When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, it took him a moment to remember why he felt so miserable and worried.
I bet I could do an entire post in
Simpsons bits.
Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating him like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow himself to be cornered by the Creevey brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to him to join them.
You can't stop me.
They went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before. To his immense relief, Hermione accepted his story without question.
“Well, of course I knew you hadn’t entered yourself,” she said when he’d finished telling her about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. “The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name!
(Fine, I'll do my job)
Hear that? It's a million Harmonian shippers drooling. Hermione naturally starts speculating who could've tricked the Goblet, but Harry has other things on his mind.
“Have you seen Ron?” Harry interrupted.
“Erm … yes … he was at breakfast,” she said.
“Does he still think I entered myself?”
“Well … no, I don’t think so … not really,” said Hermione awkwardly.
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘not really’?”
“Oh Harry, isn’t it obvious?” Hermione said despairingly. “He’s jealous!”
“Jealous?” Harry said incredulously. “Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of himself in front of the whole school, does he?”
Fred and/or George would probably be down to compete in clown outfits. They'd still try their best, but they'd definitely meme it up a bit.
“Look,” said Hermione patiently, “it’s always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it’s not your fault,” she added quickly, seeing Harry open his mouth furiously. “I know you don’t ask for it … but — well — you know, Ron’s got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you’re his best friend, and you’re really famous — he’s always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many. …”
“Great,” said Harry bitterly. “Really great. Tell him from me I’ll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me he’s welcome to it. … People gawping at my forehead everywhere I go. …”
The great irony here is that Rowling is writing this conflict from an adult's perspective--one whose job once involved observing teenagers all day, no less. She understands perfectly well that Ron is being unreasonable and unfair, but also that his emotions come from a human Fanfic writers, meanwhile, are mostly teenagers themselves, or people who still write in the mode of teenagers, who cannot possibly imagine forgiving Ron's slight. This sort of petty squabble really hits home for them, but they don't have the distance or maturity to see it for what it is. Thus, Harry eventually forgiving Ron and moving on seems unthinkable. Of course, a silent majority of young readers probably do see what Rowling is getting at, but that type of person is somewhat less motivated to go online and write a twenty-four chapter fanfic about how it's not a big deal two long time friends had an ugly fight when they were fourteen.
Actually, that sums up the difference between Rowling and a lot of the authors we've covered together. Authors like the Casts or Card understand their readers enough to mirror their emotions, but all they do is validate them without interrogation. Yes, being an attractive, socially popular teenage girl at a posh private school is the hardest thing in the world. Yes, you are a genius trapped in a child's body, and all the adults in your either don't understand you or want to use you for their own grubby ends. It's emotional onanism.
Rowling, conversely, sees your pain, empathises, and gently--with all the kindness in the world--tells you to grow up, dear. No wonder the internet turned on her.
“I’m not telling him anything,” Hermione said shortly. “Tell him yourself. It’s the only way to sort this out.”
“I’m not running around after him trying to make him grow up!” Harry said, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm. “Maybe he’ll believe I’m not enjoying myself once I’ve got my neck broken or —”
“That’s not funny,” said Hermione quietly. “That’s not funny at all.”
Don't think Hermione gets off scot free either. While many fanfics do pair up Harry and Hermione against red headed step-child Ron, many also take this demonstration of clear-thinking emotional intelligence as proof she also hates Harry and is plotting to do
Camp of the Saints but for mudbloods.
Since she's on a break from being dumb, Hermione tells Harry he should maybe he should write Sirius. Harry balks, but Hermione points out that Sirius is definitely going to find out whatever Harry does or doesn't do.
Whose owl am I going to use?” Harry said as they climbed the stairs. “He told me not to use Hedwig again.”
“Ask Ron if you can borrow —”
“I’m not asking Ron for anything,” Harry said flatly.
“Well, borrow one of the school owls, then, anyone can use them,” said Hermione.
I'd say that's fucking stupid but Dumbledore knows Sirius is innocent. Harry sends Sirius a letter that says exactly what you'd expect it to.
“Finished,” he told Hermione, getting to his feet and brushing straw off his robes. At this, Hedwig came fluttering down onto his shoulder and held out her leg.
“I can’t use you,” Harry told her, looking around for the school owls. “I’ve got to use one of these. …”
Hedwig gave a very loud hoot and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into his shoulder. She kept her back to Harry all the time he was tying his letter to the leg of a large barn owl. When the barn owl had flown off, Harry reached out to stroke Hedwig, but she clicked her beak furiously and soared up into the rafters out of reach.
“First Ron, then you,” said Harry angrily. “This isn’t my fault.”
One issue both writers and performers have to deal with is that anger--being an often irrational thing--can be very funny to outside observers. I absolutely get Harry, I've been there, but there's no way him sulking about his owl betraying him isn't going to be at least a little funny.
If Harry had thought that matters would improve once everyone got used to the idea of him being champion, the following day showed him how mistaken he was. He could no longer avoid the rest of the school once he was back at lessons — and it was clear that the rest of the school, just like the Gryffindors, thought Harry had entered himself for the tournament. Unlike the Gryffindors, however, they did not seem impressed.
As I mentioned in book one, in most installments, Harry tends to spend much of the term being the school outcast. So far the only exception has been book three, but there he was the sad freak boy who couldn't go on the class trip, so it evened out. This time, the Hufflepuffs especially aren't so hot on Harry, for much the same reasons fans of
The Batman sometimes give that Gunnverse Batman thing dirty looks.
(They should make Mr. Freeze the baddie in
The Batman 2. It'd kill)
He would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins too — the first time he would come face-to-face with them since becoming champion.
Predictably, Malfoy arrived at Hagrid’s cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place.
You'd think Malfoy would've transferred after last year. Eh, maybe he had a plan to get Hagrid fired this year, but decided that the Skrewts would probably do it for him. Also, speaking of the Skrewts, you know Harry is a good friend when seeing
them doesn't outweigh seeing Hagrid.
Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically, but Malfoy had to stop there, because Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class’s horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Malfoy completely.
The trio, having their blood drained by a broody Blast-Ended Skrewt: At least Draco isn't happy!
Hagrid’s real intention, however, was to talk to Harry away from the rest of the class. He waited until everyone else had set off with their skrewts, then turned to Harry and said, very seriously, “So — yer competin’, Harry. In the tournament. School champion.”
“One of the champions,” Harry corrected him.
Hagrid’s beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under his wild eyebrows.
“No idea who put yeh in fer it, Harry?”
“You believe I didn’t do it, then?” said Harry, concealing with difficulty the rush of gratitude he felt at Hagrid’s words.
“ ’Course I do,” Hagrid grunted. “Yeh say it wasn’ you, an’ I believe yeh — an’ Dumbledore believes yer, an’ all.”
"If Dumbledore thought yeh did it, tho, I'd 'ave terned on yeh like that!"
The pair of them looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs — but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong and very hard to control.
“Look like they’re havin’ fun, don’ they?” Hagrid said happily. Harry assumed he was talking about the skrewts, because his classmates certainly weren’t; every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts’ ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet.
I guess if you want to argue for this as anything but a demented waste of time, if these kids can handle skrewts, they can handle anything.
(And then a dragon steps on them)
“Ah, I don’ know, Harry,” Hagrid sighed suddenly, looking back down at him with a worried expression on his face. “School champion … everythin’ seems ter happen ter you, doesn’ it?”
Oh, God, he's seen us!
The next few days were some of Harry’s worst at Hogwarts. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students.
Really? I'd have compared it to the hundred and fifty points loss in book one. At least nobody right now thinks you're liable to petrify them.
But Ron had been on his side then. He thought he could have coped with the rest of the school’s behavior if he could just have had Ron back as a friend, but he wasn’t going to try and persuade Ron to talk to him if Ron didn’t want to.
See, Rowling knows the worst thing about not having Ron on your side is a lack of Ron!
e could understand the Hufflepuffs’ attitude, even if he didn’t like it; they had their own champion to support. He expected nothing less than vicious insults from the Slytherins —he was highly unpopular there and always had been, because he had helped Gryffindor beat them so often, both at Quidditch and in the Inter-House Championship. But he had hoped the Ravenclaws might have found it in their hearts to support him as much as Cedric. He was wrong, however. Most Ravenclaws seemed to think that he had been desperate to earn himself a bit more fame by tricking the goblet into accepting his name.
Nobody at this school has much pattern recognition. "Yeah, he may have saved us all from horror and death twice over, but
this time he's definitely just being a little shit!"
(I don't think you can say Harry saved the school or anything last book. Even if anyone knew what really went on, if anything, Crookshanks was the hero of that story.)
Professor Trelawney was predicting his death with even more certainty than usual, and he did so badly at Summoning Charms in Professor Flitwick’s class that he was given extra homework — the only person to get any, apart from Neville.
To be fair, it gets a lot easier once you unlock the ability to flick through multiple sets of spell, even if you have to do that dumb quest first.
When he and Hermione arrived at Snape’s dungeon after lunch, they found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment Harry thought they were S.P.E.W. badges
To be fair, Draco wouldn't be the first privileged little prick to hitch himself to some radical cause. Plus, as we established, Draco is at least spiritually Pakistani; I'm pretty sure they're they've got their own stripe on the progress flag.
-- then he saw that
they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
Support CEDRIC DIGGORY —
The REAL Hogwarts Champion
“Like them, Potter?” said Malfoy loudly as Harry approached. “And this isn’t all they do — look!”
He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green:
POTTER STINKS
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry. He felt the heat rise in his face and neck.
Imagine being Cedric Diggory--a top bloke, to be clear--and you find out Draco Malfoy of all fucking people is selling your merch. Next people are going to think he actually liked
Twilight.
"Want one, Granger?” said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. “I’ve got loads. But don’t touch my hand, now. I’ve just washed it, you see; don’t want a Mudblood sliming it up.”
The Draco Trilogy went so far as to literally steal Blackadder's dialogue (and we're talking the smart Blackadder, not series one Blackadder, who was much closer to actual Draco) and give it to Draco. Meanwhile the best canon Draco can do is "I don't want to get your nigger germs on me!"
Some of the anger Harry had been feeling for days and days seemed to burst through a dam in his chest. He had reached for his wand before he’d thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.
“Harry!” Hermione said warningly.
“Go on, then, Potter,” Malfoy said quietly, drawing out his own wand. “Moody’s not here to look after you now — do it, if you’ve got the guts —”
For a split second, they looked into each other’s eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted.
“Furnunculus!” Harry yelled.
You know Harry is pissed when he remembers a second spell exists. Also, Harry, that wasn't your anger, Ron just lent you some of his.
“Densaugeo!” screamed Malfoy.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles — Harry’s hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy’s hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.
Notice this is way cooler than just doing a DBZ style Beam-O-War like the movies do.
“Hermione!”
Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione’s hand away from her face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Hermione’s front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.
Every occasion. It's like the Bible.
It's okay, though, Snape's here. He might be a crotchety old geezer, but he's not going to stand--
Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi.
“Hospital wing, Goyle,” Snape said calmly.
“Malfoy got Hermione!” Ron said. “Look!”
He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape’s back.
Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, “I see no difference.”
Oh yeah, Snape's just kind of horrible.
Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron started shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however.
“Let’s see,” he said, in his silkiest voice. “Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside, or it’ll be a week’s worth of detentions.”
I feel like it says something about how the books have changed that the boys losing a hundred points is just punctuation now.
