Early next morning, Harry woke with a plan fully formed in his mind, as though his sleeping brain had been working on it all night. He got up, dressed in the pale dawn light, left the dormitory without waking Ron, and went back down to the deserted common room. Here he took a piece of parchment from the table upon which his Divination homework still lay and wrote the following letter:
Dear Sirius,
I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There’s no point coming back, everything’s fine here. Don’t worry about me, my head feels completely normal.
Harry
To his credit, Harry has a perfectly good reason to prefer Sirius stay away (he doesn't want his soul sucked out, rendering him equivalent of both a Funko Pop and someone who likes Funko Pops) but it's still so authentically teenage. I wonder how many adolescents (boys especially) die of shit like cancer because they don't want to make shit awkward. Also, I would point out that Sirius has probably set off for Scotland well before his letter got here, but that seems like the kind of thing a kid would overlook.
The Owlery was a circular stone room, rather cold and drafty, because none of the windows had glass in them. The floor was entirely covered in straw, owl droppings, and the regurgitated skeletons of mice and voles.
Much like the Great Hall.
He spotted Hedwig nestled between a barn owl and a tawny, and hurried over to her, sliding a little on the dropping-strewn floor.
It took him a while to persuade her to wake up and then to look at him, as she kept shuffling around on her perch, showing him her tail. She was evidently still furious about his lack of gratitude the previous night. In the end, it was Harry suggesting she might be too tired, and that perhaps he would ask Ron to borrow Pigwidgeon, that made her stick out her leg and allow him to tie the letter to it.
Man, imagine all the kids who bought owls as pets because of
Harry Potter, only to discover they were not in fact borderline sapient carrier pigeons.
Harry did his best not to worry about Sirius over the next couple of weeks. True, he could not stop himself from looking anxiously around every morning when the post owls arrived, nor, late at night before he went to sleep, prevent himself from seeing horrible visions of Sirius, cornered by dementors down some dark London street, but between times he tried to keep his mind off his godfather. He wished he still had Quidditch to distract him; nothing worked so well on a troubled mind as a good, hard training session.
I imagine whoever the new captain was supposed to be is fucking seething right now. Or relieved he's been spared Wood's curse. Also, what exactly does training drills look like for a seeker? "See that small fast thing? get it!"
To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.
“But — but you said it’s illegal, Professor,” said Hermione uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. “You said — to use it against another human was —”
“Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like,” said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. “If you’d rather learn the hard way — when someone’s putting it on you so they can control you completely — fine by me. You’re excused. Off you go.”
I'm reminded of how, after the Dunblane Massacre, British became so strict, their Olympic shooting team had to practise in places like Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. You know, in case if these elite athletes decided to shoot up a school with their pistols. If you're wondering why they could practise in Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man despite those two places both being British territory, Northern Ireland has an unusual degree of autonomy in some areas because of the Good Friday Agreement. For example, Northern Ireland separately legalised gay marriage some six years after the rest of the UK. So, for a while there, you could own a gun, but not marry another dude. Feel free to decide how you feel about that, but do tell me if the kids start making Rhodesia edits about Ulster. The Isle of Man on the other hand is what's called an Overseas Crown Dependency, which means that while the UK is in charge of its military and foreign policy, it is technically still a self-governing country in its own right. For instance, it only decriminalised gay... anything until 1992. I assume that had something to with the legend that if ever there was not a man made fire burning somewhere on Manx soil, the entire isle would be pulled back into fairyland. One imagines Keir Starmer now has crack teams of put-outers scouring the land.
Also, we've seen that the Imperius Curse effects animals, and later we see it can be used on magical nonhumans like goblins--do you think there's special licensing for people in Hagrid adjacent fields?
Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Harry watched as, one by one, his classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem.
Do British wizards sing "God Save the Queen" (or King if we're talking Current Year) or do they have their own version? Enya's "The Celts" perhaps?
Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel. Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.
“Potter,” Moody growled, “you next.”
