Song For Junior
Spent the afternoon in Greenwood, IN, getting measured for my tux, and then checking out the local mall. They got a nice mall in Greenwood. Had an Applebee's in it, and for some reason there were kiosks around the store selling used books, movie posters, and other stuff you'd expect to see in a comic book convention or something.
One weird thing was when I this lady stopped me and asked me if she could ask me a question. She was standing next to some cart that looked like it had cosmetics on it. Confused, I stopped to hear her out.
LADY: Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea, the lowest place on Earth?
ME: Uh... yeah?
LADY: Do you know where that is?
ME: ... It's--it's in Israel.
LADY: Very good! How do you know that?
ME: I... wh-- I just know. What's your point?
(at this point, I notice a guy in a wheelchair on my left, obviously waiting for me to get out of the way because he can't go around.)
LADY: Can I borrow you for a minute?
ME: ... No.
LADY: OK.
I assume she was hawking some kind of beauty treatment involving sea salt, but really I have no idea what she was getting at, and I didn't understand why she would pick me out of a crowded mall to make her pitch. You'd think a proper sales pitch would start with "Excuse me, sir? Would you like to [solve some sort of problem]?" Then explain how whatever she has can help me do that. Instead I have to play twenty questions just to find out what she wants, and I didn't even want to know in the first place.
Am I the only one who gets into these kinds of situations? One time I got a knock on my door on a Saturday morning and I opened it to find a man and a woman standing there with reverent expressions on their faces. "Do you ever wonder when the terror will end?" the woman asked me. "No," I said, and sent them on their way. At least with them I had some inkling that they were representing one religion or another. I'm don't mean to be rude or brusque with people, but sometimes I get the vibe that some people try to exploit your sense of courtesey to get you to listen to them, and I hate when people do that.
Anyway, I have more urgent matters to discuss. Take a look at the picture beneath the cut and tell me what's doin'.
"When in doubt, pinky out."
So lemme get this straight: Snape has a beard, and he's Chinese? Man, Ultimate Marvel Harry Potter sucks.
Chapter 14: Snape's Grudge
(Original Japanese Title: "'My Dad Didn't Strut, and Nether Do I! !'")
Seriously, what is up with that drawing? It's been making me mental for a month and a half now. If Snape's actually supposed to look like that, then why didn't they cast Johnny Depp to play him? And I thought he wore black all the time, to represent the gaping hole of lonely lonlieness in his angst-ridden soul. And he's so chipper here. "Wwwwellll... Mr. Parchment, it looks like you're completely blank, aren't youuuuu? Yyyees you ARE! Yyyyes you ARE!" But I think it's the outstretched pinky that truly puts this image over the top. Clearly, Snape liked Gay Fuel so much, he bought the company.
When last we left our hero, Ron woke everyone up because he thought he saw Sirius Black in his room with a knife. An investigation quickly reveals that Black did indeed manage to sneak into G-Tower, whereupon he slashed up some curtains, woke up Ron, then ran away. SIRIUS BLACK: SCOURGE OF DRAPERY.
Reacting quickly, the school puts all the kids back in the Great Hall for the night while they do another top-to-bottom search of the building for Black. Once again, they find no trace of him. It occurs to me that a lot of problems could be solved if the portait hole that leads into G-Tower could be locked on both sides. Obviously, the students have no business sneaking around the rest of the building at night, so you just lock them into their respective towers when it's time for bed. Had this been done, Black might have been able to get in using the passwords he filched from Neville Longbottom, but at least he would have had a harder time getting back out again. Not a perfect solution, but at least they'd have him contained. Given that it's Harry Potter he supposedly wants to kill, I'm surprised they're still letting him live in G-Tower, since his presence would put the other students at risk. Let him bunk with Dumbledore for the year or something. At least there you don't have to worry about some kid like Neville fumbling the password.
