pauraque_bk | CoS 12

Remember

mctabby's friending frenzy?

It's back!

My own flist is so full it wants cutting, but all you super-great people who are new to the fandom should jet on over. It's like a debutante ball! ~~With gay sex!~~

Also, anyone in HP who doesn't have

mctabby friended is either loony, or merely ignorant of her greatness.

From Chapter 11:

What house was Lockhart in?

Is Goyle the smart one? / Is Harry's behavior toward Snape justifiable?

Millicent rules!

CoS 12: The Polyjuice Potion

[Dumbledore:] '[Phoenixes] can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers and they make highly faithful pets.' (155)

Emphasis not added. Oh, Dumbledore, you just know everything, don't you! It certainly seems we're meant to think that D is already planning for what will eventually happen in the Chamber.

'I must ask you, Harry, whether there is anything you'd like to tell me,' he said gently. 'Anything at all.'
Harry didn't know what to say. He thought of Malfoy shouting, 'You'll be next, Mudbloods!' and of the Polyjuice Potion, simmering away in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Then he thought of the disembodied voice he had heard twice and remembered what Ron had said: 'Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.' He thought, too, about what everyone was saying about him., and his growing dread that he was somehow connected with Salazar Slytherin...
'No,' said Harry, 'there isn't anything, Professor.' (156-157)

Typically, Harry is unwilling to confide in an adult, even one he trusts and admires. Some of these things he mightn't want to say because he doesn't want to disappoint D, but not all of them would make him look bad -- they're just worries he has, and he won't share them.

Meanwhile, what's D thinking here? He already has a fair idea of what's going on, so is he testing to see how much Harry trusts him?

'Yeah, he's nipping off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with his fanged servant,' said George, chortling.(157)

How does he know it's got fangs? We don't know it's a basilisk yet, do we?

'Positive,' said Hermione, shifting Scabbers the rat so that she could sit down on the end of [Harry's] four-poster. (158)

*splutters* Peter was sleeping with Harry! I never noticed this! Haha, oh my.

Also, note that girls can get up to the boys' dorms, but not vice-versa (OotP). Old-fashioned moral senses are at play.

[Hermione:] '[...]Once they're asleep, pull out a few of their hairs and hide them in a broom cupboard.'
Harry and Ron looked incredulously at each other.
'Hermione, I don't think--'
'That could go seriously wrong--'
But Hermione had a steely glint in her eye not unlike the one Professor McGonagall sometimes had.
[...]
When Hermione bustled off to check on the Polyjuice Potion again, Ron tuerned to Harry with a doom-laden expression.
'Have you ever heard of a plan where so many things could go wrong?' (160)

I wanted to attribute some morality to Ron and Harry here, some sense that knocking out a couple of boys and locking them in a closet might be considered wrong. But it just isn't there... they're worried that they'll get in trouble (note that Ron sees potential consequences; he isn't stupid), not worried over right and wrong. They also don't let C & G out of the closet at the end of the incident (168), though admittedly they could be putting themselves in danger by doing so. (Then again... C & G still wouldn't know Harry and Ron had put them in there, just that they let them out.)

Immediately, his insides started writhing as though he'd just swallowed live snakes -- doubled up, he wondered whether he was going to be sick -- then a burning sensation spread rapidly from his stomach to the very ends of his fingers and toes. Next, bringing him gasping to all fours, came a horrible melting feeling, as the skin all over his body bubbled like hot wax, and before his eyes, his hands began to grow, the fingers thickened, the nails broadened and the knuckles were bulging like bolts. His shoulders stretched painfully and a prickling on his forehead told him that hair was creeping down towards his eyebrows; his robes ripped as his chest expanded like a barrel bursting its hoops; his feet were agony in shoes four sizes too small...
As suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. (162)

My. Favorite. Part.

JKR's done something wonderful here -- created an exaggerated metaphor for adolescence. Harry and Ron become (grotesquely) masculine, to their pain, horror, and wonder. Hermione, meanwhile, turns into a pussy (thanks to

idlerat for pointing that out)! :D

There's a fic, 'Know Your Enemy' (R, Harry-as-Goyle/Ron-as-Crabbe) by

donnaimmaculata, that extends and plays with this concept in what I found to be a delightful way. Donna does exactly what JKR does, but turns the sexual implications literal in a way JKR can't.

'You know, I'm surprised the Daily Prophet hasn't reported all these attacks yet,' [Draco] went on thoughtfully. 'I suppose Dumbledore's trying to hush it all up. He'll be sacked if it doesn't stop soon[...]' (166)

Draco has a point here. Nothing in the papers? That does sound like a cover-up.

Malfoy started taking pictures with an imaginary camera and did a cruel but accurate impression of Colin: 'Potter, can I have your picture, Potter? Can I have your autograph? Can I lick your shoes, please, Potter?' (166)

Draco's a good impressionist -- there are a number of times in the series when he imitates people, always cruelly but accurately. He's a performer, and a good one.

Previous re-read posts are here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The glint in Hermione's eye reminds me of something I meant to post a couple chapters ago. When Draco-as-heir is first suggested, Hermione's very skeptical and with good reason, since they have nothing even resembling evidence (probable cause, if you will) to suspect him. Once Hermione comes up with this plan, though, she pushes the boys constantly to go through with it. Part of that, as discussed, was that Hermione is especially at risk and thus quite understandably scared.

