Chapters 6-10 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone cover the time span from Harry’s journey to Hogwarts from Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station to the trio’s defeat of the mountain troll in the girls’ bathroom.

After Harry is ignored for a month before school starts, he works up the nerve to ask Uncle Vernon for a ride to King’s Cross to meet the Hogwarts Express. Uncle Vernon wonders why students travel to the school by train: “Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?” Of course, we learn in Goblet of Fire that magic carpets are illegal. Obviously, Muggles must have seen witches and wizards riding them, as they had seen witches and wizards riding brooms, which is how magic carpets entered legend in folk tales and fairy stories. I suppose brooms were too popular to ban, and perhaps even more easily concealed. One wonders, though. In any case, we discover later that moving students by train is part of the drama of arriving at school. Then again, organizing the number of portkeys that would be needed to transport all the students to Hogwarts might be difficult. Still, we only ever hear about this one train. Do students arrive by other means? If so, what? For instance, who remembers ever seeing Seamus Finnigan on the train? I mean, he lives in Ireland, so it would be more convenient for him to travel directly to Hogwarts in Scotland rather than go to London first. The Floo Network might similarly be difficult to coordinate for the numbers needed, though that does not seem to be a problem at the Ministry of Magic. Apparition is out of the question as most of the students cannot apparate yet. I suspect the train is more of a device for exposition and drama than a necessity for travel.

The first real wizards that Harry meets, aside from his trip to Diagon Alley, are the Weasleys. I loved Molly Weasley instantly. She is just the sort of helpful soul who would help Harry. Imagine if he had encountered Narcissa Malfoy instead. She would probably have mocked him or assumed he was Muggle-born and definitely would not have helped him. Incidentally, don’t we find out later that Muggle-born students are given instructions for how to get to Diagon Alley for supplies and how to get on the Hogwarts Express? Given that Dumbledore knows by the time the term starts that Harry knew nothing about being a wizard (surely Hagrid shared those details), Dumbledore would have thought to send along instructions. Nope. Once again, it offers Harry an opportunity to make a connection.

I also instantly loved the Weasley twins. They joke around, but they offer to help Harry with his trunk without being asked, just because they are nice.

Harry figures out early on that “The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.” They definitely are, and indeed, they are even distantly related to the Malfoys and just about every other old wizarding family around. But they also don’t think that makes them superior to others, which is where they differ, in all the best ways, from many of the old pureblood families.

Ron says that he has a lot to live up to as the youngest Weasley boy. He also complains about getting things second hand, including Charlie’s old wand. So why does he have Charlie’s old wand? Why did Charlie need to get a new one? I thought the wand chose the wizard. Clearly, wizards can perform magic with other wands, but Ollivander makes it clear that you do your best work with your very own tool. Also, Charlie’s old wand is made of ash and unicorn hair. Of ash wands, Pottermore says

The ash wand cleaves to its one true master and ought not to be passed on or gifted from the original owner, because it will lose power and skill. This tendency is extreme if the core is of unicorn. Old superstitions regarding wands rarely bear close examination, but I find that the old rhyme regarding rowan, chestnut, ash and hazel wands (rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans) contains a small nugget of truth. Those witches and wizards best suited to ash wands are not, in my experience, lightly swayed from their beliefs or purposes. However, the brash or over-confident witch or wizard, who often insists on trying wands of this prestigious wood, will be disappointed by its effects. The ideal owner may be stubborn, and will certainly be courageous, but never crass or arrogant.

The emphasis is mine. So it seems to me that Ron is set up not to do well until he gets his own wand, even before it breaks in Chamber of Secrets.

We also meet Peter Pettigrew for the first time. I have to admit, I never imagined that rat was really a person. I was surprised by Azkaban.

I have always loved the introduction to wizarding candy on the train. I am convinced that Rowling got the idea for Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans from Jelly Belly jelly beans, which have a huge variety of flavors (though no gross ones). If this is true, she must have been thrilled when Jelly Belly started making Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. I also love the Chocolate Frog cards, and one of my biggest disappointments in Pottermore is that though you collect Chocolate Frog cards, they have no pictures. At least you can go look at them and re-read them once you’ve put them in your trunk. When Pottermore was first rolled out, you couldn’t re-read them.

Hermione comes along, looking for Neville’s toad. Through her, Harry learns about Hogwarts’ other two houses, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Hearing Harry Potter is on the train, Draco shows up with his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. In Scabbers’s finest hour, he bites Goyle when the evil trio tries to steal Harry and Ron’s candy.

Once they arrive at Hogsmeade, the first years are taken by boat to the castle. This must be for dramatic effect, as we learn no other students travel to Hogwarts that way.

In chapter 7, we find out how students are sorted into houses. A weird side note: Hermione has read Hogwarts: A History (which I really, really, really hope becomes a real book one day), but she does not appear to know about the Sorting Hat, as she is “whispering very fast about all the spells she’d learnt and wondering which one she’d need.” How on earth is something like the Sorting Hat kept secret even in old wizarding families like the Weasleys? After all, Fred tricks Ron into thinking Ron would have to wrestle a troll (we will come to that later). At any rate, I am not buying that the Sorting Hat is never mentioned in Hogwarts: A History. Perhaps Hermione had not yet finished the book, but she knew about the ceiling being bewitched to look like the sky. So why doesn’t she know about the Sorting Hat?

