HBP Chapter Seventeen
*I guess "sluggish" in this case means not really necessary to the plot but helpful in giving Harry something to do before we get to a climax.
*Fleur’s at work when the kids go back to school. I just find that little reference comforting. Fleur isn’t actually as useless as some of the Weasleys see her. ETA: She doesn't work in DH, right? She has to take care of the cottage?
*Percy apparently stormed from the house covered in mashed parsnips for which George, Fred and Ginny (we love you, Ron!) all claimed credit. Remember how Old Ginny liked Percy? Glad she’s buried somewhere in the Forbidden Forest with her mouth sewn up and filled with salt!
*Draco Malfoy would so love to know that the Weasleys throw food at each other. Oh, the awful jokes that would inspire.
*Ginny pats her mother’s shoulder to comfort her though. She’s compassionate!
*Harry says he likes a quiet life. Watch this mildly amusing comment blown into something hilariously witty that’s Just So Harry!
*Ron’s pretty much forgotten to be pissy to Hermione while she’s been planning all day how she was gonna snub him.
*ETA: Get used to that, Hermione. That marriage is going to involve a lot of Hermione driving herself crazy while Ron's oblivious.
*So if the Fat Lady and her friend have drunk all the wine out of a picture, does the wine refill itself? Seems like surely all the wine in all the pictures would have been drunk by now if that’s all that was available for a thousand of years. This is the kind of thing I shouldn’t be thinking about, isn’t it?
*Ginny doesn’t sound enthusiastic about meeting Dean. Glad to have you back, Dean. Harry’s libido goes into hibernation without the competition factor.
*ETA: Of course Ginny's had her sights set on Harry from the beginning, but note how she didn't throw herself at him at all while she had him at her house, unlike lesser girls would have done. Only once they're Wizard!engaged--i.e., going out with the correct person in high school--will she take him to her room for fiery kisses before battle.
*Unlike Ginny, I am very enthusiastic about Ginny meeting Dean, because it means she’s not here anymore. Yay!
*Meanwhile, even Ron’s sexual encounters make him look stupid.
*Okay so…why is Hermione offering ridiculous alternatives for who Draco’s "Master" is? His father? Huh?
*ETA: It really is hilarious. In most books Hermione's working her brain feverishly because she's the only person solving the problems before them. In this book she's frantically trying to stave off the obvious answer to the mystery that isn't even a mystery. Why does Hermione not want Draco to be working for Voldemort so badly?
*And yet moment’s later she’s scolding Harry for not remembering Greyback’s name. Okay, yeah, Harry’s oblivious but Hermione's deep in denial and seems to have taken over from Fudge in the "I don’t believe it’s Voldemort" department.
*And then Harry and Hermione drift off into conversations about how hard done by Harry is. These are the same two who stayed up all night establishing that Barty Crouch Sr. was attacked by someone when he was with Krum. Now Draco’s a DE and they’ve got a sudden attack of ADD.
*The next morning an Apparition lessons notice is pinned to the bulletin board. Pinned? Really? To a bulletin board? Shouldn't the notice fly into everyone's room and sing itself to them when they wake up or something? Next thing we know they’ll be using staples and stickie notes!
*Remember that movie "How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days?" I didn’t see it but I think Lavender is starring in it. ("Ten days" in Potter-time being "one school year-marker to the next".)
*Charlie’s bigger than Ron. Oh, we have no doubt of that Ron. Mmmm. Charlie….
*ETA: Totally not gay! He's just really into dragons! *Dumbledore* is gay!
*Hermione tells us you can’t Apparate inside Hogwarts--everybody take a drink!
*ETA: Funny that Hermione's head doesn't explode when Montague kind of does Apparate inside Hogwarts.
*Seamus, too, is excited to Apparate. He and his cousin will amuse themselves for hours with their Apparition skills and Irish names!
*We’re told Charms is a soft class, but Professor Flitwick seems to get batted around like a puffskein in it.
*Confession: I don’t find the baboon brandishing a stick all that funny either. Not so funny I’d want to put it on an icon, at least. I still prefer the lines Christopher Chant had to write, copied out of that boarding school novel. Now that was funny! (Too bad I can’t remember it word for word.)
*ETA: Flitwick's a dueling champ, right? Too bad he doesn't think to organize any sort of resistance when DEs take over the school. Only Harry can do that! (I hear people saying, "No, Neville!" but Neville would be the first to say he was just continuing Harry's awesome DA. Good people don't steal Harry's glory.)
*It’s weird that Apparition is such a mystery to everyone. It seems like driving, so you’d think lots of kids would have already done it. No equivalents to the 9 year olds who drive the tractor and such?