But instead, Hogwarts just does the usual ineffective job of closing the barn door after the horse jumps out. Flitwick teaches the front doors to recognize a photo of Black. Right, because Sirius is brazen enough to use the front door. That makes sense. Filch starts sealing off the every crack and mousehole in the castle. Really, even without the looming threat of an insane mass murderer, isn't that something he should have been doing anyway? Sir Cadogan, the subject of the portrait that had let Black into G-Tower in the first place, was fired, and the Fat Lady reinstated with a band of trolls (real ones, not paintings) to stand guard in case Black should return for a third try. Now why didn't they just do that in the first place? In fact, why not post trolls around the portrait to every tower? My money would be on Black, going on his reputation alone, but at least that's better than depending on an animated gif in a frame to stave off intruders. Hell, for that matter, they could have tried telling Sir Cadogan not to let Black in under any circumstances.
But of course, this is all for nothing, because the school faculty are a bunch of idiots, and the castle is riddled with secret passages only the students seem to know about, like that one behind the statue that leads to the candy store in town. Harry wonders if they should tell someone about it, but Ron assures him that the only way Black could use the passage would be to break into Honeydukes, and they'd hear about something like that if it were to happen. No you wouldn't. Black can enter Hogwarts at will, and it's supposed to be the most secure facility in England. Why should a candy store be any trouble for him? Besides, even if he stormed in, slaughtered everyone inside, and smashed his way into the cellar, he could be through the passage and have his hands around Harry's miserable throat before anyone would know where he'd gone. But Harry buys into Ron's anti-logic anyway, because after all, if the passage were sealed off, he'd never get to go to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year. Yeah, so what if that crazed lunatic kills you? At least you'll die with a belly full of Sizzleteat & Felkmeyer's Patented Wooly-Booly Wart-Infested Crumbcakes, the pastry so sweet it lures ants to crawl down your throat while you sleep. Dumbass.
For a time, Ron's become something of a celebrity thanks to his chance encounter with Black. Although, even as he regales his story to interested parties, he still doesn't understand why Black would flee just because Ron woke up and screamed. Harry, too, reasons that a man who murdered thirteeen people should have simply killed Ron, then moved on to Harry, or anyone else who might have stood in his way. You know, when Harry and Ron are having trouble buying into the premise, something's definitely wrong. Fortunately, Harry doesn't quite connect all the dots just yet. Though he assumes Black must have been in a hurry to escape before the teachers found him, he fails to consider that Black would still have to get past the dementors outside of the school to actually get away. In other words, he's probably not leaving at all, which means he can conceal himself from the teachers when they conduct their search, which therefore means that Black should be in no hurry to get away from Ron at all.
As an epilogue to the entire episode, Neville Longbottom's gotten the book thrown at him. Not only is he banned from Hogsmeade, not only did he get a bunch of detention, but he's forbidden from ever learning any new passwords, meaning that he has to stand out in the hallway like a dope until someone else comes along to let him into G-Tower. Of course, that seems kind of dumb, since Neville could just hear the other person say the password and he's good to go for the rest of the day, but then if he were capable of that, I guess he wouldn't be in hot water to start with. He also gets some sort of hideous recording of his grandmother's voice, shrieking at him at a hundred times her normal volume. You know, I sort of hope Neville grows up someday and gets a cushy job in computer programming or something, so he can tell all these magic paintings and senile witches and pasty-faced potions teachers to go shove it. Yeah, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I bust on him for it, but you know what? The kid's going to school every day, busting his hump trying to learn something, and suddenly everyone's on his case for failing to be the lynchpin of national security. He shouldn't have to put up with this bullcrap. I hope he marries a supermodel and moves to Talahassee and never has to look at another dingy old talking painting again.
