This moment

[Rebecca Scalf]

No: HPFGUIDX 175556


> Potioncat:
>  
>  > Is there a moment in DH where you really identify with a character, 
>  > or the character's situation? It doesn't even have to be a character
>  > you generally identify with---just a moment that particularly speaks
>  > to you.
> 
>  Eggplant Gellert Grindelwald:
> SNIP
>I had to
> >put the book down stand up and walk away for a while. She's going to
> >do it I thought, she's really going to do it, JKR is going to murder
>  >Harry Potter! For years I'd been saying that's exactly what she should
> >do, but now when I actually saw JKR with a gun pointed at Harry's head
> >just a moment before she's going to pull the trigger, well, all I can
> >say is it took me some time to work up the courage to continue reading.
>  
> 
>Christy wrote: 
>My reaction to the bottom of page 686 ("So the boy ... the boy must die?" asked Snape 
>quite calmly.  "And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus.  That is essential.") was very 
>similar to Eggplant's reaction to the bottom of page 687.  However, I had never really 
>considered that Harry would die.  (I assumed he was called the Boy Who Lived for more 
>than one reason -- that the title of the very first chapter of the very first book was the 
>ultimate in foreshadowing.)  The exchange between Snape and Dumbledore shocked me.  
>And I felt so betrayed by and so angry at Dumbledore -- all this time he knew; and 
>Snape knew ...  I too had to walk away for a moment.


Witherwing now: 

Like both of you I thought to myself, JKR is really going to kill him! And I had to stop 
reading. Like you, Christy, I had never really thought he would die, but after page 686, I 
was sure he would have to. I closed the book and thought I can not read any more.

To tell the truth, I had promised my daughter before the release of Deathly Hallows that I 
would not read ahead, but once the book was in my hands, I could not help staying up into 
the night reading on - but I reached the end of The Prince's Tale and could not continue. 
So the next day I went back to where I'd left off reading aloud to my daughter the day 
before, and reread the previous 28 chapters with my daughter, which took two days, and 
then we read through to the end. 

I wanted my daughter to be with me for what came at the end. And I think rereading the 
book gave me hope that there would be a way out.

With regards to Potioncat's original post, one moment I really identified with a character is 
on p.202 US ed., from the chapter titled The Bribe. Hermione is frustrated that Ron keeps 
clicking his Deluminator, while she's trying to read The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and she 
says:

"Well, can't you find something useful to occupy yourself?"
to which Ron responds "What, like reading kids' stories?"

-Witherwing, who is off to continue a very useful occupation - rereading Deathly Hallows 
for a third time...