Chapter Seventeen: Bathilda’s Secret
In chapter seventeen of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hope you have a strong stomach, because not only do we get a rotting old lady corpse stuffed with a snake, but we have to deal with the tragic deaths of Lily and James.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
HSquared notices some weird shit moving around the graveyard and decide to vamoose like any sane person until they stumble upon the Potter’s ruined cottage. It’s wild to think of Harry’s perspective here. He has no real memories of his parents except what he remembers when the dementors get near him, but everyone else thinks of his parents at these mythological figures and have even built statues and kept their place of murder as a shrine. On the sign memorializing the cottage and his parents a number of people have written messages of support for Harry, which lifts his spirits. I wonder how many shrines there are to Harry in the future, and if wizarding families go on holidays to visit famous Potter spots.
“Bathilda Bagshot” eerily shows up and wow, this part is so, so well done in the movie. It’s creepy enough in print, but seeing this elderly woman who looks just…off show up out of nowhere to beckon HSquared silently to her home is unnerving. We realize later on that “Bathilda” is speaking Parseltongue to Harry but to see it in the movie, knowing Harry doesn’t realize, is incredibly freaky.
Harry’s discovered a pic of Grindelwald, but hold onto that, because it’s going to be more relevant later. Hermione’s lucky that Harry hasn’t managed to shut out Voldz through Occlumency because yet again it comes in handy when Harry realizes “Bathilda” is calling Voldemort to come grab Harry before the snake emerges from “Bathilda’s” neck and attacks and I think I had to read that part like four times on first read to get what had actually happened because it was so weird and unexpected. Maybe we should talk about the fact that Nagini, a snake, was somehow vertical in a corpse of a woman walking around for goodness knows how long, but that will also lead to me discussing how Nagini is apparently a real life woman trapped in the body of a snake that Neville beheaded while we cheered and I’m not sure I want to open that can of worms. But maybe I do? Well, if you all want to discuss!
Hermione Granger and the Year she Saved Harry’s Ass, Part Seven continues its narrative when Hermz gets them away from the snake and Voldy and they twist off into the night, just in time for a Voldemort flashback!
You see, Voldy is ruminating on that time he almost died on Halloween and we see the death of the Potters from his perspective. We see James’s noble death, where he didn’t even have his wand and tried to take Voldemort with the old one-two, knowing he’s going to fail and die and frankly, this whole scene makes me forgive young James for his former bullying. Then poor Lily has to beg for her son’s life, knowing her husband is dead already and that her begging will fail. The most important piece of information from this flashback of course, is the fact that Voldemort did indeed have no intention of killing Lily for currently unknown reasons
and yet he killed her anyway because he’s lazy and a dick.
Harry comes out of this horrible flashback that’s sure to give him nightmares only to find out that Hermione accidentally destroyed his wand, which he believes has saved his life a bunch of times now and he’s right.
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How does Nagini live in Bathilda’s corpse?
Creepier movie moment: this scene or the opening scene at Malfoy Manor?
Do you think the wizarding world now vacations at famous Harry Potter spots?
Picture taken at the Warner Bros Studio Tour in London, England. Send me/tag me in your pics of you reading Harry Potter!