that he could feel his scar prickling.

Even when it's NOT hurting he imagines it is. I'm sick of you, Emo!Boy. Be a man will ya?

Then he recalls the events of last chapter in case we'd skipped it, and realises that Voldie would now realise they were hunting Horcruxes.

Well, it *is* Horcrux season. Be wery wery qwiet, we're huntin' Horcruxes!

The dragon seemed to crave cooler and fresher air. It climbed steadily until they were flying through wisps of chilly cloud, and Harry could no longer make out the little colored dots which were cars pouring in and out of the capital.

Later I prove the beast is travelling at a very slow 50 miles an hour. As the crow flies from the centre of London, after 5-10 minutes they'd have cleared the city. London isn't THAT big, you know. Harry seems to know they are flying north which is very intelligent of him, I don't remember him ever doing any orienteering or geography. And does he have a compass?

Jo repeats herself.

His hands were numb with cold…. And then one sentence later… he was cold and numb

Harry gets desperately hungry and thirsty and he starts to empathize – with the dragon, not his friends!

When, he wondered, had the beast itself last eaten? Surely it would need sustenance before long?

Sustenance? Yes, you are a wizard, Harry. You are even beginning to think like a pretentious twat. Wait till you start thinking of yourself in the third person.

AND GO ON, EAT THE KIDS, DRAGON!

And what if, at that point, it realized it had three highly edible humans sitting on its back?

YES!

The sun slipped lower in the sky, which was turning indigo; and still the dragon flew, cities and towns gliding out of sight beneath them, its enormous shadow sliding over the earth like a giant dark cloud.

I am quite sure that JKR has been in a plane, if you are up in the clouds in a plane, (smaller than a dragon) the plane's shadow is not enormous.

And please. WHY HAS NO-ONE SPOTTED THE BIG DRAGON?

From Chamber of Secrets:

You were seen (Snape) hissed … ‘ “Two Muggles in London, convinced they saw an old flying car over the Post Office tower… at noon
in Norfolk, Mrs Hetty Bayliss, while hanging out her washing … Mr Angus Fleet, of Peebles, reported to police”’ … six or seven Muggles in all.

And why is no-one chasing them? Surely to goodness the Goblins would have screamed blue murder at the robbery (particularly seeing as whose vault was broken into) Death Eaters would arrive (I'm rather surprised that there aren't some on the premises) and the Goblins would point "they went thataway! On a big blind dragon!"

Every part of Harry ached with the effort of holding on to the dragon's back.

We get it. Even if he is only clinging to a scale with his hands

"Is it my imagination," shouted Ron after a considerable stretch of silence, "or are we losing height?"

As no-one has spoken for 500 miles, (I'm assuming the distance due to the appearance of mountains, although with the mention of several lakes, it could be Cumbria) and that it must have taken at least 8 hours, as it's nearly sunset - "after a considerable silence" seems a little redundant.

Harry looked down and saw deep green mountains and lakes, coppery in the sunset. the landscape seemed to grow larger and more detailed as he squinted over the side of the dragon,

that's the dragon with the very broad back, remember.

and he wondered whether it had divined the presence of fresh water by the flashes of reflected sunlight.

Considering that sight is all about bouncing light off things, I have to wonder how YOUR eyes work, Harry? By Magic? However as the poor thing is practically blind, I'd say he can smell it.

And may I just add, "You thicko." to make me feel better.

Lower and lower the dragon flew, in great spiraling circles, honing in, it seemed, upon one of the smaller lakes. "I say we jump when it gets low enough!" Harry called back to the others. "Straight into the water before it realizes we're here!"

And then they jump off a moving dragon into the water. Not something I'd want to do, it's pretty risky. It's a matter of physics called Terminal Velocity.

As the terminal velocity of a human is around 120 miles an hour, and we know that the dragon flew around 500 miles…..

We know it's about 7pm as it's sunset, and they left London early morning, about 9ish or 10ish, so the dragon flies at approximately 50 miles an hour

OK. Not terminal velocity perhaps but still pretty damned fast to jump off.

But pretty damned SLOW to be escaping.

I know that Maths has never been JKR's strong point (to put it mildly) but this took me about 3 minutes to work out. At that pathetic speed, there's no WAY they couldn't have been caught, unless VM is criminally incompet…

Oh, never mind.

So they jump off and amazingly no-one is hurt, and the dragon doesn't gobble them up out of the water like crunchy goldfish. Hurrah for them. Boo for us.

Harry could have happily lain down and slept,

Why? HE didn't fly. Lightweight

he staggered to his feet, drew out his wand, and started casting the usual protective spells around them.

May I return you to chapter 11?

"They've got the power to perform brutal spells without fear of identification or arrest. They managed to penetrate every defensive spell we'd cast against them"

Humph.

SNIP! While Hermione does Mummy and feeds and changes the baby boys. The baby boys reiterate what they did in the last chapter in case anyone started the book at this point.

"Well, on the upside," said Ron finally, who was sitting watching the skin on his hands regrow, "we got the Horcrux. On the downside-"

"-- no sword," said Harry through gritted teeth, as he dripped dittany through the singed hole in his jeans onto the angry burn beneath.

"No sword," repeated Ron. "That double-crossing little scab..."

No what? I didn't quite understand you, boys. No sword you say? How did that happen?

And double crossing? That's rich coming from the people who intended to double cross the Goblin in the first place.

SNIP! While Jo fills half a page with them all laughing and reiterating again what's already been said. (We've been to Gringotts we've stolen a Horcrux, OMG WON'T HE NOTICE????) yawn yawn yawn.

Then something very unusual happens (it's difficult to imbue typing with a heavy sense of irony) and Harry scar starts to hurt. What can this mean? What CAN THIS MEAN???

Oh... It's a vision. Gosh. I wasn't expecting that. /irony. And it's the worst vision yet. And when I mean worst, I mean worst written. Ever.

SNIP! as Harry becomes Voldemort, torturer of Goblins and slayer of his minions!!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Way to go, Voldie. That's really going to help the recruitment drive.

And may I say, why the Gordon Ramsay did it take Voldemort about 9-10 hours to find out about this? I reiterate. A bleeping great big dragon breaks a bleeping big hole out of one of the bleeping biggest buildings in Diagon Alley and flies off and it takes all this time for bleeping Voldemort to be summonsed? NO - I don't agree with the Trio's suggestion that Gringotts would have tried to cover it up, either.

Voldemort AK's the room. Hey. Tough Crowd.

I had to smile as my Lucius (and Bella)

threw others behind them in their race for the door

Looks like there is a way to avoid an AK, Moody/Barty - use other people's bodies! Harry will remember this in the battle and use this very ruse.

But just as I think that Voldemort actually deserves to be king of the world for out-manoeuvering the idiot Ministry he goes and does sumpin' stoopid like killing the messenger. (And everyone else)

Then he does something more stupid. He knows, right, that Harry has a mental connection to him? So what does he do? He mentally lists his Horcruxes. Because that's what you WOULD do if you had the slightest inkling that your nemesis could peer into your mind at any time, wouldn't you? No? You wouldn't?

Me either. *headdesk headdesk headdesk*

Look, I'm not saying that it's not something that An Evil Overlord wouldn't do - they have a reputation for idiocy in general, but there have been times in the series when I actually applauded Voldemort for his intelligence.

This is not one of them. But then otherwise, how could Idiot Harry find out what he needs to find out? The boy needs all the help he can get.

I suppose that we should be grateful that it's this way and nice and quick rather than creating another plot arc for 10 more chapters. I'm grateful for small mercies.

Loath as I am to quote from this horribly written vision, I really must share the sheer over-the-toppedness of it.

Alone amongst the dead he stomped up and down, and they passed before him in vision: his treasures, his safeguards, his anchors to immortality - the diary was destroyed and the cup was stolen. What if, what if, the boy knew about the others? Could he know, had he already acted, had he traced more of them? Was Dumbledore at the root of this? Dumbledore, who had always suspected him; Dumbledore, dead on his orders; Dumbledore, whose wand was his now, yet who reached out from the ignominy of death through the boy, the boy But surely if the boy had destroyed any of his Horcruxes, he, Lord Voldemort, would have known, would have felt it? He, the greatest wizard of them all; he, the most powerful; he, the killer of Dumbledore

*raises hand* I don't want to be another messenger bringing you bad news, Voldie old matey, but you DIDN'T actually kill Dumbledore.

The Volderant continues, changing from first person to regarding himself in third person. It's weird and creepy, Moldyshorts. Stop it now.

How could Lord Voldemort not have known, if he, himself, most important and precious, had been attacked, mutilated?

SNIP! As Voldemort lists the Horcruxes in excrutiating detail (except the detail of the one Harry needs to know about of course)

True, he had not felt it when the diary had been destroyed, but he had thought that was because he had no body to fell, being less than ghost... No, surely, the rest were safe... The other Horcruxes must be intact...

Now this is interesting. Obviously he doesn't feel it when a Horcrux is destroyed, seeing as Dumbleone destroyed the ring. Aren't there charms which at least alert the wizard if someone touches their belongings? Some sort of wizarding burglar alarm? Why yes, I believe there are.

SNIP! As Voldie bores us all...JKR really can't write a monologue to save her life.

An old unease flickered inside him. Dumbledore had known his middle name... Dumbledore might have made the connection with the Gaunts... Their abandoned home was, perhaps, the least secure of his hiding places, it was there that he would go first... The lake, surely impossible...

Do you mean the cave? And sheesh, you nincompoop, more than Dumbledore would have known your middle name. They do have registration forms in most schools. It was one of the earliest plot holes that I found it impossible to believe when Dumbledore said something like "I was one of the few people who knew that Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort were one and the same" - Personally I think this is criminally negligent of DD - but my ranting about that fact does not belong here.

...though was there a slight possibility that Dumbledore might have known some of his past misdeeds, through the orphanage.

More than slight, you moron. Anyone could have investigated you. It's only the collective stupidity of Dumb-one and the wizarding world in general that your name was hidden away and there wasn't a file a mile thick on your past. I bet my last Knut that Voldie has collated a big fat file on Undesirable Number 2.

And Hogwarts... but he knew the his Horcrux there was safe; it would be impossible for Potter to enter Hogsmeade without detection, let alone the school. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to alert Snape to the fact that the boy might try to reenter the castle. ... To tell Snape why the boy might return would be foolish, of course;

Because it's not like Voldemort knows that Snape has been Dumb-dumbs confidante for years...

And we are back to Harry, which is almost a relief.

Harry's eyes flew open as he wrenched himself back to the present.

Why? Where was he? In the past? In the future? Eeek! Don't tell me he's the next Time Lord?

SNIP! because I can't even be arsed to go through the leaden reiteration of what Harry tells Ron and Hermione. And YET AGAIN, JKR shows that she's determined never to tell when showing is unnecesary - and when it is perfectly acceptable to use this device. "Harry shakily shared his vision with his friends" is all that was needed here. Instead of which we get the whole thing rehashed ad yawn-dom.

"Wait, wait!" cried Hermione as Ron caught up to the Horcrux

Which was obviously running around on the grass, trying to get dry

"We can't just go, we haven't got a plan, we need to -"

Sensible Hermione. Again.

"We need to get going," said Harry firmly...... We'll go to Hogsmeade,"

Oh yes. That sounds very sensible. A pure wizarding village, bound to be full of Death Eaters because they don't have to try and blend in. This is beyond stupid.

Hogwarts is a big place, and I can't believe that it only has one entrance - in fact we know it doesn't. I always wondered about the other entrances that had been "blocked up" in previous books. Aren't there spells that could be used to unblock them?

Isn't there some way onto the grounds from the forest? Oh yes, you know, I believe there is. Aren't there any creatures likely to help you in the forest? Oh yes, you know, I believe there are.

But no. None of that even occurs to Harry-no-brain, and he crowds the others under the cloak. Hermione says that the cloak doesn't fit (aren't there expanding spells? Shrinking spells?) but Harry doesn't care

"It'll be dark, no one's going to notice our feet."

Right, Harry. No-one will notice three pairs of disembodied feet walking along on their own.

Harry pulled the Cloak down as far as it would go, and together they turned on the spot into the crushing darkness.

Why were they turning on the spot? I don't remember that in their Apparating lessons. Oh never mind. I really don't care at this point. I hope they splinch themselves. I hope they get caught.

I hope they all. DIE. They've made me want to, often enough

Chapter Twenty-Six -- Gringotts

gehayi — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:54:43 GMT

Today's spork is by minkhollow.

***

In which Gringotts appears to have taken advantage of security testing, the Trio did not plan for ~~a bank full of nuns~~ what would happen if they were suspected/caught, and a few of the plot points were cooler the first time people used them.

Chapter Twenty-Six -- Gringotts

So. Starting in the previous chapter, the Trio's been getting insider information on Gringotts from Griphook, for great stealing a probable Horcrux from the Lestranges' vault. A big part of their plan involves Polyjuicing Hermione into Bellatrix.

This? Is actually a remarkably good start, all things considered. Even though they know some of the pitfalls of Polyjuice impersonation coming off the Ministry sneak, this time they know a fair amount about who they're impersonating - and hey, they even have her wand!

Speaking of which, Hermione gets the receiving end of wrong wand existential angst, despite dismissing Harry's as lack of practice earlier. Harry, showing an amazing amount of common sense, opts not to call her on it. Here's a funny thing, though - having Draco's wand seems to have cured Harry of his impotency issues.

The morning they take their leave from Shell Cottage (which, in case you forgot, is by the sea!), Harry briefly muses over the weather before Bella!Hermione heads out. Her disguise work on Ron... leads to two of the dirtiest-sounding lines in the book, actually.

"Okay, Ron, come here so I can do you..."

"Well, he's not my type, but he'll do," said Harry.

I can't make this stuff up. Some of the fandom's more... imaginative minds, certainly, or a lot of May's LJ fuss wouldn't have happened. But not me.

Speaking of May, JKR also makes one of her quasi-sudden time frame leaps in this chapter. I mean, six chapters ago it was January, wasn't it? This really threw me off on the first attempt, since I skimmed right over her attempts in the previous chapter at ~~showing~~ telling the passage of time.

Mostly, I think this bit is one of the more painful symptoms of JKR holding herself to the school-year format when the characters she's focusing on... you know, aren't in school. It'd be one thing if she'd written the 'meanwhile, back at Hogwarts...' adventures most of fandom wants to have read, and occasionally flashed to the Trio on the Nature Trail to Hell. But she didn't, so instead we're stuck with a good ten or fifteen chapters of filler, Department of Backstory, and waiting for the plot to happen. And to think, if she'd let herself write the plot first and the backstory after, the final battle could have been over by Christmas...

Anyway! The disguised (or invisible) Trio Plus Griphook take off for London, where getting into Diagon Alley runs them into their first very plausible stumbling point: Hermione is, inherently, too nice to be Bellatrix. Then again, most people aren't that nasty, which is probably good for the world at large.

...Of course, when the second flaw (that being the surprise addition of a Death Eater to our merry band of travelers) makes itself known, Bella!Hermione has a good go at making up for her early cordiality.

When they reach the bank, Ron Confounds the door guards, and... I just have to say that this was a much, much cooler trick when Obi-Wan Kenobi did it in Star Wars. Considering Hermione basically fills in the gap with "These are not the imposters you are looking for. Move along," I feel this isn't a terribly far-fetched comparison.

Once inside, it turns out the goblins are a little bit better informed than the Trio was expecting them to be. To keep things from getting out of hand, Harry... breaks out the Imperios. Gutsy, Potter, gutsy. I suppose since you were already breaking into a bank and impersonating the targeted vault's owner, you felt you had nothing to lose, hmm?

They get pretty far down into the depths of the bank before the cart dumps them through an enchantment-dispelling waterfall. I have two things to say about this particular bit, the first being that the Trio didn't do their preliminary research as well as they'd thought. I would have been asking Griphook what we might run into if someone in the bank suspected a robbery attempt - hard to adequately prepare for internal defenses if you have no idea what they are.

Second, up to this point, I was honestly wondering if JKR had forgotten how long she had established Polyjuice as lasting, way back in CoS. The Ministry sneak, at the very least, felt like it took more than an hour, yet there was no mention of any of the Trio needing to take in more, and that would have been a perfect opportunity to throw even more wrenches into the works than she did. This isn't the sort of complication that ought to be handwaved out of existence. It could have given her Plot!

They get past a mostly-blind dragon (there will be more about that later) and on to the vault they're after. Once they get to the treasure, though, another epic failure in the Trio's planning comes to light. Here's a question you should have asked, guys: "Are there any charms or curses on the items in vaults that serve as security measures?"

Yeah, about that. Especially when they turn out to be the sort that'll bury you under a pile of hot metal. This and the waterfall bit represent the real flaw in the Trio's plan, I think. Instead of asking what they might be up against and how best to get around that, they asked how to get by the front desk with minimal hassle.

The pile-of-hot-metal business, once the cup they're after turns up on a high shelf, presents a few problems. They have to get the thing down without actually touching it, or anything else in the vault. Harry suggests hooking a handle with the Incredible Horcrux-Killing Sword, after someone levitates him up high enough to reach it.

...Here's my question about that, though. Why not levitate Harry within reach of the cup - so he can run it through with the sword? Just because a vertical stroke is probably out of the question, in light of the shelving, doesn't mean a horizontal stroke wouldn't do. And if a few other things get smashed along the way... well, they already snuck into the vault, so how much more would they have to lose?

But this is Rowlingland (where common sense is optional, if not outright discouraged), and more specifically it's Harry's brain. Applying logic to the problem was my first mistake.

Once the cup's down from the shelf, anyway, Griphook shows he's a far sneakier bastard than the Trio expected him to be. Making off with the sword, calling attention to the impostors the bank authorities have probably been looking for since the Trio came in, and getting it all done without the people he helped sneak in ever suspecting... it's an admirable piece of work, in its way. You'd think at least one of those kids would know seven books later to be careful about precisely who they were trusting, but there I go thinking again.

(The back of my mind, now that I think of it, is making me wonder what that multiplication charm could have meant for the Horcrux. If JKR really wanted to complicate people's lives, she could have had the cup clone itself exactly, Voldiesoul and all. Our dear evil overlord probably would have had a real blast with being pulled into hundreds more pieces than he ever expected.

It may be just as well she didn't, though, since no one had time to stick around and chop up every last cup. Particularly with Griphook making off with the sword.)

In between trying to fend off the bank authorities - and bellowing again, which he really doesn't have the body type to be doing - Harry opens the chains on the dragon and gets the Trio on it before it realizes it's free to take off.

First, the spell Hermione's using to help their escape threw me for a loop. Aren't there other spells that could have exploded the passageway or gouged it out or something? Why introduce a new one? (If I'm too confused for this to hold water, do let me know.) And also, I apparently wasn't hallucinating when I remembered 'relashio' being set to multiple purposes. PICK AN EFFECT AND STICK TO IT.

Second? When the unit of escape is or is steered by the visually impaired, whether for the actual getaway or not, it's going to remind me of the end of Sneakers. And it will probably pale in comparison to Whistler driving. I don't care if there's a dragon involved in this case, Whistler's cooler!

And for all the various bits of this chapter that reminded me of the film (rent it, if you're not familiar; it's lovely) have left me with the mental image of James Earl Jones scowling and saying, "We are the Ministry of Magic. We don't do that sort of thing!"... I think I would have much preferred to read something new. Granted, I do like that the Trio's plan goes to hell in a handbasket on them, but I've seen it before and this version has 100% less Angry Ben Kingsley.

(...'course, Cosmo could outthink old Moldyshorts any day of the week.)

Chapter Twenty-Five Shell Cottage

erastes — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:59:57 GMT

In which nothing much happens Remus is spectactularly stupid and the cottage is a TARDIS and I spend most of it obsessing about who and how many are in each bedroom.

But first... Description!

Bill and Fleur's cottage stood alone on a cliff overlooking the sea, its walls embedded with shells and whitewashed.

This is not a sentence that makes me want to read on, Jo. What's overlooking the sea? The cliff? And why would you whitewash the cliff and embed it with shells?

It was a lonely

That's because it’s alone on a cliff, perhaps?

and beautiful place. Wherever Harry went inside the tiny cottage or its garden, he could hear the constant ebb and flow of the sea, like the breathing of some great, slumbering creature.

That's because it’s alone on a cliff. Perhaps. We get it.

He spent much of the next few days making excuses to escape the crowded cottage, craving the cliff-top view of open sky and wide, empty sea,

Yeah, yeah.

And incidentally how DID Ron manage to tell Harry where this place is? Bill's the Secret Keeper, not Ron.

and the feel of cold, salty wind on his face. The enormity of his decision not to race Voldemort to the wand still scared Harry. He could not remember, ever before, choosing  not to act.

I can, boys and girls, can you? Not doing his homework for one. Not finding the Egg's secret. Two. Not getting the memory from Slughorn. Three. Not washing his underpants. Four. Shall I go on?

He was full of doubts, doubts that Ron could not help voicing whenever they were together.

Er. Ron's Legilimensing now? or is Harry taking up ventriloquism? Is Ron... Chucky?  It would explain a lot.

"What if Dumbledore wanted us to work out the symbol in time to get the wand?" "What if working out what the symbol meant made you 'worthy' to get the Hallows?" "Harry, if that really is the Elder Wand, how the hell are we supposed to finish off You-KnowWho?" Harry had no answers:

Well that's not surprising, as Dumbledore has given clues worthy the most convoluted Brains Trust Game.

SNIP! for Harry trying to rationalise his reasons for not beating VM to the Elder Wand. Harry then does what Harry always does and turns all the blame onto someone else.

From time to time, anger at Dumbledore crashed over him again, powerful as the waves slamming themselves against the cliff beneath the cottage, anger that Dumbledore had not explained before he died.

Ron then shows that he really hasn't been paying attention.

"But is he dead?"

I suppose the ancient age, the withered arm, the ring's curse, the cut wrist, the deadly cave potion, the Avada Kedavra, the fall from the Astromony Tower and the funeral didn't convince you, Ron? Although I know what he means. I was living in fear that he'd be BACK.

Ron shows some real fandomy tendenancies and lists the clues that the Big Double Dee might not have croaked. Harry's not listening, (as usual) but staring into space

"The silver doe. The sword. The eye Harry saw in the mirror --"

SNIP! while they argue it out. Harry (strangely) thinks that Bumblebore has gone on.

What d'you mean, 'gone on'?" asked Ron,

Oh come on, Ron. You know! 'E's passed on! This headmaster is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the tomb 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the broom! 'E's kicked the cauldron, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-HEADMASTER!!***

But seriously, I do find it strange that Nearly Headless Nick said that a ghost would only hang around if he thought he hadn't done everything in this life - under no circumstances do I think that Doubledore had finished everything he had to do, so WHY would Harry think he'd gone on? (and he was wrong about this, incidentally, as he was wrong about a great... many... things....) /Emperor voice

SNIP! for Fleur coming out and being annoyingly stereotyped.

Her dislike of the goblin sending her to deliver messages was clear; she looked irritable as she walked back around the house.

Ouch. Either "her dislike of the goblin was clear," or "her dislike of being sent to deliver messages by the goblin was clear." And how was it clear? She's walking away and Harry can't see her expression!

Griphook was waiting for them, as Fleur had said, in the tiniest of the cottage's three bedrooms, in which Hermione and Luna slept by night.

Can I say woo hoo for the girlies sharing a bed? But note this. He's in a tiny room apparently hotbedding with the girls. And Jo - sentence structure please - Fleur didn't say this in the tiny bedroom.

He had drawn the red cotton curtains against the bright, cloudy sky, which gave the room a fiery glow at odds with the rest of the airy, light cottage

Look - you've just been telling us how tiny and crowded it is. A seaside cottage ain't light and airy. This is a typical clifftop cottage. Small windows against the sea.

SNIP! for Griphook agreeing to help

His black eyes glittered; there were no whites to his eyes.

Could that be because they were black?

Griphook says he wants the sword, and then quantifies that by saying which particular sword he wants, because, Harry (as we all know) ain't the sharpest pencil in the case and he might get confused and start looking for Excalibur or something./irony

Harry shows as a dodgy mind set about the ownership of things as did Bella in Chapter One.

"We're Gryffindors, and it was Godric Gryffindor's --"

Riiiight. So - the diadem belongs to the Ravenclaws and the cup belongs to all the Hufflepuffs. I wouldn't wanna be around YOU, when you have to tell the Puffs you've destroyed their cup. And I'm a writer so all JKR's money belongs to ME! Harry - you're stoopid.

Griphook says the sword was stolen by the great and good *cough* Godric and that's the deal or no deal.   The boys say they need to think and then magically appear in the downstairs sitting room without any explanation of how they got there.

For a "tiny" cottage, it's certainly got a good few rooms. Harry uses his portable brain (Hermione) and asks if the sword was stolen. She doesn't know!!!! Bloody hell. Ron and Hermione have a heated discussion about Goblin Rebellions which amazed me as I wasn't aware that Ron had ever listened to a word in class, he'd said as much to his mother after his OWLS. ( but he seems very knowledgable now. Ron then calls Goblins "underhanded." I can only assume he's repeating what his parents have said because he's had no dealings with Goblins that we know of.

There was a pause while they tried to think of a way around the problem.

Which meant that Harry looked out of the window at Dobby's grave. and waited for someone else to have an idea. Ron does (!!) but Hermione talks him out of it because she says (rightly) it's a double cross.

SNIP! for another bickering fest between Ron and Hermione while Harry angsts about Godric who might have stolen the sword. Strangely he never considers that it might have been won in combat which - considering what's about to come, is a bit stupid of him, but not at all surprising. He decides to doublecross Griphook anyway, showing true Gryffindor spirit. It's for the Greater Good, after all Harry. Well done!

They hoodwink Griphook which surprised me because I would have thought that he'd have wanted it in writing, but he decides on a handshake which Mr Stupid participates in because he's learned nothing in 6 years.

They settled to work in the smallest bedroom, which was kept, according to Griphook's preference, in semidarkness.

And not the fiery red glow mentioned earlier, then.

They remained shut in the cupboardlike room for hours at a time. Slowly the days stretched into weeks. There was problem after problem to overcome, not least of which was that their store of Polyjuice Potion was greatly depleted.

Shame there aren't any wizards around, or any people who are good at potions. Shame they don't have weeks to brew it. Shame they don't know anyone who worked at Hogwarts, or even worked at the Ministry. Shame they don't have a house-elf who can apparate anywhere! If they ONLY knew someone like that, then they could make them some more. CURSES! *shakes fist at unfair world*

Just as an aside, I can't see when Griphook sleeps. He is supposed to share the room with Hermione and Luna but I assumed that Griphook was nocturnal and they hotbedded - but if they are plotting all day - where and when is he sleeping?

SNIP! as Fleur has a snit and says she's not going to continue giving Griphook trays in his room, and Harry WANGSTing that it's all his fault. Why yes, Harry, it is. Fleur says it's OK, as he saved her sister's life and Harry does a typical bloody Harry.

This was not, strictly speaking, true, but Harry decided against reminding her that Gabrielle had never been in real danger.

*headdesk* Modesty is NOT Mr Potter's middle name.

"Anyway," Fleur went on, pointing her want at a pot of sauce on the stove, which began to bubble at once, "Mr. Ollivander leaves for Muriel's zis evening. Zat will make zings easier. Ze goblin," she scowled a little at the mention of him, "can move downstairs, and you, Ron, and Dean can take zat room."

That's kind of her. A "cupboardlike room" which was crowded with two girls who had to share a bed, is now having to squeeze three large teenagers into it. However, there's a bonus - three boys in a bed!

"We don't mind sleeping in the living room,"

Another room! How big IS this cottage? Has anyone tried to work out where everyone's sleeping? I can't work it out.

Luna chats to Dean, Hermione is patronising. Ollivander comes downstairs.

The wandmaker still looked exceptionally frail, and he clung to Bill's arm as the latter supported him, carrying a large suitcase.

Someone needs to know when to use "the latter" and when it's OK to repeat Bill's name. In this sentence it literally says that Bill's arm was supporting him and Bill's arm was carrying a large suitcase. Both true statements but ugh so clumsy.

The the ~~Demon King!~~ Remus arrives, and shouts in such a stupid way I spat my soup over the book.

For I am a Pirate king! And it is, it is, a glorious thing, to be a Pirate King!

"It is I, Remus John Lupin!" called a voice over the howling wind. Harry experienced a thrill of fear; what had happened? "I am a werewolf, married to Nymphadora Tonks, and you, the Secret-Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in an emergency!"

If there had been anywhere around (and it's made clear that the Baddies know the location of these places even if they can't find them exactly) then they would have a lot of information in that one bellowed sentence. Plus, if his bellowing that information was supposed to prove who he was - it didn't. He didn't say anything that anyone in the wizarding world would have known.

And Pantomine Villain voice aside, when did Remus get teh Stoopid?

"Lupin," muttered Bill,

Because obviously "It is I, Remus John Lupin" wasn't clear enough, or perhaps the readers are supposed to be thick or something.

SNIP! for Remus announcing Tonk's baby and Ron and Harry regress to 1950's schoolboys and say "Blimey" a lot. No-one (except possibly me) says Blimey. Certainly not 17 year old teenagers in 1998. Everyone celebrates except Griphook who

slunk back to the bedroom he now occupied alone.

Huh? I thought the boys were there in there. Now I'm really confuzzled.

Harry ...saw Bill's eyes following the goblin up the stairs.

Yuk. What a horrible image. They will get all dusty.

Remus goes off and Bill takes Harry to one side and says:

"Harry, you're planning something with Griphook."

They've only been closeted together for WEEKS - and only coming out for meals. Bill Weasley = Razor Mind.

Bill attempts to explain to Harry what we'd all realised, that reneging on a goblin promise would be a Very Bad Thing and Harry has a moment of guilt

Harry felt a slight squirm of discomfort, as though a small snake had stirred inside him.

But perhaps it was only a partially digested Chest Monster. *burp*

I do find the Goblins' notion of ownership intriguing, though. Considering that Goblins are undoubtedly an older creature than humans or wizards who's to say that they aren't right. Why should wizard's laws take precedence over their own? It certainly gives an insight into the Goblin rebellions.

Then Harry goes back to being Harry. Reckless, stupid and negligent.

As he followed Bill back to the others a wry thought came to him, born no doubt of the wine he had drunk. He seemed set on course to become just as reckless a godfather to Teddy Lupin as Sirius Black had been to him.

Again, proving (if any proof were needed) that Harry never learns anything.

***with apologies to Monty Python

Chapter Twenty- Four -- The Wandmaker

gehayi — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:06:28 GMT

Today's spork is by asphodeline.

***

In which we have character death, plot assassination and grammarcide and we learn that a wizard's wand follows the wizard or sometimes doesn't or maybe it does. Who knows? Ollivander doesn't. Oh and everything suddenly makes sense to Harry.

Lucky Harry...

Chapter Twenty-Four -- The Wandmaker

the sea was rushing against rock somewhere nearby....

So we understand we are somewhere near the sea. It's a place called Shell Cottage and it's the love-nest of Bill and Phlegm.

Dobby's Dead, there I've said it. Of course, JKR makes a bit more of it than that but I've had enough of Harry and his grief so that's it folks, the elf is dead.

"I want to do it properly," were the first words of which Harry was fully conscious of speaking.

"Not by magic. Have you got a spade?" And shortly afterwards he had set to work, alone, digging the grave in the place that Bill had shown him at the end of the garden, between bushes.

so he digs

On Harry dug, deeper and deeper into the hard, cold earth

Without the full description of Shell Cottage at this point, it's maybe a bit unfair to point out that if it is that close to the sea, it's either standing on rock with only a thin layer of soil or it's very sandy. Just mentioning.

Deeper and deeper Harry sank into the grave

Why? Bearing in mind he's digging at one hell of a rate and for a small house elf.

At which we point we enjoy a little Tolkien....

and he knew where Voldemort had been tonight, and whom he had killed in the topmost cell of ~~Isengard~~ Nurmengard, and why… And he thought of ~~Wormtongue~~ Wormtail, dead because of one small ~~hobbit~~ unconscious impulse of mercy

and then, back in the right fictional world, along come Dean and Ron to join in the fun

They jumped down into the hole he had made with spades of their own and together they worked in silence until the hole seemed deep enough.

Whoah, wait, hang on. Just how big is this elf? There are now three young men down in this hole all wielding spades and not bumping into each other? While they're digging? That's some hole, it's big enough to stick a hippogriff in.

Sadly the atmosphere at his graveside was ruined for me here when I had visions of them lobbing Dobby off the side of a gaping chasm, waiting for the sound of his body as it hits the bottom.

Once Dobby has had his funeral (snipped to save you the heartache of course), Harry, left alone, decides to make some sort of mark or headstone and so a stone becomes a rock, morphs back to a stone and has a sizeable inscription hewn onto it:

.... there were a number of large, white stones, smoothed by the sea, marking the edges of the flowerbeds....Slowly, under his murmured instructions, deep cuts appeared upon the rock's surface.... When Harry stood up again, the stone read: Here lies Dobby, a Free Elf.

Call me picky but it's got to either be a rock or a stone or a boulder or a pebble but not intermittently any mixture of these. And while I'm feeling a bit sarcastic, love this description of the fire in the living room at Shell Cottage.

The room was light-coloured, pretty, with a small fire of driftwood burning brightly in the fireplace.

I hadn't expected them to be using the fireplace for a fire at all, had you?

So, the elf's dead. There is work to do and people to interrogate.

However, just before we get there is this gem, Harry speaks:

he heard the authority in his own voice, the conviction, the sense of purpose that had come to him as he dug Dobby's grave. All of their faces were turned towards him, looking puzzled.

I'm expecting great things now, almost excited....but no

I'm going to wash, Harry told Bill....

I am dazzled by his decision-making and conviction! Such suspense and all for a wash!! OK, so he most likely did need to wash but these weren't the prophetic words I was really expecting.

I'm snipping out the tedious, homely stuff but couldn't ignore this

and he knew that Voldemort was getting there too. Harry understood and yet did not understand....

Rep, just like the rest of us. Harry has at last started to think and we have some hope building here that he is starting to "get" a few things. Don't hold your breath though.

So, the real ditty-gritty of the chapter starts about now.

SNIP! For more boring stuff where Harry demands to speak to the ~~prisoners~~ injured guests and Ron and Thermionic follow him around like sheep wondering what he's up to.

Before we get to the interrogations however, this little sentence made me giggle. For some reason, I heard Fleur whinny:

Fleur made an impatient noise, but Bill did not look at her

Just as I was hoping for a speeding up of the pace here, Harry being all authoritative and understanding and such, we have to endure Griphook the goblin's interview with Harry.

Either the dialogue here is very much more tedious than previous dialogue has been or we are supposed to understand that goblins speak annoyingly slowly and deliberately. It isn't long before I'm hoping there's another hole dug for the goblin.

I skipped ahead the first time because there was no information other than the obligatory back-story to remind us all about goblins and money and treasure and such:

"You probably don't remember –" Harry began.

"—that I was the goblin who showed you to your vault, the first time you ever visited Gringotts?" said Griphook. "I remember, Harry Potter. Even amongst goblins, you are very famous."

After the history lesson Harry gets annoyed with Griphook and Ron and Hermione are confused and amazed by Harry – mostly because he apparently knows things now and he seems to be making sense - to himself at least.

More snipping till we get to the point, sort of, as Harry insists the goblin helps them get into Gringotts,

"Well, the vault we need to get into isn't empty, and I'm guessing its protection will be pretty powerful," said Harry. "It belongs to the Lestranges." He saw Hermione and Ron look at each other, astonished, but there would be time enough to explain after Griphook had given his answer.

and don't you just groan inwardly at the thought of a few more pages of Harry explaining the rest?

More snippage for memories and re-telling and reminding us just how much wizards and goblins don't get on,

"Well, goblins can do magic without wands," said Ron.

"That is immaterial! Wizards refuse to share the secrets of wand-lore with other magical beings, they deny us the possibility of extending our powers!"

"Well, goblins won't share any of their magic either," said Ron.

(nah nah nah-nah nah etc.)

"This isn't about wizards versus goblins or any other sort of magical creature –" Griphook gave a nasty laugh. "But it is, it is precisely that! As the Dark Lord becomes ever more powerful, your race is set still more firmly above mine! Gringotts falls under Wizarding rule, house-elves are slaughtered, and who amongst the wand-carriers protests?"

and here my heart sank momentarily

"We do!" said Hermione.

Fortunately, the reader isn't given a brief history of the SPEW campaign but Griphook is amazed of course at how liberal-minded these young people are while still feeling aggrieved and hard-done by.

We don't learn anything new in the talk with the goblin but his nasty look when the sword is removed from his grasp presumably sews some seeds of trouble for later on – can't wait.

Before we move to the next bedroom and interview the one belonging to the chapter title, this leapt out at me:

We have a duty to the objects placed in our care, which were, so often, wrought by our fingers."

Fingers? Is it just me or does that sound a bit strange. Why not hands here? Can things be wrought by fingers?

Anyway....

There is a brief interlude where the reader is given every opportunity to clearly understand what Harry was going on about just in case you too had rushed ahead and missed all the important bits:

"Harry," whispered Hermione, pulling them both away from the door, into the middle of the still-dark landing, "are you saying what I think you're saying? Are you saying there's a Horcrux in the Lestranges' vault?"

pause for dramatic effect....

"Yes," said Harry. "

Gripping stuff and powerful legilimencing from Hermione

Ron, bless his heart, is simply getting more confused and at times I can fully understand why,

"But I thought we were looking for places You-Know-Who's been, places he's done something important?" said Ron, looking baffled. "Was he ever inside the Lestranges' vault?"

Harry thinks not.

The Wandmaker, Mr. Ollivander, is next on the list and we learn that Harry's wand is irreparable, broken, a dead wand. I almost felt sorry for him but that didn't last long and he does have two spares!

It's all about wands – so confusing we read it twice – three times – four times. Ollivander doesn't know or doesn't care or he's too upset by his incarceration or just plain pissed off with all the questions. Oh well, can't be important to the plot then – or is it?!

The poor man has suffered in his incarceration and along with his yellow skin and sticky-out facial bones, he also has knobble-knuckled fingers, which description made me stop, raise an eyebrow and lose the thread of the conversation – such as it was.

Once again, there's a fair bit of snipping here because once again, not a lot is really said and not a lot of new, useful information comes to light. If anything, this became even more annoying than the previous few pages because Ollivander didn't seem to know much at all. Harry still wonders if he's on the side of Good or Bad and I was beginning to wonder how this man had gained such a reputation as a master wandsmith or whatever they're called.

We are reminded

"The wand chooses the wizard," said Ollivander. "That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore."

but then there is a whole load of maybes and ifs and buts which had me more than a little confused and once again this conversation seemed to be going nowhere of any use. For example,

This was the wand of Draco Malfoy."

"Was?" repeated Harry. "Isn't it still his?"

"Perhaps not. If you took it –"

"—I did – "

"—then it may be yours.

and,

"I took this wand from Draco Malfoy by force," said Harry. "Can I use it safely?"

"I think so.

and, rather revoltingly,

"I think so," replied Ollivander, his protuberant eyes upon Harry's face.

ew!

Eventually, JKR gets out of answering any of these questions by using the good all fall back

"You ask deep questions, Mr. Potter. Wandlore is a complex and mysterious branch of magic."

which in my book means we'll never really know – unless we learn more during a signing tour some years hence when the answer's been worked out.

Of course, what Harry is getting at – I'll tell you now and spare you any more breath-holding –

are "Legends about a wand – or wands – that have been passed from hand to hand by murder."

and the strange things that his own wand does when faced with Voldie (no, the real wand, not that one. Wash your minds out!)

Not surprisingly, Ollivander turned pale because Harry appears to know almost as much as he does about wandlore but also, I suspect, he is struggling with anaemia :

Against the snowy pillow he was light grey, and his eyes were enormous, bloodshot, and bulging with what looked like fear

or maybe a serious thyroid condition?

Intermittently, the reader has to be reminded that we are in a cottage by the sea and wonderfully bizarre descriptions pepper the dialogue. Most notably in this conversation,

the sea gushed forward and backward and was heard to be in the distance rushing and almost mournful.

Sometimes, the sea sounds nearby and then all of a sudden it's a distant voice. Global warming and fast tides?

Voldemort had tortured the wandmaker for information regarding wands and we learn that

"He wanted to know everything I could tell him about the wand variously known as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, or the Elder Wand."

No heart-stopping new information here, I just love the idea of a deathstick !! Brilliant.

Lastly, as we say goodbye to this painfully drawn-out conversation, I see not a wand but a small band of gold laying in a river somewhere,

"You – you really think this wand exists, then, Mr. Ollivander?" asked Hermione. "Oh yes," said Ollivander. "Yes, it is perfectly possible to trace the wand's course through history. There are gaps, of, course, and long ones, where it vanishes from view, temporarily lost or hidden; but always it resurfaces.

Ah, the One Ring!!

Apparently Harry is channelling Voldemort more frequently now and his visions provide the reader with a welcome break from the POV of the Trio.

Sometimes.

I've kept my inner the proof-reader a bit subdued in me but I found myself scribbling all over my book and this passage gained a lot of pencil markings,

Voldemort was at the gates of Hogwarts; Harry could see him standing there, and see too the lamp bobbing in the pre-dawn, coming closer and closer.

what lamp and how is it "bobbing"?

Kill the Ands, pleeeease....

"And Grindelwald used the Elder Wand to become powerful. And at the height of his power, when Dumbledore knew he was the only one who could stop him, he duelled Grindelwald and beat him, and he took the Elder Wand."

and Ron gets all sort of mediaeval and not at all IC in his word choice, but then :

"Dumbledore had the Elder Wand?" said Ron. "But then – where is it now?"

SNIP!

"But then, let's go!" said Ron urgently. "Harry, let's go and get it before he does!"

This pencil exercise also highlighted just how poorly made this (Bloomsbury) hardback edition is from the paper quality to the binding. Is this just me?

Towards the end of the chapter, Harry gets all angsty because he has to make decisions regarding Horcruxes or Hallows. I feel his pain. I thought I'd got the hang of Horcurses at the end of book six and then we had to apply our minds to Hallows but maybe the Horxes were still relevant but maybe they weren't and who knows what they should be chasing now,

"No," said Harry, and he sank to his knees in the grass. "Hermione's right. Dumbledore didn't want me to have it. He didn't want me to take it. He wanted me to get the Horcruxes."

"The unbeatable wand, Harry!" moaned Ron.

"I'm not supposed to . . . I'm supposed to get the Horcruxes. . . ."

You have to feel sorry for him, soooo confusing poor lad.

And finally....

We get Snape!!!!! Squeeeeeeeeeee!!

Ahem, sorry

/fangirling

Harry's visions rescue the reader from the Tiresome Trio and finally we see something different and ACTION!! (almost). What we don't need to "see" is more floating Voldemort but since he learned to do the flying, floating thing, he can't be expected to stop. It's not a "cool" way for a baddy to be travelling imho, it's comic.

and now everything was cool and dark: The sun was barely visible over the horizon as he glided alongside Snape, up through the grounds toward the lake. "I shall join you in the castle shortly," he said in his high, cold voice. "Leave me now." Snape bowed and set off back up the path, his black cloak billowing behind him.

We get to float along with Voldie now as he makes his triumphant way to DD's tomb. I almost got excited here!

The white marble tomb, an unnecessary blot on the familiar landscape. He felt again that rush of controlled euphoria, that heady sense of purpose in destruction. He raised the old yew wand: How fitting that this would be its last great act. The tomb split open from head to foot.

Yeah, some action!!!!

The shrouded figure was as long as thin as it had been in life. He raised the wand again. The wrappings fell open. The face was translucent, pale, sunken, yet almost perfectly preserved.

