Electrify
Got a bunch of stuff to do tonight, so let's get on with it.
Chapter 17: Cat, Rat, and Dog
Original Japanese Title: "An Explosion of Anger!! Harry, Avenge No One's Death"
Previously, on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban... uh... the kids heard Buckbeak getting executed. And... that's about it. Rowling kind of phoned that one in, so I did too.
The only thing to really come out of this is that now you've got Harry, Hermione and Ron standing outdoors under the Invisibility Cloak, still recovering from the shock of what they've heard, and hoping not to get caught. Except Ron's stupid pet rat won't sit still, and to make matters worse, now Hermione's stupid cat is back, which fightens Scabbers into fleeing the relative safety of the cloak. Crookshanks chases after him, followed close behind by Ron, then by Harry and Hermione. Turns out they're being followed by that big black dog Harry's been seeing throughout the whole book. It goes for Harry, but Ron (with Scabbers in tow) pushes it aside, and ends up getting dragged away with his arm in the dog's mouth. Harry and Hermione follow, but soon find that the dog has taken Ron to the Whomping Willow, so they can't get any closer without getting the crap beaten out of them. The dog manages to drag Ron into a gap between the tree's roots, and while Ron manages to hook one of his legs on the roots to keep from getting pulled in, the dog is somehow strong enough to break his leg, putting an end to any further resistance. I would think that sort of force would have ripped off Ron's arm first, since that's what the dog was holding onto, but maybe the tree's in on this, too. It'd make about as much sense.
Looking on helplessly, Hermione suggests they go for help before it's too late, but Harry insists they have to follow right away, since the dog might eat Ron by the time they can round up an adult. At least, I assume "help" would be a teacher. For all I know, they're seriously contemplating Fred and George for this. Anyway, we're on page 333 right now, and there's too many threes on this page, so I'm taking a break.
KTISSST! glk-glk-glk-glk-glk.
Wonder if that sales rep from Shimadzu's got my quote for a new GC ready yet.
Candy bar'd go down good right about now. I gotta start bringing some dollar bills with me.
...
Let's see how Dilbert made out today. Ha ha ha, that pointy-haired boss just never learns!
"For Better or For Worse" just gets lamer and lamer every day. Wish they'd just nuke Canada and end the strip. At least they're not doing all that Indian village crap anymore. Well, I probably oughta get back to the other lame thing I'm reading. See how that's doing.
So by now the damn cat has figured out the cheat code to the Whomping Willow. Apparently if you can get close enough to the trunk, you can touch a certain spot and the branches will stop moving. Harry concludes that Crookshanks knows the tree's secret because he's friends with the dog. Well, why is he helping YOU, then? And how did the dog explain all this to the cat, anyway? It's like my favorite scene from "The Phantom", where he's falling out of a plane or something, and his dog sees it happen, so he runs and finds the Phantom's horse, and barks at him. The horse whinnies in reply, and runs to the exact spot where the Phantom will land, I guess to break his fall. It's the stupidest thing ever.
Anyway, as you might expect, the gap in the roots leads to the same underground tunnel mentioned on the Marauder's Map, and contrary to speculation, it's perfectly safe. I don't know if that's because Crookshanks shut down the tree for the moment, or if it's like I guessed from the beginning and the willow sits still from the trunk on down. Unfortunately for Harry and Hermione, the Map never specified where the passage leads, so there's no telling where they'll be once they catch up to the dog. But when they do emerge, Hermione takes one look at the dilapidated walls of the house they're in, and assumes that this is the Shrieking Shack, that supposedly haunted house in downtown Hogsmeade. After a brief search, they find Ron laying on a bed, warning them that the dog isn't a dog at all, but an Animagus. That'd be a guy who can turn into a dog, among other things, for those of you who didn't know.
As if on cue, said Animagus slams the door behind them as he enters the room, and disarms Harry and Hermi1 with Ron's wand. One look, and Harry recognizes the guy as Sirius Black. Hey, it's the Prisoner of Azkaban! Eight hundred pages in.
