Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Chapters 21-22
Mark True statements with a “T” and False statements with an “F.” Write your thoughts about the discussion points in the comment boxes below! Jump right in…
1. _____ At the Gryffindor party celebrating Harry’s fun with the Hungarian Horntail, Harry opens the Golden Egg to learn the clue he needs to understand for the second task. There are galleons galore and music inside but no clue.
2. _____ Fred and George tell Hermione how to get into the Hogwarts kitchens so she can help the house-elves prepare more food for the party. She finds Dobby and Winky there – and runs to get Harry and Ron.
3. _____ Rita Skeeter comes to Care of Magical Creatures class and asks Harry, Ron, and Hermione for an interview. They turn her down but Hagrid is interviewed for the Daily Prophet exotic pets column that runs every Wednesday.
4. _____ Dobby tells Harry that he and Winky love having Dumbledore as their new master. “We are proud to keep his secrets and our silence for him.”
5. _____ Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that Professor Moody told Winky (before she was given clothes) that Mr. Bagman was a “very bad wizard.” The three friends agree this was probably about his incompetence as a Department head.
6. _____ Harry and Ron fight a play battle with two of Fred and George’s fake wands in the back of Professor McGonagall’s classroom. Ron’s tin parrot bites the head off Harry’s Haddock.
7. _____ Professor McGonagall announces to her class that the Yule Ball will be Christmas at 8 pm – and tells Harry that, as a Tri-Wizard Tournament Champion, he’ll be expected to start the dancing at the Ball with his partner.
8. _____ Harry asks Cho Chang to the ball but he is too late. Cedric Diggory has already asked her so she turns Harry down. Harry remembers that pretty boy Cedric doesn’t “have enough brains to fill an eggcup.”
9. _____ Ron asks Fleur Delacour and she doesn’t even bother to answer him. Ron asks Hermione, having spotted she is a girl, and she turns him down because she already has a date. Hermione’s friends have a hard time believing that.
10. _____ More than half-desperate, Harry asks Parvati Patil to the Yule Ball. She accepts the invitation and agrees to ask her sister Padma to go with Ron.
Discussion Points: The “second” Tri-Wizard Tournament event is celebrating Harry’s survival and preparing for the Yule Ball. Why are Harry and Ron so flummoxed by the need to get dates for the Ball? What mistake do they both make when they ask girls to go with them to the Yule Ball? In the very heart of the central book of the series, what pointers to the outcome of the books in Deathly Hallows are visible?
1-5. All False
6 -10. All True
Happy New Year, Everyone!
Why are Harry and Ron so flummoxed by the need to get dates for the Ball?
Ummm… because they are 14 year old boys and essentially clueless about young women? I suppose one part of the “fantasy” in this magical fantasy epic is that a boy such as Harry, both emotionally needy consequent to his childhood under the stairs (?) and tremendously popular because of his world-saving heroics and Quidditch skills and just for being the Boy Who Lived (public legend and celebrity) hasn’t been swooped upon by the ladies until this ball. Talk about ‘chick magnet.’
What mistake do they both make when they ask girls to go with them to the Yule Ball?
They ask the wrong women, they put off asking for too long, and neither one thinks about his chances before taking the plunge. Both, too, are caught up in a swirl of pheromones, it seems; Ron in just getting too close to a Veela in heat and Harry in his growing feelings for Cho. Don’t shop for food when you’re hungry; don’t look for a date when you’re not in a stable frame of mind.
In the very heart of the central book of the series, what pointers to the outcome of the books in Deathly Hallows are visible?
Ginny with Harry and Ron with Hermione; Ms. Rowling has Professor Trelawney talk about death approaching (right again, and every day she sings a death march) and we read about Harry and a bezoar on page 396, a fact he neglects from his first class but which reinforcement comes in handy.