justfornow | To have been loved so deeply (Reply)

To read:
1. Harry Potter
2. The Chronicles of Narnia
3. The Lord of the Rings

I'm living in a rather fandom-y place right now, so here's a bit of flailing.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to reread all the Harry Potter books. So I bought the few I was missing (which, ugh, now I have some paperback and some hardcover, this is upsetting) and began. As a kind of personal project of mine, every time I finish one of the books, I'm going to recap my favorite parts. Keep in mind, I pretty much love everything, so these are my favorites of all.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1. I absolutely love when Harry is first discovering magic, when Hagrid is slowly revealing things to him. But I especially love when he first steps into Diagon Alley. "Harry wishes he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping." The entire section after that is thrilling. I remember first reading it. As Harry was being revealed all this, so were we. One of the best experiences ever.

2. In Chapter Ten, "Halloween," the mountain troll is released. After Harry and Ron (and Hermione) defeat it, there's this line that is one of my favorite lines in a book ever. "But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out and twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them."

3. Then of course there is Harry's first Quidditch game, wherein Snape is trying to "kill" (Haha) him and Harry catches his first Snitch. "Harry was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick -- he hit the field on all fours -- coughed-- and something gold fell into his hand."

--Random. Just noticed that a cute guy sitting across from me in my coffee shop is reading The Deathly Hallows as I'm flipping through my terribly beat-up copy of The Sorcerer's Stone looking for quotes. I hope these books never go out of style. :)

4. The Snarry fangirl in me loves when Harry comes across Quirrell next to the Mirror of Erised and Quirrell reveals that Snape wasn't trying to kill Harry at all. In fact, he was trying to save him. "I tried to kill you. Your friend Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you." "Snape was trying to save me?" "Of course," said Quirrell coolly. "Why'd you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn't do it again."

5. Finally, I love Harry's first end-of-the-year meeting with Dumbledore. He talks about the "power of love" and whatnot and it's really cheesy, but I love it. It's when we first get a glimpse as to what Harry's importance is. There is also the part where Harry asks if Nicolas Flamel and his wife will die. Dumbledore says yes and then he says a line that I've always loved: "After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

Other thoughts/questions on the book:
1. Why didn't Harry ever get his vision fixed? It just seems to me that would be one of the first things he'd want. I get the glasses from a literary standpoint (they're part of his character), but practically, I just don't know.
2. It always seemed to me like they cheat at the end of the book for the House Cup. For as much as I also didn't want Slytherin to win, it just seemed that they rightfully won. I'm probably crazy. But that's ok.

Stay tuned for Danny's thoughts on The Chamber of Secrets.

Other HP fandom-y stuff:

I ran across this quote on tumblr today. I really love it (probably because I'm on a Draco/Tom kick, but whatevs).

If the question is whether Draco would have committed the murder, my answer is no. I don’t think he would. He had lowered his wand. He was prepared to come over to Dumbledore’s side. I hope you see that there’s some of that same feeling in Book Seven, when he does try to protect Harry. But he’s in too deep. Like a lot of characters, he’s not a hero. There’s a real moral cowardice to Draco. But is he wholly bad? Absolutely not. - J.K. Rowling

-In other news, I went to see The Dawn Treader last night. I was actually really kind of disappointed, mostly because of the script. Compared to the other two movies, they completely slaughtered the book. But besides that, it works as a movie, I think. And the acting is still very good. I really loved Eustace. His characters stayed true to the book and I loved him as a dragon. Also Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley are still my heroes. Plus, all of them are very pretty to look at.

Example 1: