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Chapter 49: Raison D'etre
ZeldaQueen: So now we get to see Lupin react to the fact that Holly is a dumbass who's being all snuggly with Tom Riddle. Hooray. Actually and amazingly, he calls Holly out on her idiocy
"Tom is really Tom Marvolo Riddle, who is actually Lord Voldemort. Only not really because he just spent the last fifty years in a diary. That coincidentally was found by the Girl-Who-Lived, the person famous for defeating Voldemort. And she – meaning you – have had this diary for over two years now and never once thought it a good idea to tell any of the adults in your life. Including Dumbledore, your foster mother, godfather, or me. Despite the fact that we are responsible for your health and wellbeing. But all of your friends know"
ZeldaQueen: It isn't going to last, but let's enjoy it while it does.
So Lupin rubs his head and is all "how the fuck do I get involved in these things?" Sirius says that it sounds worse than it is. Um, no it isn't, you twat! We're also beat over the head with what a woobie Riddle is, expecting to be attacked "[f]rom being a half-blood and an orphan in a world that seemed to despise both". *rubs head* Alright, when has there ever been any indication that the world hates half-bloods and orphans? And the half-blood thing doesn't even explain why he was supposedly so picked on in the orphanage, since they didn't know he was a wizard! Whatever. Holly starts going on about how trustworthy Riddle has been, and how he's never hurt anyone. Y'know, if he was so great, why didn't he speak up and tell someone influential about the Chamber of Secrets? Or try harder to tell people where Voldemort is? I'm just saying. Oh, and Holly pulls the "not so different" card, by saying that she's giving Riddle the exact same chance she gave Lupin and Sirius, and she could have turned them in, but didn't. The little...gah!
Anyway, Lupin finally asks why they're letting them in on this stuff now, and Holly tells them that they're stuck at the horcrux bit, and it has to do with soul splitting, do Sirius and Lupin know anything about this?
Okay guys, remember in the last chapter, when Sirius knew that Riddle was a piece of soul in the diary and didn't give a flip? Well right now, he hears what Holly's asking and freaks the hell out. I have to say, this is kind of satisfying to read. Sirius tells her "That's some of the most heinous and horrible magic imaginable. Terrible beyond belief. Soul splitting, Holly. Fracturing it. Breaking it. Not even Dementors can do that. They steal souls. Not outright mutilate or destroy them", and I'm divided between going "THANK YOU" for someone pointing this all out, and being extremely irritated because they're still not bringing up the fact that murder is a requirement!
Holly actually has the gall to say "Surely, it's not really that bad. Right?". Fucking sociopathic...
Sirius tells her no, he's quite certain that it's as bad as he says, and adds that in the days before the Ministry, it was one of the few things that got you executed. For some reason, he talks like it was common to do it to other people and unheard of to do it to oneself, which makes no sense. The point of a horcrux is to make oneself immortal, so to speak. Unless you're going for some "who wants to live forever" thing, what sense would breaking up an unwilling person's soul make? And how could you do it to someone else, when THEY HAVE TO PARTICIPATE IN SOME OF THE EVENTS, INCLUDING MURDER, WHY IS THAT BEING IGNORED?
Riddle asks how Sirius knows all of this stuff, and the Suethor proceeds to make excuses for the Black family
"And we weren't always such evil and hateful bastards. Once, my family had a different role. Back in the days before Aurors." The man sighed and stared out at nothing. "Blacks, those who fight the blackest and most terrible wizards. Who stand in both darkness and light and battle so that others won't have to." He said it such a way that she knew he was quoting someone else. "Toujours pur. Always pure of conscience and soul. That's what it originally meant"
ZeldaQueen: You know, one would think that if the Black family was once so great and noble, Sirius would have had a little more pride in it. I hate this fic. I hate it even more, after Sirius adds that "We've always liked the Dark Arts. But once, Blacks used them as they were meant to be used. For a good purpose".
