Harry Potter and the Readalong of Fire 4: All twinkling suspended until further notice

After a month of letting Goblet of Fire toy with my fragile emotions, it’s finally come to a crashing halt. This week, Harry learned that Neville’s parents were tortured to the point of insanity, but he couldn’t be bothered to give Neville a kindly pat at the breakfast table; Bertha Jorkins proved herself to be the world’s loneliest witch when she agreed to a romantic moonlight stroll with Wormtail; a sizable group of adults stood by while a 14-year-old boy was tortured; dementors continued to be a terrible idea; Hermione walked around with a kidnapped Rita Skeeter Beetle in a jar in her purse like it was no big; and Sirius turned a doorknob with his PAW.

Even with opposable thumbs, no simple feat.

I know Voldemort is serious business, with the murdering and the torturing and the ability to smell people's guilt despite his complete lack of a proper nose. But I can’t seem to take him seriously. Especially after this:

The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble. . . . 

The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtail’s neck, and Wormtail lifted it. (pp. 640–541)

I need upsies.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, I’m suddenly taking QUITE seriously. His congenial twinkle has been replaced by “cold fury,” and he’s radiating power like burning heat. He’s a contradiction of temperatures. DO NOT MESS WITH HIM.

But I’m really interested to know why Dumbledore looked briefly triumphant when Harry recounted how Voldemort was able to touch Harry’s face without hurting himself. I’m assuming this is an Easter egg and I shall be rewarded later for my keen observation.

RIGHT, Rowling?

And I don’t know what you’ve heard, but this did not, by any means, make me tear up in the Laundromat:

Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory. (p. 724)

Can't we all just get along?

Harry Potter and the Readalong of Fire 3: Do these dress robes make my butt look big?

We're three-fourths of the way through Goblet of Fire, and this is what's happening: Winky's role model is Mammy from Gone With the Wind ("I is looking after the Crouches all my life, and my mother is doing it before me, and my grandmother is doing it before her . . ."); Hagrid is feeding dragon liver to the Blast-Ended Skrewts (I think it's safe to say we've all underestimated the availability of dragon parts; heartstrings for everyone!); Fleur worries about gaining weight and not fitting into her dress robes (they are ROBES, Fleur); McGonagall's idea of dressing up is superior to everyone else's (Tartan is the fanciest of all the patterns); at the Yule Ball, Karkaroff is looking at Krum the way Ron is looking at Hermione (I see this as somewhat of a problem); and Moody is using his magical eye to look through Harry's robes (ALSO A PROBLEM).

Let's talk about families.

I know we're supposed to be indignant over the superb stinginess of the Dursleys in sending Harry a single tissue for Christmas this year, but I continue to be impressed when they send him ANYTHING. I mean, he's out of sight, out of mind for a WHOLE year. And yet, around Christmas, they think of him at least long enough to send him something from the bottom of Aunt Petunia's purse. And they might even have to use some sort of magical conveyance to get it to him at Hogwarts, which you KNOW they hate. So I choose to see this glass as half full . . . of terrible relatives.

In a shocking fairly unsurprising bit of news, we learn Hagrid is half-giant. But I'm struggling to make sense of how this whole human/giant relationship worked between his mom and dad, and I want ANSWERS, Rowling. Where did they meet? Was it a whirlwind love affair? Why did she leave when Hagrid was 3? How did they . . . um? How would they . . . ? Because pure giants are about 20 feet tall and, well . . .

"Tiny little bloke, my dad was. By the time I was six I could lift him up an' put him on top o' the dresser if he annoyed me." (p. 428)

He's gonna get back to us when he works it out.

Harry Potter and the Readalong of Fire 2: What if we're ALL teenage girls?

