19 years later...

[lindalupos]

It's Epilogue Day! And I'm loving the pics and clips of people at King's Cross. It's honestly the last true big celebration we'll have - well, unless we make it to "50 years since PS came out' I guess (only 30 years to go so the odd are decent. Wonder what the world looks like then).

Somehow it feels odd and somewhat unreal that I reread the entire series earlier this year. I know I did - I just reread all my recaps :p - but it already feels so long ago when it's not even been six months. Another thing that struck me rereading the recaps just now was how, during TDH, PS already felt so long ago, even in the span of a few hours. Almost as if literally seven years had passed? I guess it's a mark of good character development of the main characters, if anything!

Needless to say (I mean, just look at the length of those recaps) I loved rereading the series. It was 100% nostalgia, especially the first four books. They made me feel like I was a teen in high school again, and at times I got almost whistful thinking of times gone by, what great years those were, etc. I can honestly say Harry Potter made me who I am today, I really wouldn't have been the same without it.

... which is not to say that the books are perfect, of course. Rereading them I was impressed with some of the tight plotting, the foreshadowing and minor hints (and the red herrings, lol), but with ten years' distance I also spotted the flaws better. It does feel a bit like the series got away from her a bit at the end. The last three books are almost too big, and OotP is uneven in its pacing. HBP got oddly romance-y, and TDH suddenly had the Hallows. Plus the camping. :p Which in hindsight wasn't as bad as everybody always made it out to be, but when we finally find out what's been going on at Hogwarts, it does come off as a huge missed opportunity. Like I said in my TDH recap, that book is the one that would have really benefited from a less Harry-centric or a more Hogwarts-centric focus.

Still, when that 50th anniversary rolls around? I'll still be there, grey hair and wrinkles and all, wearing a Ravenclaw scarf, waving a wand around and ranting about bloody stupid werewolves. :p



I did sort of a recap of the recap, to wrap up! There were some things that made me go 'huh?' as I read them which were explained later, so here they are.



Philosopher's Stone

How are people so SURE Voldemort is gone? How can they tell? Actually, it's been shown that the Daily Prophet gets news out crazy fast, so maybe that's how the news spread. And maybe some DE's came out all "hey my tattoo is gone"? I dunno. I’m guessing Dumbledore could figure out fairly quickly that he wasn’t completely gone when the DADA curse hadn’t been lifted, though.

Who broke Dumbledore’s nose twice, actually? Was it Grindlewald? Was it McGonagall when he was being particularly annoying one day? It was Aberforth!

Poor Neville being Muggletested. L … although, ugh, with his history I can see why they’d want him to be magic. Can magic be ‘shocked’ out of you if your parents have been tortured to insanity? It sort of can! At least, it did with Arianna. Interesting thought of what if Neville had become an Obscurus, though…

Snape HATES an eleven-year old. Very mature. Guy is, what, 32, 33 here? (Oh God Snape is younger than I am.) Although I also sort of feel sorry for him, basically stuck at his teenage years. And it’s only been ten years for him – the same age difference between me reading TDH for the first time and reading it now, and while I’ve grown a lot, in some aspects I haven’t changed much at all. And this was the love of his life dying…

Poor Neville. L (AGAIN) Why can’t Hooch mend bones? Would have been very useful and I doubt Neville is the first one to fall off his broom and break something. It’s kind of insane that it’s only in TDH that Harry goes “huh, maybe wizarding first aid might be a useful thing to know.”

Page 143 out of 223 and we’re only just now at Christmas. Such a difference from later books. :p I mean, sure, it would also take 143 pages to get to Christmas, but then there would FOLLOW 223 pages! Sweet summer child, wait until OotP when there’s 300+ pages to go before Christmas…

Defence Against the Dark Arts covers ways to treat werewolf bites. That must’ve been interesting for young Remus. I also find it interesting that they cover werewolf BITES before they cover werewolves themselves? I really don’t get the DADA curriculum. I guess with a new teacher every year the curriculum was basically “whatever the teacher is interested in” (I mean, just look at Hagrid, it’s clear Hogwarts teachers are pretty free to do whatever; Mcgonagall, Snape, Flitwick etc keep to a set curriculum but they’ve all been teaching for years now, they’ve figured out what works and they can be relied on to take their job serious. But there seems to be no oversight on what exactly they’re doing. Snape threatens to poison his students’ pets!)

