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slowfoxIt would be so like Hagrid to have tried to procure a Chimaera:
"No," said Hermione miserably. "He says he wants them to be a surprise. I tried to explain about Umbridge, but he just doesn't get it. He kept saying nobody in their right mind would rather study Knarls than Chimaeras - oh I don't think he's got a Chimaera," she added at the appalled look on Harry and Ron's faces, "but that's not for lack of trying, from what he said about how hard it is to get eggs."
Harry can sometimes have flashes of prescience:
[Hagrid] did not present a reassuring sight; the bruises that had been purple on Saturday night were no tinged with green and yellow and some of his cuts still seemed to be bleeding. Harry could not understand this: had Hagrid perhaps been attacked by some creature whose venom prevented the wounds it inflicted from healing?
Isn't this exactly what happens in Arthur's case with the snake bite?
The Care of Magical Creatures class takes place within the confines of the Forbidden Forest. Deep within, it seems:
They walked for about ten minutes until they reached a place where the trees stood so closely together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow at all on the ground.
If the class walked at 3mph (which is plausible, because Hagrid, being large, would obviously amble along at a swifter gait than a normal-sized biped unencumbered. But when we factor in the dead heiffer he's hoisted over his shoulder, that probably brings him back in range), then they've walked ½ a mile into the forest.
Why has Hogwarts got a Forbidden Forest anyway? We could ask the same about Peeves, of course, but the Forest seems odd - Hogwarts has its own spells and wards protecting it, and it just seems really weird to have this deep, dark forest out there that's clearly dangerous, and yet have so little protection set up to keep students from *cough* accidentally *cough* wandering in to it. My theory is that the Forest is there to protect something else...
As for who can see the Thestrals, it's just three. Harry, obviously, and...
There were only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just behind Goyle was watching teh horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face; and Neville,whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.
Harry, Ron and Hermione have shared Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherins since third year, not to mention Potions for their entire Hogwarts lives, yet the implication is that Harry can't put a name to this 'stringy Slytherin boy'. I think this is supposed to indicate that there are a lot more students at Hogwarts than we're specifically told of in the books, but even if there were, say, 40 students per House per year (and that would put today's class at 80, in the Forbidden Forest with no-one but not-allowed-to-use-magic!Hagrid to protect them), Harry would be pretty sure of their names by the fifth year, I'd have thought.
Next up comes Hagrid's Wayne's World's Chauffeur of Exposition Moment:
"Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin sense o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go-"
Gosh, what an odd property. I wonder if it'll come in useful later on? Actually, though, as Hermione states later, Thestrals would normally be saved until NEWT level (I do wonder what 'normally' constitutes in these circumstances: there aren't any other wizarding schools in this green and pleasant land to compare and contrast with, are there? And I would imagine, if the Muggle world is any guide, that Durmstrang and Beauxbatons probably have a different curriculum and assessment regime... but I digress). But isn't it Luna who has the idea to use the Thestrals for the Rescue Mission (I can't remember). So do you think Hagrid ran the same lesson for the fourth years? Or is Luna (if it was Luna) demonstrating some hard won, and actually useful, knowledge gleaned from the Quibbler or some such?
Harry's opinion of Hogwarts has taken a dive by the time we get to December:
For the first time in his school career, he wanted very much to spend the holidays away from Hogwarts. Between his Quidditch ban and worry about whether or not Hagrid was going to be put on probation, he felt highly resentful towards the place at the moment.
The Harry/Cho at the DA is so sad :-(
She hiccoughed again. She was very pretty even when her eyes were red and puffy. Harry felt thoroughly miserable. He'd have been so pleased with just a 'Merry Christmas'.
But hey, at least we know that Cho has freckles. On her nose. A countable number thereof (freckles. Not noses. Which is not to say she has countless noses, probably just the one. But she doesn't have an uncountable proliferation of freckles on her nose was the point I was trying to make).
And Ron is in absolutely killer form during the debrief back at Gryffindor Tower:
"Well?" Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. "How was it?"
Harry considered for a moment.
"Wet," he said truthfully.
Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell.
"Because she was crying," Harry continued heavily.
"Oh," said Ron, his smile fading slightly. "Are you that bad at kissing?"
"Dunno," said Harry, who hadn't considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. "Maybe I am."
Moving swiftly on, Harry's snake dream's ickier than dreams past - he actually throws up at the end of this one. It's simple enough to understand people's reluctance to believe that Harry knows that Arthur's been attacked at this point - up until this point we've only had intimation that Harry's dreams connected him to Voldemort's presence, and it seems clear that it wasn't the Dark Lord himself who was sinking his fangs into Mr Weasley.
What, though, was the nature of Harry's connection to the snake? The snake was under orders not to feed on Arthur, that much Harry divined. So that implies that the snake wasn't being wilfully controlled by Voldemort in a kind of remote control fashion - it had been tasked with its mission, and then left to its own devices as to how it complete it... At least, that's how I read it.
So if Harry's in the snake's head (and do we think this is Nagini?), then is his connection with the snake, rather than Voldemort?
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Date: 2009-09-14 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 06:58 pm (UTC)Because Luna is one of the ones who can see Thestrals, perhaps she already knew something about them?
It does seem odd that Harry would not, after two years of class and four years at school, not know the name of the stringy Slytherin boy. Clearly JKR could not be bothered thinking of a bonus Slytherin boy's name. Either that, or he just transferred there. :P
Incidentally, it's never been clear to me that Hogwarts is the *only* magical school in Britain. Wasn't it more implied in the first book (by Hagrid, I think?) that it was the *best* magical school in Britain? Best implies other school(s) to be compared to. Neville worried he wouldn't be able to come, that he wasn't magic enough, which suggests perhaps he might have gone somewhere else, less desirable.
Yes, the whole Harry/Cho relationship is sad and messed up, but at the same time, I got huge delight out of the typically awkward teenage events related to it - first kiss, worrying about it, trying to figure out what the other side is feeling, etc. SO glad not to be a teenager anymore. :P
The snake has generally seemed to be an independently-acting creature, following Voldemort's direction but not as a puppet. That Harry can get so easily into its head - I wonder if it has to do with them both possessing bits of Voldemort's soul? Yes, I do think, without doubt, that it's Nagini; although I know Voldemort probably can communicate with any snake he chooses, Nagini is more likely, being referenced as doing his bidding in GoF and DH as well. (How, I wonder, did Nagini get in there?)
As for Harry being sick afterwards - ICK. I try to skip that bit as fast as I can.
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Date: 2009-09-15 07:37 am (UTC)But I thought 95% of American Transfer Students were girls? In Gryffindor? With violet/aquamarine/topaz/opal eyes? :-P
Wasn't it more implied in the first book (by Hagrid, I think?) that it was the *best* magical school in Britain? Best implies other school(s) to be compared to.
<reasonable voice>Well, if there was another magical school in the country, wouldn't we have heard of it?</reasonable voice> Oh, no, probably not, given Harry's complete lack of curiosity about his world. You would expect that there would be some 'friendly rivalry' between the national wizarding schools - remember, if Crabbe and Goyle can make Hogwarts, than academic excellence can hardly be an absolute criteria for admission (or if it is, then the implications for the schools lower down the food chain is a little frightening).
I do find the whole snake business veeeeeery interesting, particularly since Harry can't distinguish between hearing Parseltongue and hearing human speech. What if Voldemort's Nagini's puppet, and not vice versa? What if it's the snake that's evil, itself, and it's carved its way through the centuries possessing wizard after wizard to further its own aims, and that Parseltongue is not an indicator that a wizard is dark, so much as that a wizard's been possessed by the beast?
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Date: 2009-09-15 10:18 am (UTC)Er, sorry. Animaniacs reference. Which I rarely ever watched anyway. :P
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Date: 2009-09-16 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 08:03 am (UTC)There's a lot of good stuff in this chapter...
Date: 2009-09-17 10:56 pm (UTC)He gets his wish, doesn't he?
I really, really love the teaspoon section back in the Common Room after the Kiss - talk about the differences in teenage thinking between the sexes! :-D
That's what they should teach us here, he thought, turning over on to his side, how girls' brains work ... it'd be more useful than Divination, anyway...
Re Harry's connection to the snake: Don't we find out later that (a) it is Nagini and (b) Harry ends up there because Voldemort is possessing the snake at that precise moment in order to break into the Department of Mysteries, so that's where Harry ends up too when he does the jump to Voldemort's consciousness? Which is why Voldemort after this point becomes aware of the link between himself and Harry.
Re: There's a lot of good stuff in this chapter...
Date: 2009-09-18 08:05 am (UTC)