*folds hands nicely*
Suethor, may I ask you something? Have noticed exactly what kinds of spells are labeled Dark Magic? I can tell you, if you haven't. Spells that strip others of free will. Spells that torture beyond any pain thought possible. Spells that kill instantly. Spells that cause wounds that can't be healed. Spells that reanimate corpses.
You can sit here and try to make excuses for Dark Magic until you're blue in the face. It doesn't change the fact that those spells were labeled as "Dark" for A FRIGGING REASON, A REASON WHICH YOU SEEM DETERMINED TO IGNORE!!!
*breathes heavily*
Right. Sirius goes on to say that in the days of yore, the Blacks would have fought Voldemort to the death, but most of the family ended up joining him because he offered a return to the Old Ways. The Old Ways which would have had them kill him...what. And considering that the books had that one of the relatives wanted to make Muggle-hunting legal, I doubt those were the sort of Old Ways they were interested in. Sirius ends with some dramatic nonsense about how that's probably why they're so hated now - because they forgot who they were. Not, you know, because they were a nasty, evil, corrupt bunch, who bribed officials and chopped the heads off of their House Elves. Nope.
And then Lupin goes to bed to sort things through. You know, they all seem to have forgotten the evil soul splitting thing brought up earlier.
Scene break, and Lupin and Sirius agree to look into horcruxes for Holly and Riddle. However,
"But it was very clear that Sirius didn't quite believe their horcrux theory or that Tom could be one. He seemed too much of a complete person, too stable, which was contrary to everything they'd learned so far of the process. Soul fragments, small soul slivers, tended to be very unpredictable and if given a physical form were almost always crazed or mad in significant ways. Tom didn't really fit that description. He had his moments, yes. But then, so did most of Slytherin"
ZeldaQueen: First of all, as we saw in book the second, yes a fragment of a soul could be calm and stable if need be. Riddle was perfectly lovely to Ginny for months, all while possessing her. He was certainly able to convince Harry he was a good guy and, while Harry is a trusting dude, I'm sure even at twelve he could pick up on someone being insane or psychotic. And we saw that in real life, Riddle was very good at hiding his insanity and acting the part of a nice guy. He was a sociopath who hid it very well.
Second of all, "he had his moments"? Oh, really? But that isn't going to be taken into account alongside of the fact that the rest of his soul became Voldemort? And would one of those moments, by any chance, be attempting to strangle Sirius?
Anyway, this is dropped rather quickly, presumably because the Suethor is having trouble skipping around the murder issue. We speed through hearing about how Holly is visiting the Zabinis and how Holly is just ignoring the conversation between Blaise and his mother. Uh huh. Useless bing.
We jump ahead to the train ride to Hogwarts, and by God, these people are banal. They make small talk about the ball and every single person comments on how Blaise was obviously jealous of Krum. Every single person noticed it, yet somehow it escaped Holly's notice. Really. I think we finally found something more dense than lead, folks.
We then jump again (what a surprise), and the Suethor does something that really makes me angry. You all remember the subplot about how Rita Skeeter persecutes Hagrid? How we get the foreshadowing, with her sneaking around and interviewing him, and how the trio notice he's not at meals or around the grounds and are worried, and it all accumulates into Hermione's crowning moment of awesome, when she tells off Skeeter and demands that Hagrid show himself, with it all ending with Hagrid opening up and telling the very touching story about his deceased father? Well, rest assured, I haven't been ignoring any of the foreshadowing in this fic. There just hasn't been any. And how does the Suethor handle this delicate bit, which ought to serve as prime material for character development?
"Things quieted down within a few days of the start of term, but to their great surprise, Hagrid was not there for the first class back. According to the Weasley twins and some of other Slytherins, he hadn't been present for their lessons either. In fact, Holly didn't see him until the first Saturday in January, and that was only because she and Blaise went down to his cabin themselves. Interestingly enough, Neville was already there when they arrived. He was on the verge of pounding on Hagrid's door but stopped when he noticed them. Apparently, he along with Ron and Hermione had been trying to see Hagrid for the last couple of days but had been rebuffed every time. And it seemed like the two Slytherins wouldn't have better luck, but to everyone's shock, the door actually opened. Of course, it wasn't Hagrid who answered. Albus Dumbledore twinkled down at them instead and graciously invited them inside, even going so far as to take their cloaks and hang them up.
