Philosopher's Stone-Lethal White connections, Part 3: The adventure begins with nightmares, open-sky ceilings and lots of corridors.

This section picks up with Chapter 6 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, "The Journey from Platform 9 3/4," and Chapter 12 in Lethal White. In the last installment of this series, I reviewed the similarities between Harry's trip to Diagon Alley and Strike's visit to Pratt's. What struck me in this section is how similar Harry's first view of Hogwarts is to Robin's first visit to the House of Commons.

It starts with a bit of domestic tension for both our protagonists. The Dursleys, of course, are furious that Harry is going to Hogwarts; Matthew is equally angry that Robin is going undercover in Parliament, considering it tantamount to treason. Both Harry and Robin wind up isolating themselves in their bedrooms as they prepare, Robin by practicing her disguise and reviewing Chiswell family trivia with Strike, and Harry by perusing his books. Both approach the big day with a combination of excitement and nerves. Robin has two panic attacks on her first day; Harry also gets a little panicky, first when he can't find Platform 9 3/4; second when he is thinking he would have to do magic for the Sorting. And, just as Robin awoke with a nightmare on her first day at Parliament, Harry awoke with a nightmare on his first night at Hogwarts. 

For both Robin and Harry, the new location comes with a celebration of escaping the humdrums of their previous lives. As the Hogwarts Express leaves Kings Cross, Harry muses that he "didn't know what he was going to, but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind." Similarly, Robin is excited to "leave the tourists behind" and go through the restricted line that will take her into the private offices of MPs. Later, making instant coffee in Izzy's office, she thinks of the many office jobs she has had before and is "suddenly extraordinarily grateful to have escaped that life forever." This undercover position in the House of Commons is her most important detective assignment to date. We'll be able to see its significance to her five years later, when the Parliament building is commemorated on Strike's Christmas gift charm bracelet. 

After leaving the Hogwarts Express, Harry follows Hagrid down a path that was "so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there."  He then travels by boat across the "smooth as glass" lake to the Hogwarts castle, which makes all the first-year students gasp in amazement. Then, the boats take them through a plant-covered tunnel into a harbor alongside the castle itself. Once inside, the students are led into the Great Hall, with its ceiling that looks like it is open to the night sky. Robin is similarly impressed with the "air of comfortable grandeur" of Westminster Palace, which reminds her of an "old university college." She decides to explore the buildings and takes an "half-uncovered passageway" guarded by very Hogwartsian stone lion and unicorn statues to an escalator that leads to the "crystal palace" of Portcullis House. This building echoes the Great Hall with the sky visible through its glass roof, the path to the lake with its open plan area "flanked by full-grown trees" and the Black Lake itself with its water features that look like "dazzling strips of quicksilver." 

Harry also discovers he must climb a lot of staircases to get to his dormitory, and, once classes begin, he has to learn to navigate a lot of confusing corridors and staircases to find his way to them. Similarly, Robin, after passing through the metal detector and getting her badge, must follow Izzy (who is a bit Hermioniesque with her "disheveled" hair and her rapid chatter) through "labyrinthine" halls and "bewildering" corridors to get to their office. Finally, both Harry and Robin almost immediately encounter someone who seems to instantly dislike them for no reason: Snape at the opening feast and Aamir when Robin first meets him in the hallway. 

I'm tempted to draw a comparison between the frog-like Geraint Winn and Trevor the Toad, but that seems awfully unfair to a fine animal like Trevor. I did think of Fluffy when Robin described the angry Matthew as looking like a snarling dog with a muzzle. And, Jack O'Kent, as described by Dawn Clancy and, later, Raff, seems to be a good match for Argus Filch. 

The last comparison I'm going to make here is between Harry in Chapter 7, "The Sorting Hat" and Robin in LW Chapter 18, a relatively short chapter in which Robin takes a call from Strike outside to avoid a fight with Matthew, lying to him and saying it is Vanessa. Both Harry and Robin clearly feel their insecurity and their outsider status in these scenes. While awaiting the Sorting, Harry is feeling like he won't fit in at any of the Hogwarts Houses, and imagines the Sorting Hat not placing him anywhere, McGonagall deciding there has been a mistake and sending him home. Robin, of course, is already feeling alienated in her marriage, given that Matthew is still hostile about her job at the House of Commons. Usually, talking to Strike cheers her up, but this time, he inadvertently makes her feel inadequate by both dismissing what she has learned about Verity Pullam, Rhiannon Winn and the fencing team (which will turn out to be important as part of the story about Winn's grudge against Chiswell) and by praising Barclay's swift infiltration of CORE with his "Barclay's doing good work, though" line. The next morning, setting out early in hopes of planting the bug, Robin again echoes Harry's thought on the Hogwarts express, "as she forced her thoughts back on the day ahead, and not on the man she had left behind. 

On the next installment, I'll look through the remainder of Harry's introduction to Hogwarts, up until the Halloween troll encounter, and the rest of "Venetia's" undercover mission.