New thread for a New Year.

 

This is interesting, considering that Hogwarts had a dueling club two years earlier, and that some wizards seem to engage in spontaneous 'duels' as their equivalent to a fist fight. Perhaps the ban is only on official dueling, as a sport, or as a lawful mean to resolve conflicts.

This fact is often overlooked. The Lestranges DID deny Voldemort at first to avoid imprisonment. Sure, it was in order to search for Voldemort, but it still diminishes Bellatrix's fanatic loyalty somewhat. Voldemort later talks disapprovingly about those who denied they were ever in his service, but talks about the Lestranges oppositely - perhaps he wasn't aware of this fact.

Also, it's really strange that Harry, Ron and Hermione spent days upon days in the library looking for ways to breath underwater, yet haven't encountered the Bubble-Head charm. Or that there doesn't seem to be any book that advices how to fight dragons, or lists their weaknesses. I know Rowling did it for the sake of tension and having Crouch!Moody help Harry, but I think it's bad writing.

 

Intriguing title.

Harry's a sneaky little shit sometimes.

Presumably this is to take Real Moody as a hostage for his escape.

I really want to know what the pointers Bagman would've given Harry about the tasks would've been.

Savagely is right.

Y'know, George, I think he knows that.

"a slight diversion"

I'd forgotten Harry was asked to the Yule Ball by a bunch of chicks. And then he still manages to cock it all up, of course.

Add fans of Snape-adopts-Harry fics to the BTFO list.

Still weird this never comes into play.

Goddamnit, Harry.

You know, I somehow forgot being half-Giant was considered to be A Bad Thing.

Goddamnit, Harry!

Dumbledore, proud Archbishop of Banterbury.

I wonder what the cause of death was. Did he try and go see the mother of his son?

I bet you will, Hagrid. I bet you will.

Damn is she thirsty. Understandable, though, I suppose.

No, Harry. I don't think he does.

This implies charms have a default power.

Man, that last one. And people said that was a fanon cliché.

I remember a lot of people claiming they aren't banned. Absolute bullshit.

Wilkes is the most unpopular Death Eater. Poor guy.

How come Sirius doesn't know about the Dark Mark?

Like CoS confirmed, deflecting hexes is a thing. Does this mean parrying like depicted in many a fanfic? How does it work? We don't really know.

Something about this really screams badass to me. Also, I forgot this whole bit was there at all. Shame on me.

Rubeus Hagrid, proud voter of UKIP.

Considering everything Crookshanks accomplished last year, the fuck is he doing now? Why isn't he all up in fake Moody's grill?

 

Didn't Harry try to unlock a door in the Department of Mysteries with it? (and melted it in the process)

 

Yeah, and I feel like Harry has used it for one or two insignificant tasks during book 5 but it's been ages since I read it and I'm waiting for my finals to end before I join.

Didn't realize feelings still ran this high between those two. Aberforth talking like this, sure, but this is pretty vicious coming from Albus. I mean, you'd think after 94 years... Anyway.

Also, I was kind of hoping for the final section of GoF to be last week, so we could coincide Voldemort's resurrection with his birthday. I suppose it would be a tall order to make the schedule coincide with 3 different dates though.

 

Chapter 21: The House-Elf Liberation Front

Well, in fairness to her, you are, Harry.

So...90% of your time then?

Chapter 22: The Unexpected Task

I wonder if they're hoping that Harry will invite one of them (note that Lavender goes to the Ball with Seamus in the end), or whether they're shippers on deck for Harry/[insert Gryffindor here]?

As @BTT points out above, one of the pleasures of this re-read is seeing how many fanfiction cliches get thoroughly and explicitly debunked.

First, a handy reminder in preparation for HBP, but second - and this may be my ignorance of the science of antidotes here - but what's the point in brewing a (presumably at least fairly) complicated antidote if the key ingredient of it can already cure basically any poison?

Chapter 23: The Yule Ball

Not that it's a big deal or anything. Just one of those things you have to get used to when you sleep near the Boy-Who-Lived.

Because nobody else asked them, presumably - unless we're thinking they were secretly pining for Harry and Ron, and didn't have the guts to ask them themselves.

Like the Chamber of Secrets, for example.

Played for laughs though it is, this is actually a pretty good point. If Moody's eye can see through clothes to the socks beneath, then presumably Hogwarts is just a walking underwear catalogue to him. Although presumably, this means he also sees people like Snape, McGonagall, Pince, Filch... in their underwear. Some might say that's penance enough.

I get that Harry is not the greatest date in the world, but this seems a bit harsh on reflection. They seemed to have a nice enough time while they were eating, then the opening dance is fine, then...they sit down, and a few minutes later she abandons him for the night?

Ron, though, is just straight up awful at this shit. A man after my own heart...

If only he knew 'Muffliato'!

As per bloody usual.

Chapter 24: Rita Skeeter's Scoop

While this is obviously at least partially to do with the article in the Prophet - seriously, does no-one else in the school read the only national newspaper? Not one of them? - it does also conjure up the image of Snape sitting down with the Slytherins' for tea and gossip.

Can he, though? Given the bigotry about giants, if the Ministry had decided he was really dangerous, could Dumbledore have saved him? Another potentially interesting jump-off point for a Dark!Harry fic, or at least a severely anti-Ministry Harry.

@Hakairyu: In complete agreement with you here. This reads unbelievably harshly given what we find out later - more importantly, it doesn't seem to fit with the guilt-racked Albus we see discussing it later. Retcon, or just odd disguising of his true feelings?

So where did Hagrid go in the holidays? Surely he couldn't have been the gamekeeper while he was still a student?

