Harry Potter Read-Along Update
Arianna Stonewater
January 2019
As we come to the halfway point of the school year, we are also half-way through our Read-Along of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Trivia has been going strong, and you can always jump in!
The second week of October brought us Chapter 7: The Ministry of Magic, where we messed with the Ministry of Magic's phone entrance (Did you know dialing 3-7-3-3 gives you a coupon for a free scoop of ice cream at Florean Forescue's Ice Cream Parlour?) and worked on our paper airplane designs for interdepartmental memos.
Chapter 8: The Hearing brought us discussions of Wizengamot qualifications (Prof. Tarma Amelia Black suggested they face the Scales of Ma'at!) as well as some nice designs (including Polaris Black's floral print) for comfy armchairs like the one Dumbledore conjured for himself at Harry's hearing.
In Chapter 9: The Woes of Mrs. Weasley we followed Harry to the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. While there, the students received their letters with booklists, including Prefect badges for Ron and Hermione! Pottermore gave us an interesting article ranking "usefulness" of prefects at Hogwarts, which we all seemed to feel was not quite perfect, especially as neither Charlie nor Bill Weasley were on the list. We also sympathized with Mrs. Weasley and explored the Boggarts of other characters, like Prof. Sprout's fear of fire.
Chapter 10: Luna Lovegood started off November's tasks. We conversed about special properties of the rare Mimbulus mimbletonia (Amaryllis Storm noted the twins would make great use of the smelly sap) and we also helped out Luna's dad. We wrote a couple of paragraphs to fill the next edition of The Quibbler, including an incredible article by Gwenevier Winters detailing a Muggles-spotting-Pukwudgies epidemic in America.
We continued on to Chapter 11: The Sorting Hat's New Song of course by mulling over the Sorting Hat's lines that really stood out to us. We also dreamt about the yummy food at the welcome feast, like the mashed potatoes with gravy that Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis was eyeing during the Sorting.
During the American Thanksgiving holiday week, we perused through Chapter 12: Professor Umbridge. That week we created some posters and announcements one would find in one's common room noticeboards, including a call on the Hufflepuff noticeboard for volunteers to try different kinds of cocoa drinks for the House Elves. We also discussed which Fifth Year classes would be hard for us to get through; several agreed Umbridge's class would be very difficult, though Amaryllis pointed out that if you were capable of keeping your mouth shut, you should make it through just fine.
Chapter 13: Detention with Dolores finished up November for us. We drew/described some Bowtruckle friends for Pickett (Scarlet gave us a great picture of Scoot the Bowtruckle balancing on an acorn). We also stated our agreements (for the most part) with Angelina's decision to pick Ron over Vicky Frobisher or Geoffrey Hooper for Keeper. While some of us might have been willing to work with Vicky's schedule, none of us would want to put up with Geoffrey's whining.
We started off the last month of 2018 with Chapter 14: Percy and Padfoot. We shared details of the different gift exchanges we all participate in on HOL and in real life (Prof. Scarlet and I both do exchanges with our siblings) and also the less-fun act of procrastination and how close to the deadline we've left something to get done.
Next, in Chapter 15: The Hogwarts High Inquisitor, we set up our own O.W.L. grading systems (Cody Lewis came up with one where A stands for Atrocious) and then debated about the finer details of the name "counterjinx" as opposed to just calling these types of spells all jinxes.
Heading into the week before Christmas, we started Chapter 16: In the Hog's Head and Chapter 17: Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four. In Chapter 16, we (and by "we" I mean Tarma, who is always diligent in participating) described the label of the butterbeer bottles at The Hog's Head and she discovered an eyewitness account of Luna's heliopaths. In Chapter 17, we (Tarma) told us of a safety measure that once existed to prevent students from sneaking into the kitchens between 11pm and 4am; after it was discovered no one cared about the consequences of being turned purple and barking, it was dismantled. Scarlet also informed us that an attempt at the longest magical snowball fight in history during the Blizzard of January 1982 was the cause of the cave-in to Sirius' secret passageway on the fourth floor.
We ended 2018 and started 2019 with Chapter 18: Dumbledore's Army. That week's tasks had us guessing on the contents of the Room of Requirement for the previous poster (I thought that Sky Alton's Room of Requirement might be filled with fencing equipment and various interesting objects) as well as what we would notice first in the Room of Requirement during the D.A. meetings (most of us would totally look at all of the instruments on the shelves at the far end of the room).
Chapter 19: The Lion and the Serpent brought us into our first full week of January where we questioned Hermione's stance on Ron's being nervous while sharing stories of times we were nervous ourselves. For fun, we also wrote a couple more verses for Slytherin's "Weasley is Our King."
We are finishing up the Autumn Term with Chapter 20: Hagrid's Tale. Here we discussed Hagrid and Olympe's journey to talk with the Giants, as well as the new Gurg's relationship with the Death Eaters. You still have time to add to this as well Chapter 18 and 19's discussions before the end of January to earn some scales!
