Previously on Hogwarts Exposed, there were some courtroom shenanigans, naked photos and some shit about a censor box.
“I wonder what prevented the judge from concluding the hearing this morning?” Ron asked as he studied the breakfast menu.
She was at a My Chemical Romance concert where Gerard Way turned out to be Voldemort and the rest of the band were the Death Dealers, and she had to fly away so she could screw Draco to a Linkin Park song. That kind of thing really puts a squeeze on one's schedule.
“What are you having to eat, Honey?”
Judge Ebony recommends the Count Chocula Blood Surprise.
“Just tea, I can’t even consider food right now,” Samantha responded as she stared sadly out the restaurant window. “What are we going to do if they take Timmy from us?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Ron said forcefully, wishing he actually believed that as strongly as his voice made it sound. “The judge has to see through Malfoy’s lies.”
She does, because the lies are so transparently obvious that she'd have to be a complete idiot not to.
“I’m so frightened,” Sam said, fighting to hold back tears.
Now this is a dramatically appropriate situation for a character to shed tears. She is, after all, a mother threatened with the loss of her young son. If the Hogwarts Exposed cast limited their crying to moments like this rather than bursting into tears every time anything resembling a plot complication threatens to manifest, then the "onion slicing convention" tag wouldn't exist.
“It’s like a terrible dream, but one I can’t wake up from. I miss him so much now, I can’t imagine what it will be like if….” Sam couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
Despite saying them like three lines ago. Continuity errors aside, her reaction to this situation is surprisingly well handled. Especially by the incredibly low standards of Hogwarts Exposed.
“We’ll get him back,” Ron said, praying he was right. “Your testimony will refute the lies Malfoy told and having Harry and Hermione as character witnesses will certainly hold a lot of weight. They’re the most revered witch and wizard in the world, and thank GOD, Tonks is willing to go on the stand and refute Ander’s fabrication.”
Who's Ander? I thought he was called Anders, not that he's going to appear again in the story anyway. And Ron is once again being far more eloquent than he has any business being.
“I like Tonks,” Sam said candidly. “Her being a Metamorphmagus takes a little getting used to, but she has a good heart. It was a blessing that she was there Friday night.”
Ron nodded his head in agreement. “Here come Harry and Hermione,” he said, as the couple entered the hotel restaurant. He motioned for them to join Sam and him.
How did they enter the restaurant? Were they walking, running, flying, Apparating, noclipping, what? This is barely a step up from the kind of "they went into the room" undescriptive tosh you get told off for writing at Key Stage 2, so to see it in something that's written by an adult is just sad.
“Are you nervous about testifying, too?” Sam inquired.
“It must be that,” Hermione answered, reluctant under the circumstances to divulge that she was pregnant and likely suffering from morning sickness.
Hermione has just entered the scene and we're already in her POV.
They had only just placed their breakfast order with the plates when a house elf entered the restaurant with a rucksack of Daily Prophets.
So I guess this was a wizarding hotel restaurant, because I can't picture a house-elf prancing around a Premier Inn. Given that we've had absolutely no description of it either way, it's kind of hard to tell.
When he approached the table, both Ron and Harry purchased a paper, although neither glanced at the front page, laying them aside instead to concentrate on their meals that had just appeared.
And as such, "appeared" is ambiguous: did they simply materialise, Hogwarts style, or did someone bring them whilst they were busy buying their papers? I can probably guess the former, given that the last time we were at a restaurant the author took the opportunity to soapbox about service, but whatever. Anyway, they see what's on the front of the Daily Prophet and are understandably shocked.
“But how?” Harry said, his face now looking as confused as Hermione’s. “No one was on the beach that night with a camera.
“The rain,” Hermione said suddenly realizing what must have happened. “Remember Emily thought she saw lightning and that it was about to shower? The flash was most likely made by a wizardcam.”
Flashback time!
“Somebody must have wished for rain,” Emily answered. “I just saw a flash of lightning. It came from that direction.” Emily pointed toward a group of sand dunes.
“I think you had one too many Cokes today.” Caitlin said, in a joking sort of way. “I didn’t see anything. Besides, the sky is as clear as can be. Look how good you can see those two owls.”
I'm as amazed as you are to see a call-back to eight chapters ago that actually makes sense in a fic that has trouble keeping its continuity straight within a scene.
Harry shook his head in frustration. “Old Bullchip is going to rip us apart.
That assumes that Bullchip is anywhere near as competent as everyone is building him up to be. His unprofessional behaviour and the fact that he doesn't seem to have a clue what his client is actually doing don't support that.
“It gets worse,” Ron said, regretfully, as he finished reading the article on page two of the paper Sam had handed him. “This Rita Skeeter want-to-be is encouraging the Board of Directors to discharge both of you.”
Hogwarts Exposed is far too sleazy and sordid for the real Rita Skeeter, so they had to make do with a substitute. And once again, the governors are inexplicably directors but become governors again later.
“Just because we’re nudists?” Hermione asked, appalled, as she reached for Harry’s paper so she could read the article. When she finished, she slammed the paper down on the table. “I used to think the muggle world was guilty of bigotry, but wizards are worse. Muggles, elves, giants, werewolves and now even naturists; is there any group wizards don’t have a prejudice against?”