What followed was a confusing mishmash of conversation and tears, though Dumbledore did most of the former with Hagrid the only one doing the latter. And somehow through it, the headmaster convinced him to resume his teaching position. Hagrid stopped his weeping, talked with them about his human father for a bit, and then, they were sent on their merry way.
If only everything could go that easily"
ZeldaQueen: You know, I could understand if Holly spent the entire fic belittling and ignoring Hagrid. After all, that's how Slytherins were, in the fic. Even if the Suethor didn't mean for us to see it as bad behavior, I could still understand it as being consistent, especially with how they hated on him during the Buckbeak subplot before. But then, there's things like this. Things like this that make no sense at all.
Tell me, Suethor, exactly how many times have Holly and her stupid friends visited Hagrid? They treat him with utter disdain and try to avoid him if at all possible. We have had absolutely no mention of him being seclusive and upset before now, which can only lead me to conclude that they simply didn't care to pay it any attention. So why, dear Suethor, why oh why DID THEY SUDDENLY DECIDE TO VISIT NOW??? There was a reason Harry, Ron, and Hermione had the meeting, in the book. Hermione tried to knock down the door! They didn't just happen to show up one afternoon and Dumbledore whisked them in!
And of course, you had to add the bit about Neville being there, but Ron and Hermione weren't. Because they, of course, sucked. Never mind the fact that they were the ones who had been showing up regularly, while the Sue idiots happened to be in the right place at the right time. Never mind the fact that Ron and Hermione were the ones who actually cared that Hagrid was hurt and upset, while the Sue idiots seemed to be hanging around there for no reason.
And fuck, let's not ignore the fact that they show all of the emotional interest in it as a person falling asleep under a tree. There's no sympathy. There's no encouragement from them, no assurances that they care about Hagrid and want him back. They are just spectators in the entire thing. We aren't even told that they said a word. So what, exactly, was the point of that? Were we supposed to think that Holly and her friends were compassionate? Bull, I say! They did fuck all nothing!
GAH!
And we're halfway through the chapter, incidentally. The crunching noise you heard just now was my sanity breaking into a million pieces.
We jump to the school routine, and apparently Moody has turned Malfoy into a ferret for no reason at all. Really
"That Monday saw Draco's paranoia around Moody increase ten-fold. Though to be completely fair, it wasn't paranoia when it became very damn apparent that Mad-Eye was in fact out to get him. Holly still wasn't certain about the details, and really, no one else was either. But somehow, someway, Draco ended up on the wrong end of Moody's wand. Supposedly, he had accosted some Hufflepuff second-years, but Susan Bones swore up and down that Draco had merely tripped over one girl who had stopped to tie her shoelace. Either way, Moody seemed to take it as some strange sort of attack on her person. And thus the legend of the Amazing Bouncing White Ferret was born"
ZeldaQueen: You know, something tells me that the Suethor is either ignoring or had missed the point of that scene. In the books, Crouch Jr. as Moody only attacked Malfoy because he was attacking Harry. His in-character reason was that he hated people who attacked someone whose back was turned. His real motive was that he needed Harry healthy, to win the tournament. Thus, he attacked anyone who threatened Harry. Holly and Malfoy are apparently the bestest of friends here. So why, may I ask, would Crouch Jr. attack him and draw unwanted attention?
Oh, and I must add, you now know that "Moody" is apparently stalking Malfoy for no reason and attacking him, and Luna and Holly can't read his mind, and you still don't suspect that he's the spy? YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!
Of course, all of that logic is ignored in favor of Malfoy bitching about how Moody is hardly punished at all. Um, just because we didn't see him get punished in the book doesn't mean he never was. We're also told that the story of Malfoy being turned into a white ferret quickly became the latest juicy school gossip, surpassing "even rumours of Holly's relationship with Viktor Krum for a time, a topic which had held the top spot for common interest since the Yule Ball". I hate this fic and all who reside in it.
