The Harry Potter Reread would be more excited about the football/soccer World Cup if people could fly in it. Not that it isn’t plenty exciting, it could just use some oomph. Perhaps if they introduce bludgers? Could you make a real bludger without magic? These are the questions that plague the reread at night.
This week’s chapters show us how nasty little rich kids always get their way, how some wizard curses are different from Muggle ones, and most importantly—THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. We’re onto chapters 7 and 8: Mudbloods and Murmurs and The Deathday Party.
Index to the reread can be located here! Other Harry Potter and Potter-related pieces can be found under their appropriate tag. And of course, since we know this is a reread, all posts might contain spoilers for the entire series. If you haven’t read all the Potter books, be warned.
Chapter 7—Mudbloods and Murmurs
Summary
Harry is woken on his first Saturday back at the crack of dawn by Oliver Wood. He’s got lots of strategies to be certain that Gryffindor wins the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup this year. Colin Creevey irritatingly follows Harry out to his practice, but as soon as the Gryffindors get out on the pitch, the Slytherin team shows up with special dispensation to use the field from Snape; they have a new Seeker to train. That Seeker is none other than Draco Malfoy, whose father bought the whole Slytherin team Nimbus Two-thousand One brooms (one step up from Harry’s model).
When Hermione insults Draco by insisting that his father bought him onto the team, Draco calls her a Mudblood, which results in outrage from the entire Gryffindor team. Ron is furious and immediately tries to hex Draco, which backfires due to his broken wand. He begins to vomit slugs in earnest. Harry and Hermione drag him off to Hagrid’s hut, narrowly avoiding a run-in with Lockhart, who is trying to give Hagrid advice on how to do his job. (A favorite activity of his, we are learning.) The groundskeeper teases Harry about the rumor Lockhart worsened about Harry giving out signed pictures. He points out that one of reasons he was hired is that it’s getting increasingly difficult to find DADA teachers. The post is gaining a reputation for being jinxed.
Hagrid gives Ron a pot for depositing slugs, and they proceed to explain to Harry and Hermione what Mudblood means—it’s a derogatory term for someone who has non-magic parents. Ron proceeds to explain that there are very few “pureblood” wizards in existence anyhow; if the magic community hadn’t married Muggles, they would have died out.
Harry and Ron get their detentions from McGonagall—Ron is polishing all the silver in the Trophy Room with Filch, and Harry gets to help Lockhart answer his fan mail. Harry is less than pleased at this outcome. He sits with Lockhart for hours, addressing envelopes to his fans. It’s then that he hears a voice, seemingly out of nowhere, talking of murder. Lockhart can’t hear it and sends Harry back to his dorm. When Ron arrives back from his detention, Harry tells him about what he heard.
Commentary
Couple things about the Quidditch teams here: Isn’t Oliver Wood the oldest person on the Gryffindor Quidditch team? And he’s a fifth year now, which implies that last year, the oldest person on the team was only in fourth year. So… the kids from years 5-7 when Harry was in first year all sucked at Quidditch? How unlikely does that seem? I mean, even if they weren’t quite as talented as the current Gryffindor lineup, in my experience, seniority counts for a lot at school. It might have been more realistic to have had one or two less-than-stellar seventh years in charge during Harry’s first year on the team. (Edit: Wood is in his sixth year..)
Also, what is the point of having to book the pitch for practice if a note from a teacher can completely undo that (entirely logical) system? I just, urrrggghh, Snape, my ire is limitless where you are concerned. Also, Rowling makes a point of telling us that the Slytherin team has no girls on it, which seems a pretty clear implication toward sexism in the house.
We’ve talked a little about this with the last book, but the fact that the school teams don’t all play on the same equipment is bonkers. Across the board. The school should just have their own set of Quidditch brooms for practice and gameplay, they could even be the same ones they use in flying lessons. Then, if Lucius Malfoy wants his kid on the latest and greatest, he’d simply have to make a gift to the entire school. Giving the entire Slytherin team such a huge advantage is even more ridiculous than giving Harry one all by himself. Even if broom speed isn’t the only deciding factor where gameplay is concerned.
