LJ-versary :: PoA 7

[pauraque_bk]

On May 6, 2003, I made my first post to LJ. I joined at the urging of the good people at haremxf, and soon discovered the infinite carnival midway that is LJ HP fandom. Since then I've met hundreds of fans, befriended many, quarrelled with a few, and admired many more from afar.

Sometimes I feel like a naive farmboy coming to New York City. This fandom is bigger and louder and brighter than anything I've ever seen online. Sometimes it's too much. But most of the time, I just plain feel lucky to be a part of it. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere. ;)

*hugs fandom*


Eeew... sticky. *brushes himself off*

*

PoA 7: The Boggart in the Wardrobe

Ron had spent the last quarter of an hour carefully shredding his own roots into exactly equal pieces. (95)

It's struck me before that Ron doesn't seem to do too badly in Potions or particularly incite Snape's wrath (except as a Gryffindor in general), and here he's being more careful than I would have expected. He does hate Snape on behalf of Harry, but he still tries hard in his class.

'Of course, if it was me,' he said quietly, '[...]I'd be out there looking for [Black].'
'What are you talking about, Malfoy?' said Ron roughly. (96)

'What did Malfoy mean?' [...]
'He's making it up,' said Ron, savagely, 'he's trying to make you do something stupid...' (97)

How much does Ron know, here? I can't remember if he seems surprised when Harry finds out what Sirius did, but it reads here like he's trying to protect Harry from the truth.

This is a well-done scene. We keep up on other plot threads while the Snape-Neville interaction is set up so that the Boggart scene will be effective without any need for exposition.

'Good afternoon,' he said. 'Would you please put all your books back in your bags. [...]' (99)

From the moment he enters the classroom, Lupin is nothing but collected and competent. Another possible suggestion that he's taught before.

'Possibly no one's warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult. Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear.' (100)

In case anyone still had doubts on whether Snape picks on Neville above the other kids. Lupin, of course, perceives this immediately and comes up with a way for Neville to take back control of the situation. It doesn't seem likely that he planned the Drag!Boggart!Snape in advance.

This is an important turning point for Neville's character, but the real conflict is the power struggle between Snape and Lupin. We already know Snape hates Lupin (72), and now we see him trying to exert power over Lupin's class. Lupin fights back in kind, undermining the power Snape has over his own students, and does it in such a way that Snape has no real recourse. As usual, Lupin is calm and polite -- the same defense he used to show his students he wasn't shaken by Peeves's taunting (99), a potentially rattling reminder of his school days.

'He seems a very good teacher,' said Hermione approvingly. 'But I wish I could have had a turn with the Boggart--' (106)

Why didn't he let her, I wonder?


Previous re-read posts are saved in memories here.

Comments

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

I always got the impression that he made mistakes in class because he was nervous, creating a vicious cycle of nerves leading to mistakes leading to Snape's anger leading to more nerves leading to more mistakes, et cetera ad nauseam

Same here. He is, after all, fairly good at Herbology and I'd say that they're related disciplines.

This is one of the reasons why I'm pining for book six right now. I'm exceedingly curious to see how everybody did in their OWLs... and the Potions OWL in particular. They had external examiners, so Neville's normal going to pieces through nerves shouldn't be an issue and he might actually do reasonably well. And Harry should do better than usual as well, since he normally spends his entire Potions lesson in a state of anticipation, waiting to be picked on, which can't aid his concentration either, even if he generally gets through the experience better than Neville.

Of the two of them I figure Neville may well come out with the better Potions result. My theory is that Harry will make it through with a respectable Potions pass that just isn't quite good enough for him to be able to take the potions NEWT under normal circumstances. But, if he wants to be an Auror, he needs Potions... so I'm half-expecting a bit of special pleading on his behalf by all and sundry, followed by a grudging concession by Snape to take him on if he does extra Potions classes to catch-up, which would give them the perfect alibi to resume those Occlumency lessons without anyone wondering why they're spending so much time together.

(apologies for the OotP digression. We must disect that book too one day.)

[pauraque]

(apologies for the OotP digression. We must disect that book too one day.)

Definitely. This is so much fun, I'd like to do all the books eventually. I'll probably want to save GoF until it's closer to the movie release, but in the interim, we should certainly do another.

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

FA did a chapter by chapter discussion of OotP shortly after it came out, but I haven't read any of it.