Deathly Hallows uberwank: Chapter 29, The Lost Diadem
TITLE CRAWL: It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy. Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth...
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
So, right at the end of the last chapter, that killer badass Neville Longbottom showed up. He is all covered in battle wounds, wearing a tie as a bandana, and has the death sentence on twelve systems, but despite being such a hard nut is happily hugging our intrepid trio with completely undisguised enthusiasm. After this love-fest, Neville takes a little angel dust and the four of them head down the passage behind Ariana's portrait. Ron remarks that he didn't know the tunnel was there; after all, it isn't on the Marauder's Map.
There's a point. Harry knew about the resistance movement at Hogwarts, didn't he? At least, Luna will have told him a fair bit over that month they spent at Shell Cottage. And since before Christmas Harry's been fwapping over Ginny's dot on the Marauder's Map every five minutes in an attempt on JKR's part to show me that they have a twu wuv. You'd think, since they are not at Hogwarts themselves, he might have sent the map to Ginny/Neville/Luna?
Wanker.
As they make their way down the passage, Neville first asks them what they've been up to - at one point, he says, "People have been saying you've just been on the run, Harry, but I don't think so. I think you've been up to something", which makes my heart ache; the faith Neville has in Harry! The painful irony in what he just said! Neville, Harry's been camping! Following this, he fills them in on what's been happening at the Hogwarts end. It boils down to the following:
Seriously. He has taken repeated beatings and torture. Despite this, he has formed, co-ordinated and led an underground resistance movement. Even after the other leaders (Ginny and Luna) were out of the picture, Neville carried on fighting. He used the fake galleons from OotP to communicate with other rebels, something that didn't seem to occur to the trio (in the Ministry, for example). He seems to have a good idea of how to rally the troops - he says that Michael Corner was tortured and he (Neville) "couldn't ask others to go through what Michael did", so he changed tactics. Not only have they been resisting by explicitly refusing to do what they are told, they've been releasing prisoners, and, in addition, been daubing the walls of the castle with revolutionary slogans, like "Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting" and "Hasta la Victoria Siempre".
And, in the meantime, what was Harry "The Boy Who Lived" Potter doing?
Soon, they arrive at Hogwarts, and emerge straight into a room which we will soon discover is the room of requirement. It is filled with hammocks and bookcases and stuff like that; additionally, there are banners up for three of the Hogwarts houses, but not the fourth. I bet you can't guess which one is missing. Oh, that's right, that would be Slytherin! Because including even one Slytherin in the rebellion is apparently too much like adding complexity. I don't get why there couldn't be just one or two - from a year other than Harry's, perhaps, so they wouldn't even need to be people we'd met before, they could be whoever. It wouldn't matter much in the grand scheme of things - it wouldn't affect the plot, really - but it would lend weight to the idea that the upcoming battle is an actual battle in an actual war that actually matters, rather than merely a Harry Potter Popularity-Fest.
For the time being, at least, a Harry Potter Popularity-Fest is exactly what this is, as the assembled crowds inside the room rush forth to pat Harry and glomp him and generally worship his greatness. All your favourite characters are there, as are many you won't remember or sort of remember from OotP or somewhere. Everyone begs Harry and his Crew for tales from the battlefield, little knowing that this battlefield was a campsite. They seem to be labouring under the impression Harry is there to lead them into some kind of badass showdown, whereas Harry just wants to figure out what the Ravenclaw horcrux is and GTFO as soon as he can.
For the benefit of the trio, and for us, Neville explains that it was just him hiding in the room to start with, but then a bunch of other people turned up and the room expanded to fit them in. Also, as long as you tell the room not to let you be found, it will hide you for as long as you like. Some of this explanation is provided by Seamus (for it is he), who finishes with "Neville's the man!" Yes, Seamus. Neville is totally the man.
The assembled crowd start to ask some awkward questions about, if the thing where they released a dragon is true... why did they break into Gringotts? Voldemort, sensing that Harry could do with a diversion, makes Harry's mobile phone ring hits him up with a vision. From this, we learn that Voldemort knows the ring horcrux - which, you will remember, was hidden in a ruined shack - is gone. He is angry and stuff.
Harry comes back to the main screen and explains to his crowd of homies that they need to do something, but they can't say what, and then they need to GTFO. The homies are disappointed. And, I have to say, why can't Harry tell this lot what the mission from Dumbledore is? Haven't we spent this book learning that Dumbledore was fallible? Neville even tears Harry a new one, pointing out that in Harry's absence, they kept Dumbledore's Army going, proved their loyalty to Harry and his Crew, kept fighting and so on. Here they all are, ready and willing and eager to fight, and Harry isn't interested. I get the feeling they've spent the year looking forward to this moment, listening to Potterwatch and dreaming of the time that Harry will return and lead them into battle, and it turns out he's rubbish. There's more than a hint of "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" about it, or something similar, anyway. Actually, maybe it's more like the time I met Philip Pullman, one of my idols, and he was kind of rude.
As this argument is kicking off, the tension is broken slightly by the arrival of Luna and Dean, and shortly after this, Ginny, Fred, George, Lee Jordan, and then Cho Chang right after that. Ginny smiles at Harry, and we learn that he had either forgotten how "beautiful" she is or had never truly appreciated it in the first place, but "had never been less pleased to see her". That, to me, sums up their canon relationship: you're beautiful, but I don't want you by my side in times of trouble. Later, he supports Molly in insisting that Ginny doesn't fight in the battle. I think we are supposed to assume that he feels this way because he loves her so much and doesn't want her hurt, which is fine, except that what I actually take from the text is that he doesn't think she's capable of being any help. After all, Luna is the same age and she fights; Harry doesn't insist that Hermione or Ron (his patronus Happy Thought, remember) stay out of the battle.
The growing crowds are pissed off about not being told what's going on, so Harry compromises. First he calls for attention, in doing so silencing Fred and George, "who had been cracking jokes for the benefit of those nearest". I'm so glad I never had to work in an office with Fred or George. They'd be the tosspots with the sign reading "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps!" who make unfunny remarks throughout staff meetings, crack jokes while you're trying to talk to them about serious business, insist on observing comic relief, and refuse to shut the fuck up and act like a fucking adult for a fucking second. Yeah, so Harry gets the attention of the class and makes a deal: they can help him find the big important thing that he is looking for, that is probably something significant or some kind of relic connected with Ravenclaw, and that will help them all to bring Voldemort down. He isn't going to tell them what this big important Voldemort-destroying thing actually is (i.e. that it's a horcrux, a piece of Voldemort's soul), but don't worry about that.
Luna suggests it might be the lost diadem of Ravenclaw, and of course she turns out to be right, although we don't find that out for a bit. The other Ravenclaws take the piss out of her, given that the diadem is meant to have vanished with Rowena Ravenclaw herself, like a thousand years ago. Am I the only person bothered by the alliterative names of the Hogwarts founders? They've always struck me as a bit... nursery-school, I guess. (I was also planning on sporking "Rowena" as being too modern a name, but I've just looked it up and it dates from the 12th century, possibly earlier, so frankly I am talking bollocks. I sometimes get so wrapped up in yelling at Ginny Weasley for being a useless n00b that I forget that JKR does actually know her mythology and all that, for the most part.)
So. Given that the diadem has been lost for around a thousand years, Harry begins to feel that perhaps it isn't the horcrux after all; nevertheless, Cho points out that the statue of Ravenclaw in the common room is wearing it, and she can show Harry if he wants. Ginny, who is Harry's soulmate, spits like a cat, pins Cho to the ground and scratches her eyes out. Ah, the power of love. (If you've played Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you know when wolf!Link rips out a poe soul? It's like that.)
Actually, this is maybe a good time for a tangent about Harry/Ginny and their version of love. Back in chapter 24 I talked about how Dumbledore defined love as being inextricably tied up with grief, and how grief is something Harry and Ginny haven't really shared, which is one of the reasons I have trouble buying their relationship as one of soulmates, etc. I got thinking, and realised that there is one thing that Harry and Ginny share, perhaps in lieu of grief, and that's jealousy, or possessiveness. Harry first realises he likes Ginny in HBP when he sees her kissing someone else; Ginny, as we have seen repeatedly, takes badly to anyone showing any kind of interest in Harry, even friendliness, and even when that person is, what, ten years old.
Overall, I find it interesting that the concept of love is one of the sites where what JKR says and what she actually implies with her writing are at odds. (Another one is humour, and another is to do with her treatment of women characters). Dumbledore, who in some ways acts as JKR's mouthpiece through the books (although he isn't the only one, of course), defines love as being about grief and loss. However, when JKR writes relationships, one of the things that seems to underlie almost every supposedly successful, lasting relationship she writes is jealousy. It's not just in Harry/Ginny; Ron is jealous when Hermione writes to Krum, and in turn Hermione is jealous of Ron's short-lived fling with Lavender - so jealous, in fact, that she attacks him physically.
I should probably make it clear that I don't think jealousy is completely abnormal within a passionate relationship - in fact, when you're head over heels, a little jealousy of that kind is natural, even if it's not always healthy. But in every case here, the couples in question aren't even together when we see them getting jealous. In fact, the only case where the couple are together that I can think of is in OotP when Cho storms out of the cafe - but given that they're supposed to be on a date, it's Valentine's day, and he tells her he's off to meet up with another girl, I'd say Cho's jealousy is about the most rational instance of it in the books.
Anyway, due to Cho's untimely death (no Bothans, since she doesn't actually die) at the hands of Ginny, it's Luna who shows Harry to the Ravenclaw common room. The room of requirement provides a staircase which spits them out somewhere random each time - those wacky wizards! - this time starting them on the fifth floor. Under the Mary Sue Cloaking Device, they make their way to the common room entrance, which is guarded by a door which is a hippy. Seriously. In order to get past the door you don't need to give it a password; instead, it asks you a meaningless question and you give it some bullshit back and if it deems the bullshit you offer to be worthy bullshit, it lets you in. In this case, it asks whether the phoenix or the flame came first - to which Luna gives the utterly pointless response that "a circle has no beginning" which means nothing whatsoever and makes me angry. I guess this is just a reframing of the old "chicken and the egg" question, except that it's obvious that the egg came first, because egg-laying reptiles evolved before birds, so it's a really dumb question. Luna explains that this is how they roll in Ravenclaw: if you can't produce bullshit of a high enough quality, you just have to wait for someone else to show up and bail you out, "so that you learn". I don't think that allows you to learn, I think it teaches you that you can ride off others if you're prepared to wait long enough, but anyway.
Ugh, so, their bullshit is sufficient and in they go; they examine the statue of Ravenclaw herself, which is wearing a tiara "not unlike" Fleur's wedding one. Was Fleur's wedding tiara supposed to be a red herring or what? Because it sort of gets mentioned in the context of horcruxes a couple of times, as if we're supposed to think it's the horcrux, but then it isn't, and it isn't really important, it's just another tiara that is in this book. Huh.
Finally, the chapter ends as Harry steps out from under the cloaking device, and the female Carrow sibling is there and she summons Voldemort by pressing her dark mark. Man, I know what that means and you know what that means, so why do I feel the urge to apologise for making a dirty joke? Ugh, I am twelve. Yeah, so we have a cliffhanger! I think pretty much every chapter from now on, except the last one that isn't the epilogue and the epilogue itself, ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, but their impact is diminished given that everyone in the entire world read this book in a single session, fuelled by coffee and sweets. Didn't they?
