Hogwarts Herald

When looking in depth at Diagon Alley, the thing that hits me is the description of Gringotts. The things that Hagrid tells Harry in this chapter lay silently in the back of our minds, waiting to strike. Hagrid tells Harry you’d be mad to try and rob Gringotts. That the bank extends for hundreds of miles underneath London and how if you did manage to break in and find something that you’d end up starving to death trying to get out. It also goes into there being rumors of dragons guarding the high security vaults at Gringotts. These things you learn in the fifth chapter of the very first book, and then BAM book seven comes along, and right in the middle on the search for Horcruxes, the trio have to do exactly what Hagrid warns Harry about before he has ever taken a step into the magical world. And sure enough, seven years later, there is indeed a dragon there, and it’s only with the help of a Gringotts goblin himself, namely Griphook. Griphook, coincidentally, is the very same goblin who takes Harry down into his vault the very first time.

Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.

Now, in this chapter we are also introduced to a couple of new characters that will be major players. One is simply a major player in this book, the other is prevalent in the entire series.

First of all, I am taking a look at Professor Quirrell. The most seemingly benign character in the entire book is, in the end, the enemy. Poor Professor Quirrell is shaky and stuttery in the Leaky Cauldron, just at the notion of meeting Harry. Hagrid explains that he was fine, until he took a year off. Apparently there was some trouble in the Black Forest, as well as “a nasty bit of business with a Hag�? What we don’t know, is that while he was off studying, he ran into the Dark Lord, and became enticed over to the dark side. He began harboring what was left of Lord Voldemort within his very body. Throughout the rest of the book, this is hinted to, but only really revealed to those who have read it more than once. When Harry is being cursed off his broom, for example, Quirrell is right there behind Snape. But because Snape is such a malevolent character the children, and therefore the readers, focus on him. I’d like to say that I suspected Quirrell from the beginning, but I didn’t. This book, being the very first, took me completely by surprise. I didn’t spend my spare time coming up with theories on it as I did for books six and seven. And hooray for that. I am pleased that at the end of Sorcerers Stone, when Harry finally makes it into that last chamber, I was genuinely shocked to see Professor Quirrell standing there.

The second major character we meet in this chapter is Draco Malfoy. Draco appears, in this chapter, to be merely a spoiled snotty child, but as the books unfold his character becomes very multi dimensional. While he is indeed a snob, and a spoiled brat, he is also the product of evil parents. He is raised in a household where abuse is prevalent. Not only is their servant, the loyal Dobby, continuously abused, but Draco is encouraged to be abusive to anyone considered beneath the family. By Half-Blood Prince Draco has become a rather sympathetic character, suffering the consequences for his parents sins. And while Draco will never be one of my favorite people in the world, he is one of my favorite characters. Just like all of Jo’s villians, he is flawed and broken. That is what makes him bad, and this is what makes me love him.

Yes the read along is back on. To my faithful reader, whomever you might be, I am sorry for the delay. My persistent absences are inexcusable. And now, on with the story.

Chapter 5 begins with poor Harry thinking that all of last night was a dream. At insitant tapping, though, he awakes to find himself in the hut still. Never has a sight done his heart more good. He lets a small owl into the room who drops off a newspaper of some kind and begins rummaging through Hagrid’s coat. He tries to dissuade the owl, but gets a nip in the finger instead. Finally Hagrid wakens enough to let him know the owl wants to be paid for the newspaper. In this world there are no paperboys, the owls bring you the daily news. And the WILL be paid, or your eyeballs will be plucked out it seems.

After rummaging through Hagrids coat for a time, Harry finds some strange looking coins. It seems that the wizards don’t use “muggle money” and instead they have their own form of currency. There are Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons. Knuts are bronze, and have the least value. Sickles are silver and are worth more than Knuts, but it takes 17 of them to make one Gold Galleon. After paying the owl with several of the little bronze coins, Harry speaks to Hagrid about something that was disturbing him. Harry has no money. He has no Muggle Money at all to trade in, and he definately doesn’t have any of this strange wizard money. Or so he thinks.

Hagrid is shocked that Harry would think that his parents didn’t leave him anything. Why he’s shocked still I’m not sure. It’s pretty obvious by this point that the Dursley’s didn’t think to tell Harry anything that was really valid or true about his life before he came to live with them or about his parents at all. Hagrid informs Harry that he has more than enough money, and that will be their first stop for the day. They will be going to the Wizards Bank Gringotts. It’s run by Goblins. It is the safest place anyone could think to put anything, and there are even rumors of the highest security vaults being guarded by dragons. Of which Hagrid would love to have one. A dragon that is, not a high security vault.

Harry and Hagrid traversed the streets of London, heading out to get his school supplies, and his money. Once they have finally negotiated their way off the underground, and walked a bit, they find themselves at the Leaky Cauldron. Harry realizes, while standing outside of it, that nobody else seems to notice it at all. As a matter of fact, Hagrid had to point it out to Harry, otherwise he too would have just passed it by. Upon entering the Leaky Cauldron, Harry is recognized. This is his first real introduction to how famous he really is. People come up to him, shaking his hand, greeting him with enthusiasm and honor. Dedalus Diggle is thrilled when Harry points out that he remembers him. Here Harry also meets Professor Quirrel. A strange and nervous fellow who is going to be Harry’s Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. He is nice enough, although he is very shaky and stuttery and wears a strange turban on his head.

