Chapter 30: The Sacking of Severus Snape.
Chapter 30: The Sacking of Severus Snape
Which shows JKR loves alliteration as much as adverbs & that with Snape's luck being sacked after becoming a headmaster is a given.
V feels triumph at the notice HP was caught. At this stage my happiness would be mingled with apprehension. Just recently V was summoned to Malfoy Manor only to find one more Horcrux had been destroyed.
[Amycus outside] "Alecto? … Open the door! If he comes, and we haven't got Potter - d'you want to go the same way as the Malfoys?"
Hee! I am 100% sure had events developed differently, allowing V time for the pair, they would wish to go the same way as the Malfoys, whom V sees as, like, 100 times more useful even now.
Part of the animosity DEs have for Hogwarts staff and students must stem from the feelings of inferiority. Turns out Alecto had to ask Flitwick to let her into Ravenclaw Tower earlier that evening, not entered after Harry, as I thought. Now her brother tells McGonagall get Flitwick or open the door herself.
Amycus talks as if this year has been the first, in which he trod on Hogwarts' soil: "they've gorn", "I felt me Mark burn." Snobby Lucius must've hated sitting at one table with such people.
The DE demonstrates once more he's evil and stupid, when he intends to tell V the kids ambushed Alecto and forced her to press the Mark: "Couple of kids more or less, what's the difference?"
To which McGonagall answers: "Only the difference between truth and lies, courage and cowardice". Sounds much more dramatic than
"Your owner will see through your lies
The moment he looks into your eyes,
You, imbecile in teacher's disguise,
As if our Ravenclaws would aimlessly attract his wrath!
You can't run, soon you'll your incompetence face,
And go the way of Malfoys!"
Doesn't it? But then Harry wouldn't get the chance to act like a gentleman.
Harry pulls off the Cloak & says "You shouldn't have done that", before casting the curse; reminding me of the way he left the Cloak on the Tower before running to attack Snape & random DEs in HBP. Fans then mentioned Harry's thoughtlessness, but the underlying cause made sense emotionally - in both cases Harry wanted the criminals to see who was punishing them.
It goes nicely with "I see what Bellatrix meant, you need to really mean it" since Bellatrix's sadism arises from her emotions, like Harry's avenging impulses, and unlike V's "cold, cruel sense of purpose that preceded murder."
I can't begrudge McGonagall "that was very - very gallant of you" since:
(1) After Crucio-ing countless students & murdering innocent people its high time the man got a taste of his own medicine.
(2) Imo, Harry's curse isn't as strong as Bellatrix's or even Crabbe's and can be compared to short (≤10 seconds), albeit extra-hard, whipping. In general, the wizarding society is terribly hypocritical. Casting the curse is enough to get life-sentence, but torturing people with Dementors for weeks for petty theft is considered acceptable.
(3) She's deeply shocked by Harry's appearance.
I love Luna. Hearing Harry's "V is on the way", she asks with an air of interest "Oh, are we allowed to say the name now?" "Loony" Luna calmly asks for clarification, rather than gasping & hysterically crying "Harry, don't!" like most "normal" people.
Harry's Crucio prompted such fandom discussion that I decided, just for fun, to do a short quiz:
Who else casts an Unforgivable in this chapter?
a) the awakening Alecto on McGonagall
b) McGonagall on the awakening Amycus
c) Flitwick on Snape
d) Voldemort on a failed DE
The correct answer is b)! Harry's head of House Imperio-s Amycus to hand the wands over & return to lie beside Alecto, so that McGonagall will bind them with rope. Accio-ing wands would've been quicker & easier for the caster, so unless JKR wrote the scene for laughs, I take it to mean Hogwarts teachers have been affected by the proximity to DEs - the first spell to jump to McGonagall's head is an Unforgivable, reminding me of Crouch Jr. who made Krum Crucio Cedric instead of Stunning him.
McGonagall calls entering the castle "utter madness", but the moment Harry reveals he's acting on DD's orders, she is 100% behind him & ready for the siege. OK, she trusts DD, but before risking everybody's lives I would want to unsure Harry didn't understand X to mean Y. Why not ask DD's portrait?
