Chapter 16: Godric's Hollow.
Chapter 16: Godric's Hollow.
Sorry about doing Chapter 18 "The Life and Lies of Albus D" out of chronological order. I'll soon do Chapter 17 too and put links in each post to make matters clearer.
Note: I know Elkin's site "Overanalyzing The Text" [archives from HPFGU]; jodel_from_aol's from Red Hen Publications collection of essays and Dan Hemmens from The Ferretbrain . Does anybody know other sources of good HP meta\fic authors?
* To remind where we're - the previous chapter ended with Ron leaving.
* After Apparating to a different place, Hermione broke down sobbing, so Harry had to cast the protecting spells himself for the first time. I was surprised he could do it. The kids don't seem to study such things at school & Hermione supposedly cast them nonverbally. May be I had too low opinion of Harry's competence.
* The next few days Hermione keeps silently crying at nights (interesting how significantly less she'd suffer if not for being in love with Ron), while Harry's reaction is of hurt and anger. He keeps dwelling on Ron's sharp rebuke ("we thought you had a real plan!") and is sometimes unsure whether he is angrier with Ron or with D.
Hee, it returns me to the old game of anger pinball in OoTF & the fans being confused whom Harry hated more in the end. Apparently Harry is still confused too. Has he sorted it out by the epilogue or has the mystery stayed intact? I know he's forgiven Snape & D by then, but I can't imagine Auror!Harry without any new enemies to hate.
* The hell has frozen over - Harry's new hobby is looking at Ginny's name on the Marauder's Map at night. H\D fans can only sign wistfully, remembering the good old days of HBP when Harry looked at Draco day & night, while H\G shippers die of squee.
* Sorry, imo they can't quite die yet. Harry originally brought out the Map to search for Ron's dot in the castle. Only after several days, when Ron didn't appear, his attention switched to Ginny.
* I start getting weariful of incessant reminders that D left them with no clues. The readers know that already! That's why we're stuck in the camping trip.
* After discussing the whereabouts of Gryffindor's sword for days without any results, Harry and Hermione's silent evenings are revived only by Phineas's visits (I bet on Snape's request). It's like JKR decided to create more Slytherin fans: when you're that bored, any diversion is a blessing.
* Hermione keeps Phineas blindfolded to prevent him from discovering their location, yet he wouldn't see anything except the inside of the tent anyway. Probably another comic relief and (or by) Slytherin shaming moment.
* Phineas revealed Snape had reinstated Umbridge's decree forbidding gatherings of more than 3 students and Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade (!!!).
* Now I wonder whether the ban was not so much a punishment as an attempt to prevent Ginny from bringing the twins' "joke" products into the school.
* Prior to buying DH I was wrongly spoiled Snape was evil. However, Ginny's punishments made me almost sure of the opposite. JKR cleverly leads younger readers to see Snape following in Umbridge's footsteps here, while older fans would get a hint of his innocence. "Cleverly", if she intended it, of course.
* Loved the following excerpt:
"as Phineas Nigellus talked about Snape's crackdown, Harry experienced a split second of madness when he imagined simply going back to school to join the destabilization of Snape's regime: Being fed, a having a soft bed, and other people being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at that moment. But then he remembered that he was Undesirable Number One…"
It’s very realistic imo. The underlined sentence demonstrates why for all its’ supposed darkness OoTF was children’s book. It’s also pretty ironic - Harry dreams of Snape other people being in charge, while he’ll work so they won’t be any longer. (I understand he wants to see D-like people in charge, but still). I was even surprised his dream was interrupted by remembering the Undesirable Status instead of imagining attacking D’s killer the moment Harry saw him, making it impossible to enjoy a soft bed even once.
* Harry & Hermione meander up and down the country, staying in various unwelcoming places, suffering being flooded with chill water, the tent half buried in snow, etc. instead of settling in one nice place. Does anybody know enough statistics to compute mathematically whether the strategy reduces the chance of discovery compared to staying in one discreet place? [Assuming the possibilities of DEs coming to any of those places are equal and they access them randomly.] Harry Potter and math. I seem to have a talent for ruining the mood, especially for fans still in school. LOL!
* Near Christmas Hermione is still busy deciphering “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” and asks Harry whether he’s ever seen a mysterious symbol [“a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line”] before. He tells about Krum seeing it on a wall at Durmstrang, supposedly put by Grindelwald. The exchange reminds readers of Krum’s story & hints Krum was mistaken by viewing the symbol as one of Dark Magic: [Harry] “you’d think Scrimgeour would have recognized it. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff”. That’s like saying: “Bush was Minister, he ought to differentiate between flour and white powder with anthrax spores”. I would expect Scrimgeour to know a lot about Dark Arts too, but due to being an Auror before becoming Minister. A typo?