That was like seven episodes of
Bewitched in five minutes.
Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, “Imperio!”
It was the most wonderful feeling. Harry felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in his head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him.
And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody’s voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Jump onto the desk … jump onto the desk. …
Rowling's magic is overall quite slapdash and thin, but when she zeroes in on a specific idea, she can be quite interesting or evocative. This, for instance, is a nicely insidious conception of a mind-control trance.
Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring.
Jump onto the desk. …
Why, though? Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain.
Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice.
Jump onto the desk. …
No, I don’t think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more firmly … no, I don’t really want to. …
Jump! NOW!
The next thing Harry felt was considerable pain. He had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping — the result was that he’d smashed headlong into the desk, knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both his kneecaps.
Something very British about this depiction of a guy resisting mind-control. "Nah, no thanks."
“Now, that’s more like it!” growled Moody’s voice, and suddenly, Harry felt the empty, echoing feeling in his head disappear. He remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in his knees seemed to double.
“Look at that, you lot … Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We’ll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention — watch his eyes, that’s where you see it — very good, Potter, very good indeed! They’ll have trouble controlling you!”
I like to think if False-Eye Moody had somehow survived this scheme, Voldemort would've used these sessions to determine who among Harry's age cohort might be worth the trouble of bewitching.
“The way he talks,” Harry muttered as he hobbled out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class an hour later (Moody had insisted on putting Harry through his paces four times in a row, until Harry could throw off the curse entirely)
As you can see, Barty is fucking method.
“you’d think we were all going to be attacked any second.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Ron, who was skipping on every alternate step. He had had much more difficulty with the curse than Harry, though Moody assured him the effects would wear off by lunch-time.
Harry, so far every year of secondary has ended with you nearly being murdered and/or spiritually obliterated by depression demons. Last year, you found out your best mate's pet rat was a turncoat who signed your parents' death warrant. The guy who actually killed them's closest followers still have the ear of the government. If anything, you should think Mad-Eye is too happy-go-lucky.
Maybe my mistake is assuming Harry's life has only been this way since he started Hogwarts. Maybe he's been fending off assassins and evildoers since kindergarten, and he no longer even registers that level of danger as something to worry about. Hell, now he's knows "Expelliarmus" instead of just "cricket bat."
“No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted ‘Boo’ behind him on April Fools’ Day?
He wasn't even startled, he just felt she needed to be punished for such a lame fucking April Fools. Admittedly, hardly any worse than most April Fools jokes.
(That CollegeHumor one where they made a clip of "the movie where Sinbad plays a genie" was pretty tight, though)
All the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. Professor McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework she had assigned.
“You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!” she told them, her eyes glinting dangerously behind her square spectacles. “Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer —”
“We don’t take O.W.L.s till fifth year!” said Dean Thomas indignantly.
“Maybe not, Thomas, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Miss Granger remains the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!”
One way I think you can categorise fantasy stories is whether they're "about" magic. Not whether they
have magic in them (though even that isn't always a given) but if the nature of magic is a central conflict or more a plot device or flavouring.
The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven and Robert Jordan's
Wheel of Time are both great (but very different) examples of the former sort of story--there's a problem with magic itself the characters have to deal with. Most of Brandon Sanderson's works centre around elaborate, highly specific magic systems. On the other hand, you have works like say,
The Lord of the Rings, or
Once and Future King, where magic and fantastical elements are very present and relevant, but not the
point.
To clarify, the latter type of story's magic isn't necessarily less well thought out than the former's, just as a story with a "hard" magic system can still have good characters and deep human themes. Tolkien clearly put a lot of thought into the metaphysics of his world (especially in regards to his Catholicism) and the logic of how the various good and evil miracle workers do what they do. But Lord of the Rings is much more concerned with how Frodo and Sam made it to Mount Doom without being corrupted (yes, I know Frodo succumbed, he still got there) than say, how the Lord Ruler combines Allomancy and Feruchemy to overcomes the limitations of both.