There's some clumsy "will they-won't they" between Holly and Krum for no reason at all, and then we skip to Holly being all arrogant because she was literally told what the next task is, and thus she is already prepared. Holly, of course, already has the Gillyweed, because the Suethor stole form the movie's canon and had Neville give it to her. We're not told about her ever asking him for it, or about "Moody" giving him that book about freshwater plants of the Mediterranean, so it really sounds like he just randomly showed up with it for her one day. As for Cedric's lovely hint, the one which showed that he was a decent guy who was willing to repay favors instead of winning at all costs?
"She didn't even need to resort to the woefully inadequate hint that Cedric had tried to give her about the egg. Holly had told him straight-up about the dragons, but he hadn't really returned the favour. The best he'd done was throw in the password to the prefect's bathroom, the male prefect's bathroom. The gesture was nice, she supposed. But honestly, he might as well have said nothing at all. Or maybe he just hadn't wanted to say anything in front of his hoards of fans or girlfriend Cho Chang, who practically hung off of him like a human-shaped leech most of the time. It'd been hard enough for him to move the five feet away from her to have a semi-private conversation with Holly"
ZeldaQueen: Oh, don't you just feel the gratitude radiating out of her? If someone dares to call her "compassionate" at any point after this, I may well lose it and leave a profanity-ladened review for the Suethor.
Oh, and sweetcheeks? Maybe he gave you the password to the men's room because that's the password he knows! It really is nice of him to give you access at all, you know, especially when you consider how luxurious and fun the prefect's bathroom was, and how he'd surely have gotten in trouble for letting a non-prefect in.
And I honestly don't understand why the Suethor hates Cho so much. I know why Keiran Halcyon hated her. She was evidence of the fact that Harry was a loser and didn't hook up with his soul mate on the first go-around. I really don't know why she'd be so bashed here though, especially since she's an almighty Ravenclaw.
So yeah, we're treated to three entire paragraphs about who's in a relationship with whom after the Yule Ball, and most of these couplings are pulled out of the Suethor's ass thin air and are given no background or reasoning or depth, and thus I don't care about them. We're also treated to a description of how the teachers are conveniently having lessons that would give hints as to how to survive underwater for extended periods of time. The Suethor does realize that that's against the rules, doesn't she? There's also a paragraph on Valentine's Day, and how Holly is a Sue and got a million, billion valentines and one, in particular, made her raise her eyebrows. No, we are not told what about that valentine made it so special. I honestly have no idea why the Suethor brings up these things AND DOESN'T EXPLAIN THEM! *screams in frustration*
Scene break, and Holly spends the remainder of the chapter being even more useless and pathetic than usual.
Oh, you don't believe me?
We're at the part where it's the day before the Second Task, and Blaise has been called away by McGonagall. Hands up if you didn't see this one coming. Between this and Holly's insistence that there wasn't anything she possibly valued that could be taken, the entire thing reeks of dead fish, not to mention incredibly stupid. Every champion has to rescue something, so the judges are going to nab something of hers. Having the Sue go "Oh, I'm such a monk who doesn't place value in worldly possessions and thus I will lose nothing" just makes her look like a dumbass. Which she is.
Anyway, Holly's in the Common Room with her friends, and she basically has a fit. "She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. Someone had jabbed out her eyes and left her blind. Someone had taken her hands and tied them up behind her. Pain and hurt and sorrow and whywasshesoalonenow?"
ZeldaQueen: So that's pretty much how Holly spends the rest of the chapter - flopping around like a dying fish, with her friends carting her around. Right. Really. And she angsts like you wouldn't believe. I'm dead serious, she is out-angsting Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Jenna Silverblade, and every Sue Gethesemane ever wrote. All we get is about how her lungs are on fire, she can't see, she can't feel (then how does she know her lungs are on fire?), she's dying, she's dead, reality has ended, blah, blah, blah. I honestly wish she would die, so she'd shut up.
