![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
gehayi.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deadlyhollowIn which Harry is given A Big Honking Clue, Ginny gives Harry a cheap present, Frodo Harry inherits the One Ring Snitch, nobody understands the law, and Rowling wins the title of Anti-Feminist Writer.
Chapter Seven -- The Will of Albus Dumbledore
He was walking along a mountain road in the cool blue light of dawn.
Blue light special!
Far below, swathed in mist, was the shadow of a small town.
However, while the village's shadow was swathed in mist, the real small town was basking on the French Riviera.
Was the man he sought down there, the man he needed so badly he could think of little else,
Voldemort/ Villager OTP!
the man who held the answer, the answer to his problem...?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Then Ron tells Harry to wake up, so he does.
He was lying again on the camp bed in Ron's dingy attic room.
Er...no. Ron doesn't sleep in the attic. According to the Lexicon's description, Ron's bedroom in the Burrow is "[l]ocated at the top of the house, on the fifth landing of the narrow staircase, just below the attic with its ghoul." Having a bedroom close to the attic, however, is not the same thing as having a bedroom IN the attic. As a child, I had a bedroom that contained a door leading to the attic, yet I never once got that confused with the attic itself. Rowling shouldn't either.
The sun had not yet risen and the room was still shadowy.
What, no blue light special of dawn? Or does that only happen in dreams?
Also, Rowling just mentioned "the shadow of a small town" two paragraphs ago. Using the adjective "shadowy"--every English teacher I ever had would call that lazy writing, and would suggest that the writer learn to use both dictionary and thesaurus.
SNIP!
Ron tells Harry that he was talking in his sleep, saying the name "Gregorovitch" repeatedly. Either Ron has super-hearing or Harry is the best sleep-talker in the world. Your typical sleep-talker might try saying the name mentioned, but it would probably come out, "Greh-uh-oh..." and then trail off.
However. We are in Rowlingland, and Rowling has no problem warping reality to give her belovéd protagonist A Big Honking Clue.
Harry was not wearing his glasses; Ron's face appeared slightly blurred.
I think this line is a response to the fan criticism about Harry waking up in the Burrow in HBP and seeing perfectly, despite the fact that he had to fumble for his glasses.
Harry has no idea who Gregorovitch is. Neither does Ron. Harry, however, vaguely recalls hearing the name before this. Meanwhile, of course, I'm talking back to the book,saying, "It's the guy who made Viktor Krum's wand in GoF! You heard the name when Ollivander weighed the wands for the Triwizard Tournament!"
Oh, well, Harry only heard the name once, and there was no emotional content. I can forgive his forgetting this name a lot easier than I can his slowness in deducing the identity of R.A.B.
Harry says that he believes Voldie's searching for Gregorovitch. We then get another description of the town Voldemort was gazing at:
He tried to remember exactly what he had seen in the dream, but all that came back was a mountainous horizon and the outline of the little village cradled in a deep valley.
Based on this, Harry says that Voldemort is "abroad" (which briefly made me think of Transgender Voldemort and took me to a very scary place) because "[i]t didn't look like anywhere in Britain."
*gazes at the mountains of England*
*gazes at the mountains in Scotland*
*gazes at the mountains in Wales*
Not to mention Northern Ireland, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
Ron eventually deduces that Harry has been seeing what Voldemort is seeing once more. Frankly, I would have thought that the whole bit about knowing where Voldemort was, what he was doing and what he was thinking about would make that rather obvious, but wizards are so bad at logic that I suppose we must applaud Ron for managing to think linearly.
Harry then says that he thinks that Gregorovitch has to do with Quidditch. Ron brings up a very bad Quidditch player with a similar name that we've never heard of before and will never hear of again. The two continue in this vein for some time, and then Ron wishes Harry a happy birthday.
Amazingly, Harry forgot this:
"Wow -- that's right, I forgot! I'm seventeen!"
*facepalm* Normally intelligent people do NOT forget their own birthdays. In fact, many doctors, nurses and social workers use questions like that as a sanity test.
Harry, reveling in the fact that he is now officially an adult of seventeen—albeit one who is so dense that he needed this information pointed out to him--starts playing with magic by Summoning his glasses, making Ron's stuff fly, changing the colors in a poster and, in an example that shows quite clearly the level of Harry's intelligence, learning to tie his shoelaces:
Harry also tried tying the laces of his trainers by magic (the resultant knot took several minutes to untie by hand)
Ron then gives Harry a book on how to get on with girls. Surprisingly, Ron got it from the twins. This immediately makes me suspect that it was intended as a gag gift but that Ron took it seriously. Anyway, Ron swears by it, and wishes that he had had it the year before so that he could have got rid of Lavender more easily and hooked up with a witch whose name he doesn't mention. I'm guessing it's Hermione and her psychotic canaries, though. Hey, wouldn't that be a great name for a band?
Ron also gets off one of the most quoted lines from the book:
You'd be surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either."
Harry gets more presents when he goes down to breakfast. Mrs. Weasley gives Harry a dented watch belonging to her dead brother, Fabian. Watches are traditional for seventeen-year-old witches and wizards, apparently. Nice, Mollywobbles. You couldn't get the watch repaired before you gave it to him?
However, the gift provokes an unprecedented emotional response in Harry:
The rest of her speech was lost; Harry had got up and hugged her. He tried to put a lot of unsaid things into the hug
I read this passage over several times. It was so uncharacteristic of Harry that I honestly wondered if Harry was under the Imperius Curse. Deep emotion and physical contact are very much NOT him.
Anyway, Molly gets flustered by the hug, waves her wand and inadvertently throws half a pack of half-fried bacon onto the floor. My thrifty New England heart nearly broke from the sheer waste.
Then the other presents are bestowed. Hermione gives Harry a Sneakoscope for some unknown reason. I mean, they're going off to find Horcruxes and defeat the evil Dark Lord and his minions. I don't think that Harry needs a device that whistles to warn its owner that untrustworthy people are around. I think he can just take the untrustworthy sorts as given, and go on from there.
Bill and Fleur give Harry an enchanted razor.
("Ah yes, zis will give you ze smoothest shave you will ever 'ave," Monsieur Delacour assured him, "but you must tell it clearly what you want...ozzerwise you might find you 'ave a leetle less hair zan you would like...")
So in other words, if you don't tell the razor what you want, it'll give you a sour baldy? Great present! Also, I keep picturing Monsieur Delacour as looking like David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.
The Delacours give Harry chocolates, which seems like a decent present to give someone they don't know. Fred and George give Harry a bunch of their excess merchandise from their shop.
Wow, the Weasleys are really cheap this year, aren't they? Ron gave Harry a second-hand book, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley gave Harry a used and dented watch, and the twins are giving him factory seconds.
The Trio leave the kitchen when the Delacour women arrive. Then Hermione says something that sounds very odd, coming from her:
"I'll pack these for you," Hermione said brightly, taking Harry's presents out of his arms as the three of them headed back upstairs. "I'm nearly done, I'm just waiting for the rest of your underpants to come out of the wash, Ron--"
Packing. Not only for herself, but for both boys. And washing Ron's underwear, if you please.
I have a question.
WHY?
Seriously, why? Neither boy has broken both arms, which is the only viable excuse I can think of. Harry's a slob and atrocious at packing, but that doesn't make packing Hermione's responsibility. As for the washing—shouldn't Ron and his brothers have learned to do the wash and other chores when they were young? Large families often teach the kids how to start helping around the house when they're very young.
