#also i hate the way that they treat the gringotts dragon

[marv3l-drag0ns]

My dad has Harry Potter 7 2/2 on as i write and honestly Rowling had 0 planning for the repercusions of the geminio curse. 

If it duplicates the thing, then it is RIDICULOUSLY easy to make a fuckton of money. 

#also i hate the way that they treat the gringotts dragon #fucking sucks that dragon deserves so much better #harry potter

[theazkabandreamer]

Hide and Seek

This is a revised edition of a story I had written a while back.

Can also be read here.

___

Scorpius always wanted to go to London ever since he had read about the capital in his history books; It was a city so rich in history and he was entranced by it.

He had begged his parents to take him to London but for some reason, his father was reluctant to go.

But finally, he was going. His father said that he had business to do at Gringotts Bank and Scorpius had asked Draco if he could go with him. Scorpius's mother suggested that they make it a day out together.

Scorpius asked if they could visit Muggle London as well much to his mother's delight, so the Malfoys ended up visiting the many famous landmarks of London where Astoria took many photographs of a beaming Scorpius standing in front of them.

Scorpius noted, however, that his father looked uneasy when they were out in Muggle London. He supposed that it was because of all of the Muggle cars and busses and the city was heaving with people, many of them taking photos.

Draco looked a lot calmer once they reached the Leakey Cauldron and they went out to the courtyard at the back of the pub where he took out his wand and tapped one of the bricks with it.

Scorpius got a shock when the bricks parted revealing to Scorpius for the first time in his life; Diagon Alley.

He had seen many photographs of the famous street, but that didn't prepare him for the hustle and bustle of many witches and wizards going about their business.

He wished he could stop and watch it all but his father was in a hurry and didn't have time to look at the shops. Astoria mentioned getting something at the Apothecary and his father said he needed to get to Gringotts.

___

Scorpius never forgot the moment he saw the snowy building; It towered above all other buildings in Diagon Alley and he let out a cry of wonder.

"It is rather majestic, isn't it Scorpius?" Draco said, putting a hand on Scorpius's shoulder.

"Is it true that there are Dragons inside the bank?" Scorpius asked eagerly and Draco hesitated, a peculiar look on his face.

"There used to be," he said slowly. "But not anymore."

"Oh, okay," Scorpius said, feeling slightly disappointed. "It would've been nice to see a dragon though because I've read so much about them in that book that Mum got me for Christmas. Do you think that Gringotts had Hungarian Horntails guarding the vaults? Because they're the most vicious dragons. Sometimes I think-"

"Listen, Scorpius," Draco said, cutting Scorpius off. "We're not going down to our vault. I have some business to do at one of the counters. You are not to wander off whilst we're in there. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay, daddy," Scorpius said happily and Draco smiled and squeezed his shoulder.

As Draco and Scorpius got closer to the snowy building, Scorpius saw two smartly dressed creatures standing by the entrance. He had read about them and froze, staring at them in wonder.

One of the creatures noticed him staring at them and gave him a sharp look which took Scorpius by surprise. He hid behind his father's leg and poked his head out to look at the creature.

"Daddy?" Scorpius asked, tugging at Draco's cloak. "Are they who I think they are?"

"Yes, Scorpius," Draco said gently. "Goblins. They're the ones who look after our gold."

Scorpius continued to stare at the Goblin from behind Draco's legs and the Goblin nodded at Scorpius and gave him a small smile. Scorpius returned the smile with a brilliant beam which took the Goblin by surprise.

He felt a lot braver as he entered the bank. Draco ushered him through two pairs of doors and once inside, Scorpius let out another cry of wonder.

He was greeted by a big hall that was full of tables and counters. There were more Goblins behind the counters and they were seeing to various wizards and witches and Scorpius saw a Goblin lead several wizards down a torch-lit passageway.

Scorpius followed Draco down the hall and he wished he had eyes in the back of his head; Everywhere he turned, there was gold being counted and various jewels being examined.

They passed a counter where a scraggy, ginger-haired man was arguing with a Goblin.

"We are very good at identifying Leprechaun Gold, Fletcher," the Goblin said smartly. "We don't like being made fools of."

Draco and Scorpius stopped to look at the man. Scorpius didn't like the look of him; There was a strange, smoky smell hanging about the man that made Scorpius wrinkle his nose.

"Wait a minute, I can explain," the man called Fletcher said hastily. "It was that old mucker Warty. See, I meant to give 'im the Leprechaun Gold and you the ordinary gold. 'e must've taken the wrong gold. You know I would never lie to you."

"Then how do you explain the incident the other month when you claimed to have in your possession a suit of Goblin made armour?" the Goblin asked swiftly.

"It was Goblin made," Fletcher said. "I've even got a Goblin made teaspoon. It's been in me family for years and I've stirred me tea with it for as long as I can remember. I hate to let it go, but a big pot of gold might help drown me sorrows away."

Fletcher took a grubby teaspoon out of his pocket and put it on the counter. The Goblin picked it up and examined it with its long fingers.

"Do you take me for a fool?" the Goblin asked sharply. "I know Goblin made Silverware when I see it and this 'spoon' was not made by any Goblin I know."

"Maybe you don't get out much," Fletcher said.

"You have tried our patience time and time again," the Goblin said. "I have more pressing matters to attend to."

The Goblin pressed a button behind the counter and Fletcher jumped back, drawing his wand.

"Now 'ang on a minute," Fletcher said, waving his wand threateningly at the Goblin. "So a man makes a mistake in identifying a piece of Goblin made Silverware. You can't go kicking 'im out of Gringotts for that. I know my rights."

"I can for wasting my time," the Goblin said swiftly.

"Daddy?" Scorpius whispered, giving Draco's cloak a gentle tug. "What's happening?"

"Just someone trying to trick a Goblin, Scorpius," Draco said gently. "It's best not to watch."

Draco moved to block Scorpius's view of the counter as four human security guards burst out of a torch-lit passageway.

Scorpius heard curses being shouted and saw the four security guards carrying Fletcher out of the bank. Fletcher was stiff and not moving at all.

"Daddy, I think he's dead," Scorpius said worriedly.

"It's okay, Scorpius," Draco said comfortingly. "It was only the full body bind curse. I remember using that at School."

Scorpius felt shaken, but Draco put a comforting hand on his shoulder and kneeled so that his face was level with Scorpius's.

"Never try to deceive a Goblin, Scorpius," Draco said. "They are smart creatures and only fools would get on their bad side. Treat them with respect, and you will go a long way."

Scorpius nodded, although he still felt a little bit shaken after seeing the man called Fletcher being carried out of the bank.

"Such important advice for a first time visitor," the Goblin said, clearly listening in. "You sir, are a fine father."

Draco's cheeks briefly flushed pink and he stood up and approached the Goblin.

"I need to do business with you," he said curtly and the Goblin nodded.

"Of course," the Goblin said. "I'm sure that you will be a far better customer than Mundungus Fletcher. He's always coming here trying to cheat us. I regret that I lost my patience with him. Especially in front of your son."

The Goblin gave Scorpius an apologetic look and Scorpius felt braver as he looked up at the Goblin.

"I'm Draco Malfoy and this is my son, Scorpius," Draco said.

"Hello!" Scorpius said brightly, giving the Goblin a big smile and a wave.

"A pleasure," the Goblin said. "I am Kragor. To what do I owe this visit to Gringotts, Draco Malfoy?"

Draco pulled a large bag out of his pocket, along with several rolls of parchment.

"I have several assets that I need put away in the Malfoy vault and there is the matter of the debt that my ancestor, Victivus Malfoy owed back in 1865. I've decided that it's time that we're going to pay the debt back in full."

"You have my complete attention," Kragor said sharply.

Scorpius didn't pay attention to the conversation; He was too busy looking around the hall, watching the various interactions between wizards and Goblins.

He watched coins being counted, emeralds being weighed and observed a group of four Goblins take a large chest down one of the torch-lit passageways. Scorpius saw a couple of large gold coins fall out of it.

If only he could wander off and explore the place properly, but he promised his father that he would stay by his side and he wasn't going to break his promise.

Instead, he watched a family at the counter opposite Scorpius.

A woman with flaming red hair was talking to the Goblin who was presenting a large piece of parchment to a teenage boy with turquoise hair - Scorpius had never seen hair that colour before.

The woman had her hand on the teenage boy's shoulder and would nod every time the Goblin would finish speaking.

Standing apart from them, was a boy the same age as Scorpius.

He had messy jet-black hair, a thin, kind face and even though Scorpius was at a distance, he could still see the boy's bright green eyes that shone like the emeralds that Scorpius saw being weighed.

Scorpius felt as if he should know the boy somehow – he looked oddly familiar – but the excitement of being in Gringotts seemed to drive it from his mind.

The boy was also looking around the bank and little did Scorpius know, he caught the boy's attention. After he looked to the spot where the boy was standing, he saw that the boy had disappeared.

Scorpius frowned and blinked; Where did the boy go? He looked around for the boy and found his head sticking behind a pillar a few feet away from his mother, grinning at Scorpius.

Scorpius giggled and spotted a man carrying a large chest full of gold. As the boy darted from the pillar, Scorpius used the man with the chest as a cover so that he could hide behind the nearest pillar from his dad.

He looked around the pillar to see the boy looking around confusedly to see where Scorpius had gone.

Scorpius stuck a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter, however, he felt a pair of eyes on him and he looked up to see the boy grinning at him again.

They darted from pillar to pillar and Scorpius noted that this was the first time that he was able to play with someone his age and he was having the time of his life. But all things come to an end.

___

At the counter, Draco had finished doing business with Kragor the Goblin and once the ink had dried and they shook hands, Draco was ready.

"Come on, Scorpius," Draco said, beckoning to Scorpius.

Scorpius was hiding behind the nearest pillar and gave the boy an apologetic smile before following Draco.

Draco saw the boy and gave him a shrewd look which the boy faltered under. However, Draco's face softened and he gave the boy a small smile and a curt nod before turning on his heel and striding out of the bank, his black cloak billowing behind him.

"Bye!" Scorpius called to the boy and he ran after Draco.

"It's nice to see you making a friend," Draco said quietly. "Now, let's go find your mother and stop her from buying the Apothecary. You've been very good today. Shall we get an ice cream?"

"I'd love an ice cream, daddy!" Scorpius said excitedly. "Can I have two scoops instead of one? With lots of sauce and sprinkles and a big cherry on the top? Oh, and a wafer! I like wafers because I get to scoop up the ice cream."

"I don't see why not," Draco said. "Because you've been so good for me, I'll take you down to the vault the next time we visit Gringotts."

"Really?" Scorpius asked. "We get to go on the really fast cart? I've always wanted to ride that cart ever since I read about it and it doesn't matter that there aren't any dragons at the bank anymore. I can't wait. Hooray!"

Scorpius beamed up at his father and did a little skip on the spot before looking back at the boy. The boy waved at him and Scorpius waved back, feeling slightly disappointed that he didn't get to ask the boy his name.

___

Al watched the beaming blond boy leave with his father and sighed; It was nice while it lasted. Al had enjoyed it very much. He could hear the boy giggling the entire time that he was playing with him.

He wished he could've talked with the boy instead of playing with him but his mum told him not to wander off and he didn't want to disappoint her.

He would rather be with his mum and Teddy at Gringotts instead of Quality Quidditch Supplies with his dad, Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, James, Lily, Rose and Hugo celebrating the Chuddley Cannons recent win.

The endless Quidditch talk was starting to grate on him and if he had to watch his Uncle Ron dancing again, he would probably die of embarrassment on his behalf.

But Gringotts was an interesting place and Al had enjoyed playing with the beaming blonde boy whose sheer joy was infectious even at a distance.

The Goblin at the door might have given him a suspicious look, but his mum ushered him in with the promise that Al wasn't here to rob the place.

He had the feeling that there was something more to the story that Uncle Ron had told them and tried to ask his mum about it, but she was in a rush and Al had to keep quiet.

