Chapter Twenty-Seven: Padfoot Returns
In chapter twenty-seven of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Hermione gets the Rita Skeeter treatment, Snape is a bullying twit for the millionth time, and SIRIUS IS BACK!
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Ron’s getting attention for once and he’s…taking it…well…?
One week later, however, Ron was telling a thrilling tale of kidnap in which he struggled single-handedly against fifty heavily armed merpeople who had to beat him into submission before tying him up.
‘But I had my wand hidden up my sleeve,’ he assured Padma Patil, who seemed to be a lot keener on Ron now that he was getting so much attention, and was making a point of talking to him every time they passed in the corridors. ‘I could’ve taken those mer-idiots any time I wanted.’
‘What were you going to do, snore at them?’ said Hermione waspishly. People had been teasing her so much about being the thing that Viktor Krum would most miss that she was in a rather tetchy mood.
Ron’s ears went red, and he reverted thereafter to the bewitched-sleep version of events.
-JK Rowling,Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
If by “well” you mean “enjoying his compulsive lying” but hey, at least Harry’s not throwing a button at his head so we’re doing better. While I’m at it, why is Hermione the only one being teased, here? Are you telling me Malfoy wouldn’t be laughing every two seconds about Ron being the thing Harry would most miss? You’re slipping, D-Malfs! Slipping!
Things are going pretty well for our trio right now and that simply cannot do, and it turns out D-Malfs hasn’t been so idle in his bullying after all when Pansy gives Hermione a copy of a magazine with a horrendous hatchet job of a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD UNDERAGED GIRL because the wizarding world has sketchy morals, at best.
Rita Reprehensible has written a nasty, gossiping article about Hermione being an ugly love potion making troll who’s toying with poor Orphan Harry and famous Viktor and Hermione is stunned until Ron calls her, hilariously, a “scarlet woman” like it’s 1892 and that snaps our girl Hermz into finding this amusing and stupid and I LOVE YOU HERMIONE. She takes this so well, even sarcastically smiling at the Slytherins! You badass bitch, Hermione!
There is something weird, in that Hermione reveals that Rita accurately quoted what Vik Krum said while Ron’s head explodes into a glitter bomb of jealousy, but things get worse when Snape, who I feel I have to keep reminding us all is a grown ass man, decides to read this gossipy teenage article about Hermione and Harry out loud, in slow motion, because Snape is the worst teacher ever. *coughUmbridgecough*
Karkaroff, who to contrast with Bartor Croudy is perhaps the worst Death Eater ever, adds to his weird talk with Snape at the Yule Ball by showing his Dark Mark to Snape in the middle of a classroom while Harry sneakily cleans up vomit *gag* four feet away.
The next day our golden trio goes to Hogsmeade to buy Dobby some fabulous socks and to meet up with SIRIUS BLACK, coolest godfather ever (name a cooler one I’ll wait) and get mountains of fascinating Death Eater and Crouch backstory, in which we learn Barty Crouch Sr. is a horrid father, sanctioned the killing of Death Eaters by Aurors, and that he sent Sirius to Azkaban without a trial and somehow everyone’s ok with this. There’s not one single group of magic folk that protest for treating prisoners with a shred of humanity?!
Sirius backs Hermione’s stance on house elves and Crouch with a fantastic quote:
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
-JK Rowling,Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
and he brings up how weird it is that Dumbledore is letting Snape teach and YEAH IT IS. Sure we know Snape’s “good” and all now, but did that mean he deserved a job tormenting children for over a decade, Dumbledore?! Couldn’t you have gotten him working with potions for a company somewhere? Instead of corrupting young children?
Harry tells everyone about Karkaroff showing Snape his Dark Mark and this one has been bothering me for awhile. Did the Dark Marks disappear at will? I’m not talking about when Voldemort “dies” but before. We know Aurors have caught and killed Death Eaters. Did no one notice they all have skull tattoos on their left arms? And all they would have to do is check everyone’s left arm to find a real Death Eater?!
Our chapter ends with Sirius suggesting Ron ask Percy about Crouch, which I’m sure will go well! Right Ron?
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Why does Dumbledore let Snape teach children when he’s such a bully to some of them?
How come the Aurors didn’t just check everyone’s left arm for a Dark Mark? How were the Death Eaters able to hide this?
In your opinion, who is the worst Death Eater?
How would you have handled the Rita Skeeter article, if you were Hermione?
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