Harry Potter HFriday - Post the All Hermione All the Time

My brain has done its best impression of a sieve lately, which is perhaps my psyche’s way of punning on pensieve? So I’m really glad that I made a bullet list of the things in the first 3 chapters of the reading. Here it is in all its minimalist glory: 

• Percy’s letter – UGH so offensive. Pompous Percy the Prat.
• Hermione is mean to Luna. Boooo Hermione.
• Knitting!

 I'm telling you. Sieve. That last point is something you guys won’t know a huge amount about, but in a nutshell, for years I was a bigger knitter (and spinner) than reader; this is where my dedication to audiobooks really became A Thing. I focused my BA in Art History on textiles, and for a long time wanted to be a textile historian; when we’re all living comfortably in the Enchanted April castle, all my yarn and fiber will come with me. And while my fiber arts have taken a backseat to books in the last year, the mention of knitting still makes me really cheerful.

MOVING ON. The twins in this section kick ass. When everyone’s in the Hogs Head and that jerk is all, “Are you trying to weasel out of showing us some stuff?” and Ron tells him off and then the Twins get all knuckle-cracking Crabbe-and-Goyle-but-AWESOME?

That is what having brothers is like (sometimes). Other times, it's worms in your bed and your liquid laundry detergent bottle filled with dish soap. 

And then later, Ginny has a BOYFRIEND and Ron reacts eeeeeeeexactly the way older brothers have been reacting since the dawn of boyfriends. And even though we hate Cho the Interloper because Harry is clearly Ginny’s, I like that he doesn’t suddenly look at her now that she’s unavailable. Way to not fall into that shitty romance trap, JK!

More bullet points:

• The slide to the girls’ dormitory is one of my favorite details about Hogwarts.
• Neville charging Malfoy in front of Potions is ROUGH. Malfoy is at his most vile in this book, and I don’t care that his family has a good structure or whatever – he was not raised to be a decent human being and I loathe him. Later I will pity him, but for now? LOATHE. 
• Sirius passing that message from Molly to Ron – something about it makes me laugh
• Fred and George’s boils. Bwahahahah!
• Hermione talks about being nearly put in Ravenclaw for cleverness – I suspect that if that had been the case, she would have become COMPLETELY INSUFFERABLE.

Ok, these last things aren’t bullet points because I’m bored with those now. How about some nice dashes instead? Good.

- Hermione kisses Ron on the cheek before what is HANDS DOWN The best Quidditch match of the series. Oohhhhhh those Slytherins make my blood boil. Why didn’t some RESPONSIBLE ADULT just silencio their whole section? I kept waiting and waiting for it but no! 

- Poor, poor Trelawney. She's an old bat and (mostly) a fraud, but she didn't deserve to be taken down in front of her students like that. No teacher does; that is not how adults behave. 

- MacGonagall and Umbridge’s nearly-silent showdown scenes are just purely fantastic. Every time Umbridge hem-hem’s, I want to light her on FIRE. 

- Hermione again: planning Hagrid’s lessons! She would be the best EA... until she took over your company.

You weren't running it properly anyway.