"Right, that's that then," Ginny said after finishing with the Goblin. "Come on, Al. Let's go meet up with dad, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione."

"Thanks for helping me understand all of this, Ginny," Teddy said, putting three leaflets carefully into his pocket as they left the bank. "It sounded very complicated."

"No trouble at all, Ted," Ginny said, patting Teddy on the arm. "Bill's better at explaining to you the finer details but it's all there in the leaflets."

"You're going to get a bank vault soon, Teddy?" Al asked, walking beside his Godbrother as they made their way down the street.

"Yeah, I can't believe it myself, Al," Teddy chuckled. "I'm soon going to be old enough to manage my own money. I remember it as if it were yesterday when your dad took me to Diagon Alley to get me my first books for Hogwarts."

"Do you have to put gold in your vault, though?" Al asked, kicking at a pebble. "You could put other stuff in there as well."

"Anything you have in mind?" Teddy asked slowly.

"Yeah, sweets," Al said. "James keeps eating them all."

"James will eat anything if it's coated in sugar," Teddy snorted. "You've just got to find a better hiding place."

"But he always finds them wherever I hide them," Al muttered, taking his frustrations out on another pebble.

"You've been well behaved today, Al," Ginny said, ruffling his hair gently. "I would've thought you would've found Gringotts boring."

"Not really," Al said, thinking of the beaming blond boy he had met in there and smiling. "It was quite interesting, actually. Why did you say to the Goblin at the door that I wasn't here to rob the place?"

Ginny seemed lost for words and Teddy caught her eye and turned away quickly, trying not to laugh.

"Well, love," Ginny said slowly. "I don't think I'll be able to explain it in the street."

"Because your dad did rob the place," Teddy said and Al stared at his godbrother.

"What do you mean?" Al asked, frowning.

"It's a long story, Al," Ginny said hastily. "You might want to ask your dad, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione about it."

"And watch them squirm," Teddy muttered. "Anyway, shouldn't we get some lunch? Al can ask them when we're eating."

"Could I get an ice cream?" Al asked suddenly, still thinking of the beaming blond boy.

"Of course you can," Ginny said, ruffling Al's hair again. "And because you've been so good for me, you can have an extra scoop."

"Really?" Al asked and Ginny leaned forward.

"But don't tell James," she whispered.

"Never," Al grinned and Ginny winked before ruffling Al's hair again.

As they walked down the crowded streets of Diagon Alley, Al spotted the beaming blonde boy from Gringotts sitting in an ice cream shop between his parents and eating a large ice cream with sprinkles, sauce, a big cherry on the top and a large wafer.

He was still wearing that big smile and Al caught the boy's eye and waved at him before moving on.

#Scorbus #Scorpius Malfoy #Draco Malfoy #Albus Severus Potter #Ginny Potter #Teddy Lupin #Gringotts Bank #Goblins #Hp Next Gen #Not Cursed Child Compliant

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its been a long time, boys. ud think that with this plague outbreak id have more time for shitty phone games, and ud be right! however, the time i normally might use to make tumblr posts has been taken up by reading lotr orc fanfiction non-stop for at least 1 full month. id still be in the thick of that obsession even now if only the fics would update. that is how i find you today folks, for the first time in many weeks i am staring at a screen with nothing to do. so come with me friends, theres no better way to fill the soulless void we are all in than reading a nice long tumbler post. 

disclaimer, first of all, a lot has happened, i prefer to keep these updates as plot spoiler free as possible but do to extenuating circumstances i feel like it is necessary to say, [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER BELOW]

that rowan fucking died,

i wont say exactly how, but i will say that her death was animated as were animations of myself and a few others reacting to our friend fresh corpse. obviously meant to be serious moments but the animations made it seem almost comical. 

i saw at least one post going around right after this update that was like ‘how could the game devs do this to us..... how could they hate rowan so.... this is punishment from on high’ and its like.... u guys do know what a story is right? the events of  a story are not typically done to punish less faithful fans, im pretty sure they were planning to kill rowan off from the beginning. this isnt disney im pretty sure the writers are not writing each chapter the night before its released by popular vote. 

that little “are we drifting away..?” scene with rowan makes more sense now. there was a bit in one of the scenes where the kids all reminisce on rowans life and the mc talks about it being the last real one on one time they had with rowan. a nice bitter sweet moment. i dont hate this turn of events. its a good reminder that actions have consequences and we are way past they days of “should i wear a hat or scarf?” its YA time now. 

i did manage to take 1 screenshot from this time, i had commented that before that when rowan said she didnt have many friedns that barnaby seemed to be hanging out with her without be there as a friend buffer and here was his reaction to her death:

;_;

the funniest part in all of this however, was of course cedericks reaction to rowans death “but she was so young....” LOL fuckin RIP.

lets see... what else.... i forget a lot of what happened but i think there was a time sensitive quidditch event in there somewhere? if so i  dont remember it. what i do remember of the quidditch pals is that im gonna play beater now, skye is being weird and cagey about it, andre is involved.... the others are there.....

sidenote, i love the shitty b characters they throw in to be like yes you know this person but no they are not cool enough for u to even think about befriending. the first one of those is face paint kid, and now we have another, who is a former beater girl with horrible bangs named bean who didnt go to any classes for a whole season so she could just play ball 24/7 and got kicked off the team.  this is a character who only exists to provide an explanation as to why there would be a beater position open but i love them on principle. 

right now im in the midst of another time sensitive event, this one is a bother-your-brother-at-work-day event where recent hogwarts graduate bill weasley is bullied by myself and his younger brother charlie into letting us go with him on one of his curse breaking jobs. 

so for those unfamiliar, bill works for the magical bank of england.... and his job seems to be “retrieving treasure” for said bank. in the books, there is a bit where he takes his family on one of his trips to egypt, where his job seemed to have been tomb plundering indiana jones style for the posterity of the english bank :X. i wont explain here why thats bad but its bad. 

the game devs however in this instance, at least SEEM to be doing what jkr couldnt do by attempting to salvage what is left of gringotts bank and form it into not a super shitty implications factory run by horrible jewish caricatures. bills mission is to retrieve a goblin made artifact that was taken by dragons, so no going to foreign countries to steal things from other people! only going to a dragon reserve to rifle through animal nests. they even appear to be providing us with a likable goblin character, egad!  

my hope for this event is that we get a plotline about how maybe, goblins arent shifty human haters for no reason, and in fact they hate magic humans for very understandable reasons, like being forced to go into hiding with the rest of the magical world even though only the humans wanted to do that, and maybe despite running the bank in england they still dont have a lot of political sway in the world of wizards and witches, and have to rely on the faith that said wizards and witches wont fuck them over at every turn, even as they see how they treat other non-humans, such as house elves, which they desperately dont want to end up like. and maybe they DONT only care about gold... maybe thats a human stereotype based on the fact that theres a long history of humans not respecting goblin ownership customs.... which i could get into..... but i wont.... i just....... very badly dont want them to suck ;__________;

i know i said its ok to still like a piece of media as long as you recognize the problems with it, and i do, but once this game is done im gonna stop hp posting all together. ive been feeling more and more uncomfortable making these posts lately.  

GENERAL GAME NOTES; theres been some new layout changes and such. 

most notably the stairs screen has been changed from a bulleted list of all locations to a screen with tiles picturing an image of each location along with the name + icons of all classes at each place. there is one additional location that is new and yet to be unlocked, and the dragon reservation is appearing temporarily as its own tile as well. i prefer this method of getting in and out of a temporary location to how they did it with car during the last christmas special. the stairs icon also now stays in the corner when you scroll through locations, allowing you to open the stairs menu without scrolling all the way back to the left. 

they also moved a few of the buttons down into the lower left corner rather than the left side & combined the story button and sidequest button. they added a little camera button as well, just like in the dormitory, that makes all the icons in a location disappear and look better for screenshots. 

the daily special add offer thing now has its own button in the top right corner of the screen, and idk if i mentioned it before but now there are daily challenges that appear in the sidequest screen that offer small rewards for completing 3 tasks per day + a better one if u get all 3. the prizes are things like 4 energy, 75 coins, 3 monster food. the better rewards are usually either more coins, 8 energy, 3 gems, or 1 notebook. i think that it does all the different color notebooks but i cant remember for sure if i ever saw the gold one up as a reward. i like this addition in any case. if you dont pick up ur reward by the end of the day, the next time u log on it will force u to stop and accept them, and if one of the rewards is energy and ur energy bar is full, it does not seem to stack beyond the bar so watch out.

 the character stats page is now more zoomed out so you can see your full character instead of just from the waist up. no change to the leaderboard. rowans face in the friendship roster is now a still black and white image that says ur friend may be gone but friendship is forever u-u. 

rowan has been removed from all classes. in the classes where the minigames involved her, those minigames have passed the mantle onto other friends in the class. in potions that person is now liz helping u find stuff off the shelves and in tranfiguration that person is badeea. bless these girls for helping mc get through it. touched my heart. 

theres been a few fun little “i know u have more free time now so uhhhh have some energy” prizes like they do sometimes when they dont update on schedule so thats been nice. just a few days ago they gifted us 3 gold notebooks the same way. :O. 

theres also been a few instances of a energy happy hour where for a limited time energy takes less time to refresh. normally it takes 4 mins for 1 energy to do this but during happy hour its like 2:30 mins. :U its all very interesting.

and that will have to do it for tonight my friends, ill do a post for the dragon event when its done because i do like it so far and i do like getting to bully bill with charlie. 

until next time, remember.......

#hp #harry potter #hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #bill weasley #goblins #charlie weasley #sirius business #rowan khanna #rambling #Thoughts #so sorry im still making these posts #i just want to see them through to the end now

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Chapter 24 - Epilogue

by Dan H

Wednesday, 01 August 2007Dan concludes his review, having abandoned any semblance of impartiality, bless his bitter little heart.~

Previously: Harry does nothing of any interest for 23 chapters. We finally destroy one single solitary Horcrux.

Chapter Twenty Four: The Wandmaker

In which we learn a bunch of shit about wands that will be contradicted by the end of the book.

This chapter opens with a genuinely touching scene in which Harry buries Dobby by hand (as opposed to using magic). It's really sweet, although perhaps I would have found it more affecting if Dobby hadn't died out of sheer authorial malice.

So Harry dithers over whether to go for the Hallows or the Horcruxes, and thinks about all the shit that's happened and what it could all mean. He spends a really, really long time thinking about Dumbledore, and what his plans for the whole thing were.

So then Harry goes and talks to the Goblin they rescued from the Malfoys (did I mention the goblin? There was a goblin). The Goblin is all "you totally rock Harry Potter, because you sometimes treat other races with the barest minimum possible level of decency when you remember to." You see, it's because Harry understands love.

So Harry goes and talks to Ollivander about his broken wand. I mean seriously, it's not even worth doing jokes about, is it.

Having got his penis-metaphor out of the way, Harry then talks some more about Wand-Lore with Ollivander. Here we learn that it is the wand that chooses the wizard, not the other way around, and that if you take somebody's wand by force, that wand will work better for you than one you just picked up somewhere.

In particular, the discussion goes like this:

"I took this wand from Draco Malfoy by force," said Harry. "Can I use it safely?" "I think so, subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master."

This all leads into a big discussion of the Elder Wand and how to take control of it you have to kill its previous owner or some such shit like that.

All of which turns out to be nonsense. In fact the rules for wand ownership seem to be roughly these:

Every wand has a True Owner.

When a wizard takes a wand from another wizard, he becomes the True Owner of every wand of which that wizard was previously True Owner.

"The Wand Chooses The Wizard" is crap, the thing about the Elder Wand changing hands through murder is crap. Like all the rest of the magic in Harry Potter, wands aren't mysterious or mystical, they follow simple rules which can be written down and followed very, very easily.

This will all become apparent later on, when it is revealed that Harry's act of yanking some wands out of Draco's hands made him the True And Destined Owner Of the Most Powerful And Destructive Wand In History.

