Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor
In which Harry suffers a frontal lobe migraine for most of the chapter, the Random Death Eaters show common sense, Rowling completely ignores her own set-up for a character arc, all the wizards forget that they're wizards and Dobby is a deus ex machina.
Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor
When last we left our non-hero, Harry had just spoken Lord Voldemort's name-despite the fact that there's a spell on it to allow the Death Eaters to trace anyone who speaks the name, despite the fact that Harry knows that the Death Eaters are looking for him, and despite the fact that Ron has kept warning Harry about this Trace spell for months and just warned him again two minutes ago. Three times. In succession. That's a special kind of stupid right there.
Harry needs to spend more time reviewing the hero's equivalent of the Evil Overlord List. Maybe then he'd have noticed Rule #51:
51. When I state my intention to do something and one of my robots interrupts me, I will at least hear it out.
Okay, so Ron's a sidekick rather than a robot. Same principle.
Anyway, the Death Eaters order Harry and company to come out of the tent with their hands up. It seems clear to me that the Death Eaters know who they're pursuing, because there's absolutely no need for Harry or his friends to come out of the tent. What they should do is grab the Sword of Gryffindor, hold hands and Apparate the hell out of there. This is the logical thing to do, given Rowling's system of magic. There's certainly nothing stopping them from Apparating away. Or, for that matter, preventing the three of them from hiding under the Invisibility Cloak which we know Harry has with him.
The problem is that Rowling has created few if any limits on her system of magic. Since Potterverse wizards do not, as, say, Dresdenverse wizards do, use magic that typically takes a lot of preparation or start to run out of magical energy when they get tired or badly hurt, and since there's little a Potterverse wizard can't magically do in a crisis, the only way that Rowling can get Harry, Ron and Hermione captured and hauled off to the Lair of Evil is for the Trio to be abysmally incompetent.
Hermione shows enough presence of mind to try to disguise Harry-which is more than Harry thinks about. I repeat what I said in Chapter 7. Why is this book NOT called Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows again? The book is two-thirds over, and she's done more than the titular hero has.
He saw Hermione point her wand, not towards the outside, but into his face;
Now that's a waste of words. What's wrong with "He saw Hermione point her wand at his face"?
there was a bang, a burst of white light, and he buckled in agony, unable to see.
Which would be more impressive if Harry didn't keep buckling in agony every two minutes from the pain caused by his scar.
Harry's face swells up from the Stinging Hex, closing his eyes almost to slits. His glasses fall off too. These Death Eaters display considerably more sense than we've ever seen before, as they search Harry and confiscate the wand that Hermione loaned him. It's nice to see evil being competent for a change. Now, if only good would try it.
I do wonder, though, why it takes four or five Death Eaters to wrestle Ron and Hermione to the ground. Why do that when you can cast Petrificus Totalus?
Ron screams at the Death Eaters to "get off [Hermione]". I'm not sure I'd want to get off in a situation like that, but to each his own. We then get a rather odd description:
There was the unmistakable sound of knuckles hitting flesh:
Now, what IS the sound of knuckles hitting flesh? In the interests of scientific accuracy, I tried punching myself several times. There was scarcely any sound...a barely audible thud. You certainly wouldn't know by hearing it that the thud was caused by knuckles unless your hearing was that of, say, the last son of Krypton.
Ron "grunts" in response to the knuckles. Hermione begs the Death Eaters to "leave him alone."
Fenrir Greyback calls Ron Hermione's "boyfriend" and utters a vague threat before nosediving into creepiness:
"Delicious girl... what a treat . . . I do enjoy the softness of the skin. . . ."
IT'S NOT MY FAULT, LJ. IT'S A LINE FROM CANON. Page 362, British edition; page 447, American edition.
Anyway, I'm going to presume that Fenrir finds Hermione to be "delicious" because he hasn't had enough Meals Ready to Eat lately. And, for the benefit of those just starting the series with the seventh book, Harry identifies Fenrir...sort of.
He knew who this was: Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who was permitted to wear Death Eater robes in return for his hired savagery.
"Hired"? Voldie's got mercs now? How does Harry know that Fenrir's hired? Has he been checking Voldie's payroll receipts?
And since when do Death Eaters have special, identifiable robes? Is anyone else now picturing Project Runway, with Lucius strutting before the buyers and fashion designers? "And this is what the well-dressed Death Eater will be wearing this spring. Note the artful juxtaposition of green and black, and the edginess of the skull motif..."
Also, it doesn't make sense. As of Half Blood Prince, Fenrir was clearly identified as a Death Eater in his own right. Now it seems that he's only an honorary Death Eater, and that Harry knew it all along-even though he didn't know it in the last book.
SNIP! as the Death Eaters search the tent, and Greyback shoves an illuminated wand in Harry's face. It looks like Greyback really is a wizard. I was sort of hoping that he'd be a Muggle who'd been infected by a werewolf, and that he hated wizards and the magical world as a result. But he's not. Drat.
Showing unusual intelligence in a crisis, Harry calls himself 'Vernon Dudley.' Showing less intelligence, Ron first claims to be Stan Shunpike-who he already knows to be a Death Eater-and then "Barny Weasley," the alias Harry used at Bill and Fleur's wedding. I remain convinced that "Barny's" name is spelled the way it is because some editor at Bloomsbury had never heard of Barney Rubble. Finally, Hermione calls herself Penelope Clearwater-the name of Percy Weasley's ex-girlfriend, if you don't recall--and says she's a halfblood.
Also, one of the Death Eaters who's asking questions is named "Scabior." This is the comparative form of the Latin adjective "scaber" which means "scabby" or "rough." So "Scabior" would mean "rougher" or "scabbier." I'm guessing Rowling forgot all about Ron's rat, Scabbers. At least, I hope she did.
Finally, Rowling seems determined to make us understand that Hermione is attractive, for Fenrir repeatedly refers to her as pretty, beautiful, etc. Farewell, Canon! Hermione, who looked nice when fixed up but ordinary and bushy-haired every other day of the week. I'm not sure why I should be convinced that Hermione is a raving beauty just because Fenrir Greyback says so, but apparently I'm supposed to be.
Scabior notes that the three of them look like they should be at Hogwarts right now. Ron says they've left. I don't know if, in this context, that means that they've dropped out of Hogwarts or that they've completed their seventh year and their NEWTs.
Scabior, whom I am beginning to love for his common sense, doesn't believe Ron:
"And you decided to go camping? And you thought, just for a laugh, you'd use the Dark Lord's name?"
He's got a point. Most people don't pitch tents in the woods during April, let alone throughout an English winter.
Ron claims that they said the name "Voldemort" by accident. This is perfectly reasonable. I say things like "Please pass the Voldemort" all the time, don't you? Greyback, however, "growls"-yes, Rowling, we DO remember that he's a werewolf, thank you--that members of the Order of the Phoenix speaks the Dark Lord's name fairly often. We then get this lovely exchange, in which Ron turns into Homer Simpson:
"The Order of the Phoenix. Mean anything to you?"
"Doh."
And you know what? Even after all these denials from the Trio, the bad guys still don't believe them! I know, I know, eventually Rowling is going to turn around and make the Death Eaters stupid again so that Harry and company can win, but right now we've got intelligent-or at least sensible-evil. And that is so rare in this universe. Just...let me bask.
But alas, at this point the Death Eaters, too, start forgetting that they are wizards.
Someone yanked Harry up by the hair, dragged him a short way, pushed him down into a sitting position, then started binding him back-to-back with other people.
Um, guys? You don't NEED to tie Harry up by hand. That's what magical chains, magical ropes and the Full-Body Bind are for.
Harry was still half blind, barely able to see anything through his puffed-up eyes.
It's already been stated several times that Harry's face is swollen, that his eyes are tiny slits and that his glasses fell off. Why, then, is it necessary to tell us that Harry can't see because his eyes are swollen shut?
Once the Death Eater finishes tying them up and exits stage left, Harry asks if anyone has a wand. Harry? You just got searched. Ron and Hermione got wrestled to the ground. It's a pretty fair deduction that the Death Eaters are taking wands away from potential opponents. And very sensible of them, too.
One of the other prisoners speaks up. It's Dean Thomas. Hi, Dean Thomas! What are you doing here?
Dean is here to tell us that these highly efficient Death Eaters are "Snatchers." "Snatchers" look for truants and sell them to unnamed buyers for gold. I don't know whether to consider this a white slavery ring or to be dumbfounded that the most efficient and sensible Death Eaters we've seen in seven books are truant officers.
Harry overhears Greyback and Scabior talking. Greyback says that they caught "a runaway goblin" in addition to a Muggleborn and the Trio. I wondered where the goblin was running from. It's not as if goblins are the same as house elves, after all.
Scabior notices that there's no Vernon Dudley on their wanted list. When Scabior says this, Greyback begins studying Harry's face. Harry, for his part, shows that he has Superman's vision as well as his hearing:
He crouched down beside Harry, who saw, through the infinitesimal gap left between his swollen eyelids, a face covered in matted gray hair and whiskers, with pointed brown teeth and sores in the corners of his mouth.
Try squinting your eyes half-shut-just half-shut-and see how much detail you notice. Clearly, this is a new definition of "half blind" that I've never heard before.
Greyback asks Harry what House he was in. Harry, being his usual thick self, says that he was in Slytherin. Dumb thing to say, since all the Death Eaters we've seen, with the exception of Peter Pettigrew, have been Slytherins. Being a Death Eater is like being in the Slytherin Alumni Association.
I'd go for Hufflepuff, myself. Everyone underestimates the Badger Brigade.
To prove he's a Slytherin, Harry has to describe the common room-which he does, as he has perfect recall of his one foray into the Slytherin common room in his second year-and then claims that his father works in the Ministry. This briefly unnerves Greyback, but he sticks to his plan, saying that if Harry's father does work at the Ministry, doubtless his father will reward the Snatchers for picking up his truant son.
Then someone finds the sword of Gryffindor. Harry comes up with the worst lie ever to explain why he has it:
"It's my father's," Harry lied, hoping against hope that it was too dark for Greyback to see the name etched just below the hilt. "We borrowed it to cut firewood -"
Oh, please, Harry. If you, when half blind, can see the color of Fenrir's teeth in a tent lit only by the wands of Death Eaters, then I'm fairly sure that Fenrir can read the word "Gryffindor" on the blade. And even if he couldn't see them, I'm sure he could feel the etched words. Also, no sane person would take an ancient sword with rubies in its hilt on a Boys' Own Camping Adventure and use it to chop kindling-not unless he wanted to blunt the sword's edge, or perhaps chip and damage the sword's blade.
Harry needs to take a class in Remedial Lying. Though, now that I think of it, that may be far too advanced for him.
Scabior spots something in the Prophet. Isn't it amazing how much time everyone in this book spends reading the newspaper? However, we don't have to waste time listening to yet another long tale from the Prophet. We get to waste time listening to Harry have yet another Voldemort vision instead.
More clearly than he could make out anything around him, he saw a towering building,
OUCH. Someone-possibly Rowling, possibly her editor--is deaf to the rhythm of a sentence. How about this instead: "He saw, more clearly than he saw his physical surroundings, a grim and towering fortress"?
a grim fortress, jet-black and forbidding:
What's that colon doing there at the end?
Voldemort's thoughts had suddenly become razor-sharp again; he was gliding toward the gigantic building with a sense of calmly euphoric purpose...
Now, I always thought of "euphoria" as "intense happiness, joy or bliss." The key word being intense. I could see Voldemort being calmly triumphant, but not experiencing intense happiness and being calm about it. Aside from the fact that "calm" and "euphoria" aren't synonyms...when has Voldemort been calm in the entire series? I mean, ever? (Tom could be calm, yes. Voldie...not so much.)
As Harry begins paying attention to the world around him again, Scabior points out a picture of Hermione in the paper. The paper says that Hermione's traveling with Harry Potter. Fenrir notices the picture looks a lot like "Penelope Clearwater," and figures out-well, everything.
SNIP!
Scabior suggests taking the Trio to the Ministry. Greyback vetoes that notion; he's all for eliminating the middleman and taking them to Voldemort. Greyback doesn't try summoning Voldemort, however; he decides just to head for the place that Voldemort is living. Harry, of course, seems to know the whys and wherefores of Fenrir's motivation.
The werewolf might be allowed to wear Death Eater robes when they wanted to use him, but only Voldemort's inner circle were branded with the Dark Mark: Greyback had not been granted this highest honor.
I believe this is yet another example of Rowling retconning herself. One of the things that fans have been asking for a couple of books now is, "If Voldemort has so many Death Eaters and nonhumans on his side, how come no one in the Order seems to recognize the Dark Mark?"
I don't think that Rowling had considered that until the fans pointed it out; a great many Death Eaters were summoned to the cemetery in GoF by means of the Dark Mark. Now, apparently, she's decided to backtrack and say that only a small, select number bear the Mark.
I have problems with this, as all the Death Eaters we've met have borne Dark Marks. Nor can I picture Peter Pettigrew being a select member of Voldemort's Inner Circle of Most Trusted Death Eaters. "Your loyalty is merely cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go" are NOT words you say to a highly trusted lieutenant. And no one is ever going to make me believe that Draco Malfoy, set up to do a job that the Dark Lord knew damned well he was unlikely to succeed in doing, rolled up his left sleeve in Borgin and Burke's to display a freckle.
We then get a number of cuts between the Death Eaters making plans and Harry's VoldieVision. Greyback wants to head to Malfoy Manor with Harry, Hermione, Dean and the sword. Harry's worth 200,000 Galleons (or a million pounds, or 1,478,000 Euros), while Hermione and Dean are worth ten Galleons each (or fifty pounds each, or 73.9 Euros each). Plus he points out that the gems in the sword could be valuable as well. It's refreshing to see a villain who's at least partly in it for the money.
Voldemort, in Harry's vision, is behaving rather oddly. I mean, more oddly than usual. First of all, he's back to the whole "flying without a broomstick" thing that we were told in HBP and in a number of interviews afterwards was flat-out impossible. Second, he's looking in a slit of a window in that grim, black fortress and thinking that it's "not big enough for a man to enter."
Uh...why is the size of a window even an issue? Hello, Apparation? You're a fucking wizard, Voldemort! You don't NEED to get through the window to enter the room!
But Voldemort, like everyone else in this chapter, seems to have developed sudden amnesia regarding spells. Instead:
he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake
I don't think I've ever seen a window like a snake before.
Meanwhile, Fenrir Greyback and the other Death Eaters prepare to Apparate to Malfoy Manor. Fenrir gets off one of the most blatant double entrendres in the entire book:
"Grab hold and make it tight. I’ll do Potter!" said Greyback,
I bet you will, Greyback. I just bet you will.
seizing a fistful of Harry's hair; Harry could feel his long yellow nails scratching his scalp.
What a remarkable scalp Harry has. It can tell the color of whatever is touching it.
The Death Eaters and their prisoners Apparate...no, not into Malfoy Manor, not to the front door, not even onto the grounds. To a road in front of Malfoy Manor's driveway.
[Harry] saw a pair of wrought-iron gates at the foot of what looked like a long drive
Here's the thing-WHY does Malfoy Manor have a driveway? Granted, Lucius can have anything he likes-it's his house. But... given that wizards travel by means of flight, Floo and Apparation...why would he need one? Even the Hogwarts and Beauxbatons carriages (drawn by thestrals and Abraxans, respectively) are drawn by animals that fly. So why have a means of traveling to the house that wizards wouldn't use or need?
And why a set of iron gates? Because they're such an effective means of excluding unwanted guests? I'm pretty sure that a wizard could fly over them, or Apparate on the other side of them. Yes, there could be all kinds of wards around the place preventing such things. But that's the point. We don't know. As John Proctor says in The Crucible, "There might also be a three-legged dragon living in my basement, but no one has seen it."
One of the Death Eaters starts shaking the gates:
"How do we get in? They’re locked
Well, in Chapter One, the Death Eaters get past the gates by doing a quasi-Nazi salute. I'm not sure why something that a houseful of Death Eaters knew in the first chapter is completely unknown in the twenty-third.
The ironwork on the gates turns into a face, and the gates speak, which will probably be a really cool CGI effect in the movie. The prisoners half-stagger and are half-pulled through the gates, while Harry has another VoldieVision, this of an old man telling the Dark Lord, "Sorry, never had the Elder Wand," which gets Voldemort more than a little miffed.
SNIP! as Narcissa lets the Death Eaters and their prisoners in.
"My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."
This gives us a date, or at least a range of dates. According to Easter Dates, 1875 to 2124, Easter of 1998 fell on April 12. If Draco is home for the Easter/spring hols, it's probably a week-maybe less-before that.
SNIP! as Harry continues to exhibit Superman's vision, describing the room, as well as his own reflection in a mirror, flawlessly. Draco's face, however, is described as "a pale and pointed blur." Hmmm.
Narcissa and Lucius both ask Draco if this is Harry Potter. They clearly want it to be. Draco says he can't be sure.
Then we get a rather odd description of Harry:
With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he was peering out from between the bars of a cage.
Oookay. Why would having a puffy face make you feel as if you were peering out from between the bars of a cage?
Narcissa says that they'd better be sure that it's Harry before they "summon" Voldemort, because he'll be homicidal if they're wrong. I can't honestly picture any of his followers summoning the Dark Lord, can you? Summoning rather implies that you are at the beck and call of another, subject to his or her will. I can see them doing it, but I think that Voldemort would insist on his followers calling it something different. Words shape attitudes, after all.
At any rate, Narcissa identifies Hermione-who she's seen for maybe ten minutes, tops, in her entire life-and Lucius identifies Ron, whom he last saw when Ron was about twelve. I can only think that he's going by the red hair. This makes me wonder if Lucius thought Lily was a Weasley when she entered school.
Here's Draco's reaction to Narcissa's question, "Is this the Granger girl?"
"I . . . maybe . . . yeah."
And here are Lucius's question and Draco's answer.
Draco, look at him, isn’t it Arthur Weasley’s son, what’s his name - ?"
"Yeah," said Draco again, his back to the prisoners. "It could be."
Now, I've heard people argue, based on Draco's reluctance to identify Harry or his friends, that Draco has grown and is on the good side. But I'm not seeing a lot of signs of virtue. I'm seeing a young fascist who never expected to have to identify people he knew to their faces. And identify them he does. He doesn't say, "No, that's not Harry, you're mistaken"; he says, "Well, maybe. It could be. I can't be sure." He's trying to be a good little Death Eater without actually saying or doing anything that could be labeled betrayal.
You know, I've long cherished a completely cracktastic theory that many pureblood males are sterile-something that's common in inbred animals-and that for Narcissa to produce a living, healthy heir, she had to go behind her husband's back and outside of her pureblood social circle to find a father, and that she chose Peter Pettigrew, based on his colouring, his outsider status and the fact that, as a secret Death Eater, he could be blackmailed into silence. (Told you it was cracktastic.) This was based mostly on Draco's pale, pointy features, and on the fact that Ron said he looked like a rat.
But now I feel as if the theory has been given new legs, because Draco's acting very much like Peter as well. He's betraying people out of fear.
And that's understandable. And it's human. But-speaking as one of the few Peter fangirls in this fandom-it's not a sign of goodness.
Bellatrix walks in. It's worth noting the description of her Dark Mark. Prior to this, Dark Marks have been described like tattoos. Really, really ugly tattoos. Bella's Dark Mark looks like a brand:
Harry saw the Dark Mark burned into the flesh of her arm
As soon as Bellatrix learns that Harry's been caught-well, she and Lucius get into a sibling-like fight over who gets to tell the Dark Lord. It runs something like this:
Bellatrix: Potter's here? I have to tell the Dark Lord right NOW!
Lucius: Nuh-uh, Trixie! It's MY house and I'm gonna tell him! So there!
Bellatrix: Oh, shut up, you don't 'even have a wand anymore. I'll tell him!
Lucius (sulking): Why should you get to do it? You didn't capture him!
Greyback: No, actually that was me, and you know, waiting for the gold here...
Bellatrix: Well, FINE. Take the money! I'll tell him and then the rest of you are gonna get it...ACK! Lucius, no! Don't touch the Mark! Don't touch the Mark!
Lucius (finger hovering above the Mark): ...What's the problem now?
Bellatrix: He'll slaughter us!
Lucius: But...
Bellatrix: (goes on point like a hunting dog): SWORD!
Bellatrix stuns-or should I say "Stuns"? Rowling's Random Capitalization is a constant headache-the guy who found the Sword of Gryffindor. This pisses off the other Death Eaters. Scabior (have I mentioned how much I love this guy?) demands to know what Bella is playing at. Bellatrix starts stunning, or Stunning, everyone but Greyback.
This is supposed to be frightening, by the way. Rowling tells us so, through Harry:
They were no match for her, even thought there were four of them against one of her: She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience.
Because nothing says "conscienceless killer" like knocking someone out. Oh, yeah. I'm petrified.
I'm not saying Bella's actions aren't practical. Reducing the number of opponents always makes sense. I can even see the point of not killing the people on your side. I'm saying that "prodigious skill and no conscience" don't suit her present actions. If you're going to talk about Bellatrix not having a conscience, Rowling, then I want to see her casting the Entrail-Expelling Curse. And I want to see her enjoying it.
They fell where they stood,
As opposed to what? Falling in Tahiti?
all except Greyback, who had been forced into a kneeling position, his arms outstretched.
About half of the Old Masters painted saints kneeling with their arms outstretched, about to be martyred.
Out of the corners of his eyes
The expression is "out of the corner of his eye." No plurals are involved. Who the hell EDITED this?
Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf, the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.
She's trying out for Season Six of Highlander.
Bellatrix asks Fenrir where he got the sword. She takes his wand, too, proving that she's not irrevocably stupid...yet. Fenrir smarts off to her:
"How dare you?" he snarled, his mouth the only thing that could move as he was forced to gaze up at her.
Um... If the only thing moving is his mouth, wouldn't that mean that his eyes aren't moving? And wouldn't that make "gazing up at her" a bit of a problem?
Bellatrix repeats herself. Girl, just give him three drops of Veritaserum. He'll tell you anything. She also lets something interesting slip:
"Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!"
You know, it seems like the whole world has had something to do with that sword. Dumbledore had it, Snape had access to it, Bellatrix seems to feel she's got a perfect right to it for no particular reason whatsoever.
After Greyback tells her that it was in the prisoners' tent, she frees him and tells Draco to take the unconscious guys outside and kill them...or, if he doesn't have the nerve, to leave them for her to kill. I don't know why she's faffing about, honestly. Kill them yourself, bitca. If you're half as bad-arse as you think you are.
It quickly becomes apparent that Bellatrix has no clue what to do. She doesn't dare hurt Harry, for fear of angering Voldie, but she doesn't dare not question Harry or friends about the Sword, for fear of angering Voldie.
So she tells her sister that the prisoners have to be put in the cellar. Narcissa responds with the adult equivalent of "This is my room, and you are not the boss of me!"
Bellatrix starts screaming that they're all in terrible danger. Rilly. You just noticed that, huh, Trixie?
She looked frightening, mad; a thin stream of fire issued from her wand and burned a hole in the carpet.
This would be more frightening if my parents had not been chain smokers who not only burned holes in the rugs, but also in clothes and even in linoleum.
Greyback, on Narcissa's orders, takes the prisoners down the cellar. All but Hermione, that is.
She threw Greyback’s wand back to him, then took a short silver knife from under her robes.
Why does Bellatrix have a knife when there are spells to cut, sever and unravel ropes and chains? So that she can kill Dobby with it, of course! Why else? It's not as if Potterverse witches and wizards are fond of weaponry, and they don't use athamés, so the fact that the knife exists to kill or hurt someone is fairly obvious. The last time we saw a wizard with a knife, it was Peter in the cemetery scene in GoF.
She cut Hermione free from the other prisoners, then dragged her by the hair into the middle of the room, while Greyback forced the rest of them to shuffle across to another door, into a dark passageway, his wand held out in front of him, projecting an invisible and irresistible force.
a) Why doesn't Greyback use Lumos to make the passageway less dark? It's one of the first spells anyone learns.
b) Given that the passageway is dark, how does Harry KNOW that the force is invisible?
c) How does Harry know it's an irresistible force? No one even tries resisting it!
"Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?" Greyback crooned as he forced them along the corridor. "I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, Ginger?"
