Chapter Thirty-One -- The Battle of Hogwarts

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

anitaray went off on vacation without sending us Chapter 31. Consequently, erastes sporked it.

***

In which everyone forgets they are wizards from time to time, Hagrid turns into someone else completely and hundreds of children are marched to their death.

Chapter Thirty-One -- The Battle of Hogwarts

The Castle is being evacuated and Minnie is in charge.

Every eye, living and dead was fixed upon Professor McGonagall

Except Harry's of course, as he's looking for Ron and Hermione.

"there was a smattering of applause" as Ernie (who isn't described as pompous [what's going on?]) asks about staying and fighting.

Well, Minerva, I have to say that when it comes to rallying the troops, you rather suck. Smattering? Get Harry to do a speech – I would! Isn't he supposed to be the one they are all fighting for?

"If you are of age, you may stay." said Professor McGonagall.

Hmm. Of Age or not, I'd still want to tell my parents that I'm about to be squished. Obviously Duty of Care does not apply to Hogwarts. And while we are on the subject there's a whole WORLD of Magic out there, and you could have been pretty damned sure that everyone knew that this showdown was going to happen. Why wasn't every wizard in the wizarding world (not just Britain) carrying something like the fake galleons that Hermione invented so they can run to the battle?

"What about our things?" called a girl at the Ravenclaw table. "Our trunks, our owls?" "We have no time to collect possessions." said Professor McGonagall

Of course not, because it's not like you can use MAGIC to summon them, is it?

"The important thing is to get you out of here safely."

And where are you going to send all these kids (some as young as 11) for safety?

Hogsmeade! Of course! Hmm. Shall I list what's actually wrong with this idea? There are several hundred students to the best of our knowledge and with the best will in the world they aren't going to fit into the pub. And if they go outside at night? Caterwauling Charms, Death Eaters and Dementors!

May one say: "Room of Requirement"? "We require a safe place for several hundred scared children."

Why am I not Ruler of this World again?

"Where's Professor Snape?" shouted a girl from the Slytherin table.

Yeah, because no-one else likes Snape at all, in the world, except Slytherins – despite having won the heart of an innocent girl. It makes you wonder, really, in a fanfic way, what he did to the Slythies that was so nice.

Enter Harry! And of course now people aren't watching Minnie.

SNIP! As Voldemort is perfectly reasonable and asks for the head of Alfredo Garcia Harry Potter. By Midnight. Mwahahahahah. If no-one was up before, Voldie, they sure are now. How does this magical tannoy work then? When did Wizards throw their voices like this? Why wasn't it used in the school before? Or was it and I didn't notice?

The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him forever in the glare of thousands of invisible beams.

Aw everyone is smiling at him. They WANT him to die. So do I.

Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he

Who he? The figure?

recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, "But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"

You are a WITCH, Pansy, no-one needs to grab him. Er hello? Wands?

Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement.

Of what? Ew.

The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins.

Why bother with the "not Harry"?

All the school protects Harry. Don't ask me why. Minnie is unimpressed with Pansy.

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson." said Professor McGonagall in a clipped voice. "You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the rest of your House could follow."

gehayi pointed this out to me. I – and many others had always believed that no Slytherins OPTED to fight, however this makes it clear that McGonagall never gave them the opportunity – she threw them out. It's bloody weird, really, isn't it? Considering that Andromeda was in Slytherin. And Regulus. And Phineas. And Sluggy. Who doesn't leave.

SNIP! as all the other children leave to get slaughtered in Hogsmeade and McGonagall completely fails to save Colin Creevey's darling little life. I think I cried over Colin.

Harry isn't hunting Horcruxes, he's lost his brains friends

"Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"Haven't you found -?" began Mr. Weasley, looking worried.

This is the sort of stupid question I get asked at work all the time. If he's looking for them, ergo the hasn't found them.

But he broke off as Kingsley had stepped forward on the raised platform to address those who had remained behind.

Hurrah. Perhaps we'll get a rousing Henry V-style speech now. Go for it Kingsley! Ah, apparently not.

"We've only got half an half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout and McGonagall are going to take groups of fighters up to the three highest towers - Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor - where they'll have good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells.

