The Boy Who Lived

As I've just gained access to Pottermore, I find myself rereading the books from the very beginning.  However, the one thing Pottermore doesn't seem to have is a blogging tool.  I've left a suggestion for it but, until then, I've started this temporary blog to keep my thoughts in.


I don't really have much to say thus far about Pottermore.  Some of the side information is interesting but as I'm only in the first chapter, there's not much of it yet.  I enjoyed the story Joe posted about joining the British Weights and Measures Association merely to annoy her sister.  Other than that, though, there isn't much yet.

About the chapter: I think the first chapter of the first book is my favorite part of the whole series.  Yes it is filled with nonesense about the Dursleys and it's mostly got nothing to do, whatsoever, with the rest of the story.  But it just draws you so masterfully.  I love the shorter sentences of this chapter:
"None of them noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window."
It puts the reader in the position of a normal person, catching just glimpses of this other world for the first time, which, in truth, we are.  We may not be as stuffy as the Dursleys, but this is our first introduction to the wizarding world, and we're catching it in snippets, just like everyone else.

This part always gives me chills: "Mr. Dursley sat froze in his armchair.  Shooting stars all over Britain?  Owls flying by daylight?  Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place?  And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters..."

• Continuity Errors:  Albus Dumbledore first appears on Privat Drive "so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground."  However, we know that apparation causes a cracking sound that can definitely be heard.

Looking back, I'm amazed that we didn't know he was gay.  "He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots."  I think I might have to start keeping track of all the places we missed it.

• Possible Continuity Errors: Dumbledore says he has been trying to convince people not to call Voldemort You-know-who, or He who must not be named.  He says he's been trying to convince them to call him by his proper name, Voldemort, because fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.  However, Voldemort is NOT his real name, and Dumbledore knows it.  Wouldn't people be a lot less afraid of him if he Dumbledore was calling him Tom instead of Voldemort?

Now that we know what went down immediately after the Potters were killed, and that Dumbledore, at the time, thought Sirius Black was the secret keeper, it puts a whole new spin on his line to Hagrid about picking up Harry, "No problems, were there?"


And now, to sum up this first entry with my thoughts from chapter 1, I'm going to close with what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest paragraphs in literature.  It has raised the hair on the back of my neck every time I've read it, right from the start.  I even love how, in the hardback version, it's the only paragraph on the last page of the chapter.

"A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen.  Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up.  One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley.... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: 'To Harry Potter-the boy who lived!'"