Granted, Fenrir's probably talking about eating Hermione Tartare, but doesn't it sound as if he wants sex first and supper afterward?
They finally get to the cellar. Greyback unlocks the door and shoves them in. He forgets, somehow, to lock the door again. Drat. The villains are reverting to their normal state of stupidity. I knew their intelligence was too good to last.
As the door slams, they hear Hermione screaming. This is Ron's cue to start capslocking. He doesn't do anything as the result of the emotional upset, mind. He just yells Hermione's name repeatedly.
Then we learn that Luna is in the cellar as well. Rowling starts with the character assassination immediately when she has Luna say something exceptionally stupid. This is wrong. Luna is eccentric, not stupid. Stupid people don't get Sorted into Ravenclaw.
Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught!"
Good one, Luna. Because if you hadn't said that, Harry totally would have thought that you DID want him to be caught.
Well...this is Harry, the Boy of Very Little Brain. He might have. But even so, the principle stands. It's not perceptive, not intelligent, not clever. It's very un-Luna.
And it gets worse. For Harry wants Luna's help getting the ropes off, and this is what Luna says:
There’s an old nail we use if we need to break anything...Just a moment..."
Excuse me? A nail is a weapon. It could be used, not only to remove ropes, but to stab, slash or puncture the flesh of any Death Eater, and disarm, maim or kill them. (Yes, kill. A nail to the jugular vein or in the femoral artery? You think anyone would survive that? Plus the opportunity to grab the guard's wand.)
And Luna's been here since Christmas. Four months. You would think that she or Ollivander would have thought of fighting back some time before this. Apparently they're just sitting around marking time until Hero Harry can stumble into yet another pointless and avoidable trap. (Harry and company wouldn't be here if he just hadn't said the word "Voldemort," after all.)
Luna tries to get Harry and Ron free while Hermione screams at Bellatrix that they found the Sword. Bellatrix doesn't believe it, not that I blame her. I know that they found the blasted Sword re-enacting the Lady of the Lake bit from King Arthur, and even I don't believe it.
Luna has trouble freeing Harry and Ron in the dark. Ron tells her that he has a Deluminator full of light. I'm not sure why this tells Luna anything. Isn't the Deluminator supposed to be unique? Why, therefore, would she know what he's talking about?
And shouldn't the Death Eaters have frisked their prisoners and confiscated all of their possessions long before this?
Someone, presumably Luna (though I wonder when she saw a Muggle cigarette lighter before this), clicks the Deluminator. I keep wanting to call that thing the Terminator. Anyway, the lights illuminate the room, though what Harry sees doesn't make much sense.
Harry saw Luna, all eyes in her white face, and the motionless figure of Ollivander the wandmaker, curled up on the floor in the corner.
If the man is curled up in the corner, how does Harry know it's Ollivander?
Craning around,
"Craning around"? No. I'm sorry. You can crane your neck. I've even seen authors say that their characters craned their whole bodies. But you cannot "crane around." FAIL, Bloomsbury editors. EPIC FAIL.
he caught sight of their fellow prisoners:
Someone needs to put JKR on Colon Restriction. She uses them every other sentence, and she keeps using them incorrectly. A colon is not a substitute for a full stop. I feel as if I should send her a copy of Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
Dean and Griphook the goblin, who seemed barely conscious, kept standing by the ropes that bound him to the humans.
That bound HIM? According to that sentence structure, both of them should be kept standing by ropes, and Dean shouldn't consider himself human. Written correctly, the sentence would look like this:
Craning his neck, Harry caught sight of their fellow prisoners, Dean and Griphook the goblin. Griphook, who seemed barely conscious, was only held upright by the ropes that bound him to the humans.
Meanwhile, Bella is going nutzoid-well, more nutzoid, as she's never been a poster child for sanity-because Hermione isn't telling her that they broke into her vault and stole some loot. She's also threatening to stab Hermione if she doesn't say what Bella wants to hear. Because, you know, a witch who can inflict God knows how many hideous curses and who can pour Veritaserum down Hermione's throat if she so chooses would totally opt to threaten Harry Potter's friend with a mere knife.
Ron tries to Disapparate. Good for him. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would think of just trying to leave that way. It doesn't work-Luna says that the cellar is escape-proof, so apparently there are Anti-Apparation wards up-but at least someone tried.
Harry, as usual, is useless in a crisis. This is what he does:
a) Feels the walls "for he hardly knew what";
b) Pulls his broken wand out of the Mokeskin pouch;
c) Waves the broken halves of the wand that he knows doesn't work.
Harry then sees a gleam of blue in the broken shard of Sirius's mirror. Dumbledore's eye, we're told, and Rowling is right. However, it's not Albus Dumbledore's eye, and I'm grateful for that. Harry yells at the mirror for help, telling the eye that they're in the cellar in Malfoy Manor. None of his friends mutter anything about Harry losing it, which shows great restraint on their part.
As Hermione screams, Ron keeps "bellowing" her name. "Bellowing" really doesn't sound like the right kind of word for Ron. I mean, I can picture Uncle Vernon bellowing. Or Slughorn. They have the right build for bellowing. A tall thin drink of water like Ron...not so much.
Hermione finally tells Bella that the Sword is a copy. Lucius tells Draco to get Griphook, because Griphook will be able to tell if it is or not. Harry pleads with Griphook to lie, even though Griphook has no reason to like wizards, much less risk his skin for one.
Draco comes downstairs and orders everyone up against the wall. Clearly Draco has been watching very old cop shows. Unfortunately, Ron waits until the door is opening to turn off the Deluminator, which means that Draco could have seen the light under the door before the door opened. Equally unfortunately, Draco doesn't notice the light. He simply grabs Griphook and exits, stage right.
Then the deus ex machina Apparates in. On hearing the crack that is this chapter, and not in a good way, Ron turns on the Put-Outer again to reveal that Dobby Has Come To Save Us All. He says this. Really.
"Harry Potter," he squeaked in the tiniest quiver of a voice, "Dobby has come to rescue you."
At this point I had to wonder-when was Harry going to do something? Because his heroic record in this book is not so good.
1) Harry is escorted from the Dursleys' house by thirteen other people, six of whom are Polyjuiced. One's maimed and one dies.
2) RocksThe Ministry falls. Everyone Scrimgeour dies.
3) Hermione Apparates Ron and Harry away from the wedding to Tottenham Court Road and then to Grimmauld Place.
4) Remus searches the fugitive Trio out and gives them news.
5) Kreacher searches for and brings back Mundungus Fletcher.
6) Hermione makes the plans and obtains the items (Polyjuice Potion, Puking Pastilles, etc.) to invade the Ministry.
7) Hermione Apparates them away from the Ministry.
8) Hermione saves Harry by fighting Snake!Bathilda and by treating Harry's injuries.
9) Ron saves Harry from drowning in Excalibur Pond.
10) Ron destroys the locket Horcrux.
11) Hermione saves Ron and Harry from the Death Eaters at Lovegood's house.
And what's Harry done at this point? Cast Stupefy several times at the Ministry (which endangered himself, his friends and others), try to grab a sword from icy water and fail because he was wearing an evil artifact, have visions of Voldemort, become obsessed with the Hallows, and be upset with Dumbledore. And of these five things, three are inactive.
He's the most passive protagonist I've ever seen.
I feel like singing a rousing chorus of " The Wizards That Don't Do Anything."
Harry asks Dobby if he can Disapparate from the cellar-kind of a dumb question, since no one is supposed to be able to Apparate in or out of the cellar, as per Luna-and if he can take people with them. When Dobby says yes to both, Harry orders him to take Luna, Dean and Ollivander away from here and then come back.
Ron adds that Dobby should take them to Bill and Fleur's place, Shell Cottage near Tinworth. As per Chapter Sixteen, "Godric's Hollow," page 261 of the British edition, Tinworth is a village in Cornwall that's home to "knots of wizarding families who [live] alongside tolerant and sometimes Confounded Muggles." Yeah. I'd be tolerant, too, if I was so confused I didn't know which end was up.
Luna and Dean make token protests before Dobby Apparates them and Ollivander away. Unfortunately the crackfic of Apparation makes too much noise, and Lucius sends Peter down to the cellar to check on the prisoners.
What follows is so annoying that I'm going to let Peter spork this section.
Thank you.
Oh, my pleasure. Take it away, Peter.
Let's start with what happens right after Lucius Malfoy orders my namesake to go down in the cellar. Harry and Ron hear footsteps crossing the drawing room.
Harry knew that the people in the drawing room were listening for more noises from the cellar.
Not "people." Person--the chap pretending to be me, the one who was just told to go down the cellar alone. He's standing at the top of the stairs listening to see if he hears any whispering or suspicious noises, because he has an interest in in finding out if there was any danger.
The other Death Eaters are either dead or have delegated the problem to the guy posing as me. They don't care about noises from the cellar. Why should they? It's not their problem any more.
"We’re going to have to try and tackle him," he whispered to Ron.
I'm rather curious to why my so-called canonical self should be tackled but Draco should get off scot-free.
They had no choice: The moment anyone entered the room and saw the absence of three prisoners, they were lost.
A tad late to figure that out, isn't it? And what is that colon doing after "choice"?
"Leave the lights on," Harry added, and as they heard someone descending the steps outside the door, they backed against the wall on either side of it.
Now THAT'S special. One boy on either side of the door, each with his back against the door. Except, you know, the door has to open, and when it does, it's going to either hit one boy or effectively pin him to the wall. And neither boy is going to be able to see when the door opens because they're not facing the door. Their backs are against the wall...which means they are facing the room, not Canon!Peter.
"Stand back," came Wormtail’s voice. "Stand away from the door. I’m coming in."
I don't know what's more annoying-the fact that this absurd warning is supposed to intimidate anyone, or the fact that Rowling insists on calling me by the worst and most Freudian nickname possible. Every other principal Death Eater gets a first name-Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Barty, Rodolphus, Rabastan. Why can't Rowling call me Peter? Or even Pettigrew? I'd settle for that.
The door flew open.
Thus, as I said, hitting one boy or pinning him to the wall.
For a moment, my so-called canon self stares at a brightly lit and seemingly empty cellar.
Then Harry and Ron launched themselves upon him.
Isn't it wonderful how Gryffindor courage manifests? Two against one-and someone who isn't even attacking! Obviously this is some new definition of 'boldness' and 'chivalry' that I'm not familiar with.
And yes, I was in Gryffindor. And Reg was in Slytherin. Goes to prove that the Hat can mis-Sort, doesn't it?
Ron seized Wormtail’s wand arm and forced it upwards. Harry slapped a hand to his mouth, muffling his voice.
A hand over the mouth can actually muffle speech? What startling news. Paging the Department of Redundancy Department...
Silently they struggled:
That is IT. I forbid you to use any more colons until you learn how to use them properly. In the name of underdeveloped characters everywhere, I command you to take a course in Remedial English Usage, Rowling. Then, perhaps, we can talk.
Wormtail’s wand emitted sparks;
Why? Am I signaling for help? And if so, from whom?
his silver hand closed around Harry’s throat.
I'm torn between outrage that I'm trying to kill someone to whom I owe a life debt and relief that Harry will be dead in a few minutes and this atrocity will at last be over.
And considering that I knew Harry for a year and a half when he was a baby, as we all did, as well as for three years at Hogwarts...well. That says quite a lot about this book, don't you think?
Lucius calls down, asking what's going on.
"Nothing!" Ron called back, in a passable imitation of Wormtail’s wheezy voice. "All fine!"
It isn't enough that I've been squeaking like a rat since GoF. Now I have to sound like a rat with asthma.
Naturally, since I'm choking him, Harry has trouble breathing. Naturally, Rowling feels obligated to tell us this, because children cannot possibly deduce that choking makes it hard to breathe.
"You’re going to kill me?" Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers. "After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!"
My, he manages to talk an awful lot for someone who can't breathe, doesn't he?
I'm rather annoyed at Harry's tone. He's not asking for help, or pleading for his life. He's demanding it, as a matter of entitlement. Great attitude to have when someone has your life in his hands. Literally.
By the way...how is he attempting to prise my fingers free AND keep his hand over my mouth at the same time? I would have thought the former was a two-handed job.
The silver fingers slackened.
