CHAPTER FOUR: In Which Hagrid Finally Gets Some Decent Camera Time, and An Awesome Death Happens Off-Screen
HARRY: Oy, I should talk to Hedwig, remind people she's still around before her tragic animal-cruelty murder.
HARRY: So, let's remember all the good times at number four, shall we, Hedwig?
HARRY: The only not-quite-sarcastic good memories begin after fourteen years of living here.
HARRY: There's the cupboard! ... You'd think we'd make more of that.
FLYING MOTORCYCLE DREAMS: *recalled*
FLYING MOTORCYCLE: *rumbles its arrival*
NOT-QUITE-FINAL REPETITION OF CHARACTERS' FIXED EPITHETS: Certain adjectives are attached to characters' appearances in this series the way Athene is always grey-eyed in Homer.
RON: "long and lanky" - *yawn*
HERMIONE: "her bushy hair tied back in a long plait" - *blink* Hermione's gettin' her sport on. Lucky Ron.
FRED AND GEROGE: "grinning identically" - FOR THE MOMENT
BILL: "badly scarred and long-haired" - plot recap and *yawn*
MR. WEASLEY: "kind-faced, balding, his spectacles a little awry" - the askewness of the glasses was never seen until this book, when Rowling inserted it for some minor dead father angst. Bear this one in mind, folks.
MAD-EYE: "battle-worn, one-legged, his bright blue magical eye whizzing in its socket" - *yawn*
TONKS: "short hair was her favorite shade of bright pink" - *yawn*
LUPIN: "greyer, more lined" - *would be yawn-worthy except for the reasonable question, "Since the two months in which we've last seen him?"*
FLEUR: "slender and beautiful, with her long silvery blonde hair" - *yawn*
KINGSLEY: "bald and broad-shoudered" - *and otherwise stereotypical black cop*
HAGRID: "wild hair and beard, standing hunchbacked to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling" - *yawn*
MUNDUNGUS FLETCHER: "small, dirty, and hangdog, with his droopy beady hound's eyes and matted hair" - *would be yawn-worthy except for the reasonable question, "Why is no one trying to hex him?"*
HARRY: Kinglsey, I thought you were looking after the Muggle Prime Minister?
RON AND HERMIONE: Gee, thanks a lot for the nice words you threw us first thing.
KINGSLEY: You are so more important than the Muggle Prime Minister, Harry.
READERSHIP: Well, durr.
RON AND HERMIONE: *dual facepalm*
HARRY: Aw shucks.
TONKS: Harry, m'lad! Allow me to almost take your eye out with my rediscovered bounciness and shiny RING!
HARRY: Wait, you got married?
MOODY: Shut up, you should have read the prologue more carefully! Let's get down to the business of risking our necks, now.
MOODY: Ministry are being arseholes again.
HARRY: I'm bowled over in surprise.
MOODY: Trace, baby.
HARRY: *and I quote* I don't -
MOODY: The Trace, the Trace! How is it you don't know anything about the Wizarding world after all these years you've been saving it?
MOODY: *uses the phrase "under-seventeens," because he's soon to be offed and deserves to use truly awesome phrases like this*
TONKS: Nope, sorry, American readers, that's just standard English back here where English was born, nothing whimsical or Tolkienesque about it.
MOODY: What's that?
TONKS: Nothing.
MOODY: *both eyes narrow mismatchedly* Really?
TONKS: Well, it was a Muggle culture reference which you completely missed, because even though we don't know your blood status no one would peg you for a fantasy fiction fan. It was also presumably said because Miz Parody Lady feels I have a pitiful amount of camera time in this book, particularly for a soon-to-be-dead!character.
TONKS: ... and she'd be right.
MOODY: We could let you see Kingsley's or the famous Auntie Muriel's place, but you'll be going to Tonks's parents.
FANFIC WRITERS: Yay!
EXCEPT FOR SMALL MINORITY: Boo.
RON'S FIRST LINE OF THE BOOK: *is really awesome*
FRED'S FIRST LINE OF THE BOOK: *is really awesome*
GEORGE'S FIRST LINE OF THE BOOK: *not quite as awesome, but does use the word "scuppered"*
HARRY: My innocent heroic heart will not stand for such sacrifices on other people's parts, I warn you!
MOODY: Everyone here's overage, ickle Potter - unlike yourself - and they're all prepared to take the risk.
MUNDUNGUS: *foreshadows*
MOODY: Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into seven.
HARRY: *starts choking so hard that they are able to grab some hairs*
ROWLING: *looks very very very pleased with herself*
READERS: Yes, Miz Author Lady. Jolly good dramatic irony there. Well done.
HAGRID: *lifts Mundungus by the scruff of the neck*
MIZ PARODY LADY: *really wants a fan art of this moment*
NARRATIVE: Fleur moved to stand between Fred and George rather than stay next to smelly Mundungus Fletcher.