Harry’s ears were ringing. The injustice of it made him want to curse Snape into a thousand slimy pieces.
I wouldn't. Aside from getting you in hot water, I bet being murdered by Lily and James's son would fulfil some psychosexual complex on Snape's part.
He passed Snape, walked with Ron to the back of the dungeon, and slammed his bag down onto the table. Ron was shaking with anger too — for a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them, but then Ron turned and sat down with Dean and Seamus instead, leaving Harry alone at his table.
Tragic. They could've teamed up and tortured Snape to death together.
Harry sat there staring at Snape as the lesson began, picturing horrific things happening to him. … If only he knew how to do the Cruciatus Curse … he’d have Snape flat on his Harry sat there staring at Snape as the lesson began, picturing horrific things happening to him. … If only he knew how to do the Cruciatus Curse … he’d have Snape flat on his back like that spider, jerking and twitching.
See, the difference between Harry and Danny Tozer is Harry doesn't know the fuck he's talking about. Yet.
“Antidotes!” said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. “You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one. …”
Snape’s eyes met Harry’s, and Harry knew what was coming. Snape was going to poison him. Harry imagined picking up his cauldron, and sprinting to the front of the class, and bringing it down on Snape’s greasy head —
I'm guessing the poison is some whimsically unpleasant shit like Potion of Itching, but imagine if Snape just murdered Harry in the middle of class one day.
And then a knock on the dungeon door burst in on Harry’s thoughts.
It was Colin Creevey; he edged into the room, beaming at Harry, and walked up to Snape’s desk at the front of the room.
Snape: Well, Potter, will you be able to save--
Harry: This is way less scary for me than you might think, Professor.
Nah, Colin is here with a message.
“Please, sir, I’m supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs.”
Snape stared down his hooked nose at Colin, whose smile faded from his eager face.
“Potter has another hour of Potions to complete,” said Snape coldly. “He will come upstairs when this class is finished.”
Colin went pink.
“Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him,” he said nervously. “All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs. …”
Harry would have given anything he owned to have stopped Colin saying those last few words. He chanced half a glance at Ron, but Ron was staring determinedly at the ceiling.
“Very well, very well,” Snape snapped. “Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote.”
Snape then spent the rest of the class angrily masturbating in full view of everyone.
Bagman suddenly spotted Harry, got up quickly, and bounded forward.
“Ah, here he is! Champion number four! In you come, Harry, in you come … nothing to worry about, it’s just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment —”
“Wand weighing?” Harry repeated nervously.
“We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they’re your most important tools in the tasks ahead,” said Bagman. “The expert’s upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there’s going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter,” he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. “She’s doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet. …”
The woman; the legend; Uncle Vernon's love interest in that one comedy edit!
“Maybe not that small, Ludo,” said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on Harry.
Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.
Yeah, Rita is often brought up as evidence of Rowling being the Transphobic Riddler and seeding it through her books. However, I would remind you all this book was written in 1999 and 2000. Barely anyone was thinking about trans stuff back then. A handsome or mannish woman was probably just an allegory for a handsome or mannish woman. If I were to guess, Rowling was probably picturing like, Dame Edna or one of the Pythons, like a less horny version of when lazier writers outright tell you a character looked like X movie star.
Rita would like to speak to Harry before the proceedings. In a closet. Alone. Okay, maybe I was wrong.
“Testing … my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter.”
Harry looked down quickly at the quill. The moment Rita Skeeter had spoken, the green quill had started to scribble, skidding across the parchment:
Attractive blonde Rita Skeeter, forty-three, whose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations —
Rowling: Let's see, it's 1994, she's forty-three years old... that must mean she was born in... 1878!
Okay, is the quill tethered to Rita via telepathy, or is it essentially a chatbot that could probably Rita's job for her long after she's dead?
“Lovely,” said Rita Skeeter, yet again, and she ripped the top piece of parchment off, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into her handbag. Now she leaned toward Harry and said, “So, Harry … what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?”
