In the Year Chapter 25, If Man Survives, If Woman Survives...
OK, Law & Order's gonna be on in about fifteen minutes, so I'm gonna go ahead and post this before I get some wacky idea to photomanipulate Dumbledore's head on a Gundam pilot or something, or write a long treatise about how Hogwarts is a metaphor for the Eurpoean Union. Keepin' this one short and sweet, folks.
Chapter 25: The Seer Overheard
(Original Japanese Title: The Fateful Night Arrives... Densest vs. Densest!!)
Remarkably, the gossip over Harry and Ginny being a couple has managed to overtake the gossip about Harry's brush with manslaughter in the restroom. Art imitates life, I suppose. How many Harmonians are writing angry letters about Señor Draco getting chopped up like a Christmas ham, I wonder?
For his part, Galva Ron seems to be accepting the new arrangement, though somewhat begrudgingly. I'm considering downgrading him back to simply "Ron", but that isn't very exciting at all. It doesn't matter much, though, because Ginny's got tests and stuff to work on, so she and Harry don't have a whole lot of time together anyway. Oh, and Harry's still serving detention for that time he almost killed a guy, so that's not making their relationship any easier.
This gives Hermione a brief opening to try and add some life to this abominable Half-Blood Prince mystery. In the library, she shares with the rest of the nWo her discovery of an Eileen Prince, who once attended Hogwarts and went on to become the captain of some Hogwarts team. Times like these are when I wonder if Hermione didn't catch the stupid that seems to be plaguing Harry and Ron. While Harry seems oblivious to the idea that the Prince might be someone who didn't know or love his dad, Hermione is determined to prove that the Prince is a woman, mostly to spite Harry's insistence that this is impossible. In this case, Hermione's suggestion is that "Prince" might be a last name, and not a royal title, since there supposedly are no princes in the wizarding world. Of course, all Hermione has here is the name, and nothing else to support her theory, so it basically comes down to the same argument: Halfy's handwriting appears feminine, while the writing itself seems masculine, at least by Harry's reckoning. Hermione plans to check every Prince in the library until she's solved this, but Harry figures this is a waste of time. You know, when Harry Potter, the guy who spent an hour staring at a wall as part of an ongoing investigation, tells you you're getting too obsessive, it's time to step back and rethink things. Personally, I think Hermione just uses library-work as an excuse to meet up with her secret Latino lover who dusts the stacks. And since I can't think of anyone else, we'll assume this is "C.Hi.P.'s" star Erik Estrada.
After Hermione leaves, Harry gets another scroll from Dumbledore, summoning him to his office right away. Being Jimmy Olsen to Big Al's Superman, Harry drops everything and heads on over, only to encounter Professor Trelawny knocked off her feet on the seventh floor, near that blankity-blank Room of Requirement.
Since Trelawny is both a drunk AND a vague fictional psychic, any scene with her talking is naturally a pain in the ass, so I'll just get to the point. When Harry comes to her aid, she explains that she had intended to use the RoR to hide some of her booze, which as we all know is one of the main indicators of alcoholism. At least she isn't lying about it, although this is probably because she's lying on the floor with several bottles of the stuff, one of which is broken, so there's not a whole lot of cover stories you can make up at this point. Anyway, while she was able to enter the room, there was someone already inside.
Perhaps suspecting Señor Draco, Harry grills her about the person inside the Room, but Trelawny only knows that it was a male, and he was apparently very happy. When she called out to him, everything went black, and she was hurled out of the Room, where Harry found her seconds later. Strangely, Harry doesn't take it upon himself to check this out for himself, which leads me to believe that he can't sustain Super Dumbass 3 for very long. Instead, he suggests Trelawny accompany him on his way to D-Dore's office, so she can report this incident to him, presumably in the hopes that Big Al will finally put two and two together and get "destroy Malfoy now".
