Travis asked some of us to fill in on the HBP read-thr0ugh, since he’s busy, you know, editing a book!
It would be easy to skip through Chapter 20 thinking that the most important thing we learn is how Voldemort/Riddle came into possession of Hufflepuff’s Cup and Slytherin’s Locket. We know that both end up becoming Horcruxes at some point later. In addition, the connection between these devices, Hogwarts, and Horcruxes is foreshadowed both here and in the earlier Pensieve lesson. Slughorn’s distorted memory points to a conversation about such things with young Riddle, but it’s clear that he’s gone to great pains to hide important elements of that conversation — the wizard’s version of “trying to forget.”
It’s striking to look back on these Pensieve lessons after Deathly Hallows and realize just how much of the last book’s plot is set up within these chapters.
But, some interesting character details emerge from them, as well. Dumbledore emphasizes this observation of Riddle’s actions:
“Now,” said Dumbledore, “if you don’t mind, Harry, I want to pausce once more to draw your attention to certain points of our story. Voldemort had committed another murder; whether it was his first since he killed the Riddles, I do not know, but I think it was. This time, as you will have seen, he killed not for revenge, but for gain. He wanted the two fabulous trophies that poor, besotted old woman showed him. Just as he had once robbed the other children at his orphanage, just he had stolen his Uncle Morfin’s ring, so he ran of now with Hepzibah’s cup and locket.” (439-40, American edition; my emphasis)
I’m always struck by this observation. It’s obvious now that Dumbledore was pointing Harry not only to what would become Horcruxes, but also how and where Voldemort might hide some of them: Hogwarts. Dumbeldore is drawing a connection between a childhood behavior (packrat-like theft and hiding) and what would become Voldemort’s trademark.
I have ideas why the connection matters, especially given that Voldemort (or some symbol of him) appears as a whimpering infant in the King’s Cross chapter of DH. The “child” metaphor is carried through by Voldemort’s desire to return to Hogwarts. Dumbledore emphasizes the practical reasons, but do you think this reveals something of Voldemort’s psychology?
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Yes, I do. First, like other sociopaths, Tom never bonded with his mother due to her immediate death, missing that love that’s so critical to healthy development. He even despised his mother for dying. This caused him to abhor love and affection in any form as weak and meaningless. Thus, young Tom kept separate from the other orphanage children, unless he was emotionally ruling with fear and cruelty (foreshadowing) because he was unable to have friendships.
Little Tom hides his trophies in a box in his wardrobe. This foreshadows his squirreling his Horcrux trophies, *and himself within them*, in even better out-of-sight places not so easily discovered. A child who is afraid hides himself. An adult who is afraid, though they may not recognize or acknowledge it, finds adult ways of hiding–in homes, jobs, addictions or passions, etc. As an adult, Voldemort is always in hiding, except for brief appearances and confabs with his flunkies, who do his work.
Tom Riddle never grew up. He remained an infantilized, narcissistic child who lived a fantasy about himself (aided, unfortunately, by his magical powers and charisma) to compensate for the disempowerment he felt over his birth circumstances and orphanage years. Despite his opportunities at Hogwarts, he never grew beyond his childlike condition and ways. Having built an unhealthy emotional wall and modus operandi, he despised others as weaklings, always keeping himself always at a superior remove.
Voldemort’s constant need to assure himself of his uniqueness and importance shows his internally stunted childlike state in his refusal to face either his demons or reality. Yet, I believe Voldemort did crave love, although this was hidden to him as deeply as any Horcrux he had hidden. To achieve emotional satisfaction, Voldemort drew other immature, disaffected people to himself, enabling him to constantly feel superior and also have acolytes (if not friends, as Dumbledore notes). Note his disappointment and anger at his rebirthing party over those who had failed or left him.
Voldemort’s soul essence was a wretched, infantile creature. And that’s exactly what we see at King’s Cross.
I have two thoughts as to the psychology. One is that a child up to the age of about 7 is not held accountable for his actions, is not expected to know right from wrong. In addition, a baby is a little tyrant in a sense, expecting its every need to be tended to. Voldemort has no desire to be held accountable for his actions either. He expects to be treated like the child and not be punished for anything and like a baby he expects his servants to obey his every command and cater to his every whim.
