OK, I gotta go back to work tonight, so I'm gonna make this one quick.

Chapter 27: The Lightning-Struck Tower (Original Japanese title: "Draco's Mighty Choke!! The Battle No One Can See!")

So then, Harry and Dumbledore get back from recreating the cover of the book in Voldemort's cave, only to discover that the back cover is being recreated at Hogwarts. Turns out that skull-with-snake image is the Dark Mark, and it's appearing over the castle this very minute, sort of like that giant question mark hologram in "Batman Forever". If that's what Señor Draco has tattooed on his arm, then I'm not terribly impressed. Anyway, the Dark Mark only appears after the Death Eaters go somewhere and kill someone, so Harry and Big Al borrow a couple of brooms from Rosmerta the barmaid and burn straw to get back there. "Burn straw"? Because they're riding brooms? Oh, never mind.

They land in the Astronomy Tower, which is surprising to me, since astronomy is a real subject and not one of these made-up magic courses. Still reeling from the effects of that green poison he had to drink to get the Horcrux, D-Dore tells Harry to fetch Snape, in spite of his protests. But before Harry can even get to the door, he's frozen in place just as someone bursts through the door and disarms D-Dore with a spell. Well, diswands. Whatever.

I should note that Harry's still got his Invisibility Cloak on when this happens, so he's now immobilized and invisible. AGAIN. Harry quickly realizes that it was Dumbledore who froze him, in an attempt to protect him from this intruder, and in doing so the old man left himself open for the attack that robbed him of his wand. And so Harry gets a front row seat as an ailing, defenseless D-Dore is confronted by... Señor Draco.

So the rest of the chapter is the two of them talking. From the course of conversation, we learn that Señor Draco's mission was to find a hole in Hogwarts' security, allowing a contingent of Death Eaters to invade the school and kill Dumbledore. This is why the boy's been so stressed out all year, because this is no small task, and when things weren't going well, he grew desperate and made clumsy attempts on Big Al's life all by himself: The cursed necklace in Chapter 11, and the poisoned wine in Chapter 18. I wrote these off as deliberate diversions, so I guess I was giving the culprit too much credit, although they did do a good job keeping people from noticing Malfoy's actual objective. No one expects an assassin to actually be a saboteur.

But ultimately, Señor Draco was successful. Rather than waste time trying to unravel magical defenses, he chose to repair an entrance which no longer functioned, and would thus not have been considered. I don't think the Vanishing Cabinet was even mentioned up until now (or if it has been, it must have been only briefly), but it's essentially a gateway to a second cabinet in that same store that Señor Draco visited in Chapter Six. Apparently some kid got stuck in the thing in a previous book, and while everyone else was impressed with the tale of how he barely escaped, Señor Draco realized that if the Cabinet were repaired, it could be used to enter the school through its off-campus counterpart. That's why he demanded the shopkeep tell him HOW to fix it, because he couldn't bring the broken one there to let him do it for him.

As to the necklace and the poison, it turns out that Señor Draco's had Rosmerta the barmaid under the Imperius Curse all year, so it was she who gave Katie Bell the necklace, while he got the idea to poison wine from Hermione, whom he overheard mentioning how the staff doesn't notice contraband potions being brought into the school.

In response to all this D-Dore reveals that he's known all along most of what Señor Draco has been up to, save for the exact details, and that the reason he made no overt move to expose him was because he knew that it would mean Voldemort would kill his entire family in reprisal. So he had Snape try to buddy up to him and find out more about his plan. This never succeeded, however, because while Señor Draco trusts Snape as a fellow Death Eater, he never divulged his plans to him, for fear that Snape would take all the credit for himself. And so, without any exact notion of how or when the Death Eaters would make their move, and unwilling to expel Malfoy outright and condemn him to Voldemort's wrath, D-Dore had no choice but to wait him out, until this very moment. Now, as he explains, he has the chance to offer Señor Draco sanctuary from the Death Eaters, so he can free himself and his family from Voldemort's influence. Because as far as Big Al is concerned, Señor Draco doesn't have it in him to commit murder, and the only reason he's gone this far is because he's afraid of what Voldemort might do if he fails.

While this may be a tempting offer, Señor Draco is uncertain, because he's got D-Dore dead to rights. Why switch sides and accept help from someone who can't even help himself right now, when you can just kill him and be a big hero for the bad guys? But as Dumbledore observes, they'd been talking for several minutes now, so if Señor Draco were REALLY gonna do the deed he'd have done it already. Indeed, he even asks him to kill him, if he can. Admittedly, I kind of like this dilemma here. It's kind of like the throne room scene from "Return of the Jedi", only backwards.

The truth is that Señor Draco is waiting for his teammates to show up and join him, probably because they'll make the decision for him. Once they arrive, Dumbledore will die, one way or another, and his offer will be moot, since it wouldn't do any good if they found out Malfoy accepted his aid. But D-Dore took precautions before he left the grounds in the last chapter, and it turns out he's got the Order of the Phoenix keeping watch over the place whenever he's gone, which would be what's keeping the Death Eaters from showing up as soon as Señor Draco had thought.