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- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
So, right at the end of the last chapter, that killer badass Neville Longbottom showed up. He is all covered in battle wounds, wearing a tie as a bandana, and has the death sentence on twelve systems, but despite being such a hard nut is happily hugging our intrepid trio with completely undisguised enthusiasm. After this love-fest, Neville takes a little angel dust and the four of them head down the passage behind Ariana's portrait. Ron remarks that he didn't know the tunnel was there; after all, it isn't on the Marauder's Map.
There's a point. Harry knew about the resistance movement at Hogwarts, didn't he? At least, Luna will have told him a fair bit over that month they spent at Shell Cottage. And since before Christmas Harry's been fwapping over Ginny's dot on the Marauder's Map every five minutes in an attempt on JKR's part to show me that they have a twu wuv. You'd think, since they are not at Hogwarts themselves, he might have sent the map to Ginny/Neville/Luna?
Wanker.
As they make their way down the passage, Neville first asks them what they've been up to - at one point, he says, "People have been saying you've just been on the run, Harry, but I don't think so. I think you've been up to something", which makes my heart ache; the faith Neville has in Harry! The painful irony in what he just said! Neville, Harry's been camping! Following this, he fills them in on what's been happening at the Hogwarts end. It boils down to the following:
- Neville Longbottom is a badass.
Seriously. He has taken repeated beatings and torture. Despite this, he has formed, co-ordinated and led an underground resistance movement. Even after the other leaders (Ginny and Luna) were out of the picture, Neville carried on fighting. He used the fake galleons from OotP to communicate with other rebels, something that didn't seem to occur to the trio (in the Ministry, for example). He seems to have a good idea of how to rally the troops - he says that Michael Corner was tortured and he (Neville) "couldn't ask others to go through what Michael did", so he changed tactics. Not only have they been resisting by explicitly refusing to do what they are told, they've been releasing prisoners, and, in addition, been daubing the walls of the castle with revolutionary slogans, like "Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting" and "Hasta la Victoria Siempre".
And, in the meantime, what was Harry "The Boy Who Lived" Potter doing?
- Fucking up a visit to a graveyard.
- Camping.
- Robbing a bank.
- Jumping in a pond in winter with no clothes on.
- Fwapping.
Soon, they arrive at Hogwarts, and emerge straight into a room which we will soon discover is the room of requirement. It is filled with hammocks and bookcases and stuff like that; additionally, there are banners up for three of the Hogwarts houses, but not the fourth. I bet you can't guess which one is missing. Oh, that's right, that would be Slytherin! Because including even one Slytherin in the rebellion is apparently too much like adding complexity. I don't get why there couldn't be just one or two - from a year other than Harry's, perhaps, so they wouldn't even need to be people we'd met before, they could be whoever. It wouldn't matter much in the grand scheme of things - it wouldn't affect the plot, really - but it would lend weight to the idea that the upcoming battle is an actual battle in an actual war that actually matters, rather than merely a Harry Potter Popularity-Fest.
For the time being, at least, a Harry Potter Popularity-Fest is exactly what this is, as the assembled crowds inside the room rush forth to pat Harry and glomp him and generally worship his greatness. All your favourite characters are there, as are many you won't remember or sort of remember from OotP or somewhere. Everyone begs Harry and his Crew for tales from the battlefield, little knowing that this battlefield was a campsite. They seem to be labouring under the impression Harry is there to lead them into some kind of badass showdown, whereas Harry just wants to figure out what the Ravenclaw horcrux is and GTFO as soon as he can.
For the benefit of the trio, and for us, Neville explains that it was just him hiding in the room to start with, but then a bunch of other people turned up and the room expanded to fit them in. Also, as long as you tell the room not to let you be found, it will hide you for as long as you like. Some of this explanation is provided by Seamus (for it is he), who finishes with "Neville's the man!" Yes, Seamus. Neville is totally the man.