If it was just one occurrence, I'd be miffed but not ranting. But it isn't just one occurrence. Throughout the book, Hermione gets saddled with the domestic chores: packing, washing, decorating, keeping the tent tidy, gathering food, shopping for food, cooking food. Even healing is left to her—possibly because healing is often seen in fantasy as a nurturing, gentle, feminine kind of magic.
And not only do the boys accept this (and why not? it's to their advantage), but so does Hermione. She explodes once, about halfway through the book, making the arguments that disgruntled fans might make...and then placidly goes right back to Being Domestic, as if the explosion had never happened. Grrrr.
As Hermione starts talking like the Sub-Total Woman, Ginny opens her bedroom door and asks Harry to come in. The implications, by the way, are exactly what you think they are.
Ginny wishes Harry a happy birthday and tells him that she didn't know what to get him, but she wanted it to be useful and small enough to carry with him. Harry admires Ginny for not fussing about his oncoming departure.
She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy.
As opposed to, oh, Cho? Because Cho IS the other girl that Harry liked, and Cho did weep a great deal—though, considering that her boyfriend was murdered, I can understand this. I believe this is Rowling stepping in again and telling us just how better Harry/Ginny is than Harry/Anyone Else.
Also, isn't that sentence redundant? Aren't "she was not tearful" and "she was rarely weepy" practically synonymous?
Ginny then tells him that she thought she'd like him to have something to make him think of her, "if you meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing." Apparently Ginny still has severe issues with her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Fleur.
Then the kissing starts:
...and then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was blissful oblivion, better than Firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair--
"Better than Firewhisky"? So Harry's a heavy drinker, then? I would think not, but then...why compare Ginny to a drink that Harry's never drunk—at least not that I recall--and doesn't even know if he'd enjoy?
Anyway, Ron walks in and interrupts everything so that the book can remain suitable for children. Harry is not pleased about the pre-coitus interruptus. Ginny, the girl who never cries, turns her back and starts crying. And once the Trio are out of Ginny's room, Ron chews Harry out for dumping Ginny but snogging her anyway. For some reason, Harry doesn't defend himself by saying that this was Ginny's idea. He does tell Ron that it's no big deal and that Ginny knows that they can't get married or anything. (The instant Harry said that, I knew that they would get married. The Laws of Narrative Irony would demand it.)
Harry spends one brief moment imagining Ginny marrying someone else:
As he said it, a vivid picture formed in Harry's mind of Ginny in a white dress, marrying a tall, faceless, and unpleasant stranger.
According to the Dream Dictionary, height generally represents authority and power. Someone taller than you in your dreams might be a sign that you feel weaker, or overlooked. A faceless figure symbolizes confusion about your own identity and emotions, and trying to discover who you are truly are. The stranger symbolizes a part of you that you're hiding—or that yet you don't realize is there.
So, basically, Harry's daydream involves his confusion about his love for Ginny, the depth of which he doesn't recognize yet, his desire to marry her, and his awareness that consciously, he's overlooking something.
In one spiraling moment it seemed to hit him: Her future was free and unencumbered, whereas his...he could see nothing but Voldemort ahead.
Marrying an unpleasant stranger is a free and unencumbered future? Well, whatever. I do like the phrase "Voldemort ahead." Doesn't it sound like a road sign? "DRIVE SLOW. DANGEROUS VOLDEMORT AHEAD."
At any rate, Harry promises, as the result of Ron's lecture, not to touch Ginny in the future, which seems to relieve Ron enormously. Ron either wants Ginny or Harry all to himself, and I'm not sure which.
The day passes. Charlie Weasley gets a haircut. Isn't that thrilling? And so vital to the plot. Finally, Harry's birthday party gets started out in the garden.
Fred and George bewitched a number of purple lanterns all emblazoned with a large number 17, to hang in midair over the guests.
I don't think that I'd trust something hovering over my head. At least not if the Weasley twins put it there.
There's also this rather odd description, which makes me wonder about the state of wizarding medicine.
Thanks to Mrs. Weasley's ministrations, George's wound was neat and clean, but Harry was not yet used to the dark hole in the side of his head, despite the twins' many jokes about it.
Um...why IS there a dark hole in the side of George's head? Shouldn't it be bandaged up to prevent infection? Why is George dependent on Mrs. Weasley's medical care? Why didn't his family take him to St. Mungo's for proper medical treatment? And if Mad-Eye Moody can have a magical eye, why can't George have an artificial
enchanted ear?
Hermione, who has unaccountably developed a decorating streak between Book 6 and Book 7, creates streamers and makes them hang "artistically" over the shrubbery. Ron gives her a compliment, which pleases Hermione. Harry, however, suspects that the book on girls has a chapter on giving compliments. It's so nice of Rowling to give us two seconds before informing us, through Harry, that Ron is insincere.
Mrs. Weasley brings out the cake. It is in the form of a Snitch. A giant Snitch. Briefly, I wonder if she bought it at Carvel. Hagrid is wearing a horrible suit so that he can be Hagrid the Horrible. Remus looks unhappy, though Tonks is positively glowing. Hagrid tries reminiscing with Harry. Harry, of course, gets the details slightly wrong:
"Didn't you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig's tail, and tell me I was a wizard?"
Well...yes and no, Harry. Hagrid smashed down the front door of the Hut on the Rock, not the front door of Number Four, Privet Drive. Then he told you you were a wizard and gave you your Hogwarts letter. Then Hagrid gave Dudley a pig's tail—though he intended to turn him into an entire pig.
Hagrid then gives Harry "a small, slightly furry drawstring pouch with a long string, evidently intended to be worn around the neck." Anything put into a Mokeskin pouch can only be removed by its owner, Hagrid says. This got me distracted, as I wondered what would happen if the owner died, or if Harry put a Horcrux in there. Would the pouch consider Harry the owner of the Horcrux because he had it, or would it think that the owner was the guy whose bit of soul was in there?
And then I realized I was overthinking matters considerably. It's just that it could have been so much more than a blatant plot device.
Charlie Weasley shows up with a very bad haircut and the news that Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback is actually a girl. How can the dragon wranglers tell? Because Norbert/Norberta is much more vicious than the male dragons. At this point, I could hear "...for the female of the species is deadlier than the male" in my head.
Arthur Weasley's Patronus—a weasel—then shows up. Symbolically, according to http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/weasel.htm, a weasel means keen observation and high intelligence. (Not the way that I'd describe Arthur. But maybe Rowling would.) However, something else bugs me about the Patronus:
They all saw it at the same time: a streak of light that came flying across the yard and onto the table, where it resolved itself into a bright silver weasel, which stood on its hind legs and spoke with Mr. Weasley's voice.
"Minister of Magic coming with me."
Since when do Patroni talk? We've seen them before in other books, and no Patronus, no matter how badly it needed to communicate with anyone, was ever able to speak.
Yes, I know. It's Rowling's world. But no writer can switch the rules of his/her world in mid-story and expect to sustain suspended disbelief. Jean Kerr described such a situation in the theatre:
It is perfectly all right with me if, while I'm watching an avant-garde play, a character points to a realistic cast-iron bed and says, "That is a piano."
It is also all right with me if another character sits down and plays "The Blue Danube Waltz" on the mattress.
But thereafter I expect that no one will lie down upon the piano.
As soon as the Patronus vanishes, Lupin grabs Tonks and tells Harry they shouldn't be here. Then they climb over the fence. Exactly why Remus and his wife should NOT be at the house of friends celebrating the birthday of a former pupil is not explained, at least not in this chapter. Maybe he'd give them all werewolf cooties or something.