Eventually Hagrid is able to get Harry out of the Leaky Cauldron and they go into an alley behind it, where Hagrid taps the wall with his umbrella and the entire thing opens up. Beyond it is a world apart. An entire avenue of shops and people, all selling and buying strange magical things with the strange wizard money. There are places selling everything that is on his list and then some. Cauldrons, and wands and owls, oh my!!! Harry and Hagrid make their way to a large white building that is Gringotts. In it there are all sorts of wonders. After finding Harry’s key they jump into a trolley on some very precarious tracks with a goblin named Griphook. After what seems like miles of twisty turns at breakneck speeds they arrive at a vault. Griphook opens it up and inside are piles and piles of gold, silver and bronze. Harry is rich. Wealthier than he ever thought he would be. His parents did leave him something after all. They climb back in the trolley and make one more stop before heading out. That stop is at a very high security vault that requires the finger of the goblin to open the door. Inside is one small grubby package. Hagrid was sent to pick it up by Dumbledore himself. It’s top secret and very important.

Once they have left Gringotts, they do all of Harry’s school shopping. With two major stops to get a wand and a robe. At Madame Malkins, Harry runs into a blonde haired boy who seems extremely ill tempered and snobby. Much to Harry’s relief he leaves quickly. Afterwords, Hagrid decides to get Harry a birthday present. They go to Eeylops Owl Emporium and come out with a beautiful snowy owl, whom Harry decides to name Hedwig. And then they go to Olivanders. At Olivanders Harry tries out dozens of wands, not knowing what he’s really trying for. Then suddenly, he finds out. A spray of colored sparks shoot out of the end of his wand. The most curious thing about his wand being that the phoenix whose tail feather is in the wand is also the core of the wand that gave him his scar. The wand that killed his parents. The wand of Voldemort.

Forgive me readers, for I have cyber-sinned. It’s been 14 days since I last blogged. No excuses, just a quick “I suck” before moving on to the actual subject of this post. well, several subjects actually…

First of all, it has been released that Deathly Hallows will indeed be released in two films. They will be released approximately six months apart with part one being released November 2010, and part 2 opening May of 2011. That sounds SO FAR AWAY!!! And it is, with Half Blood Prince coming at us quickly and releasing November 21st in both regular format and IMAX, it will be two years before the release of the first half of Deathly Hallows. Producer David Heyman claims that this is not being done for financial reasons. I think that with the opening weekends that the Potter films never fail to produce, that extra cash can’t really hurt. Rather, he said, the decision was made purely from an artistic point on view. While certain subplots could be removed from the prior films, the same cannot be said of ANY aspect of Deathly Hallows. Well at least he has that right. Although, I am still “peeved” at the removal of Peeves the Poltergeist from the movies as a whole. I think that as a character he added much to the series, a bit of fun that perhaps lightens up some otherwise very serious moments.

In other news, Dame Maggie Smith, otherwise known to you as Professor Minerva McGonagall, is battling breast cancer like the strong woman she is known to be. Sources state that she has had a tumor removed and has had one round of chemo as a preventative measure. She is still in the process of filming the movies and my best wishes go out to her and her family. Blessings on you Dame Maggie, may you recover quickly and with as little pain as possible.

That’s it for now readers, although I will be resuming my read-along this week. Life happened and I was unable to for a little while, but I promise, chapter 5 is coming up!!!

I am a big fan of the various Harry Potter fansites all over the web. Most of them that I have found are very well executed, and have astonishingly good graphics and information. Almost all of them have chats, forums, games, articles, activities of some type. And then there’s JK Rowling’s website. It is whimsical, informative, fun. It has things you can find and games of sorts in finding the “easter eggs” on the different pages. It is a fantastic page, very much in the Harry Potter theme while still being very clearly Jo’s page.

Because of these wonderful sites, with obvious thought and caring poured into them, I expected the same from the parent company of the films. Going to Warner Bros. sad attempt at a website, though, is subjecting yourself to what amounts to a large commercial for the DVD’s. There is no information on the next film, Half-Blood Prince, which is already in production. There are no articles, no games, nothing but a few downloads of backgrounds and mediocre avatars. One screensaver, and then a gallery with about 40 photos from the film. There is not even a synopsis of the movie. It amazes me that this is probably one of their largest projects. Seven films that a guaranteed to be blockbusters, and they did not even put in the effort to make the site remotely interactive. It is ridiculous that there is not one single game, one lousy word search, anything that might make the site a place people would want to visit the site more than once. Bad form WB, put a little effort into it, will ya?

