dumbledore deconstructed

Chapter 8 is brought to you by guest-blogger Red Rocker!

The camera loves the wedding scene. It roams from one small group to another, picking up a conversation here, an argument there, a quick glimpse of a girl dancing by herself over there, a young man finding a seat at a table by an old man, getting him to talk about the past, an old woman settling down beside them to provide a derisive counterpoint to the discussion. Chapter 8 reads like it was written for the camera – but perhaps that’s the nature of weddings, to be episodic, transient, giving glimpses of many lives brought together in a brief moment of juxtaposition, until they go their separate ways again.

So we see the Weasley twins acting out their patented shtick – and because we have already read the book to the end, it breaks our hearts when Fred talks about his own wedding. We see Krum ogling Hermione and – unforgivably – Ginny, and we hear him drop a tidbit of information about Grindelwald. We hear Luna greet the disguised Harry, easily seeing through the effects of the polyjuice. We see Ron’s brief moment of shock as he sees a dolled up Hermione and watch the two of them warily working toward their long-overdue union. And then Harry pulls up a seat beside Doge, Aunt Muriel plops herself between them and the camera settles down to the main event. [click to continue…]

{ 40 comments }