Scrimgeour, looking much older than he did in the last book and lame to boot, apologizes with notable lack of sincerity for crashing a party. He then wishes Harry a happy birthday and informs the Trio that he needs a private word with all of them. There is nothing quite so special as crashing a party to interrogate the guest of honor and his best friends.
As they led the way back to the house in silence, Harry knew that the other two were thinking the same as he was; Scrimgeour must, somehow, had learned that the three of them were planning to drop out of Hogwarts.
Notice the phrasing. Not "Scrimgeour must have learned about the Horcruxes" or "about their plans to destroy Voldemort". No. Harry's worried that the Minister of Magic, who deals on a daily basis with the destruction wrought by Voldemort's armies, is here to keep Harry his friends from dropping out of school and ruining their futures. It's so Afterschool Special.
So they go into the sitting room. Harry turns on the oil lamps in the room with a flick of his wand. I wonder why the Burrow uses oil lamps, rather than kerosene. Didn't oil lamps use whale oil?
Once they sit down—Scrimgeour claiming the one armchair in the room, and the Trio cramming together on the couch—the Minister informs them that they are to be interrogated separately.Dirty Harry tells Scrimgeour that he can either talk to all of them at the same time, or not at all. Do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
Scrimgeour then tells Harry that he's here because Double-D left them a few things in his will. This comes as a surprise to the kids. Evidently attorneys are not obligated to inform recipients of bequests by letter in the wizarding world. Scrimgeour remarks on their surprise, clearly not believing it for one second.
But Harry interrupted. "Dumbledore died over a month ago. Why has it taken this long to give us what he left us?"
A month? You really have no clue how long probate can take, do you, Harry?
This is particularly odd, because HBP had, as one of its themes, disputed ownership. Bellatrix Lestrange would have inherited Twelve Grimmauld Place if Sirius's will had been overturned. Harry inherited Kreacher, but if he hadn't, Bellatrix would have inherited him too, and Kreacher himself would have preferred to belong to Draco. Harry's legal ownership vs. Mundungus's theft of his property. And so on. Harry should know that the legal headaches don't stop just because you inherit something. Sometimes they start then.
For some reason, Hermione—or perhaps I should say "Suemione"--knows all the ins and outs of the law, and explains what's going on to the boys. Evidently, she's been reading magical law down at the Wizengamot...probably as the pupil of the wizarding equivalent of Horace Rumpole.
I wouldn't mind this (I was a geek about the law at her age) but in the month between the end of Book 6 and the beginning of Book 7, Hermione seems to have pulled the following skills out of the ether:
a) Healing magic;
b) Vast knowledge of spells that defend or protect against the Dark Arts, despite the fact that Defense Against the Dark Arts is, canonically, Hermione's weakest subject;
c) Disguise spells that obviate the need for complicated things like Polyjuice Potion;
d) Being able to read, with ease, an entire book written in Ancient Runes;
e) Knowledge of Magical Law;
f) Expertise in finding mushrooms and other edible plants;
g) Cooking; and
h) Knowledge of Quidditch.
It's all a bit much. Why this book isn't called Hermione Sue and the Deathly Hallows?
Scrimgeour defends the Ministry's temporary appropriation of what the three kids inherited by saying something that makes no sense, legally.
"The Decree for Justifiable Confiscation gives the Ministry the power to confiscate the contents of a will--"
Um...the contents of a will are the bits that make up the will. "Being of sound mind and body," the naming of the executor or the administrator of the will, the bequests, any codicils...yeah. Those are the contents of the will.
What Scrimgeour means is that the Ministry has the right to confiscate an estate—a person's real property (houses, land) and personal property (money, clothes, books, furniture, jewelry, and so on)--completely bypassing the decedent's will.
If ever there was proof that, despite some decent people working for it, the Ministry of Magic is crooked and corrupt, this is it.
Suemione becomes indignant:
"That law was created to stop wizards passing on Dark artifacts," said Hermione, "and the Ministry is supposed to have powerful evidence that the deceased's possessions are illegal before seizing them!
Of course, this just highlights the problem. Who says if an artifact is Dark? Why, the Ministry! And to whom does the Ministry have to present evidence that an artifact is Dark or a piece of property illegal? Why, the Ministry!
I'm sensing a lack of checks and balances here...
Suemione demands to know if Scrimgeour really thought DD was attempting to give them Dark or cursed objects. Scrimgeour asks if she's going to be a lawyer, which is probably his way of telling her that she's starting to piss him off. Harry asks why the Ministry is giving them their things—can't the Ministry think of an excuse to hang onto them? Oh, Harry. You poor naïve child. Governments can always think of reasons to hang onto things that don't belong to them.
Suemione says that the Ministry can't hang onto the bequests for more than thirty-one days unless they can prove that the stuff is dangerous. This is nonsense, because a) who does the Ministry have to prove danger to? The Ministry? And b) Dumbledore died around mid-June, just before final exams—which were canceled because of his death. He was entombed a few days later. Now, I'm sorry, but mid-June to July 31st seems like a bit more than thirty-one days to ME. Maybe the Ministry just got the objects on June 30. I don't know. But considering that Scrimgeour was willing to question Harry at Dumbledore's funeral, it seems likelier that the Ministry would have moved a bit faster than that.
Scrimgeour starts by questioning Ron. We learn, in the process, that Dumbledore owned magical musical instruments that he left to Hogwarts. Ron says that he and DD weren't close, though he thinks Dumbledore liked him. Suemione pitches in, claiming that Dumbledore was "very fond" of Ron.
Scrimgeour doesn't believe it for a minute. I'm actually starting to like him. He may be a crook, but he's not totally stupid. Instead, he opens a Mokeskin pouch of his own and removes DD's will. Does that mean that Dumbledore's will is now Scrimgeour's personal property? Field for study there.
"'The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore'... Yes, here we are... 'To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.'"
It took me a minute to figure out what this was. Then I realized that Rowling had just fancied up the name. In the first and fifth books, she called it the Put-Outer.
Scrimgeour took from the bag an object that Harry had seen before: It looked something like a silver cigarette lighter, but it had, he knew, the power to suck all light from a place, and restore it, with a simple click.
Harry is perfectly correct. It does look like a silver cigarette lighter. During its most memorable appearance, the first chapter of PS/SS, Dumbledore first uses it before Hagrid even brings baby Harry to Privet Drive. When he uses it for the second time, baby Harry is present but sound asleep, having fallen asleep over Bristol, according to Hagrid.
It shows up one other time—in Order of the Phoenix. Mad-Eye Moody uses it to turn off the streetlights on Privet Drive (so that the Muggle neighbors can't see that Harry's leaving—Moody has never heard of people standing at windows until their eyes adjust to the darkness) and to turn on the lights in Twelve Grimmauld Place. As moments go, it's not a particularly vivid one, not compared with the Advance Guard coming to take Harry to the Black townhouse, meeting Tonks and flying over London. I was astonished that Harry, who forgets so much crucial information, remembered this. Er...yay for continuity, I suppose.
Scrimgeour gives the Put-Outer-with-the-big-fancy-name to Ron, telling him that it is valuable, rare, possibly unique. Come ON, Minister. DD just left Ron the magical equivalent of the Clapper(TM).
Oddly, Ron knows what the Deluminator does. Either he's deduced it from the name or Harry's told him about the powers of the magical object that he saw briefly two years ago. Your choice.
"'To Miss Hermione Jean Granger,
For years, Rowling has insisted in interview after interview that Hermione's full name is Hermione JANE. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ani_bester said, this invalidates all statements about the books Rowling has made during interviews. I agree. Fans are free to ignore what she has said in interviews; clearly, Rowling isn't even trying to make what she says in the books compatible with what she says elsewhere.
I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.'"