Again, since Trelawny is a boozehound, and she possesses the power to see into the future, this means that she has to stop and drunkenly reminisce about the past. In this case, she blathers on about how she interviewed for Hogwarts, and made that prophecy to Dumbledore about Harry being the one who would confront Voldemort. This is all old news, but then she reveals that while this was going on, Snape was discovered eavesdropping on the two of them. To Trelawny, this was simply a case of a fellow job-seeker trying to jockey for position, but it has a completely different meaning to Harry, who quickly blows off the Professor and runs off to see D-Dore by himself.
Once he gets there, Dumbledore kind of kills his whole "angry" vibe by asking if he's ready to come along on their trip to break a Horcrux. At first Big Al misreads Harry's expression as one of fear, and then he simply asks him what the dilly-o. At this, Harry blows his stack, explaining how he just now learned that it was Snape who informed Voldemort of the prophecy, which ultimately led to Voldemort murdering Harry's parents fifteen years ago. "AND YOU LET HIM TEACH HERE AND HE TOLD VOLDEMORT TO GO AFTER MY MUM AND DAD!" he says, emphasis his. Probably the only reason he doesn't got smashing up his office is because he still wants to go along on this Horcrux job, and also I'm pretty sure he already played that card during his last Dumbledore tantrum in Book 5.
Anyway, D-Dore tries to smooth this over, saying that Snape had no idea who's parents would end up being killed over this, and how Snape now deeply regrets that it was the Potters who ended up getting killed because of what he told Voldemort. Wait, so if it had been a family of strangers that Voldemort attacked, then it would have been okay? You know, I can accept Dumbledore's logic, that the benefits of keeping Snape around might outweigh whatever evils he may have committed in the past, but he's not exactly making that case to Harry here. Ultimately, they come back to the same old argument. Dumbledore may trust Snape completely, but Harry doesn't, and probably never will. Harry asks him what'll happen while they're away, leaving Snape and Señor Draco at the school to do whatever deviltry they've got planned, which prompts D-Dore to ask just what it is Harry thinks they'd do, and of course Harry has no idea. Finally, Big Al plays the headmaster bit once again and says he doesn't want to discuss it anymore. Wow, these two have REALLY developed a lot since they had this exact same discussion in Chapter 17.
So Dumbledore moves on to the matter at hand: their mission to destroy this Horcrux he's tracked down. D-Dore's only condition for taking Harry along is that he follows his orders to the letter, without question or hesitation, even if that means running away, hiding, or abandoning D-Dore to save his own neck. Reluctantly Harry agrees. And so naturally, as soon as the old man tells him to go get his Invisibility Cloak and come right back, Harry immediately starts planning something completely different while he's on his way back to his room.
The underlying problem between these two--and while I never would have expected Harry to figure it out, you'd think Dumbledore would have caught on by now--is that this isn't ABOUT trusting Snape. It's about Harry and Dumbledore trusting EACH OTHER, and clearly they don't. Given how closely they've been working together in this book, that strikes me as a rather volatile situation, but there it is. Dumbledore is so certain that Harry will do something stupid that he actually makes him promise to follow his lead, which kind of defeats the whole point of taking the kid along, I would think. Meanwhile, Harry is convinced that D-Dore's intransigence on the Snape issue means he doesn't know what he's doing, so he undermines D-dore's leadership by making all these side-plans to compensate. This could all be avoided if Harry would simply accept Dumbledore's authority, or if Dumbledore would allay Harry's concerns, if only to humor the boy and get him back in line. But of course this doesn't happen. Indeed, since the whole conflict between these two has been turned into arguments over Snape (who isn't even part of this operation), it's doubtful they'd ever get their act together. Dr. Strange and the Hulk have a better partnership going, to give you an idea, and the Hulk has hit Doc in the face on more than one occasion.
So in the short time he has to prepare, Harry delegates his Malfoy-obsession to his friends. He hands over his Marauders Map and Felix Felicis to the Outsiders, telling them that Señor Draco is sure to make his move tonight since Harry and D-Dore will be out of the building this evening. So it's up to them to keep an eye out for him, and get help from anyone else they can find while they're at it. Normally, I'd accuse Harry of foolishly anticipating his enemy's moves through assumption instead of reason, but in this case it's close to the end of the book, so it stands to reason that something's gotta happen with Señor Draco in the next few hours, so it's worth a shot, I guess.