“Er —” said Harry again, but he was distracted by the quill. Even though he wasn’t speaking, it was dashing across the parchment, and in its wake he could make out a fresh sentence:
An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Harry Potter, whose eyes —
I wonder if Rita was inspired by Rowling's first encounters with the press. Harry insists he didn't enter himself, but Rita brushes this off.
“Of course, you’ve looked death in the face before, haven’t you?” said Rita Skeeter, watching him closely. “How would you say that’s affected you?”
“Er,” said Harry, yet again.
“Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because —”
“I didn’t enter,” said Harry, starting to feel irritated.
“Can you remember your parents at all?” said Rita Skeeter, talking over him.
“No,” said Harry.
Again, hard not to imagine Rowling had some similar experiences being interviewed as a new author with a somewhat heavy past.
“How do you think they’d feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?”
Harry was feeling really annoyed now. How on earth was he to know how his parents would feel if they were alive? He could feel Rita Skeeter watching him very intently. Frowning, he avoided her gaze and looked down at words the quill had just written:
Tears fill those startling green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents he can barely remember.
Is
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the most prescient cyberpunk novel ever written?
“I have NOT got tears in my eyes!” said Harry loudly.
Before Rita Skeeter could say a word, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. Harry looked around, blinking in the bright light. Albus Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of them, squashed into the cupboard.
“Dumbledore!” cried Rita Skeeter, with every appearance of delight — but Harry noticed that her quill and the parchment had suddenly vanished from the box of Magical Mess Remover, and Rita’s clawed fingers were hastily snapping shut the clasp of her crocodile-skin bag. “How are you?” she said, standing up and holding out one of her large, mannish hands to Dumbledore. “I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards’ Conference?”
“Enchantingly nasty,” said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. “I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat.”
Rita Skeeter didn’t look remotely abashed.
“I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street —”
I do kind of like that that Rita isn't at all flustered when face-to-face with one of her punching bags. Even bad people can have a kind of virtue. Anyway, it's time to inspect everyone's wands.
“May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?” said Dumbledore, taking his place at the judges’ table and talking to the champions. “He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament.”
Harry looked around, and with a jolt of surprise saw an old wizard with large, pale eyes standing quietly by the window. Harry had met Mr. Ollivander before — he was the wand-maker from whom Harry had bought his own wand over three years ago in Diagon Alley.
I'm not going to hold it against the film for cutting this particular scene--it's exactly the sort of scene that gets cut--but it's a shame we didn't get more John Hurt. Also, I should've mentioned this during the last book, but movie three also saw a change in how wands were depicted. In the first couple of films, the wand props were, for lack of a better word, fairly utilitarian. There were differences in colour and length, sure, but they were all pretty simple polished wooden rods with fairly plain handles. Fun fact, the reason Seamus Finnegan was always blowing shit up in the movies wasn't because of Rowling's Pearl-esque hatred for the Irish, but rather because his actor had a habit of breaking his wands.
When he was making the third film, Alfonso Cuarón decided to spice things up by introducing more customised wand props, which I'm sure Rowling appreciates, because you can now buy replicas of them. He even had a bunch of different designs made up, and had each of the trio's actors pick the one they felt best suited the character, which is pretty rad.
“Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first, please?” said Mr. Ollivander, stepping into the empty space in the middle of the room.
Fleur Delacour swept over to Mr. Ollivander and handed him her wand.
“Hmmm …” he said.
He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton and it emitted a number of pink and gold sparks. Then he held it close to his eyes and examined it carefully.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “nine and a half inches … inflexible … rosewood … and containing … dear me …”
“An ’air from ze ’ead of a veela,” said Fleur. “One of my grandmuzzer’s.”
So Fleur was part veela, thought Harry, making a mental note to tell Ron … then he remembered that Ron wasn’t speaking to him.
