CHAPDISC: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 17, Bathildas Secret

[akh]

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CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
Chapter 17, Bathilda's Secret

As Harry and Hermione reach the grave of the unknown Abbott, Hermione
senses that they are being watched. Believing she has seen something
move, they scan the area, Harry hears a rustle and sees dislodged
snow. Harry reassured Hermione that it was likely a cat; at any rate,
it isn't likely to be Death Eaters, or they'd be dead. Nevertheless,
they make their way out of the graveyard. As they reach the pavement,
they get back under the Invisibility Cloak.

Hearing Christmas carols emanating from the local pub, Harry onsiders
hiding in the crowd, but Hermione directs them out of the village in
the opposite direction from their entrance into it. Hermione
ruminates on how to find Bathilda Bagshot's house, but Harry isn't
listening. He realizes the dark mass at the end of the street is the
remains of his parents' house, abandoned since the day Hagrid removed
him from the rubble.

Hermione wonders why it was never rebuilt; Harry speculates that it
may be irreparable from the Dark Magic used there. However, when he
touches the gate, a sign appears from the ground, which commemorates
the site, explaining that the site has been left in its ruined state
as a monument to the Potters "and as a reminder of the violence that
tore apart their family."

The sign is covered in graffiti, left by visiting witches and
wizards. The most recent includes messages to Harry such as "Good
luck, Harry, wherever you are" and "Long live Harry Potter." While
Hermione is indignant at the damage to the sign, Harry is glad to see
the evidence of support.

Suddenly they notice a figure hobbling towards them. Harry thinks
it's a woman, and her walk suggests she's extremely old. They wait to
see if she enters another house, but Harry feels that she is coming
to see them. Sure enough, she stops a few yards from them, facing
them silently.

Harry is sure she's a witch, but he is puzzled at how she knows
they're there, given they're hiding under the Invisibility Cloak.
Becoming increasingly convinced he is facing Bathilda Bagshot, he
wonders if she has been waiting for them for months on Dumbledore's
orders, and if perhaps she has some of DD's extraordinary powers of
detection. She beckons to them, convincing them she can see them. He
asks her if she is, indeed, Bathilda, and she nods, beckoning to them
a second time.

Harry and Hermione follow Bathilda down the street to her house,
which has a yard nearly as overgrown as the Potters' abandoned yard.
Entering the house, Harry notices that Bathilda smells bad, although
perhaps it's the house. He notes the house is rife with the odor of
old age, dust, unwashed clothes and stale food. He wonders if
Bathilda can even see him through the thick cataracts that cover her
sunken eyes. Even if she can make him out, he looks like a balding,
middle-aged Muggle.

Harry realizes that his locket has come "alive" again. He wonders if
it can sense that its destroyer is near.

As Bathilda shuffles into the sitting room, Hermione expresses
doubts. Harry points out that they could overpower such a small,
elderly woman. Bathilda shouts "Come!" and Hermione jumps at the
sound. Harry reassures Hermione and they enter the room.

Again, Harry notes that the house is in bad shape, with thick dust
and, worse, the smell of spoiled meat. He wonders how long it's been
since anyone came to check up on Bathilda.  He notes, too, that she
seems to have forgotten how to do magic, as he watches her clumsily
trying to light candles. Worried that she will catch fire, he takes
the matches from her and finishes lighting the candles, which are
perched precariously on stacks of books and cluttered side tables.

The last candle he lights is sitting on a chest of drawers that has a
large number of photographs in frames. As the flame illuminates the
chest, he realizes that a number of the frames are empty, as though
someone has removed pictures. He wonders who may have removed them.
He notices a photo at the back and snatches it up. Harry recognizes
the young man as the one who he had seen in "The Life and Times of
Albus Dumbledore" arm in arm with teenage Albus. He asked Bathilda,
who has been fumbling with lighting a fire, who the young man in the
picture is. As she turns to him, Harry feels the locket Horcrux beat
faster.