I'm not good at maths either but DD wasn't exactly in there long so I'd expected him to look pretty Dumbledorish still. A bit smelly perhaps but not much changed.

Had the old fool imagined that marble or death would protect the wand?

Oh probably, yes.

The spiderlike hand swooped and pulled the wand from Dumbledore's grasp, and as he took it, a shower of sparks flew from its tip, sparkling over the corpse of its last owner, ready to serve a new master at last.

and somewhere at the back of mind is a little voice shouting "GO VOLDIE!!!!"

Here, at last, endeth chapter the twenty-fourth.

Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor

gehayi — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:25:28 GMT

In which Harry suffers a frontal lobe migraine for most of the chapter, the Random Death Eaters show common sense, Rowling completely ignores her own set-up for a character arc, all the wizards forget that they're wizards and Dobby is a deus ex machina.

Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor

When last we left our non-hero, Harry had just spoken Lord Voldemort's name—despite the fact that there's a spell on it to allow the Death Eaters to trace anyone who speaks the name, despite the fact that Harry knows that the Death Eaters are looking for him, and despite the fact that Ron has kept warning Harry about this Trace spell for months and just warned him again two minutes ago. Three times. In succession. That's a special kind of stupid right there.

Harry needs to spend more time reviewing the hero's equivalent of the Evil Overlord List. Maybe then he'd have noticed Rule #51:

51. When I state my intention to do something and one of my robots interrupts me, I will at least hear it out.

Okay, so Ron's a sidekick rather than a robot. Same principle.

Anyway, the Death Eaters order Harry and company to come out of the tent with their hands up. It seems clear to me that the Death Eaters know who they're pursuing, because there's absolutely no need for Harry or his friends to come out of the tent. What they should do is grab the Sword of Gryffindor, hold hands and Apparate the hell out of there. This is the logical thing to do, given Rowling's system of magic. There's certainly nothing stopping them from Apparating away. Or, for that matter, preventing the three of them from hiding under the Invisibility Cloak which we know Harry has with him.

The problem is that Rowling has created few if any limits on her system of magic. Since Potterverse wizards do not, as, say, Dresdenverse wizards do, use magic that typically takes a lot of preparation or start to run out of magical energy when they get tired or badly hurt, and since there's little a Potterverse wizard can't magically do in a crisis, the only way that Rowling can get Harry, Ron and Hermione captured and hauled off to the Lair of Evil is for the Trio to be abysmally incompetent.

Hermione shows enough presence of mind to try to disguise Harry—which is more than Harry thinks about. I repeat what I said in Chapter 7. Why is this book NOT called Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows again? The book is two-thirds over, and she's done more than the titular hero has.

He saw Hermione point her wand, not towards the outside, but into his face;

Now that's a waste of words. What's wrong with "He saw Hermione point her wand at his face"?

there was a bang, a burst of white light, and he buckled in agony, unable to see.

Which would be more impressive if Harry didn't keep buckling in agony every two minutes from the pain caused by his scar.

Harry's face swells up from the Stinging Hex, closing his eyes almost to slits. His glasses fall off too. These Death Eaters display considerably more sense than we've ever seen before, as they search Harry and confiscate the wand that Hermione loaned him. It's nice to see evil being competent for a change. Now, if only good would try it.

I do wonder, though, why it takes four or five Death Eaters to wrestle Ron and Hermione to the ground. Why do that when you can cast Petrificus Totalus?

Ron screams at the Death Eaters to "get off [Hermione]". I'm not sure I'd want to get off in a situation like that, but to each his own. We then get a rather odd description:

There was the unmistakable sound of knuckles hitting flesh:

Now, what IS the sound of knuckles hitting flesh? In the interests of scientific accuracy, I tried punching myself several times. There was scarcely any sound...a barely audible thud. You certainly wouldn't know by hearing it that the thud was caused by knuckles unless your hearing was that of, say, the last son of Krypton.

Ron "grunts" in response to the knuckles. Hermione begs the Death Eaters to "leave him alone."

Fenrir Greyback calls Ron Hermione's "boyfriend" and utters a vague threat before nosediving into creepiness:

"Delicious girl... what a treat . . . I do enjoy the softness of the skin. . . ."

IT'S NOT MY FAULT, LJ. IT'S A LINE FROM CANON. Page 362, British edition; page 447, American edition.

Anyway, I'm going to presume that Fenrir finds Hermione to be "delicious" because he hasn't had enough Meals Ready to Eat lately. And, for the benefit of those just starting the series with the seventh book, Harry identifies Fenrir...sort of.

He knew who this was: Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who was permitted to wear Death Eater robes in return for his hired savagery.

"Hired"? Voldie's got mercs now? How does Harry know that Fenrir's hired? Has he been checking Voldie's payroll receipts?

And since when do Death Eaters have special, identifiable robes? Is anyone else now picturing Project Runway, with Lucius strutting before the buyers and fashion designers? "And this is what the well-dressed Death Eater will be wearing this spring. Note the artful juxtaposition of green and black, and the edginess of the skull motif..."

Also, it doesn't make sense. As of Half Blood Prince, Fenrir was clearly identified as a Death Eater in his own right. Now it seems that he's only an honorary Death Eater, and that Harry knew it all along—even though he didn't know it in the last book.

SNIP! as the Death Eaters search the tent, and Greyback shoves an illuminated wand in Harry's face. It looks like Greyback really is a wizard. I was sort of hoping that he'd be a Muggle who'd been infected by a werewolf, and that he hated wizards and the magical world as a result. But he's not. Drat.

Showing unusual intelligence in a crisis, Harry calls himself 'Vernon Dudley.' Showing less intelligence, Ron first claims to be Stan Shunpike—who he already knows to be a Death Eater—and then "Barny Weasley," the alias Harry used at Bill and Fleur's wedding. I remain convinced that "Barny's" name is spelled the way it is because some editor at Bloomsbury had never heard of Barney Rubble. Finally, Hermione calls herself Penelope Clearwater—the name of Percy Weasley's ex-girlfriend, if you don't recall--and says she's a halfblood.

Also, one of the Death Eaters who's asking questions is named "Scabior." This is the comparative form of the Latin adjective "scaber" which means "scabby" or "rough." So "Scabior" would mean "rougher" or "scabbier." I'm guessing Rowling forgot all about Ron's rat, Scabbers. At least, I hope she did.

Finally, Rowling seems determined to make us understand that Hermione is attractive, for Fenrir repeatedly refers to her as pretty, beautiful, etc. Farewell, Canon! Hermione, who looked nice when fixed up but ordinary and bushy-haired every other day of the week. I'm not sure why I should be convinced that Hermione is a raving beauty just because Fenrir Greyback says so, but apparently I'm supposed to be.

Scabior notes that the three of them look like they should be at Hogwarts right now. Ron says they've left. I don't know if, in this context, that means that they've dropped out of Hogwarts or that they've completed their seventh year and their NEWTs.

Scabior, whom I am beginning to love for his common sense, doesn't believe Ron:

"And you decided to go camping? And you thought, just for a laugh, you'd use the Dark Lord's name?"

He's got a point. Most people don't pitch tents in the woods during April, let alone throughout an English winter.

Ron claims that they said the name "Voldemort" by accident. This is perfectly reasonable. I say things like "Please pass the Voldemort" all the time, don't you? Greyback, however, "growls"—yes, Rowling, we DO remember that he's a werewolf, thank you--that members of the Order of the Phoenix speaks the Dark Lord's name fairly often. We then get this lovely exchange, in which Ron turns into Homer Simpson:

"The Order of the Phoenix. Mean anything to you?"

"Doh."

And you know what? Even after all these denials from the Trio, the bad guys still don't believe them! I know, I know, eventually Rowling is going to turn around and make the Death Eaters stupid again so that Harry and company can win, but right now we've got intelligent—or at least sensible—evil. And that is so rare in this universe. Just...let me bask.

But alas, at this point the Death Eaters, too, start forgetting that they are wizards.

Someone yanked Harry up by the hair, dragged him a short way, pushed him down into a sitting position, then started binding him back-to-back with other people.

Um, guys? You don't NEED to tie Harry up by hand. That's what magical chains, magical ropes and the Full-Body Bind are for.

Harry was still half blind, barely able to see anything through his puffed-up eyes.

It's already been stated several times that Harry's face is swollen, that his eyes are tiny slits and that his glasses fell off. Why, then, is it necessary to tell us that Harry can't see because his eyes are swollen shut?

Once the Death Eater finishes tying them up and exits stage left, Harry asks if anyone has a wand. Harry? You just got searched. Ron and Hermione got wrestled to the ground. It's a pretty fair deduction that the Death Eaters are taking wands away from potential opponents. And very sensible of them, too.

One of the other prisoners speaks up. It's Dean Thomas. Hi, Dean Thomas! What are you doing here?

Dean is here to tell us that these highly efficient Death Eaters are "Snatchers." "Snatchers" look for truants and sell them to unnamed buyers for gold. I don't know whether to consider this a white slavery ring or to be dumbfounded that the most efficient and sensible Death Eaters we've seen in seven books are truant officers.

Harry overhears Greyback and Scabior talking. Greyback says that they caught "a runaway goblin" in addition to a Muggleborn and the Trio. I wondered where the goblin was running from. It's not as if goblins are the same as house elves, after all.

Scabior notices that there's no Vernon Dudley on their wanted list. When Scabior says this, Greyback begins studying Harry's face. Harry, for his part, shows that he has Superman's vision as well as his hearing:

He crouched down beside Harry, who saw, through the infinitesimal gap left between his swollen eyelids, a face covered in matted gray hair and whiskers, with pointed brown teeth and sores in the corners of his mouth.

Try squinting your eyes half-shut—just half-shut—and see how much detail you notice. Clearly, this is a new definition of "half blind" that I've never heard before.

Greyback asks Harry what House he was in. Harry, being his usual thick self, says that he was in Slytherin. Dumb thing to say, since all the Death Eaters we've seen, with the exception of Peter Pettigrew, have been Slytherins. Being a Death Eater is like being in the Slytherin Alumni Association.

I'd go for Hufflepuff, myself. Everyone underestimates the Badger Brigade.

To prove he's a Slytherin, Harry has to describe the common room—which he does, as he has perfect recall of his one foray into the Slytherin common room in his second year—and then claims that his father works in the Ministry. This briefly unnerves Greyback, but he sticks to his plan, saying that if Harry's father does work at the Ministry, doubtless his father will reward the Snatchers for picking up his truant son.

Then someone finds the sword of Gryffindor. Harry comes up with the worst lie ever to explain why he has it:

"It's my father's," Harry lied, hoping against hope that it was too dark for Greyback to see the name etched just below the hilt. "We borrowed it to cut firewood -"

Oh, please, Harry. If you, when half blind, can see the color of Fenrir's teeth in a tent lit only by the wands of Death Eaters, then I'm fairly sure that Fenrir can read the word "Gryffindor" on the blade. And even if he couldn't see them, I'm sure he could feel the etched words. Also, no sane person would take an ancient sword with rubies in its hilt on a Boys' Own Camping Adventure and use it to chop kindling—not unless he wanted to blunt the sword's edge, or perhaps chip and damage the sword's blade.

Harry needs to take a class in Remedial Lying. Though, now that I think of it, that may be far too advanced for him.

Scabior spots something in the Prophet. Isn't it amazing how much time everyone in this book spends reading the newspaper? However, we don't have to waste time listening to yet another long tale from the Prophet. We get to waste time listening to Harry have yet another Voldemort vision instead.

More clearly than he could make out anything around him, he saw a towering building,

OUCH. Someone—possibly Rowling, possibly her editor--is deaf to the rhythm of a sentence. How about this instead: "He saw, more clearly than he saw his physical surroundings, a grim and towering fortress"?

a grim fortress, jet-black and forbidding:

What's that colon doing there at the end?

Voldemort's thoughts had suddenly become razor-sharp again; he was gliding toward the gigantic building with a sense of calmly euphoric purpose...

Now, I always thought of "euphoria" as "intense happiness, joy or bliss." The key word being intense. I could see Voldemort being calmly triumphant, but not experiencing intense happiness and being calm about it. Aside from the fact that "calm" and "euphoria" aren't synonyms...when has Voldemort been calm in the entire series? I mean, ever? (Tom could be calm, yes. Voldie...not so much.)

As Harry begins paying attention to the world around him again, Scabior points out a picture of Hermione in the paper. The paper says that Hermione's traveling with Harry Potter. Fenrir notices the picture looks a lot like "Penelope Clearwater," and figures out—well, everything.

SNIP!

Scabior suggests taking the Trio to the Ministry. Greyback vetoes that notion; he's all for eliminating the middleman and taking them to Voldemort. Greyback doesn't try summoning Voldemort, however; he decides just to head for the place that Voldemort is living. Harry, of course, seems to know the whys and wherefores of Fenrir's motivation.

The werewolf might be allowed to wear Death Eater robes when they wanted to use him, but only Voldemort's inner circle were branded with the Dark Mark: Greyback had not been granted this highest honor.

I believe this is yet another example of Rowling retconning herself. One of the things that fans have been asking for a couple of books now is, "If Voldemort has so many Death Eaters and nonhumans on his side, how come no one in the Order seems to recognize the Dark Mark?"

I don't think that Rowling had considered that until the fans pointed it out; a great many Death Eaters were summoned to the cemetery in GoF by means of the Dark Mark. Now, apparently, she's decided to backtrack and say that only a small, select number bear the Mark.

I have problems with this, as all the Death Eaters we've met have borne Dark Marks. Nor can I picture Peter Pettigrew being a select member of Voldemort's Inner Circle of Most Trusted Death Eaters. "Your loyalty is merely cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go" are NOT words you say to a highly trusted lieutenant. And no one is ever going to make me believe that Draco Malfoy, set up to do a job that the Dark Lord knew damned well he was unlikely to succeed in doing, rolled up his left sleeve in Borgin and Burke's to display a freckle.

We then get a number of cuts between the Death Eaters making plans and Harry's VoldieVision. Greyback wants to head to Malfoy Manor with Harry, Hermione, Dean and the sword. Harry's worth 200,000 Galleons (or a million pounds, or 1,478,000 Euros), while Hermione and Dean are worth ten Galleons each (or fifty pounds each, or 73.9 Euros each). Plus he points out that the gems in the sword could be valuable as well. It's refreshing to see a villain who's at least partly in it for the money.

Voldemort, in Harry's vision, is behaving rather oddly. I mean, more oddly than usual. First of all, he's back to the whole "flying without a broomstick" thing that we were told in HBP and in a number of interviews afterwards was flat-out impossible. Second, he's looking in a slit of a window in that grim, black fortress and thinking that it's "not big enough for a man to enter."

Uh...why is the size of a window even an issue? Hello, Apparation? You're a fucking wizard, Voldemort! You don't NEED to get through the window to enter the room!

But Voldemort, like everyone else in this chapter, seems to have developed sudden amnesia regarding spells. Instead:

he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake

I don't think I've ever seen a window like a snake before.

Meanwhile, Fenrir Greyback and the other Death Eaters prepare to Apparate to Malfoy Manor. Fenrir gets off one of the most blatant double entrendres in the entire book:

"Grab hold and make it tight. I’ll do Potter!" said Greyback,

I bet you will, Greyback. I just bet you will.

seizing a fistful of Harry's hair; Harry could feel his long yellow nails scratching his scalp.

What a remarkable scalp Harry has. It can tell the color of whatever is touching it.

The Death Eaters and their prisoners Apparate...no, not into Malfoy Manor, not to the front door, not even onto the grounds. To a road in front of Malfoy Manor's driveway.

[Harry] saw a pair of wrought-iron gates at the foot of what looked like a long drive

Here's the thing—WHY does Malfoy Manor have a driveway? Granted, Lucius can have anything he likes—it's his house. But... given that wizards travel by means of flight, Floo and Apparation...why would he need one? Even the Hogwarts and Beauxbatons carriages (drawn by thestrals and Abraxans, respectively) are drawn by animals that fly. So why have a means of traveling to the house that wizards wouldn't use or need?

And why a set of iron gates? Because they're such an effective means of excluding unwanted guests? I'm pretty sure that a wizard could fly over them, or Apparate on the other side of them. Yes, there could be all kinds of wards around the place preventing such things. But that's the point. We don't know. As John Proctor says in The Crucible, "There might also be a three-legged dragon living in my basement, but no one has seen it."

One of the Death Eaters starts shaking the gates:

"How do we get in? They’re locked

Well, in Chapter One, the Death Eaters get past the gates by doing a quasi-Nazi salute. I'm not sure why something that a houseful of Death Eaters knew in the first chapter is completely unknown in the twenty-third.

The ironwork on the gates turns into a face, and the gates speak, which will probably be a really cool CGI effect in the movie. The prisoners half-stagger and are half-pulled through the gates, while Harry has another VoldieVision, this of an old man telling the Dark Lord, "Sorry, never had the Elder Wand," which gets Voldemort more than a little miffed.

SNIP! as Narcissa lets the Death Eaters and their prisoners in.

"My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."

This gives us a date, or at least a range of dates. According to Easter Dates, 1875 to 2124, Easter of 1998 fell on April 12. If Draco is home for the Easter/spring hols, it's probably a week—maybe less—before that.

SNIP! as Harry continues to exhibit Superman's vision, describing the room, as well as his own reflection in a mirror, flawlessly. Draco's face, however, is described as "a pale and pointed blur." Hmmm.

Narcissa and Lucius both ask Draco if this is Harry Potter. They clearly want it to be. Draco says he can't be sure.

Then we get a rather odd description of Harry:

With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he was peering out from between the bars of a cage.

Oookay. Why would having a puffy face make you feel as if you were peering out from between the bars of a cage?

Narcissa says that they'd better be sure that it's Harry before they "summon" Voldemort, because he'll be homicidal if they're wrong. I can't honestly picture any of his followers summoning the Dark Lord, can you? Summoning rather implies that you are at the beck and call of another, subject to his or her will. I can see them doing it, but I think that Voldemort would insist on his followers calling it something different. Words shape attitudes, after all.

At any rate, Narcissa identifies Hermione—who she's seen for maybe ten minutes, tops, in her entire life—and Lucius identifies Ron, whom he last saw when Ron was about twelve. I can only think that he's going by the red hair. This makes me wonder if Lucius thought Lily was a Weasley when she entered school.

Here's Draco's reaction to Narcissa's question, "Is this the Granger girl?"

"I . . . maybe . . . yeah."

And here are Lucius's question and Draco's answer.

Draco, look at him, isn’t it Arthur Weasley’s son, what’s his name – ?"

"Yeah," said Draco again, his back to the prisoners. "It could be."

Now, I've heard people argue, based on Draco's reluctance to identify Harry or his friends, that Draco has grown and is on the good side. But I'm not seeing a lot of signs of virtue. I'm seeing a young fascist who never expected to have to identify people he knew to their faces. And identify them he does. He doesn't say, "No, that's not Harry, you're mistaken"; he says, "Well, maybe. It could be. I can't be sure." He's trying to be a good little Death Eater without actually saying or doing anything that could be labeled betrayal.

You know, I've long cherished a completely cracktastic theory that many pureblood males are sterile—something that's common in inbred animals—and that for Narcissa to produce a living, healthy heir, she had to go behind her husband's back and outside of her pureblood social circle to find a father, and that she chose Peter Pettigrew, based on his colouring, his outsider status and the fact that, as a secret Death Eater, he could be blackmailed into silence. (Told you it was cracktastic.) This was based mostly on Draco's pale, pointy features, and on the fact that Ron said he looked like a rat.

But now I feel as if the theory has been given new legs, because Draco's acting very much like Peter as well. He's betraying people out of fear.

And that's understandable. And it's human. But—speaking as one of the few Peter fangirls in this fandom—it's not a sign of goodness.

Bellatrix walks in. It's worth noting the description of her Dark Mark. Prior to this, Dark Marks have been described like tattoos. Really, really ugly tattoos. Bella's Dark Mark looks like a brand:

Harry saw the Dark Mark burned into the flesh of her arm

As soon as Bellatrix learns that Harry's been caught—well, she and Lucius get into a sibling-like fight over who gets to tell the Dark Lord. It runs something like this:

Bellatrix: Potter's here? I have to tell the Dark Lord right NOW!

Lucius: Nuh-uh, Trixie! It's MY house and I'm gonna tell him! So there!

Bellatrix: Oh, shut up, you don't 'even have a wand anymore. I'll tell him!

Lucius (sulking): Why should you get to do it? You didn't capture him!

Greyback: No, actually that was me, and you know, waiting for the gold here...

Bellatrix: Well, FINE. Take the money! I'll tell him and then the rest of you are gonna get it...ACK! Lucius, no! Don't touch the Mark! Don't touch the Mark!

Lucius (finger hovering above the Mark): ...What's the problem now?

Bellatrix: He'll slaughter us!

Lucius: But...

Bellatrix: (goes on point like a hunting dog): SWORD!

Bellatrix stuns—or should I say "Stuns"? Rowling's Random Capitalization is a constant headache—the guy who found the Sword of Gryffindor. This pisses off the other Death Eaters. Scabior (have I mentioned how much I love this guy?) demands to know what Bella is playing at. Bellatrix starts stunning, or Stunning, everyone but Greyback.

This is supposed to be frightening, by the way. Rowling tells us so, through Harry:

They were no match for her, even thought there were four of them against one of her: She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience.

Because nothing says "conscienceless killer" like knocking someone out. Oh, yeah. I'm petrified.

I'm not saying Bella's actions aren't practical. Reducing the number of opponents always makes sense. I can even see the point of not killing the people on your side. I'm saying that "prodigious skill and no conscience" don't suit her present actions. If you're going to talk about Bellatrix not having a conscience, Rowling, then I want to see her casting the Entrail-Expelling Curse. And I want to see her enjoying it.

They fell where they stood,

As opposed to what? Falling in Tahiti?

all except Greyback, who had been forced into a kneeling position, his arms outstretched.