You know, when you view Draco’s attitude between books one and two, it’s shot through the roof in the space of a summer (and he was never a sweet glass of lemonade to being with). He clearly took his first year real hard, especially after Harry getting all the praise by the end. It makes me wish we saw more of the Slytherins overall, and especially him—we don’t get a clear idea of exactly what prompts his character shifts. Being a general jerk is a little different from flat-out throwing around hate speak every chance he gets.
I also feel the need to point out that Ron doesn’t pull his wand on Malfoy until he calls Hermione a Mudblood. Draco has already insulted his family and their lack of wealth (in talking about the twins’ brooms), the thing Ron is most insecure about aside from his own self-worth, but he keeps it together. Then Draco opens his mouth about Hermione, and Ron tries to make him cough up slugs for hours. I might mark this as the earliest sign of his affection toward her, a little bit of boyish white knight syndrome. Incidentally, Hermione points out later that the curse he goes for is actually a very difficult one—and it looks like Ron would have managed it perfectly were it not for his busted wand. So the boy does have skills, regardless of how he may come off day to day.
This is the first time we get word of the Defense Against the Dark Arts post curse, and Hagrid is pretty vague on exactly how bad it is. People are only just now starting to think it’s cursed? Voldemort came to ask for the position a second time sometime in the 1950s, when the jinx was put in place. It’s the ’90s now. The position hasn’t held down a teacher for a few decades and people are only starting to whisper about jinxes now? Methinks Hagrid is being deliberately obtuse.
Also, the wizarding world must be bigger than we think if Harry is addressing Lockhart’s fan mail envelopes for four hours. Four hours, and it doesn’t sound like they were done. Ugh. Maybe it’s just the same forty people writing multiple letters. Maybe half of them are in Lockhart’s head and he writes their letters to himself in his sleep.
While we’re at it, let’s talk about dear Gilderoy, since some of the comments for the last chapters revolved around his hire. According to Rowling, Lockhart was born to a Muggle father and a witch mother. He was the baby of his family, and also the only of his three siblings to show any magical ability (which only intensified his mother’s preference for him over her other children). He was sorted into Ravenclaw, though he narrowly avoided Slytherin. Lockhart learned for the sake of the attention it garnered him, and refused to try hard unless his tasks came easily. He caused quite a ruckus in his time at Hogwarts, performing all sorts of ridiculous self-aggrandizing acts. Interestingly, he would have been in his third year during James and Lily’s final year at Hogwarts.
It would seem that he got a bit overexposed after his second big book, so much so that he had to fake his own kidnapping by trolls and then leak it himself to the Daily Prophet. This is why he tells Harry not to go for too many public appearances when he’s starting out—he’s speaking from experience.
Apparently, Dumbledore had a pretty good idea of what Lockhart was up to, insofar as how he came by such improbable stories for his bestsellers. He deliberately lured Lockhart back to Hogwarts, hoping that the DADA position would not only get filled for the year, but result in Lockhart’s exposure as a fraud. He even brought up Harry as a sort of carrot, insinuating that rubbing elbows with The Boy Who Lived might boost Gilderoy’s popularity. Which is to say, Albus Dumbledore has no patience for fools, and was happy to get Gilderoy Lockhart off the streets for good. It’s hard to blame Albus when you note how much damage his ignorance does, just by being in proximity to him.
Chapter 8—The Deathday Party
Summary
Harry has a chance run-in with the Gryffindor ghost Nearly-Headless Nick after a Quidditch practice. They commiserate together, Harry over the Slytherin teams advantage, and Nick over having his application to the Headless Hunt rejected. (It’s a sort of club for headless ghost, but since Nick’s head is not completely severed from his body, he’s not welcome to join.) Filch is on the war path, and when he sees Harry dripping mud in the corridor, he drags the kid back to his office with the intention of writing him up. Peeves makes a scene (it should be added here that he breaks the Vanishing Cabinet at Hogwarts to get the desired effect), and as Filch chases after him, Harry notices an envelope containing the basics for a course called Kwikspell. Filch returns, and upon realizing Harry has seen the envelope and possibly read its contents, sends him away with no punishment.
It turns out that Nick was behind Peeves’ little tirade, and to thank him, Harry agrees to go to Nick’s 500th Deathday Party, which happens to be on Halloween. The party isn’t much fun for the kids—all the food is rotten and Nick gets bowled over when the members of the Headless Hunt arrive. The boys have their first encounter with Moaning Myrtle, a ghost who haunts the girl’s bathroom on the first floor. The trio leave to try and make the tail end of the Halloween feast, when Harry starts hearing that mysterious voice again.