This is my main beef with the chapter. While it's kind of neat to see these two characters interact, because they never have before in the book so far, the only way this can work is to do what Rowling has done, and have Harry present for their discussion. And to keep Harry from interfering in the drama, he has to be invisible, immobile, and im--uh... he can't say anything. This is all because the books are written from Harry's POV. I wouldn't mind this so much, except for the fact that Harry can only observe one set of events at a time. This is the end of the book, and the climactic battle is going on right now, but we don't get to see any of it because Harry's stuck watching these two talk. Had this Harry-only rule not been in force, we could have flipped back and forth with the action, much like--that's right--the end of "Return of the Jedi". The throne room scene with Luke is dramatic, but it becomes even more so when you transition to Han and Lando in a desperate struggle to blow up the Death Star, totally unaware that their friend is on board the thing. Admittedly, Rowling seems to recognize this, as she spends the next two chapters on Harry finding out what happened, but it falls flat because the suspense is gone. It wasn't just a matter of seeing the Death Eaters fighting the OOP and Harry's friends. It was also a question of if they could hold them off, and if they couldn't, would it be before or after Draco kills Dumbledore.

Still, you get a few descriptions about the sounds coming from the tower stairwell, and Dumbledore's observations about what might be going on downstairs, so it's not totally lost. Still, I feel a bit cheated, so I've taken the trouble to present my own rendition of what was going on in Chapter 27. I was planning to just write out an extended scene, and then I realized it'd be faster if I just drew it. Eatcher heart out, Mary GrandPrè.


Click on the image for a larger size. The art gets worse when you look at it up close. Not pictured are: The Hostess Fruit Pie Magician, those dancers from "Blazing Saddles", Slim Pickens from "Blazing Saddles", the people in the commissary from "Blazing Saddles", the Ultimate Warrior, Hong Kong Phooey, and a herd of elephants. I was gonna draw all that stuff, but I don't wanna.

Anyway, while Bert from Sesame Street, a shark, and Count Dooku were unable to penetrate Hogwarts security, the Death Eaters do manage to get a small contingent to the tower to back up Señor Draco. These are pretty crappy characters for the most part, so I won't go into them. On the upside, Fenrir Greyback is with them. He's the werewolf who likes being a werewolf, as you may recall. I thought he was just allied with the Death Eaters, but this implies that he's actually a card-carrying member. Or maybe he just came along because he knew this'd be some good mayhem. The downside to this is that there's no full moon, so we have to settle for Greyback as just a very sadistic human being. He should try learning that trick Vegeta uses to create artificial moonlight, and then he could be a werewolf whenever he wants, but oh well. As Dumbledore surmises from the sight of blood on his chin, Greyback has become so savage that he craves human flesh even in human form. OK, that's kind of cool, but werewolf mode's still better.

Greyback considers having Dumbledore for dessert, but the Death Eaters remind him that Voldemort's orders were for Señor Draco himself to do the honors, and no one else. Again, the boy hesitates, and before he can come to a decision, Snape blasts through the barricade the Death Eaters used to block the stairs and arrives on the scene. Yeah! Just like when Superman shows up! Only... well, if it were this crappy pale guy in a trenchcoat or whatever he wears. Well, Superman wears black sometimes, and he had long dark hair back in 1994. And he was really pale when he was dead... so really, this is JUST LIKE a big appearance by Superman, if you think about it long enough.

Snape crushes my feeble attempts at hope by not knocking two people's heads together. Instead, he takes charge of the situation, shoving Malfoy to one side and getting all the other Death Eaters to back down. D-Dore weakly calls out his name, which makes me wonder if they were lovers or something. I mean, he DID say he trusted Snape completely, and trust is an important part of any relationship. "Even the werewolf seemed cowed" the book says. This is probably designed to make Snape seem badass, except Greyback's in human form, so I ain't buying it. Call me when you cow barefoot Bruce Willis.

So Snape stares at D-Dore all angrily and stuff, and D-Dore's all "Severus... please...", and Snape kills Dumbledore. Not only does he use that Avada Kedavra spell to do it, but the guy falls off the ledge from the blow, so yeah, I think that's about as dead as it gets for a fictional character.

Below is my artistic rendition of the same scene, along with my reaction. I mistakenly colored Avada Kedavra yellow when the book says it's green, but yellow is better than green anyway.

I also left my Playstation 2 white, which honestly bothers me far more than screwing up Avada Kedavra ever will. Also pictured is "Fusion Reborn" star Gogeta, with a helpful reminder for impressionable children. This is because I refuse to draw HP fanart without throwing a bunch of anime crap in with it. Speaking of which...



RATING: GOOD

A few weaknesses to this chapter, but it served its purposes, and truthfully a big battle wouldn't really fit well with the introspective nature of this book anyway. And Dumbledore's dead, which is always a plus where I'm concerned.

Of course, this has been the big spoiler for this book since the month of its release, and probably before that, I'd suspect. Being that I don't much care, I've known about Dumbledore's death for some time now, so it's not like I didn't see it coming. What interested me more were the circumstances of Snape killing him. From the moment he did that Unbreakable Vow to help Draco on his mission, I had a feeling that killing Dumbledore was something he'd wind up doing in order to keep his promise. The only real issue was whether Dumbledore would end up getting in the way, or if his death was the main objective of the mission itself.

Having read this, it seems pretty clear to me that since both Snape and Dumbledore knew what Señor Draco was out to do, this entire incident was arranged. As D-Dore revealed, he'd taken great pains not to endanger Malfoy, so it makes perfect sense to me that he'd rather sacrifice himself than to have Snape die from breaking the vow, and he'd rather Snape be the one to kill him than for Draco to do it.

This of course, assumes that Snape (and Señor Draco for that matter) is more valuable to Dumbledore's plans than himself. Assuming he had a master plan to deal with Voldemort, it depends more on Snape and Draco than it does on him. The fact that he's never explained any of this to Harry, then, suggests to me that his plans also depend on Harry regarding both Snape and Draco as enemies, even if they're not. But that's just me shooting the breeze.

NEXT: Half-Man, half-blood. All crap.