Chapter Sixteen: In the Hog’s Head
In chapter sixteen of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry gets the hairy eyeball from Cho, Ginny’s maybe dating a goth, and we meet our first rude Hufflepuff.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Harry’s finally agreed to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts without screaming until Ron and Hermione go deaf, so Hermz has set up a little meeting in the sketchier of the Hogsmeade pubs, (and also the shortest line to get butterbeers in Orlando Hogsmeade, just saying) in order to achieve maximum stealth. There’s a “whiff of goats” in the air and LOOK we need to talk about the fact that JKR seems to be implying multiple times that Aberforth Dumbledore fucks goats.
No, don’t run away from me! What else does “improper use of charms on goats” and all these other weirdness mean?! WHAT?
Ron continues his neverending quest to be a terrible prefect by musing about whether he should order firewhiskey or not, and Harry continues to never remember his classmates names— Hermione, can you please check the poor boy for brain damage?
Let’s say there are roughly thirty students per house in Harry’s year, as the first defense lesson with Umbridge seems to imply. So that’s 120 students in 5th year with him, thereabouts. Now, while that seems like a lot, Harry’s lived with these same people for five years. I went to elementary school with the same group of 150 kids for seven years. When I first became a librarian, I supervised a group of roughly 90(!! Yes 90, weep for past me) teen volunteers and somehow, I learned everyone’s names both times in short order. And then you have HPotz, who sees his classmates of many years and is like “a girl with a plait” and he “thinks” he knows the Ravenclaw boys names and oh, Harry, I suppose the sass takes up all of your brain, including the part that remembers names and faces. OK, that sounds like a fair trade to me!
The meeting starts out super awkwardly and then worsens when we meet the walking reminder that not all the crappy people get shoved into Slytherin, Zacharias Smith, who we must ask why he’s even in the DA. Was it all morbid curiosity? Boredom? Because he’s an irritating little knob to Harry, questioning how Cedric died and whether Harry’s a liar or not until the Weasley’s threaten him with violence. Not to be the contrarian I always am, since I, too, detest Zacharias, but on deeper reflection, I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t want to know more about what happened to Cedric. Not the gory details, but all anyone knows is that Voldemort killed him and Harry brought him back. What can I say?
Harry heroically tries to be modest about his skills and everyone but Zacharias is like “psssfft we are here to praise you, HPotz” and take turns talking about how awesome he is and HOLD ON.
“And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore’s office?” demanded Terry Boot. “That’s what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year…”
What exactly were you doing in Dumbledore’s office, the place students who aren’t named Harry only go when they are in trouble, Terry Boot? And why were you gossiping with portraits?
(…I jest.)
Hermione nervously has everyone sign a parchment
and forces everyone to do it, even the hesitant people, for totally innocent reasons, I’m sure!
Cho tries to screw around with her satchel in order to talk to Harry in such a believable teenage crush interaction that I fall down and twitch from remembering horrible incidents young me participated in, and Harry of course doesn’t get why because he’s a thickheaded doofus.
Hermione drops the bomb that Ginny is dating Michael Corner, or “the dark one” as she describes him later and errr….what? Does this mean he has dark hair? Is Hermione making a tone deaf comment about his race? Or is Michael Corner a goth? This is set in the mid 90’s after all!
I don’t know about you, but my new headcanon is that Ginny is dating a goth in her “getting over Harry” attempt.
Ron predictably freaks out because he’s got to police his little sister’s vagina as well as Hermione’s.
Harry doesn’t give two shits about Ginny dating and not liking him anymore, and stick a pin in that one, because in book six this moment will come back to haunt you, the reader, when I bitch and moan about the Chest Monster of Death.
Hermz makes Harry’s life though when she points out how Cho was two seconds away from joining the Creevey’s in their I Heart Harry club, and awww, that’s what friends are for, am I right?
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Why does Zacharias join the DA?
WHAT is JKR implying about the goats?!
Would you join the DA?
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