It's also interesting to think about how the line of justification goes because of it. She says that killing Muggleborns is worse than doing a difficult potion, which is an attempt to justify her actions. Unfortunately for it to hold up Malfoy would actually have had to have been killing Muggleborns, which he isn't. Most countries have laws protecting people against this kind of invasion of privacy precisely to guard against the idea that just because people are scared nothing else matters. Because *somebody* (Ginny Weasley, as it happens, working with a ghostly Tom Riddle) is setting a basilisk out in the school, Hermione has decided it is okay for her to brew a Potion she's not supposed to, steal ingredients, disrupt Snape's class, knock out two (three actually--Millicent would have had to have been taken care of), sneak into another common room, take the bodies of three other students, and then spy on a student by making him think he's with his friends so you can get something on him. And they do--Draco mentions a secret at the Manor which Ron passes on to his father, who has been conducting raids.

The fact that these boys are innocent never comes up--it's just assumed that finding out takes precedent--guilty until proven innocent. Meanwhile Harry suffers from being unjustly accused of being the Heir while, ironically, Malfoy is one of the only students in school proclaiming his innocence.

Honestly, I think she sees it as a massive (intellectual) challenge. She's found a reason to do this extraordinarily complicated potion, and dang it, she's going to do this potion, even if it means stealing ingredients and knocking out classmates

Plus while Harry might have issues about trusting adults, you'd think Hermione would see how logical it would be to go to Dumbledore with her suspicions. It's not that hard to believe that perhaps this little adventure wasn't completely motivated by the desire to save Muggleborns. There may have been a just a little personal curiosity here, not to mention the bonus of getting to put one over on Malfoy and his friends. They really *want* him to be guilty.

So what they get out of this is they get to humiliate Crabbe and Goyle (both by knocking them out and by getting into their bodies), splash the Slytherins in class, learn secrets Malfoy wouldn't want them to know, enjoy the thrill of success with the Potion and, a few years later, an advantage on their O.W.L.S.

Most countries have laws protecting people against this kind of invasion of privacy precisely to guard against the idea that just because people are scared nothing else matters.

Or used to, at any rate. *sigh*

Sigh indeed. :(

Yeah, I almost didn't even want to write it.

*sigh*

knock out two (three actually--Millicent would have had to have been taken care of)

Millicent left for Xmas, I thought? Hermione was going to say she (Millicent) had changed her mind (interestingly, the Trio have gone from assuming Crabbe and Goyle to be "bodyguards" and "goons", to having faith that Malfoy is so close to both them and indeed, all his housemates (Millicent being a random selection who accidentally got hair on Hermione) that he'll tell "his best friends" anything.)

You're right, Millicent was gone for the holiday. Hermione was planning to say that she'd decided to come back, which strikes me as an immensely dumb idea. Not to mention that there's no indication that Millicent and Draco are actually friends.

I know! Imagine it: 'Hi, guys! Remember me, your bestest ever friend? I know we never talk in front of the other houses but surely we're all Evil together, we must get along! I know I said I was going home over the holidays, but surprise! I decided that instead of seeing my family, I'd sit with you (my best friends, after all) in a dark room. So....any clues on the Heir of Slytherin? Malfoy?'

Yeah, that is a stupid idea. She decided to come back for a little under an hour and then go home again?

I'm guessing that Hermione didn't trust Harry and Ron to pull it of alone. Wouldn't be the first time she didn't trust them (all the times she knew something, but didn't tell them). Heck, one such instance is even in this book, when Hermione figured out what the monster is. Does she tell her best friends her suspicion? No, she runs to the library to make absolutely sure that she is right.

The fact that these boys are innocent never comes up

Right. The Trio has decided they're "the bad guys", so anything they do to them is somehow justified.

You could say Hermione is punished for her folly by being turned into a cat, but I'm sure she doesn't see it that way. It wouldn't occur to her that it went wrong because it was a *bad and wrong plan*.

No, of course not. It went wrong because Millicent is teh ebil and has *gasp* a cat! (I, too, am clearly evil, though I don't commit the heinous crime of having hair that could be mistaken for Athena's.)

Do any of them ever even *mention* their Polyjuiced Adventure after this? The only time I can think of is when Ernie suspects Malfoy (late in the book), and Ron (plus Harry to a lesser extent) is very rude about it. Because obviously it's not Malfoy. After all, they underwent a horrible plot breaking tons of rules, injuring people, and invading privacy to find out that it wasn't, so everyone else should just know.

Don't remember if this came up earlier. The only recipe they know of for Polyjuice is in the Restricted Section. Most uses I can think of for the potion (this one, for instance) are severely unethical, but the Restricted Section is defined to us as being resources for advanced students of DADA. So is Polyjuice Potion considered a Dark Potion? Is making it a Dark Art? Is it making or using it illegal? Of course, it's distinctly possible that the book's there because of *other* potions in it, but in that case, why would Snape have mentioned this book particularly? Surely this recipe would also be in other books.

CoS 12

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