My other thought relates to the concept of Harry, Snape, and Voldemort as the “abandoned boys” who found their true home at Hogwarts. Each of them is raised in an unloving, emotionally neglectful or abusive home in the muggle world. Each of them gets a true sense of belonging, feels like they’ve found their true home at Hogwarts, as noted in part in this chapter. There must have been a sense of exhiliration and joy in that process of learning about being a wizard (Voldemort and Harry) and in arriving at Hogwarts and beginning study (all three). In fact, when Harry is trying to make a patronus for a first time in POA, he has trouble finding a happy enough memory until he hits upon the moment he learned he was a wizard and would be leaving the Dursleys for Hogwarts. “If that wasn’t a happy memory, he didn’t know what was!” My point in all this is that psychologically Voldemort may be trying to revisit that happy moment, to recapture the joy he felt then, although, like with a drug, he can never quite recapture that first “high.”
If I may be permitted to comment on several other points that struck me in this chapter . . .
Despite all the time he spent there the year before, Harry fails to notice he’s standing outside the room of requirement (clue: tapestry of trolls in tutus) when the girl drops the brass scales, though of course he’s distracted by the news that Ginny rowed with Dean.
We get a minor gurdyroot setup for that delightful (cough, cough) infusion Xeno Lovegood serves them in DH.
Harry’s thoughts about house-elves in this chapter are a contrast to his setting Kreacher to tail Malfoy. First, he “could only assume that it was down in Hokey’s contract that she must lie through her teeth” when asked how her mistress looks. This is highly ironic, since house-elves don’t have contracts; they are slaves. Second, Harry feels himself more in sympathy with SPEW than ever before when he learns how Voldemort framed Hokey. This sets up the next chapter when Kreacher and Dobby return with their reports. It also sets up Kreacher’s Tale in DH when he learns of another time that Voldemort treated house-elves with contempt.
Earlier in the book, Harry was reading Quintessence, a Quest. Now Dumbledore asks him if he is sure that he has “left no depth of cunning unplumbed in your quest to retrieve the memory?” Of course the memory will show something that is the antithesis of Quintessence: horcruxes. This brings me to the alchemical color conjunction/disjunction represented by Slytherin’s golden locket, which has a snake made of emeralds and which lies on crimson (red) velvet. Voldemort reverses the alchemical process here, removing the green and gold locket from its RED bed when he steals it, turning it into an evil horcrux, “wickedest of all magical inventions,” and hiding it at the bottom of a basin of evil GREEN potion.
The distortion of Voldemort’s features by his crimes is like the opposite of the Portrait of Dorian Gray, where instead of every evil thing he does being reflected in a painting, it’s reflected in his own face. The burning and melting of his features also reminds me of what happens to Quirrell in SS when he tries to grab Harry and his hands burn and blister. In addition, it is like the comment Dumbledore makes to Snape in The Prince’s Tale in DH, that Voldemort’s soul cannot bear close contact with Harry’s soul, “like flesh in flame.”
Finally, Dumbledore’s mentioning that no one’s ever held the DADA post longer than a year since he refused the job to Voldemort ought to have made Harry ask him (or at least wonder) why he gave the job to Snape.
I was thinking how Dumbledore could be included in those abandoned boys. His family should be ripe for psychological analysis. And he in a sense operates like Voldemort. Lots of followers, people who think they are close to him, etc. All the while DD holds his cards close to his vest & doesn’t really get close to anyone.
Makes you wonder how much of himself DD saw in Voldemort.
Now, the difference between the two is that DD realizes what he missed out & knows its power. And he is able to show care for others & also to feel it when they show care & love for him, such as when Harry tells him that he meant it when telling Scrimgeour that he was Dumbledore’s man.
Also very good comments, Arabella & Lily Luna.
On re-reading, it struck how coldly manipulative Dumbledore’s was in his reproof of Harry for not extracting Slughorn’s memory. DD makes Harry wait in silence twice before accepting his apology, and states that there will be no need for them to meet again until Harry is successful. Who can blame Harry for being preoccupied with Ron’s poisoning? As others have noted, Harry is quite passive in HBP, only reacting to others instead of taking initiative himself. Maybe it is because his was burned so badly by his rashness in rushing to the Ministry to rescue Sirius, only to see Sirius killed, and almost getting his friends killed in the process.
On the other hand, it was nice to see Harry show a little affection towards Hermione when he gives her “a hasty pat on the back”– the only time he demonstrates any such contact with her in the first six books–even if it is only because she is helping him cheat on his Charms homework.
Not only is Harry preoccupied with Ron’s poisoning, he has his skull cracked open by a bludger and spends time in the infirmary himself.
Can’t resist.
Every adult, whether he is a follower or a leader, a member of a mass or of an elite, was once a child. He was once small. A sense of smallness forms a substratum in his mind, ineradicably. His triumphs will be measured against this smallness, his defeats will substantiate it. The questions as to who is bigger and who can do or not do this or that, and to whom—these questions fill the adult’s inner life far beyond the necessities and the desirabilities which he understands and for which he plans.” – Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994), U.S. psychoanalyst. Childhood and Society, ch. 11 (1950).
Good one, RR.
Just a quick thought which could probably fit under several chapters but I’ll post it here because it’s Lily Luna’s comment on house elves up above that’s brought it to mind.
It’s about how Harry views house elves as opposed to how Hermione views them. Harry views house elves, as he does most people, as individuals & judges them accordingly. He also is outraged accordingly to what has happened to those house elves. So, it’s not Dobby’s slavery or Hokey’s slavery that bothers him so much as it is how they are treated as individuals.
Hermione, on the other hand, views house elf slavery & mistreatment as a wider social issue, although she does deplore the individual circumstances she knows of. But she crusades against house elf slavery on a very wide, very impersonal front. Thus, nobody has much sympathy for her because there’s no personal connection to them. They don’t see the injustices of the house elves condition because they’re really looking only at broader circumstances & they don’t bother to learn the individual injustices. If they did, if the problem had a face as it were, it might be harder for people to ignore what’s going on with house elf slavery.
So, in a sense both Hermione & Harry are focusing on different angles of the problem. Harry has just started with the individual. And we see that it is the individual knowledge that leads to more change, at least in the context of the story we’re given. Example: Ron. Ron holds to this broader ignorance or lack of concern with house elf slavery & mistreatment without really examining his prejudices & indeed makes excuses for it, the elves like enslavement, blah, blah, blah. But it’s through knowing Dobby & seeing Dobby’s mistreatment & Dobby’s heroism that Ron gains a desire to help all house elves.
I’m perhaps blurring whatever point I’m trying to make. It was so much more clear when it hit me a few moments ago but went away when I started to write it down. Hopefully you all can get the gist of what I’m trying to say.
What I hear you saying, revgeorge is that it’s harder for most people to be outraged at systemic injustice than at concrete examples.
That’s because many people have that failure of the imagination that JKR was preaching against in her address to the children of the ruling class. If they can’t see it, it’s not real.
Which is why more people are stirred by the internet posted death of that poor Iranian girl than the deaths of the 20 or so unknowns.
Harry gets messages from Luna in this chapter to meet and have a lesson with the head master.
Is this a varied group of inter-school student postal carriers? I have been wondering about this all throughout HBP, or is this just a literary device to bring various characters to Harry’s attention along with us because we mostly see everything through his (Harry’s) perspective. Can we sort this out!
It seems that someone different is bringing Harry a parchment each time.
Is it probable that Zacharias Smith is related to Hepzibah Smith, and thus is a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff, founder of his house at Hogwarts. Names have always fascinated me – Zacharias was the name of the father of John the Baptist. He and his wife were very old when they had John, and Zechariah was initially disbelieving when an angel informed them they would have a son; as punishment for his doubt, he was struck mute. In Harry Potter’s story Zacharias Smith was annoying – also a skeptic and later in D. Hallows we can add being a coward by his running away.
“…there was much pushing and shouting; Harry saw Zacharias Smith bowling over first years to get to the front of the queue, here and there younger students were in tears, while older ones called desperately for friends or siblings.”
— the evacuation before the Battle of Hogwarts
This boy has so many flaws to his character that JKR is making a sharp contrast between Harry Potter (who is selfless – loving – a sacrifice) and Zacharias Smith who should have been mute. He doen’t stand up to the criteria.
Personality and traits of the members of the House of Hufflepuff usually favoured loyalty, honesty, fair play, and hard work.
R.Ross, I think Zacharias Smith goes to show that there are bad eggs in every house. Pettigrew in Gryffindor. Marietta Edgecombe & the Grey Lady in Ravenclaw. The entire Slytherin house. Etc.
Red Rocker, yes, that’s sort of what I was trying to say.
What’s the old saying attributed to Stalin, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic?”
Of course, we do have to be careful of images we see on TV or Twitter or Facebook. They may not be telling the whole story. Would the coverage have been the same if Mousavi had been elected & it was Ahmadinejad’s supporters who were rioting in the street & one of his supporters was shot & killed? Probably not. But without deterring this thread, I’d just posit that we in the West probably don’t really know the whole story of what’s going on in Iran nor do we really know who all the players are. If we did, we’d realize that there’s a difference between what we Westerners think of as a reformer & what type of reformer Mousavi really is.
But my point was more along the lines of what you stated, Rocker, that we find it easier to gloss over systemic injustice rather than concrete examples. Of course, there’s also the temptation to gloss over systemic injustice by looking at concrete examples & saying, “Oh, that’s just an isolated incident. Oh, that’s just a few bad apples. The system as a whole is okay.”
But look at it this way, too, in regard to house elves. We tend to give Harry & Dumbledore a pass on their treatment of Kreacher because they’re the good guys. But Harry considers it a bad thing when the Malfoy’s hold Dobby against his will in slavery & forbid him to speak his mind. Yet Harry really does exactly the same thing with Kreacher. Kreacher doesn’t want to be Harry’s property but Harry forces him to work at Hogwarts. Kreacher doesn’t like Hermione but Harry forces him to be silent. Hmm, what do we do with that?
Harry’s preoccupation with chasing Malfoy around all year is hardly a passive endeavor. So I have to disagree that Harry is largely passive in HBP.
We don’t allow criminals the same rights and freedoms as law abiding free men. Could Harry see Kreacher as a criminal for is love of the pure bloods?
Wouldn’t Harry have treat Kreacher totally differently if Kreacher had the slightest love for him?
revgeorge, agree that we don’t know the whole story, and agree that Mousavi may not be our idea of a reformer. But the very fact that one of the clerics, one of the in-group that he is opposing, is demanding that the protesters be put to death for protesting against the results of the election, tells me that the system is in need of reform. I suspect that people who do want to change the existing system don’t have too many horses to hitch their wagons to, and take advantage of whatever opportunity arises. Along the lines of: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Funny thing too, as in funny ironic: back when they revolted against the Shah’s totalitarian regime, the middle class supported the revolution, thinking they were getting rid of a despot. They did, only to replace him with another despot,
I’ll leave it to people who know more about Iran to say whether the new totalitarian regime was better or worse than the old totalitarian regime.
908ssp, good points. But here’s the $64 question, is Kreacher a criminal? Would we call a slave who revolted against his master, in this case Kreacher against Sirius, a criminal? And technically there’s nothing illegal with believing that pure bloods are superior. The criminality occurs when one tries to force that belief on everyone else.
But Kreacher isn’t really participating in the Death Eaters movement. He’s what he’s been made by his masters & so is he really responsible for his actions?
The point is, like Harry, we see it as a good thing when Dobby revolts against his masters, the Malfoys, but not when Kreacher revolts against his master, Sirius.