Arrows might be a good idea, too. Boiling oil. Guns. Hey – why doesn't anyone think of guns?

Meanwhile Remus," he indicated Lupin, "Arthur," he pointed toward Mr. Weasley, sitting at the Gryffindor table, "and I will take groups into the grounds.

Why? Why why why? Better to stay INSIDE, force them into a bottleneck and pick them off one at a time. Oh, forget it. No-one's listening to me. Kingsley sets Gred and Forge to organize the defence of the secret passages.

How does Kingsley know about them? And why isn't Filch invaluable here? He's a Squib, granted, but I'd say that man knows that school as well as the Weasley Brothers.

Harry is still standing around gormlessly and Minnie has to remind him as to what he's supposed to be doing. Spit Spot, Potter, you haven't got all night!

"Potter," said Professor McGonagall, hurrying up to him, as students flooded the platform, jostling for position, receiving instructions, "aren't you supposed to be looking for something?"

"What? Oh," said Harry, "oh yeah!"

He had almost forgotten about the Horcrux, almost forgotten that the battle was being fought so that he could search for it: the inexplicable absence of Ron and Hermione had momentarily driven every other thought from his mind.

*headdesk* Note he's not WORRIED about them. He's just worried that he doesn't know where they are, which isn't at all the same thing.

In fact she has to tell him twice.

He then admits what we've been saying all along. He's missing his brains.

Without Ron and Hermione to help him he could not seem to marshal his ideas.

Voldemort thought I'd go to Ravenclaw Tower.

So why haven't you already done so, dumbo?

SNIP! while he suddenly has the first major thought in the book and wonders if the clue might be a ghost. He has to find Nick and weirdly, Nick tries to hold his hand, which was cute. But … I had to pick my jaw off the FLOOR for this next bit.

"Nick, you've got to help me. Who's the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"

I mean – how long has this moron been at the school? This proves without a shadow of a doubt that the boy has no natural curiosity, no interest in anything that doesn't directly affect him. You see, for the last few books Harry has been banging on about how he's considered Hogwarts his real home (which is crap because of the direct conflict with the Dursleys' house) but he's never bothered to read anything about it, never really even explored it. I always found it utterly unbelievable right from year one that no-one knew where the other common rooms were. How difficult was it to spot people giving passwords to paintings and doors and that sort of thing?

Anyway, it's just stupidity veneered on top of idiocy. The fact that kids don't find out who the ghosts belong to is pathetic, because kids DO that sort of stuff. From day one. I can't imagine the sort of school that JKR went to. /rant

And then, even worse – Nick has to describe her to Harry.

"That's her over there, Harry, the young woman with the long hair."

In case he didn't know what she looked like despite probably seeing her daily for six years. I'm surprised Nick doesn't say something. ANYWAY. Harry runs after her.

She consented to pause, floating a few inches from the ground. Harry supposed that she was beautiful, with her waist-length hair and floor-length cloak, but she also looked haughty and proud. Close in, he recognized her as a ghost he had passed several times in the corridor, but to whom he had never spoken.

HEAD

DESK

Then, in case we hadn't grasped the fact that we've been told ONE PARAGRAPH AGO (or the fact that JKR obviously considers her readers to be utter morons) we get this:

"You're the Grey Lady?"

No. Nick was lying to you, moron-boy.

She nodded but did not speak.

"The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"

"That is correct."

Her tone was not encouraging.

I'm not surprised. She probably heard Nick tell him this once and wondering why he's such a gimp. I wish she'd said "No, that's not me," though. Watching Harry run in circles a bit longer would have been funny.

"You are hardly the first student to covet the diadem." she said disdainfully. "Generations of students have badgered me -"

*snorts *

British alternate term for American vulgar term Beaver.
Badgers have a stripe on the forehead, Beavers or Pussy are parted with a pink stripe i.e. the labia or pussy lips.
One can also go badger baiting!
"Wouldn't mind licking her badger"
Or, "I fancy going badger baiting tonite."

"This isn't about trying to get better marks!" Harry shouted at her,

No shit, Sherlock. Do you think she's as stupid as you? And way to make friends and influence people, Scarhead. Just yell at her until she fesses up.

"You're [Ravenclaw's] daughter?