Please note that at the climactic moment-when I should be CHOOSING to spare Harry's life, CHOOSING to help him, illustrating the whole "our choices make us what we are" thing-that I do nothing. I don't even choose to let go of Harry's throat. My fingers-independent of me-accidentally loosen their grip a bit.
Honestly. Where's the choice, the morality, the character development in that?
Harry had not expected it:
*slaps JKR for improper use of colons*
And this is exactly what the Peter fans-tiny bunch that they are-had been expecting, and fearing, for years.
He wrenched himself free, astonished, keeping his hand over Wormtail’s mouth.
A minute ago he was choking to death from lack of air. Then my fingers loosened just a bit...and suddenly Harry's the Son of Hercules. Shouldn't he still be weak and gasping for air?
Oh, wait. That would involve competent writing. Sorry.
He saw the ratlike man’s small watery eyes widen with fear and surprise:
*thwaps Rowling yet again for her misuse of colons*
I resent the whole description of me as ratlike. I was never attractive in book canon, but it seems to me that with the advent of Timothy Spall and his hideous makeup, Rowling quickly stopped portraying me as the plain, balding man who had once been plump and who was now thin and started describing me as ratlike even in human form.
Honestly, Rowling. If you want to write about a mutant ratboy, then go write X-Men fanfic!
He seemed just as shocked as Harry at what his hand had done, at the tiny, merciful impulse it had betrayed, and he continued to struggle more powerfully, as though to undo that moment of weakness.
Merlin's manky balls, woman! You won't give me the slightest chance, will you? It's not bad enough that you're ignoring the character arc that you set up back in Book 3, or that you've ultimately deprived me of all choice in this scene. No, now you have to have me fighting even the slightest hint of a merciful impulse. Because it's impossible that I could do anything remotely good on purpose.
You know, there's a difference between having your personality drawn in broad strokes and having it be a bloody cartoon.
Ron takes my wand. Because, you know, I'm such a dreadful threat at this point. The Dark Lord cringes as I pass.
By the way...why did Ron wait until after I'd stopped strangling Harry to take my wand?
Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror.
I'm not sure why Rowling is making the point that my pupils are wandless and therefore helpless. As far as I know, the pupils of my eyes have never held a wand.
Oh, and my adoptive sister from Milliways and the Outside Inn, Valentine Wiggin-Skywalker, has this to say:
Val: .... what the hell? Since when is Peter helpless without a wand? Let alone his pupils? Although...why are his students dilated? Are they giving birth? *disappears back into the Inn again*
His eyes had slid from Harry’s face to something else.
A grotesquerie and vagueness! Two for one!
His own silver fingers were moving inexorably toward his own throat.
Whose silver fingers? The silver fingers of my eyes, or the silver fingers of Harry's face?
At this point, Harry tries to pull the silver hand back. Of course, this does no good, and Rowling takes the opportunity to drive the reason for this home.
The silver tool that Voldemort had given his most cowardly servant had turned upon its disarmed and useless owner; Pettigrew was reaping his reward for his hesitation, his moment of pity; he was being strangled before their eyes.
The moral of this story, children, is that if you happen to be a coward who works for an evil insane sadistic bastard, never show the slightest bit of mercy, or your boss will force you to kill yourself.
It takes a while for Ron-who has my wand, by the way-to do anything. I have the feeling that he wants me to die without his having to do anything to cause my death. I mean, one cast of Petrificus Totalus would prevent me from strangling myself, so why he's standing there with his thumb up his bum is something I can't explain.
However. Belatedly, he tries helping. Since, at this point, my canon-self is cyanotic, this is precisely as effective as you would expect it to be.
"Relashio!" said Ron, pointing the wand at the silver hand, but nothing happened;
The reason being that "Relashio" is the catch-all spell Rowling uses when she can't remember which spell applies. I'm not kidding. In GoF, it released a jet of fiery sparks. When cast underwater in GoF, it fired a jet of boiling water. In HBP, Bob Ogden used it to knock Marvolo Gaunt backwards to keep him from strangling Merope. In Chapter 13 of DH, Hermione casts it to make magical chains withdraw. And now Ron's using it to make my metal hand let me go.
Good grief, woman. Pick one fucking thing the spell does and settle on it!
Pettigrew dropped to his knees, and at the same moment, Hermione gave a dreadful scream from overhead.
Hey, prima donna! Do you mind holding off on the screaming? I'm dying here!
All right. I'm back now. Peter may pop by now and again to comment, however, as he's a trifle miffed.
Damned right I am.
Peter dies according to cliché-his eyes roll up, he twitches, he falls silent. Harry and Ron make a break for it in their own inimitable fashion. That is, they go straight back to the drawing room without looking for other exits. Maybe the passageway doesn't have any other doors leading from it-again, this is something we don't know. The boys don't look.
For some unknown reason, Bellatrix has given the Sword to Griphook. I know she wants the thing analyzed, but hello? Sixteen Goblin Rebellions? For all she knows Griphook could use that Sword and go kamikaze on everyone in the room.
Bella asks if this is the real sword. Griphook says no. Bella asks again. The Goblin says yes, he's sure, it's a fake. Bellatrix then does something I consider to be downright idiotic:
"Good," she said, and with a casual flick of her wand she slashed another deep cut into the goblin’s face, and he dropped with a yell at her feet.
Okay, first off, Bella, the guy just helped you. Injuring people-even people you despise--when they help you is NOT the best way to win friends and influence people. Second, if you can slash cuts into someone's face with a wand...why do you have a knife?
Bellatrix puts her finger on the Dark Mark, like pushing a button on a pager. Instantly, we're in VoldieVision, back in that grim black fortress. Despite the fact that at least a half hour must have gone by in Malfoy Manor, no time has passed for the Dark Lord at all. He's still exactly where he was when Harry had his last vision-in a tower room, being laughed at by a skinny old guy who doesn't know where the Elder Wand is, and who's busy telling Voldemort that he'll never own the Elder Wand. Naturally, Voldemort has a tantrum and kills the old guy, telling us in the process that this is a prison cell.
End of VoldieVision. Bellatrix then tells Greyback that if he wants Hermione, he can have her. Since, after Hedwig's death, Harry imitated Luke Skywalker, it is now Ron's turn:
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Ron had burst into the drawing room; Bellatrix looked around, shocked;
Amazed that anyone would be that dumb, most likely.
There is a minor Battle of the Wands. Ron Expelliarmuses Bellatrix's wand out of her hands and into Harry's. Harry stuns Lucius Malfoy and dodges spells from Draco, Narcissa and Fenrir.
Then Bellatrix pulls the most unlikely move I can envision from a witch so proud and confident in her magic-she holds a knife to Hermione's throat. Never mind using wandless magic to get her own wand back. Never mind Bellatrix and the three other Death Eaters working together as a cohesive unit against the two boys. Never mind grabbing Hermione and Apparating elsewhere so that she and the other Death Eaters would have a valuable hostage. Never mind actual sense. No. Bella menaces Hermione with a knife. Horrors.
What's worse, she gives Harry and Ron a frelling stupid command.
"Drop your wands," she whispered. "Drop them, or we’ll see exactly how filthy her blood is!"
AND THEY DO IT.
Once again, Rowling seems to have forgotten that she's writing about wizards. What kind of a threat is a knife against two determined people with magic? Harry could Expelliarmus the knife, as that's the only spell he seems to know, and Ron could cast the Full-Body Bind on Bella. Toss a few more Stunning and Disarming Spells toward Draco, Narcissa and Fenrir, grab Hermione and Disapparate.
But no. This is Rowlingland, and the characters cannot do things that show the slightest vestige of common sense. That would be wrong.
So they drop Peter's and Bellatrix's wands and raise their hands (for no reason, Bellatrix didn't ask them to). Bellatrix, Mistress of the Obvious, tells Harry that Voldie is en route and that Harry's about to die. Yeah, yeah. Have you considered having someone attack them and knock them out before you start gloating, Bellatrix? It's straight from the Evil Overlord List, you know:
75) I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
Harry, however, still has time to angst about his upcoming demise:
Harry knew it; his scar was bursting with the pain of it, and he could feel Voldemort flying through the sky from far away, over a dark and stormy sea, and soon he would be close enough to Apparate to them, and Harry could see no way out.
I still like my paralyze-Bellatrix-grab-Hermione-and-Apparate-out-of-there idea...
Draco gets the wands that Harry and Ron dropped. Amazingly, neither of them kicks or insults Draco as he does so. Bellatrix tells Narcissa that Harry and Ron have to be tied up. Um...NO. They don't. There are magical ropes and magical chains, but honestly, Full-Body Bind is best. The entire body is frozen, except for the eyes, and the wizard can't speak a single spell.
I suppose I should offer kudos to Bellatrix for even thinking of hampering their movements, however. It is sad that I have to give points for something so obvious.
As Bellatrix gives Hermione to Greyback yet again, we get a rip-off of an homage to Phantom of the Opera
All of them looked upward in time to see the crystal chandelier tremble; then, with a creak and an ominous jingling, it began to fall.
Bella, who's right underneath the chandelier, shows more intelligence than she has to date and flings herself aside. The chandelier lands, instead, on Hermione and Griphook, while Draco gets a faceful of broken glass. In any normal world, this would mean that Hermione and Griphook had been severely injured, perhaps crushed to death, and that Draco stood a good chance of being blinded, but as I've said before, this isn't England--this Rowlingland. There are no consequences in Rowlingland.
Harry, for a change, actually does something-he grabs Peter's, Bellatrix's and Draco's wands from Draco's hands, holds all three, and casts Stupefy at Greyback. This puts Fenrir out of commission for the rest of the chapter. Narcissa, however, has spotted the guilty party-Dobby.
Dobby does his usual "You must not harm Harry Potter" routine. Bellatrix orders Narcissa to kill him. I'm honestly surprised that Bellatrix survived childhood, given the number of times she gives orders to her younger sister. Dobby decides he's not putting up with this:
there was another loud crack, and Narcissa’s wand too flew into the air and landed on the other side of the room.
Sheesh. If house-elves can disarm witches and wizards, why do they put up with being abused by their owners? Are they a race of masochists or something?
Bellatrix then utters a rather unpleasant racial epithet...and I think I know where Rowling got it, because I've read the same comment in a lot of nineteenth-century children's literature.
"You dirty little monkey!" bawled Bellatrix.
Although I've seen stories where a rich man or woman says to a street urchin in London, the first thing that sprang to mind were tales of India, in which an Englishman or his wife would address an Indian-usually a servant-in such terms. I think that the India stories are more similar to Rowling's scenario, what with the master of one race/servant of another race vibe.
I suspect that Rowling grew up reading very old-fashioned books-circa 1870s to 1930s-just as I did. I think that's probably where she picked up the phrase, whether she was aware of this or not.
Dobby, for his part, goes all Braveheart on us:
"Dobby has no master!" squealed the elf. "Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!"
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM!"
Harry, at last recognizing the Narrative Imperative which requires a protagonist to do something to keep the story going, throws a random wand to Ron so that Ron and Hermione can Disapparate (and why do they need wands? I don't recall Dumbles or Harry holding wands when they went to and left Cave Horcrux!), grabs Griphook-who still has the Sword-and takes Dobby's hand. They start to vanish. Bellatrix's knife flies toward them. Hey, since they're vanishing, shouldn't the knife go right through Dobby?
They get to what appears to be Shell Cottage. Harry wants to know if they're in the right place or not, but then he forgets about that when he sees a knife sticking out of Dobby's chest. Harry immediately starts hollering for help:
He did not know or care whether they were wizards or Muggles, friends or foes;
Wow. All that to get Harry free, and now, for all Harry knows, he could be delivering himself into his enemies' hands all over again. Gotta love that outstanding sense of self-preservation.
all he cared about was that a dark stain was spreading across Dobby’s front,
I'm sorry to say that I initially read this as "a dark stain was spreading across Dobby's Y-fronts," which took me to a very unpleasant place indeed.
and that he had stretched out his own arms to Harry with a look of supplication.
His own arms. As opposed to what? Stretching out someone else's arms?
Harry holds Dobby, pleading with him not to die...while, of course, Dobby is dying
The elf’s eyes found him,
Why? Was Harry lost?
and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.
"Harry . . . Potter . . ."
"I...Amsecretly...William...Shatner."
And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.
