The Harry Potter Reread is going to undergo hypnosis therapy to conquer its fear of tipping over while riding a bike, and magical spoons. These are legitimate concerns, it swears. And hypnosis seems like such a nice way of getting rid of all that worry…
This week there is so much pet abuse! Also the first trip to Hogsmeade for all children lucky enough to attend. (Hint: Not Harry.) We’ve got Chapters 7 and 8 of The Prisoner of Azkaban—The Boggart in the Wardrobe and Flight of the Fat Lady.
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—The Boggart in the Wardrobe
Summary
Draco comes back to class during a Potions lesson and makes a big deal about his injured arm, getting Snape to force Ron and Harry to help him with his classwork. He makes it clear to the boys that he’s also doing this in part to get Hagrid fired—his father is making complaints to the Hogwarts governors and the Ministry. Neville is having a very hard time making the Shrinking Solution in class, and Snape decides that Neville will feed it to his pet toad to encourage him to do better work. Hermione offers to help, which Snape dismisses as showing off. She helps him anyway, which is just as well because an ill-brewed potion would have killed Neville’s toad, according to Snape. He takes five points away from Gryffindor for her disobedience.
Next up is their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and Lupin directs them to leave their books aside for a practical lesson. Having only had one practical lesson before (Lockhart’s disastrous pixies), the students are wary, and they end up in the staffroom. Snape is there and choses to leave before the lesson begins, taking a potshot at Neville by informing Lupin that he shouldn’t trust anything to the boy. There’s a boggart in the wardrobe, a shapeshifter that prays on fear, and Lupin teaches the children that laughter is what destroys them. When the boggart appears, the students have to manipulate their fear into something funny.
He asks for Neville’s help in the first demonstration, prompting him on what frightens the boy most. Neville admits it’s Professor Snape. Lupin asks him to picture his grandmother’s clothes, and when he faces the boggart, to picture Snape in them. Neville does so, and Snape appears in a vulture-topped hat with a red handbag and a lace-trimmed dress. Much of the class gets a crack at the boggart, but when it gets to Harry (who is stuck trying to figure out how to make a Dementor funny), Lupin jumps in front of him and prevents him from facing it—Neville finishes it off. Harry is pretty put out, assuming Lupin thinks him weak after seeing his reaction on the Hogwarts Express.
Commentary
So Snape’s way of motivating a student is literally to say “get it right or I’ll kill your pet.” Because, you know, a failing grade is definitely not bad enough.
Lupin, on the other hand, knows the name of every single one of his students before he has his first class. Did you make a chart, sweetie? Or is your memory just that good?
Peeves’ reaction to Lupin as he walks the class to the staffroom is a tip-off here, if not to his identity as a werewolf, then to his history as a student. Considering how often the Marauders ran in and out of trouble and snuck around after dark, it’s fair to assume that Remus had a lot of run-ins with Peeves as a teen—hence knowing how to be a nuisance to him when the occasion calls for it. Shooting gum up the poltergeist’s nose is probably just one of many tricks they had for getting him off their back. I wonder if use of the word “loony” is a conscious rhyme with his childhood nickname as well. Peeves had to have heard the quartet in a halls, whisper-shouting at each other.
So Snape proceeds yet again to be the worst human being in the castle and humiliates Neville further by suggesting that he can’t perform simple tasks to a new professor. Lupin’s cheery rejoinder strikes me as probably the way Remus has always dealt with Severus. James and Sirius had active vendettas there, but Remus seems more the kind of person to kill someone with kindness when they can’t stand him.
And then Neville admits that Snape is his greatest fear, and my heart breaks. Not just because Snape has intimidated one of his students to the point where that boy is honestly terrified of him, but because Neville’s fear—like Harry’s—is indicative of something else. The dementor suggests that fear is what frightens Harry, and Neville’s fear of Snape suggests that what he fears is not being good enough. Neville’s family wasn’t even sure he had magical abilities when he was younger. Neville is clumsy and forgetful and has a hard time in many of his classes. Snape is a perfect marker of that fear, a teacher who manages to make Neville feel more clumsy, more stupid, more unworthy. And I’m so awed by Neville’s ability to take everyone’s laughter with good humor. Sure, it is funny, but the true fear underlying it is serious.