When Harry finally returns, Dumbledore escorts him (now invisible) to Hogsmeade. See, his cover for these off-campus activities is that he's just going out for a walk to a pub for some fresh air and a drink. Once he establishes an alibi in town, he just teleports wherever he needs to go and none's the wiser. And that's where we leave off.
Like I've said before, this whole book strikes me as a 300 page story drawn out over 652 pages. As such, it doesn't shock me much that as I move into the final 190 pages or so the book finally starts to get kind of good. It's still moving a little slowly, but the story-to-pagecount ratio has greatly increased. What concerns me now is that with this being the penultimate book in the series, there won't be much of a climax here, as Rowling is saving all the good stuff for Book Seven. So far, I'm getting the distinct impression that destroying this one Horcrux is going to be the main plotline of the book, with Snape and Señor Draco's machinations and the Half-Blood Prince mystery sort of tacked on to the side. Considering that much of this book has been devoted to the futility of Malfoy's mission, and the fact that destroying a single Horcrux isn't much to brag about, I'm feeling a little unimpressed at the moment. Still, I reserve judgment.
As for this chapter itself, not so great. Of the aforementioned plotlines, there's pretty much no forward motion on any of them. The Half-Blood Prince's identity has become almost an afterthought, as demonstrated by Hermione's half-hearted theory. When asked directly just what he thinks Malfoy is up to, Harry admits he has no idea, despite the fact that he's spent the entire school year trying to find out. Yeah, we found out that Snape played a role in the Potters' murder, but so what? All it means is Harry hates Snape, and Dumbledore still trusts him, which is exactly where we were at before the book even started. That leaves this seek-and-destroy mission Harry and Big Al are on, but this chapter just deals with them getting ready for it, and nothing more. Oh, and Harry wants his friends to go mess with Señor Draco, which just goes to show how little he learned from their last encounter. Still, it at least move things along, bridging the fast-paced events of 24 with the more plot driven events of 26, so it's not all bad. Not enough to save it from a slap in the face, though, so the streak ends here at three.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Chug, chug, chug, chug!
Chapter 25: The Seer Overheard
(Original Japanese Title: The Fateful Night Arrives... Densest vs. Densest!!)
Remarkably, the gossip over Harry and Ginny being a couple has managed to overtake the gossip about Harry's brush with manslaughter in the restroom. Art imitates life, I suppose. How many Harmonians are writing angry letters about Señor Draco getting chopped up like a Christmas ham, I wonder?
For his part, Galva Ron seems to be accepting the new arrangement, though somewhat begrudgingly. I'm considering downgrading him back to simply "Ron", but that isn't very exciting at all. It doesn't matter much, though, because Ginny's got tests and stuff to work on, so she and Harry don't have a whole lot of time together anyway. Oh, and Harry's still serving detention for that time he almost killed a guy, so that's not making their relationship any easier.
This gives Hermione a brief opening to try and add some life to this abominable Half-Blood Prince mystery. In the library, she shares with the rest of the nWo her discovery of an Eileen Prince, who once attended Hogwarts and went on to become the captain of some Hogwarts team. Times like these are when I wonder if Hermione didn't catch the stupid that seems to be plaguing Harry and Ron. While Harry seems oblivious to the idea that the Prince might be someone who didn't know or love his dad, Hermione is determined to prove that the Prince is a woman, mostly to spite Harry's insistence that this is impossible. In this case, Hermione's suggestion is that "Prince" might be a last name, and not a royal title, since there supposedly are no princes in the wizarding world. Of course, all Hermione has here is the name, and nothing else to support her theory, so it basically comes down to the same argument: Halfy's handwriting appears feminine, while the writing itself seems masculine, at least by Harry's reckoning. Hermione plans to check every Prince in the library until she's solved this, but Harry figures this is a waste of time. You know, when Harry Potter, the guy who spent an hour staring at a wall as part of an ongoing investigation, tells you you're getting too obsessive, it's time to step back and rethink things. Personally, I think Hermione just uses library-work as an excuse to meet up with her secret Latino lover who dusts the stacks. And since I can't think of anyone else, we'll assume this is "C.Hi.P.'s" star Erik Estrada.
