OOP Chapter 1 post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182467

Alla wrote:
>
> Okay, I am guessing I will find a lot of new things, since I only
reread this book once or twice all together.
<snip>
> I think this chapter sets up Harry's mood of being left out of the
information loop brilliantly and that's on top of him still reliving
Graveyard.
<snip>

> "We can't say much anything about you-know-what, obviously..." We've
been told not to say anything important in case letters go astray..."

Carol responds:
Any ideas as to what "you-know-what" refers to? Does Hermione mean the
return of You-Know-Who or something else?

Alla:
> Although, interesting detail:
> 
> "He was never going to see Ron and Hermione again -
> 
> And their faces burst clearly into his mind as he fought for his
breath -
> 
> "EXPECTO PATRONUM" - p.18
> 
> Alla:
> 
> At first I thought that the happy memory was that he would never see
them again and then I realized that I simply misread.

Carol:
Interesting reaction. It's been so long since my first reading of OoP
that I don't know whether I experienced the same confusion--not on a
rereading, though. (I'm also rereading OoP.) This passage is yet
another example of the unreliable narrator quickly corrected (very
much like the passages describing the Cruciatus Curse or the duel with
Voldemort in the graveyard where he's sure he's going to die).
Obviously, Harry survives, and he does see HRH again quite soon. But I
like his seeing just their faces qualifying as a happy memory that
enables him to conjure a powerful Patronus. Solves the problem of
trying to bring a more detailed memory to mind in the face of a
Dementor or multiple Dementors. After awhile, it would just be
automatic. But what *caused* their faces to burst into his mind in
this instance? Sheer luck?

Harry's anger in this chapter, though understandable, seems out of
proportion to the cause (frustration over being seemingly ignored and
unappreciated, lack of sleep because of nightmares about the
graveyard). The usual shabby treatment by the Dursleys seems to result
only in a desire to channel his anger into taunting Dudley, who's
afraid to fight back because of Harry's wand. Of course, anyone who's
ever smacked his or her head on a casement window knows that the pain
is intense and unlikely to improve an angry mood, but it does seem as
if the soul bit is at work here, responding to and intensifying
Harry's anger and resentment and self-pity (look what I've gone
through that they haven't). Possibly it forewhadows the effects of the
locket Horcrux on Ron. (?)

What I noticed in a reading of this chapter is the still unanswered
question of what caused the surge of electricity to go through harry
when Uncle Vernon was throttling him (BTW, is Vernon's behavior where
Harry learned to throttle people, as he does with Sirius Black in PoA
and Mundungus in HBP?):

"Then, as the pain in Harry's head gave a particularly nasty throb,
Uncle Vernon yelped and released Harry as though he had received an
electric shock--some invisible force seemed to have surged through his
nephew, making him impossible to hold" (OoP Am. ed. 5).

Is this Dumbledore's magical protection preventing injury to Harry at
4 Privet Drive, or does that apply only to LV and his minions? (It
seems to apply to Dementors, even those sent by Umbridge, which don't
attack him there.) Is it accidental magic of the sort that occurs when
Harry is angry (and later causes sparks to come out of his wand,
similar to Snape's anger in the Shrieking Shack in PoA)? Or does it
have something to do with the soul bit? (Harry feels a particularly
intense surge of pain in his head, which has just been banged against
the open window, but it could be an unrecognized surge of anger from
Voldemort picked up by the soul bit.)

It's also interesting, given Harry's altered view of Snape in DH, that
it doesn't even require a change in his perspective regarding Dudley
for his desire to take revenge on Dudley, jinxing him "so thoroughly
he'd have to crawl home like an insect, struck dumb. sprouting
feelers" (15) to a desire to protect him ("DUDLEY, COME BACK! YOU'RE
RUNNING RIGHT AT IT!" (17). Of course, in between the two speeches, he
realizes that Dementors have arrived in Little Whinging and tells
Dudley to shut up, but even though Dudley (who thinks that Harry is
causing the darkness) has hit him in the head, his instinct is to
protect his Muggle cousin, whom he knows to be completely helpless.
Harry tells him to keep his mouth closed, whatever he does, and
Dudley, no doubt remembering the Ton-Tongue toffee, obeys, clamping
his arms tightly over his mouth. Like the moment of understanding
between Harry and Petunia in the next chapter, Harry and Dudley are
interacting here in an unusual way, one giving desperate advice and
the other heeding it--even though Dudley, later, still thinks that
Harry cast the spell that caused the cold, the darkness, and the despair.

Carol, who loves the last line of this chapter, which beautifully sets
up Mrs. Figg as Squib and Order member in "A Peck of Owls"