Joanna Volavka

Thoughts upon reading this chapter:

• Harry’s having nightmares now, and we know they’ll only continue as the books continue, until Voldemort starts using Occlumency against Harry. I still don’t think that Harry, on his own, could remember so much of the night his parents died and that it’s the Voldybit that’s remembering.
• Harry gives Neville chocolate as comfort. It’s a good instinct, and we know it has magical comforting properties, too.
• Nicolas Flamel was an actual person, as was his wife, Perenelle. They lived in the late fourteenth century, were French, and Roman Catholics. If you look him up online you’ll find all sorts of crazy theories about him, but the historical evidence is that he was an alchemist (though none of them ever proved successful at it), and sold manuscripts, which is how we know about him.
• They look up Flamel in a book that lists his age; do books in the wizarding world automatically update on your birthday so that your proper age is always listed?
• In Defense Against the Dark Arts, the first years learn how to treat werewolf bites, and yet in book three they supposedly haven’t learned about werewolves yet. Maybe this medical treatment stuff is separate from the actual identification of a werewolf that they later learn, but it seems to me it would be helpful if you could identify if the thing that bit you is a regular wolf or a werewolf. Maybe.
• Neville stands up to Malfoy for the first time in this chapter, and he proves that even when he’s terrified, he can face his fears like a true Gryffindor.
• Harry is excited to be not just a famous name, but good at Quidditch in his own right; unfortunately, he keeps doing things that just make him more famous, and make his own problem with being famous worse.
• Snape in the clearing with Quirrel is a little weird; I wonder why Snape didn’t tell Dumbledore about it. Not that Snape strikes me as a tattle-tale type, but surely if he thinks Quirrel is after the Stone, then he’d mention it to someone, right? Or maybe he’s acting on Dumbledore’s orders, as usual.
• Harry is awfully nosy, isn’t he?

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Chapter Twelve: The Mirror of Erised
Chapter Fourteen: Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback