PoA Chapter Sixteen
Up a little early because I'm going out of town tomorrow.
Given that it gets a chapter title, I’m going to guess there’s something special about this one that makes it unlike the dozens of predictions she’s made thus far.
Harry’s euphoria over Quidditch lasts at least a week. Wow. A whole week. We really are early in the series.
Even the weather seemed to be celebrating. This must be when Harry developed his delusion that the weather should mirror his inner state at all times that will cause him so much confusion later on.
Harry thinks about playing a casual game of Gobstones. It seems like that’s a game that people think about playing more than they ever actually play. Understandably, since it covers you in pus. I guess you think about playing it until you remember that and then play something else instead.
Even the twins are working. Unlike that kid in their class that they’ve given boils to so he can’t. They’re so cute and funny.
Percy needs top grades because he wants to enter the Ministry. Does that place require top grades? It seems like it’s surely staffed entirely by “gentleman C’s.”
Harry and Ron look at Hermione’s schedule and ask how she’s going to take 2 classes at once. Ron, at least, ought to know Time Turners exist. Yet they still haven’t figured this out. Think about that, then think about Dumbledore’s cunning plan in DH and whose ability to think it was all riding on.
Hermione’s got a book with Numerology in the title. So numerology is apparently legitimate, but crystal ball gazing is stupid.
Harry scribbles everything Fortescue ever told him about medieval witch hunts on his History of Magic exam. Why is Harry’s History of Magic class obsessed with Muggle witch hunts, something that Harry started the year proving he knew were a waste of time?
In case we didn’t get it yet, Lupin’s exam proves he’s the most awesome teacher.
Fudge is here, again, to be a witness to Buckbeak (now called “Beaky” because Hagrid’s just that manipulative) get executed. Not only do they somehow need to put the animal down on school grounds instead of taking it somewhere appropriate, but the Minister of Magic will be in attendance.
It’s never explained exactly why something everyone knows is an animal is being treated like a human-and not just any human, but some notorious criminal whose reputation makes him some kind of royalty.
Literally: the big bird thing that scratched a kid with its talons is subjected to all the pomp and circumstance of the Wizard legal system. The mass murderer who’s been on the run for nearly a year gets a couple of frantic searches by a bunch of school teachers every few months. Based on those reactions which criminal would you think was the mass murderer and which one would be the class turtle?
Also, they’re killing Buckbeak with an axe. Wouldn’t it be a hell of a lot easier to just point your stick at the thing and say Avada Kedavra? It works on animals, and it’s not only less messy than an axe, but more reliable.
I guess it’s like Dobby’s funeral. For some reason when ever Wizards want to do something seriously and with respect they unaccountably do it the Muggle way. It’s like they themselves think it can’t really be an execution without an axe because that’s how Muggles did it in the 16th century.
Btw, how awesome was The Tudors last week? Drawing and quarter AND three beheadings! Buh-bye Catherine Howard. Ahem. /tangent
Hagrid doesn’t give a final exam because he’s upset. Hope everybody has the decency to thank Draco Malfoy for that.
Ron’s all: This isn’t justice! Well, of course it isn’t Ron. It’s an animal being put down for attacking a human. Why should it have anything to do with justice whatsoever?
They continue talking about Hagrid arguing his case properly, and I’m still not sure what that’s even supposed to mean. The animal’s either too dangerous to continue on in captivity or freedom because it injured a boy for describing it in unflattering terms or he’s not. They keep talking about this as if Buckbeak’s broken some specific law for large animals and Hagrid needs to find a precedent for a loophole.
Now that Ron and Harry have nothing else to occupy their time-like the deranged murderer still on the loose, for instance-they're working themselves up into a lather over Buckbeak.
Ron, who’s been faking his Divination homework all year, is starting to think Hermione’s right about Trelawney, that she’s a fraud. That Ron. Can’t put anything by him.
Trelawney makes a big prediction that’s true-we know because it’s in a creepy voice. And a different font.
So where’s this prediction supposed to come from, exactly? We hear the centaurs believe in prophecies-while also not believing in prophecies, just like Dumbledore-and Trelawney’s channeling someone or something else’s voice here, so where’s it supposed to be coming from? And why do people act like Divination is a fake subject when clearly people do make true prophecies and they get put in government facilities? Okay, maybe you can’t train yourself to do it, but you’d think people would study the phenomenon and ask these kinds of questions and study the prophecies themselves.
The prophecy is in the same kind of silly language that Snape and Lupin use when they’re self-consciously trying to make magic things work.
The prophecy, btw, says that the Dark Lord’s servant, having been chained for 12 years, will now break free and rejoin his master. The word “chained” is obviously supposed to conjure Sirius (the title character of the book we never hear about because he’s busy in a better story off screen) but how does it apply to Peter? Scabbers isn’t chained.
Hagrid’s sent one last passive-aggressive note. This time, rather than tears, he’s made his hand shaky. He’s been seriously bonding with this one hippogriff just so he could go for maximum sympathy when it got killed. The other ones have probably all run off into the forest.
Ron’s all impressed by Hermione going to get Harry’s cloak from the tunnel. I’m not sure why. It’s not like she broke a rule to go fetch his cloak. She didn’t run to Honeydukes for caramel flavored vodka while she was at it or anything.
Harry keeps his arms crossed to hide the lump of the invisibility cloak under his robes. I would have thought the point of the robes is that they’re loose enough to not cause lumps.
Hagrid told the committee Buckbeak’s all right. Usually when Hagrid says something’s “all right” he means it’s actually very dangerous but he doesn’t care.
Wouldn’t it be great if they had the bookshop guy in to testify that he himself was injured by Hagrid’s irresponsible books?
On what grounds is this animal being executed? Was Draco’s provocation too small compared to the animal’s reaction to make him safe? Do they automatically put down potentially deadly animals that have attacked people? The case is presented as this Very Serious Moral Issue but kept too vague to make it about anything but “We like Hagrid, Hagrid likes Buckbeak; Draco hates Hagrid; we hate Draco.”
Best I can tell it’s supposed to be “They think Buckbeak just attacked Draco but really Draco totally provoked it by…doing something Hagrid said it violently disliked but that didn’t hurt or threaten it at all!” Wow. Great.
Scabbers has been hiding in Hagrid’s milk jug, btw. Because Ron and Hermione are friends again, Ron doesn’t immediately tell Hermione she was right about Crookshanks not killing him. In fact, he doesn’t even seem that surprised or happy that he’s alive. Guess he’d started looking forward to that new owl.
One of the Trio offers to “tell them what really happened” regarding Buckbeak. Why wasn’t the whole trial about listening to eyewitness testimony about what really happened? They’ve got pensieves and there were a dozen witnesses. And not only have we never heard about any false story Malfoy told (other than pretending he was hurt longer than he was which doesn’t seem to be an issue and Madam Pomfrey could speak about his condition) we’ve never heard Hagrid say anything about the case resting on a false impression of that. Wouldn’t Hagrid have told “what really happened” straight off? Draco didn’t even testify.
Hagrid refuses to let the kids speak up because he doesn’t want them in trouble. Since when does Hagrid care that they get in trouble? Usually he’s trying to guilt them into putting his latest stupid predicament over their own safety.
At the sound of the axe, Hermione sways on the spot because she can’t believe they did it. Really Hermione, you can’t believe somebody killed an animal? Or you just can’t believe they killed an animal that you’ve imbued with…whatever weird thing this creature’s been imbued with in this book? And why haven’t you swayed earlier in disbelief over the fact that these idiots put an animal on trial at all?
This trial always reminds me of a scene on Blackadder in the episode Witchsmeller Pursuivant. Edmund is on trial for witchcraft and they call his horse, Black Satin, to testify:
Witchsmeller: Satin, you're not replying. He's not replying, My Lord. Are we to assume this horse has something to hide?
Edmund (wearily): Either that or he can't talk.
Things that happen more than once:
Well, that axe swish is going to happen again in a few chapters.
Hagrid’s second tear-stained note about Buckbeak’s doom.
Hermione’s third time hearing news that somebody’s pet died, only this time she’s upset.
Trelawney is making her second prediction, the first that we hear about.
Buckbeak already lost once, but it’ll be even sadder if he loses again, right?
And OMG, despite this happening in public nobody knows what really happened, just like with Sirius!
It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Witch burnings
Status: Fired! Omg, that’s exactly what Harry was studying in the beginning of the book! And Fortescue’s ramblings were totally important! Harry literally could have skipped class for the entire year!
Hermione fails her Boggart test
Status: Fired! In OotP she’ll remind Harry that he gets better grades in DADA, and he somehow manages to get a whole grade higher than she does on his OWLS too.
Hippogriff executions
Status: About to be fired. Spoiler alert: He’s not dead.
Hermione’s triple schedule
Status: Patience! Once Buckbeak is saved it will totally make up for all the times we’ve heard about Hermione’s schedule!
Walden MacNair
Status: Fired. Death Eater. Obviously. Who else would like to kill animals than Hagrid likes?
The Cricket Rule
Day-for-Night
We’re back to night again for the execution I think.
Foley Work
Just plunge the axe into a stump. It’ll sound just right.
Idiot World
Let’s put the animal on trial and toss the human prisoners straight into prison. Everybody knows they’re guilty.
Also, the Minister dropped by to watch you put that animal to sleep. That’s not strange, is it?
Informed Attributes
Buckbeak’s all right. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Jabootu score 5
Given that it gets a chapter title, I’m going to guess there’s something special about this one that makes it unlike the dozens of predictions she’s made thus far.
Harry’s euphoria over Quidditch lasts at least a week. Wow. A whole week. We really are early in the series.
Even the weather seemed to be celebrating. This must be when Harry developed his delusion that the weather should mirror his inner state at all times that will cause him so much confusion later on.
Harry thinks about playing a casual game of Gobstones. It seems like that’s a game that people think about playing more than they ever actually play. Understandably, since it covers you in pus. I guess you think about playing it until you remember that and then play something else instead.
Even the twins are working. Unlike that kid in their class that they’ve given boils to so he can’t. They’re so cute and funny.
Percy needs top grades because he wants to enter the Ministry. Does that place require top grades? It seems like it’s surely staffed entirely by “gentleman C’s.”
Harry and Ron look at Hermione’s schedule and ask how she’s going to take 2 classes at once. Ron, at least, ought to know Time Turners exist. Yet they still haven’t figured this out. Think about that, then think about Dumbledore’s cunning plan in DH and whose ability to think it was all riding on.
Hermione’s got a book with Numerology in the title. So numerology is apparently legitimate, but crystal ball gazing is stupid.
Harry scribbles everything Fortescue ever told him about medieval witch hunts on his History of Magic exam. Why is Harry’s History of Magic class obsessed with Muggle witch hunts, something that Harry started the year proving he knew were a waste of time?
In case we didn’t get it yet, Lupin’s exam proves he’s the most awesome teacher.
Fudge is here, again, to be a witness to Buckbeak (now called “Beaky” because Hagrid’s just that manipulative) get executed. Not only do they somehow need to put the animal down on school grounds instead of taking it somewhere appropriate, but the Minister of Magic will be in attendance.
It’s never explained exactly why something everyone knows is an animal is being treated like a human-and not just any human, but some notorious criminal whose reputation makes him some kind of royalty.
Literally: the big bird thing that scratched a kid with its talons is subjected to all the pomp and circumstance of the Wizard legal system. The mass murderer who’s been on the run for nearly a year gets a couple of frantic searches by a bunch of school teachers every few months. Based on those reactions which criminal would you think was the mass murderer and which one would be the class turtle?
Also, they’re killing Buckbeak with an axe. Wouldn’t it be a hell of a lot easier to just point your stick at the thing and say Avada Kedavra? It works on animals, and it’s not only less messy than an axe, but more reliable.
I guess it’s like Dobby’s funeral. For some reason when ever Wizards want to do something seriously and with respect they unaccountably do it the Muggle way. It’s like they themselves think it can’t really be an execution without an axe because that’s how Muggles did it in the 16th century.
Btw, how awesome was The Tudors last week? Drawing and quarter AND three beheadings! Buh-bye Catherine Howard. Ahem. /tangent
Hagrid doesn’t give a final exam because he’s upset. Hope everybody has the decency to thank Draco Malfoy for that.
Ron’s all: This isn’t justice! Well, of course it isn’t Ron. It’s an animal being put down for attacking a human. Why should it have anything to do with justice whatsoever?
They continue talking about Hagrid arguing his case properly, and I’m still not sure what that’s even supposed to mean. The animal’s either too dangerous to continue on in captivity or freedom because it injured a boy for describing it in unflattering terms or he’s not. They keep talking about this as if Buckbeak’s broken some specific law for large animals and Hagrid needs to find a precedent for a loophole.
Now that Ron and Harry have nothing else to occupy their time-like the deranged murderer still on the loose, for instance-they're working themselves up into a lather over Buckbeak.
Ron, who’s been faking his Divination homework all year, is starting to think Hermione’s right about Trelawney, that she’s a fraud. That Ron. Can’t put anything by him.
Trelawney makes a big prediction that’s true-we know because it’s in a creepy voice. And a different font.
So where’s this prediction supposed to come from, exactly? We hear the centaurs believe in prophecies-while also not believing in prophecies, just like Dumbledore-and Trelawney’s channeling someone or something else’s voice here, so where’s it supposed to be coming from? And why do people act like Divination is a fake subject when clearly people do make true prophecies and they get put in government facilities? Okay, maybe you can’t train yourself to do it, but you’d think people would study the phenomenon and ask these kinds of questions and study the prophecies themselves.
The prophecy is in the same kind of silly language that Snape and Lupin use when they’re self-consciously trying to make magic things work.
The prophecy, btw, says that the Dark Lord’s servant, having been chained for 12 years, will now break free and rejoin his master. The word “chained” is obviously supposed to conjure Sirius (the title character of the book we never hear about because he’s busy in a better story off screen) but how does it apply to Peter? Scabbers isn’t chained.
