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HBP re-read
Chapter 30: The White Tomb.
* Parents hurrying their children home are understandable, but I get the impression that JKR expects us to hold it against Zacharias Smith. (His father is negatively described as 'haughty-looking' too.) I can't help feeling warmer to Seamus, who decided to stay & pay last respect to D (who was the greatest wizard we have ever met in those books- btw, Snape looks to me quite a great wizard too, anyway, greater than Voldemort from what we have seen), than to 'escorted' home Zacharias, but we shouldn't forget that the war is going on, after DEs invaded Hogwarts parents are frightened & last but not the least: those students didn't have a personal relationship with D unlike Harry or us as readers. When I was at junior high school, I didn't even remember the headmaster's name, saw him very rarely & if my mother came to take me home in such situation, I am afraid that I would cowardly go home like Zacharias.
* "Wizards and witches were pouring into the village, preparing to pay their last respects to D."
Friends and enemies alike, as we will see later. Unlike many members of deathtocapslock, I genuinely felt sorry for D in the last 2 chapters. This sentence reminded me of poor Amelia Bones. V really kills one by one the best wizards & witches of the old (& not) generation. If this trend continues in the next book, my bet is on Snape's death.
* We get a short reminder of M. Maxime/Hagrid subplot, when she throws herself 'into the waiting Hagrid's arms'. Just to show JKR's investment into the romantic aspect of the books, I will start Romance Count in the chapter, where D is buried. RC: 1.
* Here Ginny is described as H's "best source of comfort" (RC: 2), yet in the end of this chapter/book H's heart "lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with R&Hr", who are going to accompany him on the last, most dangerous adventure. Despite JKR going to great lengths to show how Ginny is H's true love and equal (she takes him away from D's body in the previous chapter, nudges him when it's time to leave the Great Hall, shows him the merpeople & Hagrid carrying D's body, Harry 'knew… they understood each other perfectly'), I don't see that. R&Hr are his real best source of comfort here, not Ginny.
* Still can't understand the fandom's claims that Harry's decision to break up with Ginny was unwise, since his only weapon is love & he needs as much of it as he can get.
* It doesn't help that Ginny 'sighed' later talking about having to cope with that French bitch, who loves Bill despite the horrible injury and was ready to marry him before knowing the effect of werewolf's bites in the previous chapter.(RC: 3) Despite Fleur's nobility and true love Ginny won't stand even very mild defending of her [H says 'not that bad', when more accurate description would be 'very good'] and giggles when Harry 'hastily' proceeds to calling Fleur 'ugly', intimidated by his ''true love'' 's raised eyebrows [how cowardly of him]. Btw, is 'not that bad' the best you can defend true love, Harry, or are you frightened of your girlfriend even before her raising eyebrows?
May be, I take it too far, but if Harry needs the ability to sympathize & love in order to defeat V, he needs to back away slowly run as quickly as possible from his 'true love and equal'.
* Once again JKR tries to convey the feeling of a terrible war going on with 'forced toughness' in Ron's voice, when he asks Hermione: "Anyone else we know died?". Are we supposed to imagine long lists of murdered people appearing in each new edition of 'The Daily Prophet'? Personally, despite DE's invasion, D's murder & the throwaway references to the war in this book, I still don't get we-are-in-the-middle-of-terrible-war feeling. Instead, it seems more like a more successful variation of V's plan, like in GoF the plan was to gain a body and kill TBHL and only the first part worked & here it was to kill D and Draco and again only the first part has been successful, yet.
* Harry tells that "they won't find Snape till they find V", but is it true? Snape & Draco possibly can hide from Aurors at the Spinner's End as long as they wish or, even better, choose another "Muggle dunghill" (according to Bella) and hide from DEs too (not that I think Snape will do that).
Btw, where is V? Is there no way to find the location? I suspect D somehow found that out from Snape (even if Snape wouldn't be able to tell the location himself, like Snape not being the Secret Keeper of the Order's Headquarters was a reason not to tell the location to V). Sure the greatest wizard in the world would find a way? May be he did & not gave this information to Harry, since V has to be attacked after Horcruxes' destruction. This way D's portrait will assist Harry to find V's lair without Snape's help.
* Ha! JKR sends Ginny to bed Ginny becomes sleepy as soon as the relationship talk with Fleur abuse ends and the conversation switches to the war & Snape. Coincidence? You decide.
* Interesting why Hermione raised the topic of Snape's mother owning once the HBP's book "the moment the door had closed behind" Ginny and not when she was still there. It's not a secret (unlike Horcruxes), so I am forced to conclude that either she is as intimated by Ginny as Harry (& more than she is by Harry) or that JKR just is against mentioning Ginny near anything of importance, since she has no place in Harry's final journey.
