Epilogue -- Nineteen Years Later
Feb. 14th, 2008 09:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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enolabloodygay. Happy Valentine's Day, folks!
***
Nineteen Years Later...
In which the Famous Five Meet the Secret Seven in Gull Cove...or something. And everything is just Grrrr-eat! And it makes me want to barf.
Oh good – it's still 1950, even though we have done the whole misty screen bit, everything's gone wavy, calendars have appeared on the screen, pages have been torn off to indicate the passing of time and –did anyone bring lashings and lashings of ginger beer?
No? Damn.
Must be...er, 19 years later than when we last saw Harry, two pages ago. Doesn't time fly? And now it's the future. I'd work out what year it was, but I've lost the will to live, never mind read. As for typing...I'm only doing this for you, kids!
Anyway, it's some time in the future, even for us, and global warming has obviously been sorted out as September now has autumnal frosts, just like it used to when JKR and I were kids and the first day of school was cold and crisp and the long hot days of summer were behind us and we couldn't find our punctuation. But we weren't best-selling authors then, were we, Jo? And I'm still not, but what's your excuse?
Anyway, here we all are, on a day crisp as an apple (anyone want the first bite? There's probably maggots in it.) and the Family Potter are bobbing (I'm not even going to make the obvious joke about it being a street not a bloody ocean) across the rumbling street and Little Lily whines she wants to go to Hogwarts NOW.
Well, you can't, you stupid brat – even Harry knows that and has told you so – get over it.
Finally the commuting Muggles get a mention – they look at the owls!
But don't get too hung up on this mention of Muggles in London – we're British, we can ignore this sort of thing and get back to reading the Financial Times or (more likely) 'The Sun'.
It's true. Honestly.
James and Albus (still got the adoration of DD, I see, despite all that has gone before) are arguing about the possibility of Albus being in Slytherin. Does the great, good and grown-up Harry Potter point out that one of the bravest men he ever knew, who did more to bring down Voldemort than he did, was a Slytherin?
Of course not. Really, don't be so daft. Harry is forever frozen in time, as emotionally developed as er, well as a five year old, as far as I can make out. Why would he ever give credit to Severus Snape?
Harry Did It All. Single-handedly. Honest.
Ginny, who has obviously turned into Molly Weasley in the intervening years, tells them to be quiet – how useful of the woman. And James catches her eye. Difficult catch that – no doubt he'll be Seeker in Gryffindor's Quidditch team before the term's out.
James makes his apparently suicidal dash at the wall (please note the Muggles take no notice. I did tell you they wouldn't).
We're left on the platform with Albus begging for reassurance that his parents will write to him. Please note that Albus is a sensitive soul and we know what that means. Ginny treacherously tells him how many times they wrote to his brother (is no secret sacred to this woman?) and Harry actually says something vaguely reassuring too – I think he thought he was to talking to Gred and Forge when he said 'Your brother – he likes a laugh' but maybe I am reading too much into this.
They now approach the barrier and Albus winces. Why? As they brought Lily along to say goodbye to him, I presume they brought him along to say goodbye to James, so why would he be wincing? He knows it works.
And now they're on the platform, which was obscured by clouds of white steam. Why? I actually remember steam trains and even if you had several of them on the station, you could still see perfectly clearly.
But I suppose it makes it more romantic and gives them an excuse to avoid Percy, who is possibly the only person in the books to ever admit he was wrong. But he was boring too, so let's not waste time on someone who actually showed a bit of character growth.
Eventually, the wizards who obviously can't get rid of a bit of steam find who they are looking for. It's Ron and Hermione! Has everyone who fell in love at school stayed with their childhood sweethearts?
How unlikely. And how dull!
Pointless dialogue ensues (when doesn't it?), allowing Ron to be the comic turn once again and ending in 'no pressure' on the 11 year-old children facing their first term at Hogwarts. Nice one, you pathetic, emotionally stunted bunch.
Ooh look – there's Draco. Funnily enough, his son looks just like him, as does Harry's son. Have they started cloning wizards now?
More pressure and prejudice is inflicted on the children. Well done, Jo – let's not ever keep an open mind. Heaven forbid that anything should change in Potterverse, even after what is apparently the most important war ever waged.
Ron warns his daughter, Rose, (is this the first name that hasn't been handed down from dead characters? Oh no, there was Draco's son, Scorpius. And if calling him that isn't setting him up to the bad boy of the future, I don't know what is.)
Sorry, got caught up in Jo-style rambling there. Ron warns Rose not be friends with him and Hermione, who has obviously been warped by long contact with Ron and Harry, is half amused. No more open-mindedness or fairness from her then.
Anyway, after further evidence of extreme prejudice from the Trio, James comes back to tell us Teddy is snogging Victoire. Lily (bless-her-little-cotton-socks-I-don't-think) thinks how lovely it would be if they got married!