Harry Potter is most definitely the second type of story, which is fortunate, because Rowling's magic remains very slapdash in ways I think matter. As I said, Rowling's not bad at coming up with say, individual magical objects or spells. I think the Secret Keeper is a cool concept, I like
Riddikulus as a very literal metaphor for coping with fear via laughter, the Put-Outer is classic imagery, etcetera. The educational aspect feels really half-baked. There's no real hint of depth or cohesion. We're told Harry's studies are getting harder and harder, but he seems to doing the same whimsical Transfiguration exercises he's been assigned since he was eleven. You never really get the sense of Harry increasing in his understanding of either the practise or theory of magic. As I said,
Harry Potter isn't really a story about Harry becoming a master sorcerer, and that's fine, but I do think it could've complemented his character growth, especially since this is the sort of universe where things like love and the soul (both things Rowling is clearly quite concerned with) are concrete forces that have material effects on the world.
Harry and Ron were deeply amused when Professor Trelawney told them that they had received top marks for their homework in their next Divination class. She read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for them — but they were less amused when she asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; both of them were running out of ideas for catastrophes.
This is how you get dead fics.
Meanwhile Professor Binns, the ghost who taught History of Magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century.
Not surprised, it's all he talks about. Could be worse, though. He could be making you study the goblin rebellion of the late
nineteenth century...
Professor Snape was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked.
It's a shame wizards don't seem to have invented lawsuits.
Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms.
A reminder that later on, Harry is able to perform a spell with just the incantation, without even knowing what it does.
Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate.
Has someone done a headcount of the students lately?
Hagrid was delighted, and as part of their “project,” suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.
“I will not,” said Draco Malfoy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Father Christmas pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. “I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks.”
I mean, rude, but I understand the sentiment.
“Yeh’ll do wha’ yer told,” he growled, “or I’ll be takin’ a leaf outta Professor Moody’s book. … I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy.”
Dudley: FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED, GIANT.
The Gryffindors roared with laughter. Malfoy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody’s punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop him from retorting. Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits; seeing Hagrid put down Malfoy was particularly satisfying, especially because Malfoy had done his very best to get Hagrid sacked the previous year.
Normally I'm down for mistreating Draco, but it's hard for me to cheer for Hagrid when he's wasting a year of instruction on what amounts to an illegal vanity project.
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o’clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early —
“Brilliant!” said Harry. “It’s Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won’t have time to poison us all!”
Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast.
White-Kettle Shufflepunk will again bitch about the movie version.
“Only a week away!” said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. “I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I’ll go and tell him. …”
“Cedric?” said Ron blankly as Ernie hurried off.
“Diggory,” said Harry. “He must be entering the tournament.”
“That idiot, Hogwarts champion?” said Ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.
“He’s not an idiot. You just don’t like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch,” said Hermione. “I’ve heard he’s a really good student — and he’s a prefect.”
Ron: Having Cedric Diggory be Hogwarts champion is a humiliation ritual!
(I try not to do jokes that'll be indecipherable a week later, but let me have this.)
She spoke as though this settled the matter.
“You only like him because he’s handsome,” said Ron scathingly.
“Excuse me, I don’t like people just because they’re handsome!” said Hermione indignantly.
Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like “Lockhart!”
Lockhart has been molested ten times since his return.
The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Harry went:
--Gaza.
the Triwizard Tournament.
--is a distraction from Gaza.
Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.
The movie: One are girls, one are boys!
Harry noticed too that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces.
Man, imagine if
Ecce Homo was a wizard painting:
Christ our Lord and Saviour: KILL MEEEEEEEEE!
“Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can’t even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!” Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus.
McGonagall, it's not Neville's fault you've been teaching nothing but stupid gimmicks for four years. These kids don't even know how to make antimatter yet.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down beside Fred and George at the Gryffindor table. Once again, and most unusually, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. Ron led the way over to them.
