Odds and ends :: CoS 5

[pauraque_bk]

-Happy birthday, robkaiote!

-In case anyone hasn't seen, there's a new election animation up at JibJab. And yes, it's slashy. John/John otp!!

-The "unpopular fandom opinions" meme seems to be going around again. I don't know if this is an unpopular enough opinion to count, but I'll tell you something that bugs me: I don't like it when writers complain in public about certain kinds of feedback. Maybe some folks get enough reader response that they feel they can afford to be picky, but not everyone is so fortunate. I think seeing that sort of complaint can put readers off feedbacking anyone, ever, for fear that what they say won't be adequate or appreciated. Comes under the category of "ruining it for the rest of us", in my book.

*

For me, the highlight of Chapter 4 was the suggestion by eponis that Lucius was also being manipulated by the diary. Fic, please?


CoS 5: The Whomping Willow

Harry gave a hollow laugh. 'The Dursleys haven't given me pocket money for about six years.' (55)

What does a six-year-old need with an allowance?

Also, the Grangers are shown in Chapter 4 changing Muggle money for wizard. You'd think Harry would get wise to the fact that he can do the opposite next time he's in Diagon Alley.

'Aaargh!' said Ron[...] (60)

This got a bad laugh from me. The onomatopoeia is bad enough, but "said"? She can do better, and she will, but it'll take a few more books. (She also attributes to Ron a gratuitous "AAAAAAAAAAARGH NOOOOOOOOOOO!" in PoA.)

'Can you believe our luck?' said Ron miserably, bending down to pick up Scabbers the rat. (60)

Scabbers has nothing to do in this book, but has been mentioned several times already. JKR doesn't want us to forget about him. Also, this entire chapter exists the way it does to introduce the Willow for PoA.

For a few horrible seconds he had feared the hat was going to put him in Slytherin, the house which had turned out more dark witches and wizards than any other -- but he had ended up in Gryffindor, along with Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys. Last term, Harry and Ron had helped Gryffindor win the House Championship, beating Slytherin for the first time in seven years. (61)

And what's Hermione, chopped liver? Leaving her out after mentioning her just a sentence before seems strange... if it means anything, perhaps it's that Harry doesn't have as strong a sense of them as a group of three as he will later, but is more focused on Ron, with whom he's been friends longer.

This bit of exposition also corrects Hagrid's assertion from PS/SS that *all* dark wizards come from Slytherin.

'Silence!' said Snape coldly. 'What have you done with the car?'
Ron gulped. This wasn't the first time Snape had given Harry the impression of being able to read minds. (62)

Which he isn't, here, but of course we now know he can. Perceptiveness on Harry's part, clever foreshadowing on JKR's.

'[...]I believe your father works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office?' [Snape] said, looking up at Ron and smiling still more nastily. 'Dear, dear ... his own son ...' (62-63)

Another scene that plays startlingly differently in the movie. Movie!Snape seems genuinely agonized that the boys have posed a security risk. Book!Snape is "cold", but also smirkingly delighted at the prospect of getting them into trouble (in the film, that role is transferred to Filch). When Dumbledore refuses to expel them, Snape looks "as though Christmas had been cancelled" (64).

There was a long silence. Then Dumbledore said, 'Please explain why you did this.'
It would have been better if he had shouted. Harry hated the disappointment in his voice. (64)

What's going through Dumbledore's mind here? Why is he so gravely disappointed by this incident? What the boys did was stupid, but certainly innocently-intentioned... Or does Dumbledore believe they were showing off, as Snape does (62), and as it's suggested that McGonagall does (65)? Doesn't want to see Harry's fame going to his head?

[Dumbledore:] 'I must go back to the feast, Minerva, I've got to give out a few notices. Come, Severus, there's a delicious-looking custard tart I want to sample.'
Snape shot a look of pure venom at Harry and Ron as he allowed himself to be swept out of his office, leaving them alone with Professor McGonagall, who was still eyeing them like a wrathful eagle. (64-65)

She then leaves them alone in Snape's office to eat, which seems somewhat presumptuous. Snape is very definitely treated as the other teachers' junior in this scene, which of course he is.


Past re-read posts are here.

Comments

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

...Plus, could it be an indication that they did, at one point, at least attempt to treat him more like their own son..?

Of course, Harry doesn't seem to remember sleeping anywhere but a cupboard, so that sort of nixes that idea...