One of the best parts of Pottermore is that you, too, are sorted into a house when you play. Interestingly, the numbers of students in each house have remained about evenly divided since the site’s inception. I think Rowling must be an adept observer of human nature to have figured out four groups into which society so evenly divides. I was sorted into Ravenclaw. I have always identified with that house, and I was truly nervous I wouldn’t get in when I took the test on Pottermore. What if I (gasp) was a Hufflepuff? (Just kidding, Hufflepuffs. You make the world go round.) Almost everyone I know was sorted into the exact house I thought they belonged in when they took Pottermore’s Sorting Hat test.

Another fascinating fact we learn about sorting on Pottermore is that some individuals are tough to sort, and when the Sorting Hat appears to be taking a really long time to sort a student, it is because the Sorting Hat cannot decide between two houses. Seamus Finnigan wore the hat for almost a whole minute before he was sorted into Gryffindor. We do NOT learn in the book how long it took the Hat to decide where to put Hermione, but on Pottermore, we learn it was nearly four minutes. One guess which other house was the contender. Actually, we do learn the answer to that question in Order of the Phoenix. Another student in Harry’s year also took a long time to sort: Neville. Neville really hoped to be in Hufflepuff because he didn’t feel up to Gryffindor. The Hat disagreed. The Hat was right.

Interestingly, at least for me, is that we learn there is a term for a person whom the Hat takes longer than five minutes to sort: a Hatstall. Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick were both Hatstalls and like to joke about how easily it could have turned out that they would have swapped houses.

I just love it that the Hat won that silent argument with Neville. I may have actually cried a little the first time I read that. Because this is why:

I love it that the Hat knew that was in Neville all along, even if Neville didn’t.

Later, as everyone is feasting, the new Gryffindors meet Nearly Headless Nick. I love Nearly Headless Nick. I also love it that Seamus asks Nick how the Bloody Baron got covered in blood, and Nick says he never asked, but even THAT tiny detail is sorted out in Deathly Hallows. Almost every single little detail is wrapped up in a neat little bow by the end of the series.

We met Quirrell before, but we see him again at the feast talking to Snape. Did you know that Quirrell was a Ravenclaw? Also of note is that Harry dreams that night that Quirrell’s turban was talking to him. Because it is Voldemort’s face, and Harry is a horcrux, is why. That Rowling is a clever witch.

We get to know Snape in chapter 8, and clearly, he has a real axe to grind. He hates Harry on sight because he looks like James, Snape’s loathed enemy. Before we get involved with Snape, I want to mention it is sad that History of Magic, which has the potential to be the most interesting class at Hogwarts, turns out to be boring. I wish Harry had a more engaging teacher in that class. Think of what we readers might have learned if he had.

So, Snape. Best quote:

“As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses … I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death—if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

We also learn that if you add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood, you can make the Draught of the Living Death, which Harry successfully makes for Slughorn in Half-Blood Prince, earning the Felix Felicis. By following Snape’s instructions. See, if we had paid really good attention to this chapter, we could easily have pegged Snape as the original owner of Harry’s copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Actually, I did figure that detail out because it was Potions, after all. Snape might be fascinated by the Dark Arts, but he is clearly most gifted at Potions. Snape also asks Harry where you might find a bezoar. Of course, Harry also uses a bezoar to save Ron in Half-Blood Prince, again because Snape left those instructions on the antidote recipe Harry is reading. As far as I can remember, monkshood/wolfsbane/aconite don’t become terribly important later, except that it is an ingredient in the Wolfsbane Potion that subdues werewolves during their transformation phase.

In chapter 9, Malfoy sets Harry up to be caught out of bed at midnight by challenging Harry to a duel. Curiously, he sizes up both his cronies and picks Crabbe as his second. Why not Goyle? Isn’t he bigger? Crabbe, of course, would later set Fiendfyre on the trio in the Room of Requirement and winds up killing himself with it. He is said to become gifted at Dark Arts spells. Figures he would be a good duellist, though how he rubs his two brain cells together to figure that out, who knows.

We learn in this chapter that Harry has a natural gift for flying. He commands the broom to leap into his hand and flies expertly the first time he mounts his broom. And he only does it to defend poor Neville because Malfoy tossed Neville’s Remembrall. McGonagall sees Harry catch it, and she is elated. Did you know she had been a talented Quidditch player? Yeah! She was captain of her house Quidditch team at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, a sports injury cut her Quidditch career short (via Pottermore):

A nasty fall in her final year (a foul during the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game which would decide the Cup winner) left her with concussion, several broken ribs and a lifelong desire to see Slytherin crushed on the Quidditch pitch. Though she gave up Quidditch on leaving Hogwarts, the innately competitive Professor McGonagall later took a keen interest in the fortunes of her house team, and retained a keen eye for Quidditch talent.

Pottermore does not tell us what position she played. My guess is Chaser, though I have nothing on which to base that guess, and indeed, if she had been Seeker, taking her out with a game-losing foul might make more sense. She just seems like a Chaser to me.

And of course, we learn that James Potter was a Quidditch player, too. The movie displays his team trophy and lists his position as Seeker, but Rowling has said he was a Chaser.

Of course, when Harry and Ron sneak out for the midnight duel, Hermione follows them, “hissing at them like an angry goose.” Don’t you love her? And poor Neville winds up coming along because he’s been stuck outside the Common Room. Then the four of them wind up finding Fluffy. I always thought it was dumb that the movie script changed the detail regarding Fluffy’s origin from Greek to Irish. It makes much more sense for a Greek chappie to have a three-headed dog. Anyone could tell you that, right?