Black wastes no time gloating that he knew Harry would go after Ron without first seeking out a teacher, which makes everything a lot easier for him. Well, no one ever went broke betting against Harry's intelligence, that's for sure. Harry starts to get into that murderous rage again, but without his wand there's not much he can really do. Ron challenges Black by saying he'll have to kill all three of them if he means to kill Harry, but Black warns him to lay still, so as not to exacerbate his broken leg. He also says he'll only be killing one person tonight, which would seem to suggest a more complex motivation than what we were led to believe, and of course that's the last straw for Harry.
He starts taunting Black, reminding him that he never had qualms about collateral damage before when he killed thirteen people to get at Pettigrew. So what, is he DARING Black to kill the others now? Then he starts to hyperventilate, and the veins start bulging in his neck. He's lost touch with reality. Reason gives way to raw, naked rage. The book notices this too. "He had forgotten about magic--he had forgotten he was short and skinny and thirteen, whereas Black was a tall, full-grown man--all Harry knew was that he wanted to hurt Black as badly as he could and that he didn't care how much he got hurt in return--" Oh no...
Ahh... gah... Impossible! H-How can this be?
Yes, it seems that Harry's become a Super Dumbass. Maybe it was Hagrid letting the kids run around the grounds while invisible, or Black refusing to kill them when really anyone dumb enough to have fallen into such a crude trap deserves to be murdered by an escaped killer even if he's not such a bad guy. All I know is that every time you let a dumbass get away with his folly, he becomes even stupider than before, and somewhere along the line, something pushed Harry over the edge. And in his legendary dumbness, Super Harry charges Black, unarmed and hopelessly outmatched, provoked solely by Black's cryptic statement about not murdering Ron.
Again, this is why I hate the character so much. The Slytherfen love it when I say this sort of thing, except that your Snape's and Draco's WISH they were as smart as Harry Potter, which is saying a lot. Doesn't matter, I'm saying this anyway. I've been teasing this moment since I started the book, occasionally denying the existence of the Super Dumbass as a fairy tale, despite the fact that I coined the idea a year ago. This was my homage to the story arc in DBZ, which rather clumsily foreshadowed the emergence of the Super Saiyan by having different characters recall the legend, speculate that Goku might somehow fufil the tale, then dismiss it as fantasy. I do this sort of thing to amuse myself, of course, but also to make a thinly veiled point. Harry Potter is a lot like Dragon Ball Z, except on DBZ the characters get stronger, while in Harry Potter they just get dumber. Without even knowing how this book would play out, I resolved from the start to lead up to a Super Dumbass transformation, knowing that no matter how much you fans out there swore this book was better, eventually Harry would revert to type and do something reckless and foolhardy for no reason.
And the worst part about this? Rowling not only lived down to my expectations, but she exceeded them. As early as Chapter Four, Ron's dad practically begged Harry to promise that he wouldn't go looking for Black. He finds this request pointless, but Ron's dad knew better, and so did I. By Chapter Eleven, Harry's seriously considering looking for Black on his own. Rowling might as well have put up a big neon sign telling me that Harry would walk right into Black's clutches, despite all common sense. And so he has, but what makes this so pathetic is that he didn't even know he was doing it.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that a hero shouldn't take chances. But Harry doesn't have the tools for this. He wants revenge, but has no idea how to prepare to get it. Even so, I could almost appreciate the notion that he'd just decide "to hell with hiding in the school, I'm gonna face this guy down, and if he kills me, so be it." Like Kermit's last stand in the Muppet Movie. That was dumb, but it was the only option, so it made some sense that Kermit the Frog would choose death over dishonor. But Harry didn't even plan to do this. He was just wandering around the yard for some other harebrained quest, and wound up looking for Black without even realizing it.
And some folks weren't too happy about me harping on the Aunt Marge Incident from Chapter Two, but look how history has repeated itself. Black hasn't even done anything yet, and Harry's flying into another bezerker rage. Only THIS time, it's not some defenseless fat lady at the dinner table, and there's no Ministry of Magic or purple busses to pull his fat out of the fire. Nine months, two semesters, and three hundred pages later, the sorry little S.O.B. hasn't learned a damned thing. So what was the point to the last fifteen chapters, then? Oh, right, he played his stupid broom polo. I forgot.