Later, Harry and Ron go visit Hagrid at his invitation (thankfully not stained with tears this time), figuring he wants to hear all about Ron's stupid Sirius Black story. Except of course, he's more preoccupied with that hearing for Buckbeak. Of course, the kids had promised to help him prepare for that hearing, but Harry and Ron just kind of stood around being colossal dicks for the last four months. But the reason he's having them over is so he can talk about Hermione. See, Hagrid's not too keen on how Harry and Ron have been all pissy at her over the Firebolt, then Scabbers, and on top of all that she's had to deal with the stress of her classwork AND helping Hagrid with his Buckbeak hearing AND the thought of an escaped convict lurking around in Harry and Ron's room. The way Hagrid sees it, he would have thought that Harry and Ron would have valued their friend more than a lousy broomstick and a dead rat. Well, no one ever accused Hagrid of having a MENSA card in his wallet...
For example, when the next trip to Hogsmeade comes up, Harry and Ron discuss the possibility of using the secret passage one more time, and then they get all pissy at Hermione when she threatens to tell on Harry if he uses it. See, this is the dumb thing about Hermione. The issue here isn't whether Harry leaves the school unsupervised, the issue is that there's a hole in Hogwarts security that no one in charge seems to know about. Black's latest incursion seems to have really gotten to her, but instead of revealing the passage right away, she just wants assurances from Harry that he won't use it. After they run Hermione off, Harry agrees to use the passage in spite of her threats, but opts to wear the Invisibility Cloak for his visit.
Of course, the trouble with that plan is that Neville's stuck in the building too, so Harry has to ditch him, as well as Snape, in order to use the portal without anyone seeing. Once reunited with Ron on the outside, they check out all the amazing crap in Hogwarts... like the post office. Be still, my beating heart. Then they go to the joke shop and buy a bunch of... joke stuff. Really, when does Harry ever use that sort of thing? Fred and George, I get. They like practical jokes so much they opened their own joke store, and I think they might have bought this one in Book VI if I'm not mistaken. Ron I could imagine using this stuff on his kid sister, or Hermione, because he's harbors a lingering resentment towards women. But when does Harry ever break out the whoopie cushions and fake poop? Maybe he just collects the stuff, or he's an impulse shopper.
Then they go to the Shrieking Shack, which is billed as the "most haunted house in Britain". So haunted, apparently, that no one's allowed in. Then what's the point in going there? From the outside, it's just a dilapidated house, right? But I guess it's a popular spot, since Señor Draco and his hired goons show up shortly afterward to mess with Ron. Since Harry's invisible during all this, he decides to screw with Draco on Ron's behalf, and starts throwing mud at him and his posse. But somehow, Harry manages to whiz it by getting his cloak caught on something, which causes his head to be briefly exposed. Shocked to see Harry's disembodied head, Draco flees, and then Harry realizes that he's busted if Draco should collect his wits and tell a teacher what he's seen. So the twerp runs back to the school via the secret passage, only to be met by Snape, who's already heard Señor Draco's story. He takes him to his office for questioning, but Harry plays it cool and doesn't say anything that would put him in Hogsmeade during the incident.
"What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter? Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade." What, is he suddenly turning into Frank Burns now? Harry continues to deny, deny, deny, since Snape doesn't really have anything on him. Then he starts going on about how Harry just does whatever he pleases, in spite of all the efforts being made to protect his worthless ass. I'm no Snape fan, but I gotta hand it to him, he calls it like it is. Then he starts going on about Harry's dead dad, how he used to strut around like he owned the place. So Harry shouts for him to shut up, in all caps. So Snape asks him what he just said, in italics. Dude, he told you to shut up, were you not listening? He was practically shouting. Harry then goes on about how his dad saved Snape's life once, so he shouldn't go talking smack about him on account of that. Snape responds by explaining the background of that story, how James and his pals pulled some lackwit joke on Snape that would have killed him except for James getting cold feet at the last second. So not only was James basically saving Snape from a danger he himself had manufactured, but he only did so to save his own bacon. Now, really, what the hell kind of joke were they gonna pull that would have killed a guy?
