deadlyhollow | Chapter Nineteen

In which Harry does nothing except find the first trap - and then the second trap - that's offered to him, Ron is magnificent (and very astute) and Hermione is once again, psychotic.

Chapter Nineteen
The Silver Doe

Harry's dreams were confused and disturbing:

He dreamed of Nagini weaving in and out of his dreams, first through a gigantic cracked ring, and then through a wreath of Christmas roses.

Hmm - does anyone else see the anal sex inferences here?

He woke repeatedly, panicky, convinced that somebody had called out to him in the distance, imagining that the wind whipping around the tent was footsteps or voices. Finally he got up in the darkness and joined Hermione, who was huddled in the entrance to the tent reading A History of Magic by the light of her wand.

This tent looks almost exactly like the inside of Mrs Figgs’ flat. Why does JKR keep forgetting this and writing it as if it were just a tent? And jeez!! Are we camping AGAIN? How thrilling.

The snow was falling thickly, and she greeted with relief his suggestion of packing up early and moving on. "We'll somewhere more sheltered," she agreed, shivering as she pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajamas. "I kept thinking I could hear people moving outside. I even though I saw somebody one or twice."

SNIP while they go somewhere else. Somewhere warm perhaps.

"The Forest of Dean," Hermione's been here before

Ah – so all these places they’ve been going have been places she’s been before. Nice to finally have that explained.

Here too snow lay on the trees all around

lay on the trees? As you can see from the forest, it’s very thickly wooded. How Harry would see that the snow was on the canopy I don’t know. It would be quite unlikely that the snow has filtered much to the ground.

and it was bitterly cold, but they were at least protected from the wind. They spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for warmth around the useful bright blue flames that Hermione was adept at producing, and which could be scooped up and carried in a jar.

Again. Every skill from the books have to be rehashed, this is from book one. But I’m wondering if the tent is a THREE ROOMED FLAT why they can’t light the stove. Don’t they have sleeping bags? Warming spells? Transform a piece of paper into a warm blanket? What use is magic if you have to be cold?

Harry plays the invalid and Hermione clucks over him, because that’s what girls do.

After two nights of little sleep, Harry's senses seemed more alert than usual.

Oh that makes sense.

Their escape from Godric's Hollow had been so narrow

Lucky, contrived, idiotic. Yeah, narrow covers it, I guess.

that Voldemort seemed somehow closer than before, more threatening. As darkness drove in again Harry refused Hermione's offer to keep watch and told her to go to bed. Harry moved an old cushion into the tent mouth and sat down, wearing all the sweaters he owned but even so, still shivery.

The idiocy. She burns. There are no chairs in this three roomed flat, I’m assuming.

The darkness deepened with the passing hours until it was virtually impenetrable.

Gosh.

SNIP! as Harry is scared of creeply crawlies.

Their protective enchantments had worked for weeks; why should they break now?

Because they haven’t been tested yet, you plank. Look what happened at the other places that had protection!

Anyway, Harry has a “feeling” that something is going to happen.

Several times he jerked upright,

Not something I’d wanted to know, actually, Jo.

He had just held a hand in front of his face to see whether he could make out his fingers when it happened.

One of the worst sentences in this book. She really does fail at the suspense.

A bright silver light appeared right ahead of him, moving through the trees. Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift toward him.

That’s opposed to that normal noisy light that we get. I know, dawn? What a racket!

He jumped to his feet,

I’ve warned you about this before Jo. Lazy lazy writing.

his voice frozen in his throat,

And again!

and raised Hermione's wand.

What? What did he raise it with? How can we know if you don’t tell us?

He screwed up his eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch black in silhouette, and still the thing came closer

Harry is startling thick here as he COMPLETELY fails to recognise the moon-bright and dazzling silver white doe as a Patronus. Despite the fact that he’s been creating a deer Patronus for FOUR YEARS.

.... And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward him, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.

Holding her eyes high.

Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but her inexplicable familiarity.

*raises hand* Er.. Harry? Perhaps it’s a Deer Patronus? Would that explain the inexplicable inexplicability?

He loses the need to call Hermione.

He knew, he would have staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone.

You often DO stake your life on it, moron-boy. And didn’t you have that very same feeling about Bathilda?

Caution murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap.

Since when did you even know the meaning of caution? Don’t you LOVE traps? How many do you fall into in this book? Four? Five?

But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told him that this was not Dark Magic.

It’s a Patronus. I think it’s a Patronus, don’t you boys and girls? And yeah - his instinct *coughVoldemortMinsitrySiriuscough* has stood him in SUCH good stead in the past.

He set off in pursuit. Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed through the trees, for she was nothing but light.

Cor. I wonder if she’s a… Oh forget it. He’s not listening to me.

Deeper and deeper into the forest she led him,

Don’t bother to tell Hermione where you are going, Harry. I’m sure she won’t worry.

and Harry walked quickly, sure that when she stopped, she would allow him to approach her properly. And then she would speak and the voice would tell him what he needed to know.

Bwuh? Is this Narnia? Or do you KNOW its a Patronus but you just haven't told us?

The Lady Vanishes. Qu'elle Surprise.

...he stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow.

Who’s swishing that snow, Willis?

Was he about to be attacked? Had she enticed him into an ambush? Was he imagining that somebody stood beyond the reach of the wandlight, watching him?

For God's sake, Jo - do you not understand tension? Does Steven King write: She stood on the other side of the door. Was the zombie going to break through? Was the zombie going to get in? Was the zombie going to be able to kill her? Leave SOMETHING for your readers to do, please!

And as for you, Harry - I tell you what, you IDIOT - you are world’s easiest boy to get into a perilous position. I actually admire Snape for this – he had no doubt at all that the Boy With No Brain would wander after a mysterious silver deer into the dark dark dangerous forest without telling anyone. Snape has never doubted Harry's stupidity.

SNIP!

...glint of deep red...It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt....The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

It’s Excalibur. If I hadn’t already broken the book twenty times by hurling against the wall, I would have here. What other symbolism can we cram in here? And how do you know it’s the real one, Mr Antiques Roadshow?

Barely breathing, he stared down at it. How was this possible? How could it have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where they were camping?

Because the writer can’t think of a more sensible way, I guess.

Had some unknown magic drawn Hermione to this spot, or was the doe, which he had taken to be a Patronus,

Since when?? Oh Jo's just realised she didn't have Harry state this earlier. Heaven forbid she'd go back and re-write the earlier section.

And also? If you shove two questions in the same sentence with an “or”, Jo – they should be related. These are not.

some kind of guardian of the pool?

Or had the sword been put into the pool after they had arrived, precisely because they were here? In which case, where was the person who wanted to pass it to Harry?

Again, can't the readers can ask these questions themselves, you really have no respect for even the kids, do you?

"Accio Sword." It did not stir. He had not expected it to.

Harry: the expert at doing spells he doesn’t expect to work. Bellatrix once said that Unforgiveables have to have intent behind them to be effective. If all magic works in the same way it says a lot about Harry. Harry - the world's most passive hero ever

If it had been that easy the sword would have lain on the ground for him to pick up, not in the depths of a frozen pool.

And Jo. The Mistress of the Bleeding Obvious.

He set off around the circle of ice, thinking hard about the last time the sword had delivered itself to him. He had been in terrible danger then, and had asked for help. "Help," he murmured, but the sword remained upon the pool bottom, indifferent, motionless. What was it, Harry asked himself (walking again), that Dumbledore had told him the last time he had retrieved the sword? Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat. And what were the qualities that defined a Gryffindor?

Oh Harry, you really like to put your head on the train tracks, don’t you? Hmm… I’ve got a little list.

Failing intellect.
Rulebreaking
Bullying
Cheating
Recklessness
Stupidity
CAPS LOCK
Stubbornness

A small voice inside Harry's head answered him:

No. That was me.

Their daring nerve and chivalry set Gryffindor apart.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Chivalry? Since when? Daring nerve I can grant you, because that’s just recklessness, but chivalry? Oh – do you mean telling Cedric about the dragons? Because that wasn’t chivalry, Harry. That was CHEATING.

Harry stopped walking and let out a long sigh, his smoky breath dispersing rapidly upon the frozen air.

I think you mean freezing air, Jo. I see no dry ice.

He knew what he had to do. If he was honest with himself, he had thought it might come to this from the moment he had spotted the sword through the ice.

Drink the water? Get a rope? Go and get Hermione? Transform a twig into a reaching thingy? A fucking big magnet?

SNIP! as he gets naked again.

An owl hooted somewhere as he stripped off, and he thought with a pang of Hedwig.

i find it mildly disturbing that he thinks fondly of Hedwig as he strips off, and if I have to be picky, one doesn't think with a pang.

He was shivering now, his teeth chattering horribly, and yet he continued to strip off until at last he stood there in his underwear, barefooted in the snow.

I suppose he wasn’t capable of transforming his clothes into a dry-suit.

He placed the pouch ~~containing his wand, his mother's letter, the shard of Sirius's mirror, and the old Snitch~~

In case we'd forgotten what was in it - although why it matters NOW, I'll never know.

on top of his clothes, then he pointed Hermione's wand at the ice.

Cripes. I’d forgotten he’d got her wand. That’s very chivalrous, Harry, leaving a girl in a tent alone with no defences.

"Diffindo." It cracked with a sound like a bullet in the silence. The surface of the pool broke and chunks of dark ice rocked on the ruffled water. As far as Harry could judge, it was not deep, but to retrieve the sword he would have to submerge himself completely.

"Not deep" - that's interesting. Deeper than he is tall IS deep. And how can he tell anyway. In the dark. and anyway - Why? Why why why? Heat the water! Disappear the water! Impervious! Transform into an octopus! Transform the water into styrofoam doo dads!

I’m sorry, and I know I’m not a chivalrous Gryffindor, I’m only a lowly Slytherin through and through, but there is no time limit here, Harry. I would try all the other ways and spells I could think of before I jumped in a freezing pool ALONE in the middle of the night. But then I'm not a moron with a death wish.

Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer. He stepped to the pool's edge and placed Hermione's wand on the ground still lit. Then, trying not to imagine how much colder he was about to become or how violently he would soon be shivering, he jumped.

SNIP! as the idiot jumps in anyway. Hurrah. Perhaps he’ll die.

: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.

Oh hurrah! SNIP! as Harry begins to die. Then Ron comes up with one of the best lines in the book.

"Are -- you -- mental?"

Yes. Surely you must know by now, Ron? Have you never wondered about the brain damage that his scar may have caused?

Bizarre.

"didn't you take the thing off before you dived?" Harry could not answer.

"Because I'm a moron" Go on, Harry, say it.

The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with Ron's reappearance; he could not believe it. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged sweater after sweater over his head, Harry stared at Ron, half expecting him to have disappeared every time he lost sight of him, and yet he had to be real: He had just dived into the pool, he had saved Harry's life.

In case we'd forgotten.

"It was y-you?" Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation. "Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused.

You are not the only one, Ron

"Y-you cast that doe?"

Harry. I know you are exceptionally DIM but he's your best friend. I know that you don't really take much notice of what your friends do or take much interest in their trials and tribulations (unless it directly relates to you) but you held CLASSES on this. If I can remember what "What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!" "My Patronus is a stag."

"Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers."

I'm guessing that both Patroni are Red Deer, then, as Roe Deer are only the same size of a goat (although this would make sense in the Hogsmeade chapter, to be honest) and Roe Deer have quite small antlers.

Harry put Hagrid's pouch back around his neck,

Hey - I feel cheated! What's in it?

Ron says he's come back and Harry sulks for a moment, but...

He had just saved Harry's life.

In case we'd forgotten

Ron realises that HE got the sword out. When does Harry get to do anything but fail?

Harry asks Ron how he got there, but before Ron can tell him Harry gets bored and runs off because he thinks someone might be around.

The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching slightly. Harry knew that the thing inside [the locket] was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill Harry rather than let him possess it.

Really? Now I read that very differently. I read that it was Ron pulling Harry out by the chain which caused it to tighten around his neck. After all - what else was Ron grab onto?

Harry tells Ron to kill the Horcrux

"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

Yes. RON is the chivalrous one. It sure ain't you, Harry. Or are you just too scared?

He was not being kind or generous.

Is he ever?

As certainly as he had known that the doe was benign, he knew that Ron had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at least taught Harry something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts.

Harry LEARNED something? *reaches for smelling salts *

"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry. The answer came so readily to his lips that thought that he had always known it deep down: Perhaps it had taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realize it.

More like it just takes him months to realise anything.

He looked at the serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones: It was easy to visualize it as a miniscule snake, curled upon the cold rock. "No!" said Ron. "Don't open it! I'm serious!" "Why not?" asked Harry. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months --"

What's been months?

SNIP! a slashy section that made 10000 Harry/Ron shippers squeal with glee.

"Tell me when," [Ron] croaked.

"On three," said Harry, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry's neck still burned. "One . . . two . . . three . . .open."

Not on three then.

The last word came as a hiss and a snarl

Snarl? How many snakes snarl?

There's a pair of eyes in it. I'm sorry but as the eyes are frantically swivelling all I could imagine were these.

Then after the Ron/Harry slash - we get MORE shipping.

Firstly - Ron/Voldie.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."

Then we have Harry/Hermione.

Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione,

The locket went white hot. Hyberole again. White hot? It would seared his fingers off.

~~The Devil~~ Voldemort tempts Ron to try and save his ~~arse~~ googly eyes.

Voldemort/Hermione was more beautiful

Because Jo has been attempting to con us that Hermione is now a hottie all through this book.

and yet more terrible than the real Hermione:

Yet more terrible? What does that mean? More nagging? More homework? More snitching to the teachers? I think that Jo is rather going for this effect and fails.

ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!

She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified, yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One?

You want a list?

SNIP! As Riddle continues to taunt Ron with every fangirl's dreams but finally he stabs the nasty piece of jewelry and all is well.

Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act.

IN CASE WE'D FORGOTTEN.

Harry then actually does something nice for Ron - after all these years.

"After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "she cried for a week.

Ron says he was a ....

"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Harry. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."

Thanks Harry. I'd forgotten about that.

"all we've got to do is find that tent again." But it was not difficult. Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed lengthy, with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time.

In the middle of the night, in the DARK with no path, no breadcrumb trail. Riiiight.

Harry tells Hermione Ron is back.

Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas.

How about going into another ROOM?

A tender reunion as Hermione beats the crap out of Ron.

"Hermione," interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, "he just saved my --"

Please, Harry. Not again.

SNIP! as Ron tells them how he was pinched by the Snatchers (ouch!) and gave them the most stupid name (Stan Shunpike) he could think of. What a moron. And when he'd escaped they'd gone.

"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound.

I'm with you, Hermione. Hardly believable, at any rate.

"Hermione," said Harry quietly, "Ron just saved my life." She appeared not to have heard him.

I can't say I blame her. With Harry it's like saying "I woke up this morning."

"One thing I would like to know, though," she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron's head. "How exactly did you find us tonight?

I'd like to know a LOT more than that, but as Jo isn't asking the questions for me, I have a bad feeling that the whole "why the forest of Dean" thing isn't going to be explained.

"I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator again, "came out of this."

"And what exactly did I say?" asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.

"My name. 'Ron.' ...

Wow. Is that your name? I'd never have guessed. *beats head on rock*

...And you said ... something about a wand...."

So... let me get this straight. This "cool gadget" that JKR invented in book one as a throw-away device which was obviously only there to introduce the fact that this wasn't Kansas anymore - THIS Put-Outer is actually tuned to listen in to Hermione? So... Mr Dumble-I'm-so-Great, gave to the trio, without any explanation, a gadget that could have led Voldemort to them AT ANY TIME?

Good grief.

SNIP! Because I can't bear to rehash how utterly stupid the Deluminator device is.

Hermione wants more details of the silver doe.

"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said.

*Erastes gives a standing ovation*

and it led you to the sword! I can't believe this!

*Erastes throws flowers* Brava Brava! ME EITHER!

Then what happened?" Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in. "-- and Ron stabbed it with the sword."

Thanks. I REALLY wanted it all explained again. There's a way to avoid this you know. It's like this. Pay attention.

Harry and Ron told Hermione all about the sword's recovery and the Horcrux's destruction.

And that's it, really. Rinse wash repeat. Even in the same chapter. Ad infinitum. When does Harry get to do SOMETHING? ANYTHING?