READERS: Suggesting that Fleur-Weasley relations have indeed improved quite a lot.
OTHER READERS: Or just that Dung is that smelly.
MUNDUNGUS: I'm a soldier, I'd sooner be a protector.
EVERYONE: You? A soldier? Of what?
MUNDUNGUS: Of luuuuuurve.
MOODY: Moving right along here.
RON, HERMIONE, FRED, GEORGE, FLEUR, AND MUNDUNGUS: *turn into six Harry Potters*
SIX NEW HARRY POTTERS: *start stripping. on-screen*
MIZ PARODY LADY: I've got nothing. All the pertinent jokes have already been made, really.
PROTECTORS: *are assigned*
HERMIONE: *gets Kingsley*
RON: *gets Tonks*
HARRY: *gets Hagrid*
HERMIONE: *is reassured*
RON AND HARRY: *are not*
MAD-EYE: Death Eaters must know by now how good you are on a broom, Potter - purely because Snape is now a full-time traitor. Never mind Draco Malfoy. Or the whole Slytherin team. Or the newspaper reports of you flying against the dragon The Year That I Did Not Teach At Hogwarts.
HAGRID: And, so, yeh and me, we'll take the bike. Sirius's bike, y'know—
DEAD CHARACTER CHORAL LINE: O the angst!—
HAGRID: This inn't the time fer angst! Look, Harry! Special trick buttons. Arthur's work.
MR. WEASLEY: Please be careful, Hagrid. I'm still not sure that was advisable and it's certainly only to be used in emergencies.
HAGRID'S FINGERS: *immediately start twitching*
MAD-EYE: All right, all aboard, everybody ready for the possibly fatal mission?
RON: NO!
MAD-EYE: Dammit, I thought the awkward sexual tension was over, now that the new Harry Potters were clothed!
RON: I'm using my best friend's body to hug my former teacher's extremely young wife, here! It's not as easy as it looks!
MAD-EYE: Amateurs. *mutters* It'll almost be worth dying so I don't have to finish out the war with this lot.
NARRATIVE: So great was Harry's discomfort that he almost forgot to take a last glimpse of number four, Privet Drive. And that would have been a real shame.
DOOMED MAD-EYE: See you all in an hour! Have a nice trip!
DEATH EATERS: *appear EVERYWHERE*
HARRY AND HAGRID: Oh, f…
HEX-HAPPY DEATH EATERS: … uck, that's all! Nothing but a lucky rollover saved your neck there!
PATIENT PARODY READERS: *groan*
NARRATIVE: Red and green collided in midair in a shower of multicolored sparks -
NARRATIVE: Well, forgive me. Chiefly red and green sparks.
HEDWIG: *dies*
THE CHILD IN ALL THE LONGTIME NOW TWENTY-SOMETHING READERS: *dies as well*
HARRY: Hagrid! We've got to risk yours and mine life to rescue her cagéd corpse!
HAGRID: No time fer denial, Harry, they're hot on our tail!
ALL THE LONGTIME NOW TWENTY-SOMETHING READERS: … whimper…
HAGRID: *shoots a solid brick wall out of the exhaust pipe at flying Death Eaters*
FORMERLY TEARY-EYED READERS, NOW MOSTLY ENTRANCED BY THE AWESOME: … Ooooooh.
CALLOUS READERS: Ahahahaha! It's like a cartoon!
THIS BOOK: *will get only more cartoonish*
NARRATIVE: Harry saw the Death Eaters swerve out of sight to avoid the deadly trail of flame, and at the same time felt the sidecar sway ominously: Its metal connections to the bike had splintered with the force of acceleration.
READERS ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH ROWLING'S PROWESS IN BASIC MATH: *sweat at the prospect of her now trying to dabble in basic physics*
HAGRID: *tries to do magic in a deadly high-speed aerial pursuit*
HARRY: Hagrid! No! This is not the time for your endearing comic relief!
HARRY: *does NOT try to kill Imperiused acquaintance Death Eater who is trying to kill him*
DEATH EATERS: OY! That's so totally Potter!
HARRY: What?
HARRY AND HAGRID: *suddenly unsurrounded by Death Eaters*
HAGRID: Harry! I think this is our hope spot!
VOLDEMORT: *appears, flying like Superman*
THE SIGHT: *is not riddikulus enough to be anything but terrifying*
HAGRID: *expletive*
HARRY: Wow, a Voldemort sighting already. This chapter is so much more awesome than the first three.
HAGRID: *leaps off the bike onto Death Eater's broom*
HARRY: *still trying to be heroic* Hagrid, I love ya, but you are one damn useless protector when I'm in danger and having saving-people-thing feeling.
HARRY: *falling towards earth* Wait, I magically escaped Voldemort again?
HARRY: My wand did something amazing to save my arse again?
HARRY: I'm crashing into the ground again?
HARRY: … damn, seventh book came, same as the other six. And it's not even chapter five!
Chapter five is quite long too. Coming soon!