But back to the interrogation, Snape orders Harry to empty his pockets, and he explains all the joke shop crap by saying Ron bought it all for him on the last trip to Hogsmeade. Right, and Harry's nickname is "Ron Waslib". Snape is more interested by the Marauder's Map, although in its dormant state it looks to him like an ordinary sheet of blank parchment. Suspicious, he suggests that he might destroy it, and when Harry gets upset he starts checking it over to see what it does. But Snape doesn't know the words that activate the map, so he just starts ad libbing.
"Reveal your secret!" No dice.
"Show yourself!" This seems pretty unimaginative.
"Professor Severus Snape, master of this school, commands you to yield the information you conceal!" Geez, like the picture at the beginning of this chapter wasn't corny enough. This is the sort of rational approach I'd expect from Colonel Klink. "Hooo-gannn! You will reveal the secret of your parchment at once! Or you and your men will get thirty days in the cooler! Mmm-MMMM!"
In response to his words, the map starts to reveal words, but they're just handwritten messages from the four guys who wrote it, telling Snape he's a big poopie-pants. So Snape summons his buddy Lupin to help him sort out this matter. The book says "Lupin! I want a word!" but I prefer to think he's saying "SCHUUUUULLLTZ!"
So Lupin shows up, and he shows him the map, but Lupin knows NOTH-ing, he sees NOTH-ing. As far as he's concerned, the map is hardly dangerous, and more likely is just the work of a bunch of jolly jokers, jolly jokers. Snape thinks he might have gotten the map from the people who made it, although I don't see what difference that makes if he did, but Harry denies knowing any of the names on the map, and Lupin declares the matter to be an open-and-shut case. And just to settle the matter completely, Ron shows up at the last second, gasping a corroboration to Harry's story about getting all those joke items months ago from Ron. Before Snape can protest, Lupin asks to speak with them about some essay he has them writing, so he leads them out of the office, back to the barracks, back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back. Then Kinch gets on the radio in the teapot and tells London to blow up some stuff. Kinchloe rules you.
Once outside, Lupin scolds the boys, saying he knows what the map is and that it had been in Filch's office up until now, and registers his profound astonishment that Harry and Ron didn't surrender it to the authroities, especially after what happened with Neville leaving those passwords lying around. He refuses to return the map to Harry, but for some reason he doesn't seem to care that Harry still knows about the secret passage, nor is he interested in disciplining him, or even letting Snape know that his suspicions were well-founded. In short, Lupin's letting Harry get away with his stupidity, just like Hermione, Fudge, Hagrid, and everyone else in this book. It's enough to turn a kid into a Super Dumbass, except that it couldn't on account of there is no such thing. Harry asks how Lupin knows so much about the Marauder's Map, and Lupin only admits cryptically to having met the four men who wrote it. Rather than punish Harry, Lupin chooses to guilt Harry into playing safe, pointing out that his parents died to save Harry's life, so risking his neck over a handful of candy and toys is a pretty scummy way to repay their self-sacrifice. And really, how pathetic is Harry that he needs other people to point this out for him?
Anyway, on their way back to G-Tower, the duo run into Hermione, and despite Hagrid telling them they were being too hard on her, and despite Lupin reminding them of their foolishness, they immediately start grousing at Hermione for threatening to tell on them earlier. Instead, she informs them that Hagrid lost his case, and Buckbeak will be executed summarily. Wait, is that the right expression? It sounds good, so I'm keeping it in.
Isn't most of this redundant? We've already seen Harry sneak out of the school through the secret passage, we've already seen the sights at Hogsmeade, and we've already had an episode where Sirius Black breaks into the school and the teachers spend the whole night searching for him to no avail. There's not really anything here that justifies this chapter's existence. Hermione's still stressed out, Harry's still an idiot risking his neck, Buckbeak's still in trouble, and Black still hasn't been captured. All that's really going on here is that we have Snape, Hagrid, and Lupin here to remind Harry of these things. Well, I never forgot.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Hermione's Mighty Breakdown.
