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ratheralark

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My thoughts are probably unoriginal. But... darn plot holes...

-Ok, so toward the end of OotP, as Harry is taking his last exam, he falls asleep and has a dream-vision thing, like those he’s been having the entire book. Sirius has apparently been captured and is being tortured in the Department of Mysteries. Unsurprisingly and understandably, Harry thinks this dream is real (since his visions before had been real, like with Mr. Weasley being attacked) and panics and wants to go to London to rescue Sirius. Hermione persuades him to check to be certain, so they break into Umbridge’s office to use the fireplace to check Grimmauld Place for Sirius. Kreacher lies and says Sirius is gone and is in the Department of Mysteries, our heros are caught by Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad, the group overthrows them through various means and prepares to go to London to save Sirius. All of this is fine (except maybe for Harry taking Kreacher’s word instead of double-checking thoroughly, but I’ll give him a pass on that because he’s emotionally charged at the time. I am very un-Gryffindorish and therefore can’t really understand this, but HEY. I’ll give him a pass anyway.)

-The group wonders how they are going to get to London. Thestrals show up while they are in the forest and they decide to ride those. Wait, what? Why is getting to London such a conundrum when they had literally just been in Umbridge’s office using the Floo Network? Why didn’t Harry immediately take the Floo to Grimmauld Place, which is in London, instead of doing the talking head thing? That way, he could have seen for himself that Sirius was gone (or in this case, that he wasn’t gone), and then immediately have been in the same city to go rescue him, and not wasted time, since he would have been far away and Umbridge could therefore not capture him. Even if everything had gone the way it had in the books, up until the point they decide to fly using the thestrals, they could have gone back up to the castle and all used the Floo Network into Grimmauld Place (since Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad were all incapacitated by that point)... and maybe Sirius would have heard them come into his house, come downstairs to see who was there, and then EVERYONE WOULD KNOW HE WAS STILL AT HOME AND NOT ACTUALLY CAPTURED. I just have so much trouble accepting that they didn’t think to use the Floo Network to get to London (near-instantly! instead of flying for hours!) when they were literally just using it. 

-Harry is extremely concerned and wants to get to London as quickly as possible... and they choose to ride thestrals. What?? It takes the Hogwarts Express from 11AM (if I’m not mistaken) to after dark to get from London to Hogwarts. Surely, even if thestrals somehow fly faster than a train, it would still take hours to get from Hogwarts to London. But they still opt for this? While they think Sirius is actively being tortured? WHY? I get that JKR wanted to use the thestrals as a Chekov’s gun/maybe even symbolism or foreshadowing or something but... argh.

-THEY WERE LITERALLY JUST USING THE FLOO NETWORK I DON’T UNDERSTAAAND.

-I know this is a long shot, because Dumbledore seems keen to keep info from Harry, but... this could have all been avoided if he (or Snape or even Sirius, since he seemed to know/guess what was going on with Harry’s visions, as he and Remus insisted Harry keep studying Occlumency) had just simply said “oh hey, we think Voldemort may be aware of this connection between your minds and therefore may plant a false vision to lure you into a trap so keep at the Occlumency and don’t believe that these visions are necessarily true” They didn’t need to tell Harry anything more than that if Dumbledore didn’t want to tell him about the prophecy, etc yet. (I mean... Dumbledore SHOULD have told him more, since this is Harry’s business, but that’s a separate rant.)

-Harry never unwrapped the two-way mirror Sirius gave him. I’m trying to decide whether this is consistent with his character or not. Harry’s very curious, and I would think he would unwrap it and have a look at it, even if he decided to never use it, instead of dismissing the idea without knowing what it was and putting it in his trunk and forgetting about it until it was too late. 

-It’s been years and I’m still salty that JKR wasted such a great character by killing off Sirius to show the cost of war or whatever. Can you imagine how much cooler DH would have been if Sirius was alive and on the run with the trio? GOD I WANT THAT. His death was SO VERY PREVENTABLE and it’s frustrating. I mean, I think it’s MEANT to be upsetting and frustrating because it was presented as preventable but. Salty. Sirius had a sad life and it makes me indescribably upset. And I hate the trope of killing off characters for shock value or to show the cost of war or to rid the hero of his father figures but without any other solid narrative purpose.