“It’s a bummer, all right,” George was saying gloomily to Fred. “But if he won’t talk to us in person, we’ll have to send him the letter after all. Or we’ll stuff it into his hand. He can’t avoid us forever.”
Ah, shit, the twins have become KPop stans.
“You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?” Harry asked. “Thought any more about trying to enter?”
“I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but she wasn’t telling,” said George bitterly. “She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon.”
Is Minerva just a zoosadist?
“Who are the judges?” Harry asked.
“Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel,” said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, “because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage.”
Fun fact, cockatrices are said to be able to kill with a glance, like a basilisk. This seems a poor choice for a spectator event.
he noticed them all looking at her and said, with her usual air of impatience that nobody else had read all the books she had, “It’s all in Hogwarts, A History. Though, of course, that book’s not entirely reliable. A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title. Or A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School.”
Goblet of Fire is a reminder that this sort of overbearing activist has been with us a long time. The main thing that's changed is how much they've dominated culture the last decade or so.
"What are you on about?” said Ron, though Harry thought he knew what was coming.
Ron:
She's going to try and cancel Martin Miggs,
isn't she?
“House-elves!” said Hermione, her eyes flashing. “Not once, in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts, A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!”
Do you think Hermione is going to fall into the classic Anglo trap of assuming that the Europeans are much more Sensible and Enlightened about house-elves, without reading up about their actual policies and attitudes? Seriously, so many Americans I've seen who don't know most European countries set a twelve-to-fourteen week limit on abortion.
Harry shook his head and applied himself to his scrambled eggs. His and Ron’s lack of enthusiasm had done nothing whatsoever to curb Hermione’s determination to pursue justice for house-elves. True, both of them had paid two Sickles for a S.P.E.W. badge, but they had only done it to keep her quiet. Their Sickles had been wasted, however; if anything, they seemed to have made Hermione more vociferous. She had been badgering Harry and Ron ever since, first to wear the badges, then to persuade others to do the same, and she had also taken to rattling around the Gryffindor common room every evening, cornering people and shaking the collecting tin under their noses.
“You do realize that your sheets are changed, your fires lit, your classrooms cleaned, and your food cooked by a group of magical creatures who are unpaid and enslaved?” she kept saying fiercely.
I will say this, as clumsy and silly as Hermione is being, I do respect her a lot more than I do most of her real life equivalents. Your average adolescent social justice warrior usually supports causes that already enjoy widespread sympathy and endorsement from tastemakers and institutions, and--let's be real--is probably mostly doing it out of boredom or a desire for social cachet. Hermione meanwhile is doing what's doing because of genuine moral outrage, and is at least willing to risk social censure for it--she's not a clout chaser, is what I'm saying. Seriously, apparently Greta Thunberg is the one young person without climate anxiety.
Ron now rolled his eyes at the ceiling, which was flooding them all in autumn sunlight, and Fred became extremely interested in his bacon (both twins had refused to buy a S.P.E.W. badge). George, however, leaned in toward Hermione.
“Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermione?”
“No, of course not,” said Hermione curtly, “I hardly think students are supposed to —”
“Well, we have,” said George, indicating Fred, “loads of times, to nick food. And we’ve met them, and they’re happy. They think they’ve got the best job in the world—”
Really, if Hermione wanted to improve the lives of the Hogwarts castelves, she'd campaign to have Dudley enrolled.
House-elf, deliriously happy: I haven't slept in weeks!
“That’s because they’re uneducated and brainwashed!”
I am still curious whether Rowling imagined house-elves as mystical embodiments of hard work or like, a race the wizards had reduced to helotage long ago. These days, I kind of lean towards the former, partly because it's honestly more interesting from a spec fic perspective, partly because house-elves are clearly a lot stronger than wizards.
Hedwig arrives with a letter from Sirius--he's back in the country, wants Harry to keep him up-to-date on everything, but also suggests Harry not use the same owl twice.
