Chapter Thirty-One: The Battle of Hogwarts
In chapter thirty-one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows EVERYTHING EVER HAPPENS and your recapper faints from exhaustion.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
All the students, teachers, ghosts, centaurs, and poltergeists are listening to their new queen and rightful overlord the Magnificent Minerva McGonagall talking about the evacuation plan when Ernie Macmillan, long underappreciated Hufflepuff of pomposity yet loyalty and bravery, is all “very well and good McG, but what if we are total BAMFS who want to fight evil?” McG, to her credit, tells the students they can stay if they are of age, and then is like “Snape flew off like the bat bitch he is” while Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor students break into an impromptu square dance of joy.
Clutch yourself because I’m about to praise the movie for one of the last times, because this part where Voldemort speaks to the students through the air demanding HPotz as a teenage virgin sacrifice is flipping terrifying on film in a way that doesn’t quite translate in the book.
Pansy P stands up all “but someone seize him, surely, he’s right there!” and let’s unpack this moment, y’all. Hunker down. Grab some hot cocoa, cause I’ve got thoughts. Obviously Pansy is behaving like a villain at worst, a coward at best in this moment. But from the way she says it, clearly Pansy thinks everyone is going to agree with her, that Harry is right there, so duh, grab him guys, come on, let’s all live, and she thinks everyone’s going to be like “huzzah good job Pansy Harry is there you’re right, now we’re saved.” So to me, Pansy does this because she’s scared shitless, as most people would be. Harry’s never been her friend, and we don’t know what’s going on in Pansy’s life. Is her family being blackmailed? Is she pro Voldemort? we don’t know, and her actions are wrong, but they are deeper then at first sight to me.
But keep sipping that cocoa, because now it’s time for that long promised rant I have been holding back on the Slytherins. At this point, McG orders Pansy and the other Slytherins away with Filch, and every single one of them leaves, (sans Malfoy N’ Goons who double back.) Let’s reiterate. Every. Single. Slytherin. Leaves. Aside from Slughorn, who returns later on to be one of four good Slytherins in our narrative (the other three being Snape, Regulus, and Andromeda Black-Tonks.) We could maaaybe stretch the definition of good yet further and add Draco and Narcissa, but personally, I find them to be morally bankrupt people who did some things that were slightly less awful out of familial preservation.
You guys, in all of Harry Potter, this ranks in my top five most disappointing things. We’ve been told and told that Slytherin house is evil. Lee Jordan, all the way back in book two, asks why the Slytherins are not just all chucked out of Hogwarts, and we all think “wow that’s a bit far” or perhaps we agreed, but then the narrative tells us that it was a Gryffindor all along and we were wrong to want to chuck out the Slytherins. Fair enough! So YES we get Snape having his redemption moment, but Snape was still a jerk face on a million occasions (we’ll wait to the Prince’s tale for this full monologue from me) and YES Regulus gets his moment of heroism, but both of them still joined a racist murdering death cult with no qualms. SURE Narcissa saves Harry, but she only does it for her son, and yeah Malfoy doesn’t want the goons to kill Harry but that’s like…basic human decency…? So that leaves us Slughorn, a vaguely creepy dude obsessed with his own status and power yet fights Voldemort, and Andromeda Tonks, the one truly good Slytherin. I wanted more! MORE! I was absolutely, one hundred percent convinced that we’d get one good Slytherin, most likely from Harry’s year. They set up Malfoy to get redeemed, and that fizzled and splat on the ground. So my theory, that I mentioned all the way back in book five, was that Goyle was going to be the redeemed Slytherin. I know, I know! Laugh uproariously at past me. This was because I wassure JKR wanted to make the point that not all of the Slytherins at school were bad, and that a solid 25% of Hogwarts isn’t in bed with evil. And I noticed that in the scene where the Inquisitorial squad captures our sixtet, Goyle is not mentioned as being there, even though Malfoy and Crabbe are. I also noticed that later in the book, the adult Death Eaters named in the Department of Mysteries didn’t include Goyle senior, although again, we had Malfoy and Crabbe Seniors. So I was like “aha I ‘m a genius Goyle will turn to the side of good!” lololol.
The opportunity was there with Theodore Nott, who isn’t friends with Malfoy and has never openly harassed the trio, or at least been identified as one of the harassers. But no! Apparently all the Slytherins are evil, and the best you can hope for is an evil one who regrets joining their murder cult. Or the one true hero, Andromeda.