Lame.

This chapter ends with another flash of Voldy-vision, as we see the Dark Lord claiming the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb. But it's okay, because he's not the True Owner of it, because of rules one and two above.

Chapter Twenty Five: Shell Cottage

In which Harry spends so much time sitting on his arse doing nothing that it's not even funny.

This chapter is short, at a mere thirteen pages, but that is precisely thirteen pages longer than it needs to be.

Harry gets all weird about how Dumbledore is totally alive, and totally talking to him by weird magical means. It's like that Buffy episode where Giles thinks that a poltergeist is Jenny, but it isn't. Only with more sucking.

Bill and Fleur carry on being shit. Fleur carries on 'aving zee most stupeed accent ever written, and doing that really fucking annoying thing that French characters in books always do, where they put one French word into every sentence so that they wind up sounding like they're failing their GCSE oral.

During the big slew of inactivity, Lupin shows up to tell everybody that Tonks has had their baby. His opening line of dialogue is truly, truly, truly stupid:

"It is I, Remus John Lupin ... I am a werewolf married to Nymphadora Tokns, and you, the Secret Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in case of emergency!"

Okay, I get that he's trying to convince them that he isn't a Death Eater using Polyjuice (it's nice that somebody in the Potterverse has worked out how trivial it is to use), but none of the information he gives is secret, except for the stuff about Bill being the Secret Keeper, and since the Fidelius charm already prevents people from getting into the cottage, it's a bit of a waste of breath.

Remus asks Harry to be godfather to his child, then leaves.

Harry decides to break into Gringotts with the help of a Goblin. He bargains the Sword of Gryffindor for this, because apparently it belongs to the Goblins anyway. In one of the few moments of (a) this book being remotely interesting and (b) my finding a piece of Fantasy Worldbuilding worth listening to, we learn that Goblins believe that anything they make remains the property of its original creator, and that if they make something for somebody else, that something should go back to the goblins once said somebody dies.

So they're off to Gringotts. Four hundred and fifteen pages in and we're onto Horcrux number two!

Chapter Twenty Six: Gringotts

In which they finally run out of fucking Polyjuice.

They Polyjuice Hermione into Bellatrix, give her Bella's original wand (which Ollivander conveniently identified for them), and head for Gringotts.

And they use the Invisibility Cloak, of course they use the invisibility cloak.

Anyway, Hermione has trouble working with Bellatrix's wand (because she "had not won its allegiance by taking it personally from Bellatrix" - although as we will learn by the end of the book, casting Expelliarmus on whoever did take it personally from Bellatrix, or on anybody who had ever cast Expelliarmus on Bellatrix at any point in the past, should also have worked). Blah blah some crap, blah blah diagon alley.

They head to Gringotts, where they are interrupted by another Death Eater, who asks Hermione-as-Bellatrix how she managed to get hold of a new wand, since the only Wandmaker in England is currently AWOL and hers was known to have been stolen by Harry Potter. Tragically, Hermione does not respond by saying "I don't know, the same place the new intake of Hogwarts students got theirs I suppose."

By the time they get to the main desk of Gringotts, the jig is totally up. All the crap with the Polyjuice and the Goblin and all the rest has been for nothing. From the security of his invisibility cloak, Harry uses the Imperius curse to get past the goblin on the desk. I'd like to think that this marked a genuine change in Harry's character, but it totally doesn't. He was in a difficult situation, he took the easy way out. I'd also point out that, compared to turning your target irreversibly into a drooling lunatic (like Hermione did to Xenophilius Lovegood) the Imperius Curse doesn't seem half bad. It gets your target to do what you want and go where you want, but so does a Confundus charm.

Just so we get the message that we're now in the company of dark, edgy Harry Potter, he uses the Imperius curse a couple more times, and each time it seems not so much like an unforgivable violation of somebody's free will, but a comparatively harmless way to get somebody to look the other way for five minutes. It's rather like the Jedi Mind Trick, in fact.

So they get deeper into Gringotts, and it's revealed that yet, they do have a couple of defences, in the shape of some water that washes away magical concealment (wouldn't it be better to have that before you get into the building - and shouldn't the Ministry invest in some of it as well?) and a blind dragon which is scared of loud noises.

Impregnable, huh?

So they head to the Lestrange vault, and realise that they find that every time they touch something, it multiplies itself and becomes burning hot. How the hell do the Lestranges expect to get anything out of there, I ask you? Or does it only work if you aren't the rightful owner of the vault? In that case, why not just rig the door to only open for the right person? They could use that "flesh memory" shit which snitches are apparently built with.

Seriously, though, this is what I hate (okay, one of the many things I hate) about Rowling's universe. It's all so arbitrary. Everything works according to these stupid rules which operate on the basis of pure plot-convenience. Like the poison in Book Six which "has to be drunk" in order to get at the Horcrux. All throughout this book, the "magic" is arranged so that the "only thing to do" is whatever the hell JK Rowling wants to have happen next. It's fucking lazy.

So they grab the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, but they lose the Sword of Gryffindor. Don't worry, though, they can still pull it out the Sorting Hat.

Actually, thinking about it, wouldn't that have been a better, faster way to get the Horcruxes together: just get a True Ravenclaw, a True Hufflepuff and a True Slytherin to yank the damned things out of the Sorting Hat. Except, of course, that wouldn't be the way it Had To Be Done.

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Final Hiding Place

It's Hogwarts.

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Missing Mirror

In which we get yet another dose of Dumbledore backplot.

So Harry is off to Hogwarts, because he saw in Voldemort's mind that the last Horcrux was there. He also saw that Voldemort had only just realised that his Horcruxes were in danger at all.

I mean, seriously, I get that he's arrogant, but you'd think that however overconfident you were, spending eleven years as less than a ghost would teach you some level of caution. I mean, I don't like leaving my keys where I can't see them, let alone fragments of my actual goddamned soul. But Voldemort, intent as he was on finding the Elder Wand, has just decided to take it on trust that his immortal soul is nice and safe and not hacked into bits with the Sword of Gryffindor.

Seriously, this guy totally deserves to get killed by his own rebounding curse.

Harry and co Apparate into Hogsmeade, where they immediately set off the alarm system and get set upon by death eaters, but the bartender at the inn takes the rap for them, and pulls them out of the shit.

I mean seriously, how many times can somebody get rescued from their own fuckups by smarter more capable people and still be considered a hero?

The bartender turns out to be none other than Aberforth Dumbledore. Woohoo, we're in for some more exciting Dumbledore backstory.

Aberforth tells us the exact same story we have heard six times already: Dumbledore hung out with Grindelwald for three months in the eighteen fifties, there was a fight and their sister got killed in the fallout. Aberforth thought it was Dumbledore's fault, Dumbledore thought it was Dumbledore's fault, Grindelwald ran off to be a Nazi somewhere.

Harry gets into Hogwarts through a secret passage which Neville created using the Room of Requirement. Because Neville rocks.

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Lost Diadem

In which Harry is systematically upstaged by every single character in the book.

Neville takes Harry into his secret military base in the Room of Requirement. Neville, incidentally, also has honest to god scars from standing up to the Death Eaters in charge of Hogwarts. Notice that's "standing up to" not "throwing a tantrum at" which was the best that our hero ever really managed.

Neville fucking rocks. No wonder Voldemort didn't mark Neville as an equal, he knew when he was outclassed.

It turns out that Dumbledore's Army, freed from having to put up with Harry's complete inability to get over himself for eight seconds, has gone on to actually be useful and effective. They offer to help Harry, and Harry has an attack of stupid.

"You don't understand." Harry seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours. "We - we can't tell you. We've got to do it - alone." "Why?" asked Neville.

Harry Potter everybody: whiny shit with a messiah complex, completely incapable of independent thought. Eventually they do in fact manage to convince him that he's being totally totally stupid. But wouldn't it have been nice if he'd just not been stupid in the first place?

So the DA go off to fight Death Eaters while Harry looks for the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, which somebody else told him might be the best place to start. Seriously, Harry does nothing for himself in this book. Or in any of the previous books come to think of it. But it's okay because he's "brave".

Harry and Luna try to sneak into the Ravenclaw common room to catch a look at the statue of their founder. In a rare moment of actually being kinda cool, we find that the Ravenclaw common room is not protected by a password but by a riddle (more of a koan, really: the question asked of Harry and Luna is "what came first, the phoenix or the flame?"). Needless to say, Luna answers the riddle, not Harry.

Worst. Hero. Ever.

They get to the common room, and are immediately ambushed by an interchangeable Death Eater.

Chapter Thirty: The Sacking of Severus Snape

In which Snape appears for ten seconds and utterly steals the show.

Oh look, they've summoned Lord Voldemort again. Pity they couldn't summon somebody actually scary instead.

So the Dark Lord is on his way, and all the people that are actually cool rush to the defence of Hogwarts. Harry, on the other hand, runs around looking for somebody to tell him what to do next. He eventually decides to start taking orders from the ghosts.

Everybody mills around in the corridors, and all the parents seem to have shown up. Molly Weasley continues to be completely fucking shit, insisting that Ginny can't fight because she's only sixteen.

Everybody gets ready for battle.

Oh, and Snape leaves so that he can get killed.

Chapter Thirty One: The Battle of Hogwarts

In which a battle presents no impediment to the interminable exposition.

While the rest of the student body are actually getting stuff done, and preparing to lay down their lives in battle against the Dark Lord, Harry goes off looking for a plot dump.

He finds it in the shape of the Grey Lady, ghost of Ravenclaw tower, who reveals that she is actually Helena Ravenclaw, daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. Wow. Words cannot explain how little I care about that. She also reveals that she stole her mother's diadem, and that she hid it in a tree in Albania (the very Albania where Voldemort once went! Amazing isn't it). Harry suddenly remembers that he saw a diadem in the Room of Lost Things in the previous book (funny how he can remember that, but not - say - things that happened two chapters ago). He goes to get it.

While Harry is doing this, Ron and Hermione dash of to have sex in the Chamber of Secrets, which Ron manages to open by imitating Harry's use of Parseltongue. That's right folks, the magical language Harry carries in his soul as a result of his connection with the Dark Lord can be picked up by any schlub who pays attention for five minutes.

Hermione destroys the cup offstage, so we miss the big plot point, and get the ghost story. Oh JK, you master storyteller you.

Then the Troika go to the Room of Requirement and start ransacking it for Horcruxes. It's a good thing Harry happened to see it in the previous book really, or they'd be totally fucked.

In the Room of Requirement they meet Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe and Goyle have been presented previously as a bit thick, but basically just your average bully types. In this scene, though, they're positively retarded. In, like, an actual way, rather than the way in which the whole book is retarded.

"We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion charms now! And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"

I've typed a lot of quotes into this article (I intended to do one a chapter, but I couldn't quite bring myself to), and fuck me JKR uses a lot of exclamation marks. Also: for fuck's sake, if you can cast a Dissillusionment charm, you should damned well be able to say "Dissillusionment charm".

Anyway, it turns out that Draco, Crabbe and Goyle have shown up to kill Harry, or bring him to the Dark Lord or something. I would like to believe that Draco is only doing this because he fears for the safety of his family, but since every single Slytherin turned against Hogwarts in the crunch, I think he's probably just being Evil.

So Crabbe or possibly Goyle summons Fiendfire, which is wild and uncontrollable and, conveniently, one of the few things that can destroy a Horcrux. This kills Crabbe, and allows Harry do demonstrate his heroism by rescuing Draco.

They get outside to see the penultimate (they think) Horcrux bleeding itself to death, and meet up with Fred, Percy and some nameless others. Percy gets quite a nice moment of redemption, where he apologises for trying to have a career when he should have just settled into virtuous poverty like the rest of his family. Then Fred gets killed in a horrible explosion.

Poor Fred. Ah well, it's not like he and George had distinct personalities anyway.

