I Finally Read That Book--Well, Most of It, Anyway
About this time last year, I made a post about how Hermione was almost certainly not going to end up with any boy in the books. Er. Anyway. We all know that love potions work now. :D
A cut-tagged list of thoughts about That New HP Book:
Harry: WTF. Ginny seems to be over you, so you grow a stomach-monster for her. Draco seems to be over you, so you start your own obsession with him. Snape stops obsessing over you in Potions, so you fall for his teenaged self via a Potions textbook. I knew there'd have to be some emotional damage from the whole Dursley fiasco.
BUT, speaking of the Dursleys. ...long experience had taught him to remain out of arm's reach of his uncle whenever possible. I don't remember Vernon being physically violent before. Have I just wiped it out of my mind? Or is this a new revelation?
Sanguini... Lupin... Malfoy: If I ever found myself in the WW, I would immediately change my name to Aristo P. Lotsagold. (The P stands for "Power".)
Ginny: I was sort of expecting Ginny/Slughorn. And then I remembered that HBP wasn't fanfic. Anyway:
"Or he could be innocent," said Ginny. "The poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself."
Go to his rescue, dude. Your crusades have always been more worthy than Hermione's. I think the key is: small scale, mixed with actual compassion.
Hermione and Ron: suck, as of the moment they blew off Hagrid when he said he needed them. I'm willing to forgive the CHEATING and TANTRUMS and GENERAL LOVE-RELATED IMMATURITY because, dude--they're in Gryffindor. They haven't had many positive role models. But I always thought that doing dangerous things to help out friends was a Gryffindor trait, man. What's going on?
...OH WAIT. THERE'S MORE. Goading Myrtle seemed to have put fresh heart into Ron. >:( Ron is #1 on my People Who Suck list for this book. In fact, he's so far there, I smile whenever I remember that Ginny, Hermione, and Harry are all invited to Slughorn's, but he's not.
Luna: <3. She's suddenly cool (in that way where she's really not, but I like her anyway). All of her "uncomfortable truths" are great. They're not even said in a mean way, as they would be if Ron or Hermione said them. I'm glad that people aside from Ginny are starting to notice that she's actually kind of interesting, and not someone that you have to avoid.
Speaking of Ron & Luna...: "You're making fun of me, aren't you?" she said. "Everyone says I was dreadful."
"No, I'm serious!" said Ron earnestly. "I can't remember enjoying commentary more!"
It could work. (But in terms of HBP het I want to see? It's still below Ginny/Blaise, Ginny/Slughorn, and Ginny/Dean/Demelza.)
Lavender: SCARIEST THING EVER. If 16-year-old girls really behave that way, I must have wiped high school from my mind. This is what I think really happened: Ron, before this book started, took a love potion from his brothers' store, so that he could make Hermione fall in love with him. At the same time, Colin Creevey's first-year double, possibly born from an accident involving a time-turner, had Polyjuiced himself into Hermione to try to get close to Harry. (This explains all of Hermione's fawning over Harry in chapter 11.) Clone-Colin gets caught in the love potion crossfire, and drinks whatever drink Ron spiked, and falls madly in love with Ron.
At this point, Hermione comes back from the library, where she had been studying. Clone-Colin accidentally leaves the dregs of the potion in a glass near Hermione's books. In his haste to get away unnoticed. Hermione refills the glass with water, and ends up drinking a drop of Ron's love potion...! Now, Clone-Colin, madly in love with Ron, notices that Lavender is leaving Hogwarts in Parvati's place, Polyjuiced (the juice really gets around, in sixth year. One of those trends). Padma has been allowed to stay on for her classwork; Parvati wanted to stay because she was in love with Hermione (it might seem farfetched, but remember: "No invite," said Parvati gloomily [to Hermione]. "I'd love to go, though, it sounds like it's going to be really good... You're going, aren't you?"), but her mother thought that was a pretty poor reason, in light of the recent dangers. Parvati isn't nearly as level-headed in emergencies as her sister, anyway. Dumbledore, of course, doesn't notice; he's far too busy, and it's sort of hard to tell Lavender and Parvati apart, when they start giggling at you.
But when Lavender goes off, Clone-Colin immediately starts Polyjuicing as her--she's already shown some small signs of being attracted to Ron, after all, and the feeling might be mutual; Colin thinks he has a chance. He latches on. (Parvati wonders what's going on, but Colin mumbles something about her mother changing her mind, and then goes off to make out a little more with Ron. This, to Parvati, sounds like the Lavender she knows; she isn't worried.)
Now, with the threat of discovery past, Clone-Colin decides that it's safe to let all his 11-year-old's urges out, with the necklace, the Won-Won, the jealous outbursts. And so it's explained.