In chapter 10, the trio is cemented as lifelong friends after they defeat the troll, but before that happens, Harry goes for his first Quidditch training session and learns the rules of the game. I was struck again upon reading that scene that Rowling expertly handles exposition. She figures out a natural way to explain the rules of Quidditch that doesn’t detract from the progress of the story. Oliver Wood remarks at the end of their lesson that he wouldn’t be surprised if Harry becomes a better player than Charlie Weasley, whom Wood insists “could have played for England if he hadn’t gone off chasing dragons.” I have to agree with Wood about Harry’s abilities, given how he turns out. I think definitely could have played for England, and he might even have been able to assist his team to the Quidditch World Cup. But he doesn’t choose that path. Wood, of course, winds up playing for Puddlemere United. The only other Hogwarts student among Harry’s friends that we see go into professional Quidditch is Ginny, who plays for the Holyhead Harpies.

In Charms, the first years learn how to make things fly, and Seamus sets fire to the feather he is sharing with Harry when he prods it with his wand. Unfortunately, the movies decided to exaggerate this event for comic effect, and Seamus’s pyrotechnics become a running joke.

Later on, Harry and Ron take on the troll that has cornered Hermione in the bathroom, and it’s just the best scene.

Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: he took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll’s neck from behind. The troll couldn’t feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry’s wand had still been in his hand when he’d jumped—it had gone straight up one of the troll’s nostrils.

Surprisingly, Professor McGonagall only takes five points from Gryffindor because of Hermione. I mean, later in the book, she takes 50 points each from Harry, Hermione, and Neville for being out in the halls at night time. Tackling trolls alone seems to be much more dangerous than roaming the halls at night. Very odd system they have for taking points. And she is not very generous with awarding points. Harry and Ron get only ten points for tackling the troll, but later, Dumbledore gives them a whole bunch of points for various accomplishments behind the trap door.

But Rowling sums it up perfectly at the end of chapter 10:

But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

Exactly. And can you believe an editor tried to convince Rowling to cut the troll out?

Post © Dana Huff

Re-Reading Harry Potter: Harry at Hogwarts

I have long wanted to do two things with a re-read of the entire Harry Potter series. No, strike that. Three things. I have wanted to do three things with a re-read of the Harry Potter series.

1. Read the British versions. There are differences.
2. Analyze/discuss/think about the events in light of what we know now that the series is done with addenda revealed via Pottermore (though they are only in the middle of Azkaban and not likely to move at the speed I’ll read).
3. Blog about the series re-read as I do it.

Jenny actually reminded me I need to do the third item. I have been adjusting to living in MA and a new job and all that entails, and now that things seem to be settling, and I finally feel like I have more time to read and blog, I am catching up on blog posts I missed from my favorite bloggers, Jenny among them, naturally.

Apparently, folks are doing a big re-read of HP, and Jenny is participating. I did not know this was happening, but I am not about to commit myself to any sort of a challenge or anything, so it’s probably best. Anyway, I decided to re-read the Harry Potter series again, as I said previously, because I’m in a rut, and returning to my beloved Wizarding World is always a great palate cleanser.

So, without further ado, my take on the first five chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

First, I have a bone to pick with the American publishers about the title. The philosopher’s stone is a well-known alchemical substance. Even us backwater Americans have heard of it. Truly. Which is why I hate the American title of this book and consider it to be talking down to its American audience. Americans are perfectly capable of looking up the term “philosopher’s stone” if they are not familiar with it. And the notion of a “sorcerer’s stone” only introduces unnecessary confusion. But no one asked me.

I am reading digital editions published by Pottermore, so I will not be making any attempt to locate page numbers, but I will provide quotes. The first thing I made notes about was a reference to a man wearing a violet cloak who bumps into Vernon Dursley when he is leaving Grunnings in the afternoon the story begins. My guess is that this man is Dedalus Diggle, but I’m not sure anyone has ever confirmed this.

I always laugh at the line where Dursley “hurried to his car and set off home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn’t approve of imagination.” That, in one, is what is wrong with the Dursleys. Right?

Later in the first chapter, when Dumbledore arrives on Privet Drive, he uses the Deluminator to put out the lights on the street. This device, described as Dumbledore’s invention, has some very interesting properties, and I wonder that we didn’t see it more often. It is used in Order of the Phoenix when Moody et. al. arrive at 12 Grimmauld Place. We see it willed to Ron after Dumbledore’s death and learn that in addition to putting out lights, it is used to help Ron find his way back to Harry and Hermione. Very cool toy, that thing is.

Another interesting note from this first chapter. McGonagall, in protesting Harry’s placement with his terrible Muggle relatives, tries this tactic with Dumbledore, hoping it will help the old man see reason: “Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous—a legend—I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in future—there will be books written about Harry—every child in our world will know his name!”

Just a pause to think about how awesome it is that McGonagall’s pronouncement really happened. How cool is that?

When Hagrid arrives with baby Harry in tow, we find out he borrowed Sirius Black’s motorcycle. We don’t find out more about Sirius until Azkaban, and the casual reader isn’t likely to note the reference and remember it by that time.

Moving on to chapter two, we see Harry referred to as “Dudley’s favourite punch-bag.” How clever Rowling is. She remembered to make Dudley actually pursue boxing seriously later on. And get pretty good at it. I know she did extensive planning. I will be interested to learn how Dudley turned out whenever that information is shared on Pottermore.

We (sort of) meet Mrs. Figg in this chapter, too. Harry is delighted to learn he will not be staying with her on Dudley’s birthday and will actually be going to the zoo. Let us pause a moment and think about how truly awful the Dursleys are. I mean, seriously, they never let him go to Dudley’s birthday parties (never mind they never give him one of his own). He has to stay with Mrs. Figg every year. He watches Dudley’s presents pile up on the table. And then, when their plans with Mrs. Figg fall through, they try to think of everything they can do to avoid taking Harry to the zoo. I mean, really, would it be so terrible if the boy could have fun once in a while? Let’s call it out by its right name—they are abusive. They are by far some of the most evil characters, in my estimation, in the series. Still, it was nice to learn later that at least the Order of the Phoenix had an eye on Harry.

In chapter three, there is this excellent description of Harry and Dudley fighting over a spot where they can listen in to the conversation between Vernon and Petunia about the letter Harry has received from Hogwarts: “Harry and Dudley had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole.” The reason I love that description is that it captures exactly what it is like to quiet fight with a sibling. Exactly. I can always picture this little scene perfectly.

In chapter four, we meet Hagrid. The first thing he says to Harry is “Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.” Harry would hear this many times over the years, and of course, the fact that he has his mother’s eyes becomes crucial near the end of Deathly Hallows. The fact that he looks so like his father is also crucial to his relationship with Snape through much of the series. One wonders how Snape would have treated Harry had he looked like Lily, no?

When Petunia finally admits that what Hagrid is telling Harry about being a wizard and all that is true, she lets loose with pent up jealousy.

“Knew!” shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. “Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that—that school—and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog-spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was—a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!”

Petunia goes on, but you get the idea. This little speech is interesting in light of some things we learn later. Firstly, that underage witches like Lily are not supposed to do magic outside of school, so when was she turning teacups into rats? Was that an accident? Or did she do it on purpose and get in trouble for it like Harry? If so, it sort of puts a dent her squeaky clean image. Not a bad thing, necessarily. We also learn later that Petunia herself wanted to go to that school. But she wasn’t a witch, so she wasn’t allowed. You know, I had a hunch at some point that Petunia knew Snape, but I couldn’t figure out how. I must admit it never occurred to me that she knew Snape as a child because he was friends with her sister. Oh, jealousy!

Some time later in the conversation, Hagrid tells Harry that his parents had been “Head Boy an’ Girl at Hogwarts in their day!” I have some confusion on this point because we learn later that it was Remus Lupin who was chosen as Gryffindor prefect in the Marauders’ fifth year. It stands to reason Lily was chosen as his female counterpart. So how did James become Head Boy? Did Remus have to leave school because of his lycanthropy? That doesn’t make sense to me, given what we know. How is it possible for a boy who was not a prefect to be Head Boy? We haven’t seen other instances of Head Boys or Girls chosen from outside the pool of 7th year prefects. Percy Weasley was one. He had been prefect since 5th year. Tom Riddle was one. Again, also a prefect. So what is up with Hagrid’s comment? Is this a mistake on Rowling’s part? I am inclined to think it is a mistake, but I await some elucidation on this point in Pottermore at some stage.

Very soon after we learn that Lily and James were apparently Head Boy and Girl, we learn about some of the people Voldemort killed during his rise to power—the McKinnons, the Bones [technically should be Boneses], and the Prewetts. We encounter the Bones family later through Susan, Harry’s classmate, and her Aunt Amelia Bones, who is on the Wizengamot at Harry’s trial in Order of the Phoenix. We learn that the Boneses in reference are Susan’s uncle Edgar Bones and his wife and children. As Edgar was Amelia Bones’s brother, we can assume he was also brother to Susan Bones’s father. The Prewetts were Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Molly Weasley’s brothers. Sobering reminder of how just about every family was affected by Voldemort.

Probably one of my favorite passages is Harry’s first step into the Wizarding World, when he first sees Diagon Alley in the next chapter.

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once; the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.

I just love that description. It perfectly captures the feeling of that moment, and it’s one of the moments when I as a reader felt I was right there with Harry and seeing everything he could see. It’s amazing.

We also go to Gringott’s and meet Griphook. I always found it interesting that Rowling chose to bring him back in such an important role in Deathly Hallows. Harry cranes his neck looking for dragons as the cart wheels around the underground vaults, hurtling towards his own vault. Little did he realize he would see, much less ride, a real Gringott’s dragon!

While Hagrid goes for a pick-me-up at the Leaky Cauldron, Harry goes off to buy his robes and meets Draco Malfoy. Malfoy tells Harry that Narcissa Malfoy is up the street looking at wands. Why would she be doing that when the wand chooses the wizard? Could be Draco didn’t exactly know what Narcissa was doing. Or maybe she was checking them out. But it makes more sense for her to wait and look at them with Draco present, right? Another weird little line that trips me up every time.

We learn that Slytherin House is notorious for producing evil wizards, including You-Know-Who. This information prompts Harry to ask in wonder about Voldemort’s time at Hogwarts. Hagrid only volunteers that Voldemort went there “years an’ years ago,” but doesn’t offer up the fun fact that they were classmates. I guess that is understandable, given that Voldemort framed Hagrid for Moaning Myrtle’s death (or at least framed Aragog).