One the other hand, the fears for most of the students surround frightening creatures, more appropriate to their age group. We know that some adults will have far worse boggarts to contend with (such as Molly forced to regard the dead bodies of her family), which makes it interesting to me that Lupin’s greatest fear is the moon itself. I wonder if he’s purposefully engineered his fear for this exact purpose—toward the thing that causes his transformations rather than the terrible things his transformations might cause. He’s also lucky that the werewolf itself isn’t his boggart, which makes me even more suspicious that Lupin is consciously directing his fear toward an “object” that can easily be manipulated in boggart form. I assume that must be possible when dealing with them, though we’re not given a particular indication either way.
Either way, best lesson we’ve been given in any of the Potter books thus far. It might be the best in the whole series, frankly. And Neville gets to finish the thing off, proving his competence in a subject he probably didn’t feel particularly adept in before. It’s easy to argue that this is Neville’s first step toward Dumbledore’s Army, learning that he has the ability to fight back. If we take Neville as an analog for Peter Pettigrew in Harry’s generation (which I do), this shows how Remus has grown into adulthood as well. We can assume that Peter never received the same encouragement from friends and teachers, but Remus Lupin, older and wiser and now responsible for educating bright young minds, has no intention of leaving anyone behind.
Chapter 8—Flight of the Fat Lady
Summary
Everyone is enjoying Defense Against the Dark Arts (except the Slytherins who want to spend their time making fun of Professor Lupin’s robes), but Harry’s having a rough time with the rest of his classes. Professor Snape has been in a foul mood since hearing about his boggart, Trelawney keeps looking at him tearily, and Care of Magical Creatures has been a bore since Hagrid lost confidence over the Malfoy debacle. Harry’s excited to get back to Quidditch, however, and so is Oliver Wood because it’s his last chance to bring Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup. Practice begins with enthusiasm.
The first Hogsmeade trip is coming on Halloween, and Ron tells Harry he should ask McGonagall’s permission to come, even without his form signed. As this conversation goes on, Crookshanks attacks Scabbers, causing another spat between Ron and Hermione. Before their next Transfiguration class, they find Lavender in tears because her rabbit was killed by a fox—making Trelawney’s prediction about the “thing she was dreading” a reality. Except Hermione doesn’t buy it since she hadn’t been dreading the rabbit’s death at all beforehand. After class, Harry asks McGonagall for permission to go to Hogsmeade, but she turns him down.
Harry tries to figure out what to do with himself on Halloween and ends up wandering past Professor Lupin’s classroom, who invites him in for some tea. As they talk, Harry admits that he’s upset that Lupin wouldn’t let him face the boggart, and wants to know why. Lupin tells him that he was concerned the boggart would become Voldemort in the middle of class—not at all what Harry had assumed. When Harry admits that he actually thought of the dementors, Lupin tells him that his choice denotes a fear of fear itself, pretty wise for a thirteen year old. Snape comes into Lupin’s office with a smoking potion for Lupin to take, looking extra on edge to find Harry there. After he leaves, Harry asks Lupin what the potion is for; Lupin tells him he’s been feeling unwell and the potion is all that helps. Harry is immediately concerned that Snape might poison him for the DADA job.
Ron and Hermione bring Harry a jackpot’s worth of candy from Hogsmeade and tell him about their trip. Then Harry informs them of what he saw in Lupin’s office. Hermione doubts that Snape would dare to poison a teacher with Harry in the room, however. They go to the Halloween feast and find Lupin still alive, though Snape is eyeing him from the other side of the staff table. When they try to go back to the common room, the Gryffindors find that the Fat Lady’s portrait has been slashed. Peeves is taunting about the whole incident, but tells them when Dumbledore comes along—the Fat Lady has vanish because her portrait was shredded when she wouldn’t let Sirius Black into the common room.
Commentary
Personal aside: There was a point in grade school when my science teacher had us taking care of mealworms in cups of cereal. It was kind of gross and weird and probably my least favorite thing we did that year. Which is basically what I assume taking care of flobberworms is like in Hagrid’s class. Except bigger and grosser. More importantly, the fact that Hagrid changed his classes to be so boring will always be sad-making.
I remember that the first time I read this book, I was so confused by Oliver’s speech—because we’d only read about Gryffindor winning matches, I’d totally forgotten that they’d never won the Quidditch Cup. Someone give Oliver a hug. (He’s probably worried that if they never win the Cup while he captains, he won’t have a shot at playing professionally, which is a fair surmise.)