* Hermione agreed with Harry’s suggestion to visit Godric’s Hollow (he even offered taking a few hours’ break from wearing the Horcrux to make her more persuadable). Love how she told she couldn’t think of anywhere else it could be either and “looked just as bewildered as he felt” when Harry didn’t understand she referred to the sword. Pity she didn’t ask what he wanted to go there for then. If you wonder, “for him, the lure of the village lay in his parents’ graves, (their) house… and in the person of Bathilda Bagshot” (he doesn’t believe she has the sword, leaving only the desire to question her about D’s past).
* Afterwards he’s astonished Godric’s Hollow is Godric’s Gryffindor birthplace. Hermione even tells: “Well, as the village is named after him I’d have thought you might have made the connection”. I was probably right in my evaluation of Harry’s abilities, after all.
* Hermione becomes more and more absorbed by the idea, finally arriving to the completely baseless conclusion that D entrusted the sword to Bathilda. Her theories in the previous books were much more logical and based on actual clues instead of wild guesses.
For example:
Cos -- Basilisk in the pipes - Petrified people + Hagrid’s roosters missing + Harry being the only one to hear it + Mourning Myrtle;
PoA -- Werewolf Lupin - being ill every month + Snape’s dislike (?).
Here it’s out of the blue, as if the author didn’t even lead her readers by hand, but rather violently jerked them in the desired direction.
JKR could easily plan that part better. D could leave a hint in his will or in a personal letter or in “The Tales of Beedle the Bard”. The overheard goblins could talk about some superstition, connecting the sword with its’ original owner’s place of birth (and of burial?) or\and mention Bathilda as the only person left in the village with connections to D, the last known owner of the sword. She could have some special, important to Harry knowledge as a historian too.
* Harry doesn’t believe Hermione’s theory, but as it falls in with his “dearest wish”, pretends to be enthusiastic: “Yeah, he [D] might have done!”
* As he goes to sleep, Harry imagines the life he could have if not for Voldemort for half a page, 6 books late in comparison with readers like me, who wanted to see the house and the cemetery since PS. Were you happy JKR showed us those places? The plot wouldn’t move quicker anyway, and we have seen something interesting at least.
* Despite planning the visit for a week [practicing Apparating together under the cloak, stealing hairs from a Muggle couple for Polyjuice Potion], Hermione didn’t consider leaving prints on the snow until after Apparating to the spot, so they had to take off the cloak and rely on the Potion alone. It is even better than when the Trio planned entering the Ministry for a month and Ron didn’t think navy blue robes of Magical Maintenance workers mattered enough to mention. The evidence fake Moody gave Harry & Hermione an undeserved compliment about having the potential to become good Aurors continues to mount up.
* Harry tried to remember any of the cottages, knowing it was impossible since he was little more than a year old. Well, he did remember Sirius’s motorbike, so…
* As they passed the war memorial in the village’s square, it transformed from an obelisk covered in names to a statue of 3 people: baby Harry and his parents. Some fans were disgusted by it, probably viewing the statue as the embodiment of the Chosen few concept in stone. The idea is presented on many levels: from Ollivander the Chosen Wandmaker to Harry being the only one to vanish Voldemort, encompassing everything Good People do as good by definition. Instead of millions of killed in the Second World War, we get 3 people. What was your reaction? If you didn’t like the statue, was it because of the mentioned above reason, simply because of JKR going overboard with Harry praise or due to something else?
* Personally, I didn’t pay special attention on the first read and afterwards couldn’t start disliking it, not when it inspired wonderful fan art, like:
Godric's Hollow by Efyor
AND
Godric's Hollow by ~sandelwood
* They enter the graveyard behind the small church, full of people celebrating Christmas [pay attention to the sharp contrast between celebrating the Savior’s birth and visiting Lily’s, who made the sacrifice 17 years ago, grave].
Harry spends half a page angsting over Kendra & Ariana’s grave. He “couldn’t help thinking that he and D both had deep roots in this graveyard”, yet D “had never thought to share the connection”. Harry imagined “what a bond that would have been”. Is it me or do the quoted passages sound false and un-Harry-like? For some reason, the expression “deep roots” just kills me. Is it a strange expression or does it sound normal in English?