Harry repeats his question, but Bathilda either cannot hear him or
doesn't understand the question. Hermione asks Harry what he's doing,
and he explains that the young man in the picture is the thief who
stole from Gregorovitch. Hermione asks Bathilda why she has invited
them there, but Bathilda acts as though she hasn't heard her. She
gestures for Harry to accompany her upstairs. Hermione starts to go
with them, but Bathilda makes it clear only Harry is invited.
Hermione, sounding a bit suspicious, asks why she shouldn't go. Harry
guesses that Dumbledore asked Bathilda to give him the sword alone.
Hermione doubts that Miss Bagshot even knows who he is, but Harry is
convinced she does. Hermione reluctantly agrees that he should go
with Bathilda. Before he follows her upstairs, Harry slips the
photograph in his jacket.

The stairs are steep, and Harry considers steadying Bathilda as they
climb the stairs. Eventually, they make their way into a low-
ceilinged bedroom. Bathilda closes the door on the pitch-black, foul-
smelling room; Harry uses the Lumos charm, and discovers to his
surprise that Bathilda has moved close to him.  She asks him if he is
Potter, which he confirms. He asks her if she has anything for him,
but she doesn't respond.

Suddenly, Harry's scar hurts, the Horcrux bounds away from his chest
and he feels a leap of joy as he hears himself say in a cold, high
familiar voice: "Hold him!" Not quite realizing what has just
happened, he asks again if Bathilda has anything for him. She points
him to a dark mass on the dressing table. He edges toward it, but
sees a strange movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns to
Bathilda in time to see the body collapse and a snake emerge from its
neck, on the attack. She bites his forearm, forcing his wand out of
his hand as her tail strikes a blow that knocks the breath out of
him.

Hermione hears the noise and calls out to Harry, but he doesn't have
breath to answer her. Nagini pins him to the floor, in obedience to
her master who has told her to hold Harry. He tries to retrieve his
wand, but he cannot as he is trying to hold off Nagini's coils as she
constricts herself around him, pressing the Horcrux to his chest.
His consciousness transforms into a cold, white light, the feeling
that he is flying triumphant without need of a broomstick.

He awakes abruptly, realizing Nagini has released him. She is now
poised to strike Hermione, who has come upstairs. She dives to avoid
Nagini's strike, sending a curse that deflects and hits the window,
smashing it. As Harry moves to avoid the shattered glass, he steps on
his wand, which he retrieves. By now, Nagini has resumed attacking
Harry, and he is afraid something has happened to Hermione, but she
curses Nagini, sending her into the air. Harry's scar pains him
again, and he yells to Hermione that Voldemort is coming. He grabs
her and scrambles to the window as Nagini strikes again. Hermione
sends a confringo curse through the room, and as the glass and china
shatter, they leap into nothingness.

Harry's scar bursts open and he is now inside Voldemort's mind,
seeing him barely miss Harry and Hermione as they vanish, and
revisiting the night he was ripped from his body.

Harry, as Voldemort, relives the Halloween night as he approaches the
Potters' house, crowing that their Fidelius Charm has failed,
unbeknownst to them. He sees James playing with little Harry, blowing
smoke puffs from his wand. As Voldemort crosses the threshold, James
runs to hold him off, having forgotten his wand on the sofa.
Voldemort makes quick work of him, then sets off for the upstairs
bedroom, where Lily has run with Harry.

He hears her screaming, but he does not plan to kill her if she
is "sensible." Knowing she is also wandless, Voldemort is confident
he will finish Harry off quickly, and he brushes aside her attempts
to block the door. She shields Harry in his crib, asking to be killed
instead. She refuses to move, although Voldemort warns her several
times to step aside. He decides to dispense with her rather than
forcing her to move. She drops from the AK, and he is standing before
Harry. The child has not cried, and he is looking at LV with innocent
interest. LV points his wand carefully, wanting to watch the
destruction of this dangerous person. As he points his wand at Harry,
the boy begins to cry, reminding Voldemort of the whining children at
the orphanage.