You've just answered your own question. Caitlin's filibuster to the contrary, wizards don't seem to be subject to many of the prejudices that the "muggle" world is.
“I know what you mean,” Sam said desolately. “I always loathed the way my grandparents always looked down their noses at everyone as if wizards were better than any other creature on earth and that they were the best of the best because they were purebloods.”
“Then you’re a pureblood?” Hermione asked, rather stunned. “I never would have expected that you….”
And you've just finished going on about how terrible prejudice in the wizarding world is. Nice job.
“I’ll take that as a complement,” Sam said,
A complement to what?
bursting in.
And bursting in where, precisely? She's been sitting at the table this whole time.
“Other than Ron and his family, I find most purebloods have a propensity to be rather full of themselves. That’s why I’m inclined to not publicize that I’m one.”
“But you’re American.” Hermione added. “It’s rare for an American witch or wizard to be pureblood.”
I know,” Sam answered, seemly embarrassed. “That’s why most of my relations act snobbish the way they do. Fortunately, Mom and Dad had a lot of contact with muggles as they grew up and, therefore, didn’t fill my head with any pureblood-wizard superiority baloney.”
I don't think it was ever established that most pureblood families buy into the pureblood supremacy thing. That's more a Death Eater thing. Anyway, this aside is interrupted when Harry sees an advert in the Prophet:
Coming in the December Issue
of Playwizard Magazine. The
unveiling of Hermione Granger.
Finally get to see the sensational
witch as only Harry Potter and her
gynecologist have. Examine every
intimate detail of the most famous
witch of the century. On sale
November 15. Don’t miss out.
Subscribe by calling
(NAK) EDS-LUTS today.
Classy. The Daily Prophet has its moments, but I can't see it carrying that kind of advert. And the wizarding world uses American-style phone numbers for some reason. Despite not even using "fellytones" in the first place.
Hermione looked up from the Daily Prophet, her face as white as the paper on which it was printed. “But how?” she asked in astonishment. “Harry, I would never pose for such pictures.”
“Of course not,” Harry said forcefully, knowing this to be a fact.
Now in a story written by someone with a firm grasp of how dramatic conflict works, he wouldn't know this to be a fact. Did she pose for naughty pictures, he'd be asking himself, and if so why did she hide it from him so he'd find out this way? Perfect drama fuel, completely wasted.
“Perhaps they’re manipulated photographs, your head on another person’s body.”
Her hed iz pastede on yay.
“That only works with muggle photos,” Hermione answered, deep in thought. “If you try that with a wizard photograph, the head has a propensity to float away from the body.” Hermione thought for a moment. “Harry, the pictures must have been taken while we were at Cap d’Adge.”
No shit.
“Obviously,
... even to a Hogwarts Exposed character.
Harry tried to think back. At first, he had difficulty distinguishing one day’s events from the other, sort of like Binn’s goblin wars.
Yes, the holiday that's so wonderful the author had to spend three chapters on it instead of the intended one is exactly like his least favourite school subject.
“The pool area was practically empty that morning,” he remembered.
This is unclear as to whether he's saying it aloud or just thinking it. With very few exceptions, a word that doesn't directly denote speech is a bad dialogue tag.
Then suddenly it came back, “But that pervert was just leaving the pool area headed for the beach,” Harry said, disgustingly.
No he wasn't. He was watching the pool area from the hotel.
“You know, the guy that tried to take close-ups from the rear as the girls exercised.”
Oh right, the other pervert.
“It had to be him,” Hermione said. “Harry, I think he was a wizard.”
“A wizard?” Harry said in amazement as Sam and Ron waited for an explanation.
"A wizard!"
“It makes sense, but how would he know about the concealment charm?” Harry asked.
“Harry’s right,” Sam agreed. “To the normal passerby, you would have appeared to be wearing a swimsuit.”
“That’s just the point,” Hermione elucidated.
This chapter's dialogue tags brought to you by MotS.
“If he was a wizard, then he surely recognized Harry and me. I sincerely doubt he guessed that I was using a concealment charm. He probably just muttered ‘Finite Incantatum’ to remove any charms I might have been using such as an anti-photographic charm.”
So apparently he mispronounced the counterspell in just the right way to act as a counterspell for the concealment charm. Either we have another contrived coincidence, or the author can't spell the incantation that's right there in the books however many times. Either way, Hogwarts Exposed fails.
“Unfortunately, he got to photograph quite a bit more of you than he expected,” Ron said, meaning to be supportive, but not coming off at all like he intended.
How do we know? We don't actually see anyone's reaction to this comment, and are merely told that it didn't come over as he intended. Not even how it didn't come over as he intended.
“I was afraid you two might be thinking something to that effect,” Seamus Finnegan said grimly, having heard Hermione’s comment as he approached the table. “May I join you?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before enlarging the table and adding a chair.
Did he Apparate or something? He's just appeared out of absolutely nowhere.
“You have to,” Seamus said alluding to Ron and Sam. “They need your help, and it gives you a forum to defend yourselves.”
When he goes on to talk directly about Ron and Sam, do we really need to be told that his first sentence was alluding to them? It should be clear from context.