One weird thing was when I this lady stopped me and asked me if she could ask me a question. She was standing next to some cart that looked like it had cosmetics on it. Confused, I stopped to hear her out.
LADY: Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea, the lowest place on Earth?
ME: Uh... yeah?
LADY: Do you know where that is?
ME: ... It's--it's in Israel.
LADY: Very good! How do you know that?
ME: I... wh-- I just know. What's your point?
(at this point, I notice a guy in a wheelchair on my left, obviously waiting for me to get out of the way because he can't go around.)
LADY: Can I borrow you for a minute?
ME: ... No.
LADY: OK.
I assume she was hawking some kind of beauty treatment involving sea salt, but really I have no idea what she was getting at, and I didn't understand why she would pick me out of a crowded mall to make her pitch. You'd think a proper sales pitch would start with "Excuse me, sir? Would you like to [solve some sort of problem]?" Then explain how whatever she has can help me do that. Instead I have to play twenty questions just to find out what she wants, and I didn't even want to know in the first place.
Am I the only one who gets into these kinds of situations? One time I got a knock on my door on a Saturday morning and I opened it to find a man and a woman standing there with reverent expressions on their faces. "Do you ever wonder when the terror will end?" the woman asked me. "No," I said, and sent them on their way. At least with them I had some inkling that they were representing one religion or another. I'm don't mean to be rude or brusque with people, but sometimes I get the vibe that some people try to exploit your sense of courtesey to get you to listen to them, and I hate when people do that.
Anyway, I have more urgent matters to discuss. Take a look at the picture beneath the cut and tell me what's doin'.
"When in doubt, pinky out."
So lemme get this straight: Snape has a beard, and he's Chinese? Man, Ultimate Marvel Harry Potter sucks.
Chapter 14: Snape's Grudge
(Original Japanese Title: "'My Dad Didn't Strut, and Nether Do I! !'")
Seriously, what is up with that drawing? It's been making me mental for a month and a half now. If Snape's actually supposed to look like that, then why didn't they cast Johnny Depp to play him? And I thought he wore black all the time, to represent the gaping hole of lonely lonlieness in his angst-ridden soul. And he's so chipper here. "Wwwwellll... Mr. Parchment, it looks like you're completely blank, aren't youuuuu? Yyyees you ARE! Yyyyes you ARE!" But I think it's the outstretched pinky that truly puts this image over the top. Clearly, Snape liked Gay Fuel so much, he bought the company.
When last we left our hero, Ron woke everyone up because he thought he saw Sirius Black in his room with a knife. An investigation quickly reveals that Black did indeed manage to sneak into G-Tower, whereupon he slashed up some curtains, woke up Ron, then ran away. SIRIUS BLACK: SCOURGE OF DRAPERY.
Reacting quickly, the school puts all the kids back in the Great Hall for the night while they do another top-to-bottom search of the building for Black. Once again, they find no trace of him. It occurs to me that a lot of problems could be solved if the portait hole that leads into G-Tower could be locked on both sides. Obviously, the students have no business sneaking around the rest of the building at night, so you just lock them into their respective towers when it's time for bed. Had this been done, Black might have been able to get in using the passwords he filched from Neville Longbottom, but at least he would have had a harder time getting back out again. Not a perfect solution, but at least they'd have him contained. Given that it's Harry Potter he supposedly wants to kill, I'm surprised they're still letting him live in G-Tower, since his presence would put the other students at risk. Let him bunk with Dumbledore for the year or something. At least there you don't have to worry about some kid like Neville fumbling the password.