We’re halfway through Goblet of Fire, and here’s what’s happening: Hermione is stepping up her game on the “free-the-house-elves” front, everyone continues not to care sufficiently about Neville, the owls need a PETA representative, Hermione wants to mouth-kiss cannot abide by Krum, Ron and Harry are acting like mean girls, Sirius is saying things seriously and Snape is snapping, Bagman is acting MORE suspicious, wizard journalists do not learn ethics in Wizard Journalism School, and wands continue to be so very dirty (“I polish it every night”; “rather thicker than one usually sees . . . quite rigid”).

I'm so sorry, Mom.

On the topic of house-elves, Ron so sincerely believes that they like to be enslaved, and Hagrid repeats that same belief later. To that I say, of COURSE the house-elves like being enslaved. I'm thoroughly convinced. When was the last time I heard that argument . . . OH YEAH.

Your wizard logic is faulty.

And I suppose the owls ALSO enjoy their life of hard labor? (Oh, they do, you say? Very well then.) Harry is pretty hard on Hedwig. She flies for days and who (owl humor) knows how far to get a letter to Sirius, and then the very next morning, Harry makes her fly out again to deliver a stupid letter that is stupid. You SHOW him your tail feathers, girl. He doesn’t even deserve you.

Oh, that reminds me. I have a bone to pick with Rowling about the owls. So Hedwig can find Sirius in his most secret of secret headquarters. Acceptable. Hedwig is a very special owl, even as far as magical owls go. But then Harry is able to grab just a random school owl to send a letter to Sirius, and this owl will ALSO be able to find him without any difficulty. So, I ask you, what’s stopping the Ministry of Magic from just . . . sending Sirius an owl? And then when the owl got to his hidden location to deliver the “message,” the message would be “SURPRISE! DEMENTOR'S KISS. Love, Ministry of Magic.”

I leave you with Potter and Malfoy, mean girls:

Harry Potter and the Readalong of Fire 1: Sorry about your nose, big guy

I have no Neville/Harry subtext to comment on YET for Goblet of Fire, but Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort are fulfilling that need nicely for now.

"I can always tell, Wormtail! You are regretting that you ever returned to me. I revolt you. I see you flinch when you look at me, feel you shudder when you touch me. . . ." (p. 9)

There, there, Voldemort Fetus.

And he's calling Pettigrew by his school nickname, so . . . yeah.

The whole World Cup chapter is clearly fantastic, with the underage gambling and Mr. Weasley's sincere fondness of Muggles (bless them) and Percy sitting on a proverbial hedgehog and the Bulgarian mascots almost causing Ron and Harry to leap to their untimely deaths (all in good fun, really) and Viktor Krum being all broody and bird-of-prey-like (and waaay too old for Hermione, so let's just not).

But then the Death Eaters have to get tipsy and start exploding things and floating Muggles.

And poop on all your parties, too.

The obvious similarities between the Death Eaters and the Ku Klux Klan got me thinking, is there an equivalent society in the UK? I always kind of identify the KKK as distinctly American, but I suppose they've come to be a universal symbol for intolerance. Teach me things, Laura, for you are British and I'm too lazy to use the Internet.

And when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are running away from the Death Eaters, they stumble on Ludo Bagman just kind of hanging out behind a tree in the dark woods. No reason to be suspicious of him at all. (I AM SUSPICIOUS OF HIM.)

Yaaaaay for The Triwizard Tournament, but doesn't it kind of suck for the seventh-year Quidditch players that there will be no Quidditch Cup in this, their last year at Hogwarts?

Wood wouldn't STAND for it, I tell you.

Bits and pieces:

• How did Molly Weasely get gold out of Harry's vault FOR him? That . . . is not how banks work.
• Hermione SEES a house-elf and is immediately a crusader for equal rights for all house-elves. A house-elf risks his life for Harry, and he remains unimpressed. Well OK then.
• Hedwig and Pigwidgeon. That is all.
• Mad-Eye is obviously wonderful, but I remember I'm supposed to be wary of him. So I'm giving Mad-Eye the side-eye until further notice.
• "Arthur's the only one who can get Mad-Eye off . . ."