[After Harry asks whether Hogwarts can be temporary secured] "I think so," said Professor McGonagall dryly, "we teachers are rather good at magic, you know." *loves*
McGonagall says evacuating students with Apparition is impossible within the grounds, so Harry offers the passage to the Hog's Head. Remembering HBP Apparition lessons, I checked wiki and discovered the protections had been temporarily relaxed within the Great Hall. Anyway, if one can Apparate to every place it's possible to Disapparate from, making the castle open to attack would've been out of question.
Poor Snape. He comes to help Harry, but will be chased away in a minute. Had McGonagall known his true loyalties, things could've been so different. His death wasn't even necessary for the plot.
I notice McGonagall attacked Snape the moment he tried to use Legilimency on her. He came; they talked for a while until "Snape looked into her eyes" & asked whether she had seen HP. Then she tried to Stun him and the duel began.
The duel with its flying torches, great serpent & animated suit of armor can look not worse on screen than the one between DD & V in OoTF. In case you wondered, this chapter's illustration shows what happened to the suit of armor, which Snape forced between himself and the flying daggers.
Only after Flitwick, Sprout & Slughorn arrive, Snape decides to flee. As he (literally) flies to his final test, the poor man hears McGonagall cry "Coward! COWARD!" to his retreating back.
Our Good Slytherin arrives last & sounds as if he spent the last year under a rock: "Harry! My dear boy… what a surprise…", then tells McGonagall he isn't "at all sure [fighting] is wise". When he said, aghast "Minerva!" to her "if any of you attempt to sabotage… then, Horace, we duel to kill", I wondered whether he intended to dance at two weddings until the end and was all the more impressed to discover in search "Voldemort was now dueling McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley all at once". Go, Slughorn!
I love the look of grim understanding between McGonagall and Professor Sprout, after the latter answers Flitwick they indeed won't be able to keep out V indefinitely, but can hold him up. In general, Hogwarts professors are in top form in this chapter.
Flitwick … muttering incantations of great complexity. Harry heard a weird rushing noise, as though Flitwick had unleashed the power of the wind into the grounds.
Harry can't even recognize the spells, as he didn't know how DD found the cave's opening. Are Hogwarts students at high school level, while the staff is at university one? Or is the gap even wider? Anyway, the power of the wind sounds cool.
As the newly arrived students & OoTF members leave the RoR, Harry stays to witness the next developments in Weasleys family drama - Molly's fight with Ginny about participating in the battle and Percy's return. A couple of interesting points:
In the heat of the quarrel Mrs. Weasley calls DA a teenagers' gang. At first, I was all "She doesn't really mean it", but then thought she was kind of right. The entire war is like RL equivalent of one between 2 gangs with the rest of the country depending on its' outcome, but not interfering.
Numerically, it seems right too. In USA the largest gangs have been reported to have thousands of members and I don't think more than 2000 wizards participated in the final battle. V wanted to conquer the entire world, so all Earth's wizarding population should've cared. There are enough wizards to fill a very small country, right?
You can see Fred will be the one Weasley to die, when he is both the first in the room to say anything to Percy (Fleur & Lupin behave as if he doesn't exist) and the first to show forgiveness by holding out his hand to the prodigal brother.
I am surprised Molly trusts Ginny's word not to leave the RoR.
The chapter ends with Harry looking through V's eyes at the gates with winged boars on pillars at either side. Just now (?) realized JKR must've thought of the boars because of the phrase "when pigs fly".
It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Bellatrix's "You have to mean it".
Status: Fired. At last our hero understood exactly what she meant. Who will dare to say now that Harry hasn't learnt anything?
Coward! COWARD!
Status: Will be fired when Harry tells Albus Snape has been one of the bravest men 19 years later.
Flitwick: Nobody has seen [the diadem] in living memory!
Status: Will be fired in the next chapter, when Harry somehow concludes "not in living memory" means ghosts.
Since this is Percy chapter 2 Percy fic recs:
1) Bottoms, How Do You Like Yours? - Sea Priestess - R- pseudo slash fic. Snape and Percy discuss cauldron bottoms. A short, slashy innuendo-filled one shot.
A brilliantly delicious little piece of hilarity between Percy and Snape; an innocent conversation that goes wildly askew and misunderstood. Innuendo, double entendres, and sly wit abound in a short fic which quite possibly does not contain a single unfunny line.
2) Out of the closet, into the frying pan by Cairnsy - PG-slash
Percy has decided to tell his family that he is dating Oliver Wood. The problem is that the entire Weasley family is too innocent (or would that be too thick?) to know what Percy is going on about.