HBP Chapter 19 re-read

Elf Tails
Classic opener: “So all in all, not one of Ron’s better birhdays,” said Fred. I’m beginning to agree with the poster who called Fred & George two of his favorite characters in all fiction. Can FRED & GEORGE: THE APPRENTICE be far off?

George observes that it was lucky Harry thought of the bezoar. But was it luck? If Snape deliberately left his Potions book in the cupboard for Harry to find, then it was not just luck. Even if it was not planned, it may have been fated … it’s certainly ironic that the h-b Prince’s prized textbook should come around to help Harry in his time of need.

The connotations of the name “Snape” are clear enough, but what about “Severus”? Did JKR choose this name to suggest a severe and serious personality, or to suggest someone who has “severed” his connections with his past? –that latter being something that I don’t think JKR believes is really possible.

Touching when Ron croaks “Er-my-nee” as his first words. Interesting (and a bit puzzling) that JKR doesn’t give us a reaction shot of her face when she hears that. I wonder if the movie will. I hope so.

“Half our family does seem to owe you their lives, now I stop to think about it,” Mr. W said in a constricted voice. “All I can say it was a lucky day for the Weasleys when Ron decided to sit on your compartment on the Hogwarts Express, harry.” Was it? Wouldn’t the Weasleys perhaps have been a bit safer if Ron had never met Harry? Or would the clock’s hands have turned to mortal peril even faster if Harry, alone and vulnerable at Hogwarts, had fallen prey to Voldemort/Quirrell? In any event, I question the idea that it was luck. It was a choice ROn made, one that was foreshadowed by his mother’s nice treatment of Harry at the 9 3/4 stop.

In plot terms, the Dd/Snape conversation that Hagrid overhead is obviously of huge importance. When Snape says “you take too much for granted,” what exactly is he referring to? Snape’s services as an agent against V — or Snape’s commitment to fulfill his Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa, thus fulfilling Dd’s tricky master plan? Harry picks up on the fact that “despite all he had told Harry, in spite of his insistence that he trusted Snape completely, Dd had lost his temper with him…” this does seem telling — Dd not one to lose temper easily.

Lavender treated as a figure of fun, even contemptuously, through most of the book, but is given one moment of insight in this chapter: “Friends, don’t make me laugh! She didn’t talk to him for weeks after he started going out with me!”

We know from JKR’s Mugglenet interview that this was the last Quidditch match, which I find weirdly disappointing.

Harry efficiently closes the Kreacher loophole — but lets it open at the end? “just stick to Malfoy like a couple of wart plasters.”

Related posts:

• HBP Chapter 29 re-read
• HBP Chapter 24 re-read
• HBP Chapter 21 re-read
• HBP Chapter 23 re-read
• HBP Chapter 20 re-read