Chapter 6: Slouching Toward London
Chapter 6: Slouching Toward London
1. Finally, Ginny couldn’t take it anymore; she spied the Snitch and, instead of trying to draw Draco off, she flew to it herself and plucked it out of the air, landing in a heap on the grass, her girlfriends rushing to her while the disappointed Gryffindor boy who did the match commentary intoned dismally, "And Ginny Weasley has the Snitch. Slytherin wins the match, four-hundred twenty to three-hundred fifty. Oh, and Slytherin also win the Quidditch Cup," he added listlessly. It was the most subdued Harry had ever heard him.
After Krum's actions at the World Cup in GoF, I thought it appropriate to have Ginny do the same. I had no idea JKR would ALSO have Ginny do this in OotP! (Ron's first match, when he was so rattled by the refrain of "Weasley is Our King"). Needless to say, I thought that choice of hers was FABULOUS! Plus the fact that she made Ginny a wonderful Seeker and I did too--almost two years before OotP. :D
2. "You know," she said, "it's been rather lonely. Walking about the castle without you being nearby. I've never known what that's like," she smiled at him bashfully.
I loved that JKR engaged in role-reversal with the Harry/Ginny romance, and she did the reversal in Harry's sixth year, too. Yes, I didn't consciously think about the sixth year being a mirror image of the second year, when Ginny was the one stalking Harry. But I had no idea JKR would also do that and have Harry become obsessed with Ginny in HBP!
3. "That's not my proper name. What's my name?"
"Oh. Virginia." He stared at her blankly; then it hit him. "Oooh--"
Yes, yes, I know now that Ginny is short for "Ginevra". But I think I can be forgiven for not reading that part of JKR's mind. It's not the obvious choice. I've never known anyone called Ginny who wasn't born Virginia.
4. Now Harry wished he'd shoved the two of them into a cupboard and commanded them, "Snog already!" It would have solved many, many problems.
I think canon Harry felt this way too, if I remember. Though when Hermione and Ron finally did kiss, he had to scream at them to remind them that they were fighting a war, LOL!
5. They'd discovered many other things they had in common when they wrote to each other during the summer. Ginny. Yes, Ginny. He felt a happiness inside that was also a kind of peace. He knew now. He didn’t have to deny it anymore.
A lot of the H/Hr shippers who'd become attached to that ship in Psychic Serpent conveniently overlooked the long-term bonding between the Harry and Ginny in this universe and claimed that Harry's decision about Ginny came about too abruptly--but it was an amalgam of his memories from both lives that influenced this decision, and those memories occurred over a long period of time. But then, the fewer, longer chapters of ToGI, as opposed to the shorter early chapters of PS, did make some folks feel like things were happening faster in ToGI than they really were (because evidently a lot of people ignore information about how much time has passed for fictional characters).
6. "Have you tried asking down at the Quidditch pitch?" he asked Harry. Harry furrowed his brow. Why does Sirius keep saying that?
I really had people going with a ton of theories about what this meant! It turned out to be cryptic enough that I don't recall a lot of people twigging to what was going on, except for perhaps one or two.
7. "At least she caught us while it was still snogging," Draco had said brightly, cheered by the fact that he'd been caught doing something relatively minor (although it still warranted a detention; Professor Sinistra was trying to kill the Astronomy Tower's reputation as a lovers' trysting place). He would be meticulously cleaning all of the lenses to all of Sinistra's telescopes (using no magic) until dinner at least.
I think the whole Astronomy Tower thing was purely fanon (in which fic did that start?) but if this had been a real problem, I don't imagine Sinistra wouldn't have tried to put a stop to it!
8. "Lily, I know you've changed since James' death," the witch sneered, eyeing Severus Snape, "but you are a former Auror. You know the law. The Decree for the Internment of Lycanthropic Humans was not written with any exceptions. We used to work together, Lily. The last thing I want to do is take you in for harboring a fugitive. Please cooperate. Go get the werewolf."
So here's where we really start to see some of the effect of Voldemort not falling--it's not just that he's still recruiting Death Eaters and committing atrocities, but that the Ministry, in response, has become overzealous in law enforcement, to the point where civil rights are essentially nonexistent and defense against Voldemort is always considered a viable excuse for trampling on anyone's rights, especially if they are considered a potential follower of Voldemort, like a werewolf. I also appreciated the way JKR did this in DH, though she was more extreme. Yet there were similarities--Hogwarts and the Ministry were not being run by Voldemort personally, but by people who were his puppets (or he thought was his puppet, in Snape's case). Policies at the Ministry in OotP and HBP were a little more like the policies depicted here, and the methods of carrying them out, but the effect is similar to what people experienced when Voldemort himself was in power.
