do you ever think about how the series of events that lead to Dumbledore’s death in HBP was literally set into motion by Oliver Wood’s passion for Quidditch
okay but literally I can’t stop thinking about this –
it is of course possible that Draco would have gotten the Death Eaters into the school some other way if the Vanishing Cabinet hadn’t created the perfect opportunity, but it wasn’t looking likely.
so like, it’s reasonable enough to assume that Dumbledore’s death (at the hands of Snape specifically, obviously I know he was going to die soon enough from the curse, but the timing does make a difference so I’m still focused on this) occurred because of the Death Eaters getting into the school. the reason the Death Eaters were able to get into the school was because of the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement, which Draco repaired.
the Vanishing Cabinet ended up in the Room of Requirement over the summer of 1996, presumably (reasoning for this is in the next paragraph), and Draco discovered it there sometime in his 6th year. but the only reason he had even known what it was, and what it could do, was because he had spoken with….
Graham Montague, a Slytherin who was in 7th year in 1995-1996 (when Harry & co were in 5th year). Montague was shoved into the Vanishing Cabinet in that year by Fred and George Weasley, because he was a part of the Inquisitorial Squad and was presumably about to take points from the Weasley twins for doing something disruptive. and we know that Montague got stuck in a limbo between the two connected cabinets, due to one of them being broken – he could hear things being discussed in Borgin & Burkes, which is how he was able to let Malfoy know that the other “end of the tunnel”, or basically the other cabinet, was in Borgin & Burkes (which, Draco would already have seen as a 12-year-old, in the summer before his 2nd year, when he visited the shop with his father – fun fact, Harry hid in that exact cabinet while Lucius Malfoy was transacting with Borgin).
Montague would never have had this experience at all if the cabinet hadn’t been broken in the first place. but in fact, we know exactly how, when, why, and by whom the cabinet was broken.
it was in the fall of 1992, when Nearly Headless Nick observed that Harry had gotten in trouble with Filch, and prompted Peeves to drop that very same cabinet from a large height in order to cause a distraction for Filch, allowing Harry to get out of trouble.
why was Harry in trouble in the first place? because he was “tracking mud” in the corridors.
why was he tracking mud in the corridors? because Oliver Wood had had him out on the Quidditch pitch all day even though it had been literally storming outside. so Harry came into the castle drenched and splattered with mud.
Dumbledore literally died because of how obsessed Oliver Wood was with winning the Quidditch Cup.
sorry, one more thing – people keep reblogging this with tags that imply they think that this is like a “headcanon” or just “plausible” and while I get why you would think that, I need you to really understand how canonical this is because it’s Very canonical which is Ridiculous
to clarify:
the bits about the Vanishing Cabinet being the only real way he had to get the Death Eaters in, having heard about it from Montague and how that made him realize he could use them as a passage, etc – that was all clearly laid out in HBP, chapter 27 (The Lightning-Struck Tower).
Montague being shoved into the cabinet takes place in OOTP, chapter 28 (Snape’s Worst Memory).
Draco seeing the cabinet and Harry being in the cabinet is all in CoS, chapter 4 (At Flourish and Blotts).
and the entire situation with the Quidditch practice and the mud and Harry getting in trouble and Nick getting Peeves to drop the cabinet is in CoS, chapter 8 (The Deathday Party).
it’s the lined-up-dominoes meme, and it’s ridiculous. and it’s all on the page.
Technically, Draco lead to Dumbledores death twice. Both by getting the death eaters into the castle but also because if it weren’t for him stealing Neville’s rememberall, Harry wouldnt have ended up on the team at all, and consequentially, getting mud through the corridors
Yeah, it’s only “Canadian Thanksgiving” in contexts where the default assumption is American. Likewise, “American Thanksgiving” in contexts where the default assumption is Canadian.
Mom has been known to call the American one “Pilgrim Thanksgiving”, but I think she’s been doing that less lately.
(We celebrate both, in honor of our American heritage. I don’t know how Canadian-only people are supposed to cope with the fact that one can of pumpkin makes two pies: we get to just make both Thanksgivings’ pumpkin pies at once, keeping the second one in the freezer until it’s time.)
…in my experience one can of pumpkin makes one pie. I don’t know if your cans are larger, your pies smaller, or your recipes more padded with non-pumpkin ingredients, but now I’m curious.
1. Our spare can of pumpkin is 796mL. According to a grocery-store online catalogue you can also get “pumpkin pie filling” in 540mL cans, but we only buy that by accident.
2. The pie in our freezer is 9 inches in diameter and maybe an inch and a half deep.
3. The can says:
“Pumpkin pie recipe on reverse. Requires: eggs, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground ginger, salt, 175 mL evaporated milk (1 pie) and an unbaked pie shell.
1 can makes 2 pies.”