They follow the voice (which Hermione and Ron cannot hear), as Harry hears it planning to kill someone. They arrive in a corridor with words drawn out on the wall:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat, appears to be frozen, hung by her tail against the wall. The students arrive, all heading back from the feast, and see the warning. Draco Malfoy gleefully informs the “Mudbloods” that they’ll be next.
Commentary
First clue that something’s up with Ginny—she’s “pale,” so Percy makes her take the potion Madame Pomfrey has been handing out to everyone who’s got the flu. Pale being a codeword for “possessed by Tom Riddle.” Creepy.
So this is the first indication that we get of Filch’s being a Squib. I do love that Rowling bothers to give Filch a reason for his general disdain of the students and overall grouchiness, but it does make me want to shake him by the shoulders and shout ARGUS FILCH, GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND LIVE YOUR LIFE. I understand that he doesn’t want to leave the magical world, but at the point where it causes him enough pain that he regularly wishes to torture children, I think it’s time for him to pursue happiness elsewhere.
The deathday party bit is actually one of my least favorite things in this book (or maybe any Potter book). It’s purely a setup to get the trio in front of the Chamber warning ahead of the other students (and to introduce Moaning Myrtle), and it’s depressing as all get out. Not because of the gross food or Peeves’ abuses, but because Nick gets completely trampled at his own party. If we maybe spent more time getting to understand ghost culture, this would be an interesting first glimpse, but since we don’t see much of them outside of this, it sits weirdly in the narrative. And Harry, Ron, and Hermione make no move to help Nick out when the Headless Hunt derail his celebration, which is sort of unlike them. I almost wish they’d helped him out with his speech delivery before nipping off.
Side thoughts: How do ghosts send letters? What other items can they seemingly fabricate for use? What is ghost hierarchy like across the board?
And then our first warning after the Basilisk gets a chance to petrify Mrs. Norris. I give Rowling credit for how genuinely frighten it is—the phrasing is foreboding enough that even if you don’t know what the Chamber of Secrets is (like Harry and Co. don’t at this point), you still understand something real bad is going down.
There’s a funny little flub in the students all finding the trio. It’s indicated that most of the kids are heading back to their dorms, but the warning is on the second floor. The Hufflepuff dorm is on the first floor (Edit: in the basement!), and the Slytherin dorm is technically below, under the lake. So why would Draco, or any of those students from those houses be there?
Emmet Asher-Perrin is really having a hard time with the ghost letter thing. HOW DO YOU SEND GHOST LETTERS, ARE THERE GHOST OWLS? You can bug her on Twitter and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
So many thoughts about these chapters!
1)The more I think about it, the more it bothers me that Hermione (in the movie) has to be the one to explain what a Mudblood is. I wonder where she came across it – surely it wouldn’t have been in one of the books she read? But as you have pointed out, it’s another way to take away some of Ron’s knowledge, especially given one of his functions is to provide the ‘wizarding point of view’. Plus, it’s kind of funny that she and Harry are just kind of standing there like ‘wtf’ and everybody else is freaking out.
2)What really kind of freaks me out about Draco’s transition from jerk to hatemonger is the conclusion of this chapter – he just gleefully threatened an entire sub population of the school WITH DEATH (since at this time the impression is that Mrs. Norris is dead).
3)I always found Harry to be a big jerk for reading Filch’s mail – regardless of Filch being a total jerk himself (and yes, he needs to kind of let go of some of that bitterness).
4)Is this where the Vanishing Cabinet breaks?
5)The ghost party! I reread this chapter a few weeks ago in preparation for the re-read and had some similar thoughts. I’d love to know more about ‘ghost society’, and it’s really quite sad that even in some kind of eternal afterlife, ghosts are still petty, insulting, etc. And you have to be stuck in that FOREVER. I remember on Pottermore it said something about ghosts are the spirits of people who were unwilling to move on for whatever reason, and I wonder if a ghost can ever decide ‘eff this shit’ and finally just move on. Because otherwise…it’s kind of like Hell to me, in a philosophical way…no chance for improvement or letting go of whatever it is you were clinging to. Or could Myrtle one day change her outlook and decide to live out the rest of her eternity with a fresh outlook, maybe move and find a place to start new? Or is she always doomed to be an akward, depressed, weepy, insecure teenager?