Chapter Thirty Two: The Elder Wand

In which Snape gets it for spurious reasons.

This chapter begins with Harry being Really Really Upset that Fred is dead.

The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant lain down their arms?

Oh just shut up! Just shut the fuck up JK Rowling. If you want us to mourn the death of a minor character, spend some fucking time developing them instead of telling us how we should all be really sad and shocked that they died.

So the battle rages on. Harry decides he's got to go find Voldemort, because he has to kill Nagini and end the plot once and for all. Also: he has to overhear Snape's final confrontation with Voldemort.

So Harry sneaks into the Shrieking Shack with his posse in tow, and we see Voldemort killing Snape in order to become True Master of the Elder Wand. Snape coughs his memories into a jar, and Voldemort calls an intermission in the battle, instead of just killing Harry where he stands.

I fucking hate this book.

Chapter Thirty Three: The Prince's Tale

In which all the fanfic turns out to have been right.

Snape was in love with Lily.

Harry is a Horcrux.

Dumbledore is an asshole.

Chapter Thirty Four: The Forest Again

In which the forest still fails to be remotely threatening.

This chapter makes me genuinely uncomfortable. Not in a "it's so dark and edgy and outside my comfort zone way". In a "I seriously am beginning to find JK Rowling morally despicable" kind of way.

Harry discovered, through Snape's memories, that he (Harry) is a Horcrux, and that the only way Voldemort can be defeated is if he (Voldemort) first kills Harry, thereby destroying the fragment of his (Voldemort's) soul which is inside him (Harry).

Harry, being the braindead personality-free fucktard he is, accepts this at face value, and marches off to die, pausing briefly to tell Neville to kill Nagini if he gets the chance. I'll say this for Harry, he knows how to leave things in the hands of better men.

He realises that "I open at the close" (the cryptic message inscribed on the snitch that Dumbledore gave him) means "I open when you're marching off to sacrifice yourself pointlessly". So the snitch opens, and he gets the (new, not-cursed) Resurrection Stone out of it. He puts on the ring and turns it, and all the dead people in the book (well, James, Lily, Lupin and Sirius at least) show up in spectral form to tell him how proud they are that he's off to commit suicide by means of Dark Wizard.

I mean, seriously, this is all kinds of fucked up.

Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily as though she would never be able to look at him enough. "You've been so brave." He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough. "You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are ... so proud of you." "Does it hurt?" The childish question had fallen from Harry's lips before he could stop it. "Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

I'm sorry, but that's just wrong on so many levels.

Now I admit, all through this book, I've been annoyed by the overprotective coddling of Molly Weasley, who won't let anybody under the age of thirty do anything that might be considered dangerous, but I'd even take that interfering old biddy over this creepy band of suicide groupies.

I mean seriously: the Potters both sacrificed their lives to save Harry, but now they're all in favour of him rushing headlong into his inevitable destruction? And what's with Sirius' "being dead is totally cool" speech? I mean seriously, this is exactly the kind of shit that Christian Fundamentalists have fits over, and with good reason.

Harry confronts Voldemort. Voldemort kills him.

I really, really wish this article could end here.

Chapter Thirty Five: King's Cross

In which JK Rowling, through Dumbledore, tells us how to feel about Harry.

I almost cannot bring myself to write about this chapter, in which Harry has a vision of Dumbledore in King's Cross station, and Dumbledore explains the plot to him again for old times' sake.

So it turns out that Harry isn't dead after all, because of the Very Special Bond between Harry and Voldemort, but Voldemort did ironically manage to destroy the fragment of his soul which was inside Harry all this time.

Wow. Convenient.

Then Dumbledore gives us a big speech about how fucking wonderful Harry is. You see Dumbledore sought the Deathly Hallows himself, but he sought them for bad reasons. Which in this case means "any reason at all." Harry, on the other hand, is Good and Pure, because he went through his entire life without having a fucking clue what he was doing. Because Harry was a passive little pussy who never did anything, never achieved anything, never had any ambition or even motivation.

"You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."

So Harry, by blindly and unquestioningly allowing Voldemort to kill him, has shown himself to be a better man than any other.

I'm sorry, but I find that genuinely offensive.

I'm going to go into more detail about this in my post-book wrap up, because I think it bears some close analysis, but for now I'll make a couple of simple points.

Every single man, woman, and child in Hogwarts is risking their life to defeat Voldemort. Every single one of them is confronting death (or, if you prefer, "Death") and every single one of them has accepted that there are far worse things than dying. But their sacrifice doesn't count, because they're actually fighting, which is to say, they are trying to survive. In the new morality Rowling wants us to accept, the only true way to show courage is to lie down and just accept death.

Furthermore, Harry's stoic acceptance of his mortality is grossly undermined by the fact that he actually doesn't die. His great sacrifice is actually just another instance of him doing nothing by himself, and relying on other people to make things turn out alright.

Consider: if Harry actually had died, his mastery of the Elder Wand would have died with him, and Voldemort would have been able to carry on slaughtering to his heart's content. He would have still had one Horcrux left, and Hogwarts would have been destroyed.

This is the emotional and moral crux of the book, and it sucks beyond the telling of it.

Chapter Thirty Six: The Flaw in the Plan

In which all that seemed wrong was now right and those who deserve to are certain to live a long and happy life, ever after.

Voldemort seems to have collapsed, as well you might after nuking your own soul. He sends Narcissa to check whether Harry is alive, but when she realises that he is, she asks him (in a whisper) whether Draco is still alive.

Seriously, I love the Malfoys. I mean compare Narcissa - whose first and only concern is for her child, so much so that she risks defying the Dark Lord who, let's face it, isn't exactly known for his forgiving nature, just to know if he's alive or dead - compare her with Lily Potter, who just moments ago was cheerfully watching her son go to his certain death.

So Voldemort carries Harry's "dead" body to the front lines and does his big "ha ha, I've won you bunch losers" speech.

Everybody acts really sad that Harry is dead. Then Neville rushes the Dark Lord. Because Neville fucking rocks.

The Dark Lord disarms him, binds him, and then puts the Sorting Hat on his head and sets it on fire. Dude, you know she's reaching when she kills the goddamned Sorting Hat.

Neville breaks free of Voldemort's curse (which I like to think is Neville being a badass, but it is later revealed to be the Power of Harry's Big Love Death Sacrifice), pulls the Sword of Gryffindor out of the sorting hat, and totally decapitates Nagini. Because he has had it with this motherfucking snake, oh yes.

So then the shit hits the fan, and Harry jumps under his invisibility cloak again. There's a bunch of really badly written action. Molly Weasley takes out Bellatrix Lestrange in what our esteemed editor would identify as the Battle Between The Virtuous Woman And the Sinful Woman. Harry finally reveals himself, and reveals too that he has learned from Dumbledore the capacity to make long stupid speeches.

I'm going to reproduce this in full, and I'll say beforehand that Voldemort is totally right about everything:

"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me." Voldemort hissed. "Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today Potter?" "Nobody," Harry said simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good ..." "One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?" "Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

Umm ... yes. Yes to every single one of them. At no point was it suggested that Lily Potter deliberately invoked ancient magic when she put herself in front of her son. Harry certainly didn't go to the graveyard by choice, and he had no idea that his wand would magically prevent Voldemort from hurting him. So yes, it was in fact all accidental. Harry Potter: the boy who was too dumb to die.

There's one more bit I want to draw attention to in this speech, because I find it so abominably offensive.

"I was ready to die to stop you hurting these people ... I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding?"

This comes back to my point from further up (and I'll come back to it again, because it genuinely sickens me). Why the fuck is Harry's sacrifice more significant than anybody else's? Why did Harry's "willingness to die" create a special magic forcefield around Hogwarts, but not the willingness to die of every single other person in the damned school?

Essentially, Harry is setting himself up here as a literal Christ figure. The perfect innocent, going meekly and willingly to his death in order to take the place of the whole world. The thing is, though, Jesus was supposed to actually be God. His sacrifice (according to Christian tradition) was greater than the sacrifices of normal men because he was not a normal man. He was God, suffering as a man for the sins of man. Harry Potter is just a miserable self-involved kid with a martyr complex.

Harry carries on talking for another three pages. Then Voldemort tries to curse him, but his curse rebounds because of that bullshit with the Elder Wand really belonging to Harry because he "conquered" Draco.

Of course with the Dark Lord fallen, his entire army disperses without a word.

They collect their dead, and we find that Mr and Mrs Remus Lupin are among the fallen. Harry is momentarily sad.

The final page of the book shows Harry with the Elder Wand, which is now most definitely His. In a scene which I think sums up the vacuous nature of the entire series, he uses the Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick, to magically repair his old wand.

Because lord knows, we wouldn't want the events of the last six hundred pages to have any consequences now, would we.

Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later

In which we learn that nothing that happened in the entire series meant shit.

Harry is married to Ginny. Ron is married to Hermione.

Back when I read The Order of the Phoenix, one of the few things I liked about it was the fact that Ginny seemed to have got over her crush on Harry. I thought that it was a refreshingly subtle, and subtly mature message to put into a children's book: sometimes you just get over people.

It saddens me greatly that JK Rowling, divorcee and single parent that she is, would feel the need to present such a naive view of romance. It seems like she spent so long talking about Death, she couldn't find anything to say about Life beyond "you grow up, get married, and have children."

Harry and Ginny's children are called James, Lily, and (as I am sure you already know) Albus Severus.

I think this, more than anything else, shows how deeply immature the series is. Harry goes through seven years of constant danger, he suffers torment, loss and even death. He touched the soul of the greatest Dark Wizard who ever lived, and practised the blackest of magic when he was forced to. But has he grown as a person? Has he changed? Not at all. His life still revolves around James and Lily, Dumbledore and Snape.

I also find it more than a bit offensive that Ginny (who we learn in

this interview

goes on to be an international sports superstar) doesn't seem to get any say in naming her own kids. I know it's an epilogue, I know it's sweet and everything, but her brother died at Hogwarts as well. The epilogue essentially says "And Harry Finally Got The Happy Family He'd Always Longed For". Never once does it consider the fact that after seven years he might want something else.

Coming Soon: My thoughts on the book as a whole, and the series in general.

Wardog at 15:46 on 2007-08-10I'm sorry I keep quoting David and Hannah at you but they're one of the few people to whose arguments I would naturally grant credence and they both very much enjoyed DH. David pointed out that there's something very different in fighting in a war in which there's a chance you might get killed and knowing walking to your death - thus Harry's sacrifice has more nobility and courage attached to it than you're giving him credit for. I guess it's the difference between rushing the Bastille and going to the guillotine..permalink - go to top