Anyway, Harry's sheer stupidity (the book even admits that attacking a dude with two wands is a stupid thing to do) takes Black by surprise, and with a little help from Ron and Hermione, he manages to wrestle his wand out of Black's hand, and now the tide has turned. Helpless before Harry's newfound Super Dumbass power, Black pleads with Harry to hear his side of the story, and then Crookshanks jumps on his chest to protect him with the NEDM Defense.
Of course, Harry still wants to kill Black, but he can't bring himself to harm a defenseless kittycat. Black, too, seems less than enthused to have a cat putting himself at risk to save his bacon. A voice in Harry's head tells him to "Do it now!", and since it's in italics, I assume this is the same voice that tells him to make out with Ginny in Book 6. Interesting that the same voice that govern's Harry's libido also tells him to kill things. Regardless, no matter what I say about Harry, I can't deny that his respect for cat life everywhere is strong, and a far more powerful voice in his head reminds him "Not Even Doom Music." In any case, Remus Lupin bursts into the room, ending the standoff by disarming everyone yet again. Great, this is gonna take all damn day.
Lupin starts talking to Black, but it's a bunch of nonsense I still don't understand about how "he was the one...unless you switched...without telling me?" I've read ahead, and I still don't know what they mean. Anyway, after staring at each other in silence, Lupin finally helps Black up off the floor, and they start hugging each other. Then they start making out. With tongue. "I DON'T BELIEVE IT" Hermione screams. "You--you---you and him! I didn't tell anyone! I've been covering up for you--" Yeah, I guess I see where the slash crowd is coming from now.
So we've gone about three and a half pages now with no f***ing clue what's going on, and rather than clear anything up, Hermione makes things worse by revealing to Harry and Ron that Lupin's a werewolf. See, ever since she wrote that essay on werewolves, she recognized Lupin's periodical illnesses coincided with the full moon, and that the "silver orb" the boggart turned into back in Chapter Who Gives A Crap was supposed to represent Lupin's fear of the moon. Also, his name is Remus Lupin. I wonder how many encyclopedias and star charts Hermione consulted to figure out that Fruit Brute and Teen Wolf were werewolves. And whatever happened to Fruity Yummy Mummy? Not that I miss the cereal or anything. My mom wouldn't even let us get Honey Smacks, so we pretty much gave up on any cereal advertised for its marshmallows. I never liked that they fired Boo Berry to bring him in, but other than that, FYM was an OK dude.
Of course, Hermione's revelation isn't much to speak of, since the entire staff at Hogwarts already knew about it. Thus begins Lupin's tedious explanation of what he's doing here and how he knows Black. For starters, he co-wrote the Marauder's Map, so he was able to use it earlier to learn that the nWo was running around invisibly outside, since the Invisibility Cloak doesn't prevent you from being detected by the Map. More, he noticed Sirius Black in the vicinity (the dog, natch), and one more person that got him off his duff to investigate. At this point, Lupin asks Ron if he can have a look at Scabbers, still struggling furiously with his crappy rat body to escape. Because, as both Lupin and Black explain, Scabbers isn't Scabbers at all, but Peter Pettigrew, the man Black supposedly murdered twelve years ago. DUNH DUNH DUNHHHH!
Yeah, this chapter was on the verge of being decent, but it got bogged down by a lot of things. Harry's half-assed "heroics" make me wonder if the real hero of these novels has just been taking a whiz for the last seven years. The shocking revealations about Lupin, Black, and Pettigrew are worthwhile, but Rowling fumbles the delivery by trying to do them all at once, without taking the time to explain any of them. I mean, what does Lupin being a werewolf have to do with his helping Black? Having Hermione go on about it just wastes time, when she could just as easily have waited for Lupin to reveal that in due course, and mention that she'd already figured it out herself. The moment of indecision when Harry can't quite bring himself to kill Black could have gone better, but with Crookshanks involved it changed the dilemma from "Should I want revenge?" to "Should I kill a cat to get revenge?" Needless to say, I prefer the former. And all the animals in this book are people EXCEPT Crookshanks? Because Crookshanks seems to be the smartest living thing in this house at the moment, and this remains to be explained.