He performs the AK, and immediately he is reduced to bodiless pain
and terror, desperate to flee and hide far away.

As he returns to the present, Harry begins to come back to himself,
and he sees Voldemort find the photograph of the thief that Harry had
dropped as he escaped. Hermione is calling Harry to wake up, and he
realizes that he is in the tent again. It is almost dawn, and
Hermione has been nursing him through an episode in which he was
shouting and moaning. Harry wonders if he has been reenacting the
scene he has just relived through Voldemort. She also mentions that
she had to use a Severing charm to remove the locket. She recommends
that they refrain from wearing it for a while. He apologizes for
taking them to Godric's Hollow. Hermione points out that she too,
thought Dumbledore had left the sword there.

Hermione asks Harry what happened upstairs, and he explains that
Bathilda Bagshot had actually been dead for a while and that Nagini
was inside her. Revolted [I can't blame her; I'm revolted typing
this!], Hermione doesn't immediately respond. Harry goes on to
explain that she was speaking Parseltongue and alerted Voldemort that
they were at the house. He refrains from describing Nagini's
emergence from Bathilda's body, sparing her that gory detail. He
reflects that if he could have killed the snake, the trip would have
been worth it.

He starts to get up, under Hermione's protests, and asks her for his
wand so he can take over guard duty and give her some rest. Hermione
slowly brings out the nearly severed wand. Harry, in a fog of panic,
asks her to repair it. Warning him that she may fail, she attempts a
reparo charm, and the wand reseals itself. However, when he attempts
simple spells, it fails to work and again splits apart.

Hermione fears she broke the wand when she cast her Blasting Curse.
Harry, stunned, tells Hermione it was an accident and they'll get it
repaired somehow, although the likelihood is remote, and getting a
new wand would be difficult at best. He takes Hermione's wand and
leaves her to guard the tent.

Questions:
1. "Harry thought of A History of Magic;" – have Hermione's habits
finally worn off on him?

2. We've waited for seven books to get our first glimpse of the house
in Godric's Hollow. How satisfying was the scene where Harry finally
sees his family home?

3. "Bathilda" seems to be able to see Harry and Hermione beneath the
Invisibility Cloak. Does this mean that Nagini can see through
Cloaks? Does LV know they're there and communicates it to Nagini?
Clearly, someone is there, since the sign has risen out of the
ground, but how does LV!Nagini know where they're standing?

4. As Harry and Hermione enter the house, the description of Bathilda
is actually a series of clues as to her state. Of course, we all have
the advantage of hindsight; did any of this set off alarms for you on
the first read?

5. Harry's locket is again alive; should he have guessed that
something was amiss by its behavior?

6. How much of the mess in Bathilda's house do you suppose is really
the poor dear's own clutter and how much should have been a warning
to Harry and Hermione that something was terribly wrong?

7. Although the outcome of the visit was not what I expected (to say
the least), I felt the tension was built well in this scene, and I
was primed for some sort of surprise. What was your response to the
buildup? Did you speculate correctly on the surprise outcome?

8. This chapter contains one of the most grisly (if not THE most
grisly) scenes in the HP series. What was your initial reaction to
the – er – unveiling of Bathilda?

9. Again, we finally get another scene we've been waiting to see for
seven books: the deaths of James and Lily Potter and Voldemort's
destruction. How did the scene live up to your expectations?  What
did it elucidate that had been unclear previously? (I realize that
much of this has been discussed.)

10. Voldemort is a pathological liar, although we know parts of the
Potter death scene are true, thanks to Harry's Dementor memories. How
reliable are LV's memories of the fateful night in this case?

11. This chapter points up yet again one of JKR's themes: the
vicissitudes of friendship. Do you think Lily and James were too
trusting of the Fidelius charm, and they should have been armed
constantly? What was your reaction to the picture of DD and
Grindelwald arm in arm? Do you think Harry and Hermione's
relationship altered any as a result of the events of that night?

akh

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