A nice throwaway line informs us that toads went out of fashion years ago, so when Neville shows up with a toad, we know a lot about poor Neville immediately. J.K. Rowling is great with exposition. It is not easy to do. The guy who wrote another book I’m currently reading is very clumsy with exposition, so it is nice to appreciate what it looks like when it is done well.

And then we go to Ollivander’s. And we learn that Ollivander’s family has been making wands for millenia. That is pretty amazing. If you are on Pottermore, you learn a whole lot of other really interesting things about Ollivander.

• His full name is Garrick Ollivander.
• He was in Ravenclaw (which makes sense, given his vast academic knowledge of wandlore).
• He was a half-blood, like Snape, only with a wizard father and Muggle mother.
• He had a family, including a wife, son, and daughter, but they are deceased.
• His own wand is hornbeam and dragon heartstring, twelve and three-quarter inches, slightly bendy.

It is worth joining Pottermore for what you learn about wands alone, in my opinion. For the record, my own wand is sycamore and phoenix feather, ten and three-quarter inches, hard. About phoenix feather cores, Pottermore has this to say:

This is the rarest core type. Phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn or dragon cores to reveal this. They show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord, a quality that many witches and wizards dislike.

Phoenix feather wands are always the pickiest when it comes to potential owners, for the creature from which they are taken is one of the most independent and detached in the world. These wands are the hardest to tame and to personalise, and their allegiance is usually hard won.

And sycamore:

The sycamore makes a questing wand, eager for new experience and losing brilliance if engaged in mundane activities. It is a quirk of these handsome wands that they may combust if allowed to become ‘bored,’ and many witches and wizards, settling down into middle age, are disconcerted to find their trusty wand bursting into flame in their hand as they ask it, one more time, to fetch their slippers. As may be deduced, the sycamore’s ideal owner is curious, vital and adventurous, and when paired with such an owner, it demonstrates a capacity to learn and adapt that earns it a rightful place among the world’s most highly-prized wand woods.

I always took the description of the wand’s pliability to say something about the flexibility of its owner. As my wand is hard, you can draw your own conclusions. Stubborn is one word that has been used. Seriously, though, you really do learn a lot about the personality of various Harry Potter characters from the information about wand cores and wand woods on Pottermore. And every person I know who has obtained a Pottermore wand has a wand core and wood that fit their personality. It is more accurate than a Myers-Briggs test. Also, it is interesting to note here, before I go on about wands too long, that once Ron’s own wand chooses him (and even before, really, as his brother’s wand has the same core), the trio have wand cores of each of the three types Ollivander uses: Harry has phoenix feather, Hermione has dragon heartstring, and Ron has a unicorn tail hair. Very cool fact. Wands really merit their own post. I will stop now.

Oh, wait. I should tell you about Harry’s wand before I stop. You already know about the phoenix feather core because my wand has the same core (see above). About holly wood, Ollivander has this to say:

Holly is one of the rarer kinds of wand woods; traditionally considered protective, it works most happily for those who may need help overcoming a tendency to anger and impetuosity. At the same time, holly wands often choose owners who are engaged in some dangerous and often spiritual quest. Holly is one of those woods that varies most dramatically in performance depending on the wand core, and it is a notoriously difficult wood to team with phoenix feather, as the wood’s volatility conflicts strangely with the phoenix’s detachment. In the unusual event of such a pairing finding its ideal match, however, nothing and nobody should stand in their way.

Do you see what I am saying about wands? They are so illuminating and much more important than we realized. After all, Ollivander remembers every wand he has ever sold. And while he says the wand chooses the wizard, it is his craft in putting together the cores with the woods and trying various selections on his clients that makes that happen. After all, he has the ingenious idea that perhaps Harry might be destined for the wand with one of Fawkes’s phoenix feathers as its core just as Voldemort was destined for the only other feather Fawkes gave. Again, this detail is very important later on.

Oy, this is getting long. I should have broken it up. Are you still with me? I apologize.

Actually, I should end it there. Yes. That might be best. We are pushing 3,000 words.

But if you read the whole thing, I’d be interested in your thoughts.

Post © Dana Huff

Re-Reading Harry Potter: The Beginning

I didn’t have a chance to post my Top Ten Tuesday response yesterday. I love the topic for this week: Top Ten Favorite Book Covers of Books I’ve Read.

Despite the adage not to judge a book by its cover, we all do it, and we all pick up books because the cover entrances us. We have also probably eschewed perfectly good books because of unattractive covers. If we didn’t pay attention to covers, neither would publishers, who spend a lot of money (I am assuming) on graphic designers.

In order to write this post, I scrolled through my Read pile on Goodreads. Here are my favorite covers.

I could have chosen a lot of covers for this post, and indeed, I had trouble narrowing it to ten. There are quite a few books with arresting covers that have caught my eye. But I narrowed it down to these ten. I think the Cugat cover of The Great Gatsby is one of the most iconic and beautiful book covers of all time. Even Fitzgerald, upon seeing it (and fearing that his publisher would give it to another writer), said, “don’t give anyone that jacket you’re saving for me. I’ve written it into the book.”

