Chapter 16: Through the Trapdoor
In chapter sixteen of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the scariest possible thing happens: end of year exams. Oh, and Ron almost dies and our trio has to try to stop their terrifying professor from attaining immortality.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Harry’s scar burns so much that he puts two and two together and realizes Hagrid doing this
with the trio could possibly lead to him doing that with oh, say, anyone else.
Harry realizes the only person randomly carrying a dragon egg around aside from this guy
is probably up to no good, and not in the fun way, and they get out of Hagrid with minimal effort how to stop Fluffy.
Our trio for once try to do the responsible thing and get help from an adult, but Dumbledore is gone and McGonagall is too busy thinking up terrifying and sadistic detentions unhelpful. It explains a lot why the trio foolishly try to solve everything themselves in the future. They try again to guard Snape and the stone and fail, so our second wild PotzWeazGrang adventure commences. Harry realizes house points and teacher goodwill doesn’t mean jack squat next to an evil wizard bent on world domination coming back to power and he gives one of his best speeches of all time
This rallies the Scooby gang
and when they try to leave, Neville picks the worst time to be brave, trying to save his friends from what he thinks is silly sneaking about that will lose Gryffindor points and get his friends in trouble.
Hermione is forced to petrify Neville so they can get the stone in time, and it’s here I wonder for the first time how things would’ve gone if the trio had convinced Neville to come with them to get the stone instead. Would this have made our trio a foursome the rest of the books? After all, if knocking out a troll was enough to bond PotzWeazGrang forever, what would’ve stopping pure evil done for PotzWeazGrangBottom? As usual, I want to read this fanfic!
So our trio plays Hagrid’s flute to knock out Fluffy, and what happened to Fluffy after this book, as he’s never heard from again? Is he roaming the forbidden forest? Playing in a dog park? Either way, our trio lands on some allegedly convenient plants after falling through a trapdoor and Hermione recognizes it as Devil’s Snare. In the movies we’re forced to watch Ron be a useless idiot entirely here but in our beloved books he says
And Hermione pulls it together and sets our boys free. Harry catches a charmed key to a door, and then we get our iconic chessmen scene, and Ron finally gets to BAMF it out, winning the game and letting Harry and Hermione pass, sacrificing himself in the process. Hermione brilliantly solves a riddle involving some potions, and that is sadly cut from the film and we get the lovely moment between Harry and Hermione when they realize there’s only enough potion for Harry to continue on.
Then Harry walks through the flames and gets the shock of his life when he sees who’s trying to take the stone.
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Would the dynamics changed if Neville had joined the trio to get the stone?
Was Neville right to try and stop the trio, knowing what he did?
How many witches and wizards do you think would’ve been able to get past all of the traps guarding the stone?
And what happened to poor Fluffy?
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