But I can see some consessions, at first, Petunia maybe facing some conflicting emotions, which she eventually squashed, perhaps at Harry's manifestations of accidental magic... Perhaps when the differences between clever, cute, wicked Harry and her own lazy son began to become more pronounced...

[pauraque]

I like this line of thought. A lot.

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

Poor Petunia. I can easily, easily see years and years of resentment - toward Lily and the special world of magic, its easy ways out and its consequences (how did Evans parents die, anyway?) - taking their toll on Harry.

Harry seems to do a hell of a lot of accounting for the actions of his parents. Snape, Petunia, Voldemort...

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Maybe that was the age when Harry first started showing signs of magic? The Dursleys might have been hoping he was a squib.

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

Petunia probably did hope that Harry would be like her. She resented her sister and the child from the get go, I'm sure, but she was probably always holding onto that little shred of maybe... And then once it was certain that Harry was magical, perhaps Vernon took the idea and twisted it into imagining that he could control magic in the child, condition him out of it. Because he didn't have the faintest clue of what he was dealing with, and Petunia had by this time washed her hands of the matter.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

It is notable that the examples of Harry's accidental magic given in SS include one event where Petunia was the only other person around -- when the ugly sweater shrank to doll-sized. Petunia "decided" that it must have shrunk in the wash; she of all people knew better. This supports the idea that she didn't really support the idea of squashing the magic out of him; she may have thought ignoring it was a better idea (and she was right in many ways).

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Perhaps when the differences between clever, cute, wicked Harry and her own lazy son began to become more pronounced...

Petunia's feelings for Dudley are very much her motvation, imho.
I always pictured something more along the lines of this: http://www.livejournal.com/community/hp100/309582.html
(It's not by me, btw.)

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

oh yes, i knew there were a bunch of petunia fics along those lines - and this is one of them!

i think valid fear of harry's magic was certainly a factor (and i certainly wouldn't put it past harry to affect dudley, intentionally or not), but i also think that there was tension there from the very beginning - we know that petunia despised her sister, and we can conjecture that she resented the magical world (i can't remember how 'mother and father were so pleased to have a witch in the family...' was put in canon). and then that magic also killed her sister ('got what she deserved' just sounds like so much denial to me) and then my pet theory that the evans parents were also death eater victims (just how does petunia know so much about azkaban - why should that stick in her mind? perhaps would-be consolation, the understanding of how exactly her parents' murderers are going to suffer).

anyway... i think it's complicated, is all. :} but yes - that ficlet in particular - i think that might have actually been the first petunia sympathy i ever read, and it definitely made an impression.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I completely agree.
Just that your original statement seemed to imply that Petunia maybe felt conflicted between Harry's obvious talents and likeable qualities and her son's own lack of them, and that's an interpretation I can't really get behind. Perhaps I'm misreading, though?

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I meant that she resented Harry's talents in contrast to her son's. And that her conflict was between her loathing of the boy and the sense of human decency that told her it was wrong to abuse children. And eventually, fear and loathing won. :}

[starpaint.livejournal.com]

I like this - pet theory time, or something. I've always wondered a bit how Harry could have turned out anything short of deranged if he had been treated as horribly as some people say he was (which is not to say that he was treated well, or anything resembling well. Just that it doesn't sound like Harry was locked into the cupboard and ignored for his whole childhood). Although that would certainly screw with his mind... that he would be treated badly for behaving well. Poor kid.

I do think he did get some amount of nurturing from the Dursleys as a baby and a toddler, at the very least.

[pauraque]

I have to agree. If Harry had been truly neglected for the crucial first few years of his life, he'd be much more than a little emotionally disturbed.

[wolfie-thu.livejournal.com]

Though that isn't entirely the Dursley's doing; Harry was with his real parents for roughly the first year of his life. At least, I think he was. I'm not very good with math. :/

[kirbybits.livejournal.com]

Yes, I totally agree. They say that if infants don't bond with their primary care-giver by the age of nine months, they have a very hard time even recognizing other people as humans with emotions. People are like dolls to them. This is a pretty common theme with serial killers.

And if kids don't get a pretty solid foundation and sense that the world is a safe place by the age of three, they're 90% more likely to commit a violent crime. Any sort of abuse is exponentially more detrimental the younger the child is.

...hi, I read too much about corporal punishment in my spare time.