About half of the Old Masters painted saints kneeling with their arms outstretched, about to be martyred.

Out of the corners of his eyes

The expression is "out of the corner of his eye." No plurals are involved. Who the hell EDITED this?

Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf, the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.

She's trying out for Season Six of Highlander.

Bellatrix asks Fenrir where he got the sword. She takes his wand, too, proving that she's not irrevocably stupid...yet. Fenrir smarts off to her:

"How dare you?" he snarled, his mouth the only thing that could move as he was forced to gaze up at her.

Um... If the only thing moving is his mouth, wouldn't that mean that his eyes aren't moving? And wouldn't that make "gazing up at her" a bit of a problem?

Bellatrix repeats herself. Girl, just give him three drops of Veritaserum. He'll tell you anything. She also lets something interesting slip:

"Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!"

You know, it seems like the whole world has had something to do with that sword. Dumbledore had it, Snape had access to it, Bellatrix seems to feel she's got a perfect right to it for no particular reason whatsoever.

After Greyback tells her that it was in the prisoners' tent, she frees him and tells Draco to take the unconscious guys outside and kill them...or, if he doesn't have the nerve, to leave them for her to kill. I don't know why she's faffing about, honestly. Kill them yourself, bitca. If you're half as bad-arse as you think you are.

It quickly becomes apparent that Bellatrix has no clue what to do. She doesn't dare hurt Harry, for fear of angering Voldie, but she doesn't dare not question Harry or friends about the Sword, for fear of angering Voldie.

So she tells her sister that the prisoners have to be put in the cellar. Narcissa responds with the adult equivalent of "This is my room, and you are not the boss of me!"

Bellatrix starts screaming that they're all in terrible danger. Rilly. You just noticed that, huh, Trixie?

She looked frightening, mad; a thin stream of fire issued from her wand and burned a hole in the carpet.

This would be more frightening if my parents had not been chain smokers who not only burned holes in the rugs, but also in clothes and even in linoleum.

Greyback, on Narcissa's orders, takes the prisoners down the cellar. All but Hermione, that is.

She threw Greyback’s wand back to him, then took a short silver knife from under her robes.

Why does Bellatrix have a knife when there are spells to cut, sever and unravel ropes and chains? So that she can kill Dobby with it, of course! Why else? It's not as if Potterverse witches and wizards are fond of weaponry, and they don't use athamés, so the fact that the knife exists to kill or hurt someone is fairly obvious. The last time we saw a wizard with a knife, it was Peter in the cemetery scene in GoF.

She cut Hermione free from the other prisoners, then dragged her by the hair into the middle of the room, while Greyback forced the rest of them to shuffle across to another door, into a dark passageway, his wand held out in front of him, projecting an invisible and irresistible force.

a) Why doesn't Greyback use Lumos to make the passageway less dark? It's one of the first spells anyone learns.
b) Given that the passageway is dark, how does Harry KNOW that the force is invisible?
c) How does Harry know it's an irresistible force? No one even tries resisting it!

"Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?" Greyback crooned as he forced them along the corridor. "I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, Ginger?"

Granted, Fenrir's probably talking about eating Hermione Tartare, but doesn't it sound as if he wants sex first and supper afterward?

They finally get to the cellar. Greyback unlocks the door and shoves them in. He forgets, somehow, to lock the door again. Drat. The villains are reverting to their normal state of stupidity. I knew their intelligence was too good to last.

As the door slams, they hear Hermione screaming. This is Ron's cue to start capslocking. He doesn't do anything as the result of the emotional upset, mind. He just yells Hermione's name repeatedly.

Then we learn that Luna is in the cellar as well. Rowling starts with the character assassination immediately when she has Luna say something exceptionally stupid. This is wrong. Luna is eccentric, not stupid. Stupid people don't get Sorted into Ravenclaw.

Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught!"

Good one, Luna. Because if you hadn't said that, Harry totally would have thought that you DID want him to be caught.

Well...this is Harry, the Boy of Very Little Brain. He might have. But even so, the principle stands. It's not perceptive, not intelligent, not clever. It's very un-Luna.

And it gets worse. For Harry wants Luna's help getting the ropes off, and this is what Luna says:

There’s an old nail we use if we need to break anything...Just a moment..."

Excuse me? A nail is a weapon. It could be used, not only to remove ropes, but to stab, slash or puncture the flesh of any Death Eater, and disarm, maim or kill them. (Yes, kill. A nail to the jugular vein or in the femoral artery? You think anyone would survive that? Plus the opportunity to grab the guard's wand.)

And Luna's been here since Christmas. Four months. You would think that she or Ollivander would have thought of fighting back some time before this. Apparently they're just sitting around marking time until Hero Harry can stumble into yet another pointless and avoidable trap. (Harry and company wouldn't be here if he just hadn't said the word "Voldemort," after all.)

Luna tries to get Harry and Ron free while Hermione screams at Bellatrix that they found the Sword. Bellatrix doesn't believe it, not that I blame her. I know that they found the blasted Sword re-enacting the Lady of the Lake bit from King Arthur, and even I don't believe it.

Luna has trouble freeing Harry and Ron in the dark. Ron tells her that he has a Deluminator full of light. I'm not sure why this tells Luna anything. Isn't the Deluminator supposed to be unique? Why, therefore, would she know what he's talking about?

And shouldn't the Death Eaters have frisked their prisoners and confiscated all of their possessions long before this?

Someone, presumably Luna (though I wonder when she saw a Muggle cigarette lighter before this), clicks the Deluminator. I keep wanting to call that thing the Terminator. Anyway, the lights illuminate the room, though what Harry sees doesn't make much sense.

Harry saw Luna, all eyes in her white face, and the motionless figure of Ollivander the wandmaker, curled up on the floor in the corner.

If the man is curled up in the corner, how does Harry know it's Ollivander?

Craning around,

"Craning around"? No. I'm sorry. You can crane your neck. I've even seen authors say that their characters craned their whole bodies. But you cannot "crane around." FAIL, Bloomsbury editors. EPIC FAIL.

he caught sight of their fellow prisoners:

Someone needs to put JKR on Colon Restriction. She uses them every other sentence, and she keeps using them incorrectly. A colon is not a substitute for a full stop. I feel as if I should send her a copy of Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Dean and Griphook the goblin, who seemed barely conscious, kept standing by the ropes that bound him to the humans.

That bound HIM? According to that sentence structure, both of them should be kept standing by ropes, and Dean shouldn't consider himself human. Written correctly, the sentence would look like this:

Craning his neck, Harry caught sight of their fellow prisoners, Dean and Griphook the goblin. Griphook, who seemed barely conscious, was only held upright by the ropes that bound him to the humans.

Meanwhile, Bella is going nutzoid—well, more nutzoid, as she's never been a poster child for sanity—because Hermione isn't telling her that they broke into her vault and stole some loot. She's also threatening to stab Hermione if she doesn't say what Bella wants to hear. Because, you know, a witch who can inflict God knows how many hideous curses and who can pour Veritaserum down Hermione's throat if she so chooses would totally opt to threaten Harry Potter's friend with a mere knife.

Ron tries to Disapparate. Good for him. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would think of just trying to leave that way. It doesn't work—Luna says that the cellar is escape-proof, so apparently there are Anti-Apparation wards up—but at least someone tried.

Harry, as usual, is useless in a crisis. This is what he does:

a) Feels the walls "for he hardly knew what";
b) Pulls his broken wand out of the Mokeskin pouch;
c) Waves the broken halves of the wand that he knows doesn't work.

Harry then sees a gleam of blue in the broken shard of Sirius's mirror. Dumbledore's eye, we're told, and Rowling is right. However, it's not Albus Dumbledore's eye, and I'm grateful for that. Harry yells at the mirror for help, telling the eye that they're in the cellar in Malfoy Manor. None of his friends mutter anything about Harry losing it, which shows great restraint on their part.

As Hermione screams, Ron keeps "bellowing" her name. "Bellowing" really doesn't sound like the right kind of word for Ron. I mean, I can picture Uncle Vernon bellowing. Or Slughorn. They have the right build for bellowing. A tall thin drink of water like Ron...not so much.

Hermione finally tells Bella that the Sword is a copy. Lucius tells Draco to get Griphook, because Griphook will be able to tell if it is or not. Harry pleads with Griphook to lie, even though Griphook has no reason to like wizards, much less risk his skin for one.

Draco comes downstairs and orders everyone up against the wall. Clearly Draco has been watching very old cop shows. Unfortunately, Ron waits until the door is opening to turn off the Deluminator, which means that Draco could have seen the light under the door before the door opened. Equally unfortunately, Draco doesn't notice the light. He simply grabs Griphook and exits, stage right.

Then the deus ex machina Apparates in. On hearing the crack ~~that is this chapter, and not in a good way~~, Ron turns on the Put-Outer again to reveal that Dobby Has Come To Save Us All. He says this. Really.

"Harry Potter," he squeaked in the tiniest quiver of a voice, "Dobby has come to rescue you."

At this point I had to wonder—when was Harry going to do something? Because his heroic record in this book is not so good.

1) Harry is escorted from the Dursleys' house by thirteen other people, six of whom are Polyjuiced. One's maimed and one dies.
2) ~~Rocks~~The Ministry falls. ~~Everyone~~ Scrimgeour dies.
3) Hermione Apparates Ron and Harry away from the wedding to Tottenham Court Road and then to Grimmauld Place.
4) Remus searches the fugitive Trio out and gives them news.
5) Kreacher searches for and brings back Mundungus Fletcher.
6) Hermione makes the plans and obtains the items (Polyjuice Potion, Puking Pastilles, etc.) to invade the Ministry.
7) Hermione Apparates them away from the Ministry.
8) Hermione saves Harry by fighting Snake!Bathilda and by treating Harry's injuries.
9) Ron saves Harry from drowning in Excalibur Pond.
10) Ron destroys the locket Horcrux.
11) Hermione saves Ron and Harry from the Death Eaters at Lovegood's house.

And what's Harry done at this point? Cast Stupefy several times at the Ministry (which endangered himself, his friends and others), try to grab a sword from icy water and fail because he was wearing an evil artifact, have visions of Voldemort, become obsessed with the Hallows, and be upset with Dumbledore. And of these five things, three are inactive.

He's the most passive protagonist I've ever seen.

I feel like singing a rousing chorus of "The Wizards That Don't Do Anything."

Harry asks Dobby if he can Disapparate from the cellar—kind of a dumb question, since no one is supposed to be able to Apparate in or out of the cellar, as per Luna—and if he can take people with them. When Dobby says yes to both, Harry orders him to take Luna, Dean and Ollivander away from here and then come back.

Ron adds that Dobby should take them to Bill and Fleur's place, Shell Cottage near Tinworth. As per Chapter Sixteen, "Godric's Hollow," page 261 of the British edition, Tinworth is a village in Cornwall that's home to "knots of wizarding families who [live] alongside tolerant and sometimes Confounded Muggles." Yeah. I'd be tolerant, too, if I was so confused I didn't know which end was up.

Luna and Dean make token protests before Dobby Apparates them and Ollivander away. Unfortunately the crack~~fic~~ of Apparation makes too much noise, and Lucius sends Peter down to the cellar to check on the prisoners.

What follows is so annoying that I'm going to let Peter spork this section.

Thank you.

Oh, my pleasure. Take it away, Peter.

Let's start with what happens right after Lucius Malfoy orders my namesake to go down in the cellar. Harry and Ron hear footsteps crossing the drawing room.

Harry knew that the people in the drawing room were listening for more noises from the cellar.

Not "people." Person--the chap pretending to be me, the one who was just told to go down the cellar alone. He's standing at the top of the stairs listening to see if he hears any whispering or suspicious noises, because he has an interest in in finding out if there was any danger.

The other Death Eaters are either dead or have delegated the problem to the guy posing as me. They don't care about noises from the cellar. Why should they? It's not their problem any more.

"We’re going to have to try and tackle him," he whispered to Ron.

I'm rather curious to why my so-called canonical self should be tackled but Draco should get off scot-free.

They had no choice: The moment anyone entered the room and saw the absence of three prisoners, they were lost.

A tad late to figure that out, isn't it? And what is that colon doing after "choice"?

"Leave the lights on," Harry added, and as they heard someone descending the steps outside the door, they backed against the wall on either side of it.

Now THAT'S special. One boy on either side of the door, each with his back against the door. Except, you know, the door has to open, and when it does, it's going to either hit one boy or effectively pin him to the wall. And neither boy is going to be able to see when the door opens because they're not facing the door. Their backs are against the wall...which means they are facing the room, not Canon!Peter.

"Stand back," came Wormtail’s voice. "Stand away from the door. I’m coming in."

I don't know what's more annoying—the fact that this absurd warning is supposed to intimidate anyone, or the fact that Rowling insists on calling me by the worst and most Freudian nickname possible. Every other principal Death Eater gets a first name—Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Barty, Rodolphus, Rabastan. Why can't Rowling call me Peter? Or even Pettigrew? I'd settle for that.

The door flew open.

Thus, as I said, hitting one boy or pinning him to the wall.

For a moment, my so-called canon self stares at a brightly lit and seemingly empty cellar.

Then Harry and Ron launched themselves upon him.

Isn't it wonderful how Gryffindor courage manifests? Two against one—and someone who isn't even attacking! Obviously this is some new definition of 'boldness' and 'chivalry' that I'm not familiar with.

And yes, I was in Gryffindor. And Reg was in Slytherin. Goes to prove that the Hat can mis-Sort, doesn't it?

Ron seized Wormtail’s wand arm and forced it upwards. Harry slapped a hand to his mouth, muffling his voice.

A hand over the mouth can actually muffle speech? What startling news. Paging the Department of Redundancy Department...

Silently they struggled:

That is IT. I forbid you to use any more colons until you learn how to use them properly. In the name of underdeveloped characters everywhere, I command you to take a course in Remedial English Usage, Rowling. Then, perhaps, we can talk.

Wormtail’s wand emitted sparks;

Why? Am I signaling for help? And if so, from whom?

his silver hand closed around Harry’s throat.

I'm torn between outrage that I'm trying to kill someone to whom I owe a life debt and relief that Harry will be dead in a few minutes and this atrocity will at last be over.

And considering that I knew Harry for a year and a half when he was a baby, as we all did, as well as for three years at Hogwarts...well. That says quite a lot about this book, don't you think?

Lucius calls down, asking what's going on.

"Nothing!" Ron called back, in a passable imitation of Wormtail’s wheezy voice. "All fine!"

It isn't enough that I've been squeaking like a rat since GoF. Now I have to sound like a rat with asthma.

Naturally, since I'm choking him, Harry has trouble breathing. Naturally, Rowling feels obligated to tell us this, because children cannot possibly deduce that choking makes it hard to breathe.

"You’re going to kill me?" Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers. "After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!"

My, he manages to talk an awful lot for someone who can't breathe, doesn't he?

I'm rather annoyed at Harry's tone. He's not asking for help, or pleading for his life. He's demanding it, as a matter of entitlement. Great attitude to have when someone has your life in his hands. Literally.

By the way...how is he attempting to prise my fingers free AND keep his hand over my mouth at the same time? I would have thought the former was a two-handed job.

The silver fingers slackened.

Please note that at the climactic moment—when I should be CHOOSING to spare Harry's life, CHOOSING to help him, illustrating the whole "our choices make us what we are" thing—that I do nothing. I don't even choose to let go of Harry's throat. My fingers—independent of me—accidentally loosen their grip a bit.

Honestly. Where's the choice, the morality, the character development in that?

Harry had not expected it:

*slaps JKR for improper use of colons*

And this is exactly what the Peter fans—tiny bunch that they are—had been expecting, and fearing, for years.

He wrenched himself free, astonished, keeping his hand over Wormtail’s mouth.

A minute ago he was choking to death from lack of air. Then my fingers loosened just a bit...and suddenly Harry's the Son of Hercules. Shouldn't he still be weak and gasping for air?

Oh, wait. That would involve competent writing. Sorry.

He saw the ratlike man’s small watery eyes widen with fear and surprise:

*thwaps Rowling yet again for her misuse of colons*

I resent the whole description of me as ratlike. I was never attractive in book canon, but it seems to me that with the advent of Timothy Spall and his hideous makeup, Rowling quickly stopped portraying me as the plain, balding man who had once been plump and who was now thin and started describing me as ratlike even in human form.

Honestly, Rowling. If you want to write about a mutant ratboy, then go write X-Men fanfic!

He seemed just as shocked as Harry at what his hand had done, at the tiny, merciful impulse it had betrayed, and he continued to struggle more powerfully, as though to undo that moment of weakness.

Merlin's manky balls, woman! You won't give me the slightest chance, will you? It's not bad enough that you're ignoring the character arc that you set up back in Book 3, or that you've ultimately deprived me of all choice in this scene. No, now you have to have me fighting even the slightest hint of a merciful impulse. Because it's impossible that I could do anything remotely good on purpose.

You know, there's a difference between having your personality drawn in broad strokes and having it be a bloody cartoon.

Ron takes my wand. Because, you know, I'm such a dreadful threat at this point. The Dark Lord cringes as I pass.

By the way...why did Ron wait until after I'd stopped strangling Harry to take my wand?

Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror.

I'm not sure why Rowling is making the point that my pupils are wandless and therefore helpless. As far as I know, the pupils of my eyes have never held a wand.

Oh, and my adoptive sister from Milliways and the Outside Inn, Valentine Wiggin-Skywalker, has this to say:

Val: .... what the hell? Since when is Peter helpless without a wand? Let alone his pupils? Although...why are his students dilated? Are they giving birth? *disappears back into the Inn again*

His eyes had slid from Harry’s face to something else.

A grotesquerie and vagueness! Two for one!

His own silver fingers were moving inexorably toward his own throat.

Whose silver fingers? The silver fingers of my eyes, or the silver fingers of Harry's face?

At this point, Harry tries to pull the silver hand back. Of course, this does no good, and Rowling takes the opportunity to drive the reason for this home.

The silver tool that Voldemort had given his most cowardly servant had turned upon its disarmed and useless owner; Pettigrew was reaping his reward for his hesitation, his moment of pity; he was being strangled before their eyes.

The moral of this story, children, is that if you happen to be a coward who works for an evil insane sadistic bastard, never show the slightest bit of mercy, or your boss will force you to kill yourself.

It takes a while for Ron—who has my wand, by the way—to do anything. I have the feeling that he wants me to die without his having to do anything to cause my death. I mean, one cast of Petrificus Totalus would prevent me from strangling myself, so why he's standing there with his thumb up his bum is something I can't explain.

However. Belatedly, he tries helping. Since, at this point, my canon-self is cyanotic, this is precisely as effective as you would expect it to be.

"Relashio!" said Ron, pointing the wand at the silver hand, but nothing happened;

The reason being that "Relashio" is the catch-all spell Rowling uses when she can't remember which spell applies. I'm not kidding. In GoF, it released a jet of fiery sparks. When cast underwater in GoF, it fired a jet of boiling water. In HBP, Bob Ogden used it to knock Marvolo Gaunt backwards to keep him from strangling Merope. In Chapter 13 of DH, Hermione casts it to make magical chains withdraw. And now Ron's using it to make my metal hand let me go.

Good grief, woman. Pick one fucking thing the spell does and settle on it!

Pettigrew dropped to his knees, and at the same moment, Hermione gave a dreadful scream from overhead.

Hey, prima donna! Do you mind holding off on the screaming? I'm dying here!

All right. I'm back now. Peter may pop by now and again to comment, however, as he's a trifle miffed.

Damned right I am.

Peter dies according to cliché—his eyes roll up, he twitches, he falls silent. Harry and Ron make a break for it in their own inimitable fashion. That is, they go straight back to the drawing room without looking for other exits. Maybe the passageway doesn't have any other doors leading from it—again, this is something we don't know. The boys don't look.

For some unknown reason, Bellatrix has given the Sword to Griphook. I know she wants the thing analyzed, but hello? Sixteen Goblin Rebellions? For all she knows Griphook could use that Sword and go kamikaze on everyone in the room.

Bella asks if this is the real sword. Griphook says no. Bella asks again. The Goblin says yes, he's sure, it's a fake. Bellatrix then does something I consider to be downright idiotic:

"Good," she said, and with a casual flick of her wand she slashed another deep cut into the goblin’s face, and he dropped with a yell at her feet.

Okay, first off, Bella, the guy just helped you. Injuring people—even people you despise--when they help you is NOT the best way to win friends and influence people. Second, if you can slash cuts into someone's face with a wand...why do you have a knife?

Bellatrix puts her finger on the Dark Mark, like pushing a button on a pager. Instantly, we're in VoldieVision, back in that grim black fortress. Despite the fact that at least a half hour must have gone by in Malfoy Manor, no time has passed for the Dark Lord at all. He's still exactly where he was when Harry had his last vision—in a tower room, being laughed at by a skinny old guy who doesn't know where the Elder Wand is, and who's busy telling Voldemort that he'll never own the Elder Wand. Naturally, Voldemort has a tantrum and kills the old guy, telling us in the process that this is a prison cell.

End of VoldieVision. Bellatrix then tells Greyback that if he wants Hermione, he can have her. Since, after Hedwig's death, Harry imitated Luke Skywalker, it is now Ron's turn:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Ron had burst into the drawing room; Bellatrix looked around, shocked;

Amazed that anyone would be that dumb, most likely.

There is a minor Battle of the Wands. Ron Expelliarmuses Bellatrix's wand out of her hands and into Harry's. Harry stuns Lucius Malfoy and dodges spells from Draco, Narcissa and Fenrir.

Then Bellatrix pulls the most unlikely move I can envision from a witch so proud and confident in her magic—she holds a knife to Hermione's throat. Never mind using wandless magic to get her own wand back. Never mind Bellatrix and the three other Death Eaters working together as a cohesive unit against the two boys. Never mind grabbing Hermione and Apparating elsewhere so that she and the other Death Eaters would have a valuable hostage. Never mind actual sense. No. Bella menaces Hermione with a knife. Horrors.