Will someone explain to me why Hermione doesn't know this please? Oh .. yes, of course. This is another handy deus ex machina, innit? Where's Dobby when you need him?

"While the diadem bestows wisdom," she said with an obvious effort to pull herself together, "I doubt that it would greatly increase you chances of defeating the wizard who calls himself Lord -"

Felix might be handy. Why isn't there some of that around? Am I being unreasonable again?

SNIP!As Harry shouts at The Grey Lady and she fesses up. She stole the diadem and lived in the forest or something, because nothing helps you talk to the trees like a natty tiara. This "tale" is more stupid than the book, actually. And her mother was so desperate to see her daughter again she sent a knife-wielding maniac to find her.

"He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with him, he became violent. The Baron was always a hot-tempered man. Furious at my refusal, jealous of my freedom,

What freedom? And why doesn't the Baron have any? Why are we even interested?

he stabbed me."

Yes, that always says love. Steel through the heart.

"The Baron? You mean -?"

The Red Baron!! Someone call Snoopy!

"The Bloody Baron, yes,"

Curses!

"When he saw what he had done, he was overcome with remorse.

I love you, darlin' I'll never do it again. But seriously why are all these wizards using knives? Why doesn't just ONE person use an Entrail-Expelling curse, I REALLY wanted to see that done.

He took the weapon that had claimed my life, and used it to kill himself. All these centuries later, he wears his chains as an act of penitence ... as he should," she added bitterly.

Chains? Since bloody when? And Jo said that ghosts became ghosts because they were afraid of Death. Guess Mr Mort is going to be haunting Harry for a while then. But killing yourself doesn't equal "afraid of death," I'm afraid.

SNIP! Rowena explains the Albania connection. One plot hole closed out of 2000. Not bad. Then he makes one of his "clever" leaps and realises she must have told Tom.

Yes, Harry thought. Tom Riddle would certainly have understood Helena Ravenclaw's desire to possess fabulous objects to which she had little right.

Other than it was her mother's and would probably have passed to her when Rowena died, which was imminent.

"Well, you weren't the first person Riddle wormed things out of." Harry muttered. "He could be charming when he wanted..."

Harry! You little minx! This one line has just spawned a bazillion Pottermort fanfics. Did you go back into the diary when we didn't see?

So, Voldemort had managed to wheedle the location of the lost diadem out of the Grey Lady. He had traveled to that far-flung forest and retrieved the diadem from its hiding place, perhaps as soon as he left Hogwarts, before he even started work at Borgin and Burkes.

*Glares* That's for those of you who couldn't be arsed to read the last page or two. Shame she didn't do the entire book in this way.

But the diadem, once it became his precious

His PRECIOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...

OK! So all we have to do is find it before Shelob catches us! something awful happens!

CRASH! Hagrid and Grawp have managed to make it through the reinforced charms and protection. Wow. I won't bother to question this as there's no sense to any of this from now on. What am I talking about from NOW on - when DID it make sense?

it was midnight. The battle had begun.

Did it surprise anyone else that Voldemort did the Fair Play thing? Has he been taking lessons from Jas. Hook?

"Blimey, Harry," panted Hagrid, "this is it, eh? Time ter fight?"

Yes, Hagrid. Use that stunning intellect.

"Where're we goin'?" puffed Hagrid, pounding along at Harry's heels, making the floorboards quake.

In a wooden castle?

"I dunno exactly," said Harry, making another random turn, "but Ron and Hermione must be around here somewhere. . . ."

Based on WHAT? He's still looking for R & H when people are dying and he has information that can help stop that?

The first casualties of the battle were already strewn across the passage ahead: The two stone gargoyles that usually guarded the entrance to the staffroom had been smashed apart by a jinx that had sailed through another broken window. Their remains stirred feebly on the floor, and as Harry leapt over one of their disembodied heads, it moaned faintly. "Oh, don't mind me...I'll just lie here and crumble...."

It's OK. Despite the fact that you are sentient statues, Mr dead-from-the-neck up Harry had no intention of minding you. If you were the crumpled body of COLIN CREEVEY he would simply step over you. It's not like he knows a Reparo spell, or anything. But thanks for dying, because you gave him a CLUE!