* "He did not feel… excited, curious, burning to get to the bottom of a mystery; he simply knew that the task… had to be completed before he could move a little further along the dark and winding path".
Interesting which Harry would most readers prefer: 'excited' or 'dark & purposeful' version? The idea of the whole book of not-curious-but-determined Harry (potentially even worse than OoTF-CAPSLOCK-Harry), while not unrealistic, just fills me with dread. JKR managed to write curious Harry before when the cost was high too, f.e. CoS (I know that he grew up, the cost is higher now, etc.).Hopefully, he will overcome D's death as quickly as Sirius's and be determined-and-curious in the next book (the wedding will surely raise his spirits).
* When and how will Harry get the idea that R.A.B can be Sirius's brother? Hermione not finding anything is understandable, after all, Sirius talked in length about his family with Harry, not her, and Regulus doesn't appear in any book. They will probably visit num.12,
* I got reminded of "D's inexcusable trust in Snape" so many times that this interesting in itself subject started to bore me immensely. It would better be worth of all those tiresome hints and for a change not connected to Harry's family at all. Sadly, I don't have much hope for that.
* If Snape is really as evil as Harry describes him in S-V comparison, I will be disappointed, not due to being a Snape fan (I am not), but since it will be so easy, simplistic answer for a book, which pretends to tackle the themes of good/evil, redemption, choices versus destiny/fate. Then the answers would be so shallow, easy and above all untrue: the main villain Voldemort was evil since childhood (resembling his relatives and ironically proving Aunt Marge's words- " it all comes down to blood… bad blood will out" ); the mean from the first lesson to Harry teacher, his father's enemy and DE is… (surprise!) evil; Peter was an obvious traitor material since childhood and our hero, Harry, is as heroic as his parents. Even Draco's redemption doesn't help matters here, imo.
* Despite Hermione being a known author's mouthpiece, I don't think her assumption that Snape didn't turn Harry in since D wouldn't 'like very much' to find out Snape's association with the book is right. D certainly wouldn't ' like very much' Snape destroying the image of Harry-the-potions-expert, since Harry had to be in favor with Slughorn to achieve the memory. As for Snape inventing curses at school, taking into account that he is a DE and a DA expert, I would be shocked to see D being surprised by this development.
* 'I should've shown the book to Dumbledore', said Harry.
'All that time he was showing me how Voldemort was evil even when he was at school, and I had proof Snape was, too-'
' "Evil" is a strong word,' said Hermione quietly.
As people say: out of mouths of the babes. Harry accidentally defined the real purpose of those 'lessons'.
As courtaud put it in "The Secret Riddle" discussion at deathtocapslock:
From a literary point of view those are info dumps, but inside the narrative those are brainwashing sessions.
Every single one is hammering in Harry's skull that Tom is bad from the womb, that nothing could be done to change it, and that he can be killed without any trouble for the killer's conscience. He is 'no longer human', after all, but he was very little human from the beginning.
I'd like to strip from those scenes everything that's just Dumbledore's interpretation and look at what's left. Almost nothing, I suspect.
("My first thought was, he lied in every word, that hoary cripple...")
Here Hermione claims that evil is a strong word, talking about Snape, who has just killed D ! I understand that JKR wants to give her readers this message (which btw supports 'good' Snape theory), but is it realistic for Hermione to talk like that? Sistermagpie noted that she likes power and revenge, she punishes Marietta and Rita Skeeter for relatively minor offences with joy, in OoTF in chapter 21 during Umbridge's inspection of Hagrid Hermione whispers: "You hag, you evil hag! I know what you're doing, you awful, twisted, vicious-" & somewhere else Hermione says something like: "If we can not trust D, then whom can we trust?". So, the term 'evil' suits just fine to describe a bureaucrat, who threatens to fire a not competent teacher, but is too severe to apply to D's killer. Am I nitpicking here? It just seems so strange and contradictory. The only explanation is that it's a hint that Snape is D's man, after all.
Another thought: would Hermione say that evil is a strong word to describe Tom Riddle too? Does she say it here or is the message applied only to Snape?
* We get a short mention of Percy, so we won't forget about him completely until the next book and the conclusion of this subplot. Can't say things bode well for him. Something big has to happen to bring the whole Weasley family together and it clearly can't be something good. Won't he visit Bill's wedding then?
* "Snape's place had been unceremoniously filled by Rufus Scrimgeour."
Coincidence? Or a sign that they both are villains? JKR is heavily adverb depended, but here it works fine: even the simple act of sitting creates a negative feeling towards the minister.