Scrimgeour wants to know why DD gave her that book, and if she and DD ever talked about codes or "means of passing secret messages." Yeah, Minister, that was subtle.
"'To Harry James Potter,'" he read, and Harry's insides contracted with a sudden excitement, "'I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.'"
"Perseverance and skill" don't make a lot of sense in this context. This is the Snitch that Harry caught by accident in his mouth. "Sheer dumb luck" would be more logical.
Now, obviously the objects are going to be key in finding the Horcruxes and/or defeating Voldemort. It's a very old fairy tale trope: If you acquire seemingly worthless objects before setting out on a quest, they will later prove to be vital. It is inevitable.
Scrimgeour interrogates Harry about Snitches—the one he just received and his birthday cake. It is all rather pointless. Scrimgeour finally says that a Snitch would be a great place to hide something small meant only for Harry. Suemione—and why does she know this rather than Harry or Ron? She HATES Quidditch!--agrees with the Minister, telling us that Snitches have "flesh memories," i.e., they remember the first person who touches them. This is supposed to prevent cheating in Quidditch matches.
Strange that we've never heard of this before. We've certainly heard accusations of cheating—usually directed toward Slytherin.
Scrimgeour drops the Snitch into Harry's hand. The Snitch completely fails to open, or indeed do anything remotely interesting. Wow. I swoon with excitement.
But wait! There's more! Harry also inherited the Sword of Gryffindor. Scrimgeour refuses to give it to him, saying it's "an important historical artifact," and, honestly, I do see the man's point. Suemione says that it came out of the Hat when Harry needed it, thus choosing him. Scrimgeour delivers a verbal smackdown:
"According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor," said Scrimgeour. "That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter, whatever Dumbledore may have decided."
What's confusing me is not that Dumbledore attempted to leave the sword to Harry, but that Dumbledore apparently owned it. He must have, mustn't he? Otherwise, how could he pass it on to Harry? On the other hand...remember when Dumbledore told Harry that he'd inherited Buckbeak from Sirius, even though Sirius never owned the hippogriff in the first place?
Scrimgeour wants to know why Double-D wanted Harry to have the sword:
"Was it because Dumbledore believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir of Slytherin?
How does Scrimgeour know that Voldemort is the Heir of Slytherin? Dumbledore and the Trio obviously would know, as would the Weasley family and probably every kid at Hogwarts by now, not to mention everyone who read Chamber of Secrets--but how did Scrimgeour get the news? Well, maybe Dumbledore told Fudge back in CoS, and Scrimgeour found the information in Fudge's papers.
Harry gets snotty and tells Scrimgeour that maybe the Ministry should try killing Voldemort and saving lives instead of creating cover-ups and trying to break into magical objects. Because it's not as if there's a prophecy that seems to say that Harry is the only one who can defeat Voldy-cakes, or as if this prophecy had been a huge plot point for the past two books.
Scrimgeour gets a trifle irked, pokes Harry's shirt with his wand, and burns a hole in Harry's shirt. Then he snarls at Harry that Harry needs to have more respect and not tell him how to do his job. I'm guessing that wizards aren't exactly into political protest and dissent.
Harry tells Scrimgeour that it's about time the Ministry earned his respect, which would probably result in Harry flambé if the Weasley parents didn't run in at precisely that moment. For some reason, Scrimgeour cares about them being here (though why, I don't know—it's not as if he's ELECTED or anything) and calms down. He leaves shortly thereafter, having accomplished nothing.
Well. That was productive.
After the birthday dinner is over and everyone has gone to bed, the kids head up to Ron's nonexistent attic bedroom to talk. Hermione casts Muffliato in the direction of the stairs. I'm not sure why, since in HBP, Muffliato created a ringing in the ears. If Hermione wants to soundproof the area, she has to cast an Imperturbable Charm. Totally different spell.
Ron tests his Deluminator. It turns light on. It turns light off.
"The thing is," whispered Hermione through the dark, "we could have achieved that with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder."
Or, you know, blowing out a candle. Hell, Hermione, your Muggle parents can achieve the same result by flipping a light switch!
The kids then talk about why DD left them these things. They decide that maybe he just couldn't say why he was leaving them stuff in the will. Ron, however, wants to know why the Dumb One couldn't have just told them why when he was still alive. Have I mentioned that I love Ron?
Harry reveals that he remembered that this was the Snitch he caught in his mouth. I took a moment to bask in the glory of continuity, for surely we shall never see its like again. To see what will happen, Harry kisses the Snitch, and thin, fiery letters appear on the golden ball: I open at the close.
So let's review. Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter both receive strange inheritances that are far more than they seem to be. Both inheritances are spherical (Frodo's a ring, Harry's a ball). Both are golden. Both conceal cryptic messages in thin lettering which can only be revealed by the touch of heat (fire or the human mouth). And the strange qualities of both gifts would have remained unknown, if not for the guidance of an old wizard (Gandalf and Scrimgeour, respectively).
How much do you want to bet that Harry's going to have to cast aside that Snitch to prevent the Dark Lord from gaining its power?
Harry then wonders why DD didn't just give him the sword last year. This is unusually clear thinking for Harry. I suspect that Rowling is responding to criticism again—this one about why Dumbledore, who knew he was dying, didn't just TELL Harry how to identify, find and destroy Horcruxes. Harry doesn't come up with an adequate answer, or any answer at all.
He felt as thought he were sitting in an examination with a question he ought to have been able to answer in front of him, his brain slow and unresponsive.
Well, I don't know about a question you ought to be able to answer, Harry, but yes, I would agree that you're a Bear of Very Little Brain. It's a good thing that Hermione usually does your thinking for you.
Was there something he had missed in the long talks with Dumbledore last year?
No. Dumbledore spent most of the time talking about how great he was and how he couldn't have made a mistake.
Ought he to know what it all meant?
No.
Had Dumbledore expected him to understand?
Undoubtedly!
It turns out that The Tales of Beedle the Bard are wizarding fairy tales, and that Ron has read them, even if the other two haven't.
"Oh come on! All the old kids' stories are supposed to be Beedle's, aren't they? 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune' … 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot'… 'Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump'…"
The stories mentioned may map to lesser-known real-life fairy tales. "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" may be related to a Welsh tale associated with the Mabinogion, The Lady of the Fountain, though there are many other stories that involve fountains. "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" seems to have something in common with a Danish fairy tale, Rich Man, Poor Man, which does in fact feature a hopping pot. "Babbitty Rabbitty" sounds like a combination of Baba Yaga and Br'er Rabbit.
Hermione protests:
"We didn't hear stories like that when we were little, we heard 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' and 'Cinderella' –"
From the Chocolate Frog Cards "Famous Hags" selection:
Grymm, Malodora. "The famous hag Malodora Grymm, using a beautification potion to conceal her true form, married a king and used a charmed mirror to reinforce her self-image. She became jealous of the most beautiful girl in the land and fed her a poisoned apple to get rid of her."
Ron thinks that Cinderella sounds like a disease. For a moment, I pictured Cinderella's ugly stepsisters, Varicella and Rubella, and her evil stepmother, Salmonella.
Hermione can't figure out why Dumbledore would want her to read the fairy tales. The chapter is ending, and they're no further along than when it started.
At last they decide that they should go to sleep:
"No," agreed Ron. "A brutal triple murder by the bridegroom's mother might put a bit of damper on the wedding."
I'm still trying to figure out why Harry's even going to the wedding. Wouldn't his being there attract unwanted attention and endanger the other guests? Oh, wait. I'm using Earth logic. Sorry.
And twenty-five pages later, the chapter is at an end. Finally.
He was walking along a mountain road in the cool blue light of dawn.
Blue light special!
Far below, swathed in mist, was the shadow of a small town.
However, while the village's shadow was swathed in mist, the real small town was basking on the French Riviera.
Was the man he sought down there, the man he needed so badly he could think of little else,
Voldemort/ Villager OTP!
the man who held the answer, the answer to his problem...?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Then Ron tells Harry to wake up, so he does.
He was lying again on the camp bed in Ron's dingy attic room.
Er...no. Ron doesn't sleep in the attic. According to the Lexicon's description, Ron's bedroom in the Burrow is "[l]ocated at the top of the house, on the fifth landing of the narrow staircase, just below the attic with its ghoul." Having a bedroom close to the attic, however, is not the same thing as having a bedroom IN the attic. As a child, I had a bedroom that contained a door leading to the attic, yet I never once got that confused with the attic itself. Rowling shouldn't either.
The sun had not yet risen and the room was still shadowy.
What, no blue light special of dawn? Or does that only happen in dreams?
Also, Rowling just mentioned "the shadow of a small town" two paragraphs ago. Using the adjective "shadowy"--every English teacher I ever had would call that lazy writing, and would suggest that the writer learn to use both dictionary and thesaurus.
SNIP!
Ron tells Harry that he was talking in his sleep, saying the name "Gregorovitch" repeatedly. Either Ron has super-hearing or Harry is the best sleep-talker in the world. Your typical sleep-talker might try saying the name mentioned, but it would probably come out, "Greh-uh-oh..." and then trail off.
However. We are in Rowlingland, and Rowling has no problem warping reality to give her belovéd protagonist A Big Honking Clue.
Harry was not wearing his glasses; Ron's face appeared slightly blurred.
I think this line is a response to the fan criticism about Harry waking up in the Burrow in HBP and seeing perfectly, despite the fact that he had to fumble for his glasses.
Harry has no idea who Gregorovitch is. Neither does Ron. Harry, however, vaguely recalls hearing the name before this. Meanwhile, of course, I'm talking back to the book,saying, "It's the guy who made Viktor Krum's wand in GoF! You heard the name when Ollivander weighed the wands for the Triwizard Tournament!"
Oh, well, Harry only heard the name once, and there was no emotional content. I can forgive his forgetting this name a lot easier than I can his slowness in deducing the identity of R.A.B.
Harry says that he believes Voldie's searching for Gregorovitch. We then get another description of the town Voldemort was gazing at:
He tried to remember exactly what he had seen in the dream, but all that came back was a mountainous horizon and the outline of the little village cradled in a deep valley.
Based on this, Harry says that Voldemort is "abroad" (which briefly made me think of Transgender Voldemort and took me to a very scary place) because "[i]t didn't look like anywhere in Britain."
*gazes at the mountains of England*
*gazes at the mountains in Scotland*
*gazes at the mountains in Wales*
Not to mention Northern Ireland, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
Ron eventually deduces that Harry has been seeing what Voldemort is seeing once more. Frankly, I would have thought that the whole bit about knowing where Voldemort was, what he was doing and what he was thinking about would make that rather obvious, but wizards are so bad at logic that I suppose we must applaud Ron for managing to think linearly.
Harry then says that he thinks that Gregorovitch has to do with Quidditch. Ron brings up a very bad Quidditch player with a similar name that we've never heard of before and will never hear of again. The two continue in this vein for some time, and then Ron wishes Harry a happy birthday.
Amazingly, Harry forgot this:
"Wow -- that's right, I forgot! I'm seventeen!"
*facepalm* Normally intelligent people do NOT forget their own birthdays. In fact, many doctors, nurses and social workers use questions like that as a sanity test.
Harry, reveling in the fact that he is now officially an adult of seventeen—albeit one who is so dense that he needed this information pointed out to him--starts playing with magic by Summoning his glasses, making Ron's stuff fly, changing the colors in a poster and, in an example that shows quite clearly the level of Harry's intelligence, learning to tie his shoelaces:
Harry also tried tying the laces of his trainers by magic (the resultant knot took several minutes to untie by hand)
Ron then gives Harry a book on how to get on with girls. Surprisingly, Ron got it from the twins. This immediately makes me suspect that it was intended as a gag gift but that Ron took it seriously. Anyway, Ron swears by it, and wishes that he had had it the year before so that he could have got rid of Lavender more easily and hooked up with a witch whose name he doesn't mention. I'm guessing it's Hermione and her psychotic canaries, though. Hey, wouldn't that be a great name for a band?
Ron also gets off one of the most quoted lines from the book:
You'd be surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either."
Harry gets more presents when he goes down to breakfast. Mrs. Weasley gives Harry a dented watch belonging to her dead brother, Fabian. Watches are traditional for seventeen-year-old witches and wizards, apparently. Nice, Mollywobbles. You couldn't get the watch repaired before you gave it to him?
However, the gift provokes an unprecedented emotional response in Harry:
The rest of her speech was lost; Harry had got up and hugged her. He tried to put a lot of unsaid things into the hug
I read this passage over several times. It was so uncharacteristic of Harry that I honestly wondered if Harry was under the Imperius Curse. Deep emotion and physical contact are very much NOT him.
Anyway, Molly gets flustered by the hug, waves her wand and inadvertently throws half a pack of half-fried bacon onto the floor. My thrifty New England heart nearly broke from the sheer waste.
Then the other presents are bestowed. Hermione gives Harry a Sneakoscope for some unknown reason. I mean, they're going off to find Horcruxes and defeat the evil Dark Lord and his minions. I don't think that Harry needs a device that whistles to warn its owner that untrustworthy people are around. I think he can just take the untrustworthy sorts as given, and go on from there.
Bill and Fleur give Harry an enchanted razor.
("Ah yes, zis will give you ze smoothest shave you will ever 'ave," Monsieur Delacour assured him, "but you must tell it clearly what you want...ozzerwise you might find you 'ave a leetle less hair zan you would like...")
So in other words, if you don't tell the razor what you want, it'll give you a sour baldy? Great present! Also, I keep picturing Monsieur Delacour as looking like David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.
The Delacours give Harry chocolates, which seems like a decent present to give someone they don't know. Fred and George give Harry a bunch of their excess merchandise from their shop.
Wow, the Weasleys are really cheap this year, aren't they? Ron gave Harry a second-hand book, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley gave Harry a used and dented watch, and the twins are giving him factory seconds.
The Trio leave the kitchen when the Delacour women arrive. Then Hermione says something that sounds very odd, coming from her:
"I'll pack these for you," Hermione said brightly, taking Harry's presents out of his arms as the three of them headed back upstairs. "I'm nearly done, I'm just waiting for the rest of your underpants to come out of the wash, Ron--"
Packing. Not only for herself, but for both boys. And washing Ron's underwear, if you please.
I have a question.
WHY?
Seriously, why? Neither boy has broken both arms, which is the only viable excuse I can think of. Harry's a slob and atrocious at packing, but that doesn't make packing Hermione's responsibility. As for the washing—shouldn't Ron and his brothers have learned to do the wash and other chores when they were young? Large families often teach the kids how to start helping around the house when they're very young.
If it was just one occurrence, I'd be miffed but not ranting. But it isn't just one occurrence. Throughout the book, Hermione gets saddled with the domestic chores: packing, washing, decorating, keeping the tent tidy, gathering food, shopping for food, cooking food. Even healing is left to her—possibly because healing is often seen in fantasy as a nurturing, gentle, feminine kind of magic.
