HBP 20: Lord Voldemort's Request

[seicat]

Mod Note: We've had a mix up in the summaries so we'll be playing catch-up over the next couple of entries. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Chapter 20 Cliff's Notes Version:

1. Ron and Harry get to leave the hospital wing escorted by Hermione.
2. Luna hands out notes from Dumbledore and Gurdyroots which amuses Ron.
3. Hermione looks over finishes Harry's

Comments

[schtroumph_c]

* She does not know - and I think it would be unwise to enlighten her - that she made the prophecy about you and Voldemort, you see.

So how can she remember Snape when the man who heard the prophecy was thrown out in the middle of it?

* I think I know why DD asked Harry to find the memory. To prepare him to do the same work to find the other Horcruxes alone. Or distract him from Draco. He said something about the obsession in the first book, with the Mirror, if I remember well.

* The first time I read the description of Hepziba, I thought it was the Fat Lady.

* the tips of his fingers together in a very characteristic gesture.

Mr Burns?

[chasezgranger]

* the tips of his fingers together in a very characteristic gesture.

Mr Burns?

LOL

* I think I know why DD asked Harry to find the memory. To prepare him to do the same work to find the other Horcruxes alone. Or distract him from Draco. He said something about the obsession in the first book, with the Mirror, if I remember well.

I think this is a good theory since so far I can't come up with WHY DD didn't try to teach Harry how to destroy a horcrux and what not.

[schtroumph_c]

WHY DD didn't try to teach Harry how to destroy a horcrux and what not.

Maybe it's what he wanted to do when he asked Harry to come with him in the cave.

[heybritney]

Yeah... That would make sense... He definitely wanted it to be very hands-on and such... Too bad Dumbledore couldn't have seen what'd really happened to the locket... He would have found it funny, I'd imagine.
I really like the idea that Dumbledore did all these private lessons with Harry so that he would... Have an approach, a way to know how to go searching for the last Horcruxes. Maybe Dumbledore knew is death was near.

[cadesama]

Ah, Dumbledore's such a wonderful mentor. He trusts Harry so much that whenever Harry is answering about a task he's been given, he makes sure to read his mind!

Seriously, what kind of man guilt trips a kid for having his best friend poisoned and having his skull cracked? Oh, and for having priorities that differ slightly because the mentor can't be bothered to treat his concerns seriously.

"Hokey's contract" -- What? Does Harry occasionally forget that House-Elves are enslaved? I suppose JKR wanted a change from "enchantments enslaving Hokey" or something.

Both Dumbledore and Voldemort are well aware that the Ministry is not the path to power. There is no humility in the refusal of Ministry positions for either of them.

Making the DADA post actually cursed seems a bit silly to me. For one, it was implied that Quirrell was DADA professor for more than one year -- maybe not consecutively, but more than one. Secondly, there is nothing magical or physical that prevents Lupin or Snape from coming back. those are social and

[cadesama]

Making the DADA post actually cursed seems a bit silly to me. For one, it was implied that Quirrell was DADA professor for more than one year -- maybe not consecutively, but more than one. Secondly, there is nothing magical or physical that prevents Lupin or Snape from coming back. those are social and political situations. Thirdly, it strains credibility that there have been more than twenty years worth of DADA teachers in England.

I agree. I thought it was just another way to relieve Dumbledore the responsiblity to the awful DADA teachers they had (and not doing a thing to help the the only good one when he was forced to leave because of Snape and the ww prejudice).

Ah, Dumbledore's such a wonderful mentor. He trusts Harry so much that whenever Harry is answering about a task he's been given, he makes sure to read his mind

[cadesama]

I also don't see what is so important about the memory, when Dumbledore seem to know most of the facts or at least suspect them.

Honestly, it just seems like another loyalty test to me. Pound all of Harry's dissenting opinions out of him by removing the approval of a parental figure. It's blatant emotional manipulation. When Lupin did it to Harry in PoA, for better reasons and done by a character I liked far more than Dumbledore, it still rubbed me the wrong way.

[schtroumph_c]

I think he asked him not for the importance of the memory, but for teach Harry what he'll have to do when he'll be alone, if we believe the DD was condemned to die theory.

Or to stop Harry's obsession of Draco, like in first year with the Mirror of Erised.

[house_elf_44]

If this is what it takes for Ron and Hermione to let go of their feud, I don't want to see them end up together. It seemed odd that Hermione would tell them Ginny and Dean argued. Breaking up I could see. I don't like that creature in Harry's chest, and really wish Jo wrote this differently if it isn't from love potion

[cadesama]

In the second memory, are Voldemort's features distorted from tearing his soul many times, or is it from something else he experimented with? Why aren't Death Eaters and Aurors faces distorted, too?

I think it's some other spells he's been experimenting with aside from the Horcruxes -- although even if it's the Horcruxes, that's still quite different from the type of killing the DEs do (Aurors only had permission to kill under Crouch Sr.). We don't know what happens to the soul after it tears if you don't make a Horcrux, but it makes sense to me that the bit of soul stayed tenuously attached rather than disappearing or going adrift. Of course, a physical transformation due to having split your soul, seems to imply a person having less soul, which in turn implies the soul being finite in the first place. Which is weird to me.

[woman_ironing]

I don't like that creature in Harry's chest, and really wish Jo wrote this differently if it isn't from love potion.

I agree! It makes me cringe with embarassment whenever I read it. Is it supposed to be some sort of metaphor for sexuality because Harry can't quite bring himself to examine his feelings for Ginny too closely? Or is it some macho male thing that, being female, I don't understand? It just doesn't adequately express whatever it is that Harry is feeling, not like JKR's handling of the Mirror of Erised in PS or Sirius in PoA etc.

[house_elf_44]

To me, this is a perfect example of Jo's writing being "Emma meets Alchemy".

The monster goes with a description for the Chemical Wedding, which the first time is rather beastly, and refines to a higher level on each cycle through the steps, ending with "divine love essence".

It's no secret I like the love potion theories, so the effect of LP is a good excuse for Harry to have beastly feelings that wouldn't normally be his, and don't look like true love. That also would produce a twist.

This is my third read through, and I have not hit anything that makes this impossible. The anvils can all be interpreted at least two ways.

[anonymous]

I think this chapter prove, again the Dumbledore and the rest of the ww completely failed when it comes to Voldemort. Dumbledore knew about the death eaters decades ago, before Voldemrot was that powerfull (he was still pretending enough back there to ask for a jot at school) and yet nothing was done to stop them. The more we learn about the ww, I find it amazing that their society even manage to survive for that lond. They seep stupid, arrogant, prejusice and indifferent enougt to ruin themselves long ago.

I remember in PoA, Lupin saying that he was allowed to go to Hogwarts when Dumbledore became headmaster, which seem to suggest that he became headmater when Lupin was eleven or at least not to long before that, and here we find out that Dumbledore became headmaster much earlier (we know that Voldemrot was in school around fifty years ago, and that he came to ask Dumbledore for the job about ten years after he finished school which should be almost forty years ago...)

[cleo]

I thought the monster in his chest was a bit dramatic, but I"m not a guy. Maybe they feel that way... I don't know how JK would know either, but it was fanciful on her part (I think)

I can understand why the WW has survived, it is similar to the human race. I can't believe how stupid we people are. wasting all our resources, have corrput people in government and aroudn the world. People that only have their own well-being in mind for what choices they make.

yeah, why weren't the death eaters stopped back then. I would really like to see a timeline for the WW.

I loved the pensieve, what a great device.