Look, I love Hermione and I love Crookshanks, and it’s different when you’re reading again and know the Scabbers deserves to get eaten by a half-kneazle—but I’m with Ron on this one. Her cat keeps trying to eat Ron’s pet, and her response is “that’s what cats do, Ron!” If she were my friend, I’d be seriously ticked off. Part of this is exacerbated by the fact that wizards don’t really treat their pets like Muggles do (both Ron and Neville cart Trevor and Scabbers around with them and keep them in bags and pockets), but if you have a pet that’s trying to kill another person’s pet, you should be taking the first steps to make sure that doesn’t happen. Hermione is typically so logical, but here she’s really not because she adores her big furball. We know cats have instincts, but that means that you need to keep your cat away from the rat or vice versa. The answer is not “well, that happens!”
Lavender and Parvati and the rabbit and ugh. Okay, this has very little to do with the actual incident here, but if I could make any honest complaint about how Rowling depicts the student body (aside from representation issues), it’s the fact that all the not-Hermione girls in Harry’s year are so… I’m trying to think of a better word than stereotypical? They’re all hyper-girly and gossipy and have very few distinct opinions or thoughts. Whereas Dean, Neville, and Seamus are all clear individuals. I understand that it’s sort of intentional here; pretty much any school experience involves some kids like Parvati and Lavender, but it stands out when their characterization is so thin on the ground. Not all the girls at Hogwarts are like this, but we don’t spend time with those girls, really. With the Angelina Johnsons and Alicia Spinnets. And I wish we did. I suppose this could be defined as a fault with Harry—despite the third person narration, we are definitely getting these stories primarily from his perspective, and Harry doesn’t really take much interest in fostering female friendships outside of Hermione (until Luna, which is part of the reason why her arrival is such a boon).
Harry getting tea in Lupin’s office is one of my favorite scenes in the book. Remus wins the not-a-real-award for most perceptive, unpretentious teacher Hogwarts has ever hired. Upon realizing that Harry has been left behind for the Hogsmeade jaunt, he offers Harry a fun way to pass the time without making it all weird, i.e. “Hey, Harry! I notice you’re wandering the castle ALONE—you must be so sad! Come hang out with a cool adult!” He pulls the whole look-at-this-fun-thing-I-just-got card, which helpfully segues into Harry admitting he’s upset about not getting the chance to tackle the boggart. In true teenager form, it never occurs to Harry that Lupin is not in his brain, and therefore could not know what his fear was. So the assumption that his professor thought he couldn’t handle the boggart is… actually pretty dumb, when everyone knows he has faced Voldemort. Of course that would be the most likely possibility in any teacher’s mind.
And then Snape delivers the Wolfsbane Potion, and Harry thinks it’s poison, and even without knowing for sure what Snape’s intentions are everything is hilarious. With Harry’s incredibly unsubtle hints to Remus, and the professor’s seeming cluelessness. (He must be trying so hard not to laugh—there’s no way he could miss what Harry’s suggesting.) I always found Snape’s concern in this scene so telling; you know the potion can’t just be for a cold when he’s giving such careful instructions for its ingestion. Why would he care if Remus Lupin is feeling under the weather? There’s a real fear there, fear of what Remus is and what he’s capable of. We just don’t have the information to recognize that concern for what it is.
Of course, it only irks Snape more that Remus spends his time being as guileless and sweet as possible: “I was just showing Harry my grindylow.” *blinkblink* *bigwerewolfeyes* Yes, god stop it, stop being so pleasant and lovely, YOU WERE THE WORST MARAUDER, DON’T LIE. MAKING EVERYONE THINK YOU WERE SO UNASSUMING AND DARLING.
I always particularly loved the line, “Pity sugar makes it useless,” in regard to the potion. Nothing better communicates how bad it must taste than that.
I know it sucks that Harry can’t go to Hogsmeade the first time around, but if my friends returned and dumped a bucket of magic candy in my lap, I think I’d cheer up right quick. The fact that Halloween is one of the biggest holidays in this series—clearly just because they’re magic wizard people—was always a favorite bit for me. I would like to instate Halloween feasts and festivities every year too, in addition to costumes. Come on, Muggle world. We can go bigger.
