Re: CHAPDISC: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 17, Bathilda’s Secre

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182365

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

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

Carol responds:
His mind is on Bathilda Bagshot, whom he hopes to sse, thinking that
she might have the Sword of Gryffindor, so "A History of Magic" would
be closer to the surface of his mind than usual. I don't think he's
recalling the book itself so much as something that Hermione has
recently quoted from it, but I can't recall her giving Harry this
specific information (that the graveyard is thought to be haunted).
Harry seems to be wondering, half-hoping, whether his parents might be
the ghosts that haunt the graveyard, but the thought is unfinished.
It's intriguing to speculate: maybe the Peverells, or Ignotus, at
least, haunts the graveyard. H and H don't see any ghosts, but the
existence of the rumor suggests that ghosts sometimes appear there.

> 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?

Carol:
I'm not sure that "satisfying" is the right word. I was glad to find
out how the Fidelius Charm broke (not, as Harry speculates, dying with
his parents but breaking with Wormtail's breach of faith) and it was
interesting to see the ruined house preserved, only the upper room
where the spell was cast actually destroyed, and the magical memorial
to the Potters (in addition to the Muggle war memorial that turns into
a statue of the Potters)--Dumbledore's work, probably. But the
mysterious old woman (naturally, I thought she was Bathilda, but
something about her seemed ominous) held my attention on a first
reading more than the house itself. I'm glad that Harry got to see it,
but I wish he had waited until after the destruction of the Horcruxes
and LV!
 
> 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?

Carol responds:
I think that Nagini, being a Horcrux (or just a magical beast with
different powers and senses than a Witch or Wizard) knows that they're
there. Possibly, she doesn't see them at all through those dead,
cataract-covered eyes, which would only show middle-aged Muggles
rather than the Potter boy and his friend. Possibly, she smells them
or senses them magically. It can't be Voldemort seeing them through
her or she wouldn't have needed to summon him later. The monument
rising out of the ground seems to appear to any Witch or Wizard who
touches the gate, judging from the sixteen years' worth of graffiti
and the recent good wishes on it, so that in itself would only
indicate that a witch or wizard is present, and Nagini (if she can
see) has already seen the "Muggles" conjure a wreath and lay it on the
Potters' grave, so she would already know that the male "Muggle" is
Harry. As for where they're standing, it would be right outside the
gate, and then Harry shouts, "Are you Bathilda?" after which her
suspicion that Harry is standing by the gate would be confirmed, even
if she can't see him.
> 
> 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?

Carol responds:
I wondered why Hermione gasped when Bathilda said, "Come!" and the
whole tone of the scene is somehow ominous. (Harry's suspicions are
usually half-right; I figured that he was missing something important
here.) Also, Bathilda doesn't seem normal. She doesn't respond when
Hermione speaks, and her few phrases are clipped and unnatural, not so
much like a "gaga" old woman as like someone who barely speaks
English: "You are Potter?" And why would Bathilda call Harry "Potter",
or, for that matter, ignore Hermione, even if she's a crazy old woman,
and pretend not to hear her? I had absolutely no idea that she was
Nagini possessing Bathilda's corpse (talk about Dark magic!), but I
knew that something wasn't right. And the smells also suggested
something worse than an old woman who could no longer "cope." (I was
wondering just now whether Nagini understands English. When LV
consoles her in GoF for the loss of Wormtail as a meal ([Never mind,
Nagini. You can have Harry Potter" or something like that], he could
be speaking Parseltongue, which Harry, present in the dream, would
understand. But "Dinner, Nagini" in "the Dark Lord Rising" seems to be
spoken in English, so maybe she understands English but, because she's
a snake and doesn't have the proper equipment for human speech, has
never learned to speak it. And being in the dead Bathilda's body won't
help her much. She's just waiting for "Potter"; nothing else matters.)
> 
> 5. Harry's locket is again alive; should he have guessed that
something was amiss by its behavior?

Carol:
Yes and no. I don't think that he could have guessed that "Bathilda"
was a Horcrux herself, one soul bit responding to another, and his
guess that the Horcrux sensed that the Sword of Gryffindor, an object
capable of destroying Horcruxes, was near makes sense given his
expectations and his interpretation of "Bathilda's" behavior. But if
he'd realized that she was speaking Parseltongue, he'd suspect that
she was under the Imperius Curse or in some way an agent of Voldemort.
That plus the Horcrux's behavior and "Bathilda's" wanting to get him
alone should have signaled him that something was not right, Harry
Potter, not right at all.
> 
> 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?

Carol:
I wasn't going to discuss the smells, but I think the foul odor was
Bathilda's corpse combined with Nagini's feces and the remains of
whatever animals she kills for food. She would not have been
fastidious enough to use the chamber pot even if she could do so.
(She's obviously not comfortable in that stooped, fat old body, or
lighting candles or wearing clothes.) The dust has accumulated since
Bathilda's death, I think, and the pile of unwashed laundry has been
mouldering since that time as well. And, yes, not even the houses of
batty old women smell that bad, nor do old women who haven't bathed
for awhile smell like corpses. (The Dark magic that Voldemort used to
somehow place Nagini in Bathilda's body must have prevented the body
from decomposing completely.)
> 
> 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?

