Hogwarts Too Exposed Chapter 7 part 3
In which Dick the dick is still a dick.
“What do you think the special meeting is going to be about?” Kim asked Emily as they walked backed to the Slytherin common room.
When and whence? This scene has no context.
“Probably to go over another ten or twenty rules that Filch has thought up,” Emily answered. “If he had his way, we’d all be restricted to our dorms everyday. The man hates students with a fervor.”
Filch, who hasn't been in a scene, Emily hasn't been shown ever to have met and whose first mention in Hogwarts Exposed was in this chapter.
Becky and Marta had left the Great Hall at the same time and overheard Emily’s comment.
Speaking of retcons, a smaller one here: they appear out of nowhere and yet Emily and/or Kim is supposed to have been aware of them from the outset.
“I don’t think it has anything do with Filch this time,” Becky said. “I heard it was to discuss our initiation into Slytherin House.”
“Initiation?! What initiation?” Emily practically shouted. “This isn’t some muggle prep school or stupid college fraternity. Hogwarts doesn’t have hazing or initiations.”
Fun fact: preparatory schools in the UK take children from the age of six. Yeah, I have no first-hand experience (community school lad here) but I really don't think they have creepy initiation rituals. Especially not the kind the author's one-track mind is undoubtedly considering. Also, college fraternities? Not a thing in the UK, at least not when I was at uni, which also happens to be when Hogwarts Too Exposed was written and set.
“The other houses don’t,” Marta agreed, “but Slytherin is different. I heard the initiation is usually something of a sexual nature.”
Of course. What else would it be in Hogwarts Exposed?
“Denise said that last year they picked one boy and one girl from the first years and they had to do “it” in front of the entire house,” Becky said, looking extremely apprehensive. “I couldn’t do anything like that.”
“Do ‘it’?” Kim questioned. “What is ‘it’?”
Obviously Kim isn't as dense as she seems, and only trying to lull everyone into a false sense of security so she can take over Slytherin house and from there, the entire wizarding world.
“Have sexual intercourse,” Emily explained to a flabbergasted Kim.
Which assumes that Kim has no idea what "doing it" refers to in this context, but knows what sex is. I find that implausibly contradictory.
“Personally I think Denise is full of it.
The brainless card-carrying villain is full of it? Who'd have thought?
They might propose we go through some sort of ceremony and it may even have sexual connotations, but we’re only eleven.
Which is why you shouldn't be saying sentences like "They might propose we go through some sort of ceremony and it may even have sexual connotations." Or even discussing sex without a lot of awkward giggling. Has the author ever even been eleven years old?
Marta glanced at Becky. “She’s right about the boys. They, for the most part, seem very juvenile.
Which is why we've seen so much juvenile behaviour from the first year boys in the story so far. Oh, wait, no we haven't. We haven't even seen their names.
I doubt if most of them even know their penis has another use other than peeing.”
The ones who've been to Muggle primary school (which admittedly won't include the pureblood supremacists) should. I mean, I know the state of sex education is bad, but it's not that bad. Also, I don't know many adults, let alone children, who unironically use "penis" in everyday conversation.
“Who’s in charge of this immature program?” Emily inquired of Marta and Becky.
“That sixth year cousin of Denise’s, Dirk Bancroft.”
“Dick Bancroft,” Emily corrected as they reached the common room. “I should have known. He does his best to live up to his name.”
The one mildly amusing (though admittedly puerile) joke in this entire fic, that Dick is a dick. Of course it's long since been run into the ground.
Marta gave the password and they rushed in to join the balance of the first years, already waiting uneasily.
I called it, didn't I?
MISUSED BALANCE COUNT: 28
They were barely inside when Dick swaggered up to them.” How nice of you four to decide to join us,” he said smugly.
“We were informed to be here at seven,” Emily said, defensively. “According to my watch we still have five minutes.”
Bancroft ignored Emily and cleared his throat. “If everyone will quiet down, we’ll get started now that all the first years are finally here.”
Dick the dick versus Emily the insufferable Sue, the duel of halfwits. Whoever wins, everyone loses.
For the next ten minutes Dick Bancroft rambled on about Slytherin House, its history and traditions and how the other houses hated Slytherin because it was immensely superior to them. Dick seemed to conveniently skip Slytherin’s bad years, especially the Potter years.
