The Order of the Phoenix Re-Read: Chapter 24

[slowfox]

I note, in passing, that Crookshanks accompanied Hermione to Grimmauld Place. Of course, she'd hardly leave him at Hogwarts, would she? But what was she going to do with him whilst she was off skiing? (I worry about the pets in HP, as you can see)

Ah, Sirius and Snape in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place:

Snape looked around at him, his face framed between curtains of greasy black hair.

"Sit down, Potter."

"You know," said Sirius loudly, leaning back on his rear chair legs and speaking to the ceiling, "I think I'd prefer it if you didn't give orders here, Snape. It's my house, you see."

:D

I was surprised that they got the Knight Bus back to Hogwarts - I'd have thought that they'd get the Hogwarts Express, but of course we've never actually been away from Hogwarts for Christmas before now, so we don't actually know what the norm might be... Harry demonstrates that defocused temporal perception that Douglas Adams used to write about:

Harry had an unpleasant constricted sensation in his chest he did not want to say goodbye to Sirius. He had a bad feeling about this parting...

I s'pose it's worth remembering at this point that this whole book was published with the knowledge that JKR had killed off a much-loved character within, and during the first read there was definitely the suspense of not knowing who it was going to be. Part of me thinks that the whole Arthur being bitten by the snake was purposeful distraction, although I never guessed that it would be Sirius who would die (if memory serves, I thought it was going to be Hagrid). Anyway, there's so much heavy doom-laden stuff around in the book by this time, I s'pose I didn't really pay much attention to Harry's misgivings at this point, but clearly I should've done.

The whole thing with the two way mirrors I'm in two minds on. On the one hand, you sort of wonder why JKR bothered to introduce the mirrors if she wasn't going to use them, and on the other, I quite like the fact that she gave Harry the perfect tool to resolve things before the hare-brained dash to the Ministry, and he simply didn't use it. I do, however, think it's another example of JKR supposedly setting something up for us which she purposefully doesn't use. And the balance of foreshadowing/misdirection in OotP feels very much out of kilter compared to the four earlier books, at least to me.

Snape can be awesome at times:

"...As I told you in your dear godfather's kitchen..."

and

"You have no subtlety, Potter," said Snape, his dark eyes glittering. "You do not understand fine distinctions. It is one of the shortcomings that makes you such a lamentable potion-maker."

Snape paused for a moment, apparently to savour the pleasure of insulting Harry...

I agree with Harry, though, that Snape does seem to be giving Harry answers to questions that Dumbledore had failed to give. Specifically, Harry was with Nagini (if it was Nagini) because Voldemort was possessing the snake at the time. And now Voldemort ("Do not say the Dark Lord's name!" actually proves, in the end, to be sound advice, doesn't it?) has realised this, he's also realised that he may be able to initiate the link and control Harry. Hence the need for Occlumency.

As the lesson progresses, one does sort of get the sinking feeling that maybe Snape isn't the best mentor for Harry under the circumstances. Certainly, he's not going overboard to explain to Harry what it is that he's supposed to be doing.

However, this is the point where Harry places his dreams as showing him parts of the Ministry, and he deduces that the snake was trying to get to the Department of Mysteries. On past performance, I have to say that for Harry this is a pretty blinding leap of deduction ;-P

The chapter closes a little ambiguously:

He could not help feeling that his first foray into Occlumency had weakened his mind's resistance rather than strengthening it, and he wondered, with a feeling of great trepidation, what had happened to make Lord Voldemort the happiest he had been in fourteen years.

I definitely remember, on the first reading, wondering about the invited connection there, and that maybe Voldemort was happy because Snape had lowered Harry's defences for him...