"Veela" is an alternate spelling of
vila, a type of Slavic fairy-thing, a bit like a friendlier rusalka. They usually appear as attractive women, and sometimes do the whole lure men to their doom shtick, but are also known to aid people and intermarry with humans, producing offspring with unusual beauty or powers. In fact, in some places, vila was specifically a term for magicians whose powers derived from fairies in some way. Your basic nature spirit or nymph, basically. I'm guessing the part about Fleur's grandmother is a bit of a dark joke on Rowling's part, because according to some legends, if a vila's hair was plucked, they'd either die or turn into a monster. Eh, maybe they got it from her shower drain.
Is a bit funny that Fleur, the Frenchiest of French girls, is part Slavic monster person. Of course, someone having a grandmother from another country doesn't really qualify as an error or a plot hole, but if Rowling had wanted to make Fleur
even more French, she could have made her gran a melusine, a kind of French water spirit or mermaid, though maybe that would've been an unfair advantage later.
Yes,” said Mr. Ollivander, “yes, I’ve never used veela hair myself, of course. I find it makes for rather temperamental wands … however, to each his own, and if this suits you …”
Mr. Ollivander ran his fingers along the wand, apparently checking for scratches or bumps; then he muttered, “Orchideous!” and a bunch of flowers burst from the wand tip.
I love how fanfic has all these unique wand cores, and canonically Ollivander doesn't use them because they're not as good.
“Ah, now, this is one of mine, isn’t it?” said Mr. Ollivander, with much more enthusiasm, as Cedric handed over his wand. “Yes, I remember it well. Containing a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn … must have been seventeen hands; nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail. Twelve and a quarter inches … ash … pleasantly springy. It’s in fine condition. … You treat it regularly?”
“Polished it last night,” said Cedric, grinning.
Harry looked down at his own wand. He could see finger marks all over it. He gathered a fistful of robe from his knee and tried to rub it clean surreptitiously. Several gold sparks shot out of the end of it. Fleur Delacour gave him a very patronizing look, and he desisted.
I don't blame Harry for neglecting his wand, he uses it much less than you'd expect. Also, Fleur may be patronising, but imagine if she was an African witch.
(She'd probably still own a wand because it's way easier using one to clean your socks than slaughtering a live chicken)
Viktor Krum got up and slouched, round-shouldered and duck-footed, toward Mr. Ollivander. He thrust out his wand and stood scowling, with his hands in the pockets of his robes.
“Hmm,” said Mr. Ollivander, “this is a Gregorovitch creation, unless I’m much mistaken? A fine wand-maker, though the styling is never quite what I … however …”
He lifted the wand and examined it minutely, turning it over and over before his eyes.
“Yes … hornbeam and dragon heartstring?” he shot at Krum, who nodded. “Rather thicker than one usually sees … quite rigid … ten and a quarter inches … Avis!”
The hornbeam wand let off a blast like a gun, and a number of small, twittering birds flew out of the end and through the open window into the watery sunlight.
Now I'm imagining Krum's wand basically being a truncheon.
Mr. Ollivander explained that the phoenix feather in Harry’s wand had come from the same bird that had supplied the core of Lord Voldemort’s.
Harry had never shared this piece of information with anybody. He was very fond of his wand, and as far as he was concerned its relation to Voldemort’s wand was something it couldn’t help — rather as he couldn’t help being related to Aunt Petunia.
Just as Harry couldn't help Petunia siphoning his blood every night to try and steal his powers. Harry has a very curt encounter with Ron in the common room, who tells him he has mail.
He then walked straight out of the room, not looking at Harry. For a moment, Harry considered going after him — he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to talk to him or hit him
--or kiss him.
Aside from the inevitable letter from
Reader's Digest, Harry also got a reply from Sirius, telling him to ensure he's alone by the common room fire on the 22nd of November. I'm guessing Sirius is having Santa do an early weapons run.