Yeah, it's a bit late to start questioning your house's chequered past after directly asking the Sorting Hat to put you there.
He ended by saying that the first years had to earn their right of passage into Slytherin House.
“Why should we have to go through an initiation when the other three houses don’t?” Emily inquired. “It’s also against Hogwart rules.”
How does she know? It makes no sense for her to know, because if she'd memorised the school rules on initiation rites on the offchance of being asked to participate in one then she wouldn't have been so taken aback at the possibility. On top of that, what little characterisation Emily has is not as the kind of person who'd quote school rules to win an argument.
“Zacherley, you’d best learn your place and learn it fast,” Bancroft said threateningly. “You’re a first year. You listen and you learn. You can’t listen when you’re talking; so keep your trap shut.”
Bancroft gets another Strawman Has A Point moment: I get the impression the author doesn't want us to take his side here, but I can't help it.
All the first years were rather taken aback by Bancroft’s harsh tone.
Don't just tell us they were taken aback. Describe their stifled gasps and shocked expressions and so forth.
“If she had been paying attention she would have heard me say that Slytherin is not like the other houses. Being a Slytherin is not a right given to you by a moth eaten hat.
As someone who claims to uphold the fine tradition of Slytherin, one would have thought he'd have more respect for the Sorting Hat that Salazar Slytherin himself helped to enchant.
“Exactly what do you expect us to do to earn this ‘privilege’?” Emily asked.
Dick’s face turned red. “You could start by keeping that mouth of yours shut.”
As rage-inducing as Emily is and as admirable as telling her to STFU also is, this response doesn't make sense when she's asking the question he's about to answer.
The first years all stared at Emily. Like her or not, they had to admire the backbone she was showing by going up against the Slytherin bully, Dick Bancroft.
As this still reads as Emily's POV, we get the impression that she's congratulating herself with how much everyone admires her. If only Dick the dick knew the Cruciatus curse.
“Saturday morning you will all meet here in the common room at nine o’clock. Don’t be late!” He said loudly, staring at Emily. “Your names will be picked from a hat two at a time. One boy and one girl, and you will be given a challenge. You may accept the challenge or reject it. This will go on until one couple has successfully completed their challenge or we have run out of names.
“It is only necessary for one couple to complete their challenge for the entire class to pass the initiation, “ Dick added.
The challenge involves a boy and a girl, referred to explicitly as a couple, and it was written by this author. The odds of it being completely nonsexual are about equal to those of an asteroid landing on my computer as I type this sentence.
Denise timidly raised her hand.
For heaven's sake, author, she's got hardly any characterisation at all and you've still managed to contradict it! An overbearing bully isn't going to be addressing anyone "timidly" in front of all her peers, least of all her cousin.
Dick smiled in her direction. “I’m delighted to see that at least one first year knows how to show reverence and ask a question appropriately. Yes, Denise.”
“What ensues if none of the pairs pass a challenge?” Denise asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Hilarity."
“Outstanding question Denise. In that eventuality we will hold an auction and you will each be sold into one month’s slavery to the highest bidder,” Dick answered as he looked toward Emily salivating.
So Dick the dick is a pervert but the honest-to-goodness adult TVTropes tells me she later hooks up with is perfectly fine.
... yeah, I hate this fic.
Janice raised her hand.
“So good to see you’re all learning,” Dick said smugly.
“What exactly must a slave do?” she asked, worried.
“Anything they are told to do,” Dick quickly replied.
No shit, Sherlock.
“I have a question for Bancroft,” Emily said without raising her hand. “I heard that many of the challenges are of a sexual nature. Is that because Salazar Slytherin was a dirty old man or because you’re a pervert?”
Emily is a pureblood who grew up with her wizarding parents and her equally wizarding adopted parents, so knowing who Salazar Slytherin was when Harry had to be told in his second year isn't the inconsistency it appears at first glance. An eleven-year-old talking so frankly about sex and perversion to people she barely knows is less plausible, but it's about what we've come to expect from this author. I guess he thinks it makes his sexualisation of the characters less creepy. Protip: it really doesn't. In fact, it makes it even worse.
“That’s it!” Bancroft shouted. “It’s time you were put in your place, bitch.”
You know he's a baddie because he swears. In fact, having characters swear every other word is one of the very few darkfic clichés that Hogwarts Exposed avoids.