And not only do the boys accept this (and why not? it's to their advantage), but so does Hermione. She explodes once, about halfway through the book, making the arguments that disgruntled fans might make...and then placidly goes right back to Being Domestic, as if the explosion had never happened. Grrrr.
As Hermione starts talking like the Sub-Total Woman, Ginny opens her bedroom door and asks Harry to come in. The implications, by the way, are exactly what you think they are.
Ginny wishes Harry a happy birthday and tells him that she didn't know what to get him, but she wanted it to be useful and small enough to carry with him. Harry admires Ginny for not fussing about his oncoming departure.
She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy.
As opposed to, oh, Cho? Because Cho IS the other girl that Harry liked, and Cho did weep a great deal—though, considering that her boyfriend was murdered, I can understand this. I believe this is Rowling stepping in again and telling us just how better Harry/Ginny is than Harry/Anyone Else.
Also, isn't that sentence redundant? Aren't "she was not tearful" and "she was rarely weepy" practically synonymous?
Ginny then tells him that she thought she'd like him to have something to make him think of her, "if you meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing." Apparently Ginny still has severe issues with her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Fleur.
Then the kissing starts:
...and then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was blissful oblivion, better than Firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair--
"Better than Firewhisky"? So Harry's a heavy drinker, then? I would think not, but then...why compare Ginny to a drink that Harry's never drunk—at least not that I recall--and doesn't even know if he'd enjoy?
Anyway, Ron walks in and interrupts everything so that the book can remain suitable for children. Harry is not pleased about the pre-coitus interruptus. Ginny, the girl who never cries, turns her back and starts crying. And once the Trio are out of Ginny's room, Ron chews Harry out for dumping Ginny but snogging her anyway. For some reason, Harry doesn't defend himself by saying that this was Ginny's idea. He does tell Ron that it's no big deal and that Ginny knows that they can't get married or anything. (The instant Harry said that, I knew that they would get married. The Laws of Narrative Irony would demand it.)
Harry spends one brief moment imagining Ginny marrying someone else:
As he said it, a vivid picture formed in Harry's mind of Ginny in a white dress, marrying a tall, faceless, and unpleasant stranger.
According to the Dream Dictionary, height generally represents authority and power. Someone taller than you in your dreams might be a sign that you feel weaker, or overlooked. A faceless figure symbolizes confusion about your own identity and emotions, and trying to discover who you are truly are. The stranger symbolizes a part of you that you're hiding—or that yet you don't realize is there.
So, basically, Harry's daydream involves his confusion about his love for Ginny, the depth of which he doesn't recognize yet, his desire to marry her, and his awareness that consciously, he's overlooking something.
In one spiraling moment it seemed to hit him: Her future was free and unencumbered, whereas his...he could see nothing but Voldemort ahead.
Marrying an unpleasant stranger is a free and unencumbered future? Well, whatever. I do like the phrase "Voldemort ahead." Doesn't it sound like a road sign? "DRIVE SLOW. DANGEROUS VOLDEMORT AHEAD."
At any rate, Harry promises, as the result of Ron's lecture, not to touch Ginny in the future, which seems to relieve Ron enormously. Ron either wants Ginny or Harry all to himself, and I'm not sure which.
The day passes. Charlie Weasley gets a haircut. Isn't that thrilling? And so vital to the plot. Finally, Harry's birthday party gets started out in the garden.
Fred and George bewitched a number of purple lanterns all emblazoned with a large number 17, to hang in midair over the guests.
I don't think that I'd trust something hovering over my head. At least not if the Weasley twins put it there.
There's also this rather odd description, which makes me wonder about the state of wizarding medicine.
Thanks to Mrs. Weasley's ministrations, George's wound was neat and clean, but Harry was not yet used to the dark hole in the side of his head, despite the twins' many jokes about it.
Um...why IS there a dark hole in the side of George's head? Shouldn't it be bandaged up to prevent infection? Why is George dependent on Mrs. Weasley's medical care? Why didn't his family take him to St. Mungo's for proper medical treatment? And if Mad-Eye Moody can have a magical eye, why can't George have an artificial
enchanted ear?
Hermione, who has unaccountably developed a decorating streak between Book 6 and Book 7, creates streamers and makes them hang "artistically" over the shrubbery. Ron gives her a compliment, which pleases Hermione. Harry, however, suspects that the book on girls has a chapter on giving compliments. It's so nice of Rowling to give us two seconds before informing us, through Harry, that Ron is insincere.
Mrs. Weasley brings out the cake. It is in the form of a Snitch. A giant Snitch. Briefly, I wonder if she bought it at Carvel. Hagrid is wearing a horrible suit so that he can be Hagrid the Horrible. Remus looks unhappy, though Tonks is positively glowing. Hagrid tries reminiscing with Harry. Harry, of course, gets the details slightly wrong:
"Didn't you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig's tail, and tell me I was a wizard?"
Well...yes and no, Harry. Hagrid smashed down the front door of the Hut on the Rock, not the front door of Number Four, Privet Drive. Then he told you you were a wizard and gave you your Hogwarts letter. Then Hagrid gave Dudley a pig's tail—though he intended to turn him into an entire pig.
Hagrid then gives Harry "a small, slightly furry drawstring pouch with a long string, evidently intended to be worn around the neck." Anything put into a Mokeskin pouch can only be removed by its owner, Hagrid says. This got me distracted, as I wondered what would happen if the owner died, or if Harry put a Horcrux in there. Would the pouch consider Harry the owner of the Horcrux because he had it, or would it think that the owner was the guy whose bit of soul was in there?
And then I realized I was overthinking matters considerably. It's just that it could have been so much more than a blatant plot device.
Charlie Weasley shows up with a very bad haircut and the news that Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback is actually a girl. How can the dragon wranglers tell? Because Norbert/Norberta is much more vicious than the male dragons. At this point, I could hear "...for the female of the species is deadlier than the male" in my head.
Arthur Weasley's Patronus—a weasel—then shows up. Symbolically, according to http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/weasel.htm, a weasel means keen observation and high intelligence. (Not the way that I'd describe Arthur. But maybe Rowling would.) However, something else bugs me about the Patronus:
They all saw it at the same time: a streak of light that came flying across the yard and onto the table, where it resolved itself into a bright silver weasel, which stood on its hind legs and spoke with Mr. Weasley's voice.
"Minister of Magic coming with me."
Since when do Patroni talk? We've seen them before in other books, and no Patronus, no matter how badly it needed to communicate with anyone, was ever able to speak.
Yes, I know. It's Rowling's world. But no writer can switch the rules of his/her world in mid-story and expect to sustain suspended disbelief. Jean Kerr described such a situation in the theatre:
It is perfectly all right with me if, while I'm watching an avant-garde play, a character points to a realistic cast-iron bed and says, "That is a piano."
It is also all right with me if another character sits down and plays "The Blue Danube Waltz" on the mattress.
But thereafter I expect that no one will lie down upon the piano.
As soon as the Patronus vanishes, Lupin grabs Tonks and tells Harry they shouldn't be here. Then they climb over the fence. Exactly why Remus and his wife should NOT be at the house of friends celebrating the birthday of a former pupil is not explained, at least not in this chapter. Maybe he'd give them all werewolf cooties or something.
Scrimgeour, looking much older than he did in the last book and lame to boot, apologizes with notable lack of sincerity for crashing a party. He then wishes Harry a happy birthday and informs the Trio that he needs a private word with all of them. There is nothing quite so special as crashing a party to interrogate the guest of honor and his best friends.
As they led the way back to the house in silence, Harry knew that the other two were thinking the same as he was; Scrimgeour must, somehow, had learned that the three of them were planning to drop out of Hogwarts.