After Hermione leaves, Harry gets another scroll from Dumbledore, summoning him to his office right away. Being Jimmy Olsen to Big Al's Superman, Harry drops everything and heads on over, only to encounter Professor Trelawny knocked off her feet on the seventh floor, near that blankity-blank Room of Requirement.
Since Trelawny is both a drunk AND a vague fictional psychic, any scene with her talking is naturally a pain in the ass, so I'll just get to the point. When Harry comes to her aid, she explains that she had intended to use the RoR to hide some of her booze, which as we all know is one of the main indicators of alcoholism. At least she isn't lying about it, although this is probably because she's lying on the floor with several bottles of the stuff, one of which is broken, so there's not a whole lot of cover stories you can make up at this point. Anyway, while she was able to enter the room, there was someone already inside.
Perhaps suspecting Señor Draco, Harry grills her about the person inside the Room, but Trelawny only knows that it was a male, and he was apparently very happy. When she called out to him, everything went black, and she was hurled out of the Room, where Harry found her seconds later. Strangely, Harry doesn't take it upon himself to check this out for himself, which leads me to believe that he can't sustain Super Dumbass 3 for very long. Instead, he suggests Trelawny accompany him on his way to D-Dore's office, so she can report this incident to him, presumably in the hopes that Big Al will finally put two and two together and get "destroy Malfoy now".
Again, since Trelawny is a boozehound, and she possesses the power to see into the future, this means that she has to stop and drunkenly reminisce about the past. In this case, she blathers on about how she interviewed for Hogwarts, and made that prophecy to Dumbledore about Harry being the one who would confront Voldemort. This is all old news, but then she reveals that while this was going on, Snape was discovered eavesdropping on the two of them. To Trelawny, this was simply a case of a fellow job-seeker trying to jockey for position, but it has a completely different meaning to Harry, who quickly blows off the Professor and runs off to see D-Dore by himself.
Once he gets there, Dumbledore kind of kills his whole "angry" vibe by asking if he's ready to come along on their trip to break a Horcrux. At first Big Al misreads Harry's expression as one of fear, and then he simply asks him what the dilly-o. At this, Harry blows his stack, explaining how he just now learned that it was Snape who informed Voldemort of the prophecy, which ultimately led to Voldemort murdering Harry's parents fifteen years ago. "AND YOU LET HIM TEACH HERE AND HE TOLD VOLDEMORT TO GO AFTER MY MUM AND DAD!" he says, emphasis his. Probably the only reason he doesn't got smashing up his office is because he still wants to go along on this Horcrux job, and also I'm pretty sure he already played that card during his last Dumbledore tantrum in Book 5.
Anyway, D-Dore tries to smooth this over, saying that Snape had no idea who's parents would end up being killed over this, and how Snape now deeply regrets that it was the Potters who ended up getting killed because of what he told Voldemort. Wait, so if it had been a family of strangers that Voldemort attacked, then it would have been okay? You know, I can accept Dumbledore's logic, that the benefits of keeping Snape around might outweigh whatever evils he may have committed in the past, but he's not exactly making that case to Harry here. Ultimately, they come back to the same old argument. Dumbledore may trust Snape completely, but Harry doesn't, and probably never will. Harry asks him what'll happen while they're away, leaving Snape and Señor Draco at the school to do whatever deviltry they've got planned, which prompts D-Dore to ask just what it is Harry thinks they'd do, and of course Harry has no idea. Finally, Big Al plays the headmaster bit once again and says he doesn't want to discuss it anymore. Wow, these two have REALLY developed a lot since they had this exact same discussion in Chapter 17.