Dan H at 16:00 on 2007-08-10There is indeed a difference between fighting in a war in which there's a chance you might get killed and knowingly walking to your death. Knowingly walking to your death is easier. Harry doesn't really have a choice. He's "the chosen one". Colin Creevey, however, could have just walked away from Hogwarts and nobody would have thought the less of him for it. I'd also point out that Harry didn't sacrifice himself to *save* anybody. He sacrificed himself to *kill* somebody.permalink - go to topArthur B at 17:10 on 2007-08-10I have to say that I'm also deeply uncomfortable with any situation where deliberate suicide is actually a good idea. Walking bravely to the guillotine, I don't count as suicide, because you don't normally have much choice as to whether or not you get your head hacked off: the only choice is whether you cry and whine and piss your pants, or whether you walk with your head held high and, possibly, impress the crowd with your stoic acceptance of your fate. Walking to a duel which you are going to deliberately lose, because you think a loophole in the metaphysics in the universe will allow you to become Master of Death and give you the power to be the Messiah, isn't the act of a brave or noble individual. It's the act of a paranoid schizophrenic.permalink - go to topDan H at 17:15 on 2007-08-10He's not even doing it because he knows about the loophole, though. He's doing it for the same reason he does everything (see next article): Because He Thinks Dumbledore Wanted Him To.permalink - go to topArthur B at 17:31 on 2007-08-10So it is, in fact, literally true that if Dumbledore asked Harry to jump off a cliff, Harry would do it. (Which is kind of odd, in a series of books where mistrusting authority is supposedly a recurring theme.)permalink - go to topWardog at 21:51 on 2007-08-11I can't believe I'm trying to defend JK. I really have no investment in this, which is why I'm doing such an appalling job of it. But surely Harry has just as much right to walk way than Colin Creevy? He could go and live with Hermione's parents in Australia. I mean, through Snape's memories Harry sees what Dumbledore always intended for him (that he should nobly sacrifice his life) and *chooses* to do it anyway. An alternative reading might be that Harry realises that, rather than run around desperately trying to find alternative solutions to the Voldemort Problem, the adults around him have essentially groomed him into a passive matyr figure who will Do The Right Thing, even though it means his own death. And by the time he realises how thoroughly screwed he is, it's in the middle of the final battle and there's nothing much he can do short of pegging it. To *choose* what other people want you to do is still a choice, and after all that's happened to him, that Harry still has enough love in his heart to lay down his life is, y'know, pretty damn noble. For the record, I don't actually buy this. I don't actually buy that it's harder to walk knowingly into death than take a chance on it in a battle. Given a choice, I'd go for the battle and hope to find somewhere to hide.permalink - go to topWendy B at 23:29 on 2007-08-13Daniel --- I just wanted to say that you are not alone in your suffering. I've been working on a review of DH from my Livejournal site, but the 7th book seems to have killed my will to write. I am reading the book one more time to possibly find redeeming value, besides inducing millions of otherwise illiterate youngsters to get interested in reading. Beyond the insufferable plot details/holes you chronicle above, the series up through B6 appeared to be a gigantic and elegant mystery puzzle to be unveiled. And then on 7/21 we discover that it was an UNSOLVABLE mystery --- in B7 she introduced new characters and clunky plot devices. at the 11th hour (it burns! it burns!), to contort and bring the damn story to a close. All her prior book "clues" that fandom crawled over with a tweezer --- they weren't clever clues at all. Bah...but I loved this essay and laughed through the entire series. I might not write a thing but just refer folks here. Wendypermalink - go to topDan H at 15:13 on 2007-08-16the series up through B6 appeared to be a gigantic and elegant mystery puzzle to be unveiled. And then on 7/21 we discover that it was an UNSOLVABLE mystery I think that's part of why I found the last book so unsatisfying. While I wasn't ever massively into the "puzzle box" aspect of the books, I can understand other people being into it. But the last books lost sight of even that giving us, as you say, a bunch of new characters and clunky plot devices which came out of nowhere (or at the very least, out of previously untouched areas of her notes). If you do manage to get your review finished, I'll be very interested in seeing it. permalink - go to topWendy B at 16:18 on 2007-09-16Daniel...you might get some traffic to these articles as I posted the links within an essay I just posted to LiveJournal's hp_essays: http://community.livejournal.com/hp_essays/239017.html Wendy Bpermalink - go to topDan H at 12:24 on 2008-03-25On the Dumbledore side of things, I just don't understand how she can have a character that she spends half the book going off on a tangent about their unnecessary backstory (although it is a tangent away from that fucking tent so maybe I shouldn't complain) - the point of which is supposed to reveal that he turned away from power and ideas of sacrificing people for the 'greater good' - only to have him control and use every single character to the point where the entire book is just enacting his great Masterplan! Surely that contradicts a bit?!! JK is chronic for this: her Good characters behave exactly the same way as her Evil characters, except that everything that is a sign of an evil character's Evilness is a sign of a Good character's Goodness. Cases in point: Draco is evil because he "bullies" Harry. James is good because he "sticks up" for people against Snape (Harry similarly does a lot of "sticking up" for people that involves dogpiling defenseless Syltherins). Umbridge is a "racist" because she thinks Hagrid being a half-giant makes him a bad teacher. Harry, Ron and Hermione treat the full giants with patronizing contempt, and this is a sign that they're great humanitarians. Voldemort hates Muggles because he's evil. All the other Wizard treat Muggles like vermin but it's okay because they're endearingly careless about it. Then of course there's the fact that Harry's furious desire for vengeance is apparently a sign of his great capacity for "love". p.s ooh look, my first post. How exciting :) Welcome aboard.permalink - go to tophttps://me.yahoo.com/a/tjLTVHEducFb4rKDHU5DukBHtQcCbTVMEEq55v0CxV4-#5e156 at 20:29 on 2009-07-29Dan doesn't realise just how absolutely spot on he is. I remember the Magnet series in 1930 where the Remove overthrow a demonic temporary headmaster from Greyfriars. Did anyone else read the Magnet when it was still being published? DH should have followed the Hogwarts front with Neville and Luna leading the rebellion against the Carrows. Or better yet, Voldemort should have made himself headmaster and Neville should have barred him out, that would have made for an infinitely better story. Voldemort really was no more capable than the wicked headmasters who sometimes got foisted on Greyfriars were. But instead... JKR wrote so much about nothing happening that she seemed as nihilistic as Samuel Beckett.permalink - go to topGamer_2k4 at 21:20 on 2011-06-02I know I've been guilty of some serious comment thread necromancy as of late, but I've got a question. "I think so, subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master." Is this an inaccurate transcription, or does the book really have run-on sentences like that? I've seen a few other quotes from the book with similar use of commas, and it's almost painful to think that writing that bad can make it past an editor and into the final version of a book.permalink - go to topDan H at 21:36 on 2011-06-02I'm honestly not sure if I transcribed that right or not, although to be honest I'm not overly fussed by slightly long sentences and I think Orwell would have supported the choice of a comma over the semicolon (although I think the line would sound better split into two sentences: "I think so. Subtle laws govern...").permalink - go to tophttp://sunnyskywalker.livejournal.com/ at 02:52 on 2011-06-03I don't remember about that particular quote, but I do remember noticing several instances of comma splices while reading the book and wondering why the editor didn't, as Dan suggests, split the sentence in two or something, because there didn't seem to be any good reason to have them. (I accept that sometimes there is a good reason. JKR didn't have it.)permalink - go to tophttp://vonnemattheus.livejournal.com/ at 00:21 on 2012-05-04The Horcrux hunt should have been a dangerous and exciting adventure, instead of the Camping Trip from Hell plot you get in sitcoms like Bottom. It was like watching someone else play Zelda really, really badly. Also, I thought there was an expiry date on the Mother's Love charm that keeps Harry's arse above ground? The best part of the book is when Harry is at his parents grave were, for some reason, he starts thinking of them rotting underground. JK even uses the word "Mouldering".permalink - go to tophttp://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/ at 03:01 on 2012-05-04Inspired by that scene, I buried my old HP books in the backyard after Deathly Hallows, but when I dug them up recently, they weren't nearly as decomposed as I had hoped. I don't think the maggots or the bacteria liked them very much either.permalink - go to topFurare at 13:28 on 2012-05-04Since this article was bumped onto the front page again, I noticed the comment about JKR's abuse of commas. I was reminded of reading the climax of Half Blood Prince; it's supposed to be really exciting and everything, and all I remember thinking is "Wow, are there four separate clauses separated by commas in that sentence?" I thought that several times. It's really quite shockingly badly-written in places.permalink - go to top

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows #J.K. Rowling #Dan H

[deathishauntedbyhumans]

The Rules

It’s their eighth year, and Draco is back at Hogwarts, although he’s heavily monitored by his professors and by the Ministry itself. Harry starts to talk to him, and finds out about the list of ridiculous rules Draco has to follow. He intends to do something about it. Fluff. 

Stranger: [8th year AU; Draco is given the option of finishing his schooling or going to Azkaban, he chose school, though he’s still heavily monitored and strict, ridiculous rules are enforced upon him while he finishes his year. He’s only one of the few, if any other, Slytherins of his year that returned. Currently set in the Great Hall, messages through magically transported notes.] If you and your friends could stop staring at me, that'd be appreciated. DM

You: Sorry. HP They only looked because I did. HP

Stranger: I'm just asking you to stop. DM

You: Right. Sorry. HP

Stranger: Right. DM

You: [...] Why doesn't anyone talk to you? HP

Stranger: Potter, it doesn't take a genius to guess why nobody wants to talk to the resident Death Eater. DM

You: And it doesn't take a genius to know that that's bullshit. HP

Stranger: The majority of people disagree with that. DM

You: That doesn't make them right. You weren't a Death Eater by choice, and you obviously have a chance at redeeming yourself if you're here. HP

Stranger: You don't know what you're talking about. DM

You: Malfoy, if anyone in the Wizarding World knows what they're talking about, it would be me. HP

Stranger: [...] I'm not here by choice, either. DM

You: I'm aware of that. But they gave you a choice. A lot of people didn't get that. HP

Stranger: I know. DM

You: They gave you a choice for a reason. People should be able to understand that. HP

Stranger: That doesn't mean they think I'm trustworthy or necessarily capable of redeeming myself, either. DM

You: Those things should go hand in hand, because you wouldn't be here if those things weren't true. HP

Stranger: I'm still considered a prisoner, here. DM

You: Which is ridiculous. They can't expect you to redeem yourself unless they actually give you a chance. HP If they don't give one to you, you just have to make one for yourself. HP

Stranger: The only thing I'm trying to do is to get through this year. DM

You: That's the first step, though, isn't it? If you get through the year with everything they've thrown at you, they're going to have to lay off sooner or later. HP

Stranger: That's an optimistic thought but I highly doubt that's going to happen. DM

You: There are people that can advocate for it if it doesn't. HP

Stranger: Maybe. DM

You: Definitely. HP

Stranger: I'm just trying to be realistic. DM

You: So am I. Realistically, if you aren't given the chances you deserve at the end of the year, there are people that would make sure to at least try and fight for them for you. HP

Stranger: And I'm saying that I've personally encountered proof to the opposite of that. DM

You: What do you mean? HP

Stranger: Nobody wants to help a Death Eater, is what I'm saying. DM

You: You're not a Death Eater, Malfoy. And I would. HP

Stranger: The Dark Mark on my arm isn't going away. To the eyes of the Ministry and the general public, I'm a Death Eater. DM

Stranger: And you're insane, so you're obviously an exception to the rule. DM

You: I'm not insane. I would do what I could because you deserve as much. You're NOT a Death Eater. Bollucks on what the general public thinks. The Dark Mark won't go away, no, but the Mark doesn't define you. It never has. HP

Stranger: Did you write that down beforehand or did you just come up with that little speech on the spot? DM

Stranger: And you're insane, certifiably. Sane people don't do things you've done. DM

You: I came up with it just now. Thought it was rather nice, honestly. HP To be fair, it's probably fitting if I'm not sane. Sane people probably haven't been through what I have. HP

Stranger: Of course you did. DM The most prominent thing coming to mind is when you broke into Gringotts and broke out on a dragon. Insane. DM

You: What, you didn't like it? HP It was a necessary step in defeating Voldemort! It wasn't as though we had many options. HP

Stranger: You always come up with the most outlandish nonsense and consider it an appropriate action plan. DM

You: Sometimes it's the only thing that works. HP It doesn't really matter if I am insane or not, you know. The Ministry acts like the sun shines out of my arse, nowadays. If I stepped in, they'd have to at least consider it. HP

Stranger: I don't think it would help in this instance. It'd be one thing if the professors agreed with you, but they're...DM They're not exactly allies in this situation. DM

You: The professors? HP

Stranger: Who do you think is enforcing the Ministry regulations put against me? The school ghosts? DM

You: Alright, alright. Obviously, the professors are. I just hadn't given it much thought. HP Have they been treating you unfairly? HP

Stranger: Unfairly is one word for it, I suppose. DM

You: What do you mean? HP

Stranger: I told you, I'm much more like a prisoner here than a student. DM I'm usually ignored in terms of when I'd try to answer questions, but on the flip side of that, my work is also judged more harshly. DM

