This is another transition chapter between the important events surrounding the Silver Doe and Xenophilius Lovegood’s explanation of the Deathly Hallows in the next two chapters. Hermione is still not speaking to Ron, and Ron is reciprocating this by watching his conduct around her because of his remorse over his actions. Ron however is excited to come back and has an interesting conversation with Harry.

We learn about the “Taboo” regarding Voldemort’s name, which according to Ron, is being tracked by the Death Eaters. This explains how the Trio were found in Tottenham Court Road back in chapter nine and how Kingsley Shacklebolt was nearly caught as well (as Ron tells Harry). Name taboos are nothing new. In some parts of Africa and Asia, there are taboos against naming the dead. This is a form of respect and to do otherwise would be a great offense. In ancient China, the name of the emperor as well as his ancestors was avoided, even going so far as to changing a character in his name if he was mentioned. Who can also forget the ancient Jews reverence for the four letter name of God or the Tetragrammaton, YHWH?

JKR’s use of the name taboo is interesting not least because those who use Voldemort’s name are really those who are not afraid of the Dark Lord. As Dumbledore said, “Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself” and it is characters like Dumbledore and Harry Potter that wisely followed that maxim to the letter. By making the name of Voldemort jinxed, the Death Eaters are not only able to track those who use the name, but to spread fear and affect some control over Voldemort’s opponents because they will have succeeded in truly making the Dark Lord’s name respected and unutterable.

We also learn about Potterwatch, a subversive radio news program that reports “the news like it really is” regarding Harry Potter, Voldemort, the Ministry, and the war. Potterwatch is not on every night and can only be accessed by a password. The existence of Potterwatch shows that the media in the Wizarding World is corrupt and not be trusted for obvious reasons. Potterwatch is underground as are Voldemort’s opponents. This truly is a troubled time. Harry is still having trouble with his wand before Hermione suddenly reveals that she has a desire to speak to Xenophilius Lovegood because the same mark that he was wearing at Bill and Fleur’s wedding is also present in both The Tales of Beedle the Bard and the photograph of Dumbledore’s letter to Grindelwald.

The Trio arrives at Xenophilius’ house that looks like a giant chess rook as Ron observes. We meet Xenophilius for the second time and this time, he acts differently from the wedding. He is not only surprised at seeing Harry Potter, but he acts peculiarly with increased nervousness and fear. We find out that Luna was not in the house and Hermione even asks Xenophilius where is she. He answers that she is down at the stream fishing for Freshwater Plimpes. Notice how as the Trio were approaching the house, “a little owl with a slightly flattened, hawklike head peer down at them from one of the branches” and as Xenophilius is supposedly fetching Luna, Harry sees a bird fly past the window toward the Burrow and out of sight. It was probably at that point that Xenophilius sent an Owl to the Ministry alerting them of his famous guest. We see two items that foreshadow events in the coming chapters. One is the Erumpent horn or as Xenophilius wrongly asserts, the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack; the other being the model of Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. The chapter closes with Xenophilius mentioning the sign of the Deathly Hallows.

Related Posts

• Ch. 14: The Thief
• Chapter 12: Magic is Might
• The Next Harry Potter?
• Live Potter Pundits Tonight!!
• Chapter 19: The Silver Doe

The Silver Doe by Lilyhbp. Click for original link.

In medieval symbolism, in the Arthur stories, and even in Narnia, we get the pursuit of the White Stag as a symbol of the human pursuit of the Christ. In Harry Potter, we’ve seen a white stag, but there’s not much pursuit of it. On the contrary, Harry himself produces the stag, and it’s an internal echo of his father.

