The '15.

[mike_smith]

Ugh. This one about broke me, folks. I give you Fifteen, the Chapter That Wouldn't End.

Comments

[jim_smith]

So now it's Christmas time in Harry Potter Land.

Mom's cookin' chicken and collared greens--oh wait, you did that. I salute you, sir.

Every Harry Potter book makes a point of covering an entire school year, so they tend to skip around huge chunks of time. I wouldn't be shocked if Chapter 17 begins in March.

Of course, Harry wants to invite Ginny, but because he's afraid Ron will freak out if he does,

Yeah, because Ron's totally not freaking out over everything else already.

I can only assume "Legilmency" is dream-reading, but the real story here is that Rowling just wrote about Harry Potter having wet dreams.

The real story is some middle-aged woman who wears a scarf to bed just had a she-boner.

Right about then the creepy old librarian, Madam Pince, shows up

I misread this as "Prince Adam" was sorely disappointed when He-Man failed to show up.

Enter Luna Lovegood.

There are Bond Girls in this thing?

"'You considered Smith?' said Harry, revolted." Hey!

Ha ha ha, Hermione's too good for guys named Smith....d'oh!

Anyway,

[mike_smith]

My understanding is that all, or at least most people in any position of authority didn't believe it. The Ministry, in particular, went all sickhouse on him for his claims in the last book, which is why Harry has no love for the Ministry of Magic, as will be illustrated in the next chapter.

As to anyone who would have believed it, I'm thinking there wasn't a lot of hard evidence for a while, until this whole prophecy came along, and even then various characters still needed to be told that the prophecy was legitimate.

And really, when you get down to it, no one will know for sure that he's destined to go over Voldemort until it actually happens, which is probably why everyone's had been hedging their bets. I get the impression the only reason people are kissing his ass now is because of his celebrity, and not because they're sure he's the Real Deal.

But I'm sure someone else can explain this more properly than I.

[lisatrix]

He used to just be 'that guy who somehow incapacitated Voldemort as a baby', but now word's gotten out that he's actually destined to kill Voldemort at some point.

[seductivedark]

Hi. I'm loving your reviews of the chapters. I read them to my daughter, who is thirteen and can read them for herself, but I do *ahem* censor certain words (like 'wet' as in 'wet dream', I don't feel like explaining all that in the middle of the review

[skjam]

Legilmency is essentially mind-reading. Dumbledore and Voldemort are both good at it. Occulmency is the art of defending yourself against mind-reading. Snape is very good at it (useful for a triple agent.) In the previous volume, Snape was supposed to teach Harry Occulmency. It did not go well.

Parvati Patil is one of the other girls in Harry's year. She and Lavender fill the "obsessed by boys and clothes" category of girls, as opposed to Hermione's grade-grubbing. She has a twin sister named Padma, who's in a different House.

I remember the "Hai Karate" ads from my youth.

Honestly, I like Luna Lovegood for Harry a lot better than Ginny, but that's shipping stuff, which is like politics. Next topic.

The vampire appears to be here solely to show that yes, they exist.

Trelawney and Snape evidently were only invited to the party because they're fellow faculty members. Especially Trelawney.

[atmachine]

I think Mike's spot-on with Rowling putting in the vampire to make fun of fangirls. Especially since it was a popular theory a few years ago that Snape was a vampire, and a lot of girls like Snape for some reason (I'm guessing it's the Alan Rickman factor).

[skjam]

I think Mike's spot-on with Rowling putting in the vampire to make fun of fangirls.

I would say she put that in to make fun of Snape fangirls. There were a lot of Snape-is-a-Vampire theories floating around for a while (I think this party definitively put an end to those), plus Rowling's not too fond of Snape and doesn't understand why so many people are obsessed with him.

--Annika

[archangelbeth]

Bah, she adores Snape. Any author who torments Snape as much as she does loves the character. She's just worried other people like him so much.

And then she writes chapter two, which is so tailor-made for the Snape fans.

*points and nods sagely*

LOL!

[jazzypom]

Enjoying your reviews. It's interesting to read what a pretty casual observer of the book thinks. It really shows up the faults of HBP in certain areas though, like the plotting and the whole set up of the story.

Thanks for doing this! I for one am really enjoying your readings. Do it for your country, the red, white and the blue. Erm... I'm interested to see what you make of the last chapters.

Regards

jp

[logansrogue]

I know, I'm a total random, but I think I love you now.