6)Interesting info on Lockhart, I did not know that (or if I did, I forgot). So, when Harry was used to ‘lure’ Slughorn in, it wasn’t even the first time…
Re: Wood being the most senior person on the team, it seems to me that the exact situation you described regarding seniority was the case right *before* Harry came to Hogwarts.
If my math is correct, the year before Harry showed up, the team was composed of three 7th years, three 2nd years (Fred, George and Angelina) and 4th-year Wood. Once the 7th years graduated, the team was left with Wood as the most senior player by default. Then he added Katie, Alicia, and Harry; this left the team exactly the same for 3 (or 4 thanks to the TWT) years (apart from Ron coming in for Wood) until everyone but Katie and Harry graduated, at which point Harry had to add 5 new players.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but Wood is in his *6th* year in Book 2, not 5th. By Book 4 he had already graduated and was playing for a club team or something.
Re: Oliver Wood–I always believed he was in fifth year during Harry’s first. Because Prisoner of Azkaban marks his final year at Hogwarts. But your point about seniority remains valid.
“Then, if Lucius Malfoy wants his kid on the latest and greatest, he’d simply have to…” encourage his son to work towards a goal and practice hard enough to deserve the ‘latest and greatest’ claim.
I just put this together–Nick’s 500th deathday party means that he died back in 1492, no? It’s a rather historically significant year. I don’t think that matters much, but it makes me laugh.
I completely agree re: how genuinely frightening Ginny/Tom Riddle’s blood warning is. No matter how often I read this chapter, it gives me chills. The corresponding scene in the film is also terrifying.
Charlie Weasley was Keeper and Captain the last time Gryffindor won the cup, and we’ve seen it established in later books that once you are on the team, you are on it, so it seems unlikely that the superb players were bumped off, they just all graduated as Charlie left.
So Wood’s(And he’s is a sixth year this year, next year is his last year to win the cup, remember?) been in charge of the rebuilding years. It makes sense to me, since the people older than Wood didn’t even try out for Quidditch when Charlie was there, so wouldn’t have the skills necessary to make the team.
Also, the wizarding world must be bigger than we think if Harry is addressing Lockhart’s fan mail envelopes for four hours.
Over 100,000 attend the Quidditch Cup
And the warning is right next to the First Floor bathroom, where the toilet water causes the reflection,. It’s technically the “second floor” as the Great Entrance and Hall take up the first, but it’s still called the first floor, which is where the Hufflepuffs live(remember Harry runs past their dorm entrance on his way to the Great Entrance when chasing Snape in HBP), and you have to go to the first floor to go to the dungeons, you can’t go straight there from the Great Entrance
@1, Yes this is when the Vanishing Cabinet breaks(and it’s called a Vanishing Cabinet, not a Teleportation Cabinet)
About the ghosts, the impression I get from Nick at the end of OOTP is that yes, they are stuck forever. They are an impression of the person as they died, and are incapable of growth, which is why, despite everything she knows, the Grey Lady still falls prey to Riddle’s manipulations, because his motives are so like her own.
@@.-@, Katie, Alicia and Angelina were on the team last year, IIRC
Also, Nick’s story attests again to the hardiness of witches and wizards. It took multiple strikes(like over a hundred) with a blunt axe to kill him.
Now, I don’t care how dull the axe, or how incompetent the headsmen, a typical human could not withstand that.
@5
When do we learn that once you are on the team, you are on it? I remember Katie Bell having to try out, and actually encouraging Harry to look for better talent if better talent is availible the first year Harry is captain.
@9, They fact that after Harry is appointed to the team, tryouts are never held until players must be replaced. They hold tryouts in OOTP, but only for Keeper, and then again when Harry and the Twins are banned. Then Harry hold full tryouts for the whole team in HBP.
And it even makes sense a bit, despite what Katie says, because of the unified way they must play. The twins are such excellent beaters because they know each other so well, they can predict each other. And Angie, Alicia and Katie have to work together seamlessly to score. Introducing new people into that dynamic every year wouldn’t be very good for their cohesion.
I only figured out recently that of course, Filch is called “Argus” for a reason. A really appropriate name for him – the many-eyed mythological guardian?