When I asked Mom for confirmation that we do in fact use the recipe on the can, she said yes, then asked for context (which I gave). She thinks the main difference is the can size, with a side of having to add more ingredients to the plain pumpkin.
“The solution for Americans is we eat 2 pumpkin pies.”
Come to think of it I suppose that *would* work pretty well for groups with more than 2 – 3 pie-eating members (edit: or maybe even just people who aren’t also making chocolate cream pie). Maybe the canned-pumpkin manufacturers size their cans assuming you’re going to invite people over.
Same recipe, same size pie, about twice as large of a can. Interesting. The cans of pumpkin I recall from my childhood, which made one pie each and had that same recipe (with the addition of allspice) on the back, were somewhere between 440mL and 475mL.
Y’know what I find absolutely fascinating about fanfiction? The trope trends that pertain to individual fandoms in each fanfic community.
I marvel at this every time I poke my head into a fanfiction archive somewhere, after finishing a series or a movie when I’m not quite ready to let it go but I’m not quite willing to dive in and participate. There’s always certain kinds of stories that are intensely popular in a self-contained fandom that are enormously rare in others.
There are, of course, some tropes that exist in virtually every fandom. You will never not find a Harry Potter AU or a coffee shop fic if a fandom has existed for longer than a couple months. The bigger the fandom, the more of them you’ll see. This is an Absolute Given. But others are less universal.
Some are self-contained types of AU’s that simply can’t work in another fandom, due to the nature of the original content’s story…but despite dozens of other potential tropes, one is just seized by the fandom as a fan favorite (literally). Take, for example, the plethora of chimera!fic in Fullmetal Alchemist (or at least, back for the 2003 anime there was a plethora of it. Maybe it’s changed since then, it’s been a while since I was in the fandom). It’s not really a concept that works in other fandoms, because the idea of chimeras is so strongly rooted in the source material’s lore, ‘magic’/science system, and concepts. But despite there also being dozens of other things you could run with in this universe too, this was a fandom-trope that was super popular.
But there are other things that I continue to be surprised at to this day. I watched a movie the other day and decided to poke my head into the fandom community and just scroll through AO3 without any filters. Every single page had at least one vampire AU, but that’s not something I see a lot in other fandoms. Why vampire AU’s? I don’t know, but something about it appeals for that fandom, clearly!
Sick!fics are super popular in several of the fandoms I’ve hung around in, but in others they’re all but impossible to find. In some fandoms whump or hurt/comfort is overwhelmingly the majority, and in others the bulk of what you can find is fluff so sticky sweet you’ll get a toothache. I’ve seen dozens of niche, oddballs sorts of premises or AU settings when browsing fanfic archives that seem to exist in only one fandom, but in that fandom they have an incredible amount of power.
It’s just fascinating to me, to see how trends fall based on what is presented in the source material, and the kinds of people that are drawn to that material. Things that are enormously popular to the point of being almost commonplace in one fandom might be a breath of fresh air in another. And clearly, no idea is every really ‘old’ or ‘done to death’ or ‘unoriginal.’ It’s all about the context of where you’re writing it, and about perspective.
Yeah, it’s only “Canadian Thanksgiving” in contexts where the default assumption is American. Likewise, “American Thanksgiving” in contexts where the default assumption is Canadian.
Mom has been known to call the American one “Pilgrim Thanksgiving”, but I think she’s been doing that less lately.
(We celebrate both, in honor of our American heritage. I don’t know how Canadian-only people are supposed to cope with the fact that one can of pumpkin makes two pies: we get to just make both Thanksgivings’ pumpkin pies at once, keeping the second one in the freezer until it’s time.)
…in my experience one can of pumpkin makes one pie. I don’t know if your cans are larger, your pies smaller, or your recipes more padded with non-pumpkin ingredients, but now I’m curious.
I’ll go look that up.
1. Our spare can of pumpkin is 796mL. According to a grocery-store online catalogue you can also get “pumpkin pie filling” in 540mL cans, but we only buy that by accident.
2. The pie in our freezer is 9 inches in diameter and maybe an inch and a half deep.
3. The can says:
“Pumpkin pie recipe on reverse. Requires: eggs, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground ginger, salt, 175 mL evaporated milk (1 pie) and an unbaked pie shell.
1 can makes 2 pies.”
When I asked Mom for confirmation that we do in fact use the recipe on the can, she said yes, then asked for context (which I gave). She thinks the main difference is the can size, with a side of having to add more ingredients to the plain pumpkin.
“The solution for Americans is we eat 2 pumpkin pies.”
Come to think of it I suppose that *would* work pretty well for groups with more than 2 – 3 pie-eating members (edit: or maybe even just people who aren’t also making chocolate cream pie). Maybe the canned-pumpkin manufacturers size their cans assuming you’re going to invite people over.
Tags:
#food #Thanksgiving #our home and cherished land #home of the brave #reply via reblog
Brinens and Things 