What's worse, she gives Harry and Ron a frelling stupid command.

"Drop your wands," she whispered. "Drop them, or we’ll see exactly how filthy her blood is!"

AND THEY DO IT.

Once again, Rowling seems to have forgotten that she's writing about wizards. What kind of a threat is a knife against two determined people with magic? Harry could Expelliarmus the knife, as that's the only spell he seems to know, and Ron could cast the Full-Body Bind on Bella. Toss a few more Stunning and Disarming Spells toward Draco, Narcissa and Fenrir, grab Hermione and Disapparate.

But no. This is Rowlingland, and the characters cannot do things that show the slightest vestige of common sense. That would be wrong.

So they drop Peter's and Bellatrix's wands and raise their hands (for no reason, Bellatrix didn't ask them to). Bellatrix, Mistress of the Obvious, tells Harry that Voldie is en route and that Harry's about to die. Yeah, yeah. Have you considered having someone attack them and knock them out before you start gloating, Bellatrix? It's straight from the Evil Overlord List, you know:

75) I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

Harry, however, still has time to angst about his upcoming demise:

Harry knew it; his scar was bursting with the pain of it, and he could feel Voldemort flying through the sky from far away, over a dark and stormy sea, and soon he would be close enough to Apparate to them, and Harry could see no way out.

I still like my paralyze-Bellatrix-grab-Hermione-and-Apparate-out-of-there idea...

Draco gets the wands that Harry and Ron dropped. Amazingly, neither of them kicks or insults Draco as he does so. Bellatrix tells Narcissa that Harry and Ron have to be tied up. Um...NO. They don't. There are magical ropes and magical chains, but honestly, Full-Body Bind is best. The entire body is frozen, except for the eyes, and the wizard can't speak a single spell.

I suppose I should offer kudos to Bellatrix for even thinking of hampering their movements, however. It is sad that I have to give points for something so obvious.

As Bellatrix gives Hermione to Greyback yet again, we get ~~a rip-off of~~ an homage to Phantom of the Opera

All of them looked upward in time to see the crystal chandelier tremble; then, with a creak and an ominous jingling, it began to fall.

Bella, who's right underneath the chandelier, shows more intelligence than she has to date and flings herself aside. The chandelier lands, instead, on Hermione and Griphook, while Draco gets a faceful of broken glass. In any normal world, this would mean that Hermione and Griphook had been severely injured, perhaps crushed to death, and that Draco stood a good chance of being blinded, but as I've said before, this isn't England--this Rowlingland. There are no consequences in Rowlingland.

Harry, for a change, actually does something—he grabs Peter's, Bellatrix's and Draco's wands from Draco's hands, holds all three, and casts Stupefy at Greyback. This puts Fenrir out of commission for the rest of the chapter. Narcissa, however, has spotted the guilty party—Dobby.

Dobby does his usual "You must not harm Harry Potter" routine. Bellatrix orders Narcissa to kill him. I'm honestly surprised that Bellatrix survived childhood, given the number of times she gives orders to her younger sister. Dobby decides he's not putting up with this:

there was another loud crack, and Narcissa’s wand too flew into the air and landed on the other side of the room.

Sheesh. If house-elves can disarm witches and wizards, why do they put up with being abused by their owners? Are they a race of masochists or something?

Bellatrix then utters a rather unpleasant racial epithet...and I think I know where Rowling got it, because I've read the same comment in a lot of nineteenth-century children's literature.

"You dirty little monkey!" bawled Bellatrix.

Although I've seen stories where a rich man or woman says to a street urchin in London, the first thing that sprang to mind were tales of India, in which an Englishman or his wife would address an Indian—usually a servant—in such terms. I think that the India stories are more similar to Rowling's scenario, what with the master of one race/servant of another race vibe.

I suspect that Rowling grew up reading very old-fashioned books—circa 1870s to 1930s—just as I did. I think that's probably where she picked up the phrase, whether she was aware of this or not.

Dobby, for his part, goes all Braveheart on us:

"Dobby has no master!" squealed the elf. "Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!"

"They may take our lives, but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM!"

Harry, at last recognizing the Narrative Imperative which requires a protagonist to do something to keep the story going, throws a random wand to Ron so that Ron and Hermione can Disapparate (and why do they need wands? I don't recall Dumbles or Harry holding wands when they went to and left Cave Horcrux!), grabs Griphook—who still has the Sword—and takes Dobby's hand. They start to vanish. Bellatrix's knife flies toward them. Hey, since they're vanishing, shouldn't the knife go right through Dobby?

They get to what appears to be Shell Cottage. Harry wants to know if they're in the right place or not, but then he forgets about that when he sees a knife sticking out of Dobby's chest. Harry immediately starts hollering for help:

He did not know or care whether they were wizards or Muggles, friends or foes;

Wow. All that to get Harry free, and now, for all Harry knows, he could be delivering himself into his enemies' hands all over again. Gotta love that outstanding sense of self-preservation.

all he cared about was that a dark stain was spreading across Dobby’s front,

I'm sorry to say that I initially read this as "a dark stain was spreading across Dobby's Y-fronts," which took me to a very unpleasant place indeed.

and that he had stretched out his own arms to Harry with a look of supplication.

His own arms. As opposed to what? Stretching out someone else's arms?

Harry holds Dobby, pleading with him not to die...while, of course, Dobby is dying

The elf’s eyes found him,

Why? Was Harry lost?

and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.

"Harry . . . Potter . . ."

"I...Amsecretly...William...Shatner."

And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.

Orbs. Not eyes. Frelling orbs. Sprinkled with starlight, yet. All right, Rowling, that's it. No more Fanfiction.net for you until you learn to WRITE.

Chapter 22 --The Deathly Hallows

gehayi — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:44:14 GMT

Once again, we have smurasaki as today's sporker.

***

In which I wonder once again why the series isn’t “Hermione Granger and the…,” Harry turns into Gollum, and the Trio is captured in the stupidest way imaginable.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Deathly Hallows

Hermione secures the field into which she Apparated the three of them. Ron, ever helpful, complains, and Harry apparently stands around with his mouth open. He certainly doesn’t work up enough mental function to even complain, much less do anything useful. Hermione is capable of thinking under pressure and simultaneously casting protection spells and carrying on a conversation, but Harry is the savior of the Wizarding World? *headdesk*

Hermione explains that she hid Ron to save his parents, revealed Harry to save Lovegood, and wasn’t worried about her parents because they’re in Australia. Just in case the boys had forgotten. Though, with globe-trotting Voldie, I’m not sure why Hermione is so convinced her parents, Memory Charmed or not, are safe in Australia. Voldie and the Death Eaters like killing Muggles. What would keep them from killing her parents just to get at her? Oh, wait, I’m using logic. Silly me.

The trio worries about Luna for a third of a page and then they forget about her. This is not good; Harry’s lack of empathy is catching. Then again, we can’t have anything distracting them from the exciting task of wandering in the woods. And we have really important things for them to think about instead, like whether or not the Deathly Hallows are real.

Hermione, for some unexplained reason, really, really doesn’t want them to be. “He probably doesn’t believe in the Deathly Hallows at all, (she says of Lovegood) he just wanted to keep us talking until the Death Eaters arrived!”

Um, Hermione, dear, the man is a kook. He believes in all manner of things you don’t. Why would his belief in the Deathly Hallows have any bearing on whether or not they’re real? Which is, of course, her response to Ron pointing out that Lovegood probably does believe in the Hallows. Oh, the intellectual discourse in this book.

Hermione keeps dismissing the idea that the Hallows could be real, while Ron and Harry argue that they could be. Frankly, in a magical world, the possibility doesn’t seem as off the deep end as Hermione thinks. I mean, they have been spending all that time ~~hunting for~~ talking about fragments of Voldie’s soul. What’s so shocking about the Deathly Hallows? Doesn’t she know the title of the book?

I’d think more of Hermione arguing against the Hallows usefulness than their existence, but that’s too sensible for this book. You want an “unbeatable” wand, even though all of its prior owners died violent deaths? Aren’t you in enough danger already? And what good is a stone that sort of brings people back?

Of course, since Harry seems to want the latter, he semi-changes the subject. “So that Peverell bloke who’s buried in Godric’s Hollows,” he said hastily, trying to sound robustly sane. If you have to try, Harry, perhaps you should worry.

Hermione, font of all knowledge, tells him that the Peverells are an old pure-blood family whose name has died out. Harry gets excited, remembering that Marvolo Gaunt claimed to be descended from the Peverells. Not only that, but: “The ring, the ring that became the Horcrux, Marvolo Gaunt said it had the Peverell coat of arms on it!”

Ron wonders whether the coat of arms could be the sign of the Hallows, and Harry eagerly agrees: “What if it was the Resurrection Stone?” Ron, in a remarkable attack of sense, wonders if it would still work if Dumbledore broke it. Hermione has another fit about whether the Hallows could be real and tells Harry he’s trying to make everything fit the story.

“It fits of its own accord! I know the sign of the Deathly Hallows was on that stone! Gaunt said he was descended from the Peverells!”

Harry fails at logic. People claim to be descended of people all the time without it being true. As Hermione points out, he never saw the mark on the stone properly. And, of course, Ron had a good point. Even if the stone was the Resurrection Stone, would it still work after having been first Horcruxed by Voldie, then broken by Dumbledore? I could have sworn de-Horcruxing things was supposed to destroy them. Oh. Damn. I’m using logic again. And expecting consistency. Never mind.

Harry fantasizes about possessing the Hallows, or, given the way he’s thinking, perhaps that should be about the Hallows possessing him …he saw himself, possessor of the Hallows, facing Voldemort, whose Horcruxes were no match…Neither can live while the other survives. … Was this the answer? Hallows versus Horcruxes? Um, Harry, the Horcruxes aren’t weapons, and if your mission succeeds, Voldie won’t have any left. In fact, only one of the Hallows is a weapon, and Voldie may well be trying to get his hands on it. But you haven’t realized this yet, you’re busy fondling your Invisibility Cloak.

He had never seen anything to equal it in his nearly seven years in the Wizarding world. The Cloak was exactly what Xenophilius had described: A cloak that really and truly renders the wearer completely invisible, and endures eternally, giving constant and impenetrable concealment, no matter what spells are cast at it…

Okay. Not only has Harry lost his marbles, he’s lost his memory. Or we’re supposed to believe that the Hallows Cloak is only effective against spells specifically and not, say Mad-Eye Moody’s eye. For that matter, I could have sworn that Dumbledore and/or Snape saw through the cloak in the early, competently written and edited books. Actually, forget about all of them, a bloody snake saw through the cloak a few chapters back. Harry’s cloak is very definitely not the Cloak. But I’m wasting my breath arguing with someone who’s rapidly going off the deep end.

Harry was walking blindly around the tent, feeling as though great new vistas of truth were opening all around him. “He’s my ancestor! I’m descended from the third brother! It all makes sense!”

Right. No one unrelated to you could possibly be buried in the same graveyard as your parents. I’ve heard of jumping to conclusions, but this takes the cake. And, no, Dumbledore having borrowed the cloak from James doesn’t help. There are any number of reasons he might have wanted to borrow the cloak (including that he thought it was one of the Hallows, which is not at all the same as it being one of the Hallows), starting with James not being the most sensible of wizards. Dumbledore might simply have wanted to make sure the man stayed put in Godric’s Hollow.

Ron and Hermione are a little taken aback by crazy!Harry. But instead of calming down, Harry pulls out his mother’s letter as “proof” then holds up the Snitch and shouts: “IT’S IN HERE! He left me the ring – it’s in the Snitch!”

Nope, not at all mad, mad, mad there Harry. And I’m so glad you think it’s a good thing Dumbledore left you a broken ex-Horcrux that might have been a Hallow. Oh, wait, silly me, if Dumbles thinks it, it is so. Can’t forget that. *headdesk*

But Harry’s manic episode ends when he realizes that Voldie is after the Elder Wand. Then he decides there’s still hope because Voldie couldn’t possibly know that the Elder Wand is the Elder Wand. He just knows it’s powerful. Well, that makes it all better, then.

“This is it,” Harry said, trying to bring them inside the glow of his own astonished certainty. “This explains everything.”

Hermione isn’t convinced by Harry’s lines of reasoning. And this time, I don’t blame her one bit. The boy has lost it. She tries to bring him back to reality by asking why Dumbledore wouldn’t simply have told him about the Hallows. Never mind that Dumbledore never told anyone anything. Which, of course, is Harry’s comeback.

“Dumbledore usually let me find out stuff for myself. He let me try my strength, take risks. This feels like the kind of thing he’d do.”

I can’t argue with that. I can, once again, wonder whose side Dumbledore is on, however. I mean, really. Harry’s ability to figure things out has gone steadily downhill over his years at Hogwarts. First year Harry might have been able to follow Dumbledore’s clever clues, but, by now, I’m not sure Harry could figure out a grocery list. Then again, Dumbledore didn’t actually leave any clever clues. A Snitch that should, by all that’s sensible, be cued to Oliver Wood. A book of nursery rhymes with a symbol in it that magically led them to Lovegood. These are not clues. Clues do not require retcons or characters miraculously choosing to talk to the right person for information. And yet, Harry manages to figure out this entire complex, insane sounding mess…which happens to be right? Can I unleash the Caps Lock of Rage on this book now? Please?

Hem. Where was I? Oh, yes, Hermione objects to Harry’s plans.

“Harry, this isn’t a game, this isn’t practice! This is the real thing, and Dumbledore left you very clear instructions: Find and destroy the Horcruxes!”

And the other times that Dumbledore let them stumble around in the dark weren’t the real thing? Granted, they often were in the dark because they weren’t supposed to be involved, but that does in Harry’s argument about Dumbledore “letting” him discover things on his own. Oh, there’s so much stupid here, I hardly know where to begin.

Ron halfheartedly agrees with Hermione, which is good enough for her, and she considers the issue closed. Harry can’t sleep that night because the idea of the Deathly Hallows had taken possession of him. He wants the stone so he can ask Dumbledore why he can’t have the stone now. He even goes so far as to wish he could see Voldie’s thoughts because for the first time ever, he and Voldemort were united in wanting the very same thing. This is not good. Our hero has officially hopped on the train to crazy town.

He thinks briefly about Luna, and how he wishes they could rescue her. But that only leads back to him wanting the Elder Wand. Wow, way to care about your friend there, Harry. “If only we could rescue her. Oooooh, ~~shiny~~ unbeatable wand!”

Harry refers to Hermione and Ron’s interest in Horcruxes as an obsession, which upsets Hermione.

“We’re not the ones with an obsession, Harry! We’re the ones trying to do what Dumbledore wanted us to do!”

But he was impervious to the veiled criticism.

Veiled? Pointing out you have an obsession is a veiled criticism? What would a direct criticism be? Oh, wait, this is from the point of view of someone with only slightly more mental stability than Gollum. Honestly, I kept waiting for him to call the Snitch “my precious” and start talking to himself. But Harry merely takes to slinking off to try and share minds with Voldie. Not that this is a vast improvement.

While Harry turns into Gollum, Ron has taken charge of Horcrux hunting. This hunt amounts to running randomly about England. The Trio discusses Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, the Riddle House, Borgin and Burkes, Albania, every place that they knew Tom Riddle had ever lived or worked, visited or murdered, but they don’t check these places. They check places like Upper Flagley where Voldie might have wanted to live. Bwuh? Oh, right, logic…this book. *sigh*

Ron is also still trying to tune in Potterwatch, the resistance radio station. We never do get an explanation of how the whole password thing works, or even why the only [program] that tells the truth about what’s going on wouldn’t want as many people as possible to hear that truth, but Ron does eventually tune it in with the password of “Albus.”

Which no Death Eater would ever guess. *headdesk*

As it turns out, The Trio catches the first Potterwatch after its absence from the air “due to a number of house calls in [the] area by those charming Death Eaters.” Like the Order, Potterwatch has missed it’s lessons. I’m pretty sure if you want to run a resistance radio station, you have a station that moves around, not a password protected broadcast that moves around. That way you avoid getting caught and you reach the masses. In the Wizarding World, however… *headdesk*

Lee (codename: River) Jordan, the Potterwatch host, fills the listeners (all three of them?) in on the latest deaths. Ted Tonks, Dirk Cresswell, and Gornuk have been killed, and the body of Bathilda Bagshot has been found. Dean Thomas and an unnamed goblin are missing. A Muggle family has also been killed.

“Muggle authorities are attributing the deaths to a gas leak, but members of the Order of the Phoenix inform me that it was the Killing Curse.” Absent an explosion, death from a “gas leak” is usually death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Unless the Killing Curse results in elevated blood CO2 levels, the Muggle authorities would not attribute their deaths to CO2 poisoning. Contrary to the Wizarding World’s belief, Muggles actually investigate deaths and don’t attribute them to anything without evidence. So, either the Killing Curse causes death by sudden CO2 poisoning or Voldie’s people are being accused of something they didn’t do.

I also found it irritating that the Muggles are also “unnamed.” The goblin, I can understand, what with him being a fugitive and all, but surely the Muggles were named in Muggle news reports and newspapers. Would it kill the Wizarding World to take a look at those?

And, no, it doesn’t help that this is followed by Kingsley (codename: Royal) reporting on the affects of Voldie’s regime on the Muggle World. According to him: “Muggles remain ignorant of the source of their suffering as they continue to sustain heavy casualties.” Again, the Muggles would investigate this. Either they are trying to figure out an epidemic of CO2 poisonings, even in impossible situations, which is eventually going to lead to them suspecting terrorists/mass murderers are to blame, or they think there’s a mysterious plague that mimics CO2 poisoning. Either one of these theories should lead to the Muggles taking action that might be a problem for Voldie. But no, according to the Wizarding World, only protective charms could possibly help the Muggles. *headdesk*

On to Lupin (codename: Romulus) … Give me a freaking break! These codenames wouldn’t fool anyone. If you’re going to use blindingly obvious codenames, why bother to use them at all? Are these people members of a secret organization or little boys playing spy?

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

Okay. I feel better now. Where was I?

Oh, yes. Lupin is confident that Harry Potter is alive. He also wants Harry to “follow his instincts, which are good and nearly always right.”

Which reminds Ron that he forgot to tell Harry and Hermione that Lupin moved back in with Tonks. Apparently because of the chewing out that Harry gave him. So, he’s grateful? Does this mean he really does love Tonks, or is he going to be all long-suffering for the sake of his as yet unborn child? JKR doesn’t do romance well, but this “romance” really is one of the worst.

Lupin then reminds the listeners that Lovegood was imprisoned, which makes no sense, as it happened some time ago, but if everything that didn’t make sense had been cut from the book, there wouldn’t be a book. He also relays Hagrid’s latest comic relief exploit. *sigh* Hagrid apparently hosted a “Support Harry Potter” party and is now a fugitive.

I’m one of the few people who liked Hagrid, or at least liked the idea of Hagrid. A groundskeeper with a fondness for dangerous animals, not because they’re dangerous, but because he sees the good in them, could be a really interesting character. Sadly, what we got was so-so comic relief.

Finally, Fred (codename: ~~Rodent~~ Rapier [What did he do to get a non-blindingly-obvious codename?]) reports that Voldie is keeping a low profile and might be out of the country. He also makes some not very funny jokes. And Potterwatch signs off, informing listeners that “Mad-Eye” is the next password. No mention of when they’ll be on again, mind you. I really don’t know how this resistance radio program is supposed to work.

Harry gets all excited about Voldie being out of the country. So excited, in fact, that he forgets Voldie’s name is Taboo and says it. Instead of immediately Apparating away or preparing to defend themselves or anything sensible, Ron shouts a lot and Hermione, who’s usually quick to do the right thing, does nothing. (Harry, of course, does nothing as well, but that’s normal for him.)

The Sneakoscope on the table had lit up and begun to spin; they could hear voices coming nearer and nearer: rough excited voices. Ron pulled the Deluminator out of his pocket and clicked it: Their lamps went out.

Took you long enough to react. Why is Ron the only one doing anything? Why didn’t Hermione take the time it took Ron to shout a bit and put out the lights to replace the protective spells? Or Apparate them out of there? Can this book get any stupider?

Yes, yes, it can.

“Come out of there with your hands up!” came a rasping voice through the darkness. “We know you’re in there! You’ve got half a dozen wands pointing at you and we don’t care who we curse!”

Why bother warning them, then? Why not curse first and ask questions later? You are the bad guys, you’re allowed to do that. Hell, given that wizards can Apparate, that would just be good sense. But we’ve already established that sense and logic are forbidden in this book.

I wonder what ~~clever thing~~ plot contrivance ~~our heroes~~ the Trio of idiots will do stumble across to get out of this.