Orbs. Not eyes. Frelling orbs. Sprinkled with starlight, yet. All right, Rowling, that's it. No more Fanfiction.net for you until you learn to WRITE.
Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor
When last we left our non-hero, Harry had just spoken Lord Voldemort's name-despite the fact that there's a spell on it to allow the Death Eaters to trace anyone who speaks the name, despite the fact that Harry knows that the Death Eaters are looking for him, and despite the fact that Ron has kept warning Harry about this Trace spell for months and just warned him again two minutes ago. Three times. In succession. That's a special kind of stupid right there.
Harry needs to spend more time reviewing the hero's equivalent of the Evil Overlord List. Maybe then he'd have noticed Rule #51:
51. When I state my intention to do something and one of my robots interrupts me, I will at least hear it out.
Okay, so Ron's a sidekick rather than a robot. Same principle.
Anyway, the Death Eaters order Harry and company to come out of the tent with their hands up. It seems clear to me that the Death Eaters know who they're pursuing, because there's absolutely no need for Harry or his friends to come out of the tent. What they should do is grab the Sword of Gryffindor, hold hands and Apparate the hell out of there. This is the logical thing to do, given Rowling's system of magic. There's certainly nothing stopping them from Apparating away. Or, for that matter, preventing the three of them from hiding under the Invisibility Cloak which we know Harry has with him.
The problem is that Rowling has created few if any limits on her system of magic. Since Potterverse wizards do not, as, say, Dresdenverse wizards do, use magic that typically takes a lot of preparation or start to run out of magical energy when they get tired or badly hurt, and since there's little a Potterverse wizard can't magically do in a crisis, the only way that Rowling can get Harry, Ron and Hermione captured and hauled off to the Lair of Evil is for the Trio to be abysmally incompetent.
Hermione shows enough presence of mind to try to disguise Harry-which is more than Harry thinks about. I repeat what I said in Chapter 7. Why is this book NOT called Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows again? The book is two-thirds over, and she's done more than the titular hero has.
He saw Hermione point her wand, not towards the outside, but into his face;
Now that's a waste of words. What's wrong with "He saw Hermione point her wand at his face"?
there was a bang, a burst of white light, and he buckled in agony, unable to see.
Which would be more impressive if Harry didn't keep buckling in agony every two minutes from the pain caused by his scar.
Harry's face swells up from the Stinging Hex, closing his eyes almost to slits. His glasses fall off too. These Death Eaters display considerably more sense than we've ever seen before, as they search Harry and confiscate the wand that Hermione loaned him. It's nice to see evil being competent for a change. Now, if only good would try it.
I do wonder, though, why it takes four or five Death Eaters to wrestle Ron and Hermione to the ground. Why do that when you can cast Petrificus Totalus?
Ron screams at the Death Eaters to "get off [Hermione]". I'm not sure I'd want to get off in a situation like that, but to each his own. We then get a rather odd description:
There was the unmistakable sound of knuckles hitting flesh:
Now, what IS the sound of knuckles hitting flesh? In the interests of scientific accuracy, I tried punching myself several times. There was scarcely any sound...a barely audible thud. You certainly wouldn't know by hearing it that the thud was caused by knuckles unless your hearing was that of, say, the last son of Krypton.
Ron "grunts" in response to the knuckles. Hermione begs the Death Eaters to "leave him alone."
Fenrir Greyback calls Ron Hermione's "boyfriend" and utters a vague threat before nosediving into creepiness:
"Delicious girl... what a treat . . . I do enjoy the softness of the skin. . . ."
IT'S NOT MY FAULT, LJ. IT'S A LINE FROM CANON. Page 362, British edition; page 447, American edition.
Anyway, I'm going to presume that Fenrir finds Hermione to be "delicious" because he hasn't had enough Meals Ready to Eat lately. And, for the benefit of those just starting the series with the seventh book, Harry identifies Fenrir...sort of.
He knew who this was: Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who was permitted to wear Death Eater robes in return for his hired savagery.
"Hired"? Voldie's got mercs now? How does Harry know that Fenrir's hired? Has he been checking Voldie's payroll receipts?
And since when do Death Eaters have special, identifiable robes? Is anyone else now picturing Project Runway, with Lucius strutting before the buyers and fashion designers? "And this is what the well-dressed Death Eater will be wearing this spring. Note the artful juxtaposition of green and black, and the edginess of the skull motif..."
Also, it doesn't make sense. As of Half Blood Prince, Fenrir was clearly identified as a Death Eater in his own right. Now it seems that he's only an honorary Death Eater, and that Harry knew it all along-even though he didn't know it in the last book.
SNIP! as the Death Eaters search the tent, and Greyback shoves an illuminated wand in Harry's face. It looks like Greyback really is a wizard. I was sort of hoping that he'd be a Muggle who'd been infected by a werewolf, and that he hated wizards and the magical world as a result. But he's not. Drat.
Showing unusual intelligence in a crisis, Harry calls himself 'Vernon Dudley.' Showing less intelligence, Ron first claims to be Stan Shunpike-who he already knows to be a Death Eater-and then "Barny Weasley," the alias Harry used at Bill and Fleur's wedding. I remain convinced that "Barny's" name is spelled the way it is because some editor at Bloomsbury had never heard of Barney Rubble. Finally, Hermione calls herself Penelope Clearwater-the name of Percy Weasley's ex-girlfriend, if you don't recall--and says she's a halfblood.
Also, one of the Death Eaters who's asking questions is named "Scabior." This is the comparative form of the Latin adjective "scaber" which means "scabby" or "rough." So "Scabior" would mean "rougher" or "scabbier." I'm guessing Rowling forgot all about Ron's rat, Scabbers. At least, I hope she did.
Finally, Rowling seems determined to make us understand that Hermione is attractive, for Fenrir repeatedly refers to her as pretty, beautiful, etc. Farewell, Canon! Hermione, who looked nice when fixed up but ordinary and bushy-haired every other day of the week. I'm not sure why I should be convinced that Hermione is a raving beauty just because Fenrir Greyback says so, but apparently I'm supposed to be.
Scabior notes that the three of them look like they should be at Hogwarts right now. Ron says they've left. I don't know if, in this context, that means that they've dropped out of Hogwarts or that they've completed their seventh year and their NEWTs.
Scabior, whom I am beginning to love for his common sense, doesn't believe Ron:
"And you decided to go camping? And you thought, just for a laugh, you'd use the Dark Lord's name?"
He's got a point. Most people don't pitch tents in the woods during April, let alone throughout an English winter.
Ron claims that they said the name "Voldemort" by accident. This is perfectly reasonable. I say things like "Please pass the Voldemort" all the time, don't you? Greyback, however, "growls"-yes, Rowling, we DO remember that he's a werewolf, thank you--that members of the Order of the Phoenix speaks the Dark Lord's name fairly often. We then get this lovely exchange, in which Ron turns into Homer Simpson:
"The Order of the Phoenix. Mean anything to you?"
"Doh."
And you know what? Even after all these denials from the Trio, the bad guys still don't believe them! I know, I know, eventually Rowling is going to turn around and make the Death Eaters stupid again so that Harry and company can win, but right now we've got intelligent-or at least sensible-evil. And that is so rare in this universe. Just...let me bask.
But alas, at this point the Death Eaters, too, start forgetting that they are wizards.
Someone yanked Harry up by the hair, dragged him a short way, pushed him down into a sitting position, then started binding him back-to-back with other people.
Um, guys? You don't NEED to tie Harry up by hand. That's what magical chains, magical ropes and the Full-Body Bind are for.
Harry was still half blind, barely able to see anything through his puffed-up eyes.
It's already been stated several times that Harry's face is swollen, that his eyes are tiny slits and that his glasses fell off. Why, then, is it necessary to tell us that Harry can't see because his eyes are swollen shut?
Once the Death Eater finishes tying them up and exits stage left, Harry asks if anyone has a wand. Harry? You just got searched. Ron and Hermione got wrestled to the ground. It's a pretty fair deduction that the Death Eaters are taking wands away from potential opponents. And very sensible of them, too.
One of the other prisoners speaks up. It's Dean Thomas. Hi, Dean Thomas! What are you doing here?
Dean is here to tell us that these highly efficient Death Eaters are "Snatchers." "Snatchers" look for truants and sell them to unnamed buyers for gold. I don't know whether to consider this a white slavery ring or to be dumbfounded that the most efficient and sensible Death Eaters we've seen in seven books are truant officers.
Harry overhears Greyback and Scabior talking. Greyback says that they caught "a runaway goblin" in addition to a Muggleborn and the Trio. I wondered where the goblin was running from. It's not as if goblins are the same as house elves, after all.
Scabior notices that there's no Vernon Dudley on their wanted list. When Scabior says this, Greyback begins studying Harry's face. Harry, for his part, shows that he has Superman's vision as well as his hearing:
He crouched down beside Harry, who saw, through the infinitesimal gap left between his swollen eyelids, a face covered in matted gray hair and whiskers, with pointed brown teeth and sores in the corners of his mouth.
Try squinting your eyes half-shut-just half-shut-and see how much detail you notice. Clearly, this is a new definition of "half blind" that I've never heard before.
Greyback asks Harry what House he was in. Harry, being his usual thick self, says that he was in Slytherin. Dumb thing to say, since all the Death Eaters we've seen, with the exception of Peter Pettigrew, have been Slytherins. Being a Death Eater is like being in the Slytherin Alumni Association.
I'd go for Hufflepuff, myself. Everyone underestimates the Badger Brigade.
To prove he's a Slytherin, Harry has to describe the common room-which he does, as he has perfect recall of his one foray into the Slytherin common room in his second year-and then claims that his father works in the Ministry. This briefly unnerves Greyback, but he sticks to his plan, saying that if Harry's father does work at the Ministry, doubtless his father will reward the Snatchers for picking up his truant son.
Then someone finds the sword of Gryffindor. Harry comes up with the worst lie ever to explain why he has it:
"It's my father's," Harry lied, hoping against hope that it was too dark for Greyback to see the name etched just below the hilt. "We borrowed it to cut firewood -"
Oh, please, Harry. If you, when half blind, can see the color of Fenrir's teeth in a tent lit only by the wands of Death Eaters, then I'm fairly sure that Fenrir can read the word "Gryffindor" on the blade. And even if he couldn't see them, I'm sure he could feel the etched words. Also, no sane person would take an ancient sword with rubies in its hilt on a Boys' Own Camping Adventure and use it to chop kindling-not unless he wanted to blunt the sword's edge, or perhaps chip and damage the sword's blade.
Harry needs to take a class in Remedial Lying. Though, now that I think of it, that may be far too advanced for him.
Scabior spots something in the Prophet. Isn't it amazing how much time everyone in this book spends reading the newspaper? However, we don't have to waste time listening to yet another long tale from the Prophet. We get to waste time listening to Harry have yet another Voldemort vision instead.
More clearly than he could make out anything around him, he saw a towering building,
OUCH. Someone-possibly Rowling, possibly her editor--is deaf to the rhythm of a sentence. How about this instead: "He saw, more clearly than he saw his physical surroundings, a grim and towering fortress"?
a grim fortress, jet-black and forbidding:
What's that colon doing there at the end?
Voldemort's thoughts had suddenly become razor-sharp again; he was gliding toward the gigantic building with a sense of calmly euphoric purpose...
Now, I always thought of "euphoria" as "intense happiness, joy or bliss." The key word being intense. I could see Voldemort being calmly triumphant, but not experiencing intense happiness and being calm about it. Aside from the fact that "calm" and "euphoria" aren't synonyms...when has Voldemort been calm in the entire series? I mean, ever? (Tom could be calm, yes. Voldie...not so much.)
As Harry begins paying attention to the world around him again, Scabior points out a picture of Hermione in the paper. The paper says that Hermione's traveling with Harry Potter. Fenrir notices the picture looks a lot like "Penelope Clearwater," and figures out-well, everything.
SNIP!
Scabior suggests taking the Trio to the Ministry. Greyback vetoes that notion; he's all for eliminating the middleman and taking them to Voldemort. Greyback doesn't try summoning Voldemort, however; he decides just to head for the place that Voldemort is living. Harry, of course, seems to know the whys and wherefores of Fenrir's motivation.
The werewolf might be allowed to wear Death Eater robes when they wanted to use him, but only Voldemort's inner circle were branded with the Dark Mark: Greyback had not been granted this highest honor.