But instead, Hogwarts just does the usual ineffective job of closing the barn door after the horse jumps out. Flitwick teaches the front doors to recognize a photo of Black. Right, because Sirius is brazen enough to use the front door. That makes sense. Filch starts sealing off the every crack and mousehole in the castle. Really, even without the looming threat of an insane mass murderer, isn't that something he should have been doing anyway? Sir Cadogan, the subject of the portrait that had let Black into G-Tower in the first place, was fired, and the Fat Lady reinstated with a band of trolls (real ones, not paintings) to stand guard in case Black should return for a third try. Now why didn't they just do that in the first place? In fact, why not post trolls around the portrait to every tower? My money would be on Black, going on his reputation alone, but at least that's better than depending on an animated gif in a frame to stave off intruders. Hell, for that matter, they could have tried telling Sir Cadogan not to let Black in under any circumstances.
But of course, this is all for nothing, because the school faculty are a bunch of idiots, and the castle is riddled with secret passages only the students seem to know about, like that one behind the statue that leads to the candy store in town. Harry wonders if they should tell someone about it, but Ron assures him that the only way Black could use the passage would be to break into Honeydukes, and they'd hear about something like that if it were to happen. No you wouldn't. Black can enter Hogwarts at will, and it's supposed to be the most secure facility in England. Why should a candy store be any trouble for him? Besides, even if he stormed in, slaughtered everyone inside, and smashed his way into the cellar, he could be through the passage and have his hands around Harry's miserable throat before anyone would know where he'd gone. But Harry buys into Ron's anti-logic anyway, because after all, if the passage were sealed off, he'd never get to go to Hogsmeade for the rest of the year. Yeah, so what if that crazed lunatic kills you? At least you'll die with a belly full of Sizzleteat & Felkmeyer's Patented Wooly-Booly Wart-Infested Crumbcakes, the pastry so sweet it lures ants to crawl down your throat while you sleep. Dumbass.
For a time, Ron's become something of a celebrity thanks to his chance encounter with Black. Although, even as he regales his story to interested parties, he still doesn't understand why Black would flee just because Ron woke up and screamed. Harry, too, reasons that a man who murdered thirteeen people should have simply killed Ron, then moved on to Harry, or anyone else who might have stood in his way. You know, when Harry and Ron are having trouble buying into the premise, something's definitely wrong. Fortunately, Harry doesn't quite connect all the dots just yet. Though he assumes Black must have been in a hurry to escape before the teachers found him, he fails to consider that Black would still have to get past the dementors outside of the school to actually get away. In other words, he's probably not leaving at all, which means he can conceal himself from the teachers when they conduct their search, which therefore means that Black should be in no hurry to get away from Ron at all.
As an epilogue to the entire episode, Neville Longbottom's gotten the book thrown at him. Not only is he banned from Hogsmeade, not only did he get a bunch of detention, but he's forbidden from ever learning any new passwords, meaning that he has to stand out in the hallway like a dope until someone else comes along to let him into G-Tower. Of course, that seems kind of dumb, since Neville could just hear the other person say the password and he's good to go for the rest of the day, but then if he were capable of that, I guess he wouldn't be in hot water to start with. He also gets some sort of hideous recording of his grandmother's voice, shrieking at him at a hundred times her normal volume. You know, I sort of hope Neville grows up someday and gets a cushy job in computer programming or something, so he can tell all these magic paintings and senile witches and pasty-faced potions teachers to go shove it. Yeah, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I bust on him for it, but you know what? The kid's going to school every day, busting his hump trying to learn something, and suddenly everyone's on his case for failing to be the lynchpin of national security. He shouldn't have to put up with this bullcrap. I hope he marries a supermodel and moves to Talahassee and never has to look at another dingy old talking painting again.