How much more incestuous do you want the wizarding world to be? In a few generations they'll be so inbred we'll be calling them King Harry James Albus Sirius and Queen Lily Molly Hermione Virginia.
Anyway, it's made perfectly clear that Teddy is already practically part of the family – well, that's a relief; given his past performances, I expected Harry to forget all about his obligations and responsibilities to a child made orphan by his actions.
Finally the kids start getting on the train. Are we finally going to get to the end of this singularly pointless epilogue and be able to throw the book away for good? I do hope so.
James (like his namesake) dashes heedlessly on to the train where he will no doubt join the sycophantic bunch of friends he has, who will applaud his bullying as it is disguised as good natured fun and practical jokes.
Albus (sensitive little soul that he is) hangs back to say goodbye properly and also to confide his biggest fear to his father 'What if I'm in Slytherin?'
As Harry bends down to reassure him, we find that Albus has inherited Lily's eyes. Thank God for that, I thought Harry was hanging on to them like the selfish git that he is. Finally, Harry tells Albus that Severus was a Slytherin and one of the bravest men he ever knew – but only for Albus and Ginny's ears – Heaven forbid that he should say it out loud to other people. He also tells him the Hat takes personal preference into consideration – something he had never told any of his children before. Still keeping the secrets Harry? Well done. Good boy.
Have a chocolate drop for learning from DD's mistakes. Not.
At long last, the students are swarming on to the train and saying goodbye to their parents. Stay with me, people – the end is finally in sight!
People are staring at the Potter/Weasley tribe and apparently Albus doesn't know why. Oh come on, even if Harry hadn't spent the last 19 years boasting about it, the kid must have been brought up in a cupboard under the stairs not to have heard about it from other people. Maybe he was. Maybe Harry thought it would be character-forming for him – it worked for Harry, after all!
Ron does 'comic relief' again and dispels the tension that I wasn't feeling.
The train pulls out and Ginny tells Harry he'll be all right. Of course he will, in case anyone had forgotten, the egomaniacal, ever-so-slightly-insane megalomaniac is DEAD!
Duh-eh-ah-duh. Dead. No more Voldemort – as JKR heavy-handedly reminds us with yet another mention of The Boy Who Bores Me's lightning scar.
It's not hurting any more. All is well.
Too right it is – I've reached the end of the most pointless five pages of Ms Rowling's prose and that's saying something!
Can I have my ginger-beer now?
***
Only it's not! Hurrah!
Tomorrow we will be discussing exactly why we think "All was well" should go down as one of the greatest literary lies ever.
enolabloodygay. Happy Valentine's Day, folks!***
In which the Famous Five Meet the Secret Seven in Gull Cove...or something. And everything is just Grrrr-eat! And it makes me want to barf.
Oh good – it's still 1950, even though we have done the whole misty screen bit, everything's gone wavy, calendars have appeared on the screen, pages have been torn off to indicate the passing of time and –did anyone bring lashings and lashings of ginger beer?
No? Damn.
Must be...er, 19 years later than when we last saw Harry, two pages ago. Doesn't time fly? And now it's the future. I'd work out what year it was, but I've lost the will to live, never mind read. As for typing...I'm only doing this for you, kids!
Anyway, it's some time in the future, even for us, and global warming has obviously been sorted out as September now has autumnal frosts, just like it used to when JKR and I were kids and the first day of school was cold and crisp and the long hot days of summer were behind us and we couldn't find our punctuation. But we weren't best-selling authors then, were we, Jo? And I'm still not, but what's your excuse?
Anyway, here we all are, on a day crisp as an apple (anyone want the first bite? There's probably maggots in it.) and the Family Potter are bobbing (I'm not even going to make the obvious joke about it being a street not a bloody ocean) across the rumbling street and Little Lily whines she wants to go to Hogwarts NOW.
Well, you can't, you stupid brat – even Harry knows that and has told you so – get over it.
Finally the commuting Muggles get a mention – they look at the owls!
But don't get too hung up on this mention of Muggles in London – we're British, we can ignore this sort of thing and get back to reading the Financial Times or (more likely) 'The Sun'.
It's true. Honestly.
James and Albus (still got the adoration of DD, I see, despite all that has gone before) are arguing about the possibility of Albus being in Slytherin. Does the great, good and grown-up Harry Potter point out that one of the bravest men he ever knew, who did more to bring down Voldemort than he did, was a Slytherin?
Of course not. Really, don't be so daft. Harry is forever frozen in time, as emotionally developed as er, well as a five year old, as far as I can make out. Why would he ever give credit to Severus Snape?
Harry Did It All. Single-handedly. Honest.
Ginny, who has obviously turned into Molly Weasley in the intervening years, tells them to be quiet – how useful of the woman. And James catches her eye. Difficult catch that – no doubt he'll be Seeker in Gryffindor's Quidditch team before the term's out.
James makes his apparently suicidal dash at the wall (please note the Muggles take no notice. I did tell you they wouldn't).