 

Maybe the're just bad at looking things up. I mean,

That looks like stray internet browsing. Meanwhile the Bubblehead charm might be standard sixth year repertoire.

 

The second point is potentially valid, although they are explicitly looking at charms, but Hermione's whole thing is research, and when they put their mind to it Ron and Harry aren't bad either - remember all the esoteric stuff they dragged up when researching Buckbeak's appeal in PoA? This is a pretty obvious case of Rowling not giving them access to knowledge for plot reasons, which is fine, but still a little lazy. In fairness, it's more obvious given how apparently ubiquitous the Bubble Head charm is in OotP - for all we know at this stage, it *is* a really obscure charm that they couldn't be expected to find.

Chapter 25: The Egg and the Eye

For the first and last time in his career.

I wonder what Ron thought of literally the nicest room he ever goes into during the books?

You just spent an entire chapter learning the Summoning charm, you moron!

This takes on a delicious extra meaning once you learn that Moody is Crouch.

Judging by the other Aurors we see in canon, rather less than Harry is by the time he's finished school.

Chapter 26: The Second Task

A submarine? What, with arms? This is an unusually impractical idea coming from Hermione.

Then Hermione would know. Come on, Harry, keep up.

Given that the second task is only the second time we ever see them interact, and no other occasion has been mentioned between the Ball and the task, this does raise the question of how she's become so important to him. Either he falls really hard for an under-age girl, or he's got no real friends or family anywhere else (that he cares about, at least)

There's this useful spell you used earlier in the book, Harry - Diffindo? You could at least try it and see if it would work, as I do appreciate that other spells have gone a little wonky underwater.

So none of the judges or spectators could actually see anything that was happening?

Chapter 27: Padfoot Returns

Snape's future Death Eater pals while he was at Hogwarts. No mention of Lucius, in contradiction to most fanon (including mine, I have to admit).

Erm...moving on.

Chapter 28: The Madness of Mr Crouch

So at least two of the Champions are bonding outside the tasks. Good for them!

Given that he's been under the Imperius for most of the last twelve months, and it seems unlikely that Wormtail was taking proper care of him, you've got to give the man props for badassery.

Fuck. Yeah.

 

It's another small fact that fanon neglects. The Death Eaters being tattooed with the Dark Mark wasn't general knowledge, Snape actually explains it to Fudge at the end of the book.

Lucius was 41 in OotP, while Snape was 35(?), so they didn't have too much time to bond, IIRC in DH Harry sees young Lucius welcoming Snape to the Slytherin table, in the pensieve memory. According to the Black family tree, Bellatrix was born in 1951, a good 10 years before Snape, so unless Sirius doesn't count her in "The Lestranges", it's also pretty odd. And Snape didn't seem to have friends in the OotP pensieve memory. Just more inconsistency from Rowling.

 

It's weird, though. Sirius was part of a group that fought against the Death Eaters. If anyone would know about it, wouldn't it be them, especially considering they actually had a spy?

 

They didn't have a spy that I recall until Snape, which wouldn't have been all that long before Sirius was imprisoned. And given that there was suspicion that there was a spy in the Order, Snape's status probably wouldn't have been widely known (especially to the group that hated him already). It does seem weird that the Dark Mark wasn't common knowledge to those actively fighting the Death Eaters though.

 

Right, time to get back into this.

Chapter 30: The Pensieve

Brutal.

I can only assume that, were he to attempt it, Harry's animagus form would be a cat. And his curiosity would kill him.

You'll be singing a different tune in about three, four months, Harry...

Not by any legal authority, perhaps.

Chapter 31: The Third Task

A: I seriously doubt that Hermione wouldn't have researched the counter-jinx prior to casting a spell on her friend.
B: Even if she hadn't, I doubt it would take her ten minutes to look it up.
Conclusion? She's getting some sort of sick enjoyment out of seeing him squirm.

I'm still pissed we never see how Harry makes a Dementor amusing.

Which raises the related point: how was Crouch intending to cover this up? It's a shoddy move, given his cunning throughout the rest of the book.

A normal spider, enlarged? An Acromantula? Or some other variety of magical beast?

An understated example of Harry's desire to do the right thing leading to someone else getting hurt/killed.

Chapter 33: The Death Eaters

Well no. He wouldn't.

Do we think that Voldemort knows the (probable) truth about his parents relationship, and just doesn't care/is too blinded by hatred to acknowledge it, or does he genuinely think that his father just walked out because he hated magic?

Heh.

Rowling has confirmed that wandless magic is a thing, and that Voldemort can use it. This then indicates that wandless magic is not simply casting magic without using a wand, but has its own limitations, rules and spells. Or it's a shameless retcon.

Wait. He could only come back to England because he was riding Quirrell...so how did he get back to Albania?

Chapter 34: Priori Incantatem

Under-rated moment of badassery from Harry, here, casually throwing off the Dark Lord's mind-rape even after a couple of doses of the most excruciating pain imaginable.

With the right frame of mind, and a perhaps slightly more than passing knowledge of sexual aids, this scene is better than all the wand jokes in the entire series.

Chapter 35: Veritaserum

Hmm. Really? Voldemort seemed pretty set on killing Harry himself. I'm not convinced this would work out as Crouch thinks it would.

...but great.

Chapter 36: The Parting of the Ways

This...probably isn't the best character reference Harry could have been given.

Then...why doesn't he believe it here? Is this a typo in my edition?

Chapter 37: The Beginning

Might have been good for the team behind Cursed Child to reread this chapter in the planning stages...

Sigh. The Draco In Leather Pants trope just gets more and more painful to think about, doesn't it?

Wonder what happened to him in the end?