As we come to the halfway point of the school year, we are also half-way through our Read-Along of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Trivia has been going strong, and you can always jump in!
The second week of October brought us Chapter 7: The Ministry of Magic, where we messed with the Ministry of Magic's phone entrance (Did you know dialing 3-7-3-3 gives you a coupon for a free scoop of ice cream at Florean Forescue's Ice Cream Parlour?) and worked on our paper airplane designs for interdepartmental memos.
Chapter 8: The Hearing brought us discussions of Wizengamot qualifications (Prof. Tarma Amelia Black suggested they face the Scales of Ma'at!) as well as some nice designs (including Polaris Black's floral print) for comfy armchairs like the one Dumbledore conjured for himself at Harry's hearing.
In Chapter 9: The Woes of Mrs. Weasley we followed Harry to the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. While there, the students received their letters with booklists, including Prefect badges for Ron and Hermione! Pottermore gave us an interesting article ranking "usefulness" of prefects at Hogwarts, which we all seemed to feel was not quite perfect, especially as neither Charlie nor Bill Weasley were on the list. We also sympathized with Mrs. Weasley and explored the Boggarts of other characters, like Prof. Sprout's fear of fire.
Chapter 10: Luna Lovegood started off November's tasks. We conversed about special properties of the rare Mimbulus mimbletonia (Amaryllis Storm noted the twins would make great use of the smelly sap) and we also helped out Luna's dad. We wrote a couple of paragraphs to fill the next edition of The Quibbler, including an incredible article by Gwenevier Winters detailing a Muggles-spotting-Pukwudgies epidemic in America.
We continued on to Chapter 11: The Sorting Hat's New Song of course by mulling over the Sorting Hat's lines that really stood out to us. We also dreamt about the yummy food at the welcome feast, like the mashed potatoes with gravy that Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis was eyeing during the Sorting.
During the American Thanksgiving holiday week, we perused through Chapter 12: Professor Umbridge. That week we created some posters and announcements one would find in one's common room noticeboards, including a call on the Hufflepuff noticeboard for volunteers to try different kinds of cocoa drinks for the House Elves. We also discussed which Fifth Year classes would be hard for us to get through; several agreed Umbridge's class would be very difficult, though Amaryllis pointed out that if you were capable of keeping your mouth shut, you should make it through just fine.
Chapter 13: Detention with Dolores finished up November for us. We drew/described some Bowtruckle friends for Pickett (Scarlet gave us a great picture of Scoot the Bowtruckle balancing on an acorn). We also stated our agreements (for the most part) with Angelina's decision to pick Ron over Vicky Frobisher or Geoffrey Hooper for Keeper. While some of us might have been willing to work with Vicky's schedule, none of us would want to put up with Geoffrey's whining.
We started off the last month of 2018 with Chapter 14: Percy and Padfoot. We shared details of the different gift exchanges we all participate in on HOL and in real life (Prof. Scarlet and I both do exchanges with our siblings) and also the less-fun act of procrastination and how close to the deadline we've left something to get done.
Next, in Chapter 15: The Hogwarts High Inquisitor, we set up our own O.W.L. grading systems (Cody Lewis came up with one where A stands for Atrocious) and then debated about the finer details of the name "counterjinx" as opposed to just calling these types of spells all jinxes.
Heading into the week before Christmas, we started Chapter 16: In the Hog's Head and Chapter 17: Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four. In Chapter 16, we (and by "we" I mean Tarma, who is always diligent in participating) described the label of the butterbeer bottles at The Hog's Head and she discovered an eyewitness account of Luna's heliopaths. In Chapter 17, we (Tarma) told us of a safety measure that once existed to prevent students from sneaking into the kitchens between 11pm and 4am; after it was discovered no one cared about the consequences of being turned purple and barking, it was dismantled. Scarlet also informed us that an attempt at the longest magical snowball fight in history during the Blizzard of January 1982 was the cause of the cave-in to Sirius' secret passageway on the fourth floor.
We ended 2018 and started 2019 with Chapter 18: Dumbledore's Army. That week's tasks had us guessing on the contents of the Room of Requirement for the previous poster (I thought that Sky Alton's Room of Requirement might be filled with fencing equipment and various interesting objects) as well as what we would notice first in the Room of Requirement during the D.A. meetings (most of us would totally look at all of the instruments on the shelves at the far end of the room).
Chapter 19: The Lion and the Serpent brought us into our first full week of January where we questioned Hermione's stance on Ron's being nervous while sharing stories of times we were nervous ourselves. For fun, we also wrote a couple more verses for Slytherin's "Weasley is Our King."
We are finishing up the Autumn Term with Chapter 20: Hagrid's Tale. Here we discussed Hagrid and Olympe's journey to talk with the Giants, as well as the new Gurg's relationship with the Death Eaters. You still have time to add to this as well Chapter 18 and 19's discussions before the end of January to earn some scales!