9. He'd noticed that the curriculum in general seemed to be a few years behind the Hogwarts to which he was accustomed.
Which isn't precisely what we heard about in DH, but is a little closer to Umbridge dumbing-down the curriculum in OotP because the Minister didn't want Dumbledore training an army of his own. And Harry did that for him. ;)
10. He remembered the letters they'd exchanged during the summer. Their relationship had grown with the help of parchment and ink as much as kisses. He felt now that she knew him as well as his sister and best friend.
Another passage conveniently ignored by those who didn't want H/Hr to end... and insisted that Ginny was the one Harry was "lusting" after. (Sure, he felt that for her too, but not just that.)
11. "Draco!" he said jovially. His friend peered at him suspiciously.
"Why do I think I'm about to be talked into doing something no one in their right mind should do?" he drawled wearily, walking into the room and sinking to the floor, leaning against the stone wall.
Draco knows Harry well, and knows to be wary when he's so happy.
12. As they left the Great Hall, Harry was momentarily shaken by the boos and hisses that came from the other tables; he wasn't used to this. When he’d been on the Gryffindor team, on days they played Slytherin, three out of four students were standing and cheering for him.
This is one of the most important experiences Harry has in the AU and will color a lot of his opinions later.
13. "You know, if you had been playing Seeker, that would have been one spectacular catch." Harry looked at him miserably, still silent. "Oi, this is Charlie Weasley saying this. I know a thing or two about playing Seeker. Can I see some appreciation?"
I enjoyed having the opportunity to pull Charlie into the story more in the AU. It was a little harder to justify in the original universe, but in the absence of Hagrid, I wanted Harry to have another friend on the staff who wasn't one of his parents. And for the record, I simply couldn't see, in the AU climate, Hagrid being permitted to continue working at the school; it seemed consistent with the gestalt of that world, along with the ban on Muggle-born students, werewolves being put in "relocation" camps and the non-interest in solving the disappearance of the Squibs. I have nothing against Hagrid.
14. It was like no other classroom in the castle; it had been tricked out to resemble a Muggle house, but oddly, it was again Mrs. Figg's house. The layout was different, but it had the same upholstery and antimacassars and the same cat-and-cabbage smell. He remembered the tents they'd used for the World Cup. It must be some sort of wizarding pre-fabricated Muggle decor you can buy, something that always looks the same. This must be how wizards think all Muggle houses look.
JKR never addressed this in the books, so I guess this is me fanwanking about it, but it's a pretty minor issue that is definitely not a plothole!
15. "Goodnight,” he answered, feeling a hollowness inside him as he watched her give the password and climb in through the portrait hole. He could not enter. He was an outsider. He would be lying if he had said that he was enjoying being a Slytherin, that it was every bit as good as being a Gryffindor, even though (until today) he'd managed to put up with it well enough. Suddenly, seeing her disappear into Gryffindor Tower, he felt an acute pain inside that could not be ignored. He was no longer a Gryffindor.
An extension of Harry's reaction to being booed simply for being a Slytherin. As rough as his other life was in other ways, there were a lot of things--such as being a Gryffindor--that he truly loved.
16. After descending staircase after staircase, they came at last to the caretaker’s office. The old man leaned very close to the door to give the password, but Harry managed to catch it anyway.
"Treacle fudge."
Truthfully, I actually wanted people to pick up on the password clue and work out who the caretaker really was (if not Harry, slightly dim boy that can can be). I'd have been disappointed if no one got that major clue! But loads of people did. I bit my tongue for a while, though, letting folks twist in the wind for a bit before Harry got to find out the truth.
17. Draco and his sister had their arms around each other. They were kissing, but as Harry approached them, their mouths separated. He realized that that wasn’t because they'd noticed his advent, as he’d thought; it was so Draco could move his mouth to her ear and down her throat...
"Ahem!" Harry said testily. "Do you mind getting your hands and mouth off my sister?" Something about this felt very familiar.
The "familiar" part in my fic-world was Harry seeing Draco with Ginny. Ironically, this also reminds me a great deal of Ron and Harry finding Ginny and Dean snogging (the first appearance of Harry's "chest monster" in HBP). Except that here Harry's in Ron's role of the annoyed brother.
18. He was finally in Muggle London, ready to search for Hermione Granger.
Some readers were more than a little upset that I ended it there. But it wasn't as if the chapter was short--it was almost 20,000 words! That's about one-fifth of a 100,000-word manuscript, the typical length an agent will consider from a first-time author. And it wasn't as if I made people wait more than 10 days for a new chapter!