Nicolas Flamel
In which the mystery of Nicolas Flamel is solved and Harry plays another game of Quidditch.
Neville, at this point in the story, is struggling. He's got Malfoy bullying him left and right, he doesn't feel confident that he should be a Gryffindor, and his forgetfulness and nervousness aren't doing him many favors. He's got Hermione, Harry, and Ron as his fellow Gryffindor comrades, but he's not ♥best-friends-for-life-even-when-we-die♥ with them, and he hasn't really developed a sense of self-confidence yet. Harry, Ron, and Hermione try to help Neville when Malfoy casts a Leg-Locker Curse on him. Neville kind of plays the role of the token—I don't want to call him an idiot—not-the-brightest-wand-in-the-shop (there is at least one of these in every Disney show), but luckily he grows up and, particularly around the fifth book, starts to grow into his enormous shoes. This is not a metaphor; Neville really does have larger-than-average feet. It all leads up to the end when he reaches his full potential of badassery. Stick around to the end, and I'll talk about it.
After helping Neville, Harry receives a chocolate frog card, ugh, Dumbledore again—OH MY HOLY MAJOLY, IT'S NICOLAS FLAMEL! See kiddies, always remember to floss your pearly whites and read the backs of your chocolate frog cards. At this point in time Hermione has a revelation about the Sorcerer's Stone, which we all know about, so I won't explain it here. However, it might also be in your interest to note that Flamel is from Devon, which is also the home of the Weasleys, the Lovegoods, the Diggorys, and some other wizards whose names I can't remember.
The second half of this chapter is focused on the Quidditch final, which Harry wins. In record time. Snape is refereeing this particular match, which makes Harry very nervous, and apparently he's not the only nervous one, as Dumbledore comes to watch the match, even though he hates Quidditch. Just kidding, he's just too busy making hunches and saving the world and playing hide-and-seek with Fawkes to ever show up at any matches.
It's after the match when things get really exciting—or scary, depending on how you look at it. Harry follows Snape and Quirrell into the forbidden forest and eavesdrops on their private conversation. And according to Harry the stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape. Actually Harry, you've got it almost completely backwards. As long as Quirrell doesn't know how to get past Fluffy, the stone is safe. What you really need to do is make sure Quirrell doesn't go out for a drink anytime soon. I think the whole reason J.K. Rowling wrote the series was to warn children of the dangers of drinking. (Just kidding. Sort of.) But a lot of the bad things that happen can be traced back to alcohol: Ron almost dying in the Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn giving away his memories, Hagrid winning all sorts of all sorts of illegal creatures from gambling in sketchy bars, yada, yada, yada. . . .
And now that we know all drinking is bad, we round out the chapter with a Gryffindor house party. In which I'm sure Butterbeer is consumed.
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