Dark Book

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 177026

> Nita: 
> <loose retelling with two quotes> 
> McG: So, there's going to be a battle...
> Voldie: Not necessarily. Give me Potter and I'll leave you alone and
> give you stuff!
> Everyone: *stares at Harry*
> Pansy (apparently a bit slow on the uptake): "But he's there! 
Potter's
> _there_! Someone grab him!"
> Harry (even slower than Pansy): *(evidently) expects people to do as
> she says, or something*
> Gryffs, Puffs and Claws: *rise and draw wands on Pansy*
> Harry: *is "awestruck and overwhelmed"*

Jen: Hehe, that's pretty good.  It works for me except the part about 
drawing wands *on Pansy*.  More about that part below.

Nita: 
> I mean, honestly, did anyone perceive Pansy as an effective threat?
> She wasn't even trying to *do* anything! As the scene goes, you can
> sort of read it as the Good houses taking a defensive stance just in
> case the Slyths decide to Accio Harry carry him out of the castle.
> Understandable. However, if the Slyths joined them, it would be *a 
> few hundred people* drawing wands on *one* girl for something she 
> said.  
<snip>
> And would that really make the Slyths good? Or would people argue
> that they sided with the likely winner (3 houses vs Pansy - not
> hard to decide) to save their own skins? I think making a scapegoat
> out of their classmate to impress McG and others would have been 
> awful of them. I'm glad they stuck by her, despite her bad social
> awareness, selfish thinking and big mouth.

Jen: I don't read it as Pansy being a threat so much as her words 
having meaning for the story.  Voldemort's basically said 'turn over 
Harry or I'll kill you all' ("your efforts are futile. You cannot 
fight me.  I do not want to kill you.")  Pansy says 'we should turn 
over Harry.'  The other kids stand up in front of Harry and pull 
wands which read to me as: 'nope, we're not turning over Harry, we're 
choosing to fight.'  It's not literally about Pansy in that moment so 
much as her representing a choice.  

Nita: 
> You call it "declaring allegiance", in the Good Guys vs Voldemort
> sense, I suppose. And if the three other houses were drawing their
> wands on Voldie, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But they
> weren't. It was just one girl, calling for an action they wouldn't
> take anyway.
<snip>
> Not only the stakes are higher, but the others aren't toasting, or
> verbally declaring their support of Harry, or even just standing
> around him. They are *drawing wands* on the Slyths' classmate.

Jen:  That *is* how the scene reads to me though, drawing wands to 
fight Voldemort.  I mean, they can't even tell where his voice is 
coming from, it sounds like it's almost issuing from the 'walls 
themselves,' so it's not like they are literally drawing wands and 
pointing them at Voldemort, but they aren't pointing them at Pansy 
either.  The text doesn't say the students drew wands and held them 
in attack position pointed at Pansy's face.  All the students stand, 
table by table, with their backs to Harry, facing the Slytherin table 
and looking toward Pansy.  Only after every student at every table is 
standing do wands start to emerge 'pulled from beneath cloaks and 
from under sleeves.'  I read that part as symbolic of the intent to 
fight rather than surrender, a non-verbal choice to Voldemort's 
ultimatum.  There was nothing in that scene to make me think the 
point was to attack Pansy since she's one person standing there 
screaming and not acting.