Chapter Twenty-One -- The Tale of the Three Brothers

gehayi — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:32:32 GMT

Here it is, quinby's spork for Chapter 21.

~~~

*deep breath* Well, welcome, ladies and gents, to what I'm calling Storytime and Betrayal with Xenophilius.

After one of JKR's lovely Suspenseful Chapter Cuts, We actually get an explanation of the book's title. But, wait! First we have to hear that what we thought was just the symbol of a bad wizard is actually the symbol of a ~~Sekret Cult~~ Quest. I am vaguely reminded of the swastika. Before it was used as the Nazi symbol, it was a holy symbol for ancient cultures, and morphed into a good luck symbol for various people. People in the Nazi administration started wearing it/using it for its Aryan connections. Many people (even some in Hindu/Buddhist cultures today) wore it for its mythic/luck symbolism. Also, the masonic symbols are seen today as a wacky conspiracy-theory ridden cult-like group, but historically, the symbols are quite revered. Anyway, Xeno's insistence on wearing it is probably highly stupid and socially ignorant, but he's no further off of the map than he's proved to be thus far.

So, Harry's still confused, and after a horrible description of tea (I, personally would rather try tea brewed in Boston Harbour), we finally get down to answers. Hermione is asked to read and in a vaguely un-Hermione-like moment, she hesitates. Huh? Why is the girl with her hand always up not wanting to read a story? Strangeness. At any rate, we are finally starting to know why she got the book in the first place. Hermione is supposed to read the book and understand what it meant. Dumbly, you for once win a couple points for thought. Then again, it's not that hard to have Hermione read. It didn't use to be, at least. *cough* Moving on.

During the reading of the story (which I'll get to in a moment) there are quite a few interjections. I rather feel like I'm watching some bad soap opera. A story can't just be told without annoying interjections. Come on, Jo. Tell the story. We don't need the cutesy arguments.

And now we have it. The story of the Three brothers. I'm disappointed. It reads like a bad Bible parable. In fact, it is a take-off of The Parable of the Talents from the gospel of Matthew. Three guys were given various amounts of money, and told to do something with it. Unlike Jo's version, the one who had the 'least' didn't do anything to it and was looked down on. I -think- there's a Grimm Brothers and at least one Oriental (Chinese, I think) about people receiving Very Special Things.

So now, we have a (as Hermione terms it) fairy tale of Death and three brothers, two of whom die because they're Stupid, and the last one eventually has Buddy Death. Fun. As the story ends, however, we bloody finally hear what the Deathly Hallows are. Objects made sacred (or at the very least important) by death. So, you have Death's relics, and a man who is doing his darndest to defy death. Interesting.

Before we get to process that, Xeno says that they're real, and Smart People know that the fairy tale just tells the basics of what they are. It's sounding slightly like a Holy Grail quest, with a couple more hints of Masonic Conspiracy theories. (Mother and Riley Poole, eat your hearts out.)

Hermione then argues with Xeno about the possibility of the Hallows, starting with the Invisibility cloak. Cloaks are real, so that's not out of the ordinary, right? Nope! This one's speshul. It blocks everything. Wait a minute. I thought that's what cloaks did. I thought that Harry's... Oh. That might just be the point. The Trio is starting to realize this, but just go on. The stone's not possible because... it's not possible. Lovely reasoning, Hermione. You live in a magical world, and you're saying something's impossible. And the wand... can be traced, but it's lost now. I have to laugh for no reason over the name Baraabas Deverill for a moment (Bar-abbas in Hebrew means son-of-a-father, I believe.)

Hermione now mentions the Peverell grave they found in Godric's Hollow with the symbol on it. A Ha! Xeno thinks Hermione is a True Quester, because Ignotus is thought to be one of the three original brothers. How convinient. It's feeling a bit more like a Grail Quest now. Certain stories, certain people are tied inextricably to the story, and if you know those stories, you're a True Quester.

Xeno goes to make dinner, and we get into a more specific discussion of each Hallow, after a bit of ~~penis~~ wand envy from Ron. The wand is an old wives' tale . The story has cropped up too many times. Then again, it is kinda hackneyed. An all-powerful weapon that can win anything? That crops up in everything from Star Wars to really kitchy old sci-fi. *yawn* What's more interesting is Harry's moment of Hubris when he thinks his wand was the Elder Wand. Oh, Harry, you idiot. Not everything revolves around you. Get over yourself.

The rock is impossible because... it's impossible. I think Rowling's logic left with the South. All things considered, Hermione is actually right. No where in any stories is there a rock who actually brings people back from Death. Hermione thinks that the storyteller must have been thinking of the Philosopher's Stone. I'm inclined to believe that as well. We all know by now that we'll see the stone in question, but still.

And finally, they get to the thing we've been wondering about. Harry's cloak. Ron mentions that it's a Vewwy Special cloak because no one can see through it. It really makes me wonder why no one's said it before now. If it's so good, so special, why haven't we heard about it? Quite possibly because Rowling hasn't thought of it before now. How... typical. So, if Harry's cloak is one of the Hallows... Frell. We'll hear later. Or at least we can hope we will.

Harry has lost interest in the conversation, and now he's off exploring. Up the stairs he sees what he thinks is a mirror. In actuality, it's Luna's more than slightly creepy room. On the ceiling are paintings of the Trio and Ginny and Neville with 'friends' written around them in gold. Odd, but then again, what about Luna is normal? Interesting, though that she picked those five. I can't help but wonder if she even had any friends before Dumbledore's Army. I feel bad for her, really, especially as none of these people are in her House. Back to the plot, Harry realizes that everything has dust on it, and there are no clothes in the closet. Whups.

Ignoring everyone as always, Harry goes downstairs and asks Xeno where Luna is. Now it hits us all. Frell. Luna mightn't just be getting Plimpies. She's probably Gone. As he calls Xeno on the fact that he's been lying through his teeth, the press (which, by the way is an -amazing- bit of magical contrivance) shoots out copies of the Quibbler with Harry's face on it with a reward. The Ministry took Luna because of what Xeno had been writing, and they might give her back if he hands over Harry.

I feel bad for the man. He has his slightly-strange paper and he has his slightly-strange daughter. I'm reminded of the father in Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast. He seems nuts, but he believes in something, and his daughter stands by him, getting captured for her trouble. He's doing what he can to get his daughter back, but everything seems to be against him.

Noise comes from outside as a couple wizards appear. Xeno tries a stunning spell on Harry, who jumps to the side. The spell actually hits the ~~plot device~~ exploding horn-thing which explodes, leaving massive destruction of the house. Xeno falls back downstairs where the wizards are.

From there, the wizards say that they'll give Luna back if Harry really is upstairs. Xeno tries to move the rubble to get Harry, but Hermione's too quick. In one foul swoop, she possibly causes the death of someone who calls her a dear friend, wipes someone's memory, and causes massive property destruction. Good one, Hermione. And we all thought you were the Voice of Reason. The Trio disappear through the floor, Ron under the cloak.

... Right.

Chapter Twenty -- Xenophilius Lovegood

gehayi — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:57:30 GMT

This is smurasaki's spork, and an outstanding job, too.

****

In which there is much inconsistency, the Trio prove themselves dim and unobservant even by wizarding standards, and they finally take a break from wandering in the woods.

Chapter Twenty: Xenophilius Lovegood

The chapter opens with Hermione still sulking at Ron and Ron feigning remorse in the hopes that she will forgive him. These wandering in the woods chapters are so much fun, so exciting, such a wonderful cure for insomnia. Why couldn’t we have spent the middle of the book with Neville, Ginny, Luna, and the others at Hogwarts? Oh, right, then we’d all notice that Neville has become much more of a hero than Harry. Can’t have that.

Instead, we have Harry and Ron escaping from Hermione’s aura of irritation to celebrate that…

“Someone helped us,” he (Ron) kept saying. “Someone sent that doe. Someone’s on our side."

Why are they so certain of that? The doe led them to the sword, sure, but the sword was at the bottom of an ice covered pond and if Ron hadn’t been there, Harry would have drowned. True, whoever sent the doe didn’t interfere with Ron’s rescue of Harry, but neither did they leap out of the woods to lend a hand themselves. It could have been a trap that backfired at Ron’s arrival just as easily as someone helping them. I mean, who the hell gives someone an important item by sinking it in an icy pond and luring them to it? If the sword had been left outside the tent, I’d agree with Ron’s enthusiasm, but as it stands, if that was an ally, it was one who preferred unnecessary complications to effectiveness.

Wait, that describes their allies perfectly. Never mind.

Ron does tell them that Voldie’s name is now jinxed. How fortunate for Harry and Hermione that Ron talked them into not calling Voldie by name six chapters ago. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have been subjected to six chapters of woods wandering. Damn you, Ron!

“Using his name breaks protective enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance – it’s how they found us in Totenham Court Road!”

If the jinx has really been on Voldie’s name (I wonder whether it would work if you called him that?) since their near capture in Chapter Nine, that same jinx should have broken the protective enchantments at Grimmauld Place. By my count, Voldie’s name was said twenty-seven times there by, variously, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Lupin. Sure, the Death Eaters already knew they were there, but that doesn’t explain why it didn’t destroy the enchantments that made the house safe.

Of course, sending Death Eaters to any place where Voldie’s name is spoken makes more sense on paper than it would in practice. Are there really enough Death Eaters compared to enemies of Death Eaters for this not to be turned into a trap? We are told that Kingsley single-handedly fought off the Death Eater squad that tried to catch him. And what about Neville and company’s rebellion at Hogwarts? Why didn’t it attract Death Eaters and destroy Hogwarts’ protective enchantments? Did someone warn them? Harry has spent six books convincing people to use Voldie’s name.

*headdesk*

They finally discuss why their ally didn’t just hand them the sword, or at least why he wouldn’t have if he were a not-dead Dumbledore. Their brilliant conclusion? To quote Ron, “I dunno.”

If I didn’t already believe the theory that wizards are lacking a few minor things like, oh, intelligence, wisdom, common sense, and the ability to get dressed without help, that would have convinced me. Wizards are, on the whole, dumber than a box of rocks. (Apologies to rocks everywhere.)

Strangely, Dumbledore’s habit of leaving out important information makes perfect sense to Ron because, “He knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn’t he?” But he couldn’t have. This is just one of many instances of Dumbledore’s plans working because of random chance. No, actually, it’s worse than that. Ron only left because the Trio, despite Hermione’s Purse of Holding, decided to wear an evil artifact that affected their emotions. Dumbledore knew they were that stupid? Why did he entrust the finding of Horcruxes, and potentially the fate of the world, to a trio of seventeen year old idiots? This series should be entitled Bloody Idiots and the Miracles of Providence.

Their discussion of Dumbledore moves from his brilliance to Rita Skeeter’s article on him. Ron doesn’t see what the big deal is about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, which seems surprisingly tolerant of him. Even more so if he knew they really were a couple. Alas, no one in the books will ever know. Still, Ron doesn’t think Dumbledore hanging out with ~~Hitler~~ Grindelwald is important because Dumbledore was young. Harry reminds him that he was “Our age.” And proceeds to prove how mature seventeen year olds are by enlarging a spider while chatting with his arachnophobic friend. With an unfamiliar wand that doesn’t work right for him.

Sadly, the spider does not grow to Aragog size and eat them.

Instead, we get Harry wangsting over the lost of his wand and how weak the replacement wand is. Yes, the savior of the world has performance issues. This, and his concern about it, would be more understandable if Harry’s magical aptitude didn’t rise and fall unpredictably throughout the series. Sometimes he’s described as having an unusual gift, but other times you get the feeling that the only thing in the Wizarding World he’s actually good at it is Quidditch. Good thing he ends up saving the world by being a Horcrux; he’d never manage it if he were actually required to do something.

Hermione tries to reassure him by telling him “You just need to practice” and “It’s all a matter of confidence, Harry.”

Harry dismisses her advice as her guilt speaking, and doesn’t consider that she might, in fact, be right. Oh, the replacement wand might not be as suited to him as his own wand, but he’s having difficulty getting basic spells off. I think that’s more than just the wand, there, Harry.

But Harry blames Hermione for the loss of his wand and only resists snapping at her because he wants them to get along. Never mind that his wand was broken when she saved his sorry unconscious ass. A little gratitude might be in order.

That evening, Ron pulls out a radio and we get a really weird intersection of magic and technology. This isn’t the first time that radios have come up in the Wizarding World, but the idea of wizards, who don’t grasp Muggle technology, using radios does not improve with repeated use. Now we’ve got a portable (and wooden?) radio that allows people to listen to a program that can only be tuned in with a magical password, at least if the program is broadcasting at the time. What? How? I can accept a magical equivalent to a radio and radio stations, even an underground resistance radio station equivalent. Hell, if wizards did grasp (and regularly use) Muggle technology, I might accept the magical radio business as written, but they don’t and trying to make sense of it gives me a headache. How is the connection between broadcast and receiver password protected? Why does it require a password in the first place? Wouldn’t that be counterproductive for a resistance radio program? Are the wizards really using radio waves? How are they broadcasting their underground program? Will this make any more sense if/when Ron does tune in the program?

But my questions go unanswered as Hermione stops reading The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore and ominously declares that she and Harry “need to talk.”

Harry fears that he will have to explain away Rita’s theories about his relationship with Dumbledore, but, no, Hermione just wants to visit Xenophilius Lovegood. Well, that was anticlimactic.

Why does Hermione have the sudden urge to visit Luna’s dad? Because Dumbledore used that odd little symbol they found in Beedle the Bard as the A in Albus in a letter to Grindelwald. Xenophilius must know what this symbol means since was wearing it at Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Right, because symbols mean the same thing to everyone who uses them, and older symbols never get appropriated for new meanings. Which, in fact, they know must have happened to this symbol. *headdesk*

There’s another problem with Hermione jumping to the conclusion that the symbol is somehow relevant. The letter Dumbledore uses the symbol in is one about Grindelwald’s movement, which would suggest he was using it in the Grindelwald’s mark sense. The copy of Beedle the Bard was also owned by Dumbledore. To use a real world analogy, how surprised would you be to find a swastika in a book owned by a former Nazi? Or on a letter written from one Nazi to another? What? You aren’t shocked? You don’t think there might be a deeper meaning? You’re clearly not as bright as Hermione, who just knows there’s a deeper meaning. One that doesn’t involve Grindelwald’s movement.

And she wants to ask Xenophilius Lovegood what it means? Because kooks are absolutely the best source of accurate information. Of course.

This is why it’s a bad idea for poorly educated, fugitive dimwits with no access to reference materials to be in charge of horcrux destruction. No, wait, the fugitive dimwits do have access to reference materials; Hermione’s Purse of Holding is filled with reference books. Apparently, they’ve all forgotten about that, or else none of the books, even the one with the promising title The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, mention the symbol. Then again, these are the same fugitive dimwits who failed to tell anyone else about the Horcruxes. Because they believe Dumbledore didn’t want them to. Perhaps, in view of the new information, they should wonder whose side Dumbledore was really on. (Though it bothers me that the well-read Hermione doesn’t know about Grindelwald’s mark and the fact that it was a symbol out of folklore. I mean, I might not know all the meanings the swastika has had, but I know it featured in Asian religions and native American belief before the Nazis got their hands on it.)

Harry, in a moment of good sense, or petulance, objects to visiting the Lovegoods. But Ron takes Hermione’s side because he’s so desperate to be back in her good graces, he’d agree if she suggested they ask Voldie. Harry realizes this, and argues with Hermione about whether or not Dumbledore left them clues. For some odd reason, Harry seems to think that Dumbledore would have just told him anything important to his mission. Even though Dumbledore has always saved his knowledge for his patented Dumbledore Explains It All scenes…as they discussed a few pages ago. Harry really isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, is he?

They vote on it, and Disapparate off to find the Lovegood’s house, which is somewhere in the vicinity of the Burrow. (“Just over the hill,” according to Xenophilius in Chapter Eight.) After a quick discussion of where Ron spent Christmas, because that’s terribly important, and the fact that Luna will be at home, they start searching the hills. They walk in an unspecified direction for a few hours, then Disapparate a few miles farther north and find the Lovegood house.

This bothered me, both because they conveniently Disapparated right to the Lovegood house and because it sounds like they ended up ten or eleven miles from where they started. Now, it could be because I’m a lazy American, but I really wouldn’t consider that “not far” (Ron) or “just over the hill.” Heck, I live in a small city, and just nine miles in any direction puts me outside of the city limits. I get the feeling JKR either doesn’t walk much or walks a hell of a lot.

Back to the Lovegood house.

Ron was pointing upward, toward the top of the hill on which they had appeared, where a most strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky.

On first reading, I thought for a second that the moon was a decoration on the house, but no, we have a day visible moon for atmosphere. I think I like my misreading better. Still, the sentence needs some serious help. (Like many sentences in the book. Poor sentences.)

Ron then reminds everyone that he’s a chess player by saying the house looks like a rook. Hermione, bizarrely, doesn’t understand what he means and he has to explain. All right, who’s polyjuiced to look like Hermione? Or is this just a sign of low blood sugar due to living on mushrooms and tea for months?

Further proving something is off, she tells Harry to take off the Invisibility Cloak because “It’s you Mr. Lovegood wants to help, not us.”

And that makes it a good idea for him to reveal himself in the garden of a house owned by a known supporter of the good guys? Xenophilius publishes The Quibbler, which you know has been putting out anti-Voldie, pro-Harry pieces for months. You don’t think Voldie might have people watching his house in case members of the Order or Harry himself drop in for tea? Who are you and what have you done with Hermione???

Then again, Hermione didn’t argue with Mad-Eye Disillusioning them all in the Privet Drive garden back in chapter four. Working with the Order has clearly damaged Hermione’s brain.

The stupidity continues when Xenophilius answers the door. By his description, he’s suffering from depression or some other serious emotional problem, but none of the Trio notice. Nor do they notice that he’s clearly afraid someone is watching the place. He may be a kook, but the last time we saw him, the only things odd about him were his beliefs and the color of his clothing. He was odd, not unkempt, incoherent, or paranoid.

Harry notices just enough to be slightly disappointed by this less-than-warm welcome. Disappointed? He warns you off, glances warily around the garden, and is clearly distressed, and you’re disappointed? *headdesk*

Xenophilius lets them in, and we get a page worth of description of the Lovegood house, but not one thought about whether there might be something wrong. Or why Luna isn’t there. It is Christmas break, after all.

Hermione suddenly remembers that she’s supposed to be a know-it-all and has a fit about an Erumpent horn mounted on the wall. Apparently these horns are so unstable that they can explode at the slightest touch. Which makes me wonder exactly how Xenophilius was able to mount it on the wall in the first place. Never mind how the wizard he bought it from transported it safely.

The bomb on the wall firmly established for the next chapter, we move on to Harry asking Xenophilius for help. Xenophilius gets uncomfortable again and clearly doesn’t want to help them. This makes Ron angry, finally clues Harry in to the fact that he’s struggling with something, and Hermione thinks he should get Luna’s opinion. Oh, now someone notices that Luna isn’t there. *headdesk*

Xenophilius gets even more upset, tells what sounds like a bad lie about where Luna is, and goes outside. Ron and Hermione gripe about his cowardice, but Harry figures he’s just afraid for his family and suddenly misses Ginny. Otherwise, we might forget that Harry and Ginny are supposed to be in love, twu love. None of them suspect that anything is wrong, even though Xenophilius is practically wearing a giant neon sign flashing: “Danger! Danger! Something is wrong!”

The dim-witted Trio waste some time looking at a strange homemade headdress. Because mocking people’s weird inventions is so much more important than considering why they might be acting as if they’re being watched. Honestly, they really are too stupid to live.

Xenophilius returns with Gurdyroot tea. He’s suddenly calm again, but no one notices that, either. Instead, they ask him about the symbol he wore to the wedding.

”Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?”

You mean we’re going to get an explanation of the book’s title? But we’re only halfway through. This will spoil the suspense!

Oh, we won’t find out until next chapter. Well, that’s all right, then.

Chapter Nineteen -- The Silver Doe, Part Deux

gehayi — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:30:59 GMT

And here is liebesdammerung's spork. Poor guy. Harry is so outstandingly stupid here that I truly pity liebesdammerung. Newsflash, Rowling--a person doesn't have to be dumb to get into dramatic situations!

***

Chapter Nineteen: The Silver Doe

At the beginning of this chapter, Harry has a terrible dream where Nagini slithers through a Christmas wreath. Try to figure that one out. Hermione is reading A History of Magic, yet again. How many times must she have read this by now? What a Sue. Then the bumps in the night start. Oh, boy. If the sneak-o-scope isn’t blinking, then it’s not a bad person. Gee, that wasn’t too hard to figure out. So then they apparate again. How long is this camping trip going to last, I wonder.

And of course Suemione knows exactly where they are, the Forest of Dean. It’s not like there are a lot of forests in the world or anything. Apparently, Suemione comes with a built-in GPS. Also, does this sentence seem sexual to anyone else? The usual tightness engulfed them. Sounds a bit fishy to me. This follows with Hermione providing yet again a solution to their problem. Shouldn’t Harry have to do some of the work here? Apparently so, because he insists on Hermione going to bed, taking the watch. Now, it is time for JKR to tell the reader every single thought that passes through Harry’s head during his watch. Is this necessary? In my creative writing class in high school, my teacher taught us that in our writing, we need to show, not tell. JKR could have used that class.

At this point Harry keeps falling asleep. That is not very good watchman behavior. But it doesn’t matter in the end, because even he can’t miss the bright, shiny doe. The first time I read this, I knew it was a Patronus, but Harry mulls over the possibility of it being a trap. You would think that someone who is supposed to defeat Voldemort should know the difference between dark magic and regular magic. Apparently not, however, for he goes running through the forest after the doe. Never mind that, if it is indeed a trap, they are basically fucked. Add this to the list of Reasons Why Harry Potter is Stupid.

When he finally catches up to the doe, he has a “question burning in him,” but she disappears. Now, of course he realizes that he really is fucked. Great job, Harry. After looking around, he sees what appears to be the Sword of Gryffindor in the pond. Can we say deus ex machina, everyone? Altogether now. Of course, the natural thing is to wonder how it got there. To answer that question, Harry yet again proves exactly how smart he really is. No, no one put it there, it was some hidden magic that drew them to that spot. Apparently Swords of Gryffindor can be readily found in pools of water throughout England. Oh wait, he used a bit of common sense here, but he still manages to confound the readers of the book with his stupidity.

Moving on, however, he thinks about what makes a true Gryffindor, and how it enabled him to pull the Sword of Gryffindor out of the hat, much in King Arthur fashion. *smacks Harry on the head with a 2x4 of common sense* Now is not the time to be flaunting your supposedly “daring, nerve and chivalry.” You can delude yourself all you want to, but you certainly have not fooled us readers. Then he has to be “honest with himself” with how to get the sword out of the pond. Seriously, people, my left ass cheek could have come up with better characterization. Harry doesn’t even know that when something that you need is at the bottom of a pool of water, you swim down to get it. Either that, or he is just whining. I vote for the latter. In this part we are presented with yet another one of what I like to call JKRisms, or obvious statements with no purpose whatsoever: “Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer.” My Duh-o-Meter just broke.