17. The Man with Two Faces. Interestingly, that could also apply to Snape. Shades of PoA, where there’s a chapter called The Servant of Lord Voldemort, which also applies to several people – including Snape!

Chamber of Secrets

Lockhart was the only one for the DADA job. Why didn’t they ask Remus now? If Umbridge did draft her “nasty piece of anti-werewolf legislation” the summer after this one, it would make sense that Dumbledore would finally get off his arse and ask Remus. “So, guess you really won’t be able to find a job anymore now. Wanna join us?”

If the duelling club was Lockhart’s idea, why did Dumbledore agree to it? And why did Snape VOLUNTEER to be ASSISTANT? And why did Dumbledore trust Snape not to curse his DADA teacher into a fine pulp? 1) no teacher oversight. 2) I have the feeling Dumbledore lets Snape do whatever the hell he wants as long as he’s not interfering with whatever Dumbledore’s got going on. So no DADA job because it’s too tempting (and there’s a curse on it and Snape is too valuable) but bullying students and nearly killing colleagues? Sure go right ahead. Kind of like in these comics.

1942, is this before or after Grindlewald? I think it’s before, so Fantastic Beasts will cover this era. Wonder if it’ll be mentioned. Actually that would be awesome! And Newt would probably love an acromantula.

“Lord Voldemort is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania.” Is he? Yup. But how does Dumbledore know..?

Prisoner of Azkaban

TELL HIM STUFF. Does Dumbledore know Harry shouldn’t know anything? Does he agree? DUMBLEDORE PROBABLY CAME UP WITH THE IDEA, LET’S BE HONEST.

Couldn’t Harry have written Ron and Hermione to meet up, instead of all this wandering around hoping to run into them business? Harry doesn’t know how mail works, evidently.

“The safest place on earth was wherever Dumbledore happened to be.” Sure. Callback to this in HBP. J

Ron spots a blob like a bowler hat in Harry’s teacup, predicts he’s going to work for the Ministry of Magic.He’s not wrong. Ron is actually remarkably astute! Especially for someone with the emotional range of a teaspoon.

Nice setup that Snape is Neville’s worst fear. Also Snape is such a BULLY here. He’s worse than in previous books!

Oh dear, Snape found out about the Boggart, and since he’s mentally still stuck at Hogwarts… poor Neville. L In hindsight I have to give Snape some slack here. One of his teenage bullies has just popped up again (the one who tried to eat him, no less), and while Remus was never an active bully, he basically gave James and Sirius free reign. In HBP Snape also refers to it always having been “four against one” so I’m even not entirely sure Remus ALWAYS stayed on the sidelines… Plus Remus makes some pretty callous remarks, came up with the Grandma Snape thing, basically thumbs his nose at Snape over the Marauders Map… he’s not exactly blameless here. So I side-eye Snape for bullying kids but I can’t ENTIRELY fault him for freaking out and reverting to even worse behavior.

Oh huh, DADA covers vampire so werewolves make sense. What do the older students get though? Something worse? If Remus kept to a somewhat basic curriculum, and looking at the rest of the series, it seems like the first three years get “magical creatures” (with 3th year DADA covering the creatures that can’t be covered in Care of Magical Creatures – well, before Hagrid anyway – like vampires and werewolves), then in fourth year it switches to spells and self-defense, with the sixth and seventh year getting into the really nasty, heavy stuff.

“There was nothing brave about what [James] did. He was saving his own skin as much as mine. Had the joke succeeded, he would have been expelled from Hogwarts.” I find it somewhat interesting that Snape gets reaaaaally close to revealing what the ‘joke’ was about but he still doesn’t spill the beans about Remus being a werewolf. Did Dumbledore make the staff swear not to tell anyone? Actually, it’s TWICE that Snape comes really close to outright spelling it out but never actually does, and Remus does mention that he set that homework specifically in the hope that students would figure it out... Is Snape actually unable to or does he want to be able to plead plausible deniability?

