The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Discuss Chapter 11 - Chapter 14

NOTE: While this section is meant to focus on the specified chapters of this book, this read is meant for people who have already read the entire series.

As a result, unlike most of our group reads, full spoilers for the series will be allowed without spoiler tags in every discussion post.

If you haven't read some/all of the books (What's wrong with you?) proceed at your own peril.












SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE

I think in the movie they show Snape bumping into Quirrel, but unless I missed it, it's not mentioned in the text. Presumably that's just a difference of the medium showing what would be revealed later without calling attention to it.

Hermione is actually the one who bumps into Quirell on her way to Snape

I forgot how funny the Lee Jordan-McGonagall commentating dynamic was.

I forgot how funny the Lee Jordan-McGonagall commentating dynamic was.

Rabindranauth wrote: "I forgot how funny the Lee Jordan-McGonagall commentating dynamic was."

So good, always some of my favorite moments!

I even liked Luna, of course, but no one beats Lee

Ch. 11
-Hermione has loosened up quite a bit since the incident with the troll. Harry and Ron are good for her, and vice versa.

-Harry, Ron, and (eventually) Hermione think Snape wants the package and that Fluffy is guarding it. They also learn about Flamel. Just saying - I couldn't be bothered to figure this out at 11. I'd been to busy being a kid.

-Lots of seemingly unimportant things here: Snape jinxing Harry, Hermione knocking Quirrell over, Harry catching the Snitch in his mouth.

Ch. 12
-Molly is the best to send Harry a Weasley sweater. Best family ever.

-A lot of funny quotes:

"And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is," said Ron. "It'd be safe to ask them."
"Very safe, as they're both dentists," said Hermione.

"You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid - we know we're called Gred and Forge."

-Harry gets the ever-useful invisibility cloak - aka a Deathly Hallow. We know that Dumbledore doesn't need it to become invisible. Meanwhile, Snape is creeping around at night, being all suspicious.

-Harry in front of the mirror is so incredibly sad. I can only imagine his sorrow at seeing his family and never being able to meet them or do something as simple as hugging his mum.

-Dumbledore has been kind of talked up for most of the book. Our brief meeting with him in the first chapter doesn't really show him how he is. He doesn't talk down to Harry. He comes and sits by him in front of the mirror like a friend. Love that about him.

Ch. 13
-The trio learn that Flamel is the maker of the only Philosopher's Stone. Who wouldn't want it? Uh, me. Because I don't want to be 650 years old.

Ch. 14
-Overall a fun chapter. I wonder why McGonagall took only 20 points from Slytherin for being out of bed but 50 each from Gryffindor. Harsh.


Unrelated to anything but imagine how much laundry those house elves have to do with hundreds of students plus the teaching staff... damn.

Gred and Forge, heh. The Weasleys are an awesome family.

Harry seeing his family in the Mirror of Erised is a kick in the feels.

I would definitely want a Philosopher's Stone; the odds of my living long enough to read the ends of ASoIaF and Kingkiller Chronicles wouĺd dramatically rise, heh.

I think of all the deaths, Fred's (or was it George's?) was the worst for me. Always together and laughing right to the end.

I'd like to be guaranteed a long and healthy life. Not sure I'd want to live 650 years though.

Yeah, Fred hurt. Lupin and Tonks as well, oof

I always get super bummed during the Cedric memorial. Dumbledore's words get to me.

Yeah, after posting that I started to think of them all and they all hit me pretty hard in their own way on that side of the fence. Oh, Ms. Rowling, tugging on those hear strings

I thought they were great in the movies. Really the cast of all the Harry Potter movies is excellent IMHO. The real issue with the movies is they cut too much.

My only explanation of Christian holidays is that (1) Rowling is making it accessible and (2) maybe wizards picked up the holidays from marrying Muggles. It slowly seeped in as a thing to do for your kids rather than anything religious.

I grew up Christian, but consider myself agnostic these days and I love Christmas. At least the decorations and tree and Santa and exchanging presents.

I'm indifferent towards Easter, but I'm not big on chocolates anymore.

I think the commercial aspect of each can be magical for kids, especially if detached from the religious parts.

Nah man, I need the Stone. Giving them Stones would be the worst possible outcome ever; they'd have all the time in the world on their hands so they'd work on their finales even less. Those 5 year gaps might very well become 15, 20 years.

