PoA Chapter Ten
Ginny brings Harry a get-well card that sounds far too adorable to have been made by the chick who shows up two books from now as Harry's ideal girl.
Harry now remembers the Grim as accompanying near-fatal accidents. If you’re as confused as me about the first one, Harry now remembers himself being almost run over by the Knight Bus as a near-death experience. There is a lot of examples in the book of how people make this prophecy stuff work, I will say that. Which is weird given it turns out this entire series turns on a bunch of people following a prophecy.
Malfoy’s now doing imitations of Harry falling off his broom until Ron throws a crocodile heart at his face. Okay, that makes me laugh. (The crocodile heart.)
Hmmm. Ginny will be doing imitations of Harry falling off his broom in HBP. She’s definitely studying Malfoy for tips on how to get Harry’s attention. (Note that Ginny will do her imitations after yelling at Dean for laughing at Harry’s fall to begin with.)
When Lupin returns, the class erupts in complaints about Snape having the gall to give homework as a substitute. The really are being ridiculous about this here. They might as well complain that Snape had the gall to teach instead of entertain them making balloon animals all period.
Remus naturally dismisses the assignment he gave. If they doubted that he was one of them.
Seeing the Hinkeypunk, a little wispy creature in a box that squeaks, I can see why the kids were disappointed in having to study werewolves.
Why exactly is Dumbledore so mad about the Dementors on the Quidditch field? I know he’s trying to keep Harry safe so he can kill him in his own time, but it’s not like Harry doesn’t risk a fatal fall every time he plays Quidditch. Maybe he should yell at those guys whose job it is to bash iron balls at his head while he’s 50 feet in the air.
Btw, the Dementors were at the Quidditch field at the same time Sirius was and thus were kind of doing their job.
In case it wasn’t clear already, Lupin assures Harry that the Dementors affect him more than anyone else because he’s had all these horrors in his past. Horrors he’s far too young to remember, actually. I have to say that what happened to Neville’s parents was worse. In fact, if one were making a case for Harry having faced a lot of horror, I'd say it was at the Dursleys.
People recently claimed that we didn’t know how old the characters were when the movies were cast, but this chapter keeps stressing how young Lupin is. Though I don’t know how Harry manages to figure out he’s young despite the grey hair and lines.
Lupin says most prisoners at Azkaban go mad within weeks. A shame that after this book people will come bopping out of the place no worse for wear all the time. Sure Bellatrix is a nut but she appears to have been that way before Azkaban as well.
Lupin says Sirius must have found a way to fight the Dementors. I wonder if he’s considering that Sirius might be innocent?
Hermione’s looking forward to shopping for her parents’ Christmas gifts at Hogsmeade. Not that she’s going home to see them for Christmas. And the thing is, I would never see this as being a bad thing (of course we want her at school) except that it actually does culminate in Hermione mind wiping them both.
Btw, I saw a still from DH where Hermione's in her Muggle room. It makes me nervous they might actually include the mindwipe.
Harry’s been riding a school broom since he lost his. It’s slow and jerky. It’s kind of strange to me the way Quidditch really is a game about equipment, and JKR both gives Harry the best of it and frowns on the Slytherins for their own brooms.
I mean, if Harry's having this much trouble on a school broom shouldn't he feel a bit silly about beating all those other kids who are forced to ride it? It's hardly fair.
Fred and George give Harry the Marauders map since they "know it by heart." Um, guys? It changes every time you look at it. The people in it move.
Don’t suppose they thought to use it to look for Sirius Black at all.
Harry briefly considers whether he should use a map since he can’t tell where it keeps its brain, he naturally decides to use it. I’m proud of Harry for considering it for a second, though.
Once in Honeydukes, Harry thinks about Dudley’s piggy face if he could see where he was. I’m going to give Dudley the benefit of the doubt and say he prefers candy that doesn’t sound like it was all designed to cause internal injury or nausea.
Ron mistakenly thinks Harry’s learned to Apparate. You can’t Apparate from Hogwarts, Ron!
I do kind of love the fact that if Sirius really was trying to kill Harry he probably would have been in that passage since he does know about it. Harry's using a map Sirius himself made to find it, innocently thinking that means Sirius could never ever know about it.
Ron points out that Harry is safe in Hogsmeade because there’s all these other people around, even though Sirius’ big crime was killing a whole bunch of people on the street in broad daylight to get to one person.
Hermione then brings up the far bigger reason Harry shouldn’t be in Hogsmeade. He hasn’t got a signed form!
Typically, Harry has come to Hogsmeade without a coat.
Rosmerta is a "curvy sort of woman" with a pretty face. Ron, at least, probably isn’t looking at her face.
The hardest thing to believe in this chapter is that any of these relatively normal people would want to go for a drink with Hagrid.
Finally people have a discussion about Sirius that includes that they’ve all known him since he was 11. Oddly, no one brings up that his whole family are Slytherin dark wizards and that his younger brother was also a DE.
Luckily, Madam Rosemerta doesn’t know how a Fidelius charm works. Don’t hold it against her. JKR isn’t quite clear how it works either. It changes in every book.
Dumbledore was still worried when Sirius offered to be Secret Keeper, because you know how angry Dumbledore gets when he’s not the keeper of every single secret ever told.
It still annoys me that Hagrid took Harry since he had orders for Dumbledore even though Sirius was apparently Harry’s legal guardian.
McGonagall now feels a little bad about being impatient with Peter. Not so bad she won’t be just as bad to Neville.
Btw, Peter was fat. Which I’m sure has nothing to do with his moral character. But everything to do with his lack of talent.
Fudge worries about Voldemort with his most trusted servant and shudders to think of it. You’re right to shudder, Fudge. Voldemort + Peter + Barty = a villain the entire British WW will have to work hard to keep in power.
Things that happen twice
Harry deals with a second object that can interact with people--and he (or JKR) actually remembers the warnings he gave about it.
I think we’ve got a competitor in the race for "most convenient eavesdropping moment" here, but DH is still in the lead.
Harry gets a second singing card from Ginny, which is presumably validation that the first one was from her too, if that wasn’t already obvious. This is the way Ginny I showed affection.
Apparently the Whomping Willow also gravely injured people. Clearly the same mind that decided to plant that on school grounds hired Hagrid and vouched for him having no responsibility whatsoever for the time that animal went after a student.
It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
It's the Grim!
Status: Fired. Nicely woven back in here!
Jabootu Score: 0
Shocking, I know, but it’s mostly because nothing really happens, but Harry gets two really important things so you have to appreciate that.