908ssp, it would not be an adequate answer for Harry to treat Kreacher as he does simply because of Kreacher’s love of purebloods. However, as I mentioned during the discussion of, I think, the Will and Won’t chapter, Harry’s treatment of Kreacher may be justifiable based on Kreacher’s actions in connection with Sirius’ death. In OOTP, Kreacher went to visit the Malfoys and gave them all the information he could that Sirius hadn’t specifically banned him from telling. When the time came for Voldemort to implant the false image of Sirius being tortured in Harry’s mind, Kreacher deliberately injured Buckbeak to get Sirius out of the kitchen, lied to Harry about whether Sirius had left the house and told him gleefully that Sirius would not return from the Department of Mysteries, and lied to Dumbledore about what was going on to delay him going to the Ministry to save the others. All of these deliberate actions by Kreacher played a very significant role in Sirius’ death. Although Kreacher was a slave, he did not act as a slave in these actions, and deserves punishment. Being sent to the Hogwarts kitchens is a lot more comfortable than being sent to Azkaban like the Death Eaters who were captured. I’m more disturbed by Harry’s casual use of Kreacher to tail Malfoy. He seems to assume that’s okay since he’s not physically abusing Kreacher or framing him for murder. Kreacher manages to subvert Harry’s attempt to govern him anyway. Nevertheless, Harry realizes in Deathly Hallows that Kreacher’s understanding of these matters is limited and that he’s parrotting beliefs he’s heard all his life, and Harry is able to forgive Kreacher and treat him with kindness, with the result that he earns Kreacher’s loyalty and Kreacher leads the house-elves against the Death Eaters during the final battle.
On the Kreacher and Dobby topic, certainly Harry would have treated Kreacher differently if Kreacher hadn’t been always walking around spewing venom. Not to defend the way that Sirius and Harry treated Kreacher, but the Malfoys prevented Dobby from doing what is good, and Harry is preventing Kreacher from doing what is evil. Of course, true goodness has the unfortunate position of needing to allow the evil to have its say, but it does take a person some time to learn that. Harry is still in the less mature stage that doesn’t realize that justice and freedom apply to everyone. He also hasn’t had enough experience with house elves to understand what that enslavement does to the elves. He muses about Hokey’s “lie” to her mistress in this chapter, but the enchantments that require Hokey to make her mistress happy are probably the same ones that make Kreacher’s attitudes like those of the Black family.
The student postal carrier thing is funny. I can’t remember ever seeing Dumbledore ask a student to run an errand like this. Did Dumbledore himself ask these kids to deliver these notes? Can you imagine that interaction? I think the students would be shocked that DD was talking to them. He’s not the most hands-on, friendly-with-the-kids headmaster, is he?
R. Ross – that’s exactly what I wondered, if Zacharias might possibly be related to Hepzibah, especially as the former is in Hufflepuff’s house and the latter is “distantly related” to Hufflepuff.
Harry commands Kreacher to go work in the Hogwart’s kitchen at the suggestion of DD. He is sent there so that the other house elves can “keep an eye on him”. As Lily Luna points out, a much better alternative than Azkaban. I always believed this was primarily done to protect the members of The Order, as Kreacher had lived in the headquarters for the last year. In sending Kreacher away where he can be monitored, I was never under the impression that Harry was treating Kreacher badly.
And what a great payoff in DH when this most-despised character does a 180 and actually turns into a elf-sized good guy!
Oh, and I find it interesting that something inanimate like the DADA job can be cursed. I wonder if that’s highly advanced magic seeing that it was LV who performed it?
In terms of Kreacher, his name is a huge pun, to me. That it’s phonetically similar to “creature” points to his dehumanization (in the figurative sense). That it is spelled differently points to the hazards of such a mindset.
But, given Harry’s position and perspective, I don’t think he could but be predisposed to regard Kreacher with hostility. Sirius certainly does, and Harry worships his godfather. But, it’s Sirius’s treatment of Kreacher that drives the elf’s attitude toward all the “filthy blood traitors” occupying the “Noble House of Black”.
It kind of gives you an interesting impression: that perhaps Sirius’s treatment of him is maybe worse than what he would have suffered from the rest of the family. At the very least, Sirius tries to push Kreacher back into some dark shadow of existence so that he doesn’t have to deal with the elf (a reminder of a tattered childhood, I would guess).
Thus, Harry’s treatment of him is a subtle injunction by Rowling against letting “good versus evil” become “us versus them”. And much of the Pensieve lessons are geared toward this lesson, as well. My essay in Hog’s Head Conversations covers Harry’s need to infer conclusions from incomplete and often difficult to interpret information.
And this point of how “good vs evil” can deteriorate into a far simpler mindset is one of the reasons I’ve come to love the books.
Dave, that’s exactly the point I was trying to get across with my questions. Thank you for very nicely expositing it.
rev, in the immortal words of Hannibal from A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together!”
Or something like that…