And then we finish on the loveliest cliffhanger. Peeves is exactly the perfect person to deliver the punch, too—Oops! Butterfingers! Sirius Black in the castle! Gee, how’d that happen?
Emmet Asher-Perrin just imagines Snape’s inner rage rising every time Remus says anything vaguely nice. You can bug her on Twitter and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
I think it’s telling that Harry instantly jumps to the conclusion that Snape is trying to poison Lupin. Harry’s already been shown that even though Snape may act evil he’s on the right side, but Harry still won’t believe it. Which means we don’t either. And this is all setup for events that happen two or three books from now. Impressive.
I had thought (after seeing Vegeta’s first fight in Dragonball Z) since some magical activities need to happen at a certain phase of the moon (a la part of the Polyjuice Potion) and wizards and mad magical, do they have an ability to temporarily change the moon phase? and if so wouldn’t this be a reason Lupin had to stay on the fringes of society, in case one duffer of a wizard decides to make a full moon for reason x, and Lupin just happened to be out enjoying the nice waning crescent. It would certainly make me nervous about the moon…
I never caught it when I was reading these the first time, for no real reason I can pinpoint, but we have had all of the clues necessary to know exactly what Lupin’s secret is from the moment we learned his name.
Because saying Remus Lupin is the literary equivalent of saying Wofly McWolfwolf.
And. I. Still. Had. No. Idea.
What has never really occurred to me before is that much of Snape’s reaction here is probably concern for Harry. If something goes wrong with the potion or something else triggers Lupin’s transformation, Harry is in heap big trouble and the rest of the wizarding world along with him. It goes a long way toward explaining why Snape is very troubled by Harry being there. Some of it could be Harry getting chummy with one of the hated Marauders, too, but I think more of it is concern about him getting ripped to pieces by a werewolf.
I’ve always felt like Harry not getting his permission slip signed was a little too “because plot”. Obviously with Sirius on the loose, the powers that be would have denied him the opportunity to go anyway for safety reasons. I think that would have given him even more incentive to sneak down there as he does later, since he would have seen it as an even greater injustice. Obviously, this happens so Harry and Lupin can have a bonding moment and JKR can feed our suspicions about Remus, but it still feels clunky to me.
My mental nits:
1) I doubt that the potion would have killed Trevor. At the very least, I suspect that Snape would have had some restorative potion on hand. While hard and punishing on the students, I doubt that Dumbledore would have taken kindly to killing a student’s pet. Additionally, it would further establish the need for care in potion making. Alternatively, the potion may not have been deadl to Trevor. After all, it isn’t like the kids would know better.
2) I don’t think Lupin was directing his fear. I think his fear was not what he becomes, but the loss of control of what he becomes. He isn’t afraid of werewolves, but that which causes his condition (in the recurring sense, not in the what infected him sense). At least that is what makes sense in my head.
3) “Harry doesn’t really take much interest in fostering female friendships outside of Hermione” Not sure how Ginny would feel about that. He is certainly more social with Ginny than he is with Luna, even accounting for his hormones. Also, I don’t think he fosters many friendships outside of Ron and Hermione. He lives in the same room as Seamus, Neville, and Dean, so I’m not surprised he is more familiar with them, but I wouldn’t call them friends. Maybe Neville, who falls into the Ginny/Luna category, but not Dean and Seamus.
The scene with the boggart is one of my favorites in both book and film.
I far prefer the film’s version of the The Flight of the Fat Lady to the book’s.
Sirius only wanted into Gryffindor’s dorm to sign Harry’s Hogsmeade slip and got mad at the painting because of the magic doggy treats he will not get!
To be fair, there are only a handful of girls in Harry’s Gryffindor class to begin with, so taking 2 girls to act like annoying typical middle-school girls is going to leave not much room for fully realized female student characters other than Hermione. I know that based on the numbers there should be more Gryffindors (we’ve been over this, multiple times, during the course of the read) but with how JKR structures the books with so few students getting screen time, I didn’t have complaints about how annoying Lavender and Parvati were. The fact is, I definitely had classmates just like that in every class, so it would have been unrealistic for her not to include them. And of course, Lavender gets depicted this way repeatedly before the big DUN! moment after the Quidditch match when Hermione finds her and Ron together, which just adds to our sympathy for Hermione.