*Harry answers questions about Apparition for hours, but Malfoy’s having quite possibly joined a terrorist organization gets two minutes. Guess that ADD comes and goes.
*Dumbledore makes a joke about the Prophet telling the truth only occasionally and by accident. Um, actually it seems to run about 50/50 when it comes to truth, depending on what it’s needed to do for plot purposes.
*ETA: Is it in the Prophet where Rita does her kind of true expose of Dumbledore? Let's face it, it's just in his best interests to say it rarely tells the truth because then he makes himself the source on whether it's telling the truth or not. Ironically Dumbledore himself tells the truth only occasionally--only he always does it by design, when the truth will get him the reaction he wants.
*By the way, I guess we should assume that Malfoy was right and you did cover up the basilisk attacks second year, Albus? Mm-hmm. (Lucius had no reason to, right?)
*Dumbledore gets all teary when Harry announces he told Scrimgeor he was Dumbledore’s man through and through. He’s overcome with his good luck. That idiot Scrimgeor got Harry to pledge away his independence in ways pounds of sherbet lemons weren’t able to do!
*ETA: God, any time Dumbledore tears up he's at his egotistical worst. Because he's obviously just overcome here. It's not played at all that he's GUILTY at Harry stupidly aligning himself to somebody who's planned his death. He just thinks this is an example of Harry's incredible power of love that he loves Dumbledore despite his flaws about which he's never told anyone.
*Dumbledore was forced to jinx Dawlish. How can people doubt what house this guy was in?
*Dumbledore does know the truth about the argument between Snape and Malfoy, but he cleverly pretends he doesn’t think it’s of any importance so that Harry will feel like he’s surrounded by idiots and must act on his own. So, the usual plan then.
*And when Harry makes it clear that’s what he thinks, Dumbledore gets all snippy. Apparently somebody needs a few lessons in just how Dumbledore’s Men behave!
*And then he throws in some "just imagine I’m basing all my thoughts on my personal trust in Snape that I won’t explain to you" to make Harry even more nervous. Instead of just saying something like, "I know what’s going on. I know it's serious. I’m on it."
*Harry’s pissed off at Dumbledore, which Dumbledore says happens "even between the best of friends." Seriously, how can Harry stand this guy? What a condescending jerk. Yes, Albus, the best of friends always have a dynamic where one person tells the other person what they may or may not question, especially when their own safety is at stake.
*Dumbledore assures Harry that what he has to say is really important. It’s not, of course.
*That is, he’s got something important to say but drags it out far longer than it would take to say it. And hints at how amazingly hard it was for him to obtain the memories. Yeah, yeah, Albus, you’re a regular Indiana Jones. Get that AK ready, Snape.
*Heh. I love that Dumbledore drops all these hints about the kind of feelings good-looking orphans inspire and Harry never relates it to himself. But they treat me horribly, sir! I never got any special treatment except a bit less than what I deserved!
*Okay, here’s an important bit. Harry is tempted to think that Dumbledore trusts people too much, just as Snape said, but really he knows that Dumbledore didn’t trust Tom Riddle. He just never makes the jump to seeing that Dumbledore’s problem isn’t that he trusts too much, it’s that he deals with the world on a strict need-to-know basis, since it makes it easier to manipulate. He’s the epitome of goodness!
*Is it bad of me that I’m totally rooting for little psycho Tom at school with Dumbledore? ETA: No, it's not bad of me.
*Dumbledore neatly categorizes Death Eaters into three types: the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking shared glory, the thuggish gravitating towards a leader for more refined sorts of cruelty. How did this group acquire a dark glamour?
*Anyway, note how petty and mindless the enemy is. You’ll never have to give much thought to more complicated reasons this guy managed to almost take over the world. Do any of those descriptions seem to truly cover Regulus Black? They don’t to me. They don’t completely explain Malfoy either from what we’ve seen. And I think Snape had a little more going on with him too.
*Harry finds the Gaunts’ house indescribably filthy in this scene. And we all remember what Harry’s room looked like after a few weeks home from school!
*The Black House was filthy too.
*ETA: I remember somebody having a theory how in DH Slytherin is redeemed because of the way the Black House gets all sunny and cheerful. Err...that's not redeeming Slytherin. That's exactly the opposite. It's having all the Slytherins die and then disinfecting their house and having Gryffindors live in it instead, bringing the sunshine with them. Sort of exactly what Voldemort says is the way things should work, only with Muggleborns.
*There’s a knock at the door. Tall, pale, dark-haired, handsome. It’s the teenaged Voldemort. Ooh, let him in! squeals Harry. Let him in! Do! It’s like Mystery Date!