He knew, at least, where the Horcrux sat waiting for him....

Tom Riddle, who confided in no one and operated alone, might have been arrogant enough to assume that he, and only he, had penetrated the deepest mysteries of Hogwarts Castle. Of course, Dumbledore and Flitwick, those model pupils, had never set foot in that particular place, but he, Harry, had strayed off the beaten track in his time at school – here at least was a secret area he and Voldemort knew, that Dumbledore had never discovered –

Wait, wait, wait... This is assumption on a grand scale, Potter. Gargantuan scale! Model pupils? Only he and VM know about the L-Space? (is there anything original in this book?) And WHERE is he getting all this from? Jesus! Talk about author intrusion. In fact, from this point on, Harry IS JKR. There is no other explanation.

...Professor Sprout, who was thundering past, followed by Neville and half a dozen others, all of them wearing earmuffs and carrying what appeared to be large potted plants.

"Mandrakes!" Neville bellowed at Harry over his shoulder as he ran. "Going to lob them over the walls – they won't like this!"

No - they'll be DEAD, Pomona. Until they use a Silencio of course.

and another death: Hagrid's characterisation. Hagrid runs off after his dog. *rolls eyes* This is HAGRID, Jo. He - although God alone knows why - LOVES Harry. And now, at this perilous moment, he's running off after his dog (who is notoriously cowardly and will find a safe cupboard to sit in) instead of looking after The Boy Wonder.

Harry thunders on and meets up with Alberforth! Oh Hai, Abe! He's here to have a moan. I love Abe.

"I've had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Potter!"

No probs. They'll be dead now, no doubt.

"And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Slytherins hostage? There are kids of Death Eaters you've just sent to safety. Wouldn't it have been a bit smarter to keep 'em here?"

You think that's stupid, Abe? Just read the book and see the other stuff.

"It wouldn't stop Voldemort,"

*sigh* That's NOT the point, Gumby. It might stop his minions, though.

"and your brother would never have done it."

This would be the brother with the Hitler fixation?

Anyhoo. The portable brains rock up, with "things" in their arms, and a broomstick. Which seems random and pointless and...turns out to be random and pointless, as they don't use either of these things again.

SNIP! As Ron and Hermione have the very idea that I had right at the beginning when they were discussing how to kill Horcruxes. Basilisk fangs. Sheesh. They could be useful to kill other things too, yanno. Like flinging them at Death Eaters. Of course they have to explain all this to Harry in words of one syllable because he seems to have forgotten everything about Basilisk fangs. And apparently Ron has turned into a shit hot mimic and that's all it takes to speak Parseltongue. I would head desk again but I'm already concussed. However - when he hisses at Harry...

Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise.

....

....

Warning! Warning! Does not compute! Does not compute! *explodes* The circular logic will kill you. If he's doing it well enough for the chamber to open, then Harry would understand what he said, and he wouldn't hear a "horrible strangled hissing noise"!!! ARGH!

Ron makes small talk.

"So what's new with you?"

They go into the Room of Requirement where there are two Witches (Tonks and Granny Weatherwax Longbottom) who should be out there fighting. Why aren't they?

Also Ginny whose promise has been assassinated by being the Girlfriend who must be protected.

"Is everyone okay?" said Ginny and Tonks together.

"'S far as we care know," said Harry

Apart from the gargoyles, the ominous screams and the trembling castle. Despite the fact that the battle has been going on for about 15 minutes and it's pretty obvious the castle has been breached? No worries, mate! Fergeddaboudit.

SNIP! as the three women rush off to fight, and Ron (sneaky bastard, he should have been in Slytherin) decides to worry about the elves. This (not unnaturally) makes Hermione love him. He's really learned from that book.

Harry does what he does best. Shouts at them.

" Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted.

Never mind it's their first and could be their last kiss, you insensitive git.

"Yeah – right – sorry –" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.

Aw...Pink fangs!

Grawp is roaring his displeasure, which isn't very useful. Go SMASH! Has anyone worked out the point of Grawp yet? Is it like a code, or something?

"Let's hope he steps on some of them!" said Ron as more screams echoed from closeby.

