1) Chapter Four Spoiler / Later Chapter Spoiler

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "ER" <ression at h...> wrote:
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:
> 
> > OK, hands up anyone who checked whether or not the street name in
> > the title of Chapter Four really exists?
> > Actually, scratch that. Hands up anyone who has somewhere to
> > check but has NOT checked whether or not it exists? 
> 
> I just, instantly, assumed it was one of JK's puns and didn't
> bother checking :))

I instantly assumed that Grimmauld was a made-up name, but my first 
thought was she had named it after some Grimaldi of history or 
fiction, and I thought: "Surely not the royal family of Monaco? Was 
there an 18th or 19th century stage magician with stage name 
Grimaldi?" It wasn't until the next chapter that I realised it was 
a pun (Grim Old Place), to which Pippin replied that that is a pun 
on the Grim.

Terry James wrote:

<< re Neville seeing monsters in the forest that no one else could 
see. Has anybody found if that is a valid reference, >>

Is that a reference to Harry, Neville, Luna, and a stringy Slytherin 
boy (Blaise Zabini? Theodore Nott?) being able to see the threstrals? 
They can be seen only by people who have seen death, and Neville saw 
his grandfather die.

There is no implication that Neville's gaffer's death was a terrible 
tragedy; probably he died relatively peaceably of old age at 
with his family around him, maybe even uttering some precious last 
words like: "I'll always remember you." But if dying at home was the 
wizarding standard custom, I'd think more of the kids would have 
seen a grand-, great-grand-, or great-great-grand-parent or aunt or 
uncle die.

Incidentally, this has GOT to be PROOF that the Muggle edition of 
Fabulous Beasts is very much abridged. Thestrals are in FB under 
Winged Horses. Winged Horses get one short paragraph in the Muggle 
edition, and Threstrals get only half a sentence: "and the rare 
Threstral (black, possessed of the power of invisibility, and 
considered unlucky by some wizards)." I figure JKR couldn't tell us 
that they're skeletal, scaley, bat-winged, and seen only by those 
who've seen death, or we'd say "Oh, them" when Harry first saw them. 
I admit to thinking "what are those? they look like the moon horses 
at Dark Moon in the austringer's tale in The Door Into series; the 
word threstal is floating in my mind: I wish I had my FB with me to 
look it up."