Later, Harry and Ron go visit Hagrid at his invitation (thankfully not stained with tears this time), figuring he wants to hear all about Ron's stupid Sirius Black story. Except of course, he's more preoccupied with that hearing for Buckbeak. Of course, the kids had promised to help him prepare for that hearing, but Harry and Ron just kind of stood around being colossal dicks for the last four months. But the reason he's having them over is so he can talk about Hermione. See, Hagrid's not too keen on how Harry and Ron have been all pissy at her over the Firebolt, then Scabbers, and on top of all that she's had to deal with the stress of her classwork AND helping Hagrid with his Buckbeak hearing AND the thought of an escaped convict lurking around in Harry and Ron's room. The way Hagrid sees it, he would have thought that Harry and Ron would have valued their friend more than a lousy broomstick and a dead rat. Well, no one ever accused Hagrid of having a MENSA card in his wallet...
For example, when the next trip to Hogsmeade comes up, Harry and Ron discuss the possibility of using the secret passage one more time, and then they get all pissy at Hermione when she threatens to tell on Harry if he uses it. See, this is the dumb thing about Hermione. The issue here isn't whether Harry leaves the school unsupervised, the issue is that there's a hole in Hogwarts security that no one in charge seems to know about. Black's latest incursion seems to have really gotten to her, but instead of revealing the passage right away, she just wants assurances from Harry that he won't use it. After they run Hermione off, Harry agrees to use the passage in spite of her threats, but opts to wear the Invisibility Cloak for his visit.
Of course, the trouble with that plan is that Neville's stuck in the building too, so Harry has to ditch him, as well as Snape, in order to use the portal without anyone seeing. Once reunited with Ron on the outside, they check out all the amazing crap in Hogwarts... like the post office. Be still, my beating heart. Then they go to the joke shop and buy a bunch of... joke stuff. Really, when does Harry ever use that sort of thing? Fred and George, I get. They like practical jokes so much they opened their own joke store, and I think they might have bought this one in Book VI if I'm not mistaken. Ron I could imagine using this stuff on his kid sister, or Hermione, because he's harbors a lingering resentment towards women. But when does Harry ever break out the whoopie cushions and fake poop? Maybe he just collects the stuff, or he's an impulse shopper.
Then they go to the Shrieking Shack, which is billed as the "most haunted house in Britain". So haunted, apparently, that no one's allowed in. Then what's the point in going there? From the outside, it's just a dilapidated house, right? But I guess it's a popular spot, since Señor Draco and his hired goons show up shortly afterward to mess with Ron. Since Harry's invisible during all this, he decides to screw with Draco on Ron's behalf, and starts throwing mud at him and his posse. But somehow, Harry manages to whiz it by getting his cloak caught on something, which causes his head to be briefly exposed. Shocked to see Harry's disembodied head, Draco flees, and then Harry realizes that he's busted if Draco should collect his wits and tell a teacher what he's seen. So the twerp runs back to the school via the secret passage, only to be met by Snape, who's already heard Señor Draco's story. He takes him to his office for questioning, but Harry plays it cool and doesn't say anything that would put him in Hogsmeade during the incident.
"What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter? Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade." What, is he suddenly turning into Frank Burns now? Harry continues to deny, deny, deny, since Snape doesn't really have anything on him. Then he starts going on about how Harry just does whatever he pleases, in spite of all the efforts being made to protect his worthless ass. I'm no Snape fan, but I gotta hand it to him, he calls it like it is. Then he starts going on about Harry's dead dad, how he used to strut around like he owned the place. So Harry shouts for him to shut up, in all caps. So Snape asks him what he just said, in italics. Dude, he told you to shut up, were you not listening? He was practically shouting. Harry then goes on about how his dad saved Snape's life once, so he shouldn't go talking smack about him on account of that. Snape responds by explaining the background of that story, how James and his pals pulled some lackwit joke on Snape that would have killed him except for James getting cold feet at the last second. So not only was James basically saving Snape from a danger he himself had manufactured, but he only did so to save his own bacon. Now, really, what the hell kind of joke were they gonna pull that would have killed a guy?