Emily was caught off guard and didn’t see Dick reach for his wand. Fortunately, Kim had been expecting foul play from Bancroft and was holding her wand. The moment Bancroft moved, Kim jumped in front of Emily and shouted, “Repercitio!” just an instant before Dick shouted his own curse.
Ladies and gentlemen, the girl who would have fucking killed herself if not for Saint Emily. Consistent characterisation would obviously get in the way of artistic integrity.
The shied lasted only a few seconds, but that was enough to reflect the curse and send it rebounding back to its originator. The whole room was astonished. Dick Bancroft the Slytherin tormenter was hanging inverted from the ceiling, his wand on the floor beneath him. The actuality that someone had bested Bancroft with his own curse was unbelievable. This fact that it was accomplished by a timid first year with only three days class training was mind-boggling.
Pointing out how implausible a plot development is doesn't make it any less so. That's straight out of the Nancy Stouffer school of writing.
“I owe you,” Emily said as she gave Kim a hug.
“No you don’t,” Kim said with a smile. “Consider it partial payment of my debt to you.
Very partial payment, as it happens.
But we both owe your sister for teaching us that spell.”
Which as far as the readers are concerned never actually happened. Had there been a scene where Jamie taught Reflect to Emily and Kim, this incident would not appear to come from nowhere. ("Nowhere" being the charitable interpretation.) The author's foreshadowing is either nonexistent or insultingly obvious, hardly ever anything in between.
“Remove that damn smile from your face Burke and get me the hell down from here. And you Thatcher enjoy your little victory because that’s just the first battle. You’ve made a poor choice of a friend in Slytherin and you’ll pay. I’m going to the head of house and report that you attacked an upper classman.”
At which Draco will wonder if he's still in America. They're not called "upper classmen" in the UK; instead they're "seniors" (usually fourth year/Year 10 and up, but usage varies) or "sixth-formers" (sixth and seventh years/Years 12 and 13), although neither term seems to be used at Hogwarts where students are just identified by their year group.
Actually, come to think of it, who are the Slytherin prefects in this story?
“You actually are as stupid as you look, aren’t you Dick?” Doris said. “Forget it! She bested you. Let it go. Finite Incantatum.”
Nothing happened because she said the spell wrong, and Dick the dick remained on the ceiling for the rest of the story.
“What do you think the special meeting is going to be about?” Kim asked Emily as they walked backed to the Slytherin common room.
When and whence? This scene has no context.
“Probably to go over another ten or twenty rules that Filch has thought up,” Emily answered. “If he had his way, we’d all be restricted to our dorms everyday. The man hates students with a fervor.”
Filch, who hasn't been in a scene, Emily hasn't been shown ever to have met and whose first mention in Hogwarts Exposed was in this chapter.
Becky and Marta had left the Great Hall at the same time and overheard Emily’s comment.
Speaking of retcons, a smaller one here: they appear out of nowhere and yet Emily and/or Kim is supposed to have been aware of them from the outset.
“I don’t think it has anything do with Filch this time,” Becky said. “I heard it was to discuss our initiation into Slytherin House.”
“Initiation?! What initiation?” Emily practically shouted. “This isn’t some muggle prep school or stupid college fraternity. Hogwarts doesn’t have hazing or initiations.”
Fun fact: preparatory schools in the UK take children from the age of six. Yeah, I have no first-hand experience (community school lad here) but I really don't think they have creepy initiation rituals. Especially not the kind the author's one-track mind is undoubtedly considering. Also, college fraternities? Not a thing in the UK, at least not when I was at uni, which also happens to be when Hogwarts Too Exposed was written and set.
“The other houses don’t,” Marta agreed, “but Slytherin is different. I heard the initiation is usually something of a sexual nature.”
Of course. What else would it be in Hogwarts Exposed?
“Denise said that last year they picked one boy and one girl from the first years and they had to do “it” in front of the entire house,” Becky said, looking extremely apprehensive. “I couldn’t do anything like that.”
“Do ‘it’?” Kim questioned. “What is ‘it’?”
Obviously Kim isn't as dense as she seems, and only trying to lull everyone into a false sense of security so she can take over Slytherin house and from there, the entire wizarding world.
“Have sexual intercourse,” Emily explained to a flabbergasted Kim.
Which assumes that Kim has no idea what "doing it" refers to in this context, but knows what sex is. I find that implausibly contradictory.
“Personally I think Denise is full of it.
