CHAPDISC: DH 23, Malfoy Manor

Jerri/Dan Chase danjerri at madisoncounty.net
Fri Jun 27 13:40:13 UTC 2008


No: HPFGUIDX 183474

Many thanks to Zara for the great summary and questions!

>Hermione silently points her wand at Harry and casts a hex
> that makes his face swollen and painful.

For a moment I thought that this was a betrayal.

> Eager for the reward Voldemort has promised, Greyback takes his
> group, the Trio, the Sword, and his other prisoners (Dean Thomas and
> the goblin Griphook) to Malfoy Manor, which is being used as a base
> by Voldemort.

What a coincidence!  In fantasy worlds like Tolkien's where the 
characters acknowledge some supernatural force helping the side of 
good, when things would seem to be coincidence, reference to this 
supernatural force allows this reader to accept the coincidence for 
the sake of the story.  I miss that in the Harry Potter books.  We 
have an afterlife and apparent rewards and punishments, but 
supernatural intervention in the affairs of man and wizard isn't 
referred to explicitly.  In today's world I suppose that JKR felt she 
had to keep the books secular, but the loss of involvement of "God" or 
"god" or "gods" or "angels" or whatever makes it a bit more difficult 
for me to swallow the number of coincidences needed to make things 
work out.  And this chapter is full of them.  If the sword hadn't been 
out of the beaded bag and visible when Harry pulled his dum-dum.  If 
Griphook hadn't been present also.  If Olivander hadn't been in the 
same cell as Harry.  If Dobby hadn't arrived AFTER Draco took Griphook 
away.  Peter's silver hand.  So many other things that had to go just 
right.

> Discussion Questions:
> 1) What did you think of Harry's story, that he is a Slytherin
> named Vernon Dudley whose father works at the Ministry?

I was reminded of the time in PoA when Harry said he was Neville 
Longbottom, when he thought the MoM was after him for blowing up Aunt 
Marge.  The fact that he could describe the Slytherin common room 
certainly helped his case.

> 2) Greyback takes the party to Malfoy Manor rather than
> summoning Voldemort himself. Harry surmises this is because
>Greyback is not a marked Death Eater. What do you think?

I do think that by DH JKR had decided to not have V allow werewolves 
to be full members of the Death Eaters, and this was one of the ways 
she chose to try to show this.  I am not sure if she had reached this 
conclusion in HBP, when Greyback is able to get onto the spell blocked 
tower, which supposedly required a Dark Mark to get past the barrier, 
at that point in time.

> 3) Narcissa Malfoy seems to have some authority: Greyback and
> his men defer to her, and she decides to let them in. What is her
> status, do you think? Which events of this chapter helped to form
> that opinion?

Well, it is her home.  And she hadn't been publicly disgraced like 
Lucius had been.  I think that when V was in residence, she kept her 
head down.  But in his absence she reverted to Lady of the Manor.  The 
fact that Snape was busy being Headmaster and probably the senior 
Death Eater on site was her sister probably made this easier.  (And 
Snape either liked her or chose to act that way also.)

> 4) What did you think of Draco in the scene where he is asked to
> identify Harry?

I think it was actually pretty brave of Draco.  If Lord V ever 
suspected that he had refused to identify Harry on purpose he (and 
probably his family) would be toast.  Since Harry's appearance was 
messed up a bit, Draco apparently felt he could get away with not 
being sure.  I think that Draco hadn't liked watching the things that 
had been happening at Malfoy Manor.  I imagine that the death of the 
Muggle Studies teacher wasn't the only nasty thing Draco had 
experienced during the time this book takes.  Draco didn't want to see 
people he knew die horribly in front of his eyes, even HRH.  He either 
didn't know what he could do to help, or wasn't willing to go as far 
as to help, but he wasn't going to work against them either, if it was 
avoidable.

> 6) Did you learn anything knew about/form any new opinions of
> Bellatrix in this chapter?

Up until this chapter I wasn't sure how much Bellatrix knew about the 
horcrux's.  I assume from this chapter that she at least knew about 
the Cup, having been given the job of keeping it safe in her Gringotts 
vault.  She may or may not have known that there were others as well. 
I would guess that she thought the Cup was the only horcurx, or at 
least the only one she knew about.

Lets see.  V apparently hid the ring himself at his maternal 
grandfather's old home.  He used the house elf of a Black family 
member to help hide the locket.  He entrusted the diary to Lucius 
Malfoy, and the cup to Bellatrix.  The diadem he hid himself, (would 
you say with the help of Hogwarts and the RoR?) and Nagini he kept 
with him much of the time.

The fact that Snape was the most important DE that we know about, who 
wasn't entrusted by V with the secret of a horcrux might show that V 
thought that Snape was the one who would be the biggest potential 
danger if Snape were to turn against V?  Or was putting Snape in as 
Headmaster V's way to have Snape guard the Diadem?

> 7) What did you think prompted Bella's extreme fear when she
> believed the Sword of Gryffindor was stolen from her vault?

If the Sword was taken from her vault, then what else might have been 
taken as well?  She feared for the safety of the Cup as well as for 
what V would do if there was any hint that the Cup was in danger.

> 8) What did you think was the explanation for Dumbledore's eye
> in the broken mirror?

At the time I didn't know.  I was pretty sure it wasn't DD, or at 
least a living DD, and I expected Aberforth to become important 
eventually, but hadn't really connected him with the eye.

> 9) "May your loyalty never waver again", Voldemort said to Peter
> after giving him the silver hand in GoF. Now we know what he meant.
> What did you think of Peter's death? Did you like or dislike the way
> it ended his story? Do you see any special meaning in it?

I wonder if the hand was supposed to kill Peter the first time he 
hesitated or had second thoughts about doing what V wanted, or if it 
was linked to showing pity for Harry?  As a plot device it was good, 
as the action V took to keep Peter from betraying him ended up helping 
Harry escape.

> 11) Why do you think Griphook lied to Bella?

At this point in time Griphook didn't know what to think, but I 
believe that he hated and feared and distrusted Bella a lot, while he 
just had general purpose Goblin distrust of Harry, so he did what he 
thought Harry felt would hurt Bella the most.

> 12) What did you think was going on with Voldemort in this
>chapter? What ideas did you have concerning the identity of
>the old man in the tower?

By this point I think I was putting the GW/DD part of the plot 
together.  I suppose this is one of the cases where JKR has an Dark 
Wizard showing remorse or at least a good side.  GW seemed to be 
trying to protect DD.  We have no way of knowing how much GW knew 
about what had been happening outside of his prison walls.  (By the 
way, who/what was guarding him, and were there other dark wizard's in 
that prison.)  It may be that GW thought that DD was still alive and 
master of the Elder wand.

> 13) Can someone explain to me why Dobby's death is the one death
> in this book that originally did, and still does, move me to tears,
> even though I always found him annoying?

Dobby demonstrated unselfish bravery.  But he died knowing that he had 
saved "Harry Potter, sir" and with Harry demonstrating his caring and 
respect for Dobby.  Dobby died happy.  He had accomplished his purpose 
in life.  And Harry had the chance to morn for him, unlike some of the 
other deaths, like Hegwig's.

Jerri






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