Hagrid’s sent one last passive-aggressive note. This time, rather than tears, he’s made his hand shaky. He’s been seriously bonding with this one hippogriff just so he could go for maximum sympathy when it got killed. The other ones have probably all run off into the forest.
Ron’s all impressed by Hermione going to get Harry’s cloak from the tunnel. I’m not sure why. It’s not like she broke a rule to go fetch his cloak. She didn’t run to Honeydukes for caramel flavored vodka while she was at it or anything.
Harry keeps his arms crossed to hide the lump of the invisibility cloak under his robes. I would have thought the point of the robes is that they’re loose enough to not cause lumps.
Hagrid told the committee Buckbeak’s all right. Usually when Hagrid says something’s “all right” he means it’s actually very dangerous but he doesn’t care.
Wouldn’t it be great if they had the bookshop guy in to testify that he himself was injured by Hagrid’s irresponsible books?
On what grounds is this animal being executed? Was Draco’s provocation too small compared to the animal’s reaction to make him safe? Do they automatically put down potentially deadly animals that have attacked people? The case is presented as this Very Serious Moral Issue but kept too vague to make it about anything but “We like Hagrid, Hagrid likes Buckbeak; Draco hates Hagrid; we hate Draco.”
Best I can tell it’s supposed to be “They think Buckbeak just attacked Draco but really Draco totally provoked it by…doing something Hagrid said it violently disliked but that didn’t hurt or threaten it at all!” Wow. Great.
Scabbers has been hiding in Hagrid’s milk jug, btw. Because Ron and Hermione are friends again, Ron doesn’t immediately tell Hermione she was right about Crookshanks not killing him. In fact, he doesn’t even seem that surprised or happy that he’s alive. Guess he’d started looking forward to that new owl.
One of the Trio offers to “tell them what really happened” regarding Buckbeak. Why wasn’t the whole trial about listening to eyewitness testimony about what really happened? They’ve got pensieves and there were a dozen witnesses. And not only have we never heard about any false story Malfoy told (other than pretending he was hurt longer than he was which doesn’t seem to be an issue and Madam Pomfrey could speak about his condition) we’ve never heard Hagrid say anything about the case resting on a false impression of that. Wouldn’t Hagrid have told “what really happened” straight off? Draco didn’t even testify.
Hagrid refuses to let the kids speak up because he doesn’t want them in trouble. Since when does Hagrid care that they get in trouble? Usually he’s trying to guilt them into putting his latest stupid predicament over their own safety.
At the sound of the axe, Hermione sways on the spot because she can’t believe they did it. Really Hermione, you can’t believe somebody killed an animal? Or you just can’t believe they killed an animal that you’ve imbued with…whatever weird thing this creature’s been imbued with in this book? And why haven’t you swayed earlier in disbelief over the fact that these idiots put an animal on trial at all?
This trial always reminds me of a scene on Blackadder in the episode Witchsmeller Pursuivant. Edmund is on trial for witchcraft and they call his horse, Black Satin, to testify:
Witchsmeller: Satin, you're not replying. He's not replying, My Lord. Are we to assume this horse has something to hide?
Edmund (wearily): Either that or he can't talk.
Things that happen more than once:
Well, that axe swish is going to happen again in a few chapters.
Hagrid’s second tear-stained note about Buckbeak’s doom.
Hermione’s third time hearing news that somebody’s pet died, only this time she’s upset.
Trelawney is making her second prediction, the first that we hear about.
Buckbeak already lost once, but it’ll be even sadder if he loses again, right?
And OMG, despite this happening in public nobody knows what really happened, just like with Sirius!
It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Witch burnings
Status: Fired! Omg, that’s exactly what Harry was studying in the beginning of the book! And Fortescue’s ramblings were totally important! Harry literally could have skipped class for the entire year!
Hermione fails her Boggart test
Status: Fired! In OotP she’ll remind Harry that he gets better grades in DADA, and he somehow manages to get a whole grade higher than she does on his OWLS too.
Hippogriff executions
Status: About to be fired. Spoiler alert: He’s not dead.
Hermione’s triple schedule
Status: Patience! Once Buckbeak is saved it will totally make up for all the times we’ve heard about Hermione’s schedule!
Walden MacNair
Status: Fired. Death Eater. Obviously. Who else would like to kill animals than Hagrid likes?
The Cricket Rule
Day-for-Night
We’re back to night again for the execution I think.
Foley Work
Just plunge the axe into a stump. It’ll sound just right.
Idiot World
Let’s put the animal on trial and toss the human prisoners straight into prison. Everybody knows they’re guilty.
Also, the Minister dropped by to watch you put that animal to sleep. That’s not strange, is it?
Informed Attributes
Buckbeak’s all right. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Jabootu score 5