* Harry "despised Malfoy still for his infatuation with the Dark Arts, but now the tiniest drop of pity mingled with his dislike".
When has Draco ever been infatuated with the DA? Snape, yes. He was described in OoTF as writing "at least a foot more than his closest neighbors, yet his writing was minuscule and cramped" during his DADA exam & in HBP we saw that he invented curses at school. But, Draco? Should we consider him 'infatuated' for asking his father to buy him this Hand of Glory aged 12 or even 11 yet? I suspect that if twins were taken to B&B's shop, they would want to buy a couple (or more) items too. Hell, Harry on his first visit to the bookshop immediately started searching for a book of curses. Or for using Dumbledore Army's last year's methods in his nefarious plot this year (on which DA got inspiration from DEs, as evidenced by Hermione herself)? Or for jinxing Neville once in one of the earlier books for fun? It was bad, cruel and mean, but it's not the same as being infatuated with the DA.
After this book Harry seems much more interested in the subject than Draco has ever been. Draco jinxed Neville once for fun alone, while Harry did so repeatedly to Grabbe & Goyle for laughing audience, which is much worse imo [+ jinxing Filch-the-squib]. In addition, we have never seen Malfoy being particularly interested in learning even jinxes, let alone DA, while in the beginning of chapter 12 f.e. we see Harry, who hardly can be called academically curious person, reading his Potions book until breakfast on the day of the first Hogsmeade trip (even that isn't enough to move his centre of attention from this book), eager to learn more and attempting non-verbally Levicorpus. Throughout this book we are incessantly showed in great detail Harry's fascination with the staff, until I started wondering whether Harry wouldn't be a much better wizard, if Snape privately taught him DA & other subjects instead of going to Hogwarts (even Potions Harry mastered fine with Snape's help). Cue: such fics. Unfortunately, I don't remember reading any good fic of this kind.
The only question is: doesn't JKR herself see the irony and the strangeness of that sentence? She wrote the books! What about her editors? She brings them so much money that they are afraid to say a critical word, imo. Like in that song:
when I realise
the crazy things we do
It makes me feel ashamed to be alive
It makes me wanna run away and hide
It's all 'bout the money
It's all 'bout the dum dum.......
Also – 'the tiniest drop of pity' when Harry wonders what V is making Draco do 'under threat of killing him and his parents' (after meeting the man)? I understand that Lucius almost caused Ginny's death & Draco's mother contributed to D's and Sirius's deaths. Furthermore, in Harry's place I probably would be even less compassionate. But, if our hero's strength is supposed to be his pure heart, may be 'the tiniest drop' would be better changed into 'some'. Or am I nitpicking again and want unrealistic level of compassion here? D was able to give it, so shouldn't Harry develop it towards the end of his coming of age story too?
* To make this chapter less grim we get the hilarious Pince/Filch pairing. (RC:4)
* Tonks ('her hair miraculously returned to vividest pink') holding hands with Lupin. (RC: 5) Apparently D's death wasn't enough to keep her hair grey for a bit longer (and fandom created theories about Sirius's death, survivor's guilt, etc. Hahaha!), while her boyfriend troubles made her look like a consumptive for a year. Was D that unimportant? Or I just don't get right JKR's intention here?
* Harry feels 'a great rush of affection' for Luna and Neville for risking their lives again, when he accidentally sees them at the funeral. To make matters clear this rush of affection doesn't make Harry spend any time with them, express verbally his appreciation or think about them, when they aren't in front of him.
In general, Harry's feelings are described as consisting of 'rushes': a rush of affection here, rushes of anger and annoyance in OoTF, a rush of lust for Ginny. A realistic effect of his upbringing? Of course, not. Just kidding.
* Umbridge is afraid of Firenze. Since he wasn't one of the centaurs she met in the forest, it seems she is afraid of the species as a result of that encounter. What exactly they have done to her, we will never know. To think about it, may be JKR doesn't know herself. I read a short, wonderful fic dealing with this issue here.
* Grawp is described as 'docile, almost human'. I predict we will meet Hagrid with his younger brother more than once in the next book. I tingle with suspense: will he manage to learn more English words and be described as human without 'almost', for once?
Now I imagine: '' Grawp was tragically murdered in the battle, while he was bravely defending his brother. When Harry and his friends were looking at his horribly savaged body, lying near the 15 killed by him DEs, Ginny said: "Look, Harry. He looks almost human now." "
* Just wanted to say that imo JKR describes the feelings of Harry's grief very realistically throughout this chapter. When he grins remembering 'nitwit' & 'tweak' and afterwards suddenly grasps that D is gone forever & starts weeping, it sounds so sad, true and genuine.