I believe this is yet another example of Rowling retconning herself. One of the things that fans have been asking for a couple of books now is, "If Voldemort has so many Death Eaters and nonhumans on his side, how come no one in the Order seems to recognize the Dark Mark?"
I don't think that Rowling had considered that until the fans pointed it out; a great many Death Eaters were summoned to the cemetery in GoF by means of the Dark Mark. Now, apparently, she's decided to backtrack and say that only a small, select number bear the Mark.
I have problems with this, as all the Death Eaters we've met have borne Dark Marks. Nor can I picture Peter Pettigrew being a select member of Voldemort's Inner Circle of Most Trusted Death Eaters. "Your loyalty is merely cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go" are NOT words you say to a highly trusted lieutenant. And no one is ever going to make me believe that Draco Malfoy, set up to do a job that the Dark Lord knew damned well he was unlikely to succeed in doing, rolled up his left sleeve in Borgin and Burke's to display a freckle.
We then get a number of cuts between the Death Eaters making plans and Harry's VoldieVision. Greyback wants to head to Malfoy Manor with Harry, Hermione, Dean and the sword. Harry's worth 200,000 Galleons (or a million pounds, or 1,478,000 Euros), while Hermione and Dean are worth ten Galleons each (or fifty pounds each, or 73.9 Euros each). Plus he points out that the gems in the sword could be valuable as well. It's refreshing to see a villain who's at least partly in it for the money.
Voldemort, in Harry's vision, is behaving rather oddly. I mean, more oddly than usual. First of all, he's back to the whole "flying without a broomstick" thing that we were told in HBP and in a number of interviews afterwards was flat-out impossible. Second, he's looking in a slit of a window in that grim, black fortress and thinking that it's "not big enough for a man to enter."
Uh...why is the size of a window even an issue? Hello, Apparation? You're a fucking wizard, Voldemort! You don't NEED to get through the window to enter the room!
But Voldemort, like everyone else in this chapter, seems to have developed sudden amnesia regarding spells. Instead:
he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake
I don't think I've ever seen a window like a snake before.
Meanwhile, Fenrir Greyback and the other Death Eaters prepare to Apparate to Malfoy Manor. Fenrir gets off one of the most blatant double entrendres in the entire book:
"Grab hold and make it tight. I’ll do Potter!" said Greyback,
I bet you will, Greyback. I just bet you will.
seizing a fistful of Harry's hair; Harry could feel his long yellow nails scratching his scalp.
What a remarkable scalp Harry has. It can tell the color of whatever is touching it.
The Death Eaters and their prisoners Apparate...no, not into Malfoy Manor, not to the front door, not even onto the grounds. To a road in front of Malfoy Manor's driveway.
[Harry] saw a pair of wrought-iron gates at the foot of what looked like a long drive
Here's the thing-WHY does Malfoy Manor have a driveway? Granted, Lucius can have anything he likes-it's his house. But... given that wizards travel by means of flight, Floo and Apparation...why would he need one? Even the Hogwarts and Beauxbatons carriages (drawn by thestrals and Abraxans, respectively) are drawn by animals that fly. So why have a means of traveling to the house that wizards wouldn't use or need?
And why a set of iron gates? Because they're such an effective means of excluding unwanted guests? I'm pretty sure that a wizard could fly over them, or Apparate on the other side of them. Yes, there could be all kinds of wards around the place preventing such things. But that's the point. We don't know. As John Proctor says in The Crucible, "There might also be a three-legged dragon living in my basement, but no one has seen it."
One of the Death Eaters starts shaking the gates:
"How do we get in? They’re locked
Well, in Chapter One, the Death Eaters get past the gates by doing a quasi-Nazi salute. I'm not sure why something that a houseful of Death Eaters knew in the first chapter is completely unknown in the twenty-third.
The ironwork on the gates turns into a face, and the gates speak, which will probably be a really cool CGI effect in the movie. The prisoners half-stagger and are half-pulled through the gates, while Harry has another VoldieVision, this of an old man telling the Dark Lord, "Sorry, never had the Elder Wand," which gets Voldemort more than a little miffed.
SNIP! as Narcissa lets the Death Eaters and their prisoners in.
"My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."
This gives us a date, or at least a range of dates. According to Easter Dates, 1875 to 2124, Easter of 1998 fell on April 12. If Draco is home for the Easter/spring hols, it's probably a week-maybe less-before that.
SNIP! as Harry continues to exhibit Superman's vision, describing the room, as well as his own reflection in a mirror, flawlessly. Draco's face, however, is described as "a pale and pointed blur." Hmmm.
Narcissa and Lucius both ask Draco if this is Harry Potter. They clearly want it to be. Draco says he can't be sure.
Then we get a rather odd description of Harry:
With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he was peering out from between the bars of a cage.
Oookay. Why would having a puffy face make you feel as if you were peering out from between the bars of a cage?
Narcissa says that they'd better be sure that it's Harry before they "summon" Voldemort, because he'll be homicidal if they're wrong. I can't honestly picture any of his followers summoning the Dark Lord, can you? Summoning rather implies that you are at the beck and call of another, subject to his or her will. I can see them doing it, but I think that Voldemort would insist on his followers calling it something different. Words shape attitudes, after all.
At any rate, Narcissa identifies Hermione-who she's seen for maybe ten minutes, tops, in her entire life-and Lucius identifies Ron, whom he last saw when Ron was about twelve. I can only think that he's going by the red hair. This makes me wonder if Lucius thought Lily was a Weasley when she entered school.
Here's Draco's reaction to Narcissa's question, "Is this the Granger girl?"
"I . . . maybe . . . yeah."
And here are Lucius's question and Draco's answer.
Draco, look at him, isn’t it Arthur Weasley’s son, what’s his name - ?"
"Yeah," said Draco again, his back to the prisoners. "It could be."
Now, I've heard people argue, based on Draco's reluctance to identify Harry or his friends, that Draco has grown and is on the good side. But I'm not seeing a lot of signs of virtue. I'm seeing a young fascist who never expected to have to identify people he knew to their faces. And identify them he does. He doesn't say, "No, that's not Harry, you're mistaken"; he says, "Well, maybe. It could be. I can't be sure." He's trying to be a good little Death Eater without actually saying or doing anything that could be labeled betrayal.
You know, I've long cherished a completely cracktastic theory that many pureblood males are sterile-something that's common in inbred animals-and that for Narcissa to produce a living, healthy heir, she had to go behind her husband's back and outside of her pureblood social circle to find a father, and that she chose Peter Pettigrew, based on his colouring, his outsider status and the fact that, as a secret Death Eater, he could be blackmailed into silence. (Told you it was cracktastic.) This was based mostly on Draco's pale, pointy features, and on the fact that Ron said he looked like a rat.
But now I feel as if the theory has been given new legs, because Draco's acting very much like Peter as well. He's betraying people out of fear.
And that's understandable. And it's human. But-speaking as one of the few Peter fangirls in this fandom-it's not a sign of goodness.
Bellatrix walks in. It's worth noting the description of her Dark Mark. Prior to this, Dark Marks have been described like tattoos. Really, really ugly tattoos. Bella's Dark Mark looks like a brand:
Harry saw the Dark Mark burned into the flesh of her arm
As soon as Bellatrix learns that Harry's been caught-well, she and Lucius get into a sibling-like fight over who gets to tell the Dark Lord. It runs something like this:
Bellatrix: Potter's here? I have to tell the Dark Lord right NOW!
Lucius: Nuh-uh, Trixie! It's MY house and I'm gonna tell him! So there!
Bellatrix: Oh, shut up, you don't 'even have a wand anymore. I'll tell him!
Lucius (sulking): Why should you get to do it? You didn't capture him!
Greyback: No, actually that was me, and you know, waiting for the gold here...
Bellatrix: Well, FINE. Take the money! I'll tell him and then the rest of you are gonna get it...ACK! Lucius, no! Don't touch the Mark! Don't touch the Mark!
Lucius (finger hovering above the Mark): ...What's the problem now?
Bellatrix: He'll slaughter us!
Lucius: But...
Bellatrix: (goes on point like a hunting dog): SWORD!
Bellatrix stuns-or should I say "Stuns"? Rowling's Random Capitalization is a constant headache-the guy who found the Sword of Gryffindor. This pisses off the other Death Eaters. Scabior (have I mentioned how much I love this guy?) demands to know what Bella is playing at. Bellatrix starts stunning, or Stunning, everyone but Greyback.
This is supposed to be frightening, by the way. Rowling tells us so, through Harry:
They were no match for her, even thought there were four of them against one of her: She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience.
Because nothing says "conscienceless killer" like knocking someone out. Oh, yeah. I'm petrified.
I'm not saying Bella's actions aren't practical. Reducing the number of opponents always makes sense. I can even see the point of not killing the people on your side. I'm saying that "prodigious skill and no conscience" don't suit her present actions. If you're going to talk about Bellatrix not having a conscience, Rowling, then I want to see her casting the Entrail-Expelling Curse. And I want to see her enjoying it.
They fell where they stood,
As opposed to what? Falling in Tahiti?
all except Greyback, who had been forced into a kneeling position, his arms outstretched.
About half of the Old Masters painted saints kneeling with their arms outstretched, about to be martyred.
Out of the corners of his eyes
The expression is "out of the corner of his eye." No plurals are involved. Who the hell EDITED this?
Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf, the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.
She's trying out for Season Six of Highlander.
Bellatrix asks Fenrir where he got the sword. She takes his wand, too, proving that she's not irrevocably stupid...yet. Fenrir smarts off to her:
"How dare you?" he snarled, his mouth the only thing that could move as he was forced to gaze up at her.
Um... If the only thing moving is his mouth, wouldn't that mean that his eyes aren't moving? And wouldn't that make "gazing up at her" a bit of a problem?
Bellatrix repeats herself. Girl, just give him three drops of Veritaserum. He'll tell you anything. She also lets something interesting slip:
"Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!"
You know, it seems like the whole world has had something to do with that sword. Dumbledore had it, Snape had access to it, Bellatrix seems to feel she's got a perfect right to it for no particular reason whatsoever.
After Greyback tells her that it was in the prisoners' tent, she frees him and tells Draco to take the unconscious guys outside and kill them...or, if he doesn't have the nerve, to leave them for her to kill. I don't know why she's faffing about, honestly. Kill them yourself, bitca. If you're half as bad-arse as you think you are.
It quickly becomes apparent that Bellatrix has no clue what to do. She doesn't dare hurt Harry, for fear of angering Voldie, but she doesn't dare not question Harry or friends about the Sword, for fear of angering Voldie.
So she tells her sister that the prisoners have to be put in the cellar. Narcissa responds with the adult equivalent of "This is my room, and you are not the boss of me!"
Bellatrix starts screaming that they're all in terrible danger. Rilly. You just noticed that, huh, Trixie?
She looked frightening, mad; a thin stream of fire issued from her wand and burned a hole in the carpet.
This would be more frightening if my parents had not been chain smokers who not only burned holes in the rugs, but also in clothes and even in linoleum.
Greyback, on Narcissa's orders, takes the prisoners down the cellar. All but Hermione, that is.
She threw Greyback’s wand back to him, then took a short silver knife from under her robes.
Why does Bellatrix have a knife when there are spells to cut, sever and unravel ropes and chains? So that she can kill Dobby with it, of course! Why else? It's not as if Potterverse witches and wizards are fond of weaponry, and they don't use athamés, so the fact that the knife exists to kill or hurt someone is fairly obvious. The last time we saw a wizard with a knife, it was Peter in the cemetery scene in GoF.
She cut Hermione free from the other prisoners, then dragged her by the hair into the middle of the room, while Greyback forced the rest of them to shuffle across to another door, into a dark passageway, his wand held out in front of him, projecting an invisible and irresistible force.
a) Why doesn't Greyback use Lumos to make the passageway less dark? It's one of the first spells anyone learns.
b) Given that the passageway is dark, how does Harry KNOW that the force is invisible?
c) How does Harry know it's an irresistible force? No one even tries resisting it!
"Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?" Greyback crooned as he forced them along the corridor. "I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, Ginger?"
Granted, Fenrir's probably talking about eating Hermione Tartare, but doesn't it sound as if he wants sex first and supper afterward?