@9, also the fact that Harry never once had to try out for the team after his initial assignment to it in Book 1. Wood never made him try out again.
Right about Wood being in sixth year! I was convinced I read fifth year, but whatever, my brain is clearly seeing what it wants.
@Aeryl – At best then, I’d call this is bad language mix-up, since Rowling specifically refers to it as the second floor in the text. I misremembered that the Hufflepuff dorm is actually in the basement, as the kitchens are directly below the Great Hall. But the Ground Floor of Hogwarts seems to have a lot more than just the Great Hall and Entrance to it – the Tranfiguration classrooms and Firenze’s divination room are there, as well as the staff room, etc., so it still seems likely to me that you could access the dungeons and basement from the Ground Floor….
If Dumbledore lured Lockhart to Hogwarts in order to get him off the wizrding streets, well, it may have been a service to the wizarding world but it came at the expense of his own students. I don’t think anyone actually learned anything in the DADA classes with Lockhart, which seems a bit hard on those in their OWL and NEWT years.
I grant that the position is getting harder and harder to fill, and that here in the Muggle world school administrators sometimes find themselves stuck with incompetent teachers also. Still, it seems another indication that Dumbledore may have been a great wizard, but maybe not so much a great Headmaster.
I think Dumbledore, whil respecting the power that teachers have, also knows that the most important lessons don’t come from teachers.
Yet these are lessons it is just as important to learn.
Think about it, the secondary reason for having Harry raised by the Dursleys was the risk being such a celebrity could have on Harry. Showing Harry the dangers of celebrity, through Lockhart, is a very important lesson for him to learn.
@13, It has to be a language mix up, because we are told repeatedly in the books that Myrtle’s bathroom is on the first floor, and while Hogwarts has magic, I don’t think water will run upstairs without assistance.
Even without flying or bludgers, I think some Veela and lephrechauns would help liven up the World Cup (what would the American magical creature be? Bigfoot?)
The Slytherins suck. Film at eleven. It doesn’t surprise me that Draco could buy his way onto the team, or that Syltherin are allowed to use their wealth for advantage during club sports. Slytherin has been at the top of the House Cup for years (until Dumbledore and Harry finally toppled them last year, narrowly). Of course they have the best equipment. And of course Draco could buy his way on. The fact that they have no girls on their team makes perfect sense. I imagine they are the most traditional and conservative House, and not many female athletes would be drawn there in the first place (plus there’s likely sexism among the House leaders).
I actually enjoyed the Death Day Party. I found it amusing, and I’d like to attend one (after I already ate, of course, and likely after many butterbeers).
I always figured that most of Griffindor’s team graduated recently, since so many players are so young.
Poor Ron, he always gets a rough deal. No wonder he was the first one to crack during their hunt for the Horcruxes.
At least the first victim of the basilisk is not human, and a very unlikeable non-human at that.
Why do the kids learn all those jinxes they use? Can’t wizards learn more sensible things at school than magical troublemaking?
Regarding House Team tryouts, I get the sense that usually you are on the team for good once you make it, but that it could change when a new team captain is assigned. Remember that one of the Griffindor players (was it Angelina? no- Katie Bell!) asked Harry when he was holding tryouts and assumed she would have to try out again once Harry became captain, Most team captains would keep the old players, since they are likely the best their House has to offer, but a new captain might decide to give their friends a shot (as Harry was accused of doing).
@birgit – I assume that magic kids learn jinxes from friends and siblings, and there are probably plenty of books around to that affect as well. It unsurprising that Ron would have wanted to bone up on that knowledge after Malfoy consistently badgered them in their first year. If I’d had to deal with Draco, I would have done the same.
I love this scene of the trio in Hagrid’s hut learning what a mudblood is… so serious and dark while at the same time Ron is throwing up slugs. I think this is what Rowling does best, mix the dark story elements with comedy. Plus, dont you jsut hate Malfoy after these chapter….
I really liked the deathday party the first time I read the book, but that was before the other books had come out… as a scene by itself I thought it was a fun take on a halloween party. now, in the bigger context of all 7 books though, it does raise a lot of questions about the ghosts and how much can they really interact with the outside world and each other. Did JKR ever say anything about why Voldemort didnt become a ghost. It seems to me he would be another one who wouldnt have wanted to “move on” but maybe the way he died precludes that possibility.