Notice the phrasing. Not "Scrimgeour must have learned about the Horcruxes" or "about their plans to destroy Voldemort". No. Harry's worried that the Minister of Magic, who deals on a daily basis with the destruction wrought by Voldemort's armies, is here to keep Harry his friends from dropping out of school and ruining their futures. It's so Afterschool Special.
So they go into the sitting room. Harry turns on the oil lamps in the room with a flick of his wand. I wonder why the Burrow uses oil lamps, rather than kerosene. Didn't oil lamps use whale oil?
Once they sit down—Scrimgeour claiming the one armchair in the room, and the Trio cramming together on the couch—the Minister informs them that they are to be interrogated separately.
Scrimgeour then tells Harry that he's here because Double-D left them a few things in his will. This comes as a surprise to the kids. Evidently attorneys are not obligated to inform recipients of bequests by letter in the wizarding world. Scrimgeour remarks on their surprise, clearly not believing it for one second.
But Harry interrupted. "Dumbledore died over a month ago. Why has it taken this long to give us what he left us?"
A month? You really have no clue how long probate can take, do you, Harry?
This is particularly odd, because HBP had, as one of its themes, disputed ownership. Bellatrix Lestrange would have inherited Twelve Grimmauld Place if Sirius's will had been overturned. Harry inherited Kreacher, but if he hadn't, Bellatrix would have inherited him too, and Kreacher himself would have preferred to belong to Draco. Harry's legal ownership vs. Mundungus's theft of his property. And so on. Harry should know that the legal headaches don't stop just because you inherit something. Sometimes they start then.
For some reason, Hermione—or perhaps I should say "Suemione"--knows all the ins and outs of the law, and explains what's going on to the boys. Evidently, she's been reading magical law down at the Wizengamot...probably as the pupil of the wizarding equivalent of Horace Rumpole.
I wouldn't mind this (I was a geek about the law at her age) but in the month between the end of Book 6 and the beginning of Book 7, Hermione seems to have pulled the following skills out of the ether:
a) Healing magic;
b) Vast knowledge of spells that defend or protect against the Dark Arts, despite the fact that Defense Against the Dark Arts is, canonically, Hermione's weakest subject;
c) Disguise spells that obviate the need for complicated things like Polyjuice Potion;
d) Being able to read, with ease, an entire book written in Ancient Runes;
e) Knowledge of Magical Law;
f) Expertise in finding mushrooms and other edible plants;
g) Cooking; and
h) Knowledge of Quidditch.
It's all a bit much. Why this book isn't called Hermione Sue and the Deathly Hallows?
Scrimgeour defends the Ministry's temporary appropriation of what the three kids inherited by saying something that makes no sense, legally.
"The Decree for Justifiable Confiscation gives the Ministry the power to confiscate the contents of a will--"
Um...the contents of a will are the bits that make up the will. "Being of sound mind and body," the naming of the executor or the administrator of the will, the bequests, any codicils...yeah. Those are the contents of the will.
What Scrimgeour means is that the Ministry has the right to confiscate an estate—a person's real property (houses, land) and personal property (money, clothes, books, furniture, jewelry, and so on)--completely bypassing the decedent's will.
If ever there was proof that, despite some decent people working for it, the Ministry of Magic is crooked and corrupt, this is it.
Suemione becomes indignant:
"That law was created to stop wizards passing on Dark artifacts," said Hermione, "and the Ministry is supposed to have powerful evidence that the deceased's possessions are illegal before seizing them!
Of course, this just highlights the problem. Who says if an artifact is Dark? Why, the Ministry! And to whom does the Ministry have to present evidence that an artifact is Dark or a piece of property illegal? Why, the Ministry!
I'm sensing a lack of checks and balances here...
Suemione demands to know if Scrimgeour really thought DD was attempting to give them Dark or cursed objects. Scrimgeour asks if she's going to be a lawyer, which is probably his way of telling her that she's starting to piss him off. Harry asks why the Ministry is giving them their things—can't the Ministry think of an excuse to hang onto them? Oh, Harry. You poor naïve child. Governments can always think of reasons to hang onto things that don't belong to them.
Suemione says that the Ministry can't hang onto the bequests for more than thirty-one days unless they can prove that the stuff is dangerous. This is nonsense, because a) who does the Ministry have to prove danger to? The Ministry? And b) Dumbledore died around mid-June, just before final exams—which were canceled because of his death. He was entombed a few days later. Now, I'm sorry, but mid-June to July 31st seems like a bit more than thirty-one days to ME. Maybe the Ministry just got the objects on June 30. I don't know. But considering that Scrimgeour was willing to question Harry at Dumbledore's funeral, it seems likelier that the Ministry would have moved a bit faster than that.
Scrimgeour starts by questioning Ron. We learn, in the process, that Dumbledore owned magical musical instruments that he left to Hogwarts. Ron says that he and DD weren't close, though he thinks Dumbledore liked him. Suemione pitches in, claiming that Dumbledore was "very fond" of Ron.
Scrimgeour doesn't believe it for a minute. I'm actually starting to like him. He may be a crook, but he's not totally stupid. Instead, he opens a Mokeskin pouch of his own and removes DD's will. Does that mean that Dumbledore's will is now Scrimgeour's personal property? Field for study there.
"'The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore'... Yes, here we are... 'To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.'"
It took me a minute to figure out what this was. Then I realized that Rowling had just fancied up the name. In the first and fifth books, she called it the Put-Outer.
Scrimgeour took from the bag an object that Harry had seen before: It looked something like a silver cigarette lighter, but it had, he knew, the power to suck all light from a place, and restore it, with a simple click.
Harry is perfectly correct. It does look like a silver cigarette lighter. During its most memorable appearance, the first chapter of PS/SS, Dumbledore first uses it before Hagrid even brings baby Harry to Privet Drive. When he uses it for the second time, baby Harry is present but sound asleep, having fallen asleep over Bristol, according to Hagrid.
It shows up one other time—in Order of the Phoenix. Mad-Eye Moody uses it to turn off the streetlights on Privet Drive (so that the Muggle neighbors can't see that Harry's leaving—Moody has never heard of people standing at windows until their eyes adjust to the darkness) and to turn on the lights in Twelve Grimmauld Place. As moments go, it's not a particularly vivid one, not compared with the Advance Guard coming to take Harry to the Black townhouse, meeting Tonks and flying over London. I was astonished that Harry, who forgets so much crucial information, remembered this. Er...yay for continuity, I suppose.
Scrimgeour gives the Put-Outer-with-the-big-fancy-name to Ron, telling him that it is valuable, rare, possibly unique. Come ON, Minister. DD just left Ron the magical equivalent of the Clapper(TM).
Oddly, Ron knows what the Deluminator does. Either he's deduced it from the name or Harry's told him about the powers of the magical object that he saw briefly two years ago. Your choice.
"'To Miss Hermione Jean Granger,
For years, Rowling has insisted in interview after interview that Hermione's full name is Hermione JANE. As
ani_bester said, this invalidates all statements about the books Rowling has made during interviews. I agree. Fans are free to ignore what she has said in interviews; clearly, Rowling isn't even trying to make what she says in the books compatible with what she says elsewhere.I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.'"
Scrimgeour wants to know why DD gave her that book, and if she and DD ever talked about codes or "means of passing secret messages." Yeah, Minister, that was subtle.
"'To Harry James Potter,'" he read, and Harry's insides contracted with a sudden excitement, "'I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.'"
"Perseverance and skill" don't make a lot of sense in this context. This is the Snitch that Harry caught by accident in his mouth. "Sheer dumb luck" would be more logical.