Then comes the big drama. “Every pore of his body screamed in protest.” I’m not a biologist, but tell me, where do pores come into the picture? I seem to have missed that lesson. An entire paragraph detailing every bit of agony that Harry experiences during this attempted rescue of the sword follows. Personally, I think we should start a “Put Potter in Asylum for the Sake of the Common Good” campaign. No other person in the WORLD experiences so much drama and agony. But remember we are only misunderstanding him. Lars the Emo Kid would be proud.

During this little escapade, Harry, yet again, manages to be so stupid it makes even the reader’s brain hurt. He leaves the locket, which is obviously an instrument of dark magic, around his neck. Of course it’s going to try to strangle him, it senses its destroyer nearby. This is one of the many times in the series where I felt that Harry deserved to die. But that’s just not how it works, folks. Mr. Everyone-Thinks-I’m-Jealous-Of-Harry-But-I’m-Actually-Jealous-Of-Hermione has to save the day. At least he has some sense on him, and proceeds to chastise Harry for being stupid. Which is what we all should be doing right now. And for all time.

Also, further proof that Harry wants Ron. “The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with Ron's reappearance; he could not believe it.” If Ron’s coming back is more important to Harry than finding the Sword of Gryffindor and destroying the Horcrux, then either his priorities are fucked up, or he wants Ron’s cock. JKR has clearly read slash. It starts getting really awkward soon: "’Well, I've -- you know -- I've come back. If --" He cleared his throat. "You know. You still want me.’” Of course Harry still wants you, Ron. He wants you badly.

Then the time comes to destroy the locket. For some reason, Harry thinks that Ron should be the one to do it. This could be because he has some weird sense of honor because Ron saved his life. That would be a Gryffindor quality, I suppose. But I really think that it was yet another JKR BPD (Blatant Plot Device) so we could get even more information about the depth of jealousy that Ron feels against ~~Hermione~~ Harry, which the locket so graciously provides for us. This would be interesting to see on the screen. The demonic forms of Harry and Hermione locked in a sweet embrace, while Ron looks on in utter jealousy. Of course, it doesn’t matter that Harry has basically asked Ron to do something that would put him through such mental anguish (because we all know that ~~Harry~~ Hermione is someone worth fighting for). Take that for consistency.

And Harry keeps yelling for Ron to just stab the darned thing. If it was really that easy, Harry, why don’t you just do it yourself!?!?! What a coward! We are also graced with yet another obvious statement from JKR: “He was shaking, but not, Harry realized, from cold.” If Harry gets even more insensitive to other people’s feelings, I think he is well on his way to becoming ~~Darth Vader~~ a dark wizard himself.

Harry of course reassures Ron that he loves Hermione like a sister, not as a lover. Well, Harry, that’s not going to do much good, because he’s actually in love with you! It didn’t surprise me at all when JKR revealed that Dumbledore is gay, because there’s so much gayness in the books already. It’s just a matter of explicitly revealing it.

After this debacle is over, they proceed back to the tent for the joyous reunion of Ron and Hermione. The fact that this gets so bad that Harry has to shield Ron from Hermione makes me laugh. I always thought Hermione was the cool, collected, common-sense type. I guess not. Add that to the list of JKR Characterization Blunders. She more than makes up for it, though, with her ever-present sarcasm and scathing wit. She doesn’t even seem to notice that Ron still cares for her, and he is sorry he left. Personally, I completely understand why he left. But I suppose that Hermione doesn’t consider others’ feelings at all. That’s how it appears to be.

Something interesting is brought to light (haha, I made a pun) here. The Deluminator, it appears, has more than one use. Of course, this use has never been seen or even made mention in the past, and it doesn’t even make complete sense, given it’s normal usage. Yay JKR BPDs! Those always make me laugh. It’s amazing how much of the plot of these books has to be driven by these BPDs. Not the mark of a good storyteller, let me assure you. Oh, and do you remember the bumps in the night from the beginning of the chapter? Well, that was Ron. Big surprise there. It’s just like Hermione and Harry to run away from what truly scares them. (Remember, you see, that Ron’s departure and return are more important than defeating Voldie.)

One last thing: it certainly is convenient that Ron has a spare wand for Harry. Interesting how these things always seem to work out in books. Well, there you have it, folks. Chapter nineteen, “The Silver Doe,” a.k.a. Why JKR Can’t Write, Part Bajillion. Are we ever going to see the end of this?

Chapter Nineteen - The Silver Doe

erastes — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:55:51 GMT

In which Harry does nothing except find the first trap - and then the second trap - that's offered to him, Ron is magnificent (and very astute) and Hermione is once again, psychotic.

Chapter Nineteen
The Silver Doe

Harry's dreams were confused and disturbing:

He dreamed of Nagini weaving in and out of his dreams, first through a gigantic cracked ring, and then through a wreath of Christmas roses.

Hmm - does anyone else see the anal sex inferences here?

He woke repeatedly, panicky, convinced that somebody had called out to him in the distance, imagining that the wind whipping around the tent was footsteps or voices. Finally he got up in the darkness and joined Hermione, who was huddled in the entrance to the tent reading A History of Magic by the light of her wand.

This tent looks almost exactly like the inside of Mrs Figgs’ flat. Why does JKR keep forgetting this and writing it as if it were just a tent? And jeez!! Are we camping AGAIN? How thrilling.

The snow was falling thickly, and she greeted with relief his suggestion of packing up early and moving on. "We'll somewhere more sheltered," she agreed, shivering as she pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajamas. "I kept thinking I could hear people moving outside. I even though I saw somebody one or twice."

SNIP while they go somewhere else. Somewhere warm perhaps.

"The Forest of Dean," Hermione's been here before

Ah – so all these places they’ve been going have been places she’s been before. Nice to finally have that explained.

Here too snow lay on the trees all around

lay on the trees? As you can see from the forest, it’s very thickly wooded. How Harry would see that the snow was on the canopy I don’t know. It would be quite unlikely that the snow has filtered much to the ground.

and it was bitterly cold, but they were at least protected from the wind. They spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for warmth around the useful bright blue flames that Hermione was adept at producing, and which could be scooped up and carried in a jar.

Again. Every skill from the books have to be rehashed, this is from book one. But I’m wondering if the tent is a THREE ROOMED FLAT why they can’t light the stove. Don’t they have sleeping bags? Warming spells? Transform a piece of paper into a warm blanket? What use is magic if you have to be cold?

Harry plays the invalid and Hermione clucks over him, because that’s what girls do.

After two nights of little sleep, Harry's senses seemed more alert than usual.

Oh that makes sense.

Their escape from Godric's Hollow had been so narrow

Lucky, contrived, idiotic. Yeah, narrow covers it, I guess.

that Voldemort seemed somehow closer than before, more threatening. As darkness drove in again Harry refused Hermione's offer to keep watch and told her to go to bed. Harry moved an old cushion into the tent mouth and sat down, wearing all the sweaters he owned but even so, still shivery.

The idiocy. She burns. There are no chairs in this three roomed flat, I’m assuming.

The darkness deepened with the passing hours until it was virtually impenetrable.

Gosh.

SNIP! as Harry is scared of creeply crawlies.

Their protective enchantments had worked for weeks; why should they break now?

Because they haven’t been tested yet, you plank. Look what happened at the other places that had protection!

Anyway, Harry has a “feeling” that something is going to happen.

Several times he jerked upright,

Not something I’d wanted to know, actually, Jo.

He had just held a hand in front of his face to see whether he could make out his fingers when it happened.

One of the worst sentences in this book. She really does fail at the suspense.

A bright silver light appeared right ahead of him, moving through the trees. Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift toward him.

That’s opposed to that normal noisy light that we get. I know, dawn? What a racket!

He jumped to his feet,

I’ve warned you about this before Jo. Lazy lazy writing.

his voice frozen in his throat,

And again!

and raised Hermione's wand.

What? What did he raise it with? How can we know if you don’t tell us?

He screwed up his eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch black in silhouette, and still the thing came closer

Harry is startling thick here as he COMPLETELY fails to recognise the moon-bright and dazzling silver white doe as a Patronus. Despite the fact that he’s been creating a deer Patronus for FOUR YEARS.

.... And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward him, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.

Holding her eyes high.

Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but her inexplicable familiarity.

*raises hand* Er.. Harry? Perhaps it’s a Deer Patronus? Would that explain the inexplicable inexplicability?

He loses the need to call Hermione.

He knew, he would have staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone.

You often DO stake your life on it, moron-boy. And didn’t you have that very same feeling about Bathilda?

Caution murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap.

Since when did you even know the meaning of caution? Don’t you LOVE traps? How many do you fall into in this book? Four? Five?

But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told him that this was not Dark Magic.

It’s a Patronus. I think it’s a Patronus, don’t you boys and girls? And yeah - his instinct *coughVoldemortMinsitrySiriuscough* has stood him in SUCH good stead in the past.

He set off in pursuit. Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed through the trees, for she was nothing but light.

Cor. I wonder if she’s a… Oh forget it. He’s not listening to me.

Deeper and deeper into the forest she led him,

Don’t bother to tell Hermione where you are going, Harry. I’m sure she won’t worry.

and Harry walked quickly, sure that when she stopped, she would allow him to approach her properly. And then she would speak and the voice would tell him what he needed to know.

Bwuh? Is this Narnia? Or do you KNOW its a Patronus but you just haven't told us?

The Lady Vanishes. Qu'elle Surprise.

...he stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow.

Who’s swishing that snow, Willis?

Was he about to be attacked? Had she enticed him into an ambush? Was he imagining that somebody stood beyond the reach of the wandlight, watching him?

For God's sake, Jo - do you not understand tension? Does Steven King write: She stood on the other side of the door. Was the zombie going to break through? Was the zombie going to get in? Was the zombie going to be able to kill her? Leave SOMETHING for your readers to do, please!

And as for you, Harry - I tell you what, you IDIOT - you are world’s easiest boy to get into a perilous position. I actually admire Snape for this – he had no doubt at all that the Boy With No Brain would wander after a mysterious silver deer into the dark dark dangerous forest without telling anyone. Snape has never doubted Harry's stupidity.

SNIP!

...glint of deep red...It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt....The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

It’s Excalibur. If I hadn’t already broken the book twenty times by hurling against the wall, I would have here. What other symbolism can we cram in here? And how do you know it’s the real one, Mr Antiques Roadshow?

Barely breathing, he stared down at it. How was this possible? How could it have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where they were camping?

Because the writer can’t think of a more sensible way, I guess.

Had some unknown magic drawn Hermione to this spot, or was the doe, which he had taken to be a Patronus,

Since when?? Oh Jo's just realised she didn't have Harry state this earlier. Heaven forbid she'd go back and re-write the earlier section.

And also? If you shove two questions in the same sentence with an “or”, Jo – they should be related. These are not.

some kind of guardian of the pool?

Or had the sword been put into the pool after they had arrived, precisely because they were here? In which case, where was the person who wanted to pass it to Harry?

Again, can't the readers can ask these questions themselves, you really have no respect for even the kids, do you?

"Accio Sword." It did not stir. He had not expected it to.

Harry: the expert at doing spells he doesn’t expect to work. Bellatrix once said that Unforgiveables have to have intent behind them to be effective. If all magic works in the same way it says a lot about Harry. Harry - the world's most passive hero ever

If it had been that easy the sword would have lain on the ground for him to pick up, not in the depths of a frozen pool.

And Jo. The Mistress of the Bleeding Obvious.

He set off around the circle of ice, thinking hard about the last time the sword had delivered itself to him. He had been in terrible danger then, and had asked for help. "Help," he murmured, but the sword remained upon the pool bottom, indifferent, motionless. What was it, Harry asked himself (walking again), that Dumbledore had told him the last time he had retrieved the sword? Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat. And what were the qualities that defined a Gryffindor?

Oh Harry, you really like to put your head on the train tracks, don’t you? Hmm… I’ve got a little list.

Failing intellect.
Rulebreaking
Bullying
Cheating
Recklessness
Stupidity
CAPS LOCK
Stubbornness

A small voice inside Harry's head answered him:

No. That was me.

Their daring nerve and chivalry set Gryffindor apart.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Chivalry? Since when? Daring nerve I can grant you, because that’s just recklessness, but chivalry? Oh – do you mean telling Cedric about the dragons? Because that wasn’t chivalry, Harry. That was CHEATING.

Harry stopped walking and let out a long sigh, his smoky breath dispersing rapidly upon the frozen air.

I think you mean freezing air, Jo. I see no dry ice.

He knew what he had to do. If he was honest with himself, he had thought it might come to this from the moment he had spotted the sword through the ice.

Drink the water? Get a rope? Go and get Hermione? Transform a twig into a reaching thingy? A fucking big magnet?

SNIP! as he gets naked again.

An owl hooted somewhere as he stripped off, and he thought with a pang of Hedwig.

i find it mildly disturbing that he thinks fondly of Hedwig as he strips off, and if I have to be picky, one doesn't think with a pang.

He was shivering now, his teeth chattering horribly, and yet he continued to strip off until at last he stood there in his underwear, barefooted in the snow.

I suppose he wasn’t capable of transforming his clothes into a dry-suit.

He placed the pouch ~~containing his wand, his mother's letter, the shard of Sirius's mirror, and the old Snitch~~

In case we'd forgotten what was in it - although why it matters NOW, I'll never know.

on top of his clothes, then he pointed Hermione's wand at the ice.

Cripes. I’d forgotten he’d got her wand. That’s very chivalrous, Harry, leaving a girl in a tent alone with no defences.

"Diffindo." It cracked with a sound like a bullet in the silence. The surface of the pool broke and chunks of dark ice rocked on the ruffled water. As far as Harry could judge, it was not deep, but to retrieve the sword he would have to submerge himself completely.

"Not deep" - that's interesting. Deeper than he is tall IS deep. And how can he tell anyway. In the dark. and anyway - Why? Why why why? Heat the water! Disappear the water! Impervious! Transform into an octopus! Transform the water into styrofoam doo dads!

I’m sorry, and I know I’m not a chivalrous Gryffindor, I’m only a lowly Slytherin through and through, but there is no time limit here, Harry. I would try all the other ways and spells I could think of before I jumped in a freezing pool ALONE in the middle of the night. But then I'm not a moron with a death wish.

Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer. He stepped to the pool's edge and placed Hermione's wand on the ground still lit. Then, trying not to imagine how much colder he was about to become or how violently he would soon be shivering, he jumped.

SNIP! as the idiot jumps in anyway. Hurrah. Perhaps he’ll die.

: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.

Oh hurrah! SNIP! as Harry begins to die. Then Ron comes up with one of the best lines in the book.

"Are -- you -- mental?"

Yes. Surely you must know by now, Ron? Have you never wondered about the brain damage that his scar may have caused?

Bizarre.

"didn't you take the thing off before you dived?" Harry could not answer.

"Because I'm a moron" Go on, Harry, say it.

The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with Ron's reappearance; he could not believe it. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged sweater after sweater over his head, Harry stared at Ron, half expecting him to have disappeared every time he lost sight of him, and yet he had to be real: He had just dived into the pool, he had saved Harry's life.

In case we'd forgotten.

"It was y-you?" Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation. "Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused.

You are not the only one, Ron

"Y-you cast that doe?"

Harry. I know you are exceptionally DIM but he's your best friend. I know that you don't really take much notice of what your friends do or take much interest in their trials and tribulations (unless it directly relates to you) but you held CLASSES on this. If I can remember what "What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!" "My Patronus is a stag."

"Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers."

I'm guessing that both Patroni are Red Deer, then, as Roe Deer are only the same size of a goat (although this would make sense in the Hogsmeade chapter, to be honest) and Roe Deer have quite small antlers.

Harry put Hagrid's pouch back around his neck,

Hey - I feel cheated! What's in it?

Ron says he's come back and Harry sulks for a moment, but...

He had just saved Harry's life.

In case we'd forgotten

Ron realises that HE got the sword out. When does Harry get to do anything but fail?

Harry asks Ron how he got there, but before Ron can tell him Harry gets bored and runs off because he thinks someone might be around.

The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching slightly. Harry knew that the thing inside [the locket] was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill Harry rather than let him possess it.

Really? Now I read that very differently. I read that it was Ron pulling Harry out by the chain which caused it to tighten around his neck. After all - what else was Ron grab onto?

Harry tells Ron to kill the Horcrux

"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

Yes. RON is the chivalrous one. It sure ain't you, Harry. Or are you just too scared?

He was not being kind or generous.

Is he ever?

As certainly as he had known that the doe was benign, he knew that Ron had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at least taught Harry something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts.

Harry LEARNED something? *reaches for smelling salts *

"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry. The answer came so readily to his lips that thought that he had always known it deep down: Perhaps it had taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realize it.

More like it just takes him months to realise anything.

He looked at the serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones: It was easy to visualize it as a miniscule snake, curled upon the cold rock. "No!" said Ron. "Don't open it! I'm serious!" "Why not?" asked Harry. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months --"

What's been months?

SNIP! a slashy section that made 10000 Harry/Ron shippers squeal with glee.

"Tell me when," [Ron] croaked.

"On three," said Harry, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry's neck still burned. "One . . . two . . . three . . .open."

Not on three then.

The last word came as a hiss and a snarl

Snarl? How many snakes snarl?

There's a pair of eyes in it. I'm sorry but as the eyes are frantically swivelling all I could imagine were these.

Then after the Ron/Harry slash - we get MORE shipping.

Firstly - Ron/Voldie.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."

Then we have Harry/Hermione.

Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione,

The locket went white hot. Hyberole again. White hot? It would seared his fingers off.

~~The Devil~~ Voldemort tempts Ron to try and save his ~~arse~~ googly eyes.

Voldemort/Hermione was more beautiful

Because Jo has been attempting to con us that Hermione is now a hottie all through this book.

and yet more terrible than the real Hermione:

Yet more terrible? What does that mean? More nagging? More homework? More snitching to the teachers? I think that Jo is rather going for this effect and fails.

ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!

She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified, yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One?

You want a list?

SNIP! As Riddle continues to taunt Ron with every fangirl's dreams but finally he stabs the nasty piece of jewelry and all is well.

Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act.

IN CASE WE'D FORGOTTEN.

Harry then actually does something nice for Ron - after all these years.

"After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "she cried for a week.

Ron says he was a ....

"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Harry. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."

Thanks Harry. I'd forgotten about that.

"all we've got to do is find that tent again." But it was not difficult. Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed lengthy, with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time.

In the middle of the night, in the DARK with no path, no breadcrumb trail. Riiiight.

Harry tells Hermione Ron is back.

Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas.

How about going into another ROOM?

A tender reunion as Hermione beats the crap out of Ron.

"Hermione," interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, "he just saved my --"

Please, Harry. Not again.

SNIP! as Ron tells them how he was pinched by the Snatchers (ouch!) and gave them the most stupid name (Stan Shunpike) he could think of. What a moron. And when he'd escaped they'd gone.

"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound.

I'm with you, Hermione. Hardly believable, at any rate.

"Hermione," said Harry quietly, "Ron just saved my life." She appeared not to have heard him.

I can't say I blame her. With Harry it's like saying "I woke up this morning."

"One thing I would like to know, though," she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron's head. "How exactly did you find us tonight?

I'd like to know a LOT more than that, but as Jo isn't asking the questions for me, I have a bad feeling that the whole "why the forest of Dean" thing isn't going to be explained.

"I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator again, "came out of this."

"And what exactly did I say?" asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.

"My name. 'Ron.' ...

Wow. Is that your name? I'd never have guessed. *beats head on rock*

...And you said ... something about a wand...."

So... let me get this straight. This "cool gadget" that JKR invented in book one as a throw-away device which was obviously only there to introduce the fact that this wasn't Kansas anymore - THIS Put-Outer is actually tuned to listen in to Hermione? So... Mr Dumble-I'm-so-Great, gave to the trio, without any explanation, a gadget that could have led Voldemort to them AT ANY TIME?

Good grief.

SNIP! Because I can't bear to rehash how utterly stupid the Deluminator device is.

Hermione wants more details of the silver doe.

"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said.

*Erastes gives a standing ovation*

and it led you to the sword! I can't believe this!

*Erastes throws flowers* Brava Brava! ME EITHER!

Then what happened?" Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in. "-- and Ron stabbed it with the sword."

Thanks. I REALLY wanted it all explained again. There's a way to avoid this you know. It's like this. Pay attention.

Harry and Ron told Hermione all about the sword's recovery and the Horcrux's destruction.

And that's it, really. Rinse wash repeat. Even in the same chapter. Ad infinitum. When does Harry get to do SOMETHING? ANYTHING?

Chapter Eighteen -- The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

gehayi — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:07:21 GMT

In which Rita Skeeter dishes serious dirt, Dumbledore goes in for what he considers semi-benevolent despotism, Aberforth suspects DD of murder, Harry finally realises that Dumbledore Is Not What He Seemed, Rowling is cavalier about World War II, and I nearly lose my lunch.

Chapter Eighteen -- The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

I'm going to be honest with you lot; there were occasional bits I liked here. The chapter is short, lucid, emotional without being emo and informative without drowning us in exposition or lack of continuity. It's rare to find such a chapter in Rowling. I don't know how to explain it. Perhaps she wrote it when the moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter had aligned with Mars.

Regrettably, Dumbledore is odious in this chapter. More odious than usual, I mean. And there's one sentence where the sheer insensitivity of the wizarding world (and Rowling) made me physically sick.

As the chapter begins, Harry has just awakened from unconsciousness after very nearly being killed by Snake! Bathilda. Rowling describes Harry gazing out on a cold, glittering winter world devoid of color, not knowing what to do next, or how to feel. His wand is irreparably damaged and, since he doesn't know how to do wandless magic, he feels utterly helpless.