Now this is something that I've been thinking about - the pure blood thirstiness of the kids. Mandrakes are being thrown indiscriminately, Ron wants people squashed. i know that I've been avocating Fiendfyre-ing people, but I'm old and cranky. I'm not 17 and I am not in danger of splitting my soul if I kill someone. gehayi tells me that she read a quote from someone that said that the best way to win a battle was to ensure that even if you lost, your enemies had to become so much like you to win than in essence, you won anyway.

It seems to be happening here, that's for sure.

Ginny turned, helpless, to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Haalp! Haalp!

SNIP! As they leave Penelope Pitstop Ginny out on her own to fend for herself and they open the Room of Crap. Was there some reason they couldn't take her with them?

Draco's here! Hurrah! Some bloody excitement at last. It's hard to tell if he was already in here (impossible, as the room was something else before) or he came in later. Seeing as how Harry couldn't get in when Draco was in working on the cabinet, I really don't know how this works.

[Harry] could not hear Ron or Hermione anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem.

Shouting has always been your friend before, Harry. Or...perhaps you could use Sonorus? Why is it only the reader that remembers this crap?

"So how come you three aren't with Voldemort?" asked Harry.

Way to tell Voldie where you are, idiot boy. The word has a curse on it - TABOO, remember? Bloody hell, I've turned into Hermione.

Harry...could not believe that he was this close, and was going to be thwarted by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Neither can anyone else in the universe.

He began edging slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out...

"So how did you get in here?" he asked, trying to distract them.

"I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year," said Malfoy, his voice brittle. "I know how to get in."

Point One of "Malfoy and Chums are better at magic than Potter™

"We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion Charms now!

Point Two of MACABAMTP™

And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"

Crabbe squashes Ron. Point 3.

Harry heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized wall: He pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, "Finite!" and it steadied.

What rampart? And what's that colon doing there? And is that a proper spell? Isn't it Finite Incantatum?

SNIP! While the Henchmen decide they ain't taking orders from Malfoy no more, and Ron appears not to be squashed.

Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe's curse missed him but hit the stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upward and then dropped out of sight in the mass of objects on which the bust had rested.

Please stop using punctuation you can't understand, Jo. And since when is it a tiara?

"STOP!" Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive –"

Crucio won't kill him, Malfoy. Surely your lickable father told you that?

SNIP! For another pointless, inaccurate, boring wand fight, where the bad guys are trying to kill, the good guys are trying to stun and Harry only knows Expelliarmus and everyone misses everyone else

BIG FIRE COMING! Point 4.

It was not normal fire; Crabbe had used a curse of which Harry had no knowledge.

Wow. I'm amazed. /irony.

As they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive, sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of fiery beasts: Flaming serpents, chimaeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up into the air into their fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno.

Is Gandalf around? Did this remind anyone of the flood at Rivendell?

SNIP! [Harry] raked the firestorm below, seeking a sign of life, a limb or a face that was not yet charred like wood. . . .

Where are the faces that ARE?

SNIP! While they escape. Too Boring To Spork.

There was silence, apart from panting and coughing.

Which wouldn't make it silent.

Then a number of huge bangs shook the castle, and a great cavalcade of transparent figures galloped past on horses, their heads screaming with bloodlust under their arms.

They have bloodlust under their arms?

Harry has forgotten about the diadem/tiara and is worried about Ginny. Hermione has to remind him he has it. She explains that the Fiendfyre must have killed it, and then she has to explain the Fiendfyre.

1. When did Crabbe get to be the God of Hell Fire? This is a student who was too stupid to do more than grunt throughout most of the this book.

2. If there's such a thing as Fiendfyre, WHY couldn't Hermione use it to destroy stuff - are we saying Crabbe is more intelligent than Hermione? And why aren't people using it to KILL people?

"Shame he wasn't concentrating when they mentioned how to stop it, really," said Ron,

Shame no-one used Finite. Or whatever it is now.

Percy and Fred appear, and kill Thicknesse by spines, which is a little unfair considering the poor man was Imperioed. But then suddenly he's described as a Death Eater, which surprised me totally.

Fred dies. I would have cared. I should have cared. I liked the twins a lot but by this point in the book, I was glad someone had.