Anyway, it's time to welcome the visiting students:
Something large, much larger than a broomstick — or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks — was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.
“It’s a dragon!” shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.
“Don’t be stupid … it’s a flying house!” said Dennis Creevey.
I'm glad Dennis can now partake in the time honoured custom of belittling ickle firsties.
Dennis’s guess was closer. … As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powder-blue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.
The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed — then, with an almighty crash that made Neville jump backward onto a Slytherin fifth year’s foot, the horses’ hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground. A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.
Harry just had time to see that the door of the carriage bore a coat of arms (two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars) before it opened.
You sure you want to do this cool intro? Why not a stupid little dance?
A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then Harry saw a shining, high-heeled black shoe emerging from the inside of the carriage — a shoe the size of a child’s sled — followed, almost immediately, by the largest woman he had ever seen in his life. The size of the carriage, and of the horses, was immediately explained. A few people gasped.
Harry had only ever seen one person as large as this woman in his life, and that was Hagrid; he doubted whether there was an inch difference in their heights. Yet somehow — maybe simply because he was used to Hagrid — this woman (now at the foot of the steps, and looking around at the waiting, wide-eyed crowd) seemed even more unnaturally large. As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.
This is Madam Maxine, headmistress of Beauxbatons. If there was an official
Harry Potter RPG (and I'm kind of surprised there isn't) she'd probably be an illegal character. I'll explain later.
“My dear Madame Maxime,” he said. “Welcome to Hogwarts.”
“Dumbly-dorr,” said Madame Maxime in a deep voice. “I ’ope I find you well?”
“In excellent form, I thank you,” said Dumbledore.
“My pupils,” said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.
Harry, whose attention had been focused completely upon Madame Maxime, now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Madame Maxime. They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. From what Harry could see of them (they were standing in Madame Maxime’s enormous shadow), they were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.
In the films, both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are single-sex schools--girls and boys respectively. In the books, they're both co-ed. This is because both the French speaking world and Northern Europe both have men and women in them. Perhaps in the films' world, mainland Europe is divided between an oppressive patriarchy and gynarchy,
Gender Games style, with the opposite sex denied education and only kept around for breeding. Or maybe it's an Amazon and Gagarin setup where they meet up once every ten years to breed.
Yeah, I don't like how the film handles the foreign schools. I think if the only way you can distinguish the luxury-loving wizards and witches of southern Europe with the grim, dark magic practising sorcerers of the far north is by sex, you're not being very creative with your visual storytelling. Plus, it basically makes the delegations look like clones of Krum and Fleur, which is dull.
“My steeds require — er — forceful ’andling,” said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job. “Zey are very strong. …”
“I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job,” said Dumbledore, smiling.
“Very well,” said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. “Will you please inform zis ’Agrid zat ze ’orses drink only single-malt whiskey?”
“It will be attended to,” said Dumbledore, also bowing.
Surely French horses only drink wine!
Harry listened; a loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed. …
“The lake!” yelled Lee Jordan, pointing down at it. “Look at the lake!”
From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water — except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks — and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake’s floor. …
What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool … and then Harry saw the rigging. …
“It’s a mast!” he said to Ron and Hermione.
Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.
Again, are we sure we don't want the students to just dance into the Great Hall, for that full
Glee vibe?
People were disembarking; they could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship’s portholes. All of them, Harry noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle
Insert joke about Soviet lady athletes here.
but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, he saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.
“Dumbledore!” he called heartily as he walked up the slope. “How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?”
“Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff,” Dumbledore replied.
Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.
That just makes me picture Karkaroff shaking his own hands.
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Harry caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He didn’t need the punch on the arm Ron gave him, or the hiss in his ear, to recognize that profile.
“Harry — it’s Krum!”
Can Oblina and Ickis be far behind? Well, Oblina is probably on the Beauxbatons carriage.