The cover of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is an arresting black and white photograph of a levitating girl. Ransom Riggs’s book was famously inspired by a package of odd photographs he purchased, and he created his characters from those photographs. The girl on the cover is the little girl who floats unless she is tied to something. I love her ancient little face. She looks like little old woman. The font is also part of what makes this cover design appealing.

I didn’t much care for the novel The Night Circus, but the cover is quite striking in black, white, and red. The artwork reminds me of paper doll cutouts.

The hardcover version of Brunonia Barry’s novel The Map of True Places caught my eye because of the gorgeous blue of the sky and water and the celestial map markings. I was lucky to receive two signed copies of this book when I won a sweepstakes connected to this novel. Obviously, that isn’t why I love the cover, but I surely did fall in love with Salem and with Massachusetts, and this book was a large part of that.

I think what I like about the cover of Emily’s Ghost is the juxtaposition of the striping on the bottom where the title appears with the gorgeous picture of the woman looking over the bare moors.

I think Ruben Toledo’s covers of the Penguin classics are all brilliant, but my two favorites are his covers of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I love the drawings of Catherine and Heathcliff on the first, and the excellent blue creepiness of the house and sweet little Jane on the second. The cartoonish nature of the drawings is fun and appealing. I think as a student, I might be more inclined to pick up the classics illustrated by Toledo as opposed to those versions with old paintings of women on the covers. You know what I mean.

The cover of Freakonomics intrigues me because it doesn’t meet expectations. The apple is cut open to reveal and orange inside. Not only that, but the apple is green, and for some reason, this cover wouldn’t work if the apple were any other color. I can’t stop looking at it, for some reason, and I definitely wanted to read it because of the cover.

Ahab’s Wife is one of my all-time favorites. I just love the wrecked ship and the way the woman on the cover is looking at it. You can tell she is remembering her story. “Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.” See? Now don’t you want to read it? It’s nearly as good an opener as “Call me Ishmael.” It’s a stunning book, and I love the stark beauty of the cover.

The last book I chose the famous image of the Bird Girl statue from John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It is an arresting image in green, and the statue became such a draw for tourists in Savannah that the city moved it out of the graveyard, where it obviously was located when this photograph was taken, to a museum. It is not quite the same, seeing it there. The Bird Girl belongs in this graveyard under the large trees weeping Spanish moss. I hope they move her back there someday.

What are your favorite book covers?

Post © Dana Huff

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Book Covers

I have been listening to Rob Inglis’s audio recording of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring while making soap. He’s a fantastic reader, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him read Tolkien. In particular, Inglis does a fabulous job with all the songs in Tolkien. Case in point, I have never much cared for the Tom Bombadil section of The Fellowship of the Ring, though I did enjoy the part where he rescued the hobbits from the barrow wights; however, this time, I quite enjoyed the magical old fellow. Same with Galadriel’s songs. His voice characterizations are quite good. I think Aragorn comes off as sounding a bit too old, but I have no other complaints. Inglis’s characterization of the hobbits is particularly good.

I decided to re-read these stories some time ago, but I find I often become bogged down in the middle of The Two Towers somewhere. I decided perhaps listening to the books might work better for me, but the books have only recently become available on Audible. If you haven’t heard them before, give Rob Inglis’s reading a chance. He’s one of the best readers I have heard, and I can’t imagine that Tolkien himself wouldn’t approve heartily of Inglis’s rendition of his work.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Post © Dana Huff

The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rob Inglis

Given what we know about the Wizarding World from Harry Potter, it stands to reason quite a few famous people even Muggles have heard of were, in actuality, wizards. This is a post I wrote for fun (I am not delusional enough to think we have real wizards and witches among us) on my soon-to-be-defunct Harry Potter blog. Enjoy! Tell me which folks you suspect are or were secretly witches and wizards in the comments.

Wizards have lived among us since the dawn of man, apparently. Being Muggles, however, and figuring in the precept that the Wizarding World is hidden from Muggles, we may not always have been aware of the supernatural status of said wizards.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we were introduced to Famous Wizards cards found in Chocolate Frogs candy through Ron Weasley: “Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect—famous witches and wizards. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy” (102). Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Ptolemy are real historical figures. The books also mention Paracelsus. EA Games’ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone game has vampire cards that include Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad Ţepeş (The Impaler). Strictly speaking, however, vampires are not wizards, but part-human dark creatures. It also bears mentioning that Vlad Ţepeş was not a vampire, just a rather bad person to have as your enemy, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not based on Ţepeş. Our alchemist friend Nicolas Flamel is mentioned on Dumbledore’s card, but it is not clear whether he appears on his own card.

Which historical figures were really wizards? Just for fun, I came up with some likely prospects. Witches and wizards are not presented in any sort of chronological order, because that would be stifling to my creative process (and take forever). Please be aware this is tongue-in-cheek, and I’m not saying I believe all of the “remarkable” feats attributed to these historical figures. I am staying away from biblical figures. I do not include other historical religious figures, such as Mohammed, because I don’t want to offend others, and finally, I do not include any mythological figures (however, as legendary figures are usually based on a grain of historical truth, some of them may be included). Dark Wizards are indicated by the Dark Mark icon:

A Short List of Famous Historical Wizards Known to Muggles

Nostradamus: Noted French seer credited with predicting the rise of Dark Wizard Adolf Hitler (see entry below), the French Revolution, the assassination of Famous Wizard Abraham Lincoln (see below), and the invention of the atom bomb.