The brainless card-carrying villain is full of it? Who'd have thought?
They might propose we go through some sort of ceremony and it may even have sexual connotations, but we’re only eleven.
Which is why you shouldn't be saying sentences like "They might propose we go through some sort of ceremony and it may even have sexual connotations." Or even discussing sex without a lot of awkward giggling. Has the author ever even been eleven years old?
Marta glanced at Becky. “She’s right about the boys. They, for the most part, seem very juvenile.
Which is why we've seen so much juvenile behaviour from the first year boys in the story so far. Oh, wait, no we haven't. We haven't even seen their names.
I doubt if most of them even know their penis has another use other than peeing.”
The ones who've been to Muggle primary school (which admittedly won't include the pureblood supremacists) should. I mean, I know the state of sex education is bad, but it's not that bad. Also, I don't know many adults, let alone children, who unironically use "penis" in everyday conversation.
“Who’s in charge of this immature program?” Emily inquired of Marta and Becky.
“That sixth year cousin of Denise’s, Dirk Bancroft.”
“Dick Bancroft,” Emily corrected as they reached the common room. “I should have known. He does his best to live up to his name.”
The one mildly amusing (though admittedly puerile) joke in this entire fic, that Dick is a dick. Of course it's long since been run into the ground.
Marta gave the password and they rushed in to join the balance of the first years, already waiting uneasily.
I called it, didn't I?
MISUSED BALANCE COUNT: 28
They were barely inside when Dick swaggered up to them.” How nice of you four to decide to join us,” he said smugly.
“We were informed to be here at seven,” Emily said, defensively. “According to my watch we still have five minutes.”
Bancroft ignored Emily and cleared his throat. “If everyone will quiet down, we’ll get started now that all the first years are finally here.”
Dick the dick versus Emily the insufferable Sue, the duel of halfwits. Whoever wins, everyone loses.
For the next ten minutes Dick Bancroft rambled on about Slytherin House, its history and traditions and how the other houses hated Slytherin because it was immensely superior to them. Dick seemed to conveniently skip Slytherin’s bad years, especially the Potter years.
Yeah, it's a bit late to start questioning your house's chequered past after directly asking the Sorting Hat to put you there.
He ended by saying that the first years had to earn their right of passage into Slytherin House.
“Why should we have to go through an initiation when the other three houses don’t?” Emily inquired. “It’s also against Hogwart rules.”
How does she know? It makes no sense for her to know, because if she'd memorised the school rules on initiation rites on the offchance of being asked to participate in one then she wouldn't have been so taken aback at the possibility. On top of that, what little characterisation Emily has is not as the kind of person who'd quote school rules to win an argument.
“Zacherley, you’d best learn your place and learn it fast,” Bancroft said threateningly. “You’re a first year. You listen and you learn. You can’t listen when you’re talking; so keep your trap shut.”
Bancroft gets another Strawman Has A Point moment: I get the impression the author doesn't want us to take his side here, but I can't help it.
All the first years were rather taken aback by Bancroft’s harsh tone.
Don't just tell us they were taken aback. Describe their stifled gasps and shocked expressions and so forth.
“If she had been paying attention she would have heard me say that Slytherin is not like the other houses. Being a Slytherin is not a right given to you by a moth eaten hat.
As someone who claims to uphold the fine tradition of Slytherin, one would have thought he'd have more respect for the Sorting Hat that Salazar Slytherin himself helped to enchant.
“Exactly what do you expect us to do to earn this ‘privilege’?” Emily asked.
Dick’s face turned red. “You could start by keeping that mouth of yours shut.”
As rage-inducing as Emily is and as admirable as telling her to STFU also is, this response doesn't make sense when she's asking the question he's about to answer.
The first years all stared at Emily. Like her or not, they had to admire the backbone she was showing by going up against the Slytherin bully, Dick Bancroft.
As this still reads as Emily's POV, we get the impression that she's congratulating herself with how much everyone admires her. If only Dick the dick knew the Cruciatus curse.
“Saturday morning you will all meet here in the common room at nine o’clock. Don’t be late!” He said loudly, staring at Emily. “Your names will be picked from a hat two at a time. One boy and one girl, and you will be given a challenge. You may accept the challenge or reject it. This will go on until one couple has successfully completed their challenge or we have run out of names.
“It is only necessary for one couple to complete their challenge for the entire class to pass the initiation, “ Dick added.
