CHAPDISC: DH20, Xenophilius Lovegood

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 182890

The chapter opens the morning after the appearance of the doe 
Patronus, Ron's return and rescue of Harry, and the destruction of 
the locket horcrux.  In spite of all these positive developments, 
Hermione is still angry, Ron is maintaining an unnaturally somber 
demeanor and Harry is feeling like the only non-mourner at a poorly 
attended funeral. Only when he and Harry are alone together while 
foraging for water and mushrooms does Ron's mood become unabashedly 
cheery.

The reader is privy to one such sortie, which takes place late in the 
afternoon. Harry fills Ron in on his and Hermione's wanderings after 
Ron left.  Ron shares the news he has picked up about the wider 
Wizarding world.

Ron asks Harry how he found out about the Taboo.  Harry doesn't know 
what Ron is talking about.  He explains that he and Hermione had just 
slipped into the habit of saying You-Know-Who rather than V--.  Ron 
hastily shuts him up before he can say Voldemort's name and then 
explains that Voldemort has placed a jinx on the uttering of his 
name.  Anyone who says it aloud can be traced and that is how Death 
Eaters found the Trio in Tottenham Court Road.  Kingsley Shacklebolt 
was nearly captured in the same way.

Harry and Ron speculate on the doe Patronus sender's identity. 
Kingsley is briefly considered and rejected because his Patronus is 
known to be a lynx.  They move further away from Hermione and Ron 
tentatively voices the possibility that the doe might have been sent 
by Dumbledore.  Harry is adamant that this is not possible.  They 
argue about it for a while and that leads into a general discussion 
of Dumbledore, his judgment, and the revisionist assessment of his 
character by Rita Skeeter.

Ron tells Harry that in his weaker moments he used to think that 
Dumbledore was just having a laugh at them or trying to make things 
more difficult, but he doesn't think that anymore.  "He knew what he 
was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn't he? . . . he must 
have known I'd run out on you." "No," is Harry's generous reply.  "He 
must have known you'd always want to come back."

Ron tries to excuse Dumbledore's friendship with Grindelwald by 
pointing out that Dumbledore was really young at the time that it 
took place.  "Our age," Harry responds, and something in his face 
tells Ron not to pursue the subject.

Harry begins practicing on a spider with his newly acquired 
blackthorn wand and discovers that his Engorgio spell is weak and 
Reducio is completely ineffective. Hermione has come noiselessly upon 
them at this point and assures Harry that he just needs practice.  
Harry thinks she still feels guilty about breaking his own wand.

They return to the tent.  Harry continues to practice fruitlessly 
with the wand while Ron tries unsuccessfully to tune in an anti-
Voldemort broadcast on a small wooden wireless. Hermione is reading 
on her bunk.  Suddenly she climbs down from the bunk, reveals that 
the book she is reading is _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_, 
and announces that she wants to go see Xenophilius Lovegood.  Her 
reason:  She has finally connected the mark in Beedle the Bard, the 
symbol in Dumbledore's letter to Grindelwald (reproduced in Rita's 
book), the mark on the tombstone in Godric's Hollow, and the pendant 
Xenophilius wore to Bill and Fleur's wedding.

After the disastrous experience in Godric's Hollow, Harry is not keen 
to visit the Lovegoods.  Ron takes Hermione's side, however, (for 
meretricious reasons Harry suspects) and the two of them carry the 
argument.

They disapparate to a hillside overlooking Ottery St. Catchpole from 
which they can see the Burrow.  We learn that Ron was never at the 
Burrow during his absence.  He didn't think he would have been 
welcome.  Instead he stayed at Bill and Fleur's new place, Shell 
Cottage.

The Trio has a hard time finding the Lovegoods' house.  They walk for 
hours under the Invisibility Cloak.  They disapparate to a new 
location.  Finally Ron spots a strange-looking structure on top of a 
hill.

The house resembles a giant black chess rook.  It has a creaking, 
broken-down gate adorned with three hand-painted signs:  
THE QUIBBLER.  EDITOR: X. LOVEGOOD
PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE
KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS. 
A zigzagging path overgrown with odd plants leads up to the door.

Hermione stashes the Invisibility Cloak in her beaded bag and knocks 
three times.  After barely ten seconds the door is opened by 
Xenophilius Lovegood looking dirty and disheveled, in stark contrast 
to his dapper appearance at the wedding.  His voice is high-pitched 
and querulous.  He refuses Harry's hand and doesn't want to let them 
in at first, relents finally, but urges them to come in quickly.  He 
slams the door shut as they barely clear the threshold.