@21 Neuralnet- I don’t know if JKR ever addressed Voldemort wanting to/becoming a ghost, but we saw at the end of Deathly Hallows how weakened Voldemort’s soul is. So I don’t think he was capable of really BEING a ghost, because his horcruxes had weakened his soul to such an extent that it couldn’t really do anything in the afterlife but lie there crying, while Harry was his normal self.
Re: ghost letters
Ghosts must be able to manipulate at least some physical objects — especially paper ones. After all, Professor Binns manages to grade all the student essays and exams, and there’s no indication that he has some kind of living TA to turn the pages. Even if he’s using magic to turn the pages, he must be able to wield a wand.
@21.
No, but Harry was sure (when he kept seeing Abeforth’s eye in the mirror and confusing it for Dumbledore’s) that Dumbledore wouldn’t come back as a ghost. Ron speculated Dumbledore would in Deathy Hallows but Harry said it wasn’t his style.
Didn’t talk about Voldemort becoming a ghost or not, but since Voldemort seemed to be the yin to Dumbledore’s yang, seems like it wouldn’t be his style either.
One thought about the floor confusion. This may be a version problem. In UK English the first floor is the one above the ground floor, i.e. the second floor in US English. If that was changed in the US version of CoS, but inconsistently or then not changed in later books, that could be a source of confusion.
As to the Malfoys buying Draco’s way onto the team, we talked about this in the first book. This sort of thing isn’t (or wasn’t) uncommon in British boarding schools. I think the analogy we settled on was horses for equestrian team members.
Hello! I’m a big Harry Potter fan, ever since thefirst movie came out way before in 2001. I’ve already visited most (if not all) of the important Harry Potter sites, but this is the first time i’m going to comment on. I’ll be here every Thursday to comment and bring along my observations (whether there are or not).
@BethanyE – That would work, but it’s stated that the letter Nick is holding is transparent, which would seem to indicate that it’s not a physical object.
@DemetriosX – That makes sense! Though I maintain that you should probably be accessing the Hufflepuff and Slytherin dorms from the ground floor.
My understanding is that the ONLY thing on the “ground floor” is the Entrance, Hall, and Staircase, which leads into the castle proper.
And to be fair to Rowling, I’ve seen this whole “only access certain floors from specific floors” at fricking hospitals.
@Aeryl and EmmetAP, keep in mind that in Britain what we in the US would call the first floor is referred to as the ground floor, and what we would call the second floor they call the first floor, so it’s always one floor off from the American system of floor naming. It’s also possible that during the adaptation of the books from British English to US English, some of the floor references may have been changed to a US nomenclature while others may have been accidentally overlooked in the editing, adding to the confusion.
And this is not to say that the floors in Hogwarts actually line up from wing to wing, either, considering how haphazardly it’s built and the number of oddball stairways, entrances and trap doors that spring up at odd places…
Regarding access to the Slytherin dorms, this passage comes from Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 12 (The Polyjuice Potion), pp. 218-219 (US hardback):
“They went down the marble staircase. All they needed now was a Slytherin that they could follow to the Slytherin common room, but there was nobody around.
“‘Any ideas?’ muttered Harry.
“‘The Slytherins always come up to breakfast from over there,’ said Ron, nodding at the entrance to the dungeons.”
Regarding access to Hufflepuff dorms, I found the following passage in Goblet of Fire, Chapter 17 (The Four Champions), pp. 282-283 (US hardback):
“‘So . . . tell me . . . ‘ said Cedric as they reached the entrance hall, which was now lit only by torches in the absence of the Goblet of Fire. ‘How did you get your name in?’
“‘I didn’t,’ said Harry, staring up at him. ‘I didn’t put it in. I was telling the truth.’
“‘Ah . . . okay,’ said Cedric. Harry could tell Cedric didn’t believe him. ‘Well . . . see you, then.’
“Instead of going up the marble staircase, Cedric headed for a door to its right. Harry stood listening to him going down the stone steps beyond it, then, slowly, he started to climb the marble ones.”
A friend is borrowing my copy of Order of the Phoenix at the moment, so I can’t check on the description of the entrance to the kitchens. But it sounds like there are, in fact, passages off the entrance hall on the ground floor that lead toward both the Slytherin and Hufflepuff common rooms.
