pauraque_bk | GoF 29

GoF 29: The Dream

'If Snape hadn't held me up,' Harry said bitterly, 'we might've got there in time. "The Headmaster is busy, Potter ... what's this rubbish, Potter?" Why couldn't he have just got out of the way?'

'Maybe he didn't want you to get there!' said Ron quickly. 'Maybe -- hang on -- how fast d'you reckon he could've got down to the Forest? D'you reckon he could've beaten you and Dumbledore there?'

'Not unless he can turn himself into a bat or something,' said Harry. (491)

Heh, I didn't remember this when I talked about that being an alibi for Snape in the last chapter.

[George:] '--that's blackmail, thatt is, we could get into a lot of trouble for that--'

[Fred:] '--we've tried being polite, it's time to play dirty, like him. He wouldn't like the Ministry of Magic knowing what he did--'

[George:] 'I'm telling you, if you put that in writing, it's blackmail!'

[Fred:] 'Yeah, and you won't be complaining if we get a nice fat payoff, will you?' (492)

'It's my business if you're blackmailing someone,' said Ron. 'George's right, you could end up in serious trouble for that.' (499)

I wonder if Ron knows which of them was objecting to the blackmail because he recognized their voices, or because he knows George is a little more ethical than Fred.

History of Magic had rarely gone so slowly. Harry kept checking Ron's watch, having finally discarded his own, but Ron's was moving so slowly he could have sworn it had stopped working too. (494)

Now that I've noticed all the references to Harry's broken watch, I can't stop thinking about them! *tears hair*

[Moody] yawned widely, so that his scars stretched, and his lopsided mouth revealed a number of missing teeth. (495)

I didn't realize Moody had missing teeth! Put that in a fic, someone.

'Who's he, to lecture me about being out of bounds?' said Harry in mild indignation, as he folded up Sirius' letter and put it inside his robes. 'After all the stuff he did at school!' (497)

Sirius's lengthy reprimand of Harry making himself vulnerable (to whoever put his name in the Goblet) is one of the only times he sounds truly parental, even responsible. I'm generally okay with the explanation that being stuck in Grimmauld Place causes his mental stability to deteriorate, but doesn't the letter sound... paranoid? Controlling? On this reading, Sirius doesn't seem as normal as I'd remembered.

The heavily perfumed fumes washed over him[...] (500)

"Perfumed fumes"? Phew, GoF-era!JKR needs a beta. They don't just sound alike, they're actually the same root, Latin fumus. Multiple levels of redundancy!

He was riding on the back of an eagle owl[...] (500)

Fake!Moody's owl. There was mention of an eagle owl leaving the school in the last chapter too, which I noticed because Draco also owns an eagle owl.

'You are in luck, Wormtail,' said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. 'You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He [Crouch] is dead.'

'My Lord!' gasped the man on the floor. 'My Lord, I am ... I am so pleased ... and so sorry...' (500)

Sorry, Peter, I don't buy it. I don't think you're pleased, and I don't think you're sorry! Peter never liked this plan, and I do think he tried to sabotage it by letting Crouch get away. Maybe Voldemort has a similar suspicion...

The tip of a wand emerged from the depths of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail. 'Crucio,' said the cold voice.

Wormtail screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body was on fire, the screaming filled Harry's ears as the scar on his forehead seared with pain; he was yelling, too ... (501)

This is the first time we see Cruciatus performed on a person. I'm struck by how empathetic the description is, considering it's Peter -- we're not just told that he's writhing and screaming, but we get the vivid suggestion that every nerve in his body is on fire.

'My dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!' said Professor Trelawney. 'If you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever--' (501)

Trelawney could be right! At the very least, the fact that JKR takes pains to explain how Harry falls asleep in her class suggests the genuinely clairvoyant nature of the dream.

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