But in chapter 19 of Deathly Hallows, in Harry’s darkest moment to date – wand broken, having survived the Bagshot-Snake attack, Dumbledore denounced, and his parents’ graves visited – he pursues not a White Stag, but a “Silver-white Doe” into the forest. The reason for this is simple enough: Harry’s pursuit in this story is not of his father. It’s of his mother. At the end, he tells Voldemort, “I’ve done what my mother did.” In order to defeat Voldemort, he has to go through the way of Lily, which is the way of the Christ. So J.K. Rowling gives us a feminine version of the Christ symbolism. This is Christ, the Sophia of God, as St. Paul says.The pursuit leaves him to “a silver cross,” the Sword of Gryffindor, lying in the frozen pool. We learn later from Dumbledore that it had to be taken under conditions of bravery, underscoring my assertion that the Sword is a Hallow (just not a Deathly one). As we saw with the hat in Book 2, one has to be worthy to possess the sword. This is our second clear Arthurian moment in the chapter – especially as the sword is then retrieved from a pool by the “kingly” Ron Weasley.

Here is where Ron must face his fears and overcome them. After raising Harry to life after he “dies” at the silver cross in the pool of baptism, Ron is tested, mid-story, in the same way he was tested before the Mirror of Erised midway through Book 1. Only this time, the stakes are much higher. In Book 1, he didn’t know what the Mirror was, and he hoped it showed the future. There were no serious consequences at the time for his looking into it and seeing himself with glory and fame – the consequences of being overshadowed by his talented brothers. In Book 7, we find – next to a pool, no less (think Narcissus, and you’ve got the Mirror imagery present) – that Ron is still wrestling with the same fears, only they’re about Harry and Hermione as well. Voldemort tells him out of the two-eyed Horcrux that all his fears may come true, that he really is least-loved, and that Harry and Hermione hate him.

But Ron triumphs, showing himself to be a “true Gryffindor” and a worthy participant in the quest to defeat Voldemort.

This is easily one of my top 5 favorite chapters of the entire 7-book saga. There’s more to say about it, and I leave the discussion on the hands of the Pub and look forward to your comments!

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• Chapter 20: Xenophilius Lovegood
• The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
• Chapter 17: When a problem comes along you must whip it. No one gets away until they whip it.
• Deathly Hallows Poster!
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Melissa Anelli has posted a new “Vault” entry. These are excerpts from her interviews with J.K. Rowling. Two fascinating items come out of this discussion.

Grindelwald as Lucifer

MA: It reminds me of WICKED, did you ever read WICKED?

JKR: No.

MA: Maguire does retellings of old fairytales and he made a very cerebral book about the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, and how they used to be best friends.

JKR: Oh really…

MA: It’s very similar; she went one way to fight injustice and fight the wizard, and Glinda went the other, to be the political figure and play into the system. Really interesting.

JKR: Well, it’s the old fallen angel idea in some ways, isn’t it? It’s God and Lucifer.

MA: I wanted to ask you about that, because Grindelwald resembles – the golden curls, the first person I thought of was Lucifer.

Fascinating. Rowling goes on to call their friendship a “fraternal bond,” and she notes that Dumbledore’s emotional infatuation with Grindelwald makes him “less culpable.” Thoughts?

Then, there’s this bit. Often, when I think Ms. Rowling didn’t think through something well enough, she comes out with something like this to prove me wrong:

MA: Because he’s set up this massive chess game -

JKR: Mm, this massive chess game. But I said to Arthur, my American editor – we had an interesting conversation during the editing of seven – the moment when Harry takes Draco’s wand, Arthur said, God, that’s the moment when the ownership of the Elder wand is actually transferred? And I said, that’s right. He said, shouldn’t that be a bit more dramatic? And I said, no, not at all, the reverse. I said to Arthur, I think it really puts the elaborate, grandiose plans of Dumbledore and Voldemort in their place. That actually the history of the wizarding world hinged on two teenage boys wrestling with each other. They weren’t even using magic. It became an ugly little corner tussle for the possession of wands. And I really liked that – that very human moment, as opposed to these two wizards who were twitching strings and manipulating and implanting information and husbanding information and guarding information, you know?

Ultimately it just came down to that, a little scuffle and fistfight in the corner and pulling a wand away.

I welcome the Pub’s thoughts on that! Fire away.

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Chapter 18 of our Deathly Hallows Read-Through is brought to you by Red Rocker.

Like other great novels, Deathly Hallows is about how human beings try to love one another. Chapter 18 shows different kinds of love: the love Harry and Hermione have for each other and which makes itself known in every word they speak to one another. The problematic love of Albus Dumbledore for one Gellert Grindelwald. And more importantly, for one Harry Potter

This is how matters stand at the start of chapter 18.

Harry has lost his parents, his godfather, and his mentor to Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Dumbledore has set him on a mission to destroy the remaining horcruxes, but has not given him a clear idea of where they are or how he is to destroy them.. Ron has walked out on him. His last good idea of where the Sword of Gyriffindor might be has backfired in a grotesque ambush. And his wand – his right arm – has been rendered impotent. As in broken and bent, hanging together by a strand of phoenix feather. So useless that he has to borrow a girl’s wand to protect himself.

And just when he thinks things can get no worse, he finds the copy of Skeeter’s book and learns facts about Dumbledore which make him doubt everything he thought he knew about him.

Some inner certainty had crashed won inside him; it was exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom. All was ashes: how much more could he lose? Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand…

All of this is a prelude to a conversation between Harry and Hermione which summarizes the major elements of the conversation we have been having about Dumbledore for a long time at this site. Here it is, in abridged form:
Hermione: Remember, Harry. This is Rita Skeeter’s version of events.

Harry: The letter confirms how Dumbledore felt towards Muggle domination
Hermione: But he was really young.

Harry: No younger than we are now.

Hermione: But he was under a lot of stress; his mother had died, he was alone.
Harry: He had his brother. And his sister, whom he was keeping locked up.
Hermione: The Dumbledore we know wouldn’t have done that.

Harry: The Dumbledore we thought we knew wouldn’t have tried to conquer Muggles.
Herminone: He changed Harry. Maybe he was like that at 17. He spent the rest of his life fighting the Dark Arts and standing up for Muggles.

And then:
Hermione: The real reason you’re upset is because he didn’t tell you all this himself.
Harry: He asked me to risk my life over an over, without every explaining anything. He just asked me to trust him, without telling me the whole truth.
Hermione: He loved you.
Harry: This mess he left me with isn’t love.

The conversation ends with Harry’s silent thought: he hates himself for wishing that what Hermione says was true, for wishing that Dumbledore really did care for him.

What I love about this conversation is how they move from what is the obvious problem, to what is the underlying problem. Dumbledore is not the epitome of goodness and wisdom and that enrages Harry, but what really bothers him is that he had to find this out from Rita Skeeter. Dumbleodre didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. And this means that Dumbleodore didn’t care about him. That is the worm at the core of the apple: Harry fears that Dumbledore never really loved him.

I am in agreement with the literary critic from Newsweek who wrote that Deathly Hallows is about growing up and realizing that our grownups aren’t perfect, but learning it’s possible to love them despite that. I think Harry masters that lesson in Chapter 35, King’s Cross. He sees that Dumbledore is flawed, but he forgives him for it, and loves him. Back in Chapter 18, he is still the wounded child, enraged over his sense of betrayal and abandonment by a father figure whose love is so tricky that it hardly seems like love at all.

I’m not sure, btw that Harry ever gets his wish about Dumbledore. Certainly in Chapter 35 Dumbledore is full of approval and admiration because of what Harry has done. Who wouldn’t be? Does he care for Harry? I don’t know that anyone except Dumbledore – and maybe his maker – knows the answer to that question.

The other thing I love about the conversation in Chapter 18 is how Harry and Hermione look after one another. Harry is shocked at what just happened, angry at Hermione for zapping his wand – his right arm – and angry at Dumbledore. But his primary concern is still not to hurt her, to protect her from the awful knowledge of the end of Bathilda Bagshot, and to protect her from his anger at her. It is a very mature, very caring reaction. And she, for her part, tries to comfort him, to explain away Dumbledore’s seeming lack of trust, and to give Harry the one thing he craves: the assurance that Dumbledore did care for him. Again, very mature, very caring.

For all my railings against Ron’s lack of worthiness and Hermione’s ultimate relegation to a sex role stereotype, I’ve come to see that the love that these three have for one another is the cement that holds the books together. What hurts me about the endless hanging about in tents is not so much the loss of structure and purpose, but the loss of the certainty of their friendship. When that friendship is restored, I am as happy as Harry is in Chapter 35, when he finally realizes that he did earn Dumbledore’s approval – if not his love.

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• Chapter 19: The Silver Doe
• Chapter 17: When a problem comes along you must whip it. No one gets away until they whip it.
• Chapter 15: The Goblin’s Revenge
• Ch. 14: The Thief

A belated installment.
Bathilda has a nasty secret and she’s ready to reveal it to Harry. Just wait.

We spend some time with Harry and Hermione trying to work out what’s happening behind the hedge. The blame goes, as usual, to a cat. Why are cats always to blame?
Rowling then gives us a nice little reference to Harry and Hermione taking refuge within the church. but Hermione suggest the dark road before Harry can speak up.
On their search for Bathilda’s house they come upon the ruins of the Potter’s residence. It has been left in ruins as a reminder of the violence that consumed the Potter family. In our own society I cannot imaging this happening. We like to sweep unpleasant images and reminders away. As a society we have a Voldemort-like hatred of death. We wish to avoid any reminder of it. On the fence is a plaque stating the situation and other magical folk have added their own inscriptions. I was hoping for “Spartan-117″ but it wasn’t there…

Here’s a good moment to consider the lyrics of Shatner’s You’ll Have Time

Live life
Live life like you’re gonna die
Becasue you’re gonna
I hate to be the bearer of bad news
But you’re gonna die

Maybe not today or even next year
But before you know it you’ll be saying
“Is this all there was?
What was all the fuss?
Why did I bother?”

Now, maybe you won’t suffer maybe it’s quick
But you’ll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn’t I taste it?
You’ll have time
Because you’re gonna die.

Yes it’s gonna happen because it’s happened to a lot of people I know
My mother, my father, my loves
The president, the kings and the pope
They all had hope

And they muttered just before they went
Maybe, I won’t let go
Live life like you’re gonna die
Because you are

Maybe you won’t suffer maybe it’s quick
But you’ll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn’t I taste it?
You’ll have time
‘Cause you’re gonna die

I tell you who else left us
Passed on down to heaven no longer with us
Johnny Cash, JFK, that guy in the Stones
Lou Gehrig, Einstein, and Joey Ramone
Have I convinced you?
Do you read my lips?
This may come as news but it’s time
You’re gonna die
You’re gonna die

By the time you hear this I may well be dead
And you my friend might be next
‘Cause we’re all gonna die

Yeah, oh maybe you won’t suffer and maybe it’s quick
But you’ll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn’t I taste it?
You’ll have time
You’ll have time cause you’re gonna die
Yes, you’re gonna die
You’re gonna die, I tell you
You’re gonna die
You are gonna die

‘Cause maybe you won’t suffer maybe it’s quick
But you have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn’t I taste it?
You’ll have time ’cause you’re gonna die

Live Life
Life life like you’re gonna die
Because you’re going to
Oh yes
I hate to be the bearer of bad news
But you’re gonna die

Maybe not today or even next year
But before you know it you’ll be saying
“Is this all there was?
What was all the fuss?
Why did I bother?
Why did I waste it?
Why didn’t I taste it?”
You’ll have time, baby
You’ll have time
‘Cause you’re gonna die
You are gonna die
Oh yeah

Thanks Bill.

Harry and Hermione meet the untalkative and disgustingly malodourous Bathilda Bagshot. Bagshot Row is where Bilbo then Frodo live in Hobbiton. I felt that Godric’s Hollow and Hobbiton have a similar character. Voldemort’s destruction of the Potter family may have been a similar scene to what we’d have got if Frodo answered the door when the Nazgul came calling.

Back at Bathilda’s place Harry picks up some needful clues to further his quest and the locket stirs on his breast. This is the biggest collection of Voldemort’s soul parts since they were split and the result is appropriately dark -Bathilda shows him her secret. Nagini has been posessing the reeking corpse of Dumbledore’s ally and reveals itself like some grotesque Kundalini. There’s a fight where things are very confusing. A thrashing snake, Hermione suddenly amongst the action, Voldemort’s immanent arrival and splitting headaches. Voldemort’s flashback is an amazing and revealing first-person account of his method of slaying. Harry’s mind link takes some time to recover from. Hermione has saved the day again and bathed his forehead while he was ill. Harry’s maleness, signified by his wand, has been broken (ouch!) and he is at a loss. The guardian role has been take by Hermione whose wand is intact. Harry presumptuously assumes Hermione’s wand and wishes she was somewhere else. Harry is wondering how he’ll continue his fight. His wand has served him so well. Its a connection to Dumbledore via Fawkes’ feather. Its the brother of Voldemort’s wand and that connection has been hugely helpful in their past dealings.

We’re well set up for the rug to be pulled further from under Harry’s feet and for the beautiful images in the future chapters.

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• Chapter 20: Xenophilius Lovegood
• Chapter 19: The Silver Doe
• The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
• Chapter 15: The Goblin’s Revenge
• Ch. 14: The Thief

As the DVD and Blu Ray for Half-Blood Prince comes out this week, some of the extra features have sprung up on the web and it blew up the #harrypotter stream in my Twitter feed! Below is a roughly two minute video from  Daily Motion with a quick look at some of the scenes and settings for Deathly Hallows. You won’t find anything terribly revelatory, but you will see a few quick glimpses of the tent, Olivander, Griphook, and a couple of scenes I didn’t quite recognize.

Thoughts? Ideas?

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This chapter opens with an ominous moment: Harry searching for a place to bury Moody’s eye. He does so under “the oldest, most gnarled, and resilient-looking tree he could find.” Harry’s symbolism is clear, and the scene will be repeated later.

All-in-all, this chapter has an Empire Strikes Back feel to it. Our heroes are stuck in the wilderness, hunting for clues to puzzles they know are important, but coming up empty. As Rowling writes it, the scene reduces the three of them to “three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.” The dark magic of the locket, now being passed among them to diffuse its effect on any one of them, is taking a severe toll. And it is most assuredly the prime cause of discord within the tent.

Hermione’s realization that this is so does little to assuage the Horcrux’s effect on all of them. Endless boredom and hunger in the midst of the stress of being hunted like animals isn’t helping the situation. It all creates a vicious psychological cycle within the trio, most notably Harry: “[He] was starting to fear that Hermione too was disappointed by his poor leadership. In desperation he tried to think of further Horcrux locations, but the only one that continued to occur to him was Hogwarts, and as neither of the others thought this at all  likely, he stopped suggesting it.” In other words, out of fears over his lack of leadership, Harry quits being a leader. Any reader who has paid close attention to the series knows Harry has to be right, or at least on the right track. The importance Hogwarts holds for Voldemort and others is unmistakable. All of them are ignoring the evidence, from Ginny’s possession and Voldy’s other repeated attempts to penetrate the school, to what Harry learned in his Pensieve lessons in Half-Blood Prince.

But, what we do learn very clearly here is that the other Trio (Ginny, Neville, and Luna) are trying to wreak a bit of havoc at the school. More importantly, Harry, Hermione, and Ron learn from their eavesdropping exercise that the true Sword of Gryffindor has gone missing — hidden, perhaps by Dumbledore, to keep it from the hands of those who don’t deserve it. But, the most significant piece of information they learn while listening to Griphook and the others at the riverbank is that the sword can be used as a weapon against Horcruxes. Hermione realizes the sword has absorbed some of the effects of the basilisk’s venom. Harry feels that some answers are “tantalizingly close.” Yet, they’re just out of reach.

And the chapter ends in catastrophe. Ron’s emotional implosion pushes the group over the edge, leading to the Trio’s collapse. He storms out of the tent angry, misanthropic, and believing that Hermione has chosen Harry over him. We’ll learn later the true outcome, but I count this moment as one of Rowling’s most significant red herrings in the series. Upon my first read, I was convinced that this fracture doomed Ron. For a while, I waited nervously to see Harry and Hermione stumble across his body somewhere. Thus, the later moment when Ron rises to his real potential is all the more emphatic and powerful to me.

What makes this book so hard to read is the persistent pounding of death in every corner, upon every page. Chapter 15 opens with a burial, one that will be echoed painfully later. The Horcruxes presense, the pervasive fear and hunger, and final moment when it seems that the central friendship in the series is fully broken all make this one of the darker chapters in the entire HP saga.

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The Telegraph has compiled a bunch of Top 100 of the 00s lists, and topping the book list is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

If you don’t know what a Muggle is by now, you’re either Rip van Winkle or enormously stubborn. This is the seventh and final instalment in Rowling’s record-breaking series about Harry Potter, the world’s most famous lightning-scarred boy wizard and his tribulations with Lord Voldemort. We’ve seen Harry grow from a spindly, messy-haired 11-year-old into a heroic young adult. Children have grown up with him, finding in his battles metaphors for their own. This volume alone sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours after it was published. Whether wickedly skewering suburbia, or bringing Harry, Ron and Hermione into mortal danger, Rowling is never less than absorbing. Some may sneer at her books, but they are triumphant sagas about the defeat of evil that tap into our basic hunger for stories. Most importantly, she makes reading a 700-page book seem easy. This one even has a quotation from Aeschylus as its epigraph. It stands as a cornerstone of the decade, a melding of high and low culture that appeals to all ages and nations.

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Quick Synopsis: After an abortive attempt to return to Grimmauld Place, the Trio instead end up in a forest.  Yaxley was able to hold on long enough to get within the protective charms on the house, but Hermione shakes him off and goes to where the Quidditch Cup was held in Goblet of Fire.  Ron is splinched and has a gaping wound in his arm and is in danger of bleeding to death.  Tense moments pass until first aid is applied.  Ron appears to be okay, but the Trio decide to stay put for a spell.  The Trio have the Locket Horcrux but only have vauge ideas on how to destroy it.  Caution and watchfulness become the order of the day.  Hermione puts up several protective spells and Harry suggests he and she take turns watching.  As he takes the first watch, Harry begins heading into the doldrums again which leaves him open to seeing another vision from Voldemort’s head.  The Dark Lord has finally found Gregorovitch and learns that the object he seeks was stolen years ago by the curly haired, wild, merry youth.  The vision ends with Gregorovitch’s death and Harry is left to ponder what he has seen.

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This chapter continues Rowling’s depiction of the Ministry of Magic under Voldemort as Nazi Germany in miniature. There is now a commission to register, interrogate, de-wand, and imprison (or worse) muggle-born witches and wizards. Muggle-born Ministry employees are denounced and purged. Indifferent workers prepare anti-muggle-born propaganda pamphlets. Everyone keeps their mouths shut and heads down. The only sign of resistance is a secret prankster causing Death Eater offices to rain.

The Commission, Umbridge, and Propaganda

The name of the The Muggle-Born Registration Commission is interesting. Why call it that and not “The Mudblood Registration Commission?” By using the term “muggle-born,” preferred by non-purebloods and others not biased against muggle-borns, the Ministry cloaks its new nature a bit longer. This enhances people’s uncertainty about what has happened and lures muggle-borns into complying with the orders to register and show up in the hope of appeasing the Ministry and showing compliance with the new laws. Similarly, Jews during the Holocaust were lured into complying with directives to show up for “relocation East” and similar blandishments that resulted in their deaths.

Umbridge is the personification of the Nazi passion for order and record-keeping, eager to get going once Mafalda Hopkirk (polyjuiced Hermione) shows up. Her pamphlet-making minions hate her as a boss but wonder indifferently if she’ll spend all day “interrogating mudbloods.” The pamphlet, entitled “Mudbloods, and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pureblood Society,” shows a simpering rose (pureblood) surrounded and threatened by nasty evil weeds (mudbloods). The pamphlet is reminiscent of Nazi propaganda depicting young ladies and children as “threatened” by Jews, who were falsely portrayed as evil and repulsive.

This demonization of the other led the Nazis to murder millions of Jews from all walks of life regardless of fame, fortune, or talent and regardless of age. Similarly the Death Eaters reduce all muggle-borns to their “blood status” regardless of their magical power or accomplishments. They care not what talents Hermione Granger or Mary Cattermole or Lily Evans or Ted Tonks or Dirk Creswell or Justin Finch-Fletchley may have, what contributions they have or could make to society, or that their children may be half-bloods. Instead “the brats of mudbloods do not concern us.” The irony is that at the very head of every pureblood family tree, at some point in the distant or not-so-distant past, the first person in the family to acquire magic was a muggle-born.

The Eyes Have It

There is a contrast of eyes in this chapter. Harry sees Mad-Eye Moody’s magic eye stuck in Umbridge’s office door, gazing “blindly upward, frozen.” Rage “reared in him like a snake” similar to his feelings in Order of the Phoenix when he feels like a snake “rose up inside” him when he briefly locks eyes with Dumbledore after Nagini’s attack on Arthur Weasley (OOTP 481). Harry rips the eye out of the door. When he opens the door, he feels like he’s stepped back in time, for Umbridge’s office looks just like her office at Hogwarts and the sticky note on her poster expresses her continuing desire to punish “Undesirable No. 1.” The flashbacks to fifth year are repeated later outside the interrogation chamber when Umbridge casually abuses her power and threatens the man interrogated prior to Mary Cattermole with the Dementor’s Kiss if he doesn’t stop struggling, just as she sent Dementors to give fourteen-year-old Harry the Kiss to get him to stop saying that Voldemort had returned.

Harry doesn’t think to create a copy of Mad-Eye’s eye to leave in its place and later its disappearance is discovered, alerting the Death Eaters that there is an intruder in the Ministry. In contrast, when Hermione steals Slytherin’s locket from around the unconscious Umbridge’s neck, she makes sure to leave a copy so Umbridge will not know that the real locket was stolen. The spell she uses, “Geminio,” means “twin” as does Tom’s name. She is making a twin of a twin, although the fake locket is not a horcrux. In an additional irony, the locket will eventually open to have two eyes, not one. The locket’s two eyes, hinted at here with the twinning of the horcrux, represent evil, whereas Mad-Eye’s single eye represents good, single, all-seeing vision. (For further discussion of the eyes of Deathly Hallows, see John Granger’s book, “The Deathly Hallows Lectures.”)

The First Nazi Dark Wizard

In Umbridge’s office Harry gets a glimpse of Skeeter’s “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore” and sees a picture of Dumbledore with (as he later learns) Grindelwald. Grindelwald preceded Voldemort as evil Nazi dark wizard and terrorized wizarding Europe “For the Greater Good” during the same time period as the actual Nazi Germany and World War II. It is thus appropriate that Harry first sees this photo while at the Ministry.

Both boys in the photo are teenagers. Dumbledore has “elbow-length hair” and a “tiny, wispy beard.” Grindelwald’s “golden hair fell in curls to his shoulders” and he has a “gleeful, wild look.” The boys have their “arms around each other’s shoulders” and are “laughing immoderately.” To my mind the description of the photo is suggestive of Dumbledore’s possible homosexuality (which Rowling has asserted in a talk, which I know is not canon). While this possibility is not essential to the story, it does make it easier to understand how Dumbledore’s infatuation with Grindelwald may have led him to willfully blind himself to Grindelwald’s flaws and to the evilness of his ideas. (For a more extensive essay regarding Dumbledore’s alleged gayness see Karen Kebarle’s essay in “Hog’s Head Conversations.”)

The Weasley Express

Harry leaves Umbridge’s office after reading Arthur Weasley’s secret file and hiding from Thicknesse. The elevator ride down brings him three Weasleys, first Ron, who is soaking wet (foreshadowing perhaps his wetness after rescuing Harry from the pool in the Forest of Dean), then Arthur, who gives Ron helpful advice on how to stop the rain in Yaxley’s office, and finally Percy, who gets off at the next level as soon as he sees his dad. When Harry tries to get off the elevator, however, Arthur stops him, irate that Runcorn (whom Harry is polyjuiced to impersonate) turned in Dirk Creswell for being muggle-born. It is a new experience for Harry to see Mr. Weasley glaring at him with such dislike. It (along with the earlier newspaper article saying Harry is wanted for questioning in connection with the death of Dumbledore) is parallel to what Snape experiences that year as headmaster, with the other teachers hating him for killing Dumbledore and being a Death Eater while he is unable to reveal the truth. Harry’s attempt to warn Mr. Weasley that he is being watched fails as Mr. Weasley perceives the warning as a threat.

He Brought Them Out of Darkness

Harry’s role as Savior of the wizarding world is foreshadowed in the dungeon scene. Although “the cold, and the hopelessness, and the despair of the place laid themselves upon Harry like a curse,” Harry, using only his strength of mind and no patronus, resists the dementors by thinking of Hermione and Ron who need him. It is a kind of warm-up for the darkness and despair of their camping trip soon to come and for Harry’s ultimate journey into the Forest Again.

Further in the role of Savior and perhaps evoking Psalms 23:4 (“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”) and 107:14 (“He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their bands in sunder”), Harry walks invisibly with Mary Cattermole into Umbridge and Yaxley’s interrogation chamber so that she will not be alone and, after stunning Yaxley and Umbridge, produces a brilliant stag patronus to fight off the dementors, guide Mrs. Cattermole and Hermione out, and then lead the rest of the muggle-borns to freedom. The detainees are at first dazzled by the light of the patronus but rally quickly to help each other escape.

Harry’s stag patronus guiding them out also foreshadows Snape’s doe patronus guiding Harry to the sword in the pond in the Forest of Dean.

Into the Darkness

The end of the rescue falls apart as the real Reg Cattermole arrives and Yaxley realizes that Polyjuice Potion is being used. Harry displays quick-wittedness in taking advantage of whom he is impersonating to get the fireplaces left open for escape and uses muggle dueling (punching) to shift the focus to the Ministry worker who had been trying to follow orders in the first place. Fortunately, everyone gets away. Unfortunately, Yaxley (as we learn in the next chapter) hitches a ride on Hermione’s robes and Hermione cannot shake him until after she has taken them to the front step of 12 Grimmauld Place, destroying its security. The chapter closes with them whirling away in the suffocating darkness to parts unknown.

Related Posts

• Chapter 20: Xenophilius Lovegood
• Chapter 19: The Silver Doe
• The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
• Chapter 17: When a problem comes along you must whip it. No one gets away until they whip it.
• Chapter 15: The Goblin’s Revenge