@@.-@: Well yeah, 1492 was a very important year, especially for Spain. Columbus has discovered America on October 12th (meaning that around this time the Muggle world has been already celebrating the 500 years of the Discovery, and I think the Wizarding World (or the WW for short) must have already been celebrating that for a time also (in fact, don’t you think this Halloween feast might be a celebration for this event, only moved a bit further on?)) but I don’t know exactly where he was on October 31st. Somewhere in Cuba, I guess? (And BTW, I don’t know what was happening in England around this time. It appears, however, that NHN or Nick of MP as he was known back then, held an important position in the court of Henry VII but comitted a mistake and was executed for it. Could someone enlighten me on this?)
In the book the writing on the wall is not written in blood. That’s an invention of the film. I think in the book the writing was written on black paint.
@8: That’s why the guillotine was invented.
As for the team tryouts dilemma, here’s what I think: I think Wood did held tryouts for the the team on books 2 and 3 but it was mostly to see if they were as good as they were the previous year. These tryouts were short and brief and that was why we never heard from them. What’s more, there’s even a possibility that since Harry was their star player he never had to do anything on these tryouts.
About the change in Draco from year 1 to this year. I think this has to do with his father during the summer. We got indications in the book that he was planning things, including the diary. I think it is probable that he had meeting at his house with deatheater that Draco overheard in which they were planning and remembering how great it was in the past when they had power and what they would like to do the the “Mudbloods”. That kind of atmosphere must have affected Draco.
Speaking of Slytherin perspectives, did you see the recent YA roundup, Emily?
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/06/the-ya-roundup-june-23-2014
@32 I had similar thoughts. It’s not just that Draco overheard his father discussing things (I think his father was pretty careful not to let Draco hear too much, after all Draco never knew that the heir of Slytherin was from a book his father had slipped in Ginny’s parcels). I think that when Draco was home over the summer, he had a whole summer to grumble over the fact that Harry Famous Potter and his Mudblood and Blood Traitor friends humiliated him, and his father likely made comments expressing his disappointment that Draco was shown up by such a ragged group. So while Draco has always been from an unpleasant family, his increased unpleasantness stems from how his family treated him over the summer.
@31 – Given that Hogwarts is in Scotland, I’ve always been slightly worried about Sir Nicholas, as he has a very English name (the “de” implying descent from a family that came over with the Conqueror, or an Angevin house over the next couple of centuries) and so shouldn’t really *be* in Scotland, particularly in 1492 given that James IV had just signed an anti-England agreement with the French. And if he didn’t die in at least the general vicinity of Hogwarts, why is he haunting Hogwarts?
This tends to lead me on to how it’s really dodgy that Hogwarts is supposedly a thousand years old yet the “English” appear to have been sending their kids there the whole time. Hello! LANGUAGE BARRIERS! They’d all have either spoken different languages (English, French, various Celtic languages) or done everything in Latin, in which case you’d expect the standard of Latin in the spells to be, you know, not absolutely awful.
@20 It would surprise me if Ron had to bone up on anything at all with the brothers he has!!
@35
Nick need not have met his end in Scotland. We don’t really know when he was established as the Gryffindor ghost. He could have come at any time.
As for English wizards attending a school in Scotland, it may be that the wizarding world paid little attention to the politics of muggles at the time. Language need not have been a difficulty either. Lowlands Scots (or Lallands) is pretty close to English and was probably even closer in the late 15th century. The Great Vowel Shift had only just started. But they probably did use Latin at the time. That doesn’t mean that the Latin in the spells need be all that great. Late Medieval Latin was pretty terrible.
@37 – For the language, I’m not thinking so much about 500 years ago as 1000 years ago, or more particularly just after the Conquest, when you’ve got the Saxons speaking the English of the day, the Cornish speaking Cornish, the Welsh speaking Welsh, the Scots speaking a massive variety of things and the Normans speaking French.
Re Nick, I’ve always held firmly to the view that if a ghost is going to haunt a place, it should have died there. But I’ll admit that I don’t know of any comments from Rowling on that score or what her general ghost logic is beyond “too cowardly to die properly”.
And yes, Late Mediaeval Latin was shocking, but it knew the difference between the imperative and the first person singular present active indicative, its adjectives made at least a vague effort at agreeing with its nouns and most of its massive howlers can at least be traced back to understandable interpolations and general standards-slippage. The spells are just… painful, particularly in “Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis” when you’ve got some Classical-style Latin to compare it to.