So Dumbledore moves on to the matter at hand: their mission to destroy this Horcrux he's tracked down. D-Dore's only condition for taking Harry along is that he follows his orders to the letter, without question or hesitation, even if that means running away, hiding, or abandoning D-Dore to save his own neck. Reluctantly Harry agrees. And so naturally, as soon as the old man tells him to go get his Invisibility Cloak and come right back, Harry immediately starts planning something completely different while he's on his way back to his room.
The underlying problem between these two--and while I never would have expected Harry to figure it out, you'd think Dumbledore would have caught on by now--is that this isn't ABOUT trusting Snape. It's about Harry and Dumbledore trusting EACH OTHER, and clearly they don't. Given how closely they've been working together in this book, that strikes me as a rather volatile situation, but there it is. Dumbledore is so certain that Harry will do something stupid that he actually makes him promise to follow his lead, which kind of defeats the whole point of taking the kid along, I would think. Meanwhile, Harry is convinced that D-Dore's intransigence on the Snape issue means he doesn't know what he's doing, so he undermines D-dore's leadership by making all these side-plans to compensate. This could all be avoided if Harry would simply accept Dumbledore's authority, or if Dumbledore would allay Harry's concerns, if only to humor the boy and get him back in line. But of course this doesn't happen. Indeed, since the whole conflict between these two has been turned into arguments over Snape (who isn't even part of this operation), it's doubtful they'd ever get their act together. Dr. Strange and the Hulk have a better partnership going, to give you an idea, and the Hulk has hit Doc in the face on more than one occasion.
So in the short time he has to prepare, Harry delegates his Malfoy-obsession to his friends. He hands over his Marauders Map and Felix Felicis to the Outsiders, telling them that Señor Draco is sure to make his move tonight since Harry and D-Dore will be out of the building this evening. So it's up to them to keep an eye out for him, and get help from anyone else they can find while they're at it. Normally, I'd accuse Harry of foolishly anticipating his enemy's moves through assumption instead of reason, but in this case it's close to the end of the book, so it stands to reason that something's gotta happen with Señor Draco in the next few hours, so it's worth a shot, I guess.
When Harry finally returns, Dumbledore escorts him (now invisible) to Hogsmeade. See, his cover for these off-campus activities is that he's just going out for a walk to a pub for some fresh air and a drink. Once he establishes an alibi in town, he just teleports wherever he needs to go and none's the wiser. And that's where we leave off.
Like I've said before, this whole book strikes me as a 300 page story drawn out over 652 pages. As such, it doesn't shock me much that as I move into the final 190 pages or so the book finally starts to get kind of good. It's still moving a little slowly, but the story-to-pagecount ratio has greatly increased. What concerns me now is that with this being the penultimate book in the series, there won't be much of a climax here, as Rowling is saving all the good stuff for Book Seven. So far, I'm getting the distinct impression that destroying this one Horcrux is going to be the main plotline of the book, with Snape and Señor Draco's machinations and the Half-Blood Prince mystery sort of tacked on to the side. Considering that much of this book has been devoted to the futility of Malfoy's mission, and the fact that destroying a single Horcrux isn't much to brag about, I'm feeling a little unimpressed at the moment. Still, I reserve judgment.
As for this chapter itself, not so great. Of the aforementioned plotlines, there's pretty much no forward motion on any of them. The Half-Blood Prince's identity has become almost an afterthought, as demonstrated by Hermione's half-hearted theory. When asked directly just what he thinks Malfoy is up to, Harry admits he has no idea, despite the fact that he's spent the entire school year trying to find out. Yeah, we found out that Snape played a role in the Potters' murder, but so what? All it means is Harry hates Snape, and Dumbledore still trusts him, which is exactly where we were at before the book even started. That leaves this seek-and-destroy mission Harry and Big Al are on, but this chapter just deals with them getting ready for it, and nothing more. Oh, and Harry wants his friends to go mess with Señor Draco, which just goes to show how little he learned from their last encounter. Still, it at least move things along, bridging the fast-paced events of 24 with the more plot driven events of 26, so it's not all bad. Not enough to save it from a slap in the face, though, so the streak ends here at three.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Chug, chug, chug, chug!