Chapter 15: The Forbidden Forest
We learn that at Hogwarts, your safety is entirely forfeit if you get detention. Just go in the forest and get eaten by a monster you little shits, see if McGonagall cares!
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
So at the end of our last chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hermione and Harry are caught, and poor Neville bravely tries to warn them about Malfoy’s shenanigans and is instead caught by McGonagall as well, who punishes them so severely you’d think they’d done something far more awful then wander around late at night. She takes away 150 points which puts Gryffindor dead last for the house cup and subjects PotzGrangBottom to some serious, possibly permanently scarring ostracizing.
I’m just saying…does the punishment fit the crime, McG?? Most ashamed she’s ever been? Never seen something like this? Really? I love McGonagall but I find it very hard to believe she hasn’t caught students out of bed on a regular basis, doing hanky panky far worse then wandering around (or illegally smuggling away a dragon.) Not only that, but the four students (Malfoy’s snitch ass included) get assigned a detention so insane I won’t stop posting memes about it this whole blog. For the first and only time, Malfoy’s whining about his father hearing about this is really, really justified.
Quirrelldemort is overheard whimpering while Voldemort makes him spank himself with his own hand orders him to do something awful, and of course Harry suspects Snape is the one tormenting him, because who wouldn’t believe this at this point, and—sorry, can we just get back to the insanity of a school making four 11-12 year-olds wander around a dangerous forest at night looking for a monster that’s killing unicorns as punishment for being out of bed late? I can only imagine the punishment if McGonagall had actually believed that Harry and Hermione were sneaking out a dragon.
As if prancing around the forest with an unknown unicorn killing creature with only a man who doesn’t even have a wand and a cowardly dog wasn’t insane enough, they then split off into two groups.
We meet some centaurs who do their best deep thinking college freshmen discovering philosophy impressions
and Malfoy scares Neville because book one Malfoy is as awful as Uncle Vernon and Harry gets stuck with him instead. MalfPotz see a dead unicorn, traumatizing them, a creepy slithering creature, traumatizing them further, and when the creature sucks the unicorn’s blood Malfoy does the most reasonable thing he’s ever done:
and runs off as fast as possible to go beg daddy to Obliviate this out of his mind, because this is the most cuckoo bananas detention of all time.
Harry’s saved by Firenze the centaur, and gets caught in the midst of three posturing, angry centaurs when Bane and Ronan argue he should’ve left Harry, an innocent child to get eaten or whatever. But good thing he’s learning a lesson about sneaking out of bed, right McGonagall?
Firenze drops some truth bombs about who could be drinking that unicorn blood, and poor Harry is now aware that Voldemort is out and about, trying to get the sorcerer’s stone for himself.
Dumbledore gives him back the invisibility cloak (although Harry still doesn’t know this is who his mysterious benefactor is) which makes me wonder if Dumbledore was sneaking around after Harry and Hermione while they smuggled Norbert and if so, why? Or did he just assume they’d gotten as far as the tower with the cloak and investigated? Either way, Harry has his cloak back and Hogwarts foots the bill for the thearpy Hermione, Neville, Malfoy, and Harry will need after the most sadistic detention ever.
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How does Dumbledore know where Harry’s cloak was?
Why does Quirrell agree to drink the unicorn’s blood?
Do you think McGonagall’s punishment fit the crime?
Does Filch ever sleep?
And where does this detention rank on the worst detentions of all time?
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I so do agree with the above but .. no one who answers the question .. nowhere on internet there is an explanation