They finally get to the cellar. Greyback unlocks the door and shoves them in. He forgets, somehow, to lock the door again. Drat. The villains are reverting to their normal state of stupidity. I knew their intelligence was too good to last.
As the door slams, they hear Hermione screaming. This is Ron's cue to start capslocking. He doesn't do anything as the result of the emotional upset, mind. He just yells Hermione's name repeatedly.
Then we learn that Luna is in the cellar as well. Rowling starts with the character assassination immediately when she has Luna say something exceptionally stupid. This is wrong. Luna is eccentric, not stupid. Stupid people don't get Sorted into Ravenclaw.
Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught!"
Good one, Luna. Because if you hadn't said that, Harry totally would have thought that you DID want him to be caught.
Well...this is Harry, the Boy of Very Little Brain. He might have. But even so, the principle stands. It's not perceptive, not intelligent, not clever. It's very un-Luna.
And it gets worse. For Harry wants Luna's help getting the ropes off, and this is what Luna says:
There’s an old nail we use if we need to break anything...Just a moment..."
Excuse me? A nail is a weapon. It could be used, not only to remove ropes, but to stab, slash or puncture the flesh of any Death Eater, and disarm, maim or kill them. (Yes, kill. A nail to the jugular vein or in the femoral artery? You think anyone would survive that? Plus the opportunity to grab the guard's wand.)
And Luna's been here since Christmas. Four months. You would think that she or Ollivander would have thought of fighting back some time before this. Apparently they're just sitting around marking time until Hero Harry can stumble into yet another pointless and avoidable trap. (Harry and company wouldn't be here if he just hadn't said the word "Voldemort," after all.)
Luna tries to get Harry and Ron free while Hermione screams at Bellatrix that they found the Sword. Bellatrix doesn't believe it, not that I blame her. I know that they found the blasted Sword re-enacting the Lady of the Lake bit from King Arthur, and even I don't believe it.
Luna has trouble freeing Harry and Ron in the dark. Ron tells her that he has a Deluminator full of light. I'm not sure why this tells Luna anything. Isn't the Deluminator supposed to be unique? Why, therefore, would she know what he's talking about?
And shouldn't the Death Eaters have frisked their prisoners and confiscated all of their possessions long before this?
Someone, presumably Luna (though I wonder when she saw a Muggle cigarette lighter before this), clicks the Deluminator. I keep wanting to call that thing the Terminator. Anyway, the lights illuminate the room, though what Harry sees doesn't make much sense.
Harry saw Luna, all eyes in her white face, and the motionless figure of Ollivander the wandmaker, curled up on the floor in the corner.
If the man is curled up in the corner, how does Harry know it's Ollivander?
Craning around,
"Craning around"? No. I'm sorry. You can crane your neck. I've even seen authors say that their characters craned their whole bodies. But you cannot "crane around." FAIL, Bloomsbury editors. EPIC FAIL.
he caught sight of their fellow prisoners:
Someone needs to put JKR on Colon Restriction. She uses them every other sentence, and she keeps using them incorrectly. A colon is not a substitute for a full stop. I feel as if I should send her a copy of Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
Dean and Griphook the goblin, who seemed barely conscious, kept standing by the ropes that bound him to the humans.
That bound HIM? According to that sentence structure, both of them should be kept standing by ropes, and Dean shouldn't consider himself human. Written correctly, the sentence would look like this:
Craning his neck, Harry caught sight of their fellow prisoners, Dean and Griphook the goblin. Griphook, who seemed barely conscious, was only held upright by the ropes that bound him to the humans.
Meanwhile, Bella is going nutzoid-well, more nutzoid, as she's never been a poster child for sanity-because Hermione isn't telling her that they broke into her vault and stole some loot. She's also threatening to stab Hermione if she doesn't say what Bella wants to hear. Because, you know, a witch who can inflict God knows how many hideous curses and who can pour Veritaserum down Hermione's throat if she so chooses would totally opt to threaten Harry Potter's friend with a mere knife.
Ron tries to Disapparate. Good for him. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would think of just trying to leave that way. It doesn't work-Luna says that the cellar is escape-proof, so apparently there are Anti-Apparation wards up-but at least someone tried.
Harry, as usual, is useless in a crisis. This is what he does:
a) Feels the walls "for he hardly knew what";
b) Pulls his broken wand out of the Mokeskin pouch;
c) Waves the broken halves of the wand that he knows doesn't work.
Harry then sees a gleam of blue in the broken shard of Sirius's mirror. Dumbledore's eye, we're told, and Rowling is right. However, it's not Albus Dumbledore's eye, and I'm grateful for that. Harry yells at the mirror for help, telling the eye that they're in the cellar in Malfoy Manor. None of his friends mutter anything about Harry losing it, which shows great restraint on their part.
As Hermione screams, Ron keeps "bellowing" her name. "Bellowing" really doesn't sound like the right kind of word for Ron. I mean, I can picture Uncle Vernon bellowing. Or Slughorn. They have the right build for bellowing. A tall thin drink of water like Ron...not so much.
Hermione finally tells Bella that the Sword is a copy. Lucius tells Draco to get Griphook, because Griphook will be able to tell if it is or not. Harry pleads with Griphook to lie, even though Griphook has no reason to like wizards, much less risk his skin for one.
Draco comes downstairs and orders everyone up against the wall. Clearly Draco has been watching very old cop shows. Unfortunately, Ron waits until the door is opening to turn off the Deluminator, which means that Draco could have seen the light under the door before the door opened. Equally unfortunately, Draco doesn't notice the light. He simply grabs Griphook and exits, stage right.
Then the deus ex machina Apparates in. On hearing the crack that is this chapter, and not in a good way, Ron turns on the Put-Outer again to reveal that Dobby Has Come To Save Us All. He says this. Really.
"Harry Potter," he squeaked in the tiniest quiver of a voice, "Dobby has come to rescue you."
At this point I had to wonder-when was Harry going to do something? Because his heroic record in this book is not so good.
1) Harry is escorted from the Dursleys' house by thirteen other people, six of whom are Polyjuiced. One's maimed and one dies.
2) RocksThe Ministry falls. Everyone Scrimgeour dies.
3) Hermione Apparates Ron and Harry away from the wedding to Tottenham Court Road and then to Grimmauld Place.
4) Remus searches the fugitive Trio out and gives them news.
5) Kreacher searches for and brings back Mundungus Fletcher.
6) Hermione makes the plans and obtains the items (Polyjuice Potion, Puking Pastilles, etc.) to invade the Ministry.
7) Hermione Apparates them away from the Ministry.
8) Hermione saves Harry by fighting Snake!Bathilda and by treating Harry's injuries.
9) Ron saves Harry from drowning in Excalibur Pond.
10) Ron destroys the locket Horcrux.
11) Hermione saves Ron and Harry from the Death Eaters at Lovegood's house.
And what's Harry done at this point? Cast Stupefy several times at the Ministry (which endangered himself, his friends and others), try to grab a sword from icy water and fail because he was wearing an evil artifact, have visions of Voldemort, become obsessed with the Hallows, and be upset with Dumbledore. And of these five things, three are inactive.
He's the most passive protagonist I've ever seen.
I feel like singing a rousing chorus of " The Wizards That Don't Do Anything."
Harry asks Dobby if he can Disapparate from the cellar-kind of a dumb question, since no one is supposed to be able to Apparate in or out of the cellar, as per Luna-and if he can take people with them. When Dobby says yes to both, Harry orders him to take Luna, Dean and Ollivander away from here and then come back.
Ron adds that Dobby should take them to Bill and Fleur's place, Shell Cottage near Tinworth. As per Chapter Sixteen, "Godric's Hollow," page 261 of the British edition, Tinworth is a village in Cornwall that's home to "knots of wizarding families who [live] alongside tolerant and sometimes Confounded Muggles." Yeah. I'd be tolerant, too, if I was so confused I didn't know which end was up.
Luna and Dean make token protests before Dobby Apparates them and Ollivander away. Unfortunately the crackfic of Apparation makes too much noise, and Lucius sends Peter down to the cellar to check on the prisoners.
What follows is so annoying that I'm going to let Peter spork this section.
Thank you.
Oh, my pleasure. Take it away, Peter.
Let's start with what happens right after Lucius Malfoy orders my namesake to go down in the cellar. Harry and Ron hear footsteps crossing the drawing room.
Harry knew that the people in the drawing room were listening for more noises from the cellar.
Not "people." Person--the chap pretending to be me, the one who was just told to go down the cellar alone. He's standing at the top of the stairs listening to see if he hears any whispering or suspicious noises, because he has an interest in in finding out if there was any danger.
The other Death Eaters are either dead or have delegated the problem to the guy posing as me. They don't care about noises from the cellar. Why should they? It's not their problem any more.
"We’re going to have to try and tackle him," he whispered to Ron.
I'm rather curious to why my so-called canonical self should be tackled but Draco should get off scot-free.
They had no choice: The moment anyone entered the room and saw the absence of three prisoners, they were lost.
A tad late to figure that out, isn't it? And what is that colon doing after "choice"?
"Leave the lights on," Harry added, and as they heard someone descending the steps outside the door, they backed against the wall on either side of it.
Now THAT'S special. One boy on either side of the door, each with his back against the door. Except, you know, the door has to open, and when it does, it's going to either hit one boy or effectively pin him to the wall. And neither boy is going to be able to see when the door opens because they're not facing the door. Their backs are against the wall...which means they are facing the room, not Canon!Peter.
"Stand back," came Wormtail’s voice. "Stand away from the door. I’m coming in."
I don't know what's more annoying-the fact that this absurd warning is supposed to intimidate anyone, or the fact that Rowling insists on calling me by the worst and most Freudian nickname possible. Every other principal Death Eater gets a first name-Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Barty, Rodolphus, Rabastan. Why can't Rowling call me Peter? Or even Pettigrew? I'd settle for that.
The door flew open.
Thus, as I said, hitting one boy or pinning him to the wall.
For a moment, my so-called canon self stares at a brightly lit and seemingly empty cellar.
Then Harry and Ron launched themselves upon him.
Isn't it wonderful how Gryffindor courage manifests? Two against one-and someone who isn't even attacking! Obviously this is some new definition of 'boldness' and 'chivalry' that I'm not familiar with.
And yes, I was in Gryffindor. And Reg was in Slytherin. Goes to prove that the Hat can mis-Sort, doesn't it?
Ron seized Wormtail’s wand arm and forced it upwards. Harry slapped a hand to his mouth, muffling his voice.
A hand over the mouth can actually muffle speech? What startling news. Paging the Department of Redundancy Department...
Silently they struggled:
That is IT. I forbid you to use any more colons until you learn how to use them properly. In the name of underdeveloped characters everywhere, I command you to take a course in Remedial English Usage, Rowling. Then, perhaps, we can talk.
Wormtail’s wand emitted sparks;
Why? Am I signaling for help? And if so, from whom?
his silver hand closed around Harry’s throat.
I'm torn between outrage that I'm trying to kill someone to whom I owe a life debt and relief that Harry will be dead in a few minutes and this atrocity will at last be over.
And considering that I knew Harry for a year and a half when he was a baby, as we all did, as well as for three years at Hogwarts...well. That says quite a lot about this book, don't you think?
Lucius calls down, asking what's going on.
"Nothing!" Ron called back, in a passable imitation of Wormtail’s wheezy voice. "All fine!"
It isn't enough that I've been squeaking like a rat since GoF. Now I have to sound like a rat with asthma.
Naturally, since I'm choking him, Harry has trouble breathing. Naturally, Rowling feels obligated to tell us this, because children cannot possibly deduce that choking makes it hard to breathe.
"You’re going to kill me?" Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers. "After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!"
My, he manages to talk an awful lot for someone who can't breathe, doesn't he?
I'm rather annoyed at Harry's tone. He's not asking for help, or pleading for his life. He's demanding it, as a matter of entitlement. Great attitude to have when someone has your life in his hands. Literally.
By the way...how is he attempting to prise my fingers free AND keep his hand over my mouth at the same time? I would have thought the former was a two-handed job.
The silver fingers slackened.
Please note that at the climactic moment-when I should be CHOOSING to spare Harry's life, CHOOSING to help him, illustrating the whole "our choices make us what we are" thing-that I do nothing. I don't even choose to let go of Harry's throat. My fingers-independent of me-accidentally loosen their grip a bit.