The assembled crowd start to ask some awkward questions about, if the thing where they released a dragon is true... why did they break into Gringotts? Voldemort, sensing that Harry could do with a diversion, makes Harry's mobile phone ring hits him up with a vision. From this, we learn that Voldemort knows the ring horcrux - which, you will remember, was hidden in a ruined shack - is gone. He is angry and stuff.
Harry comes back to the main screen and explains to his crowd of homies that they need to do something, but they can't say what, and then they need to GTFO. The homies are disappointed. And, I have to say, why can't Harry tell this lot what the mission from Dumbledore is? Haven't we spent this book learning that Dumbledore was fallible? Neville even tears Harry a new one, pointing out that in Harry's absence, they kept Dumbledore's Army going, proved their loyalty to Harry and his Crew, kept fighting and so on. Here they all are, ready and willing and eager to fight, and Harry isn't interested. I get the feeling they've spent the year looking forward to this moment, listening to Potterwatch and dreaming of the time that Harry will return and lead them into battle, and it turns out he's rubbish. There's more than a hint of "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" about it, or something similar, anyway. Actually, maybe it's more like the time I met Philip Pullman, one of my idols, and he was kind of rude.
As this argument is kicking off, the tension is broken slightly by the arrival of Luna and Dean, and shortly after this, Ginny, Fred, George, Lee Jordan, and then Cho Chang right after that. Ginny smiles at Harry, and we learn that he had either forgotten how "beautiful" she is or had never truly appreciated it in the first place, but "had never been less pleased to see her". That, to me, sums up their canon relationship: you're beautiful, but I don't want you by my side in times of trouble. Later, he supports Molly in insisting that Ginny doesn't fight in the battle. I think we are supposed to assume that he feels this way because he loves her so much and doesn't want her hurt, which is fine, except that what I actually take from the text is that he doesn't think she's capable of being any help. After all, Luna is the same age and she fights; Harry doesn't insist that Hermione or Ron (his patronus Happy Thought, remember) stay out of the battle.
The growing crowds are pissed off about not being told what's going on, so Harry compromises. First he calls for attention, in doing so silencing Fred and George, "who had been cracking jokes for the benefit of those nearest". I'm so glad I never had to work in an office with Fred or George. They'd be the tosspots with the sign reading "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps!" who make unfunny remarks throughout staff meetings, crack jokes while you're trying to talk to them about serious business, insist on observing comic relief, and refuse to shut the fuck up and act like a fucking adult for a fucking second. Yeah, so Harry gets the attention of the class and makes a deal: they can help him find the big important thing that he is looking for, that is probably something significant or some kind of relic connected with Ravenclaw, and that will help them all to bring Voldemort down. He isn't going to tell them what this big important Voldemort-destroying thing actually is (i.e. that it's a horcrux, a piece of Voldemort's soul), but don't worry about that.
Luna suggests it might be the lost diadem of Ravenclaw, and of course she turns out to be right, although we don't find that out for a bit. The other Ravenclaws take the piss out of her, given that the diadem is meant to have vanished with Rowena Ravenclaw herself, like a thousand years ago. Am I the only person bothered by the alliterative names of the Hogwarts founders? They've always struck me as a bit... nursery-school, I guess. (I was also planning on sporking "Rowena" as being too modern a name, but I've just looked it up and it dates from the 12th century, possibly earlier, so frankly I am talking bollocks. I sometimes get so wrapped up in yelling at Ginny Weasley for being a useless n00b that I forget that JKR does actually know her mythology and all that, for the most part.)
So. Given that the diadem has been lost for around a thousand years, Harry begins to feel that perhaps it isn't the horcrux after all; nevertheless, Cho points out that the statue of Ravenclaw in the common room is wearing it, and she can show Harry if he wants. Ginny, who is Harry's soulmate, spits like a cat, pins Cho to the ground and scratches her eyes out. Ah, the power of love. (If you've played Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you know when wolf!Link rips out a poe soul? It's like that.)