Carol:
The same as yours. I sensed something ominous, but nothing like the
shocking, horrifying emergence of Nagini from Bathilda's body. Talk
about a heart-pounding, hair-raising moment. (I'll have to close my
eyes when that scene appears on-screen or scream in the theater like a
five-year-old!) The writing is extremely effective; maybe JKR should
attempt horror novels next, but the suspense, the sense that something
bad was about to happen, didn't prepare me for the shock of that moment.
> 
> 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?

Carol:
Horror and revulsion. But my eyes were glued to the page and my hands
glued to the book. I couldn't drop the book or run away or whatever
crazy thing a sleep-deprived woman might normally do (turn off the
television!). I had to keep reading to see what happened next. Thank
goodness for Hermione. If Harry had been alone . . . .
> 
> 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.)

Carol:
Lily's was exactly what I expected. (I liked the gesture of her
futilely spreading her arms and standing in front of Harry to block
the spell; it's what a mother would do, futile or not, whether she's
trying to block a bullet or an AK. we see the same gesture with the
unknown German mother who tries to protect her children from LV before
he kills Gregorovitch.) But James unarmed? Sure, making pretty lights
for Harry with his wand was nice, one of the few likeable James
moments, but dropping his wand on the sofa and leaving it there? and
even leaving the curtains open, trusting to the Fidelius Charm and
taking no other precautions? At any rate, both SS/PS ("I killed your
father first, and he put up a courageous fight) and GoF ("Face me like
a man, straight-backed and proud, the way your father died"), as well
as James's reputation as a powerful Wizard, led me to expect that he'd
at least put up a fight like the Prewitts (who required five DEs to
finish off the two of them), with LV allowing him a spell or two
before finishing him off.
> 
> 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?

Carol responds:
Absolutely reliable. He's recalling his own humiliation and suffering,
with no idea that Harry is experiencing them, too, and no reason to
lie to himself. The memory, unlike most human memories, is a
Pensivelike re-enactment of what happened except that Voldemort is in
his own mind and Harry is reliving it with him. (Besides, as a
literary device, they're useless unless they convey the real story.
There's no later, alternate version, and no interpretation by anyone
except Voldemort himself. The only subjective element is his contempt
for the Potters ("How stupid they were, and how trusting"), and "It
was easy, too easy" is both true and ironically prophetic. Only when
we get to "The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he
had killed the boy, and yet he was the boy" is there any confusion,
which I think is Harry's confusion as he's starting to wake up and
hears Hermione rustling around and, simultaneously, Voldemort coming
out of his painful memory. But Voldemort picking up the photograph of
the unknown merry-faced thief and exulting over it is real and a
return to the present, and Harry awakes fully immediately afterward.
> 
> 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?

Carol:
Yes, James and Lily were too trusting of Peter, in any case. (And
certainly, they shouldn't have taken Sirius's advice regarding the SK
switch. (They didn't trust Remus, apparently. Why trust Peter?) Even
if the SK had been Sirius (or Dumbledore), it would have been wise to
take other precautions, such as closing the blinds, putting protective
spells on the doors, and keeping their wands with them at all times.
They're putting all their eggs in one basket, relying on a single
spell that requires another person, "Wormy," to keep their secret even
under torture or the threat of torture. (12 GP has other spells on it
besides the Fidelius Charm, some cast by Orion Black and some by the
Order members, perhaps remembering the cottage at Godric's Hollow.)

I won't answer the DD and GG question yet since we didn't yet know who
the boy was, and I had already figured out that the merry-faced thief
was the same boy we'd seen with Dumbledore. For me, the horror of the
moment (LV finding that photo and recognizing the boy from
Gregorovitch's memory) far outweighed any considerations of DD's old
friendships or even the boy's identity.

As for Harry's and Hermione's friendship altering at that point, I
don't think so. I think we merely see its nature clarified--a very
close brother-sister relationship, with Hermione being the more
selfless and protective of the two. (She's a hero in this chapter,
rescuing Harry from Nagini's clutches--literally--although, of course,
Nagini released Harry to go after her. Also, I noticed on a rereading
that Hermione's Stunning Spell did nothing more than knock Nagini
against the wall. She (Nagini) wasn't knocked out or harmed in any way
by it. Confringo damaged the room and hindered Nagini, but didn't hurt
her, either.) At the end of the chapter, instead of being grateful to
Hermione for healing his wound and bringing him out of his stupor,
he's obsessing over his broken wand and wanting to get away from her
because she accidentally broke it. Sure, it's a good thing that he
keeps his anger in check, but I don't see any deepening of the friendship.

On another note, Harry regrets that they didn't kill Nagini (not that
they had the means of doing so without the sword), but it's probably a
good thing that she was still alive when Voldemort "killed" Harry or
that AK might have been fatal even with the drop of shared blood. (DD
seems to have been counting on Nagini's being the last Horcrux to be
destroyed. Certainly, she was the only one who could fight back!)

Carol, thanking Anita for tackling this challenging chapter, which is
certainly one of the most memorable in the book