Moving on!
McG tries to evacuate all underaged students, including Jimmy Peakes Harry’s beater and Colin Creevey, Harry’s current stalker. *sob*
Harry, bless his little heart, instead of y’know, looking for the Horcrux this whole time herp derps around until McG is like “POTTER maybe you should be DOING something REMEMBER about the YOU KNOW what for YOU KNOW WHO” and Harry’s all
until he realizes he needs to speak to the ghost of Ravenclaw tower. On his way he spots Zacharias, the Worst Hufflepuff jumping over the bodies of children to run to safety like a punk and I do hope this haunts his career the rest of his life.
Harry interrogates Helena Ravenclaw, who kind of sounds like a spoiled brat tbh, but didn’t deserve to get stabbed to death by the Bloody Baron because she stole her mother’s tiara and spurned the Baron’s advances.
Harry figures out that LV has hid his sparkly princess tiara in the Room of Requirement, and Aberforth stops him on his way there to be like “hey maybe should’ve used those evil Slytherin kids as human meat shields or hostages, whatev, heard the mermaids aren’t busy” and Harry’s like “your brother wouldn’t have done it” while Aberforth and I make this face:
Ron and Hermione show up to reveal that Ron memorized the word “open” in parseltongue, they snuck into the chamber of secrets, and destroyed the cup offscreen and COME ON. Almost two books to destroy the locket and Ron and Hermione deus ex machina their way into getting rid of the cup in three sentences. SIGH. Just write a 1,500 page book, JKR! I would’ve loved that brick!
Tonks shows up to remind us all that she’s lost all of her personality due to hooking up with Remus, while Grandma Longbottom is like “pardon me got to remind Minerva McGonagall there is room for two older women being badasses in this narrative.”
THEN (okay everyone stop and pant for awhile because this chapter is cram packed full of stuff happening, unlike our hundreds of pages earlier of camping) Ron and Hermione start making out over house elf rights and while part of me is as proud of Ron for this as Hermione is, the other part of me is gagging with Harry and reminding these two a fight for everyone’s lives is REALLY NOT THE TIME FOR SALIVA, GUYS.
Because four hundred billion things have not yet happened this chapter, the trio look for Voldemort’s number one accessory for baldness in the Room of Requirement and run into Malfoy N’Goons. I wouldn’t blame some of you Malfoy fangirls if this is your worst moment of this book, because finally, FINALLY we think we’re going to get some redemptive D-Malfs content and instead he’s like “ha ha Potter I’m here to help Voldemort some more, I guess don’t kill him Crabbe, that’s my heroic contribution.” Crabbe and Goyle take a page out of the Carrows playbook and reveal they can barely speak or think, Crabbe tries to kill Hermione and burn down the room, and Ron, Hermione, and unconscious Goyle fly off, Harry and Malfoy on another broom, destined for a thousand slash fics based on this broom ride. Enjoy your soundtrack for this moment courtesy of Draco and the Malfoys!
So THEN because eleventy-two billion things haven’t happened yet Harry realizes that the diadem is smoking and destroyed due to Crabbe’s fire, which Hermione explains is magical fiend-fyre that is one of the very few things that can destroy Horcruxes and has never been mentioned until now and COME THE FUCK ON. COME ONNNNN! Hundreds of pages of camping, multiple books on one Horcrux, and then two Horcruxes get destroyed in ONE CHAPTER in some “the eagles are coming” moment from Lord of the Rings.
SIGHHHHHH.
Because my fingers haven’t fallen off yet, we’ve got one last major event to go this chapter, and everyone grab a hanky that you didn’t need for Crabbe’s death, because Fred, who doesn’t even get an on camera death in the film, goes out like this:
“Hello, Minister!” bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. “Did I mention I’m resigning?”
“You’re joking, Perce!” shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.
“You actually are joking, Perce…I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were–” The air exploded.
As a person with a functioning soul, Fred’s death of course hurt me deeply, and I still find it painful. And yet? If Fred had to go, I honestly find this kind of perfect. Fred and Percy, having a cathartic moment together, Fred laughing and then dying instantly, fighting evil.
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What do you make of Pansy trying to turn over Harry to LV?
What are your thoughts on the Ron speaking Parseltongue and destroying the Horcrux offscreen?
Did you think there would be a good Slytherin in our story?
Give me your thoughts on the diadem scene.
What do you think about Fred’s death?