Now, obviously the objects are going to be key in finding the Horcruxes and/or defeating Voldemort. It's a very old fairy tale trope: If you acquire seemingly worthless objects before setting out on a quest, they will later prove to be vital. It is inevitable.
Scrimgeour interrogates Harry about Snitches—the one he just received and his birthday cake. It is all rather pointless. Scrimgeour finally says that a Snitch would be a great place to hide something small meant only for Harry. Suemione—and why does she know this rather than Harry or Ron? She HATES Quidditch!--agrees with the Minister, telling us that Snitches have "flesh memories," i.e., they remember the first person who touches them. This is supposed to prevent cheating in Quidditch matches.
Strange that we've never heard of this before. We've certainly heard accusations of cheating—usually directed toward Slytherin.
Scrimgeour drops the Snitch into Harry's hand. The Snitch completely fails to open, or indeed do anything remotely interesting. Wow. I swoon with excitement.
But wait! There's more! Harry also inherited the Sword of Gryffindor. Scrimgeour refuses to give it to him, saying it's "an important historical artifact," and, honestly, I do see the man's point. Suemione says that it came out of the Hat when Harry needed it, thus choosing him. Scrimgeour delivers a verbal smackdown:
"According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor," said Scrimgeour. "That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter, whatever Dumbledore may have decided."
What's confusing me is not that Dumbledore attempted to leave the sword to Harry, but that Dumbledore apparently owned it. He must have, mustn't he? Otherwise, how could he pass it on to Harry? On the other hand...remember when Dumbledore told Harry that he'd inherited Buckbeak from Sirius, even though Sirius never owned the hippogriff in the first place?
Scrimgeour wants to know why Double-D wanted Harry to have the sword:
"Was it because Dumbledore believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir of Slytherin?
How does Scrimgeour know that Voldemort is the Heir of Slytherin? Dumbledore and the Trio obviously would know, as would the Weasley family and probably every kid at Hogwarts by now, not to mention everyone who read Chamber of Secrets--but how did Scrimgeour get the news? Well, maybe Dumbledore told Fudge back in CoS, and Scrimgeour found the information in Fudge's papers.
Harry gets snotty and tells Scrimgeour that maybe the Ministry should try killing Voldemort and saving lives instead of creating cover-ups and trying to break into magical objects. Because it's not as if there's a prophecy that seems to say that Harry is the only one who can defeat Voldy-cakes, or as if this prophecy had been a huge plot point for the past two books.
Scrimgeour gets a trifle irked, pokes Harry's shirt with his wand, and burns a hole in Harry's shirt. Then he snarls at Harry that Harry needs to have more respect and not tell him how to do his job. I'm guessing that wizards aren't exactly into political protest and dissent.
Harry tells Scrimgeour that it's about time the Ministry earned his respect, which would probably result in Harry flambé if the Weasley parents didn't run in at precisely that moment. For some reason, Scrimgeour cares about them being here (though why, I don't know—it's not as if he's ELECTED or anything) and calms down. He leaves shortly thereafter, having accomplished nothing.
Well. That was productive.
After the birthday dinner is over and everyone has gone to bed, the kids head up to Ron's nonexistent attic bedroom to talk. Hermione casts Muffliato in the direction of the stairs. I'm not sure why, since in HBP, Muffliato created a ringing in the ears. If Hermione wants to soundproof the area, she has to cast an Imperturbable Charm. Totally different spell.
Ron tests his Deluminator. It turns light on. It turns light off.
"The thing is," whispered Hermione through the dark, "we could have achieved that with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder."
Or, you know, blowing out a candle. Hell, Hermione, your Muggle parents can achieve the same result by flipping a light switch!
The kids then talk about why DD left them these things. They decide that maybe he just couldn't say why he was leaving them stuff in the will. Ron, however, wants to know why the Dumb One couldn't have just told them why when he was still alive. Have I mentioned that I love Ron?
Harry reveals that he remembered that this was the Snitch he caught in his mouth. I took a moment to bask in the glory of continuity, for surely we shall never see its like again. To see what will happen, Harry kisses the Snitch, and thin, fiery letters appear on the golden ball: I open at the close.
So let's review. Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter both receive strange inheritances that are far more than they seem to be. Both inheritances are spherical (Frodo's a ring, Harry's a ball). Both are golden. Both conceal cryptic messages in thin lettering which can only be revealed by the touch of heat (fire or the human mouth). And the strange qualities of both gifts would have remained unknown, if not for the guidance of an old wizard (Gandalf and Scrimgeour, respectively).
How much do you want to bet that Harry's going to have to cast aside that Snitch to prevent the Dark Lord from gaining its power?
Harry then wonders why DD didn't just give him the sword last year. This is unusually clear thinking for Harry. I suspect that Rowling is responding to criticism again—this one about why Dumbledore, who knew he was dying, didn't just TELL Harry how to identify, find and destroy Horcruxes. Harry doesn't come up with an adequate answer, or any answer at all.
He felt as thought he were sitting in an examination with a question he ought to have been able to answer in front of him, his brain slow and unresponsive.
Well, I don't know about a question you ought to be able to answer, Harry, but yes, I would agree that you're a Bear of Very Little Brain. It's a good thing that Hermione usually does your thinking for you.
Was there something he had missed in the long talks with Dumbledore last year?
No. Dumbledore spent most of the time talking about how great he was and how he couldn't have made a mistake.
Ought he to know what it all meant?
No.
Had Dumbledore expected him to understand?
Undoubtedly!
It turns out that The Tales of Beedle the Bard are wizarding fairy tales, and that Ron has read them, even if the other two haven't.
"Oh come on! All the old kids' stories are supposed to be Beedle's, aren't they? 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune' … 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot'… 'Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump'…"
The stories mentioned may map to lesser-known real-life fairy tales. "The Fountain of Fair Fortune" may be related to a Welsh tale associated with the Mabinogion, The Lady of the Fountain, though there are many other stories that involve fountains. "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" seems to have something in common with a Danish fairy tale, Rich Man, Poor Man, which does in fact feature a hopping pot. "Babbitty Rabbitty" sounds like a combination of Baba Yaga and Br'er Rabbit.
Hermione protests:
"We didn't hear stories like that when we were little, we heard 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' and 'Cinderella' –"
From the Chocolate Frog Cards "Famous Hags" selection:
Grymm, Malodora. "The famous hag Malodora Grymm, using a beautification potion to conceal her true form, married a king and used a charmed mirror to reinforce her self-image. She became jealous of the most beautiful girl in the land and fed her a poisoned apple to get rid of her."
Ron thinks that Cinderella sounds like a disease. For a moment, I pictured Cinderella's ugly stepsisters, Varicella and Rubella, and her evil stepmother, Salmonella.
Hermione can't figure out why Dumbledore would want her to read the fairy tales. The chapter is ending, and they're no further along than when it started.
At last they decide that they should go to sleep:
"No," agreed Ron. "A brutal triple murder by the bridegroom's mother might put a bit of damper on the wedding."
I'm still trying to figure out why Harry's even going to the wedding. Wouldn't his being there attract unwanted attention and endanger the other guests? Oh, wait. I'm using Earth logic. Sorry.
And twenty-five pages later, the chapter is at an end. Finally.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-13 07:34 pm (UTC)I either wouldn't have invited Harry to the wedding--which would be logical, as he's not close to either Bill or Fleur--or, if he WAS invited, I would have ensured that the wedding was on a weekend in June or early July, before the protection charm expired, when Harry could still go back to the Dursleys.
Oh, wait. That would have made SENSE.