Probably the bit of fore-shadowing that screams right out at me here in chapter 4 is about Voldemort himself. Hagrid is describing how Voldemort disappeared, but that he doesn’t think that he’s dead. About how he doesn’t think there was enough human left in him to die. How very right Hagrid was. Starting with this first book we learn that Voldemort has been hiding out for 11 years waiting to get just enough strength to take up in one of his followers bodies. He spends time while there drinking the blood of unicorns just to keep him alive long enough to find the Sorcerer’s Stone. This act of horror clearly shows his lack of humanity, but does not reveal the deepest secret truth. Hagrid is completely right, Voldemort does not have enough human in him to die, and it’s not until book six that we find out exactly what that means. When we do discover the startling, terrifying truth about how Voldemort has been systematically removing parts of his soul in order to attain immortality, we forget this simple statement made by Hagrid waaaay back in book one.

In this chapter we also see more foreshadowing of Chamber of Secrets. Hagrids wand is, for some strange reason, a pink umbrella. In this chapter we don’t understand how important a wand is, or how unbearable it would be for a wizard for his to be broken and removed from him. In this we see some of Dumbledore’s beneficence. This giant was expelled, done something so wrong that his wand was snapped in two and he’s not allowed to do magic, but Hagrid is not in Azkaban… He is working at Hogwarts, with the very children he is accused of attempting to murder. Did Dumbledore really have that much power with the former Minister of Magic? I think he did. One thing I wonder about this entire situation is why the Death Eaters, upon capture and conviction, didn’t have their wands broken, or better yet burned? They all break out of prison, and there are their wands, safe and whole as the day they got them… To get back to the first part of this section, though, here is another little nugget. Hagrid is not allowed to do magic. There is not a big deal made out of it. It’s not a big shocking revalation. It is simply a fact, but then we move on to Chamber of Secrets and find out why. And that IS a big shocking revalation. Just another way of telling us that J.K. Rowling planned out these books from beginning to end, literally, before the first one was ever published.

That someone, who is knocking at the door, of the shack, on a rock, in the middle of the sea, is Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. He has come to wish Harry a happy birthday, and hand deliver his letter. Upon entering the shack, he is greeted by Vernon Dursley’s rifle. He is a giant of a man, and strong enough to knock the door completely off of this shack, but Uncle Vernon thinks his rifle will have some sort of effect on him. Hagrid laughs and promptly ties the gun into a knot. He sets up a roaring fire in the small grate and cooks up some sausages that he is keeping in his moleskin coat, along with several live animals, a teapot, tea, booze, and any number of other random things.

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.

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Again, there are no new characters introduced in the Letters to No One, but a lot of important events. In this chapter Harry is mentioned leaving the house all day sometimes to hide from Dudley & his gang. In future chapters and the subsequent books we see him sparring most often with Draco who is a villian in the exact opposite way of Dudley. While he is still a bully, he uses his brain and the brawn of his flunkies to do the bullying. Dudley is not smart enough for that, and I think if he had had magic in him he would have ended up being a hanger on, similar to Crabbe and Goyle, except scorned even by them for his Muggle parentage.

We are also introduced to Uncle Vernon’s fear of the wizarding world. Not because of his running and hiding from the letters, although that is one of the symptoms. No, what I’m really referencing is his immediate move to put Harry in an actual bedroom. As soon as he realized that the people from this school know that Harry has been sleeping in the Cupboard under the stairs he moved him. His fear runs so deeply that he makes changes in his own household, giving the child that he dislikes so much, a room of his own. Throughout the series this fear, which mirrors his hatred of that same said world, increases exponentially. When Dudley is given the tail of a pig in the next chapter, Aunt Marge is blown up like a balloon, and he sees Harry, whom he has taken joy in abusing his entire life, become stronger every year, Uncle Vernon becomes more afraid. Yet in the end, in the very end, he allows his life, and that of his family, to be put into their hands. Because even though he fears them, I believe that he knows that they are mostly good people, perhaps better people than he is, and that they aren’t out to harm him…

The Letters from No One is by far one of my favorite chapters in this book. It opens with Harry finishing up his punishment for the escape of the boa constrictor. The summer holidays have already started and Harry is doing his best to avoid Dudley and his gang. He is excited about only one thing. He will finally not be going to the same school as Dudley. It seems the little beast has been accepted at his fathers old school, Smeltings. Harry, of course, is not that special and is going to be attending the local public school. All is going as usual, until one day when Harry is sent to check the mail…

“Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets.”

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ABC Family is having a Harry Potter weekend this week. They showed Sorcerer’s Stone yesterday, and then repeated it today followed by Chamber of Secrets. Tomorrow They will be showing PoA, complete with a clip of the new film, Dr Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who.

Watching SS yesterday, I was struck by one thing. It has been ages since I watched it. I don’t think I’ve watched Sorcerers Stone since the release of Chamber of Secrets. The thing that got me most was how darn young the kids are. I know they are only 11, but they look like babies now that we have seen them grow up. They had already gotten so muc bigger between SS and Cos, but it is hard to believe how much older than that they look now. I knwo that they were the proper age for SS, each of them being about 10 or 11, the eldest of the trio being almost 12 (I think) when they started filming. The movies have been released one a year, although it took about a year and a half between CoS and PoA. People make fun, saying they are too old to be playing the parts anymore, but I disagree. And here’s why…

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