Honestly. Where's the choice, the morality, the character development in that?
Harry had not expected it:
*slaps JKR for improper use of colons*
And this is exactly what the Peter fans-tiny bunch that they are-had been expecting, and fearing, for years.
He wrenched himself free, astonished, keeping his hand over Wormtail’s mouth.
A minute ago he was choking to death from lack of air. Then my fingers loosened just a bit...and suddenly Harry's the Son of Hercules. Shouldn't he still be weak and gasping for air?
Oh, wait. That would involve competent writing. Sorry.
He saw the ratlike man’s small watery eyes widen with fear and surprise:
*thwaps Rowling yet again for her misuse of colons*
I resent the whole description of me as ratlike. I was never attractive in book canon, but it seems to me that with the advent of Timothy Spall and his hideous makeup, Rowling quickly stopped portraying me as the plain, balding man who had once been plump and who was now thin and started describing me as ratlike even in human form.
Honestly, Rowling. If you want to write about a mutant ratboy, then go write X-Men fanfic!
He seemed just as shocked as Harry at what his hand had done, at the tiny, merciful impulse it had betrayed, and he continued to struggle more powerfully, as though to undo that moment of weakness.
Merlin's manky balls, woman! You won't give me the slightest chance, will you? It's not bad enough that you're ignoring the character arc that you set up back in Book 3, or that you've ultimately deprived me of all choice in this scene. No, now you have to have me fighting even the slightest hint of a merciful impulse. Because it's impossible that I could do anything remotely good on purpose.
You know, there's a difference between having your personality drawn in broad strokes and having it be a bloody cartoon.
Ron takes my wand. Because, you know, I'm such a dreadful threat at this point. The Dark Lord cringes as I pass.
By the way...why did Ron wait until after I'd stopped strangling Harry to take my wand?
Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror.
I'm not sure why Rowling is making the point that my pupils are wandless and therefore helpless. As far as I know, the pupils of my eyes have never held a wand.
Oh, and my adoptive sister from Milliways and the Outside Inn, Valentine Wiggin-Skywalker, has this to say:
Val: .... what the hell? Since when is Peter helpless without a wand? Let alone his pupils? Although...why are his students dilated? Are they giving birth? *disappears back into the Inn again*
His eyes had slid from Harry’s face to something else.
A grotesquerie and vagueness! Two for one!
His own silver fingers were moving inexorably toward his own throat.
Whose silver fingers? The silver fingers of my eyes, or the silver fingers of Harry's face?
At this point, Harry tries to pull the silver hand back. Of course, this does no good, and Rowling takes the opportunity to drive the reason for this home.
The silver tool that Voldemort had given his most cowardly servant had turned upon its disarmed and useless owner; Pettigrew was reaping his reward for his hesitation, his moment of pity; he was being strangled before their eyes.
The moral of this story, children, is that if you happen to be a coward who works for an evil insane sadistic bastard, never show the slightest bit of mercy, or your boss will force you to kill yourself.
It takes a while for Ron-who has my wand, by the way-to do anything. I have the feeling that he wants me to die without his having to do anything to cause my death. I mean, one cast of Petrificus Totalus would prevent me from strangling myself, so why he's standing there with his thumb up his bum is something I can't explain.
However. Belatedly, he tries helping. Since, at this point, my canon-self is cyanotic, this is precisely as effective as you would expect it to be.
"Relashio!" said Ron, pointing the wand at the silver hand, but nothing happened;
The reason being that "Relashio" is the catch-all spell Rowling uses when she can't remember which spell applies. I'm not kidding. In GoF, it released a jet of fiery sparks. When cast underwater in GoF, it fired a jet of boiling water. In HBP, Bob Ogden used it to knock Marvolo Gaunt backwards to keep him from strangling Merope. In Chapter 13 of DH, Hermione casts it to make magical chains withdraw. And now Ron's using it to make my metal hand let me go.
Good grief, woman. Pick one fucking thing the spell does and settle on it!
Pettigrew dropped to his knees, and at the same moment, Hermione gave a dreadful scream from overhead.
Hey, prima donna! Do you mind holding off on the screaming? I'm dying here!
All right. I'm back now. Peter may pop by now and again to comment, however, as he's a trifle miffed.
Damned right I am.
Peter dies according to cliché-his eyes roll up, he twitches, he falls silent. Harry and Ron make a break for it in their own inimitable fashion. That is, they go straight back to the drawing room without looking for other exits. Maybe the passageway doesn't have any other doors leading from it-again, this is something we don't know. The boys don't look.
For some unknown reason, Bellatrix has given the Sword to Griphook. I know she wants the thing analyzed, but hello? Sixteen Goblin Rebellions? For all she knows Griphook could use that Sword and go kamikaze on everyone in the room.
Bella asks if this is the real sword. Griphook says no. Bella asks again. The Goblin says yes, he's sure, it's a fake. Bellatrix then does something I consider to be downright idiotic:
"Good," she said, and with a casual flick of her wand she slashed another deep cut into the goblin’s face, and he dropped with a yell at her feet.
Okay, first off, Bella, the guy just helped you. Injuring people-even people you despise--when they help you is NOT the best way to win friends and influence people. Second, if you can slash cuts into someone's face with a wand...why do you have a knife?
Bellatrix puts her finger on the Dark Mark, like pushing a button on a pager. Instantly, we're in VoldieVision, back in that grim black fortress. Despite the fact that at least a half hour must have gone by in Malfoy Manor, no time has passed for the Dark Lord at all. He's still exactly where he was when Harry had his last vision-in a tower room, being laughed at by a skinny old guy who doesn't know where the Elder Wand is, and who's busy telling Voldemort that he'll never own the Elder Wand. Naturally, Voldemort has a tantrum and kills the old guy, telling us in the process that this is a prison cell.
End of VoldieVision. Bellatrix then tells Greyback that if he wants Hermione, he can have her. Since, after Hedwig's death, Harry imitated Luke Skywalker, it is now Ron's turn:
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Ron had burst into the drawing room; Bellatrix looked around, shocked;
Amazed that anyone would be that dumb, most likely.
There is a minor Battle of the Wands. Ron Expelliarmuses Bellatrix's wand out of her hands and into Harry's. Harry stuns Lucius Malfoy and dodges spells from Draco, Narcissa and Fenrir.
Then Bellatrix pulls the most unlikely move I can envision from a witch so proud and confident in her magic-she holds a knife to Hermione's throat. Never mind using wandless magic to get her own wand back. Never mind Bellatrix and the three other Death Eaters working together as a cohesive unit against the two boys. Never mind grabbing Hermione and Apparating elsewhere so that she and the other Death Eaters would have a valuable hostage. Never mind actual sense. No. Bella menaces Hermione with a knife. Horrors.
What's worse, she gives Harry and Ron a frelling stupid command.
"Drop your wands," she whispered. "Drop them, or we’ll see exactly how filthy her blood is!"
AND THEY DO IT.
Once again, Rowling seems to have forgotten that she's writing about wizards. What kind of a threat is a knife against two determined people with magic? Harry could Expelliarmus the knife, as that's the only spell he seems to know, and Ron could cast the Full-Body Bind on Bella. Toss a few more Stunning and Disarming Spells toward Draco, Narcissa and Fenrir, grab Hermione and Disapparate.
But no. This is Rowlingland, and the characters cannot do things that show the slightest vestige of common sense. That would be wrong.
So they drop Peter's and Bellatrix's wands and raise their hands (for no reason, Bellatrix didn't ask them to). Bellatrix, Mistress of the Obvious, tells Harry that Voldie is en route and that Harry's about to die. Yeah, yeah. Have you considered having someone attack them and knock them out before you start gloating, Bellatrix? It's straight from the Evil Overlord List, you know:
75) I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
Harry, however, still has time to angst about his upcoming demise:
Harry knew it; his scar was bursting with the pain of it, and he could feel Voldemort flying through the sky from far away, over a dark and stormy sea, and soon he would be close enough to Apparate to them, and Harry could see no way out.
I still like my paralyze-Bellatrix-grab-Hermione-and-Apparate-out-of-there idea...
Draco gets the wands that Harry and Ron dropped. Amazingly, neither of them kicks or insults Draco as he does so. Bellatrix tells Narcissa that Harry and Ron have to be tied up. Um...NO. They don't. There are magical ropes and magical chains, but honestly, Full-Body Bind is best. The entire body is frozen, except for the eyes, and the wizard can't speak a single spell.
I suppose I should offer kudos to Bellatrix for even thinking of hampering their movements, however. It is sad that I have to give points for something so obvious.
As Bellatrix gives Hermione to Greyback yet again, we get a rip-off of an homage to Phantom of the Opera
All of them looked upward in time to see the crystal chandelier tremble; then, with a creak and an ominous jingling, it began to fall.
Bella, who's right underneath the chandelier, shows more intelligence than she has to date and flings herself aside. The chandelier lands, instead, on Hermione and Griphook, while Draco gets a faceful of broken glass. In any normal world, this would mean that Hermione and Griphook had been severely injured, perhaps crushed to death, and that Draco stood a good chance of being blinded, but as I've said before, this isn't England--this Rowlingland. There are no consequences in Rowlingland.
Harry, for a change, actually does something-he grabs Peter's, Bellatrix's and Draco's wands from Draco's hands, holds all three, and casts Stupefy at Greyback. This puts Fenrir out of commission for the rest of the chapter. Narcissa, however, has spotted the guilty party-Dobby.
Dobby does his usual "You must not harm Harry Potter" routine. Bellatrix orders Narcissa to kill him. I'm honestly surprised that Bellatrix survived childhood, given the number of times she gives orders to her younger sister. Dobby decides he's not putting up with this:
there was another loud crack, and Narcissa’s wand too flew into the air and landed on the other side of the room.
Sheesh. If house-elves can disarm witches and wizards, why do they put up with being abused by their owners? Are they a race of masochists or something?
Bellatrix then utters a rather unpleasant racial epithet...and I think I know where Rowling got it, because I've read the same comment in a lot of nineteenth-century children's literature.
"You dirty little monkey!" bawled Bellatrix.
Although I've seen stories where a rich man or woman says to a street urchin in London, the first thing that sprang to mind were tales of India, in which an Englishman or his wife would address an Indian-usually a servant-in such terms. I think that the India stories are more similar to Rowling's scenario, what with the master of one race/servant of another race vibe.
I suspect that Rowling grew up reading very old-fashioned books-circa 1870s to 1930s-just as I did. I think that's probably where she picked up the phrase, whether she was aware of this or not.
Dobby, for his part, goes all Braveheart on us:
"Dobby has no master!" squealed the elf. "Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!"
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM!"
Harry, at last recognizing the Narrative Imperative which requires a protagonist to do something to keep the story going, throws a random wand to Ron so that Ron and Hermione can Disapparate (and why do they need wands? I don't recall Dumbles or Harry holding wands when they went to and left Cave Horcrux!), grabs Griphook-who still has the Sword-and takes Dobby's hand. They start to vanish. Bellatrix's knife flies toward them. Hey, since they're vanishing, shouldn't the knife go right through Dobby?
They get to what appears to be Shell Cottage. Harry wants to know if they're in the right place or not, but then he forgets about that when he sees a knife sticking out of Dobby's chest. Harry immediately starts hollering for help:
He did not know or care whether they were wizards or Muggles, friends or foes;
Wow. All that to get Harry free, and now, for all Harry knows, he could be delivering himself into his enemies' hands all over again. Gotta love that outstanding sense of self-preservation.
all he cared about was that a dark stain was spreading across Dobby’s front,
I'm sorry to say that I initially read this as "a dark stain was spreading across Dobby's Y-fronts," which took me to a very unpleasant place indeed.
and that he had stretched out his own arms to Harry with a look of supplication.
His own arms. As opposed to what? Stretching out someone else's arms?
Harry holds Dobby, pleading with him not to die...while, of course, Dobby is dying
The elf’s eyes found him,
Why? Was Harry lost?
and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.
"Harry . . . Potter . . ."
"I...Amsecretly...William...Shatner."
And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.
Orbs. Not eyes. Frelling orbs. Sprinkled with starlight, yet. All right, Rowling, that's it. No more Fanfiction.net for you until you learn to WRITE.