RATING: BAD
Meanwhile, in Lupin's office...
HAWKEYE: How's it hangin', Snape?
SNAPE: Barton.
HAWKEYE: Hey, you seen Lupin around? I missed the Iowa/Ohio State game last week and he said he taped it. Say, is that beer?
SNAPE: No, it's the Gay Fuel I make for him to combat his rampant lycanthropy. And I don't know where the hell he is. I missed a Dukes of Hazzard marathon to make this stupid thing, and someone is going to drink it, I assure you of that.
HAWKEYE: Whoa, well, just keep that stuff at a safe distance then, wouldja? Br'er Hawkeye only bats for one team, you know what I mean? That reminds me, did I ever tell ya about the time Captain America turned into a werewolf?
SNAPE: Yes.
HAWKEYE: I think he fought Cable or something. Did I tell you about that?
SNAPE: Yes.
HAWKEYE: Just to be on the safe side, I wound up making this silver arrowhead just in case. Cost me three months' worth of my Avengers stipend, but you know what the Boy Scouts like to say. I forgot, did I show you my trick arrowheads?
SNAPE: Yes. Yes you did. Now, shut up. I'm trying to figure out where Lupin would have gone, and the smell of werewolf urine and your fetid superhero costume are disrupting my concentration. Seriously, do you ever wash that garish purple thing?
HAWKEYE: Yeah, once in a while. Of course, it probably doesn't help any that I've been practicing with the longbow for the last four hours. I guess I oughta head for the showers and change. I'll just get the ol' mask off here...
SNAPE: Dander everywhere... Oh, marvelous, he chewed up my good slippers. It's like living on a farm around here. I'm sick of everyone in this school turning out to be some sort of animal in disguise. Surely you can agree with me there, eh, Barton?
HAWKEYE: Oh, definitely.
HAWKEYE: But you won't have to put up with it for much longer....
NEXT: Aw, do I even gotta say it?
Chapter 17: Cat, Rat, and Dog
Original Japanese Title: "An Explosion of Anger!! Harry, Avenge No One's Death"
Previously, on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban... uh... the kids heard Buckbeak getting executed. And... that's about it. Rowling kind of phoned that one in, so I did too.
The only thing to really come out of this is that now you've got Harry, Hermione and Ron standing outdoors under the Invisibility Cloak, still recovering from the shock of what they've heard, and hoping not to get caught. Except Ron's stupid pet rat won't sit still, and to make matters worse, now Hermione's stupid cat is back, which fightens Scabbers into fleeing the relative safety of the cloak. Crookshanks chases after him, followed close behind by Ron, then by Harry and Hermione. Turns out they're being followed by that big black dog Harry's been seeing throughout the whole book. It goes for Harry, but Ron (with Scabbers in tow) pushes it aside, and ends up getting dragged away with his arm in the dog's mouth. Harry and Hermione follow, but soon find that the dog has taken Ron to the Whomping Willow, so they can't get any closer without getting the crap beaten out of them. The dog manages to drag Ron into a gap between the tree's roots, and while Ron manages to hook one of his legs on the roots to keep from getting pulled in, the dog is somehow strong enough to break his leg, putting an end to any further resistance. I would think that sort of force would have ripped off Ron's arm first, since that's what the dog was holding onto, but maybe the tree's in on this, too. It'd make about as much sense.
Looking on helplessly, Hermione suggests they go for help before it's too late, but Harry insists they have to follow right away, since the dog might eat Ron by the time they can round up an adult. At least, I assume "help" would be a teacher. For all I know, they're seriously contemplating Fred and George for this. Anyway, we're on page 333 right now, and there's too many threes on this page, so I'm taking a break.
KTISSST! glk-glk-glk-glk-glk.
Wonder if that sales rep from Shimadzu's got my quote for a new GC ready yet.
Candy bar'd go down good right about now. I gotta start bringing some dollar bills with me.
...
Let's see how Dilbert made out today. Ha ha ha, that pointy-haired boss just never learns!
"For Better or For Worse" just gets lamer and lamer every day. Wish they'd just nuke Canada and end the strip. At least they're not doing all that Indian village crap anymore. Well, I probably oughta get back to the other lame thing I'm reading. See how that's doing.
So by now the damn cat has figured out the cheat code to the Whomping Willow. Apparently if you can get close enough to the trunk, you can touch a certain spot and the branches will stop moving. Harry concludes that Crookshanks knows the tree's secret because he's friends with the dog. Well, why is he helping YOU, then? And how did the dog explain all this to the cat, anyway? It's like my favorite scene from "The Phantom", where he's falling out of a plane or something, and his dog sees it happen, so he runs and finds the Phantom's horse, and barks at him. The horse whinnies in reply, and runs to the exact spot where the Phantom will land, I guess to break his fall. It's the stupidest thing ever.
Anyway, as you might expect, the gap in the roots leads to the same underground tunnel mentioned on the Marauder's Map, and contrary to speculation, it's perfectly safe. I don't know if that's because Crookshanks shut down the tree for the moment, or if it's like I guessed from the beginning and the willow sits still from the trunk on down. Unfortunately for Harry and Hermione, the Map never specified where the passage leads, so there's no telling where they'll be once they catch up to the dog. But when they do emerge, Hermione takes one look at the dilapidated walls of the house they're in, and assumes that this is the Shrieking Shack, that supposedly haunted house in downtown Hogsmeade. After a brief search, they find Ron laying on a bed, warning them that the dog isn't a dog at all, but an Animagus. That'd be a guy who can turn into a dog, among other things, for those of you who didn't know.
As if on cue, said Animagus slams the door behind them as he enters the room, and disarms Harry and Hermi1 with Ron's wand. One look, and Harry recognizes the guy as Sirius Black. Hey, it's the Prisoner of Azkaban! Eight hundred pages in.
Black wastes no time gloating that he knew Harry would go after Ron without first seeking out a teacher, which makes everything a lot easier for him. Well, no one ever went broke betting against Harry's intelligence, that's for sure. Harry starts to get into that murderous rage again, but without his wand there's not much he can really do. Ron challenges Black by saying he'll have to kill all three of them if he means to kill Harry, but Black warns him to lay still, so as not to exacerbate his broken leg. He also says he'll only be killing one person tonight, which would seem to suggest a more complex motivation than what we were led to believe, and of course that's the last straw for Harry.
He starts taunting Black, reminding him that he never had qualms about collateral damage before when he killed thirteen people to get at Pettigrew. So what, is he DARING Black to kill the others now? Then he starts to hyperventilate, and the veins start bulging in his neck. He's lost touch with reality. Reason gives way to raw, naked rage. The book notices this too. "He had forgotten about magic--he had forgotten he was short and skinny and thirteen, whereas Black was a tall, full-grown man--all Harry knew was that he wanted to hurt Black as badly as he could and that he didn't care how much he got hurt in return--" Oh no...
Ahh... gah... Impossible! H-How can this be?
Yes, it seems that Harry's become a Super Dumbass. Maybe it was Hagrid letting the kids run around the grounds while invisible, or Black refusing to kill them when really anyone dumb enough to have fallen into such a crude trap deserves to be murdered by an escaped killer even if he's not such a bad guy. All I know is that every time you let a dumbass get away with his folly, he becomes even stupider than before, and somewhere along the line, something pushed Harry over the edge. And in his legendary dumbness, Super Harry charges Black, unarmed and hopelessly outmatched, provoked solely by Black's cryptic statement about not murdering Ron.