Tonks: No wonder she's upset, with Dumbledore off on dangerous missions--already hurt his hand, too--and her being stuck babysitting at Hogwarts! And this close to when Sirius died! You can't just assure her you'll be safe, Dumbledore; she knows better. How awful must it be to have lost a cousin, and then, so soon, to be in danger of losing a boyfriend, too? :D
Also, </a></b></a>
cathy wondered about the way Order members seem to use their Patronuses to send messages. When I started to think about this, an even better explanation for Tonks' behaviour came to mind: Tonks is crazy Bellatrix. I'll quote myself: haggardness due to long use of Polyjuice & remnants from Azkaban. Meanwhile, that sane Bellatrix we saw in chapter two is really a Metamorphed Tonks. One of them is under Imperius. I'm not sure which one is, but both sides could benefit from a fairly well-trusted new spy! Especially a spy who has good reason to act differently from her usual self (either because of grief or because of well-known general crazy). Or, you know, maybe they're both acting of their own will (or are BOTH under Imperius, cast by the other! :D), and are planning to start their own side in this war. Because there's only Voldemort's, the Ministry's, and Dumbledore's so far, and three isn't enough sides.
Potions doesn't require an O? ...GASP!COP-OUT I know someone on my friends list, or possibly in one of the meta communities, predicted the Snape-gets-DADA/Harry-Gets-Auror-Require
I am so pleased that Neville got an O in Herbology, though. And an E, and an A. I hope he didn't only get four OWLs, although I notice that that still is more than the Weasley twins got.
Harry seems to have forgot the definition of half-blood: Is it just because Peter's a Death-Eater that he didn't ask if Peter might have been the Half-Blood Prince when he asked about Remus, Sirius, and his dad? I mean, he knows that James & Sirius are purebloods. Unless he assumed that Peter's allegience would have made him less likely to identify as a half-blood than those two, whatever the truth of it, I don't get it. Because, dude, the prince was good at potions, and he already knows that Peter is at least passable at potions, what with the whole bringing-Voldemort-back-from-the-dead thing. And that's as an adult, too; we don't see very many adults making potions, so it's possibly not a frequently-used skill in the WW for adults not in the business. He should have at least asked!
(But I'm still on chapter 24 or so. Maybe I'll find out what's wrong with Lavender, Tonks, etc. soon enough.)
---
This morning, I was all excited to go to math class (we're studying matrix algebra! Which, OK, I did in high school... but this time, we're supposed to be finding out how it's used in economics. <3), but I left home a little late, so I ran to the bus stop. While running, I bruised the ball of my foot, but I managed to get to the bus stop in plenty of time for the 99. I had so much time to spare, in fact, that I had to take out a book to make it pass a little faster. Somehow, while reading, I missed the bus's coming up until it drove straight past me. :/ So I walked quickly down the road to the hospital in order to catch a different bus (the 97), since the next 99, which drops off right in front of uni, was 15 minutes away, and would probably get me there without time to actually get to my class before it started. I managed both to be in time for and to flag down this other bus, and we drove some fifty metres down the street... where we were stopped so that a helicopter could land at the hospital helicopter pad. (After a few minutes of waiting, I got off the bus and walked back to the bus stop so that I could catch the 99: being a little late is better than being a little bit later and out of breath from running.)
Ah, my public transport luck.
A cut-tagged list of thoughts about That New HP Book:
Harry: WTF. Ginny seems to be over you, so you grow a stomach-monster for her. Draco seems to be over you, so you start your own obsession with him. Snape stops obsessing over you in Potions, so you fall for his teenaged self via a Potions textbook. I knew there'd have to be some emotional damage from the whole Dursley fiasco.
BUT, speaking of the Dursleys. ...long experience had taught him to remain out of arm's reach of his uncle whenever possible. I don't remember Vernon being physically violent before. Have I just wiped it out of my mind? Or is this a new revelation?
Sanguini... Lupin... Malfoy: If I ever found myself in the WW, I would immediately change my name to Aristo P. Lotsagold. (The P stands for "Power".)
Ginny: I was sort of expecting Ginny/Slughorn. And then I remembered that HBP wasn't fanfic. Anyway:
"Or he could be innocent," said Ginny. "The poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself."
Go to his rescue, dude. Your crusades have always been more worthy than Hermione's. I think the key is: small scale, mixed with actual compassion.
Hermione and Ron: suck, as of the moment they blew off Hagrid when he said he needed them. I'm willing to forgive the CHEATING and TANTRUMS and GENERAL LOVE-RELATED IMMATURITY because, dude--they're in Gryffindor. They haven't had many positive role models. But I always thought that doing dangerous things to help out friends was a Gryffindor trait, man. What's going on?
...OH WAIT. THERE'S MORE. Goading Myrtle seemed to have put fresh heart into Ron. >:( Ron is #1 on my People Who Suck list for this book. In fact, he's so far there, I smile whenever I remember that Ginny, Hermione, and Harry are all invited to Slughorn's, but he's not.
Luna: <3. She's suddenly cool (in that way where she's really not, but I like her anyway). All of her "uncomfortable truths" are great. They're not even said in a mean way, as they would be if Ron or Hermione said them. I'm glad that people aside from Ginny are starting to notice that she's actually kind of interesting, and not someone that you have to avoid.
Speaking of Ron & Luna...: "You're making fun of me, aren't you?" she said. "Everyone says I was dreadful."
"No, I'm serious!" said Ron earnestly. "I can't remember enjoying commentary more!"
It could work. (But in terms of HBP het I want to see? It's still below Ginny/Blaise, Ginny/Slughorn, and Ginny/Dean/Demelza.)
Lavender: SCARIEST THING EVER. If 16-year-old girls really behave that way, I must have wiped high school from my mind. This is what I think really happened: Ron, before this book started, took a love potion from his brothers' store, so that he could make Hermione fall in love with him. At the same time, Colin Creevey's first-year double, possibly born from an accident involving a time-turner, had Polyjuiced himself into Hermione to try to get close to Harry. (This explains all of Hermione's fawning over Harry in chapter 11.) Clone-Colin gets caught in the love potion crossfire, and drinks whatever drink Ron spiked, and falls madly in love with Ron.
At this point, Hermione comes back from the library, where she had been studying. Clone-Colin accidentally leaves the dregs of the potion in a glass near Hermione's books. In his haste to get away unnoticed. Hermione refills the glass with water, and ends up drinking a drop of Ron's love potion...! Now, Clone-Colin, madly in love with Ron, notices that Lavender is leaving Hogwarts in Parvati's place, Polyjuiced (the juice really gets around, in sixth year. One of those trends). Padma has been allowed to stay on for her classwork; Parvati wanted to stay because she was in love with Hermione (it might seem farfetched, but remember: "No invite," said Parvati gloomily [to Hermione]. "I'd love to go, though, it sounds like it's going to be really good... You're going, aren't you?"), but her mother thought that was a pretty poor reason, in light of the recent dangers. Parvati isn't nearly as level-headed in emergencies as her sister, anyway. Dumbledore, of course, doesn't notice; he's far too busy, and it's sort of hard to tell Lavender and Parvati apart, when they start giggling at you.
But when Lavender goes off, Clone-Colin immediately starts Polyjuicing as her--she's already shown some small signs of being attracted to Ron, after all, and the feeling might be mutual; Colin thinks he has a chance. He latches on. (Parvati wonders what's going on, but Colin mumbles something about her mother changing her mind, and then goes off to make out a little more with Ron. This, to Parvati, sounds like the Lavender she knows; she isn't worried.)
Now, with the threat of discovery past, Clone-Colin decides that it's safe to let all his 11-year-old's urges out, with the necklace, the Won-Won, the jealous outbursts. And so it's explained.
Tonks: No wonder she's upset, with Dumbledore off on dangerous missions--already hurt his hand, too--and her being stuck babysitting at Hogwarts! And this close to when Sirius died! You can't just assure her you'll be safe, Dumbledore; she knows better. How awful must it be to have lost a cousin, and then, so soon, to be in danger of losing a boyfriend, too? :D
Also, </a></b></a>
cathy wondered about the way Order members seem to use their Patronuses to send messages. When I started to think about this, an even better explanation for Tonks' behaviour came to mind: Tonks is Potions doesn't require an O? ...GASP!
I am so pleased that Neville got an O in Herbology, though. And an E, and an A. I hope he didn't only get four OWLs, although I notice that that still is more than the Weasley twins got.
Harry seems to have forgot the definition of half-blood: Is it just because Peter's a Death-Eater that he didn't ask if Peter might have been the Half-Blood Prince when he asked about Remus, Sirius, and his dad? I mean, he knows that James & Sirius are purebloods. Unless he assumed that Peter's allegience would have made him less likely to identify as a half-blood than those two, whatever the truth of it, I don't get it. Because, dude, the prince was good at potions, and he already knows that Peter is at least passable at potions, what with the whole bringing-Voldemort-back-from-the-dead thing. And that's as an adult, too; we don't see very many adults making potions, so it's possibly not a frequently-used skill in the WW for adults not in the business. He should have at least asked!
(But I'm still on chapter 24 or so. Maybe I'll find out what's wrong with Lavender, Tonks, etc. soon enough.)
---
This morning, I was all excited to go to math class (we're studying matrix algebra! Which, OK, I did in high school... but this time, we're supposed to be finding out how it's used in economics. <3), but I left home a little late, so I ran to the bus stop. While running, I bruised the ball of my foot, but I managed to get to the bus stop in plenty of time for the 99. I had so much time to spare, in fact, that I had to take out a book to make it pass a little faster. Somehow, while reading, I missed the bus's coming up until it drove straight past me. :/ So I walked quickly down the road to the hospital in order to catch a different bus (the 97), since the next 99, which drops off right in front of uni, was 15 minutes away, and would probably get me there without time to actually get to my class before it started. I managed both to be in time for and to flag down this other bus, and we drove some fifty metres down the street... where we were stopped so that a helicopter could land at the hospital helicopter pad. (After a few minutes of waiting, I got off the bus and walked back to the bus stop so that I could catch the 99: being a little late is better than being a little bit later and out of breath from running.)
Ah, my public transport luck.