@37, The Grey Lady and Bloody Baron died in Albania. They don’t have to die at Hogwarts to be ghosts at Hogwarts.
And Myrtle left Hogwarts to torment Olive Hornby and was forced by the Ministry to return to Hogwarts. She haunts the toilet where she died, not because she’s chained to it by events, but because she enjoys reveling in her misery.
So they obviously aren’t limited or chained to their domiciles(or else how would all those ghosts have come to the party).
Your understanding of ghosts seems to be coming from the superstitous ideas of our world, not the magical ones of the book world.
“So the boy does have skills, regardless of how he may come off day to day.”
I think Ron always has had skills, it’s just that his lack of self confidence keeps him from displaying them. When he jumps to Hermoine’s defense he has no time to worry or question his own ability. It was the same when he was trying out for Keeper and did so well because he thought he had drank the luck potion.
@30: Yes! Thanks for pulling up those references. Slytherins and Hufflepuffs both had access to their common rooms right from the Entrance Hall.
I just imagine that Draco and his pals “heard” about what was happening upstairs, and started the buzz that brought much of the rest of the school to the scene of the Petrification. Or, if not them specifically, just another random student who saw the whole lovely presentation just before the Trio came back up to head for Gryffindor tower and ran to alert the masses.
As far as Draco knowing to go upstairs, perhaps this was a (hidden) part of the plan?
If Draco’s father intended to plant the diary so that the student who had it would cause trouble, then he’d also want to be able to be sure that the trouble got attention, and the right sort of attention.
This was, essentially, terrorism, and with the goal of frightening non-pureblood students, interrupting their education, and pushing non-pureblood families out of the mainstream magical community.
The events don’t make sense if you see this as the Mafoys trying to bring Voldemort back. But it makes sense if you see them not as using a horcrux to bring back Voldemort, but using a cursed item they thought would posess a student to do a particular sort of harm in order to terrorize. They didn’t think they were invoking Voldemort himself, they thought they were invoking his memory.
Or did they even know that Voldemort was the “heir of Slytheren” and did they only think they were invoking powers related to a non-specific “heir of Slythern”?
So it would make sense to have some sort of secondary charms or curses on the book, to alert when an event happened, and a way to ensure that Draco would show up at the right time, draw attention to the event, and put the desired spin on it.
So Draco knows exactly when to show up, and his father has, in some way, communicated to him what has happened, and how to spin the narrative. The message only says “enemies of the heir beware”, and it is Draco who names “mudbloods” the enemy.
@42, You are partly correct, later books state that Malfoy was unaware it was a Horcrux, that it would just cause the chamber to be opened, but didn’t know how.
And Draco surely knew what the Chamber really was and what it was used for, and he also likely knew the plan to open it was ongoing, don’t forget Dobby overheard the talk about it, Draco probably eavesdropped A LOT in his house.
Perhaps they use a “ghost writer”
Ha
I found myself to be way too amusing when I came up with that gem!
I wonder whether possessed!Ginny was made to send some kind of signal to somebody in Slytherin house which would prompt them to investigate. We know that there were some definite DE sympathisers among the children even at this stage, and there might have been ways to pass coded messages which 16-year-old Tom would remember from his days in Slytherin.
It makes my skin crawl when I realise that we do not know much at all about what Tom might have made Ginny do, besides killing a bunch of cockerels and unleashing a lethal serpent on her fellow students…
I don’t understand why Filch is the caretaker. If you can clean a swamp with a wand turn you won’t have a Squib to scrub a complete castle by hand.
Dumbledore is torturing him!
Regarding the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse, I imagine most of the professors quit under normal circumstances and not the dramatic way we see in the series, so it would be suspicious and strange but not an obvious curse. At least that’s how I read it.
Of course there are ghost owls. Nick probably uses Hedwig now.
(too soon?)
EAP- “Albus Dumbledore has no patience for fools, and was happy to get Gilderoy Lockhart off the streets for good” – I don’t know where you got the idea that he has no patience for fools. Yes in times of crisis he was upset with the ministry being fools, but on a daily basis? Dumbledore being that intelligent and superior and still being social shows patience on his side. I’d like to be given examples of his little patients for fools, as there are so many around him, and he is always the nice person