“And embraced Black like a brother.” I mean, I just had to quote that again. :p

“What if you’d given others the slip!”
“A thought that still haunts me.” Sure. “Lupin’s face had hardened and there was self-disgust in his voice.” It’s so frustrating that he keeps doing this flipflop from callousness to beating himself up over it. “Oh noooo I could have eaten lots of people but lol it was so much fun running around as a werewolf, oh nooooo I could have eaten my students but lol what’s a wolfsbane potion, oh noooo I forced my wife into life as an outcast but lol I was unable to say no at my own wedding, oh noooo my son is going to be a monster but lol I just couldn’t keep it in my pants.” Grow a spine already.

I have a chronic condition. It doesn't make me want to eat people or anything. Hee.

DUMBLEDORE, DON’T LET HIM LEAVE. ADOPT HIM LIKE YOU DID TRELAWNEY. COME ON. Like, really. Trelawney was useful to Dumbledore, as was Snape, so he kept them on and let them do whatever, but Remus had no direct use to him so too bad, so sad, bye Remus, hope you won’t starve.

Goblet of Fire

Peter really doesn’t want to use Harry – of course, he has a life debt to him now (wasn’t that also what killed him in TDH?). Yep.

“Voldemort, the most powerful Dark Wizard for a century.” Suck on that, Grindelwald. It’s actually kind of weird that Grindelwald is still alive and will be until a pretty large part into TDH. He’ll have outlived Dumbledore!

“What he really wanted was someone like – someone like a PARENT.” Awww. This makes the “apparently physically unable to write to Remus” thing in later books more frustrating, though.

“Why can’t we Apparate too?” Did the twins even LEARN yet? (No; the twins will this year.) Oh nice infodump on it. Splinching, ouch. Actually, did any of the Trio take any test? I plain forgot. Ron took a test but failed it, aw. But they all figured it out anyway and even managed side-along Apparition.

The wizard in a nightgown! “I like a healthy breeze around my privates, thanks.” Classic. Still love this bit.

Krum “was still holding the Snitch”. Does he get to take it home or do they always use the same Snitch at every World Cup game? Nope, new Snitch ever game ‘cause of ‘flesh memory’! So I guess Krum did get to take it home. (Maybe there’s like a museum of Quidditch somewhere and they have a collection of Snitches, with labels of who caught them. I can see the wizarding world having a thing like that.)

Ron is hangry. Foreshadowing his behaviour during TDH

So they were all preparing for the TWT during PoA. Remus: “GDI why is there a curse on the DADA position, I won’t even be around to see all this stuff.” Also they got REALLY lucky Sirius was discovered at the end and all the Dementors were gone by the time the Triwizard Tournament rolled around, otherwise that might have been a bit awkward. “Welcome to Hogwarts! Don’t mind the literally soul-sucking depression ghosts hanging around.”

“He looked younger, much more like the only photograph Harry had of him, which had been taken at the Potter’s wedding.” So the photo album is literally only pictures of just James and Lily, and none of Lily or James on their own or with their friends? Huh. Actually, now I’m wondering where Hagrid DID get those photos.

Ew, Crouch send Sirius to Azkaban. Also Sirius doesn’t sugarcoat or hide things cause they’re ‘too young’. Foreshadowing his behaviour in OotP.

Quidditch
Reviews by other people! One Brutus Scrimgeour wrote The Beater’s Bible. Jo has a thing for Brutuses, as there’s also a Brutus Malfoy.

Order of the Phoenix

Harry is too young to Apparate, but can’t he Apparate with someone like in HBP? Or is that one of Dumbledore’s special skills? Nope, even the Trio can do side-along Apparition. I really don’t know why they’re not doing it here.

I love capable Remus. For just about the last time in the series...

“I know [Umbridge] is a nasty piece of work – you should hear Remus talk about her.” Oh yes please. YES I REALLY WANT THAT PLEASE. I think a ranting Remus would be a thing of glory.

