Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback
In which a dragoness is born.
Finals are just beyond the horizon—ten w h o l e weeks away—for the first years, Hermione already has them color-coding their notes. It's like your first year of high school when you think final can't possibly get any worse. But fact: they can, and do, get worse each and every year. Unfortunately, wizards don't have the luxury of a senior year where they don't need to take finals—if I remember correctly, they have NEWT's in their seventh year, which just seems terrible.
At the library, they find Hagrid looking for some books. Hagrid does a lot of domestic things: makes tea, cooks, cleans, gardens, knits, and bakes. For some reason I always saw him being a reader of the classics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind. Don't even deny it, Hagrid is in a book club with some middle aged witches from Hogsmeade.
But NEWT's and book clubs take up 0% of this chapter, so we must move on.
Basically, Hagrid's hatching a dragon. And Harry, Ron, and Hermione happen across it because they were in the right place at the right time—not that Hagrid would have ever been able to keep a secret as big as a dragon.
The little picture of baby Norbert(a) at the top of the chapter is very cute and all, but I expected a Norwegian Ridgeback to be terrifying. A Ridgeback is no Horntail, but I don't think a Ridgeback is a winged alligator either. (Not that alligators aren't terrifying in their own special way.)
"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house." (233) Oh, Hermione, you infinite fountain of wisdom.
Hagrid, oh my gosh, needs to keep his trap shut. Not only does he tell three impish eleven-year-olds that he's hatching an illegal dragon, but he also reveals that the teachers each have their own parts in protecting the stone: Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Quirrell, Dumbledore, and Snape. If Harry and gang weren't suspicious before, they certainly are now.
Though Norbert(a) is still illegal, though Hagrid still lives in a house made of wood, Harry, Ron, and Hermione make an arrangement with Charlie to transport the dragon to Romania—home, home on the range / where the dragons and Snorkacks all play / where seldom is heard . . .
Anyway at midnight on Saturday, Hermione and Harry break in the new invisibility cloak and transport nervous Norbert(a) to the tallest tower, cleverly marked, Tallest Tower ↑. On their way back downstairs, however, they forget their cloak and promptly get caught by Filch. Dude, how the the hell could you forget your fancy new invisibility cloak? If Ron were with you, this never would have happened.
"Well, well, well, . . . We are in trouble." (241) Crap.
No comments:
Post a Comment