*I like that Parseltongue can still incorporate British-y turns of phrase: Died years ago, didn’t he? I’m Morfin, ain’t I? It’s over, innit?
*Once the Riddles were found dead the authorities went straight to the known Muggle-hater. Well, surely this will come out all right. We know what a stellar record Wizard detectives have!
*ETA: Somehow I doubt that if a Slytherin died somehow I doubt they'd be knocking on the door of the nearest Slytherin-hater, though.
*The Ministry didn’t have to use Veritaseum or Legilimancy on Morfin. Unfortunately they didn’t have to use them with Sirius Black either…
*And then Tom implanted a memory with a complex form of magic…uh, you wanna back up there a bit, Albus? That’s quite a massive device you just slipped in there. You can implant false memories in people? Might have been better to go with a simpler magic we know, like Imperius. This just really sounds like Dumbledore’s just waving his hand because he has no idea.
*ETA: So Hermione and Voldemort are the only people who can do this complex form of magic, I guess? Since she gave her parents false lives? Only Hermione claims to have never done memory charms.
*I don’t even want to think about how Dumbledore "extracted" that memory. Twinkle twinkle.
*Dumbledore says whatever Morfin was, he did not deserve to die for murders he never committed. Wait, he didn’t? He was bad and racist, so doesn’t he just deserve bad things in general?
*Slughorn has straw-colored hair. I imagined him dark-haired for some reason, what little had left.
*Slughorn with his little feet on a velvet pouf, surrounded by his favorite young tittering boys. Albus, are you sure we ought to see this memory? Children read these books. ETA: And we know that makes homosexuality off-limits, right?
*Why are they all boys? If this were our world we’d assume it was just because at that time girls were shut out of this kind of thing, but the Wizarding World wasn’t supposed to have that sort of inequality, right? Seems like Slughorn was just forced to eventually let girls in. Hmmmm…
*ETA: It has been pointed out to me since that we don't know this is the Slug Club. It could just be Slughorn talking to his favorites.
*ETA: However I will say that I think the reason he's talking to all boys is just because the WW really is just based on our world and in this time period he would be talking to all boys. That it doesn't jibe with alleged Wizard history wouldn't matter.
*Harry recognized Riddle at once. His was the most handsome face. The most handsome in all the world. Harry Riddle. Tom Potter. Harry Potter-Riddle. Harry Riddle-Potter. The Dark Lords Potter-Riddle…
*Slughorn’s tampered with his memory, so it looks ridiculously fake. Too bad he didn’t know any of that *waves hand* complex memory magic like Tom (ETA: And Hermione!) knows.
*Dumbledore tells Harry the true memory is there beneath this one, but Harry must go back to Slughorn anyway. ::sigh:: Can’t you just fix this one that’s been crudely altered? There’s no CSI wizards? No Wizard equivalent of IT guys?
*Dumbledore assures Harry Slughorn has weaknesses like the rest of us. Just in case Harry didn’t notice that Slughorn is the personification of weakness. A well-timed Twinkie would probably do the trick here.
*Phineas says he can’t see why Harry can do this better than Dumbledore. Funny, I’d think Phineas would know about Slughorn’s pervy boy fancying.
*Ironically Harry actually can't do it better than Dumbledore. We don't even know if he can do it at all, because he just drinks a Potion to give him special powers to do it.
*A Potion that might have come in handy NEXT YEAR.
Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
How many times does Harry have to discover this nefarious plot of Malfoy’s before anyone else acknowledges the nefarious plot?
IITS
But why do I have to get the memory from Slughorn, sir? Can’t we just ask him the important information? Isn’t it right here under the slapped-on stuff? It’s just this will take several chapters…
Idiot Picture
Lots of people call their father Master.
Informed Attributes
Slughorn has weaknesses, but they are hidden.
Ken and Andrew’s Rule of Plot Holes
And then…and then Riddle did some sort of super magico stuff and Morfin though he killed the Riddles.
McGuffin
This memory I am sending you after is amazingly important Harry. We need the memory itself. I could in no way tell you what I think is in it. Nor could I just tell Slughorn what I think is in it and have him just confirm it.
Misdirected Answering
Yes, I know it looks like Malfoy’s up to something really serious but I really need to hear about Lupin right now, Harry!
Whooshing Powder
Floo!
Final score: 8
Slytherin Liquid Count:
Drunken Fat Lady, drunken Morfin, drunken monks, 500 year-old wine (none for Hermione, thanks!), Slughorn’s wine, Pensieve water.
H/D Cliche count
The one where only Harry cares about what's obviously going on with Draco.