UMBRIDGE INSPECTING SNAPE. He’s been teaching 14 years now. Wow, that must have been like 'ok thanks for your spying, sorry the love of your life is dead, here're some kids to teach, good luck, no you can't do DADA.' ... basically, yeah. God, poor guy.

Oooh right, the other patient who’s a werewolf! Molly’s immediately worried about safety. Sigh. Luckily it’s two weeks until the full moon, and Arthur knows some guy who finds the condition “quite easy to manage “. So easy in fact that he regularly forgets about it even when he’s surrounded by easily-eaten teens! YES I AM STILL BITTER. Yeah, “quite easy to manage”, what? “My wife is an outcast and my child will be a monster and also I can’t get a job and everything bad that ever happened is my fault” doesn’t sound ‘easy to manage’. Then again, knowing Remus, he probably put on a nice face for the Weasleys, “oh no it’s so bad, quite nice, almost like a really good workout haha”. And this WAS when he was still in the Order with Snape so he could still have had access to Wolfsbane (maybe Dumbledore was like “oh huh, right, Remus is back in my immediate vicinity again, bit annoying that he’s a werewolf though – Snape, do something about that”).

So Dolohov killed the Prewetts. Do the Weasley kids know their uncles were killed by a DE? Fucking Dolohov.

(Heh Snape was about to say “What the – “ I’m kind of wondering what kind of swearwords he’d use. Would he use wizarding words (do they have them?) or would he drop F-bombs all over the place?) WIZARD SWEARS. :D

“Did Hagrid breed you like the Thestrals?” DEAN. WTF. Dean is so cool about Remus being a werewolf and then he comes out with this. :p

Ow, Neville got kicked in the face. Fuck you, Dolohov. Just die already, fucking hell.

“You are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be.” Ain’t that the truth...

“What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.” UHHHHHHH.
1) WHAT THE FUCK DUMBLEDORE.
2) He sounds like Hannibal fucking Lecter talking about what it would have been liked to have a child.WHICH IS NOT A GOOD THING.

This is especially galling and horrifying when you compare it to his attitude towards Arianna (HIS MENTALLY ILL, TRAUMATISED SISTER) which was basically “uggghhh do I have do, god she is such a drag, who cares if she dies, she gets in the way of my GENIUS”. Harry is not a replacement pet for your bloody sister, Dumbledore.

MCGONAGALL! Even Snape’s happy! (I mean, there’s no dialogue cue but I’m just assuming; he uses an exclamation mark and strides forward). Also he doesn’t contradict her when she gives points to Gryffindor. :p Which makes the McGonagall vs Snape duel in TDH also a bit sad. L Snape looked up to her!

Half-Blood Prince

Wow [Snape] is so pleased to see Narcissa? Huh? (Bella less so, of course.) Actually, I’m beginning to suspect that Snape might actually be, maybe not necessarily a Malfoy family friend, but at the very least a good acquaintance. He seems to have a particularly good relationship with them and he seems fond and protective of Malfoy. It’s interesting. And nice.

“Dumbledore trusts Snape and that ought to be good enough for all of us.” Oh you sweet summer child. “He kept me healthy. I should be grateful.” That’s… just the character summed up in two sentences. Sigh. Sigh. And also, no wonder the poor guy fell apart at the end of this book.

Ron’s birthday, yay. He got a gold watch from his parents? Arthur’s raise must have been good. Apparently all the Weasley kids get a gold watch on their 17^th birthday. Harry gets one in TDH – I’d forgotten Ron got a watch in HBP though.

“What do you want to see [Dumbledore] about?”
“Nothing in particular… I just thought he might know what’s going on… I’ve heard rumors… people getting hurt…” Aw. This does go nicely with her “have you seen him? Have you seen Remus??” in TDH, though. But I still don’t like it.

“Fight back, you cowardly – “
“Coward, did you call me, Potter? Your father would never attack me unless it was four on one, what would you call him, I wonder?” Here – four on one? Did the others actively help?

“Harry had never seen Lupin lose control before; he felt as if he was intruding on something private, indecent.” He literally saw him wolf out, but here Lupin might as well be naked. Painful. And here we have him fall apart, starting the unraveling we see in TDH.

Deathly Hallows

WHAT ARE THE TWELVE USES OF DRAGONBLOOD?! ARRRGH.

“Why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left – “ Lol Ron. (So there ARE wizard swearwords!) See, Snape!

Conflicting Dumbledore stories. Ariana was a squib and Kendra a harridan? And the Dumbledore brothers fought at the funeral – that’s how Albus ended up with a broken nose. Ahem. Also kind of wondering whether Aberforth will pop up in Fantastic Beasts.

Harry wondering whether he’ll recognize the house. Wasn’t Sirius supposed to have exploded it? Or just Peter/the 13 Muggles? No, the rebounding AK half exploded the house. But I don’t think Harry knows that.

“My brother Albus wanted a lot of things, and people had a habit of getting hurt while he was carrying out his grand plans.” Astute. Snape is nodding his head vehemently right now and he has no idea why.

This whole thing was just… a tragedy. “Grand plans for the benefit of wizardkind, and if one young girl got neglected, what did that matter, when Albus was working for the greater good?” As mentioned above, this is such a painful reversal of Dumbledore’s “what did I care if maybe in the future a bunch of people die as long as you were safe and happy?” And I honestly don’t know whether Dumbledore had learned his lesson in the intervening 100 years or so (or… however long it was).

The Order’s here. Shit. Not my usual reaction to the Order showing up. :p

Remus was dueling Dolohov. WAS. GDI. Yep…

“Dean had won himself a wand, for he was face to face with Dolohov.” FUCKING DOLOHOV.

“Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.” L

Why am I crying. Because I’m a sap.

“Besides him, making barely a sound, walked James, Sirius, Lupin and Lily, and their presence was his courage, and the reason he was able to put one foot in front of the other.”1) sob. 2) I find it interesting that Remus was referred to by his first name just a bit before, when he was described lying alongside Tonks, but here he’s back to Lupin again, and he stands out rather jarringly among the first names. I think it sort of symbolises that weird inbetween role he ended up taking in the series as neither a friend (who you’d refer to by their first name, like Sirius) nor a teacher or parentical figure (who’d be on last-name basis). It also feels weird here because this is actually a pretty damn emotional scene but naming him as “Lupin” puts him at a remove, whereas “Remus” brings him awfully close (and, now I think about it, might even have contributed to me freaking out so much about it the first time around – I always referred to him as Remus whereas the series had always referred to him as Lupin, so the somehat sudden Remus brought him uncomfortably and weirdly close. Or something. I dunno).

“Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality.” Love that ‘mundane’. So long, Tom. So much for your quest for immortality.

Nineteen Years Later… Wait a minute, nineteen years after 1998 is… 2017! This year! What?! Oh hai!

Beedle the Bard

Beedle “believed that the worst excesses of wizardkind sprang from the all-too-human traits of cruelty, apathy, or arrogant misapplication of their own talents.” Neatly summing up the whole series.

Brutus Malfoy, editor of Warlock at War, an anti-Muggle periodical, around 1675 (14 years before the International Statute of Secrecy). Another Brutus!

“Even I, Albus Dumbledore, would find it easiest to refuse the Invisibility Cloak, which only goes to show that, clever as I am, I remain just as big a fool as anyone else.” Well, at least he showed some self-perception at the end. :p

Just for fun: It is I!

Suddenly, in Goblet of Fire, everybody started speaking in “it is I” statements. Remus and Snape are the worst offenders. It’s kind of weird. :p From the recaps:

“It was I who did that.” (Name, Goblet.)

“It is I, Dumbledore, bringing Harry.”

“You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them – I, the Half-Blood Prince!”

“I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.”

“It was not I who killed you, Albus.” What is WITH wizards and “it is/was I” statements??

“It is I, Remus John Lupin.” Oh stop it, you’re literally the only one still doing that.

“It is I.” STOP THAT.