Again, this is why I hate the character so much. The Slytherfen love it when I say this sort of thing, except that your Snape's and Draco's WISH they were as smart as Harry Potter, which is saying a lot. Doesn't matter, I'm saying this anyway. I've been teasing this moment since I started the book, occasionally denying the existence of the Super Dumbass as a fairy tale, despite the fact that I coined the idea a year ago. This was my homage to the story arc in DBZ, which rather clumsily foreshadowed the emergence of the Super Saiyan by having different characters recall the legend, speculate that Goku might somehow fufil the tale, then dismiss it as fantasy. I do this sort of thing to amuse myself, of course, but also to make a thinly veiled point. Harry Potter is a lot like Dragon Ball Z, except on DBZ the characters get stronger, while in Harry Potter they just get dumber. Without even knowing how this book would play out, I resolved from the start to lead up to a Super Dumbass transformation, knowing that no matter how much you fans out there swore this book was better, eventually Harry would revert to type and do something reckless and foolhardy for no reason.
And the worst part about this? Rowling not only lived down to my expectations, but she exceeded them. As early as Chapter Four, Ron's dad practically begged Harry to promise that he wouldn't go looking for Black. He finds this request pointless, but Ron's dad knew better, and so did I. By Chapter Eleven, Harry's seriously considering looking for Black on his own. Rowling might as well have put up a big neon sign telling me that Harry would walk right into Black's clutches, despite all common sense. And so he has, but what makes this so pathetic is that he didn't even know he was doing it.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that a hero shouldn't take chances. But Harry doesn't have the tools for this. He wants revenge, but has no idea how to prepare to get it. Even so, I could almost appreciate the notion that he'd just decide "to hell with hiding in the school, I'm gonna face this guy down, and if he kills me, so be it." Like Kermit's last stand in the Muppet Movie. That was dumb, but it was the only option, so it made some sense that Kermit the Frog would choose death over dishonor. But Harry didn't even plan to do this. He was just wandering around the yard for some other harebrained quest, and wound up looking for Black without even realizing it.
And some folks weren't too happy about me harping on the Aunt Marge Incident from Chapter Two, but look how history has repeated itself. Black hasn't even done anything yet, and Harry's flying into another bezerker rage. Only THIS time, it's not some defenseless fat lady at the dinner table, and there's no Ministry of Magic or purple busses to pull his fat out of the fire. Nine months, two semesters, and three hundred pages later, the sorry little S.O.B. hasn't learned a damned thing. So what was the point to the last fifteen chapters, then? Oh, right, he played his stupid broom polo. I forgot.
Anyway, Harry's sheer stupidity (the book even admits that attacking a dude with two wands is a stupid thing to do) takes Black by surprise, and with a little help from Ron and Hermione, he manages to wrestle his wand out of Black's hand, and now the tide has turned. Helpless before Harry's newfound Super Dumbass power, Black pleads with Harry to hear his side of the story, and then Crookshanks jumps on his chest to protect him with the NEDM Defense.
Of course, Harry still wants to kill Black, but he can't bring himself to harm a defenseless kittycat. Black, too, seems less than enthused to have a cat putting himself at risk to save his bacon. A voice in Harry's head tells him to "Do it now!", and since it's in italics, I assume this is the same voice that tells him to make out with Ginny in Book 6. Interesting that the same voice that govern's Harry's libido also tells him to kill things. Regardless, no matter what I say about Harry, I can't deny that his respect for cat life everywhere is strong, and a far more powerful voice in his head reminds him "Not Even Doom Music." In any case, Remus Lupin bursts into the room, ending the standoff by disarming everyone yet again. Great, this is gonna take all damn day.
Lupin starts talking to Black, but it's a bunch of nonsense I still don't understand about how "he was the one...unless you switched...without telling me?" I've read ahead, and I still don't know what they mean. Anyway, after staring at each other in silence, Lupin finally helps Black up off the floor, and they start hugging each other. Then they start making out. With tongue. "I DON'T BELIEVE IT" Hermione screams. "You--you---you and him! I didn't tell anyone! I've been covering up for you--" Yeah, I guess I see where the slash crowd is coming from now.