Actually, this is maybe a good time for a tangent about Harry/Ginny and their version of love. Back in chapter 24 I talked about how Dumbledore defined love as being inextricably tied up with grief, and how grief is something Harry and Ginny haven't really shared, which is one of the reasons I have trouble buying their relationship as one of soulmates, etc. I got thinking, and realised that there is one thing that Harry and Ginny share, perhaps in lieu of grief, and that's jealousy, or possessiveness. Harry first realises he likes Ginny in HBP when he sees her kissing someone else; Ginny, as we have seen repeatedly, takes badly to anyone showing any kind of interest in Harry, even friendliness, and even when that person is, what, ten years old.
Overall, I find it interesting that the concept of love is one of the sites where what JKR says and what she actually implies with her writing are at odds. (Another one is humour, and another is to do with her treatment of women characters). Dumbledore, who in some ways acts as JKR's mouthpiece through the books (although he isn't the only one, of course), defines love as being about grief and loss. However, when JKR writes relationships, one of the things that seems to underlie almost every supposedly successful, lasting relationship she writes is jealousy. It's not just in Harry/Ginny; Ron is jealous when Hermione writes to Krum, and in turn Hermione is jealous of Ron's short-lived fling with Lavender - so jealous, in fact, that she attacks him physically.
I should probably make it clear that I don't think jealousy is completely abnormal within a passionate relationship - in fact, when you're head over heels, a little jealousy of that kind is natural, even if it's not always healthy. But in every case here, the couples in question aren't even together when we see them getting jealous. In fact, the only case where the couple are together that I can think of is in OotP when Cho storms out of the cafe - but given that they're supposed to be on a date, it's Valentine's day, and he tells her he's off to meet up with another girl, I'd say Cho's jealousy is about the most rational instance of it in the books.
Anyway, due to Cho's untimely death (no Bothans, since she doesn't actually die) at the hands of Ginny, it's Luna who shows Harry to the Ravenclaw common room. The room of requirement provides a staircase which spits them out somewhere random each time - those wacky wizards! - this time starting them on the fifth floor. Under the Mary Sue Cloaking Device, they make their way to the common room entrance, which is guarded by a door which is a hippy. Seriously. In order to get past the door you don't need to give it a password; instead, it asks you a meaningless question and you give it some bullshit back and if it deems the bullshit you offer to be worthy bullshit, it lets you in. In this case, it asks whether the phoenix or the flame came first - to which Luna gives the utterly pointless response that "a circle has no beginning" which means nothing whatsoever and makes me angry. I guess this is just a reframing of the old "chicken and the egg" question, except that it's obvious that the egg came first, because egg-laying reptiles evolved before birds, so it's a really dumb question. Luna explains that this is how they roll in Ravenclaw: if you can't produce bullshit of a high enough quality, you just have to wait for someone else to show up and bail you out, "so that you learn". I don't think that allows you to learn, I think it teaches you that you can ride off others if you're prepared to wait long enough, but anyway.
Ugh, so, their bullshit is sufficient and in they go; they examine the statue of Ravenclaw herself, which is wearing a tiara "not unlike" Fleur's wedding one. Was Fleur's wedding tiara supposed to be a red herring or what? Because it sort of gets mentioned in the context of horcruxes a couple of times, as if we're supposed to think it's the horcrux, but then it isn't, and it isn't really important, it's just another tiara that is in this book. Huh.
Finally, the chapter ends as Harry steps out from under the cloaking device, and the female Carrow sibling is there and she summons Voldemort by pressing her dark mark. Man, I know what that means and you know what that means, so why do I feel the urge to apologise for making a dirty joke? Ugh, I am twelve. Yeah, so we have a cliffhanger! I think pretty much every chapter from now on, except the last one that isn't the epilogue and the epilogue itself, ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, but their impact is diminished given that everyone in the entire world read this book in a single session, fuelled by coffee and sweets. Didn't they?
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