You: That's ridiculous. I wish I could say I can't believe it, but with the way I've seen them go back and forth on favouritism over the years... HP Do you want me to try and talk to any of them? The worst of it? HP

Stranger: No, don't. They'll know I said something and it'll only get worse. DM

You: They're professors, Malfoy, not children. HP

Stranger: I'm being serious. DM

You: You shouldn't have to just... sit idly by while they bully you. It's wrong. HP

Stranger: I don't have any other choice. DM

You: [...] Come sit with us. HP

Stranger: No. DM

You: Why not? HP

Stranger: Aside from the obvious bit about it not being a good idea to sit with people my family and I have directly hurt? DM [...] I have to sit within the professors' lines of sight at the end of the table like this. DM

You: Then I'll come and sit by you. HP

Stranger: Don't. DM

You: Why not? HP

Stranger: You have your own friends, Potter. DM Besides, I have to leave soon anyway. I have a limited time frame to get to class and it's easier to deal with it if I'm ahead of the crowd of people leaving the Great Hall. DM

You: What if I'm trying to make a new one? HP Tomorrow, then. HP

Stranger: You're very insistent about this. DM

You: You don't deserve to be put in hell because of what you had to do to survive during the war. HP

Stranger: You make it sound much more noble than it was. DM

You: I have a habit of doing that. HP Still. I believe what I said. HP

Stranger: And what if I don't believe it? DM

You: Then you don't give yourself enough credit. HP

Stranger: [...] I have to run. Literally. You can still talk to me but for the next five minutes I'll just be focusing on getting to class. DM

You: Good luck. HP I still think it's stupid, all the rules they're making you follow. I don't know how you keep them all straight. HP

Stranger: I had to write them down. DM

You: That makes more sense, actually. HP

Stranger: I can show you sometime, if you're that curious. It's a long list. DM

You: I can only imagine. I'm up for seeing it sometime. HP

You: ((brb))

Stranger: I always carry it around. Alright, I have to go. DM [delay] I hate the layout of this entire castle so much. DM

You: What happened? HP

Stranger: The moving staircases. DM

You: Oh, no. HP You got stuck somewhere? HP

Stranger: No, but I got seriously close to breaking a limb. DM

You: Merlin. HP Are you alright now? HP

Stranger: I'm fine. Got to class within the time I needed to. Barely. DM

You: That's good. I can't imagine they'd let you off easily, even with a broken limb, if they've been so hard on you already. HP

Stranger: They probably wouldn't, no. DM

You: It's so wrong. HP

Stranger: It is what it is. DM

You: I suppose. But it doesn't make it right. HP

Stranger: There's nothing to be done but get through it. DM

You: Which you will. HP I still don't see how speaking to the professors would make things worse. HP

Stranger: It would, believe me. DM Take the amount of time I have to get between classes. It was, at first, 5-8 minutes. I complained about that being ridiculous, and they just knocked it down to 5 minutes even. DM

You: Are you serious?! HP There has to be some way to make things more bearable. HP

Stranger: I wish I was kidding. DM There doesn't seem to be. DM

You: At least you've only got to deal with it for the rest of this year, I guess. HP

Stranger: That's a lot. DM

You: Yeah. It is. HP Maybe there are loopholes? In the list? HP

Stranger: Not really. If the Ministry is anything after the war, it's thorough. Don't want the pesky Death Eater student thinking he can control the system. DM

You: What if there was an appeal to the Ministry to change the rules? HP

Stranger: Hilarious. DM

You: I'm serious, Malfoy. HP

Stranger: That's the most insanely optimistic thing you've ever said, and you say a lot of insane and optimistic things. DM

You: I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment. HP It's not THAT insane, though. I could get Hermione to help. She's good at finding the right words for this sort of thing. Any appeal with my name on it would carry weight. Something could come of it. HP

Stranger: I'm not going to make Granger get involved in helping me. DM

You: You wouldn't be making her do anything. HP

Stranger: It would. DM

You: No. If I asked for her help, it would be me asking her for help. And she wouldn't do it unless she wanted to. HP

Stranger: And she shouldn't want to. DM

You: She would do it. HP

Stranger: Why? DM

You: [...] Believe it or not, we've actually talked about this before. The war changed a lot of things, but it also put a lot of things into perspective. The things we said and did to each other as children don't really matter, in the long run. We all had to do things we weren't proud of, later on. She believes the same thing that I do about people deserving chance to redeem themselves. Including you. HP

Stranger: [...] That's- DM You're all too damn nice for your own good, you know. DM

You: Maybe. I don't know. There's not enough nice in this world right now. HP

Stranger: Fair enough. DM

You: Would you let us do it, then? Appeal to the Ministry on your behalf? HP

Stranger: [long delay] I suppose. DM

You: Then we'll do it. HP

Stranger: Thank you. DM

You: You know I'm not doing this so you'll thank me, right? HP

Stranger: I'm still thanking you anyway. DM

You: Then... you're welcome. HP

Stranger: [...] I think I'll just copy down the list and send it to you that way. It's long and I get nervous if I don't physically have the thing. DM

You: That's understandable. Whichever way works for you, works for me. HP

Stranger: Okay, good. DM

You: Hopefully, we can get it a bit shorter. Or a bit less extensive, at the very least. HP

Stranger: Less tight would be the best way, I think. It's...rigid. DM

You: I can tell. Five minutes to get from class to class? That's hardly enough. HP

Stranger: Especially when I have classes across the castle from each other. DM

You: Exactly. It ISN'T enough time. At all. HP

Stranger: With the amount of sprinting I've been doing, I could potentially consider a career as an athlete. DM

You: At least that's something. I suppose it's one way to stay in shape. HP

Stranger: That's fair. DM

You: Although I can't say the pro outweighs the cons, in this case. HP

Stranger: No, obviously not. DM

You: Still, a potential career in athletics is better than nothing. HP This whole thing is entirely pointless. What do they honestly think you're going to do in the time between your classes? HP

Stranger: Potter, let's be realistic, as it stands right now I don't have a potential career in much of anything at all. DM I think their idea was that I might idle around and hex someone or do some other nefarious thing, I don't know. DM

You: That's because people are ridiculous. HP Right, because not having to sprint from class to class equates to having enough time to be nefarious, or whatever. It's barely even conceivable. HP

Stranger: That's pretty much the premise of all of the regulations. Their basic reasoning is that I'm potentially dangerous and measures need to be taken to counteract that. DM

You: Potentially dangerous, my arse. If you were going to do something, these regulations wouldn't actually stop you because you wouldn't give two shits about them. HP

Stranger: I considered saying that exact thing, but I figured it'd only make it worse. DM

You: Probably a good call. I can't believe that the officials are still so blind, after everything that's happened. HP

Stranger: They see themselves as preventing future conflict. DM

You: But by doing what they're doing, they're only going to breed it. HP

Stranger: It's a mess. DM

You: You can certainly say that again. HP

Stranger: I'm just exhausted. DM

You: Do you even get time to sleep properly? HP

Stranger: Not really, if I want to get my work done. DM

You: How in Merlin's name do they expect you to get your work done if you can't get any sleep? HP

Stranger: They see that as my own problem. DM

You: Of course they do. HP

Stranger: If I'm a student, I'm supposed to do my work, that's the logic. DM

You: And if you're a person, you're supposed to be able to sleep. That sounds like logic. HP

Stranger: And I agree. DM

You: I think I'm going to end up making a list of my own. It's going to have all the reasons why the things on your list are ridiculous. HP

Stranger and I both needed to sleep... 

#drarry #drarry rp #drarry roleplay #harco #harco rp #draco malfoy #harry potter #harry potter rp #harry potter roleplay #hp rp #omegling #omegle rp #omegle roleplay #fandom rp #fandom roleplay #fandom #rp #roleplay #my rp #my roleplay

[vicweasleya]

Hey all, I’m Jules!! I’m 21, PST timezone, your resident patron st. of chipotle and this is Victoire ‘I Speak Dragon’ Weasley my punk, dragon & family loving, queer child!! Under the cut is a lot of info on Vic and it’s pretty long ( though I cut it ) but my other characters won’t be as long!! If still need to fix her profile but her pronouns are she/her & gon/gons for the ambitious. If you want to plot you can like this or send a bat signal or something and I’ll come to you.  I’m also playing Jane Longbottom, Adele Rosier, Cecilia Diggory, Riley Hayes & Clarabel Moreau!

BASICS

Character Name: Victoire Apolline Delacour-Weasley

VICTOIRE: Seventeen years of hearing stories about those who died on her birthday before her. Almost a decade of not celebrating her own birthday when she realized what it meant to others. Of course, she understands that this is the burden she carries – while her cousins bear namesakes of those who had fallen before them, she is the painful reminder of the day they lost people – so they could win freedom. She is the h e l l f i r ethat is left after a victory, scorching technicolor brutal memories into the minds of those who were left behind.  APOLLINE: The french derivative of the name Apollonia which comes from the Greek god, Apollo. Apollo, the god of the sun, prophecy, music, beauty, healing, poetry, plague and so much more. It could be said that Victoire is her own brand of beautiful – of course the Veela genes help ( or do they? ) but if there’s anything she’s gotten from this namesake it’s the love of music. She’s sure that if she wasn’t going to work with dragons when she was older it would be with music – something she practically speaks as a language. The name might sound too flowery or too soft for Victoire – but her grandmother from which she was given this name was still a Veela. She still had the siren song that was deadly to almost associated with her name. Still, just because Victoire is comparable to a constantly raging storm – she has times where parts of her mother and grandmother comes out.   DELACOUR: While she embraces the Weasley, Victoire also embraces her French heritage. If there’s anything of her mother, of this side of the family that comes out – it’s when she speaks French. She refuses to call her mother anything but maman, and will quickly switch to French around her during Weasley-Potter-Lupin gatherings at the burrow to make her feel even a little more comfortable. For Victoire, the Delacour name embodies softness and embodies femininity that she’s not always connected to. It reminds her that she’s not been alone in being discriminated against or objectified, that others understand what it’s like to be in her place to some extent. It’s then that she’s able to embrace the girl, that she’s able to feel like one and not always so at war with her body and herself. WEASLEY: If the other parts of her name didn’t already come with enough precedence – perhaps the name ‘Weasley’ was the icing on the cake. She couldn’t be prouder to be a Weasley, no matter how much fussing her grandmother does or how everyone is in everyone’s business – Victoire knows she is lucky. Vic is well aware of how privileged she is & how her infamous family of blood traitors are lucky to have the life they do.

Year: Seventh Year. This makes Victoire seventeen years old.

Pronouns & Gender:   She/Her or Gon/Gons. Victoire identifies as a Demigirl.

C h a n g i n g. From the minute Victoire was born, she was always fidgeting, alwaysmoving and her first display of magic was at 4 years old, when she tried to change her hair blue like Teddy’s. Instead, it changed her beautiful crop of ginger hair into a dirty blonde. Often, she’d find herself envying Teddy’s abilities to change, feeling uncomfortable in her skin and angry that it wasn’t as easy for her. As she grew older, she came to understand  what her body was, what it would be and that she’d never be able to change herself like Teddy or change herself at all. Any change that she’d make would be permanent and she found herself not wanting that in the slightest. Not wanting to limit herself because while Victoire loved her feminine side – there was something she felt growing in her soul that was just … something else. It didn’t have a label but it became her, it was her, and it was confusing but it was who she was. Victoire did research and after a while the closest thing she could find to what she felt her gender was the term:demigirl. Of course, after she realized this she told her parents, getting nothing but support from them. A reason they’ve let Victoire dye her hair so much and wear clothes that some parents would have heart attacks at, is so she feels like she has an option to be who she is. Even though they know that their child will be who she is with or without their permission, they figure helping her along the way in a world where there are many people who are against what her gender is & think it’s unnatural. They are Vic’s parents after all and after a war where they lost family and friends who gave their lives so their children could have freedom  – it seems trivial to ever fuss over something like gender.