* "Dumbledore said to… keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated…"
So, even when Harry kills Voldemort, we should understand that dark wizards and witches were, are and will always be present and a danger to society, and Harry will have a lot of work in his career as an Auror. Fine.
I once read a fic with an original ending: Harry & his friends won the war and destroyed the 7 Horcruxes. Everybody is celebrating. The last sentence was (as I remember):
"Somewhere Nagini was slithering away, something in the snake told it that the place was dangerous and it was high time to find a new home. So what, if 7 is a magical number? If you settle 8 at a 90 degree angle, you get the sign of infinity. "
A nice twist, isn't it? In this fic the open ending worked perfectly. I will like, if JKR ends her series this way (not that she will).
* A random thought (from this talk about numbers): I bet in the epilogue we will find out that Harry & Ginny got married and had the magical number of children (7, just as the number of V's Horcruxes). As cheesy as it sounds, it will be a nice bit of parallelism (is it the right term?): V failed to achieve immortality by taking lives of 7 other people, while Harry succeeded to do so in a certain sense by giving life to 7 people.
I found 2 nice quotations on this topic:
1) “Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality”
George Santayana quotes (Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism. 1863-1952)
2 ) “Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.”
Peter Ustinov quotes (English actor and writer, b. 1921)
(Harry's and Ginny's parting scene deserves a RC point in its own right. (RC: 6*
"She met Harry's gaze with the same hard, blazing look that he had seen when she had hugged him after winning the Quidditch Cup in his absence…"
I honestly don't understand what emotion exactly this 'hard, blazing look' is supposed to convey. She looks the same both at the celebration party and at D's funeral. Strange, isn't it? The only explanation I can think of is that she looks like that whenever she decides to do something. Then she decided to kiss Harry, literally throwing herself at him, and here she decided to be strong and not weep.
* Ginny 'fiercely' tells that she won't care, if V finds out about their relationship and tries to get to Harry through her. Really? Even if he kills all her relatives (f.e. her mother) along the way? Or are they already in such danger due to Ron being Harry's best friend and her whole family being in OoTF, that her dating Harry doesn't change anything? If she is that 'fierce', what about helping Harry in 'hunting V', as she puts later? <dreads next book filled with Ginny!Sue>
* In stark contrast to most of the fandom, Ginny's I-never-really-gave-up-on-you speech in particular & the whole parting scene in general went in one my ear and out the other (to make myself clear-with all other romances). I always read HP as an adventure story (like LoTR) and had never been interested in shipping (JKR isn't Jane Austen to say the least & imo 6 book's relationship were horribly written, except Bill&Fleur's scene in the hospital wing).
* Harry(trying to smile): "We could've had ages… months… years maybe…"
Ginny(half-laughing): "But you've been too busy lusting after Cho Chang not paying attention to me saving the wizarding world…"
Only now I have noticed the extreme cheesiness of this scene.
Btw, why do people say that those words are hysterically funny? Because Harry didn't pay her any attention before and had been infatuated with Cho for 2 years?
This reminded me of the handsome Riddle. After reading the jokes about this topic at deathtocapslock I went and looked through CoS. 16-year-old Tom appears there too, but he (strangely) isn't described as 'handsome' even once. It works well if you assume that Harry is gay & then was just too young to notice the handsomeness, but since JKR didn't intend to write that, isn't it a strangely funny coincidence?
A question to sistermagpie: When you joke about Harry being gay, you really laugh at JKR's inability to convey well his attraction to girls & at her describing men (Riddle & Draco in one place in GoF, as you noticed) as attractive, forgetting about Harry's point of view and the way it sounds, right? Would you say that based on the books alone Harry gives this impression (not thinking about the author's intention)?
* Hermione sobs into Ron's shoulder, while he is holding her and stroking her hair. (RC: 7)
* The dialogue between Harry & the minister sounds ridiculous outside the fairy-tale (and I thought JKR didn't intend to write a classical fairy-tale here). Harry heroically refuses to tell Scrimgeour the truth & the angry-but-defeated minister is forced to walk away empty-handed. In real life (even in magical world, nay, specially there) the minister would force Harry to tell everything by fair means or foul, which would be extremely easy with magic (as Snape noted Harry still can't keep his mind closed and there is Veritaserum too).
* " 'No-' said Harry quickly; he had not counted on this, he had meant them to understand that he was undertaking this most dangerous journey alone."
Can it sound more fake? Whose help did Harry intend to receive on his lonely journey? Hagrid's? D's brother's? And I am not even sarcastic here. I invite you to write a realistic fic, in which Harry undertakes his last journey completely alone. The challenge: make him stay alive for more than 2 weeks.