I agree with you about the toad thing, Emily. I wa horrified that Snape was actively trying to kill Neville’s toad, that is so unacceptable even by Hogwarts standards (and that’s saying something!)
I actually think it’s perfectly reasonable for the moon itself to be Remus’ biggest fear. Yes, the results of his transformation could be the disaster, but for him personally he has to undergo this transformation every full moon (except when Snape is around to brew it for him) and it impacted his life SO MUCH. He didn’t even think he would be able to go to school because he’d been bitten, and he almost wasn’t allowed (only Dumbledore’s presence allowed that to happen, I hope we can all agree). He was an outsider for most of his life, until the 3 other Marauders found him out and helped transform his life, and now 2 are dead (well, one is dead but the other is believed dead) and the third is in prison for the deaths of the others. Remus is totally alone, with no one to help him during full moons again. Of course that would be his greatest fear.
I loved this book. Loved it so much. It was and is still my favorite. The time before ron and harry have their first big fight and before harry becomes a jerk and before the makor storyline gets dark. Its all great. Yet i hated the movie. Lupin is an awesome teacher but in the movie it was…ugh.
My friend and i spend more time making fun of the movie then actually paying any serious attention.
GarrettC @3: JKR does that with a lot of names. (Sirius is the “Dog Star” so “Sirius Black” = “Black Dog,” for example).
I always thought that a full-moon boggart was the default for werewolves. (I like the reasoning @5 and @8 for why this is true for Remus.) This belief is rooted in the following passage:
“Lupin stopped dead. Then, with obvious effort, he turned to Hermione and said, ‘How long have you known?’
“‘Ages,’ Hermione whispered. ‘Since I did Professor Snape’s essay. . . .’
“‘He’ll be delighted,’ said Lupin coolly. ‘He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant. . . . Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realize that the boggart changed into the moon when it saw me?’
“‘Both,’ Hermione said quietly.”
(Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 345-6, US hardback; emphasis added)
When I find gum stuck to things, like museum specimens or books, I wish I could make it unstick and fly through the air until it goes up the nose of whoever left it there, wherever they may be.
Speaking of pets, what happened to Fluffy after the first book?
I like to ponder what a boggart would become when facing other major characters. Being afraid of many things — lightning, tornadoes, dead flowers, violent people, etc. — I’m not sure what one would become for me.
@10: Oh, yeah, I agree. Rowling’s names in HP tend to be pretty on-the-nose if you pay attention to them.
Something that, on re-read, has bugged me a lot more about the scene where Harry talks to McGonagall about his un-signed permission slip, is how Dumbledore’s choice to leave Harry with an horrifically abusive family is forcing everyone to pretend it’s not happening. Harry’s excuse that the Dursley’s don’t understand Hogwarts forms is the exact kind of lie a thirteen-year-old would tell because “They refused to sign it because they hate the thought of me being happy and I couldn’t put up with a week of vicious insults” is the sort of thing Harry would think makes him sound weak. McGonagall’s been teaching for at least 30 years before this scene happens. I have a feeling that for any other student she might have a response along the lines of “They don’t understand a permission slip?” and maybe talk to Dumbledore. We actually see her deal with far more subtle abuse in a much stricter way in HBP, when she writes to Neville’s grandmother and straight-up tells her to quit bullying Neville.
But no, she knows that Dumbledore won’t remove Harry from the Dursley’s home no matter what, so she pretends to believe the lie and further fuels Harry’s mistrust of adults.
Sorry if this got a bitt long, I just… This aspect of the story has bothered me more and more lately.
Neville seems to have a wicked case of PTSD, courtesy of his grandmother.
@3: To me, the name Lupin is first and foremost Arsene Lupin. And prof. Lupin is so nice and obviously sneaky I didn’t look any further.
Lupin asks the students to put their books aside, while Umbridge starts every lesson saying “Wands away!” Does teaching the theoretical aspects of a subject makes one a bad teacher J.K.?
Hermione’s views on Crookshanks compared to the rest of the world’s (“It was either a very big cat or quite a small tiger.”) is similar to Nanny Ogg’s views on her own Greebo: “To Nanny Ogg, he was merely a larger version of the little fluffy kitten he had once been. To everyone else, he was a scarred ball of inventive malignancy”.