Inside, the house presents just as peculiar an appearance as 
outside.  The kitchen is completely circular with curved appointments 
covered with flowers, insects, and birds painted in bright primary 
colors.  The room upstairs is as cluttered as the Room of 
Concealment.  Books and papers are piled on every surface.  Models of 
unrecognizable creatures with flapping wings and snapping jaws hang 
from the ceiling.  An old fashioned printing press is noisily 
churning out copies of the Quibbler.  Luna is not to be seen.

Hermione spots one especially prominent trophy on a wall and she and 
Mr. Lovegood get into an argument. Xenophilius maintains that it is 
the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, acquired two weeks ago from a 
"delightful young wizard" as a Christmas surprise for Luna.  Hermione 
insists that it is really an Erumpent horn, dangerous, explosive and 
illegal.

In contradiction to his previous exhortations in the Quibbler, 
Xenophilius seems unwilling to help them.  He is clearly 
uncomfortable. He keeps swallowing. His eyes dart nervously among the 
three of them.  Hermione asks, "Where's Luna?" He gulps, hesitates, 
and finally answers in a shaky voice that she is down by the stream 
fishing.  He goes to get her.

While he is gone, Harry notices another peculiar object: A stone bust 
of a beautiful but austere-looking witch wearing a bizarre 
headdress.  Two objects resembling golden ear trumpets curve out from 
the sides.  A leather strap sporting two tiny blue glittering wings 
runs across the top of the head, while another covered in orange 
radishes spans the forehead.

Xenophilius returns bearing a tea tray.  He reveals that the bust is 
a likeness of Rowena Ravenclaw and explains that the object on it is 
his pet invention.  Wrackspurt siphons to remove sources of 
distraction, a billywig propeller to elevate the frame of mind, and 
the Dirigible Plum to enhance reception of the extraordinary.

Luna is still nowhere to be seen, but Xenophilius asserts that she 
will not be long.

"Now," he asks at last, "how may I help you, Mr. Potter?"  Harry 
explains that it's about the symbol Xenophilius was wearing around 
his neck at the wedding.

Xenophilius raises his eyebrows.

"Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?"

Chapter 20 Questions

1.  Is Hermione's intransigence toward Ron justifiable?  Why is she 
so unforgiving?

2.  We finally get an explanation for the sudden appearance of DEs in 
Tottenham Court Road-the Taboo.  Was it satisfying?  Did it feel 
contrived that H and H continued to use the euphemism after Ron's 
defection (saving themselves from the DEs even if they didn't know 
about the Taboo).  Could there have been a Taboo on the name in VWI?

3.  Harry quickly shoots down Ron's hope that DD may still be 
watching over them and as quickly shoots down Ron's excuse of young 
Dumbledore's behavior.  Is this meant to show Harry's disenchantment 
with DD or illustrate his growing maturity?

4.  Does Harry's emphatic rejection of youth as an excuse for 
behavior hark back to a lingering dissatisfaction with Sirius and 
Lupin's excuse for his father?

5.  Harry tries out his new wand on spiders.  Why spiders again?

6.  There has been a good deal of argument over the theme of insiders 
and outsiders in HP.  Those who are enmeshed in the "good" side never 
seen to have to question their place in the world; those who are born 
into "bad" side, either accept or rebel. Where do the Lovegoods fit 
in to this scheme?

7.  Why does Ron not know where to find the Lovegoods' house when he 
has grown up in the same neighborhood?

8.  Did the physical description of the house strike you in any 
particular way? Is the fact that it looks like a black rook 
significant? (Black is the side the Trio took in "Through the 
Trapdoor" in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Hermione 
replaced the rook, in fact.)

9.  Xenophilia, literally love of the stranger, is the Greek word for 
hospitality.  Was Xenophilius Lovegood's markedly inhospitable 
behavior intentionally ironic?  Is he a lover of strangers or merely 
a lover of the strange? 

10. The Lovegoods are the only Ravenclaw family into whose home we 
are admitted.  Do they typify Ravenclaw?

11. The odd-looking contraption on the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw turns 
out to be a counterfeit Lost Diadem, but that is not revealed until a 
later chapter.  What did you think it was when you first read about 
it?

11. What did you think of the non-appearance of Luna?

12. Any question you want to add.

Thanks to Shorty Elf for corrections and suggestions,
houyhnhnm