We're left on the platform with Albus begging for reassurance that his parents will write to him. Please note that Albus is a sensitive soul and we know what that means. Ginny treacherously tells him how many times they wrote to his brother (is no secret sacred to this woman?) and Harry actually says something vaguely reassuring too – I think he thought he was to talking to Gred and Forge when he said 'Your brother – he likes a laugh' but maybe I am reading too much into this.
They now approach the barrier and Albus winces. Why? As they brought Lily along to say goodbye to him, I presume they brought him along to say goodbye to James, so why would he be wincing? He knows it works.
And now they're on the platform, which was obscured by clouds of white steam. Why? I actually remember steam trains and even if you had several of them on the station, you could still see perfectly clearly.
But I suppose it makes it more romantic and gives them an excuse to avoid Percy, who is possibly the only person in the books to ever admit he was wrong. But he was boring too, so let's not waste time on someone who actually showed a bit of character growth.
Eventually, the wizards who obviously can't get rid of a bit of steam find who they are looking for. It's Ron and Hermione! Has everyone who fell in love at school stayed with their childhood sweethearts?
How unlikely. And how dull!
Pointless dialogue ensues (when doesn't it?), allowing Ron to be the comic turn once again and ending in 'no pressure' on the 11 year-old children facing their first term at Hogwarts. Nice one, you pathetic, emotionally stunted bunch.
Ooh look – there's Draco. Funnily enough, his son looks just like him, as does Harry's son. Have they started cloning wizards now?
More pressure and prejudice is inflicted on the children. Well done, Jo – let's not ever keep an open mind. Heaven forbid that anything should change in Potterverse, even after what is apparently the most important war ever waged.
Ron warns his daughter, Rose, (is this the first name that hasn't been handed down from dead characters? Oh no, there was Draco's son, Scorpius. And if calling him that isn't setting him up to the bad boy of the future, I don't know what is.)
Sorry, got caught up in Jo-style rambling there. Ron warns Rose not be friends with him and Hermione, who has obviously been warped by long contact with Ron and Harry, is half amused. No more open-mindedness or fairness from her then.
Anyway, after further evidence of extreme prejudice from the Trio, James comes back to tell us Teddy is snogging Victoire. Lily (bless-her-little-cotton-socks-I-don't-think) thinks how lovely it would be if they got married!
How much more incestuous do you want the wizarding world to be? In a few generations they'll be so inbred we'll be calling them King Harry James Albus Sirius and Queen Lily Molly Hermione Virginia.
Anyway, it's made perfectly clear that Teddy is already practically part of the family – well, that's a relief; given his past performances, I expected Harry to forget all about his obligations and responsibilities to a child made orphan by his actions.
Finally the kids start getting on the train. Are we finally going to get to the end of this singularly pointless epilogue and be able to throw the book away for good? I do hope so.
James (like his namesake) dashes heedlessly on to the train where he will no doubt join the sycophantic bunch of friends he has, who will applaud his bullying as it is disguised as good natured fun and practical jokes.
Albus (sensitive little soul that he is) hangs back to say goodbye properly and also to confide his biggest fear to his father 'What if I'm in Slytherin?'
As Harry bends down to reassure him, we find that Albus has inherited Lily's eyes. Thank God for that, I thought Harry was hanging on to them like the selfish git that he is. Finally, Harry tells Albus that Severus was a Slytherin and one of the bravest men he ever knew – but only for Albus and Ginny's ears – Heaven forbid that he should say it out loud to other people. He also tells him the Hat takes personal preference into consideration – something he had never told any of his children before. Still keeping the secrets Harry? Well done. Good boy.
Have a chocolate drop for learning from DD's mistakes. Not.
At long last, the students are swarming on to the train and saying goodbye to their parents. Stay with me, people – the end is finally in sight!
People are staring at the Potter/Weasley tribe and apparently Albus doesn't know why. Oh come on, even if Harry hadn't spent the last 19 years boasting about it, the kid must have been brought up in a cupboard under the stairs not to have heard about it from other people. Maybe he was. Maybe Harry thought it would be character-forming for him – it worked for Harry, after all!
Ron does 'comic relief' again and dispels the tension that I wasn't feeling.
The train pulls out and Ginny tells Harry he'll be all right. Of course he will, in case anyone had forgotten, the egomaniacal, ever-so-slightly-insane megalomaniac is DEAD!
Duh-eh-ah-duh. Dead. No more Voldemort – as JKR heavy-handedly reminds us with yet another mention of The Boy Who Bores Me's lightning scar.
It's not hurting any more. All is well.
Too right it is – I've reached the end of the most pointless five pages of Ms Rowling's prose and that's saying something!
Can I have my ginger-beer now?
***
Only it's not! Hurrah!
Tomorrow we will be discussing exactly why we think "All was well" should go down as one of the greatest literary lies ever.
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