The challenge involves a boy and a girl, referred to explicitly as a couple, and it was written by this author. The odds of it being completely nonsexual are about equal to those of an asteroid landing on my computer as I type this sentence.
Denise timidly raised her hand.
For heaven's sake, author, she's got hardly any characterisation at all and you've still managed to contradict it! An overbearing bully isn't going to be addressing anyone "timidly" in front of all her peers, least of all her cousin.
Dick smiled in her direction. “I’m delighted to see that at least one first year knows how to show reverence and ask a question appropriately. Yes, Denise.”
“What ensues if none of the pairs pass a challenge?” Denise asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Hilarity."
“Outstanding question Denise. In that eventuality we will hold an auction and you will each be sold into one month’s slavery to the highest bidder,” Dick answered as he looked toward Emily salivating.
So Dick the dick is a pervert but the honest-to-goodness adult TVTropes tells me she later hooks up with is perfectly fine.
... yeah, I hate this fic.
Janice raised her hand.
“So good to see you’re all learning,” Dick said smugly.
“What exactly must a slave do?” she asked, worried.
“Anything they are told to do,” Dick quickly replied.
No shit, Sherlock.
“I have a question for Bancroft,” Emily said without raising her hand. “I heard that many of the challenges are of a sexual nature. Is that because Salazar Slytherin was a dirty old man or because you’re a pervert?”
Emily is a pureblood who grew up with her wizarding parents and her equally wizarding adopted parents, so knowing who Salazar Slytherin was when Harry had to be told in his second year isn't the inconsistency it appears at first glance. An eleven-year-old talking so frankly about sex and perversion to people she barely knows is less plausible, but it's about what we've come to expect from this author. I guess he thinks it makes his sexualisation of the characters less creepy. Protip: it really doesn't. In fact, it makes it even worse.
“That’s it!” Bancroft shouted. “It’s time you were put in your place, bitch.”
You know he's a baddie because he swears. In fact, having characters swear every other word is one of the very few darkfic clichés that Hogwarts Exposed avoids.
Emily was caught off guard and didn’t see Dick reach for his wand. Fortunately, Kim had been expecting foul play from Bancroft and was holding her wand. The moment Bancroft moved, Kim jumped in front of Emily and shouted, “Repercitio!” just an instant before Dick shouted his own curse.
Ladies and gentlemen, the girl who would have fucking killed herself if not for Saint Emily. Consistent characterisation would obviously get in the way of artistic integrity.
The shied lasted only a few seconds, but that was enough to reflect the curse and send it rebounding back to its originator. The whole room was astonished. Dick Bancroft the Slytherin tormenter was hanging inverted from the ceiling, his wand on the floor beneath him. The actuality that someone had bested Bancroft with his own curse was unbelievable. This fact that it was accomplished by a timid first year with only three days class training was mind-boggling.
Pointing out how implausible a plot development is doesn't make it any less so. That's straight out of the Nancy Stouffer school of writing.
“I owe you,” Emily said as she gave Kim a hug.
“No you don’t,” Kim said with a smile. “Consider it partial payment of my debt to you.
Very partial payment, as it happens.
But we both owe your sister for teaching us that spell.”
Which as far as the readers are concerned never actually happened. Had there been a scene where Jamie taught Reflect to Emily and Kim, this incident would not appear to come from nowhere. ("Nowhere" being the charitable interpretation.) The author's foreshadowing is either nonexistent or insultingly obvious, hardly ever anything in between.
“Remove that damn smile from your face Burke and get me the hell down from here. And you Thatcher enjoy your little victory because that’s just the first battle. You’ve made a poor choice of a friend in Slytherin and you’ll pay. I’m going to the head of house and report that you attacked an upper classman.”
At which Draco will wonder if he's still in America. They're not called "upper classmen" in the UK; instead they're "seniors" (usually fourth year/Year 10 and up, but usage varies) or "sixth-formers" (sixth and seventh years/Years 12 and 13), although neither term seems to be used at Hogwarts where students are just identified by their year group.
Actually, come to think of it, who are the Slytherin prefects in this story?
“You actually are as stupid as you look, aren’t you Dick?” Doris said. “Forget it! She bested you. Let it go. Finite Incantatum.”
Nothing happened because she said the spell wrong, and Dick the dick remained on the ceiling for the rest of the story.