But back to the interrogation, Snape orders Harry to empty his pockets, and he explains all the joke shop crap by saying Ron bought it all for him on the last trip to Hogsmeade. Right, and Harry's nickname is "Ron Waslib". Snape is more interested by the Marauder's Map, although in its dormant state it looks to him like an ordinary sheet of blank parchment. Suspicious, he suggests that he might destroy it, and when Harry gets upset he starts checking it over to see what it does. But Snape doesn't know the words that activate the map, so he just starts ad libbing.
"Reveal your secret!" No dice.
"Show yourself!" This seems pretty unimaginative.
"Professor Severus Snape, master of this school, commands you to yield the information you conceal!" Geez, like the picture at the beginning of this chapter wasn't corny enough. This is the sort of rational approach I'd expect from Colonel Klink. "Hooo-gannn! You will reveal the secret of your parchment at once! Or you and your men will get thirty days in the cooler! Mmm-MMMM!"
In response to his words, the map starts to reveal words, but they're just handwritten messages from the four guys who wrote it, telling Snape he's a big poopie-pants. So Snape summons his buddy Lupin to help him sort out this matter. The book says "Lupin! I want a word!" but I prefer to think he's saying "SCHUUUUULLLTZ!"
So Lupin shows up, and he shows him the map, but Lupin knows NOTH-ing, he sees NOTH-ing. As far as he's concerned, the map is hardly dangerous, and more likely is just the work of a bunch of jolly jokers, jolly jokers. Snape thinks he might have gotten the map from the people who made it, although I don't see what difference that makes if he did, but Harry denies knowing any of the names on the map, and Lupin declares the matter to be an open-and-shut case. And just to settle the matter completely, Ron shows up at the last second, gasping a corroboration to Harry's story about getting all those joke items months ago from Ron. Before Snape can protest, Lupin asks to speak with them about some essay he has them writing, so he leads them out of the office, back to the barracks, back-back-back-back-back-back-back-back. Then Kinch gets on the radio in the teapot and tells London to blow up some stuff. Kinchloe rules you.
Once outside, Lupin scolds the boys, saying he knows what the map is and that it had been in Filch's office up until now, and registers his profound astonishment that Harry and Ron didn't surrender it to the authroities, especially after what happened with Neville leaving those passwords lying around. He refuses to return the map to Harry, but for some reason he doesn't seem to care that Harry still knows about the secret passage, nor is he interested in disciplining him, or even letting Snape know that his suspicions were well-founded. In short, Lupin's letting Harry get away with his stupidity, just like Hermione, Fudge, Hagrid, and everyone else in this book. It's enough to turn a kid into a Super Dumbass, except that it couldn't on account of there is no such thing. Harry asks how Lupin knows so much about the Marauder's Map, and Lupin only admits cryptically to having met the four men who wrote it. Rather than punish Harry, Lupin chooses to guilt Harry into playing safe, pointing out that his parents died to save Harry's life, so risking his neck over a handful of candy and toys is a pretty scummy way to repay their self-sacrifice. And really, how pathetic is Harry that he needs other people to point this out for him?
Anyway, on their way back to G-Tower, the duo run into Hermione, and despite Hagrid telling them they were being too hard on her, and despite Lupin reminding them of their foolishness, they immediately start grousing at Hermione for threatening to tell on them earlier. Instead, she informs them that Hagrid lost his case, and Buckbeak will be executed summarily. Wait, is that the right expression? It sounds good, so I'm keeping it in.
Isn't most of this redundant? We've already seen Harry sneak out of the school through the secret passage, we've already seen the sights at Hogsmeade, and we've already had an episode where Sirius Black breaks into the school and the teachers spend the whole night searching for him to no avail. There's not really anything here that justifies this chapter's existence. Hermione's still stressed out, Harry's still an idiot risking his neck, Buckbeak's still in trouble, and Black still hasn't been captured. All that's really going on here is that we have Snape, Hagrid, and Lupin here to remind Harry of these things. Well, I never forgot.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Hermione's Mighty Breakdown.