I love your rereads of HP so much, this one made me overthink so many scenes in those two chapters… and re-imagining those scenes was unbelievable fun, I couldn’t stop laughing.
Thank you so much!
@16
Does teaching the theoretical aspects of a subject makes one a bad teacher J.K.?
There is no evidence she feels this way. She demonstrates that Lupin provides the class with a balance of both the theoretical and the practical. All the other teachers, aside from Binns*, ask for a classwork on the theoretical aspects of their course, while providing practical time to engage with the lessons. The issue with Umbridge is that she wished to provide only a theoretical basis for their education.
*Okay, you wanna talk about names
Binns is the name for the rubbish HOM teacher
Sprout for the Herbology teacher
Pomfrey for the healer
Vector for Arithmancy
Fudge for the chickenshit Minister(you know, he fudges his pants)
Umbridge for the teacher that takes umbrage
Olympe for the half giant
Flower of the yard is the name for the very pretty girl
And for anyone who thinks that the Weasley name is supposed to imply something negative, Rowling has stated that her own patronus is a pine marten. A member of the weasel animal family.
As a speaker of British English, I must say I’ve never heard ‘fudge’ as a eupehmism for anything scatalogical. Is it an Americanism?
However, ‘fudge’ is a common disparaging term for an unprincipled political compromise, particularly one aimed at saving the politician’s neck. Suits Fudge down to the ground.
@19, So it works two ways!
@18 – Exactly right. Rowling was never subtle about names.
@19 – Probably is an Americanism then. Not all that common, but enough so that most would recognize it. More often “fudge” is used as a synonym for cheating or lying, being deceptive in a lazy manner. To say someone “fudged the numbers” is to say that they either made them up entirely rather than do the work to get them right or that they changed the numbers to get the result they wanted.
Regarding Hermoine’s irrational defense of Crookshanks, clearly she’s just suffering the effects of the mind-altering parasite that cats often impart on their owners.
Hagrid’s complete turnaround as CoMC teacher makes perfect sense given his history with persecution by the Wizarding establishment. He’s constantly been getting into trouble over his enthusiasms, even when they were (relatively) innocent, to the point where only Dumbledore’s personal intervention prevented the complete ruination of his life (and he still has to hide the fact that he still has his wand).
I don’t know if it’s partly a knee-jerk discriminatory impulse because he’s half-giant, or just a continuous series of unfortunate decisions by those in power, but Hagrid has been getting the short end of the stick his whole life. It’s gotten to the point where a single thing going sideways causes him to give up entirely and just start going through the motions until the authorities show up to punish him. Considering how dangerous every other aspect of the Hogwarts curriculum is, the risks posed by a Hippogriff seem trivial, and certainly shouldn’t have resulted in the kind of response the authorities mustered. I can only partially blame Draco and his dad for the whole affair; if the Ministry weren’t predisposed against Hagrid I don’t think it’d have been anywhere near as big a deal (or as close to disaster as it came).
I always felt that Neville was suffering the effects of a Memory Charm. My theory is that he witnessed the torture of his parents and that his grandmother used a memory charm to spare him the trauma. Therefore he’s a little addled now
looney -> lunatic -> one suffering from an illness caused by the moon!
@24 Luna is latin for moon, FYI (Loony Lovegood). Lupus is Latin for wolf (Lupin). Remus=co-founder of Rome (with brother Romulus, who got the city named after him when Remus was killed; in myth, they were raised by a she-wolf). Edumacation is fun!
The boggart scene is fantastic in the book.
Snape is one of my favorite characters (in that he’s fun to watch/read and interesting, not that I think he’s an all around fantastic person) but I do think his treatment of Neville here is just deplorable, ESPECIALLY when he disparages him in front of Lupin.
I have to admit, I’ve never quite gotten the ‘the only thing to fear is fear itself’ mentality. I think fear is a pretty good thing in certain situations, first of all, and there are plenty of things I fear more than fear that I think are quite legitamate fears. Or is it just supposed to mean not letting it hamper your life beyond necessary?
Two thoughts – I DO wonder what Hermione’s boggart would be, has JK Rowling ever said? And, I am not really sure what my boggart would have been as a young adult (maybe a car, since I have always had, and still do have, a severe phobia of driving) but I know now it would be along the lines of Molly Weasley and I honestly don’t think there’s any way to make that funny. Unless the dead body just got up and started tap dancing or something and was all, ‘HAHA JUST KIDDING’. But…ugh…
Hermione does face a boggart in the exam at the end of the year (McGonagall tells her she failed all exams).
Ah! I completely forgot about that, which is why it’s good for me to be doing the reread ;)
These chapters are fun because Harry’s so <i>thirteen</i>, making unwarranted assumptions (that Lupin thinks he’s incompetent) and believing that Snape would openly poison a fellow teacher in front of a student.
I love Lupin’s answer to Harry’s question about the Boggart, because it’s so understated: “I thought it would be a bad idea for Voldemort to materialize in a crowded classroom. I imagined people would panic.” There’s a very faint implicit ‘You idiot’ in the way he phrases it.
It’s worth pointing out here that nobody in the books seems to recall, never mind give a damn, that Halloween is the anniversary of when Harry lost his parents. So while everybody else is celebrating…Harry does seem to have some rubbish Halloweens, doesn’t he!
I can understand why Remus doesn’t want to come right out and say anything, because he’s keeping his friendship with James and Lily on the QT.
What I can’t understand is why he feels he has to do that: why does almost nobody want to tell Harry anything about his parents so that when Snape unleashes his bile later in the series Harry has nothing to counter it with? The nearest he gets is a bunch of pictures care of Hagrid, which is small consolation.
I think that the thing Lupin says about Harry’s boggart being a Dementor denoting that he is afraid of fear itself is utter crap. Harry is afraid of a creature that takes away all happiness by its mere presence and also has the potential to EAT YOUR SOUL. I dont think that is necessarily indicative of anything deeper, and that Rowling just thought it sounded deep and serious.
@31 – Yes, THIS.
About the gryffindor girls, its interesting that if they were not being nice to Hermione back in 1st year, she didn’t just go and make a couple friends in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. I mean sure slytherin and gryffindor have the whole rivalry thing, but she probably would have gotten along well with at least one girl from Ravenclaw, even if they just studied toegther in the library. I wonder what that says about Hermione(or maybe just about how separate the houses are from one another)
I have been rereading these too! I just finished the 3rd book reread so I felt I had to chime in. I have always enjoyed Snape as a character, but I hadn’t really fully understood everything until rereading. There are underlying reasons for everything he does…not necessarily good reasons, but reasons nonetheless. Notice in the boggart scene, Snape is the only one left in the teachers’ lounge, and when they enter, he gets up to leave immediately. There are a couple of interesting things about this; the first, I think he well knows exactly what Lupin plans to do with Neville’s fear of him, and he does not want to witness his own humiliation. Second, knowing what Snape’s boggart would likely be, and that Snape wants nobody to ever know, means he leaves the room- and in a bad temper as well. He takes it out on Neville, knowing his imminent humiliation and probably dwelling on his own hidden horrors.
Later on in the book there are other things that become illuminated as well- such as his seemingly irrational, emotional and frankly startling response to Sirius and his desire to have Sirius’ soul sucked out. Snape blames Sirius for Lily’s death..the thing that has driven him almost mad, that made Snape want to kill himself. The only reason Snape is still living is to protect her son, Harry- who keeps lying, sneaking off, and getting himself into mortal danger. Harry puts himself and the entire wizarding world in jeopardy for what? Some sweets? A drink of butterbeer? At the time it just seems the world is being unfair to Harry, but Harry is not taking danger seriously and Snape is trying so hard to keep him safe. And it’s a completely thankless job. Harry not only puts himself in danger, but other students as well. Not only that but he never took time to sit down and have a conversation with Professor Snape… apologizing for thinking he was a murderer in his first year, or running off to try and kill the monster in the Chamber by himself… or even for simply loudly proclaiming he wishes Snape would be fired (after saving his life) when Snape is right behind them. If I said something like that and the person heard me, I would be apologizing up and down, even if I did dislike them as a person. But no, Harry is as stubborn as Snape is and they continue to hate each other more and more. It’s really a shame. Snape may be a mean teacher, but he might not have been so harsh had he felt his efforts to keep Harry and the rest of Hogwarts safe were appreciated. However, his pride overrides everything and prevents him from admitting his hidden reasons. Even Sirius and Remus have no idea of the true reason why Snape hates them so much.