Of course, everyone instantly drops what they're doing and goes running over to her. They start trying to figure out who to take her to, and for some reason decide that Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore are out of the question. For some other reason, they decide that they can take her to Snape. I would like to remind the jury that it was not so long ago that they kept going on about how Snape wasn't trustworthy, so they had an excuse not to tell him about the Chamber of Secrets or Pettigrew and thus avoid actually accomplishing anything. I would also like to remind the jury that Snape has no idea that Holly is a Mind Mage, so it's not like they could argue that he's in on the secret but Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore aren't.
*sigh* So they cart Holly to Snape, who is Not Happy at being woken up so late at night. He takes one look at Holly and demands to know what happened. Luna tells him that it was "[p]sychic shock" and Snape asks how the fuck that happened, since apparently psychic shock only comes from illegal mind altering things, like the Cruciatus curse. Oh, don't I wish someone used that on her. Everyone waffles around and finally Snape figures out that Holly is a Mind Mage. I really hate this stuff, almost as much as I hate Halcyon's "druids".
Anyway, Snape flips his shit over this and yells at everyone for not telling a responsible adult about Holly's non-canon abilities, and Luna replies that Sirius and Lupin know. And then she adds something quite creepy
"All of Holly's inner circle know. She told us at the end of her second year. I believe that Mrs. Zabini suspects. But none of the faculty. I don't even think Dumbledore realises. She's been very careful around him especially"
ZeldaQueen: Holly's inner circle. Let's see, who else in the series was described as having an "inner circle", a group of "friends" who did all of the dirty work? I'll give you a hint, that same person worked very hard to hide his abilities and plans from Dumbledore's "annoyingly close gaze".
Snape asks what happened before this, and Millicent says that McGonagall asked Blaise to come to her office. Snape, at this point, wigs out and outright tells them all that every champion will have a hostage taken, Blaise is certainly Holly's, and that the guy's in an enchanted sleep. Methinks the Suethor has no idea what "suspense" is.
I would also like to pause for a moment to call "bullshit". Why would putting Blaise to sleep cause this to happen? Does Holly go all nutty when he falls asleep every night? If Blaise fainted or was knocked out, would Holly have a fit? Will Blaise have a fit whenever Holly undoubtedly loses consciousness in the future? Oh yeah, the Suethor tries to handwave it by saying that it was more of a magical stasis than a slumber. I fail to see how that is significantly different. I would also like to remind everyone that the books explicitly state that it was a magic sleep.
Anyway, Snape goes off cursing on how "only a complete fool would ever separate them" and how "[s]uch things have been illegal for centuries. Since the time of the Founders and before". First of all, who wants to bet that none of the teachers will tell off Holly for being a secretive dumbass and causing this problem, or at least point out that she's partially to blame? Second of all, am I the only one who thinks that smacks of Breaking Dawn and that stupid "werewolves can't kill one's imprintee" rule?
There's some bullshit theory about how Sirius is possibly Holly's second Bonded, and then the other kids beg Snape to fix up Holly. For some reason, Malfoy calls Snape "Severus", even though I'm pretty sure he never did that before and I'm getting Arianna Black flashbacks. Snape says that he'll give Holly a potion that will basically make her temporarily not a Mind Mage. Look, whatever! Let's just get this over with, will you?
And that's how the chapter ends. With everyone stroking Holly's hair and fussing over her and getting that fucking potion.
I feel I must ask, how the fuck is this Mind Mage thing supposed to be useful? She's done very little with it that a normal witch or wizard can do on their own, it's not like Occlumency can't block it, and now we see that she's literally an empty, emotionless shell without Her Man around. Bella Swan, eat your heart out
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Raison D'etre: Reason for Being
ZeldaQueen: In other words, Holly has no reason for being without Her Man
AN: I'm on break for a week and then back into the trenches once more.
ZeldaQueen: Yes, duck the sporks!
My schedule this block looks a tad bit easier, so there should be more updates in the near future.
ZeldaQueen: NO!!!
I appreciate that everyone is so understanding about this whole mess.
ZeldaQueen: By all means, don't feel rushed on my account. Feel free to take a year off, or two. Or five
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Back to: Chapter 48: Through A Mirror, Darkly
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