Nikola Tesla: Physicist, inventor, and electrical engineer. He disputed Marconi’s patent on the radio, claiming he actually invented it. Muggles have unfortunately misunderstood some of his so-called “oddities” and labeled him an eccentric.

Jimmy Page: Guitarist and leader of the 1970s rock group Led Zeppelin. He successfully bewitched the other members of the Yardbirds, his previous group, into signing over all rights to their group’s name to him. He is infamous for aligning himself with dark magic forces to secure popular and financial success for Led Zeppelin.

Isaac Newton: Alchemist, mathematician, astronomer, scientist, and philosopher credited with discovering the laws of gravity and developing differential calculus.

William Shakespeare: Arguably the greatest writer in the English language, he remains so mysterious that some folks still debate whether “Shakespeare the author” ever existed.

Adolf Hitler: Leader of Nazi Germany and executor of one of the largest genocides in world history, he was also known in the Wizarding World as one of Grindelwald’s chief lieutenants in carrying out Muggle genocide and committed suicide following Grindelwald’s defeat by Albus Dumbledore in 1945.

David Blaine: Famed illusionist known for entertaining Muggles with ordinary and rather basic spells. Blaine is often pursued by Ministry of Magic officials, who attempted to imprison him in a perspex box suspended 30 feet in the air near Tower Bridge in London until he could be taken to Azkaban. He revealed his imprisonment to Muggles as a “publicity stunt.” Ministry of Magic officials were unable to get him down for 44 days. He represents the greatest threat to the exposure of the Wizarding World.

Abraham Lincoln: Sixteenth president of the United States and emancipator of African-American slaves, Lincoln was assassinated by Muggle John Wilkes Booth and was unable to obtain magical medical care before he bled to death. His ghost currently haunts the White House.

Mata Hari: Enchantress executed as a spy during World War I. Part veela, she frequently bewitched men with her exotic dances. Members of her firing squad were blindfolded so as to prevent them from succumbing to her charms.

Edgar Cayce: Ordinary wizard revered by some Muggles for his average abilities in magical arts and sciences such as diagnosing and healing people at a distance (sight unseen), making diagnoses through “astral projection” (apparating, floo powder, or fireplace communication), and prophesying.

Khufu: Pharoah of Ancient Egypt, he is best known for his magical construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Niccolò Paganini: Virtuoso violinist and composer best known for bewitching audiences, he acquired his skill with the violin through aligning himself with dark magic forces.

Richard Feynman: Physicist and music lover, he received a Nobel Prize for his work with quantum electrodynamics.

Aleister Crowley: Professor of the Dark Arts at Durmstrang Institute. He delighted in regaling Muggles and Dark Wizard followers with his theories and Dark magic practices.

George Sand: Pen name of the French writer Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant. She is regarded as one of the earliest transvestites. She bewitched her lover Frédéric Chopin, enabling him to produce magical compositions for piano.

James Randi: Also known as “the Amazing Randi.” He is a high-ranking Ministry of Magic official in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. He works primarily with Obliviator Headquarters and the Invisibility Task Force. He was awarded Order of Merlin, Third Class for his successful debunking of bungling wizard Uri Geller, who threatened to expose the Wizarding World in the 1970s.

The Count of St. Germain: Alchemist. While Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone, some believe that St. Germain was also successful in his alchemical experiments. There are occasional sightings, but much like the Muggle notion that Elvis is still alive, the belief that St. Germain escaped death has not been proven. While not, strictly speaking, a Dark Wizard, he nevertheless has acquired a somewhat shady reputation, largely due to Muggle legends that surround him.

“Koko”: Animagus form of the witch Proserpina Patterson. Patterson prefers to live as a gorilla; she enjoys amusing Muggles who marvel at her advanced “human-like” skills.

J.K. Rowling: Chronicler of the adventures of Wizarding World hero and legendary defeater of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Harry Potter. Rowling’s books were “found” by Muggles, who believe them to be fiction. Rowling admirably maintains the charade.

There are others. Tell me which ones you suspect. Maybe I’ll add them to the list. And thank you to my husband, Steve, for giving me the idea. It was a cool one.

Note: The Harry Potter Lexicon believes Rowling refers to Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, but this has not been verified (to my knowledge) by Rowling herself. There are many historical figures named “Agrippa,” several of whom are also likely candidates. I think the primary evidence used to support this choice comes from the Harry Potter PC games. I do not hold with the HPL on Hengist of Woodcroft being the Saxon king Hengest. The dates are wrong, as are the identifying details (Hengist of Woodcroft was the founder of Hogsmeade, having been driven away from his home by Muggle persecutors).

Post © Dana Huff

Historical Wizards

You may not know this, but I have a Harry Potter blog. I won’t link to it because it is embarrassingly dormant. I sometimes think I take on too many projects. The subject of Harry Potter can find its natural home here, in my book blog, but there was once I time I thought it should be separate. I plan to delete the Harry Potter blog, but I will be moving some of my favorite entries from that blog over to this one. I have never really had the Harry Potter blog open to comments, so I am not concerned about losing those comments.

In the coming weeks or months, I will be pulling those entries into this blog and publishing them here. The rest I will delete.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I have been having a sort of mediocre reading year. I have had a hard time finding time and finding books that grab me. In those times, I often turn to old book friends to cleanse my palate and start again. I was watching the Harry Potter movies last weekend, and of course, it made me want to read the books. So yet again, I find myself in the Wizarding World.