House: Slytherin

Taurus is the second sign of the zodiac and is associated with the neck and throat. Positive characteristics include stamina, patience, practicality, frugality, creativity, a love of beauty and nature, faithfulness, loyalty, determination, sensuality, and affection.Negative characteristics are stubbornness (there’s a reason why stubborn people are called bullheaded), materialism, resistance to change, laziness, a terrible temper once aroused, prejudice, and sometimes an unimaginative nature. In this House, the traits associated with Taurus that will be most emphasized are materialism and loyalty. These Slytherins will be almost blindly loyal to their friends and allies, and they will value wealth and the trappings of wealth over more intangible assets.Determination will also be emphasized. All Slytherins are determined, but the stubborn Taurus Slytherin is unstoppable once they have their mind set on something. A large number of Slytheirns in this sign work for Gringotts after graduating from Hogwarts, for they are very good with money.

NICKNAME[S]: Vic, Tweety Bird, Valk, Toire, Uses the alias Freddie Bowie when getting arrested in the Muggle world. Blood Status: 1/8th veela. Special Powers & Abilities: 1/8 Veela. Allegiance: Unaffiliated. Student Functions: Care of Magical Creatures Club. Dueling Club. Face Claim Choices: Penelople Mitchell, Maddie Hasson, Alona Tal, Amber Heard,  Eliza Taylor, Adele Exarchopoulos, Natalie Dormer, Terese Pagh, Rita Volk, Arielle Kebbel, Hattie Watson, Madeline Rae Mason Secrets:  TW: VIOLENCE, SELF HARM, DEATH, BLOOD

It’s a secret that: Victoire Weasley thinks she killed someone. A month and a half after Victoire’s big seventeenth birthday, she went to a bar with her cousin, Lily. It was nice, the birthday rush still in her veins, the fact that she was legal ( at least in one world ) was nice. She easily used her charm to get past the front, and just sat at the pub drinking away at a Shirley Temple cocktail and before long she got talking with a random man. Really, there was nothing romantic on her part – but he got a little too friendly and just before Victoire could punish him for doing so, his girlfriend came out of the lavatory. She was smashed, so obviously, and angry as well but Victoire was able to slip away outside for a minute before her anger and thirst for release got the best of her. While she smoked a spliff, thinking that she had finally been able to get it under control, her itch for a fight – the girlfriend came outside and started a fight with Vic, something Victoire engaged in. It wasn’t before long that the other girl was being beaten senseless by the wix, and Victoire hadn’t stopped until she was suddenly snapped from her blackout. Inspecting the girl – Victoire’s veins practically went to ice when she saw she wasn’t moving. The girl looked dead – she had to be. Victoire ran. The next day in the muggle newspaper, Victoire couldn’t find a report of what had happened which just solidified the fear that she had actually killed someone. Unknown to her, the girl was okay choosing not to share her story with the press. It’s a secret that: Victoire Weasley self harms. She can’t remember how it quite started – a punch to the wall there after a fight, a purpose slap in the face, anything that released the rage she had. Victoire didn’t dare release it on the people she loved because she’d never be able to forgive herself for that, but it grew. The feeling grew and soon she had to hurt herself. But she can remember when she knew. When she needed reminders, when she needed blood and big bruises to litter her body. It’s something she’s so ashamed of, that she hasn’t let on to anyone. A reason Victoire craves fights and sometimes throws them is because of this masochistic need to hurt herself – just letting people beat her to unconsciousness. Her anger is so great, so c o n s u m i n g, there’s the small hope if she finds a way to release it somehow – it’ll go away. It’s a secret that: Victoire Weasley has hated her birthday since she was eight. Being born on May 2nd was more of a curse than anything as far as Victoire is concerned. She’s not selfish enough to be mad at everyone for grieving on her birthday, not at all, just mad that she doesn’t have it on a different day. Each year, there’s been at least one family member crying and one of her best friends parents died on the day she was born. When she was younger, before she knew why it was truly so upsetting for the people she loved – she didn’t understand. Now that she does, she hates the day and wishes she was born on another like she was supposed to be ( Victoire was a month early ). Still, she treats it as the day it is for everyone else and doesn’t express how she really feels about the day.

CHARACTERIZATION

Storm with skin. The performer. { Secret Strategist }. Masochistic with sadistic tendencies because she is just so filled with A N G E R ( being sexualized at a young age, her ass pinched on her first Hogsmeade trip, and so so much more that she doesn’t have a language to explain it in — only violent actions ). N o t that she’d let you know.  Warrior, no, VALKYRIE more of a DRAGON than a girl ( if she ever was a g i r l in the first place ), fiercely protective of the people she loves — and if you dare mess with her family, friends, or any of the sort, you better run for oblivion. V I C T O R Y in her veins that she will hold onto until her dying breath.

Victoire Weasley is more than just a simple human being, she’s the true embodiment of what it means to be a storm with skin. Enigmatic even. First approaching this version of Victoire – I was nervous. It’s been a year and I’ve still been nervous to play her as well as how I imagine she’s percieved. An improper Victoire who wears leather pants more than pajamas? A Slytherin Victoire? A bar fighting, dragon loving/part dragon, tattoo adorning Victoire Weasley? Punk to the core? Constantly dyeing her hair? Terrified. Victoire is quite sure of who she is, what she wants in life & what she will get, she’s quite sure of everything that she is —- but in those moments she blacks out in pure rage — she’s not so sure. She’s h o r r i f i e d. In those moments where she looks for pain like she’s a drug addict and it’s her next fix, she’s mortified.  “I will always scare; and more than anyone else — myself.”

It was in House of Serpents that she learned there is grey. There is moral grey, and it’s where she lives. With a heart so big, so W I D E, that even she doesn’t realize it’s part of the reason her anger can consume her. Feeling things for Victoire Weasley is never half arsed, it’s full arsed, and her passion, her ambition, could be the death of her. Her ambition to save the ones she loves, to protect her family. F a m i l y. A word redefined by Victoire fucking Weasley. But when you meet her, she’ll s m i l e. She’ll laugh, she’ll charm you most likely and she’ll talk about the fact that Freddie Mercury is much more interesting than John Lennon, thank you very much. How Johnny Cash, Jeff Buckley, Arctic Monkeys, Queen, HAIM, and Aerosmith should be listened to at least once a day and how if she wanted anyone’s singing voice besides Freddie’s, it would be Hayley Williams, no doubt. She’d take off her shirt to show you the tattoos that run down her back, tell you about the ones that s n a k e down shoulders, arms, legs and how they’re ones dedicated to each and every one of her family members. For her best friends. With child like w o n d e r m e n t and pure genuine glee, she’ll talk about her dragon, Mercury, and how her and Hagrid have planned to try to start a campaign to get real dragons at Hogwarts.

Then, a competition that made her think of The Goblet of Fire came along and she couldn’t help the suspicion that flared within her. Everything might’ve been safe, dandy, fine, but it could change in the drop of a hat. Victoire just wanted to be excited but time showed that was not going to be easy.  All she knows that if it does go wrong, she will protect them, she has to. She’s had to put herself together, she had to keep herself more composed. Her family & friends need to her to her stable – as stable as she could be. Vic may have gone about a month without an incident, as well as been in the eye of the storm that is herself, but there’s a storm around her now.

—& she is now a hurricane. Controlled chaos because despite it all, she’s a Slytherin for a reason. She’s manipulative, cunning, a silver tongue used mostly for words, and she needs to become some sort of matriarch. There were crushing expectations that were supposed to do just that but were thrown out the window since day one. Now, the expectations of being Victoire Weasley must be embraced. Now, they are because her family needs her, and she finally can be what they wanted her to be. A leader of sorts. Their VICTORY. Beneath the chaos is kindness she shows to people, is the gentle touch and wise words that make you wonder — who exactly is Victoire Weasley? A teenage hurricane, in the middle of a chaos, who came to find that maybe she was born to fight.

✪ : Critique they have about others

While she can understand some her classmates animosity and anger she doesn’t approve of how they choose to take it out. Vic as well doesn’t approve of their reasoning for it — yessome of them may be brainwashed into their views but she still feels it’s unacceptable.

✫ : Pet peeve

When people don’t understand the word “no”. Having a history of being harassed by various men in some of the places she hangs out (Hogshead at times, Romania when she’s there with her uncle Charlie, anywhere really Merlin knows her curiosity and badass-ness has gotten her into some sticky situations as well as weird places ) she absolutely hates when people don’t respect the word “no” — especially in those situations.

✬ : Something minor they enjoy

Rainbows. Colors. While colors might not necessarily be minor, even little things, little colors that she loves make her really happy and intrigued. What is that color?  Is there a name for it? She idly in her spare time likes to name colors on her own. One day she hopes to successfully dye her hair rainbow on her own without any magic.

✭ : An obscure interest

Dragons and Care of Magical Creatures. Mostly dragons, Vic loves everything dragons — especially the uses of dragon blood, which she has tried before. Even dragon dung as fertilizer (even if she’s not the most knowledgable on Herbology ) interests her.

✮ : A moral standard

As Vic aligns with the Chaotic Good alignment there are Ten Chaotic Good sins which of a few, Victoire definitely identifies with. Though, there is one in particular that Victoire practices and holds as a standard for herself. “ Failing to perform a random act of kindness when appropriate.” Vic feels deep down quite ashamed of some of her actions while blinded by rage, especially the ones that involve hurting herself. Performing random acts of kindness to her sort of makes up for her actions, sort of balancing good and bad — even if it’s just in herself. Sort of like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch when Lilo illustrates those drawings of Stitch’s bad and good. While she knows it’s not that black & white, she can’t help but feel that it is when it comes to herself. She knows that she acts out and is flawed as well as acts irrationally — so maybe just maybe that helps her add to her own goodness.

#colligo intro #self harm tw #violence tw #death tw #dysphoria mention #if i missed anything let a homie know bc i dont want to trigger anyone!!!

[vicweasleya]

Hey all !! I’m Jules aka the Patron St. of Chipotle and this is QUEUE’d. I’m currently working / out of the house. I love Chipotle and I play Victoire Weasley & Jane Longbottom. This is the intro of Victoire Weasley. If you’d like a shorter more concise version or if you’d like to plot or have any questions let me know !! 

BASICS

Character Name: Victoire Apolline Delacour-Weasley

VICTOIRE: Seventeen years of hearing stories about those who died on her birthday before her. Almost a decade of not celebrating her own birthday when she realized what it meant to others. Of course, she understands that this is the burden she carries – while her cousins bear namesakes of those who had fallen before them, she is the painful reminder of the day they lost people – so they could win freedom. She is the h e l l f i r ethat is left after a victory, scorching technicolor brutal memories into the minds of those who were left behind. APOLLINE: The french derivative of the name Apollonia which comes from the Greek god, Apollo. Apollo, the god of the sun, prophecy, music, beauty, healing, poetry, plague and so much more. It could be said that Victoire is her own brand of beautiful – of course the Veela genes help ( or do they? ) but if there’s anything she’s gotten from this namesake it’s the love of music. She’s sure that if she wasn’t going to work with dragons when she was older it would be with music – something she practically speaks as a language. The name might sound too flowery or too soft for Victoire – but her grandmother from which she was given this name was still a Veela. She still had the siren song that was deadly to almost associated with her name. Still, just because Victoire is comparable to a constantly raging storm – she has times where parts of her mother and grandmother comes out.   DELACOUR: While she embraces the Weasley, Victoire also embraces her French heritage. If there’s anything of her mother, of this side of the family that comes out – it’s when she speaks French. She refuses to call her mother anything but maman, and will quickly switch to French around her during Weasley-Potter-Lupin gatherings at the burrow to make her feel even a little more comfortable. For Victoire, the Delacour name embodies softness and embodies femininity that she’s not always connected to. It reminds her that she’s not been alone in being discriminated against or objectified, that others understand what it’s like to be in her place to some extent. It’s then that she’s able to embrace the girl, that she’s able to feel like one and not always so at war with her body and herself. WEASLEY: If the other parts of her name didn’t already come with enough precedence – perhaps the name ‘Weasley’ was the icing on the cake. She couldn’t be prouder to be a Weasley, no matter how much fussing her grandmother does or how everyone is in everyone’s business – Victoire knows she is lucky. Vic is well aware of how privileged she is & how her infamous family of blood traitors are lucky to have the life they do.

Year: Seventh Year. This makes Victoire seventeen years old.

Pronouns & Gender:   She/Her or Gon/Gons. Victoire identifies as a Demigirl.

C h a n g i n g. From the minute Victoire was born, she was always fidgeting, alwaysmoving and her first display of magic was at 4 years old, when she tried to change her hair blue like Teddy’s. Instead, it changed her beautiful crop of ginger hair into a dirty blonde. Often, she’d find herself envying Teddy’s abilities to change, feeling uncomfortable in her skin and angry that it wasn’t as easy for her. As she grew older, she came to understand  what her body was, what it would be and that she’d never be able to change herself like Teddy or change herself at all. Any change that she’d make would be permanent and she found herself not wanting that in the slightest. Not wanting to limit herself because while Victoire loved her feminine side – there was something she felt growing in her soul that was just … something else. It didn’t have a label but it became her, it was her, and it was confusing but it was who she was. Victoire did research and after a while the closest thing she could find to what she felt her gender was the term:demigirl. Of course, after she realized this she told her parents, getting nothing but support from them. A reason they’ve let Victoire dye her hair so much and wear clothes that some parents would have heart attacks at, is so she feels like she has an option to be who she is. Even though they know that their child will be who she is with or without their permission, they figure helping her along the way in a world where there are many people who are against what her gender is & think it’s unnatural. They are Vic’s parents after all and after a war where they lost family and friends who gave their lives so their children could have freedom  – it seems trivial to ever fuss over something like gender.

House: Slytherin

Taurus is the second sign of the zodiac and is associated with the neck and throat. Positive characteristics include stamina, patience, practicality, frugality, creativity, a love of beauty and nature, faithfulness, loyalty, determination, sensuality, and affection.Negative characteristics are stubbornness (there’s a reason why stubborn people are called bullheaded), materialism, resistance to change, laziness, a terrible temper once aroused, prejudice, and sometimes an unimaginative nature. In this House, the traits associated with Taurus that will be most emphasized are materialism and loyalty. These Slytherins will be almost blindly loyal to their friends and allies, and they will value wealth and the trappings of wealth over more intangible assets.Determination will also be emphasized. All Slytherins are determined, but the stubborn Taurus Slytherin is unstoppable once they have their mind set on something. A large number of Slytheirns in this sign work for Gringotts after graduating from Hogwarts, for they are very good with money.

NICKNAME[S]: Vic, Tweety Bird, Valk, Toire, Uses the alias Freddie Bowie when getting arrested in the Muggle world. Blood Status: 1/8th veela. Special Powers & Abilities: 1/8 Veela. Allegiance: Unaffiliated. Student Functions: Care of Magical Creatures Club. Dueling Club. Face Claim Choices: Penelople Mitchell, Maddie Hasson, Alona Tal, Amber Heard,  Eliza Taylor, Adele Exarchopoulos, Natalie Dormer, Terese Pagh, Rita Volk, Arielle Kebbel, Lindsay Morgan, Chloe Bennet, Hattie Watson, Madeline Rae Mason Secrets:  TW: VIOLENCE, SELF HARM, DEATH, BLOOD

It’s a secret that: Victoire Weasley thinks she killed someone. A month and a half after Victoire’s big seventeenth birthday, she went to a bar with her cousin, Lily. It was nice, the birthday rush still in her veins, the fact that she was legal ( at least in one world ) was nice. She easily used her charm to get past the front, and just sat at the pub drinking away at a Shirley Temple cocktail and before long she got talking with a random man. Really, there was nothing romantic on her part – but he got a little too friendly and just before Victoire could punish him for doing so, his girlfriend came out of the lavatory. She was smashed, so obviously, and angry as well but Victoire was able to slip away outside for a minute before her anger and thirst for release got the best of her. While she smoked a spliff, thinking that she had finally been able to get it under control, her itch for a fight – the girlfriend came outside and started a fight with Vic, something Victoire engaged in. It wasn’t before long that the other girl was being beaten senseless by the wix, and Victoire hadn’t stopped until she was suddenly snapped from her blackout. Inspecting the girl – Victoire’s veins practically went to ice when she saw she wasn’t moving. The girl looked dead – she had to be. Victoire ran. The next day in the muggle newspaper, Victoire couldn’t find a report of what had happened which just solidified the fear that she had actually killed someone. Unknown to her, the girl was okay choosing not to share her story with the press. It’s a secret that: Victoire Weasley self harms. She can’t remember how it quite started – a punch to the wall there after a fight, a purpose slap in the face, anything that released the rage she had. Victoire didn’t dare release it on the people she loved because she’d never be able to forgive herself for that, but it grew. The feeling grew and soon she had to hurt herself. But she can remember when she knew. When she needed reminders, when she needed blood and big bruises to litter her body. It’s something she’s so ashamed of, that she hasn’t let on to anyone. A reason Victoire craves fights and sometimes throws them is because of this masochistic need to hurt herself – just letting people beat her to unconsciousness. Her anger is so great, so c o n s u m i n g, there’s the small hope if she finds a way to release it somehow – it’ll go away. It’s a secret that: Victoire Weasley has hated her birthday since she was eight. Being born on May 2nd was more of a curse than anything as far as Victoire is concerned. She’s not selfish enough to be mad at everyone for grieving on her birthday, not at all, just mad that she doesn’t have it on a different day. Each year, there’s been at least one family member crying and one of her best friends parents died on the day she was born. When she was younger, before she knew why it was truly so upsetting for the people she loved – she didn’t understand. Now that she does, she hates the day and wishes she was born on another like she was supposed to be ( Victoire was a month early ). Still, she treats it as the day it is for everyone else and doesn’t express how she really feels about the day.

CHARACTERIZATION

Storm with skin. The performer. { Secret Strategist }. Masochistic with sadistic tendencies because she is just so filled with A N G E R ( being sexualized at a young age, her ass pinched on her first Hogsmeade trip, and so so much more that she doesn’t have a language to explain it in — only violent actions ). N o t that she’d let you know.  Warrior, no, VALKYRIE more of a DRAGON than a girl ( if she ever was a g i r l in the first place ), fiercely protective of the people she loves — and if you dare mess with her family, friends, or any of the sort, you better run for oblivion. V I C T O R Y in her veins that she will hold onto until her dying breath.

Victoire Weasley is more than just a simple human being, she’s the true embodiment of what it means to be a storm with skin. Enigmatic even. First approaching this version of Victoire – I was nervous. It’s been a year and I’ve still been nervous to play her as well as how I imagine she’s percieved. An improper Victoire who wears leather pants more than pajamas? A Slytherin Victoire? A bar fighting, dragon loving/part dragon, tattoo adorning Victoire Weasley? Punk to the core? Constantly dyeing her hair? Terrified. Victoire is quite sure of who she is, what she wants in life & what she will get, she’s quite sure of everything that she is —- but in those moments she blacks out in pure rage — she’s not so sure. She’s h o r r i f i e d. In those moments where she looks for pain like she’s a drug addict and it’s her next fix, she’s mortified.  “I will always scare; and more than anyone else — myself.”

It was in House of Serpents that she learned there is grey. There is moral grey, and it’s where she lives. With a heart so big, so W I D E, that even she doesn’t realize it’s part of the reason her anger can consume her. Feeling things for Victoire Weasley is never half arsed, it’s full arsed, and her passion, her ambition, could be the death of her. Her ambition to save the ones she loves, to protect her family. F a m i l y. A word redefined by Victoire fucking Weasley. But when you meet her, she’ll s m i l e. She’ll laugh, she’ll charm you most likely and she’ll talk about the fact that Freddie Mercury is much more interesting than John Lennon, thank you very much. How Johnny Cash, Jeff Buckley, Arctic Monkeys, Queen, HAIM, and Aerosmith should be listened to at least once a day and how if she wanted anyone’s singing voice besides Freddie’s, it would be Hayley Williams, no doubt. She’d take off her shirt to show you the tattoos that run down her back, tell you about the ones that s n a k e down shoulders, arms, legs and how they’re ones dedicated to each and every one of her family members. For her best friends. With child like w o n d e r m e n t and pure genuine glee, she’ll talk about her dragon, Mercury, and how her and Hagrid have planned to try to start a campaign to get real dragons at Hogwarts.

Then, a competition that made her think of The Goblet of Fire came along and she couldn’t help the suspicion that flared within her. Everything might’ve been safe, dandy, fine, but it could change in the drop of a hat. Victoire just wanted to be excited but time showed that was not going to be easy.  All she knows that if it does go wrong, she will protect them, she has to. She’s had to put herself together, she had to keep herself more composed. Her family & friends need to her to her stable – as stable as she could be. Vic may have gone about a month without an incident, as well as been in the eye of the storm that is herself, but there’s a storm around her now.

—& she is now a hurricane. Controlled chaos because despite it all, she’s a Slytherin for a reason. She’s manipulative, cunning, a silver tongue used mostly for words, and she needs to become some sort of matriarch. There were crushing expectations that were supposed to do just that but were thrown out the window since day one. Now, the expectations of being Victoire Weasley must be embraced. Now, they are because her family needs her, and she finally can be what they wanted her to be. A leader of sorts. Their VICTORY. Beneath the chaos is kindness she shows to people, is the gentle touch and wise words that make you wonder — who exactly is Victoire Weasley? A teenage hurricane, in the middle of a chaos, who came to find that maybe she was born to fight.

✪ : Critique they have about others

While she can understand some her classmates animosity and anger she doesn’t approve of how they choose to take it out. Vic as well doesn’t approve of their reasoning for it — yessome of them may be brainwashed into their views but she still feels it’s unacceptable.

✫ : Pet peeve

When people don’t understand the word “no”. Having a history of being harassed by various men in some of the places she hangs out (Hogshead at times, Romania when she’s there with her uncle Charlie, anywhere really Merlin knows her curiosity and badass-ness has gotten her into some sticky situations as well as weird places ) she absolutely hates when people don’t respect the word “no” — especially in those situations.

✬ : Something minor they enjoy

Rainbows. Colors. While colors might not necessarily be minor, even little things, little colors that she loves make her really happy and intrigued. What is that color?  Is there a name for it? She idly in her spare time likes to name colors on her own. One day she hopes to successfully dye her hair rainbow on her own without any magic.

✭ : An obscure interest

Dragons and Care of Magical Creatures. Mostly dragons, Vic loves everything dragons — especially the uses of dragon blood, which she has tried before. Even dragon dung as fertilizer (even if she’s not the most knowledgable on Herbology ) interests her.

✮ : A moral standard

As Vic aligns with the Chaotic Good alignment there are Ten Chaotic Good sins which of a few, Victoire definitely identifies with. Though, there is one in particular that Victoire practices and holds as a standard for herself. “ Failing to perform a random act of kindness when appropriate.” Vic feels deep down quite ashamed of some of her actions while blinded by rage, especially the ones that involve hurting herself. Performing random acts of kindness to her sort of makes up for her actions, sort of balancing good and bad — even if it’s just in herself. Sort of like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch when Lilo illustrates those drawings of Stitch’s bad and good. While she knows it’s not that black & white, she can’t help but feel that it is when it comes to herself. She knows that she acts out and is flawed as well as acts irrationally — so maybe just maybe that helps her add to her own goodness.

#the most vanilla intro ever #IF U WANT TO PLOT THO HMU #( ooc. ) #colligo intro #im taking a guess too lazy to look #q #self harm tw #death tw #violence tw #if anymore need to be tagged pls lmk!!! #v important to #tag ur SHIT