When Harry angsts that to D their families being buried in the same graveyard “had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant”, am I supposed to be angry at D for that, instead of thinking “yes, it’s completely irrelevant”? It’s not like D’s dead relatives knew Harry’s parents. They died long before James and Lily were born. Hell, they died long before Voldemort was born. In my estimation, they most likely died prior to birth of Voldemort’s mother! I just tried to think how Harry’s feelings would look like in RL and don’t understand where he gets them from, except for plot purposes.
* Characteristically Harry doesn’t blame himself for the briefest moment for never telling D of his desire to visit his parents’ graves, never desiring it in the first place. Somehow it’s all D’s fault for not springing out of nowhere “And today we’ll visit your parents’ graves instead of learning more about Voldemort’s origins. And I’ll show you my relatives’ graves too”.
I know JKR wants Harry to angst here, but he could do it just as well about never asking D and losing the opportunity forever now, when D is dead too. It would be much more realistic and having the hero blaming himself for a change.
* Besides, had D done what Harry wishes for here, it wouldn’t have been a wonderful bond. Were Harry to hear the unedited, not saccharine-made story of D’s life, he would be disgusted, angry at D for telling his such “indecent” things without being asked [I can easily imagine Harry asking & then being angry at D for not knowing better than to tell him such details], probably comparing his desire to leave the place with the urge to escape from another graveyard in GoF.
* Kendra & Ariana’s grave bears a quotation:
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"
la_cruz, a Christian woman who lives in Russia, wrote in her post [translation below]:
Слова, написанные на могиле в Годриковой Лощине: где сокровище ваше, там будет и сердце ваше. В христианской трактовке эти слова ясны: сокровище надо иметь на небесах, в Боге, тогда туда же будет стремиться сердце, и посмертие будет наполнено счастьем.
Translation: From Christian pov the words are clear: your treasure should be in the sky, in God, then your heart will strain after it too, and the afterlife will be filled with happiness.
My translation is that D chose those words to remind himself to strive after truth and real good, instead of the Greater Good.
Note: if somebody knows Russian, la_cruz HP posts are recommended. The quotes were taken from this post. She also writes about her life and Christianity (and its' depiction in HP).
* Hermione finds an extremely old grave with the discussed above triangular mark beneath the nearly illegible name of Ignotus. Exactly 85 pages from now Luna’s father will inform us that “the sign of the Deathly Hallows on Ignotus’s grave is conclusive proof” of his being one of the 3 Peverell brothers, the original owners of the Hallows. If I have understood it right, Ignotus was the younger, wisest brother, who chose the Invisibility Cloak.
* The headstone of Potters was only two rows behind Kendra and Ariana’s. Considering how many years passed between those deaths, the wizards probably have their own part of graveyard, away from Muggles. The village can’t be that small.
* Being as Bible ignorant as Harry, I couldn’t understand what “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” meant either. According to la_cruz [translation below]:
Это из 1-го послания ап.Павла Коринфянам. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (1Co.15:26), в русском переводе - "Последний же враг истребится - смерть..." В контексте речь идет о всеобщем воскресении из мертвых, связанном с Воскресением Христа.
Translation: In the context the sentence refers to the resurrection of the dead, connected with the Resurrection of Christ.
From wiki [in Christianity]: "The term resurrection of the dead is generally used to refer to the idea that the dead bodies of all or some of humanity will be reformed and reanimated at the End Times."
Hermione explains it means "living beyond death. Living after death", which seems to be different from the Christian explanation. It reminds me of soul living beyond death, not body. And not at the End Times, but immediately after death and forever, which seems to happen to all wizards. May be whoever chose the quote meant wizarding version of immortality, not Muggle one, which I quoted.
* I have found some beautiful depictions of the scene:
Godric's Hollow by Chutzpah
Godric's Hollow by Gold-Seven
Silver Doe's Visit by ~PhantomFan
Quoting the artist: "It's Godric's Hollow from Harry Potter, and it's the Silver Doe Patronus of Snape coming to visit Lily's grave."
* I understand Harry pain when Hermione’s words about living after death fail to comfort him. My reaction would be the same.
But they were not living, thought Harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. and tears came before he could stop them…He let them fall… looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.
* Fun fact: when Hermione created a wreath of Christmas roses to lay on the grave, my first thought was: "But what if somebody is watching them?" At the same time I discarded the thought, deeming myself paranoid.
More about Christmas roses.
* The chapter ends with them going towards the exit of the cemetery.