Chapter Thirty: The Pensieve
In chapter thirty of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry finds out some interesting people were Death Eaters, Neville gets his own tragic backstory, and we get our first look at Bellatrix Lestrange.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Harry’s left alone in Dumbledore’s office and spots a mysterious object with mysterious silvery swirly things in it and you know what that means: time for Harry to snoop!
Our only confirmation that Harry is related to Petunia: the Evans family snoopiness!
So HPotz falls into the pensieve and discovers it’s a super cool way to look at your memories and while I originally wanted one for my own, that depressing episode of Black Mirror has changed my opinion, step away from the pensieve, no thank you!
I’m sorry to say this was another one of those chapters that I love but fear might not be the most amusing for me to review, but I shall try. Onwards!
Karkaroff is getting a trial by Crouch Senior and making like RuPaul
about all of the other Death Eaters he knows. Let’s pause a moment to give Voldemort props (yeah, I know)
but seriously, we find out that Voldemort never let his Death Eaters know who all of the other Death Eaters are, so if they are caught they can’t reveal all of the other members. I’m sorry to say but this is fucking genius, and Karkaroff proves it when he names a bunch of unhelpful names of Death Eaters that have already been caught. I-Kark does drop one bomb on Harry and us, the reader, when he reveals that Snape is a Death Eater.
(Somewhere, Ron Weasley just stood up and screamed “I knew it!” without knowing why.)
While Harry’s sitting there all
memory!Dumbledore is like “pfffst fake news Snape isn’t a Death Eater anymore he’s my noble BFF but I refuse to give details” while memory!Moody is like
at his back. Ludo Bagman shows up next, and is clearly a moron who accidentally let slip info to a Death Eater and not actually a Death Eater. Oh sorry, did I say that was obvious? Well, not to Bartemius Crouch senior, no sir!
This explains a lot of the weirdness surrounding Bagman except, of course, why the hell he’s currently so bent on helping Harry cheat.
We then get one of my favorite flashback scenes in Harry Potter: the trial of the three Lestranges and Barty Crouch, Junior. It’s a tense, disturbing scene. We’ve got the two male Lestranges who seem cowed by the dementors into silence. We’ve got Bellatrix Lestrange, who seems to not even be bothered by them. And we’ve got Barty Junior, who seems so genuinely terrified, young, and possibly innocent while his own father screamingly disowns him and sends him to Azkaban to rot.
It’s here I’ve got to stand up for Crouch, just a little. As pathetic as Barty Junior seems to be here, the crime he was caught committing is atrocious, and Crouch is right to send them all to Azkaban for it. Bellatrix sneers that the Dark Lord will honor them (hey for a solid five minutes before he shits on them in public for failing him, I guess that’s an honor from LV) and Crouch Junior gets dragged out screaming for mercy.
Harry’s understandably shaken by this shit, and questions Dumbledore about it, finding out that Bagman’s never done anything shady since *cough*, Dumbledore trusts Snape but refuses to talk about why *coughcough*, and that oh yeah, the Longbottoms tortured by 3 Lestranges and a Crouch were Neville’s parents. But don’t worry, Harry, they’re alive! Just insane and don’t recognize their own son!
Harry’s like fucking hell, and I thought I had it bad by living with the Dursley’s!
<—Previous Chapter Next Chapter —>
Join in with your thoughts below, on twitter, or instagram with #ReadHarryPotterWithMe. Follow me on my twitter @HSecretLibrary, pinterest, and my instagram @hermionessecretlibrary
Would you want a Pensieve?
Was Crouch right to send his son to Azkaban so coldly?
Who has the worse backstory regarding their parents: Neville or Harry?
Picture taken in Arles, France. Send me/tag me in your pics of you reading Harry Potter!