Alex wrote: " There's been lots of wizard's chess lately."

These little moments have made this reread enjoyable for me, once again I don't remember this from my first read but I chuckled when

Harry played with chessman Seamus Finnigan had lent him, and they didn't trust him at all. He wasn't a very good player yet and they kept shouting different bits of advice at him, which was confusing. "Don't send me there, can't you see his knights? Send him, we can afford to lose him.

I did not get the mirror's backwards writing until you said that Alex - cool!

I loved the Christmas celebration with all the pops that exploded and had magical gifts inside - how fun! And the sweater Harry got was so sweet, as you guys have mentioned.

I concur. Christmas with my boyfriend's family is always hectic and just thinking about it makes me want to book a trip to Hawaii that week instead.

I love things being hectic seeing extended family and friends from high school.

It must be nice for you. You're originally from Buffalo or somewhere close by there, right?

I'm kind of shy and I have a small family so I never had to deal with that. It's all too much for me. This Christmas will be my 4th with him and his family but I'll never get used to it.

Yeah. My dad is an only child and both of his parents are dead, but both of my mom's are alive and she had 3 siblings, each with 2 kids. Plus my sister usually comes in from California.

One of my cousins is gay and came out officially around Christmas a few years ago. No one seemed to mind. It was nice that she could finally be open about it. I think her father's grandparents had a tough time with it, but our mutual grandparents didn't.

Alex, my boyfriend's family is conservative and religious as well. They don't know that I'm an atheist. They know my family is Serbian Orthodox. It's different and they just let it go and don't ask questions. If they knew I was a liberal atheist, they'd likely bar me from attending any functions ever again. At least his grandparents would.

I' grew up Catholic but no one in my family is religious. We do dinner at my parents with my dads family on Christmas eve which is always a lot of fun. We do Christmas at my Aunts with my moms family which is the men sitting in the living room watching basketball which bores me and the women sitting in the dinning room chatting. Both sides are pretty big.

Harry and Dumbledore in front of the mirror was sad because they were both probably looking at their dead family members. This series has a lot of really sad family situations going on for a YA series.

I'm reading the discussion before reading the second book and now I'm so sad that I wasn't here to participate at the time!

Must. read. faster!

Rabindranauth wrote: "I forgot how funny the Lee Jordan-McGonagall commentating dynamic was."

I loved this part. :D

I know this is a minor nitpick...but it seems hard to believe that the wizarding world would follow Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. Obviously Rowling is just trying to make the books accessible to a Western audience.

I don't understand the Easter part, but the Christmas part can be easily explained. Since Christmas was originally absorbed from pagan festivities of the winter solstice, maybe originally the wizard world celebrated Yuletide and then evolved into Christmas to make it easier for marketing purposes? :P

As for the family Christmas discussion I guess I'm in my own camp. My mom's family is huge and during Christmas ALL of us (around 25 people) would stay at my grandparents house and eat insane amounts of food, sing Christmas carols (gran's requirement) open gifts, play games and then we'd all sleep on the floor (the kids, the adults slept on beds I think?), wake up and open Santa's presents and play with them all day.

It was awesome and I miss it a lot. It's a shame most of us live in different countries now and all of our new families are so small. :/

Fun fact!
Where I'm from we don't actually get gifts from Santa. There's no Santa tradition. The gifts are from Baby Jesus.

Here in Spain you don't get gifts on Christmas eve, you get them in January and the three wise man (or the three kings or the three magi) bring them.

o.O I thought you were Canadian Alex?

Lol. Welcome to the group. :)

And I should have known. I have several Romanian friends and I swear Alexander/Alexandra must be the first pick for baby name in Romania. Do they call you Sasha too?

Sasha Fierce.

My family celebrates on January 7th.

@Alex - Interesting! One of my friends is Alexandra and her nickname is Sasha. I thought it was normal, but maybe her family is not all Romanian.

The other one is also Alexandra but goes by her second name. She says she doesn't like that the first one is so popular.

@Dara - Why on the 7th?

January 7th is Orthodox Christmas. My family is Serbian Orthodox. Any orthodox Christian religion celebrates on the 7th. Something about the old calendar vs the new, I dunno.