Post © Dana Huff

Harry Potter

I bet you thought I had given up reading for good! I admit I have been going through a real dry spell the last year or two, and it’s frustrating because the couple of years right before, I read excellent book after excellent book. I don’t see how I’ll meet my goal of reading 50 books at the pace I’ve moved this year, and much as I would like to give myself a break given that I moved last summer, I feel that at this point, I should have settled into a good reading routine. Bah.

At any rate, Arundhati Roy’s only novel, The God of Small Things, was the final novel I taught for this school year, and I finished it just a hair before the students. That is Very Bad and I Do Not Recommend It. However, sometimes, it’s all you can do to stay afloat. So of course, I knew how things would shake out, and I didn’t get to see the story unfold naturally, as I would have if I had read it for pleasure. The fact is, I am not sure I would have picked up this book to read for pleasure, and how sad that would have been. It’s a beautiful book.

One of the things folks probably say too much about this novel is that its style is reminiscent of William Faulkner’s, and it truly is. He is a favorite of mine. When I taught the novel, I urged my students to be patient. This novel is like a puzzle. You know how you put it together, and you don’t have the whole picture until you get to the end? But there is a point when you can see how it is going to come out, and you realize what it is you are putting together? That is what this book is: It begins in the middle, and the beginning is somewhere in the middle. The end is in the middle, and the middle is at the end. The nonlinear narrative may pose a challenge for some readers, but it is a worthy one.

To start with, the description of Ayemenem in Kerala, India, is absolutely gorgeous. The green trees drip with fruit and the buzzing and whirring of birds and insects fills the air. The river, the deceptively quiet river Kuttappen describes as looking like “a little old churchgoing ammooma, quiet and clean,” but is “[r]eally a wild thing” (201), as the children learn from personal experience. It seems you can always tell when an author has truly inhabited a place she writes about because the description is so vivid that you inhabit it, too, for the time while you read the book.

I admit the narrative made it difficult to follow and put events in their proper place. A timeline, added to as the reader fills in details, would not go amiss. It will take some time to fall into the flow of the nonlinear narrative. Give this one a little longer than you ordinarily might give a book before giving up on it.

In terms of characters, I found myself fascinated by Ammu, the mother of twins Rahel (from whose point of view most of the novel is told) and Estha. Her choices fascinated me. One minute I found myself empathizing with her, and the next, I hated her. Her aunt, Baby Kochamma, was also a fascinating character. She is a master manipulator the likes of which you rarely see, but she, too, has a kind of tragedy at her core, even if it is of her own device, that provokes pity.

I have to recommend this book highly, most highly to those who enjoy Faulkner and who like to read about exotic locales. If you are not either of those, give it a chance anyway. It’s quite well written—gorgeous, lush prose in the English that for some reason, only Indians can write (I have no idea why that is). Aside from that, it tells the moving story of the destruction and decay of a family because things can change in day.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Post © Dana Huff

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

“Nobody presents you with a handbook when you’re teething and says, ‘Here’s how you must behave as a second-class citizen.’ Instead, the humiliating expectations and traditions of segregation creep over you, slowing stealing a teaspoonful of your self-esteem each day.”

—Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Patillo Beals, p. 6

Another book we are exploring as an all-school read. These two sentences helped me make up my mind.

Post © Dana Huff

Teaser Tuesdays: Warriors Don’t Cry

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

“Though no law or code of ethics required doctors to ask permission before taking tissue from a living patient, the law made it very clear that performing an autopsy or removing tissue from the dead without permission was illegal.”

—The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, p. 89

I am breaking the rules and just sharing one. And it’s not random either. I highlighted it on my Kindle. However, it is the one sentence I’ve read so far that perfectly captures the ethics issue at the center of the book. I picked up this book, though it’s been on my to-read list for a long time, because my school is considering it as an all-school read, and I am on the committee to determine which book we select. I really like it. I am wondering if a ninth grade boy would like it, but I think a lot of our students would enjoy it, and there is much to discuss: bioethics, racism, poverty, and class… I am really enjoying the book so far.

Post © Dana Huff

Teaser Tuesdays: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

My students and I are reading Chinua Achebe’s classic novel Things Fall Apart over our Spring Break, and just today, I heard the news of Achebe’s death at the age of 82. He has contributed something remarkable to the world with his work. We frequently say that history is written by the victors, and so it is that the bulk of colonial literature we have has been written by white men. A recurring theme of the latter part of Things Fall Apart, after the missionaries arrive, is that white men do not understand the ways of the Igbo people they seek to evangelize, and further, they do not see them as worthy in and of themselves, which is shown perhaps no more clearly than in the book’s final paragraph.

My students are studying the book through a chosen anthropological lens: gender, religion, family, community, coping which change/tradition, and justice. I think this book has really interesting insights into the Igbo culture in each of these areas. On the surface, it’s easy to make snap judgments about the way that the people of Umuofia do certain things, and Okonkwo in particular can be infuriating because he seems, on the surface, so cruel to his family. Given the values of his clan, however, I can understand why he did some of the things he did. His fear of turning out like his father, or that his children would turn out like his father, drove many of his decisions, and above all, he seemed concerned about presenting himself as masculine.

I hope my students will find the journey interesting. I know I learned a lot through my own reading of the book. In the obituary I linked above:

Post © Dana Huff

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe