I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, BIG job interview today. Wish me luck!

It’s been only a month since my last update. This is progress, people! Also, can I just admit how much I adore Tumblr. I realize I haven’t sung its praises yet, and I really love how it’s given new life to the entire Harry Potter fandom. So, onto Diagon Alley.

“’Wizards have banks?’
‘Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins.’”

Am I the only one who sees this as a potential logistical nightmare? There is only one bank in all of wizard kind? I imagine this is regional to England only. There must be some sort of wizarding bank for continental Europe, Africa, Asia, North America. Is Gringotts a chain that has a presence on all continents? Does each country only have one bank? The UK is pretty small. I would be pissed as an American witch if I had to apparate to the only wizarding bank in the country in like Des Moines, Iowa or something every time I wanted to make a deposit. Doesn’t this just encourage witches and wizards to horde their money in lock boxes under the bed like a crazy old cat lady who doesn’t trust banks because her family lost everything in the Great Depression? And what about offshore accounts? Is there a wizard bank in the Cayman Islands? Swiss wizard bank accounts? I bet the Malfoys have a Swiss wizard bank account.

“Never mess with goblins, Harry.”

Harry conveniently forgets this bit of sage advice from Hagrid come Deathly Hallows. Also, I am noticing for the first time that Hagrid and Harry take the boat the Dursley’s arrived at the hut in, effectively stranding the Dursley’s out on a rock in the middle of the sea. Once again, I find Vernon and Petunia’s hatred of all things magical surprisingly valid.

“’Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?’ Harry asked.
‘Spells – enchantments,’ said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. ‘They say there’s dragons guardin’ the high-security vaults.”

Did J.K. Rowling know when she wrote this sentence that she was going to have Harry break into Gringotts six books later and escape on a high-security dragon? I haven’t read Philosopher’s Stone in years and definitely not since Deathly Hallows was released. It’s amazing how things mentioned in the first book come back.

“’Welcome,’ said Hagrid, ‘to Diagon Alley.’”

I’ve been pretty critical of the films over the years. Obviously they’ll never compare to the books and they occasionally leave something out that infuriates me. Generally, however, I really like them. This scene in the film version of Philosopher’s Stone is so spot on perfect that even reading the book now I picture it. I can hear the original John Williams score in my head and see a wide eyed Daniel Radcliffe taking in all the wizarding sights. This scene was perfect. 

“In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes.”

Ah, our first introduction to one, Draco Malfoy. I guess this as good a time as any to confess that I hate Draco Malfoy. He’s a douchebag. I understand that Tom Felton is good looking and charming and a generally nice bloke, but Draco is none of those things. He’s a pale little rat faced jerk who is a bully and a coward. He’s essentially Dudley in magical form, and I don’t see fangirls working themselves into a frenzy over Dudley. No, he’s not completely evil. He’s not on par with Bellatrix, Fenrir Greyback or Voldemort. But he’s still a total ass hat. I feel like the fandom has selective amnesia where Malfoy is concerned and only remembers Felton’s portrayal of Malfoy rather than book!Malfoy. Also, Lauren Lopez’s general awesomeness has contributed to this. I adore AVPM Malfoy. 

Well, that’s all I have to say about that chapter. When I started this Tumblr I figured I’d be on Prisoner of Azkaban by now, but such is life. Tomorrow I’ll hopefully finally get to Hogwarts!

I haven’t updated in over two months. I am a very, very, bad blog mommy. I wish I had an excuse but I really don’t, other than being very easily distracted. But I’m back now and I plan on updating more regularly in the future.

Now, let’s meet Hagrid. Properly this time.

“A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.”

I remember being fairly put off by the character of Hagrid when first reading the books. I always thought Hagrid was a reasonably popular character, but recently I’ve come to the realization that there is an awful lot of hatred for him in the fandom. I don’t think it’s really warranted, but I do get the feel that Harry sort of outgrew Hagrid as the story went on. After the first couple of books he’s really not instrumental in the plot in any way and his whole Grawp side story in Order of the Phoenix was just exhausting. I never liked him because I tend to get frustrated when writers write for characters in a dialect. I can imagine it in my head but I find it cumbersome to read. After Robbie Coltrane’s spot on portrayal of Hagrid, I had a much easier time reading his lines and didn’t hate him quite so much.

“‘Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby,’ said the giant. ‘Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.’”

And so marks the first time Harry hears this line. Even I got sick of people telling Harry he had his mother’s eyes by the end of the series. I’m sure he was ready to bitch slap anyone who said it to him. Until Snape. You can’t bitch slap a dying man, no matter the circumstances. 

“‘What about that tea then, eh?’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’d not say no ter summat stronger if yeh’ve got it, mind.’”

That louse Hagrid is drinking on the job! He’s been sent to fetch the most important boy in all of wizard kind and he’s asking a man he just called a “great prune” for a drink. 1) Hagrid has no sense of propriety. 2) He’s probably already drunk. No wonder McGonagall questions Dumbledore’s trust in him. That being said, muggle liquor probably has no effect on Hagrid. He needs like 40 barrels of Madame Rosmerta’s mulled mead to get a slight buzz. Hagrid would be an expensive date.

“Harry - yer a wizard.”

How I’ve longed for a large hairy man with a pink umbrella to mutter those words to me. Well, you know, he’d say my name not “Harry” and say “witch” not “wizard” but still. And it wouldn’t necessarily be Hagrid who told me. I’d be much more receptive if they sent like Professor Flitwick or something. The moral of the story - I’m still waiting for my Hogwarts letter.

Now we reach the point in the story where Hagrid tells Harry everything. And I mean “everything” in the vaguest sense of the word. 

“There was somethin’ goin’ on that night he hadn’t counted on - I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin’ about you stumped him, all right.”

Can I just interject here and say that Dumbledore knows what it was, and anyone with half a brain could guess about the power of Lily’s love and what not. But then again, Hagrid doesn’t have half a brain.

“‘Hagrid,’ he said quietly, ‘I think you must have made a mistake. I don’t think I can be a wizard.’”

And this here is the fundamental difference between Harry and Voldemort. Compare this scene to the one in Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore tells a young Tom Riddle the same thing. Tom has no doubts that he’s special. Harry has to be convinced. 

Next stop: Diagon Alley!

dragon-heartstring-core:

(via acciomrdarcy)

Or, Vernon Dursley vs. the owl post.

If anyone out there in the tumblr-sphere is actually reading this, I apologize for the huge gap in updates. I’ve been out of town for the past 2 weeks and unable to update. Now, on to Uncle Vernon’s mental breakdown. 

“Smeltings boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren’t looking.”

This is quite possibly the most hideous uniform I can think of. I thought my plaid skirt and navy blue polo were bad. Whoever decided maroon and orange were complimentary colors should be drawn and quartered.

“The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in grey water.”

I amend my previous statement. Harry’s Stonewall High uniform is the most hideous uniform I can think of. Can you imagine if Harry was really just a muggle and had shown up for his first day of secondary school in Dudley’s ill fitting grey hand-me-downs with his broken glasses. Poor kid wouldn’t stand a chance. He’s so lucky a large burly man with a motorcycle found him and whisked him away to magic school where no one is ever bullied…unless your last name is Snape or Longbottom.

“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”

Far be it from me to take the Dursleys’ side in any argument, but Vernon has a valid point. To the casual observer, the magical world is a terrifying place full of things that want to kill you. Case in point - Petunia’s sister went off to join the magical world only to be brutally murdered at the age of 21. Also, the Dursley’s never have a decent exchange with a witch or wizard. Hagrid gives Dudley a pig’s tail after busting into their shack and threatening them later in this book. The Weasley’s blow apart their living room in Goblet of Fire. Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin and Tonks threaten Vernon at the end of Order of the Phoenix and finally they are displaced from their home under the threat of pain of death at the hands of Voldemort simply for being related to Harry in Deathly Hallows. The Dursleys are dicks 99.9% of the time, but, like, I get it. 

“On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window.”

That passage is just absurd and makes me laugh. 

“BOOM. The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.”

And there we have the end of the dull Dursley chapters. Next chapter we meet Hagrid and all the fun magical crap goes down. Onward to back story and exposition, ahoy!

I don’t have too much to say about this chapter. Harry talks to a snake, makes glass disappear, gets in trouble, the usual Saturday afternoon with the Dursleys. I remember when I first read this book 13 years ago that I wasn’t that appalled by the Dursleys’ treatment of Harry. This must reflect on some of the literature I was reading at the time. Compared to Jane Eyre, David Copperfield or Pip from “Great Expectations”, Harry’s childhood is downright cheery. Going back and reading this now though, keeping an unwanted relative in a cupboard under some stairs, showering gifts on another child while ignoring Harry and locking him away as a form of punishment really does border on child abuse. They never actually hit Harry, but they wage psychological warfare on him his entire life. Badly done, Petunia. Badly done.

“Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned.”

Oh, Mrs. Figg, a throw away character who ends up being somewhat important. I love that the mad old cat lady in the neighborhood is a squib. I like to think that all mad old cat ladies that I come across from now on are harboring magical relatives.

“He couldn’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.”

Harry has never seen a picture of his parents. Let that sink in for a bit. I feel like this explains so much about Harry as a person. For the first ten years of his life he didn’t even know what his parents looked like. He is always so enamored of people who knew his parents like Remus and Sirius. He’s always hungry for information, even more so than other orphans because unlike those children, Harry never got to hear anything about them or see pictures of them. Granted, there are probably no pictures of Lily and James in the Dursley household because they’d be magical pictures and how would they explain to the neighbors why that photograph on the mantle kept waving at them. Of course, some amount of ignorance is bliss for Harry because he eventually finds out his father was a heinous douchebag. This is not a James Potter appreciation blog. I have a lot of unresolved feelings about James Potter.

(via belislythindor)