He managed to get Hermione to loan him her wand in the previous chapter, but it's not the same. Considering all the emphasis on the wand choosing the wizard, I imagine that losing a wand is losing an arm or a leg; it's that much a part of you. [I am not using the Penis Analogy because witches lose their wands in this book, too, and it seems to distress them no less than the male wizards.] Consequently, simply borrowing someone else's wand seems rather like borrowing a prosthetic. One for which you haven't been fitted. And that doesn't feel quite right. And that doesn't do everything that your own limb could. And that's constantly chafing and reminding you that it IS a prosthetic.

So yes, I do feel a little bit sorry for Harry here. That does not mean, however, that I can ignore the following:

Simply to be alive to watch the sun rise over the sparkling snowy hillside ought to have been the greatest treasure on earth, yet he could not appreciate it: his senses had been spiked by the calamity of losing his wand.

OUCH. What a swag-bellied sentence. "Simply to be alive" instead of "being alive", a colon instead of a full stop or a semi-colon, and...what are "spiked senses"?

He looked out over a valley blanketed in snow, distant church bells chiming through the glittering silence.

Now, this would normally be where I'd protest that silence doesn't glitter, and that if church bells are chiming, the world can't be silent.

But I've lived through a thousand or so winter mornings where there's just snow, and the sun glistening on snow. No sand, no salt, no shoveled-out driveways, no tire tracks in the snow on the road, no signs of any plowing. Just snow. And the world is hushed; you almost find yourself straining to hear something in the silence. And if it's a Sunday morning, the automatic carillon starts in the church down the street. So you can hear bells....but the sound only serves to emphasize how quiet the world is.

So...yeah. I think I know what she means here.

Harry then itemizes his scars:

He had spilled his own blood more times than he could count; he had lost all bones in his right arm once;

Well, yes, Harry, but that wasn't something you did deliberately. It's not even something you did, period. That was due to Gilderoy Lockhart trying to fix your broken arm and screwing up.

this journey had already given him scars to his chest and forearm to join those on his hand and forehead,

I'll go along with the scar on the chest—the locket Horcrux did, after all, burn "a scarlet oval over his heart"—but the marks on Harry's forearm were described as "half-healed puncture marks" about ten minutes ago, book time. I really think that a wound has to have healed before it can be called a scar.

but never, until this moment, had he felt himself to be fatally weakened, vulnerable, and naked, as though the best part of his magical power had been torn from him.

It must be difficult to feel that you can't even put up a hopeless fight. Moreover, Harry's upset not only because he lost his wand, but because his wand and Voldemort's had tail feather cores from the same phoenix, which meant that they couldn't successfully cast spells at each other. Now that invulnerability is gone. Understandably, he's not best pleased.

He puts the bits of his wand in the Mokeskin pouch, which he realizes contains nothing but junk and broken stuff. For a minute, Harry is tempted to throw away the Snitch DD left him because it's singularly unhelpful, which would be understandable but dumb. The seemingly useless, broken, worthless junk that any sane person would throw away is always the stuff you need to keep. Geez, Harry, read a few fairy tales, why don't you? That way you might recognize the tropes.

Then Harry gets mad at Dumbledore. All right. I can get behind that. The problem is that Harry's not blaming the Dumb One for the right reasons:

Out of sheer desperation they had talked themselves into believing that Godric’s Hollow held answers, convinced themselves that they were supposed to go back, that it was all part of some secret path laid out for them by Dumbledore: but there was no map, no plan.

The key words are "talked themselves" and "convinced themselves." Dumbledore is guilty of a great many things. He gave an Invisibility Cloak to an eleven-year-old boy, knowing that Harry would use it. He sent two children onto Hogwarts grounds to play with the space-time continuum, knowing that the kids would risk being infected, maimed, killed or eaten by a hungry werewolf, captured or killed by two suspected Death Eaters, both of whom had wands and one of whom had an executioner's axe, or rendered soulless by a hundred or more starving Dementors. He didn't even attempt to cancel the Triwizard Tournament or find a loophole that would render the magical contract null and void, even though he had reason to suspect that someone was using the Tournament to set Harry up and that all the students at Hogwarts, as well as all the champions, might be in danger. He kept secrets from Harry. He utterly failed to stand by Sirius after the Potters died—even if Sirius HAD been guilty, he would have deserved a trial and actual evidence, rather than just being banged up in prison on the Minister's say-so. And he brought Tom Riddle to Hogwarts himself...despite knowing that eleven-year-old Tom Riddle was an evil little sod who killed pets, tortured small children into madness,and could make people hurt if he wanted to.

(I don't know about you, but I'd wonder about a kid like that. The wisest wizard in the world, however, completely missed these little tells, failing to grasp that they might indicate that Tommy-boy wasn't such a nice fellow.)

So yes, there is plenty to blame DD for.

Blaming him for Harry's and Hermione's bad decisions, however, simply isn't on. Harry and Hermione chose to go to Godric's Hollow despite the fact that they suspected that it was a trap and that the Death Eaters were watching the place. Considering that they spent a couple of chapters debating this and chose to go there anyway, I can't really blame Dumbledore, much as I'd like to.

Dumbledore had left them to grope in the darkness, to wrestle with unknown and undreamed-of terrors, alone and unaided:

Okay, see, that I can blame him for.

Nothing was explained,

Knowing the way that Dumbledore works, I was certain on the first read-through that everything would be explained in vast detail once we were at the close of the book and didn't care anymore. Dumbledore is such an Author's Darling that I knew Rowling would find a way to have him bore us from beyond the grave.

nothing was given freely, they had no sword, and now, Harry had no wand.

To be fair, they haven't got the sword YET.

Hermione brings Harry some tea, because tea makes everything better. She also gives him a copy of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, which contains a copy of the photograph that Harry just dropped in the debacle with Bathilda. Apparently Rita Skeeter gave Bathilda Bagshot one of her author's copies. An autographed copy:

“ ‘Dear Batty, Thanks for your help. Here’s a copy of the book, hope you like it. You said everything, even if you don’t remember it. Rita.’

I don't know about you, but if I were Bathilda, I don't think I'd appreciate being called Batty. Especially since she's presented before this as being semi-senile. Can you imagine being called Batty Batty?

Harry looked down upon Dumbledore’s face and experienced a surge of savage pleasure: Now he would know if all the things that Dumbledore had never thought it worth telling him, whether Dumbledore wanted him to or not.

And it only took you seven books to get to this level of curiosity!

After reassuring Hermione, who thinks, correctly, that Harry is still mad at her, Harry opens the book. He finds the photograph he's looking for almost instantly.

He came across the one he sought almost at once, the young Dumbledore and his handsome companion, roaring with laughter at some long-forgotten joke.

Harry's been checking out that photograph for several chapters. Each time, the unidentified male has been described as handsome, as well as having long gold hair and a merry face that reminds Harry of the Weasley twins. This is also, incidentally, the same guy who stole the Elder Wand from Gregorovitch the Wandmaker. Harry never gets particularly upset by the theft, though. I guess bad things are only bad when they're done by Slytherins or ugly people, rather than Gryffindors and people who are hot.

Harry dropped his eyes to the caption.

Ewww, Harry! Why don't you put your eyes back in your head? Maybe then you won't drop them!

Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother’s death, With his friend Gellert Grindelwald.

I know it's possible to roar with laughter shortly after someone dies and still be sincerely grieving. Nevertheless, this is not creating the most wonderful of impressions.

Oh, and "Gellert" is a name. It's Hungarian for "Gerard." A Hungarian first name and a Swiss last name? Probably not what Rowling was going for.

The next section can be summarized thus:

Harry: Grindelwald?

Hermione: Grindelwald?

Harry and Hermione: GRINDELWALD?!

Harry searches for mentions of Grindelwald. He hits the jackpot in a chapter called "The Greater Good."

Now approaching his eighteenth birthday, Dumbledore left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory --- Head Boy, Prefect, Winner of the Barnabus Finkley Prize for Exceptional Spell-Casting,

This last being something that we've never heard of before. Isn't it kind of odd that Hermione didn't win this?

British Youth Representative to the Wizengamot,

Which we've also never heard of before.

Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International Alchemical Conference in Cairo.

Third thing that we've never of before. This is the first and last reference to alchemy that I've ever seen in these books. I swear she tossed it in just to throw a bone to the readers who spent so much time inventing convoluted alchemic theories about the novels.

Dumbledore intended, next, to take a Grand Tour with Elphias "Dogbreath" Doge, the dim-witted but devoted sidekick he had picked up at school.

Oookay. So Albus is planning on traveling all over Europe, unsupervised, with another young man stated to be devoted to him. Is it just me, or does she not recognize the implicit slashiness?

Also, Doge is pronounced like the first syllable of "dojo", not like "dog." That's the problem with using nicknames based on the way a name looks rather than how it sounds.

The two young men were staying at the Leaky Cauldron in London, preparing to depart for Greece the following morning,

I bet they were.

Skeeter's book has a few things to say about DD going back to Godric's Hollow to take care of his younger brother and sister. Aberforth is described as being crazy, running wild and throwing goatshit at the head of one Enid Smeek. As we're not told when DD was going off on his Grand Tour, we don't know if this is accurate. Aberforth could easily have been back at Hogwarts, studying for his OWLs. And I can't really imagine a fifteen-year-old throwing goatshit for days on end as an amusement. It sounds like something a kid would do. A real, real little kid.

The book says that DD was "imprisoning" his sister, even after their mother's death. There are a lot of references to Airhead's—I mean, Ariana's—illness, frailty and delicacy, all of which Skeeter admits to doubting strongly. There's also a lot of talk about Bathilda Bagshot, and how Rita Skeeter deduced enough from talking to her to learn DD's most closely guarded secrets.

Some of Rita's lines re: Bathilda are odd.

Kendra, of course, had rebuffed Bathilda when she first attempted to welcome the family to the village.

Why "of course," Skeeter?

Several years later, however, the author sent an owl to Albus at Hogwarts, having been favorably impressed by his paper on transspecies transformation in Transfiguration Today.

I'm not exactly sure why a magical historian would be interested in a fourteen-year-old's article on how to Transfigure one species into another. It doesn't seem to have much to do with history.

(And yes, he'd have been fourteen. Several is generally construed as three or four. DD was eleven when the family moved to Godric's Hollow, plus several years later = fourteen. Fifteen at the oldest.)

At the time of Kendra’s death, Bathilda was the only person in Godric’s Hollow who was on speaking terms with Dumbledore’s mother.

Gee, even Kendra's children weren't talking to her!

After more talk about Bathilda, Skeeter starts talking about Gellert Grindelwald...who, the summer that Kendra died, was visiting his Great Aunt Bathilda in Godric's Hollow.

Grindelwald, it develops, went to Durmstrang (no surprise there, since Viktor Krum saw his mark carved in the wall). Like the Dumb One, Gellert was very good at school, though he didn't dedicate himself to winning prizes. Perhaps he couldn't. I mean, what kind of award would you give a teenager who was good at the Dark Arts? The Clothilde Kleinhuffer Cup for Covalvent Cursing? The Anselm Adelbert Award for Astonishing Avada Kedavras?

Anyway, Gellert, whose name I keep wanting to pronounce as Jello, eventually gets expelled for being a bad 'un.

At sixteen years old, even Durmstrang felt it could no longer turn a blind eye to the twisted experiments of Gellert Grindelwald, and he was expelled.

I did not know that Durmstrang was both a school and a sixteen-year-old human. Amazing, the things that go on in the wizarding world!

Anyway, Bathilda introduces sixteen-year-old Gellert to seventeen-year-old Albus, and the two get along famously...

“Yes, even after they’d spent all day in discussion --- both such brilliant young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire --- I’d sometimes hear an owl tapping at Gellert’s bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An idea would have struck him and he had to let Gellert know immediately!”

Spend all day together, and then send each other letters. Ah, young love. Seriously, I think that at this point the subtext, as Rupert Giles would say, is becoming text.

Then we get a letter from the Dumb One to Grendel:

Your point about Wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES’ OWN GOOD --- this, I think, is the crucial point.

Or the crucial rationalization.

Yes, we have been given power

Given by whom? Certainly not God, though that's implicit in the line. Generally wizards are not especially religious; their celebration of Christmas, Easter vacation and Hufflepuff's ghost, the Fat Friar are virtually the only signs of religion this world has.

(I don't think we can count Sirius and Harry being godfathers, as neither Sirius nor Harry show the slightest awareness of anything related to any religion. Presumably, then, christenings and godfathers are a cultural thing.)

and yes, that power gives us the right to rule,

No, Dumb One. Magical power gives you the ability to seize political power. It doesn't give you the RIGHT to do it. Unless you're willing to concede that superiority in numbers, weaponry and technology gives Muggles the RIGHT to take over the wizarding world. That baaaaaad case of entitlement you've got cuts both ways.

but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled.

Please note that the Dumb One doesn't seem to feel that one of those responsibilities is finding out if the ruled need, or indeed want to be ruled in the first place.

We must stress this point, it will be the foundation stone upon which we build.

To be technical—and when was I not?--that comma after "point" should be a semi-colon or a full stop.

SNIP!

We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD.

Isn't it amazing how much "the greater good" looks like greed, overweening ambition and a paternalistic attitude toward others that borders on contempt? You know, Dumbledore, you'd have made a wonderful Death Eater. I refuse to believe that you weren't in Slytherin.

And from this it follows that where we meet resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary and no more.

Of course, just how much force might be considered necessary is rather open to interpretation, isn't?

(This was your mistake at Durmstrang!

So does this mean that a sixteen-year-old wizard tried applying unnecessary force to all of the Muggles in attendance at Durmstrang? Wait, didn't it say earlier that he was expelled for "twisted experiments"?

SNIP!

Astonished and appalled though his many admirers will be, this letter constitutes proof that Albus Dumbledore once dreamed of overthrowing the Statute of Secrecy, and establishing Wizard's First rule over Muggles.

Now, I know that Rowling doesn't intend me to believe this line, because Skeeter is trash-talking Dumbledore. It's supposed to be all tense and suspenseful and how-could-anyone-think-that-of-Dumbledore! But the thing is, I have no problem believing it. How many times does he not tell Harry something for what Dumbledore claims is his own good? How many times does he put clues to the path of danger in Harry's way for the greater good? How many times do people suffer and die in these books because DD is committed to "the big picture"? Not to mention that in this book, DD is dead, and Harry and Snape are STILL dancing to the old twit's tune.

No, Dumbledore never really gave up that attitude of "what I am doing is for the greater good." Which is a pity, because so much of what he did for the greater good ended up being for someone else's bad.

Anyway, Skeeter continues to point out just how bad this makes Dumbledore look—because we couldn't POSSIBLY notice this without Skeeter saying so, could we, Rowling?--and then tells us that:

1)Ariana died under Mysterious Circumstances.
2)Grindelwald high-tailed it out of Godric's Hollow the day after she died.
3)Aberforth blamed Albus for Ariana's death.
4)Aberforth broke Albus's nose at Ariana's funeral.

Now, I was expecting a murder investigation which nearly ruined DD's career. But no, there wasn't. A little girl dies, a person guilty of "twisted experiments" known to have been there when she died flees the country—and the wizarding world does NOTHING. No questioning of the one remaining witness. No asking Aberforth just why he suspected his brother. Not even so much as a paragraph-long background sketch indicating that some town watchman, some sheriff, some Auror even considered that there was anything even vaguely wrong with what happened.

I could accept a cover-up by the family. I could accept that the circumstances looked bad but in fact weren't. What I can't accept is that no one, looking at those circumstances, suspected a thing until Skeeter.

Because, of course, it's Dumbledore.

Riiiight. Pardon me while I spit fire.

Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this brief boyhood friendship in later life.

Oh, I bet they didn't. Especially since I wouldn't use the term "friendship." It flared up briefly and ended just as quickly. I'd call it a "crush."

However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald.

Presumably this means that Dumbledore could have attacked and defeated Grindelwald in 1939—and thus prevented World War II, and all of the hideous deaths that took place as a result.

Think about what that implies.

More than six million Jews died. One or two million Catholics. Three million gypsies, and I don't know how many disabled people or trade unionists or Communists or twins died. Somewhere between fourteen and seventeen million, I read.

All were labeled nonhuman.

And experiments on the "nonhumans." How much pain or fire or cold they could bear. Or breeding experiments to see if these people they called inhuman could be interbred with animals.

Seventeen million people.

And that was just in the death camps.

Forty-four million MORE died for the Allies. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Yanks, France, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.

Sixty-one countries fought over three-quarters of the world.

More than sixty-one million people. (That's not even counting the eleven million or so who died fighting for the Axis Powers.)

Maybe it's me, but I'm absolutely furious at Rowling for minimizing the consequences of Dumbledore's actions. At the same time, I'm mad that millions upon millions of people could be suffering, fighting and dying for their families, friends and freedom, both in various armies and in resistance movements...and that none of it matters in Rowlingland. Because in Rowlingland, saving the world in World War II, as in 1998, is the job of a white Anglo-Saxon male. No other saviors of the world need apply—even if said white Anglo-Saxon male can't be bothered to get up off his fat arse and save close to a hundred million lives by fighting a former friend.

Okay. I am in a "TROGDOR SMASH!" kind of mood. I'll be back later when my stomach isn't roiling.

::::::

Back now.

Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate?

I'll take "Fear of Exposure" for $2000, Alex. (Is there any other choice? Dumbledore is a manipulative old codger who has never loved anyone but himself.)

Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the man he was once so delighted he had met?

Don't know, don't care. What I DO care about is that Dumbledore faffed about, delaying going after the then-Dark Lord for more than five years for no reason that's ever given, costing wizards and Muggles alike their lives. The why doesn't matter to me. I don't give a damn whether he delayed because he was helping ~~Edward Elric~~ Nicolas Flamel create the Philosopher's Stone, or because he was mourning for Ariana, or whatever. It's the delay itself I can't get past. I'm really not seeing doing nothing as millions die as the act of "one of the bravest men Harry ever knew."

There is more speculation on why Ariana died, all couched in questions. This is a trick that I remember from a Dick Francis book. All the unfavorable speculation was in the form of questions so that the British press couldn't be accused of saying anything that wasn't true.

The chapter ended here

YAY!

and Harry looked up.

Oh, drat. Wrong chapter, then.

Hermione closes the book for Harry:

She tugged the book out of Harry’s hands, looking a little alarmed by his expression, and closed it without looking at it, as though hiding something indecent.

Hermione Granger—-future employee of Six Apart.

Harry is devastated.

He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom.

How did this kid get to be seventeen years old AND grow up with the Dursleys, and yet never once experience a moment of doubt about the adults in his life?

All was ashes: How much more could he lose? Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand...

Notice that his parents and Sirius are not on this list. Nor is Mad-Eye Moody, who risked and gave his life to save Harry. Nope. It's all about Ron, a dysfunctional wand, and the Harrydore.

Hermione protests that this is about what you could expect from Rita Skeeter. Harry brings up the letter. Hermione provides more exposition dump.

'For the Greater Good' became Grindelwald's slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he committed later. And . . . from that . . . it looks like Dumbledore gave him the idea. They say 'For the Greater Good' was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard."

Nurmengard. Sheesh. Is this the world where the German-Soviet Alliance actually took?

And is anyone but me hearing about a slogan over the entrance of a prison and thinking about Auschwitz? And does anyone else wish that Rowling would stop doing this?

Harry, of course, doesn't know anything--what a surprise!---so he has to ask Hermione what Nurmengard is. She tells him it's the prison that Grindelwald built, and that he was imprisoned there after DD defeated him.

Anyway, it's --- it’s an awful thought that Dumbledore's ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power.

I fail to see why it's any worse than anyone else's ideas helping him rise to power.

Hermione then protests that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were very young and didn't know better. Riiight. Because there's such a vast difference between being eighteen and being sixteen or seventeen. Even Harry calls her on this, which is amazing.

They were the same age as we are now. And here we are, risking our lives to fight the Dark Arts, and there he was, in a huddle with his new best friend, plotting their rise to power over the Muggles."

Saying she's not defending Dumbledore, Hermione continues to try to defend Dumbledore:

But Harry, his mother had just died, he was stuck alone in the house ---"

Because parental deaths and solitude plainly cause desire for world domination. And Harry points out another fact:

"Alone? He wasn't alone! He had his brother and sister for company

Hermione protests that she doesn't believe that Ariana was a Squib. She says that the Dumbledore she knew wouldn't have done that.

"The Dumbledore we thought we knew didn't want to conquer Muggles by force!" Harry shouted, his voice echoing across the empty hilltop

Hermione then starts playing fast and loose with the facts:

Dumbledore was the one who stopped Grindelwald,

Well, he defeated Grindelwald in a magical duel. I'm not sure that constitutes stopping all of Grindelwald's forces.

the one who always voted for Muggle protection and Muggle born rights,

No, he didn't. Wizards don't have a legislature, or an electoral process. There's just the Minister of Magic—who's appointed, not elected. He and his staff issue what "decrees" they like (See also: Umbridge). How do you vote for something when your form of government makes no provision for voting?

who fought You-Know-Who from the start,

And who brought him to Hogwarts too, despite knowing that eleven-year-old Tom liked killing other children's pets, torturing small children until they weren't right in the head, and making other people hurt if he wanted them to. I don't think Dumbledore deserves much credit for opposing Voldemort when, if it weren't for him, there would be neither a fully trained Voldemort nor any Horcruxes in the first place.

and who died trying to bring him down!"

Oh, rubbish. Snape killed an old fool who was dying of poison and an curse. Euthanasia is not the same thing as noble self-sacrifice!

Hermione then says that Harry's mad because DD never told him any of this. Harry explodes, and in a fairly sane manner:

"Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And don't expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me even though I don't trust you! Never the whole truth! Never!"

Geez, Harry. It only took you seven books to notice this, but you finally got there. Congratulations.

Hermione tries telling Harry that DD loved him, which, in view of the rest of this book and the six preceding it, is such a blatant lie that I expected her to be struck by lightning. Harry, displaying an unusual amount of sense, refutes this:

"I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the mess he's left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me."

APPLAUSE!

Harry tells Hermione to go back in the tent, which she does. As she exits stage left, he "hated himself for wishing that what she said was true: that Dumbledore had really cared.

And I hate Rowling for trying to convince us that despite the Dumb One being a lazy, negligent, manipulative incipient dictator-world conquerer, he's really a good guy.