So we've gone about three and a half pages now with no f***ing clue what's going on, and rather than clear anything up, Hermione makes things worse by revealing to Harry and Ron that Lupin's a werewolf. See, ever since she wrote that essay on werewolves, she recognized Lupin's periodical illnesses coincided with the full moon, and that the "silver orb" the boggart turned into back in Chapter Who Gives A Crap was supposed to represent Lupin's fear of the moon. Also, his name is Remus Lupin. I wonder how many encyclopedias and star charts Hermione consulted to figure out that Fruit Brute and Teen Wolf were werewolves. And whatever happened to Fruity Yummy Mummy? Not that I miss the cereal or anything. My mom wouldn't even let us get Honey Smacks, so we pretty much gave up on any cereal advertised for its marshmallows. I never liked that they fired Boo Berry to bring him in, but other than that, FYM was an OK dude.
Of course, Hermione's revelation isn't much to speak of, since the entire staff at Hogwarts already knew about it. Thus begins Lupin's tedious explanation of what he's doing here and how he knows Black. For starters, he co-wrote the Marauder's Map, so he was able to use it earlier to learn that the nWo was running around invisibly outside, since the Invisibility Cloak doesn't prevent you from being detected by the Map. More, he noticed Sirius Black in the vicinity (the dog, natch), and one more person that got him off his duff to investigate. At this point, Lupin asks Ron if he can have a look at Scabbers, still struggling furiously with his crappy rat body to escape. Because, as both Lupin and Black explain, Scabbers isn't Scabbers at all, but Peter Pettigrew, the man Black supposedly murdered twelve years ago. DUNH DUNH DUNHHHH!
Yeah, this chapter was on the verge of being decent, but it got bogged down by a lot of things. Harry's half-assed "heroics" make me wonder if the real hero of these novels has just been taking a whiz for the last seven years. The shocking revealations about Lupin, Black, and Pettigrew are worthwhile, but Rowling fumbles the delivery by trying to do them all at once, without taking the time to explain any of them. I mean, what does Lupin being a werewolf have to do with his helping Black? Having Hermione go on about it just wastes time, when she could just as easily have waited for Lupin to reveal that in due course, and mention that she'd already figured it out herself. The moment of indecision when Harry can't quite bring himself to kill Black could have gone better, but with Crookshanks involved it changed the dilemma from "Should I want revenge?" to "Should I kill a cat to get revenge?" Needless to say, I prefer the former. And all the animals in this book are people EXCEPT Crookshanks? Because Crookshanks seems to be the smartest living thing in this house at the moment, and this remains to be explained.
RATING: BAD
Meanwhile, in Lupin's office...
HAWKEYE: How's it hangin', Snape?
SNAPE: Barton.
HAWKEYE: Hey, you seen Lupin around? I missed the Iowa/Ohio State game last week and he said he taped it. Say, is that beer?
SNAPE: No, it's the Gay Fuel I make for him to combat his rampant lycanthropy. And I don't know where the hell he is. I missed a Dukes of Hazzard marathon to make this stupid thing, and someone is going to drink it, I assure you of that.
HAWKEYE: Whoa, well, just keep that stuff at a safe distance then, wouldja? Br'er Hawkeye only bats for one team, you know what I mean? That reminds me, did I ever tell ya about the time Captain America turned into a werewolf?
SNAPE: Yes.
HAWKEYE: I think he fought Cable or something. Did I tell you about that?
SNAPE: Yes.
HAWKEYE: Just to be on the safe side, I wound up making this silver arrowhead just in case. Cost me three months' worth of my Avengers stipend, but you know what the Boy Scouts like to say. I forgot, did I show you my trick arrowheads?
SNAPE: Yes. Yes you did. Now, shut up. I'm trying to figure out where Lupin would have gone, and the smell of werewolf urine and your fetid superhero costume are disrupting my concentration. Seriously, do you ever wash that garish purple thing?
HAWKEYE: Yeah, once in a while. Of course, it probably doesn't help any that I've been practicing with the longbow for the last four hours. I guess I oughta head for the showers and change. I'll just get the ol' mask off here...
SNAPE: Dander everywhere... Oh, marvelous, he chewed up my good slippers. It's like living on a farm around here. I'm sick of everyone in this school turning out to be some sort of animal in disguise. Surely you can agree with me there, eh, Barton?
HAWKEYE: Oh, definitely.
HAWKEYE: But you won't have to put up with it for much longer....
NEXT: Aw, do I even gotta say it?