Harry/Sally, fallible Dumbledore, Portkeys, and Wormtail's bravery

[Steve Bates]

No: HPFGUIDX 114

Wow; I am not going down the shore until tomorrow after all; so I can 
take the time to put in my two sickles on a bunch of random topics.  
About "When Harry Met Sally":  didn't the title characters hate each 
other in the beginning, then progress to being friends, then to 
lovers?  Sounds like something that would appeal more to a 
Ron/Hermione shipper than a Harry/Hermione shipper.
About Dumbledore bumbling some of the time:  Just because he is a 
great wizard doesn't mean he is infallible or omniscient.  I mean, 
give the guy a break; how do you expect him to figure out that 
Scabbers was really Peter Pettigrew, who was supposed to be dead, but 
faked his own death and was hiding in the form of a rat for twelve 
years. . . If Dumbledore had jumped to that conclusion earlier, then 
I would really think there was something wrong with him.  And I 
notice that in at least two cases people have cited (Dumbledore being 
tricked to go to London in PS, and Dumbledore not realizing there was 
something strange about Moody in GoF) he *did* realize the truth just 
in time to come in and save the day.  Also, he certainly came up with 
a pretty resourceful way to fix things at the end of PoA.  So I think 
he is as great as his reputation says, just subtle enough that it is 
possible to overlook his accomplishments.
About being able to Portkey into Hogwarts, Voldermort probably needs 
someone on the inside, like Crouch, as it would make sense that the 
Portkey magic would have to be worked at both ends.  But if he 
already has someone in Hogwarts, he won't need to Portkey in: Catch 
22.
Also, while paging through PS today, I came across a section I had 
forgotten about, where Scabbers attacks Goyle on the train to protect 
Ron and Harry.  So that confirms what I said a while back about 
Wormtail having some bravery after all (which would help to make the 
case for his being in Gryffindor).  In addition, I wonder if this 
betrays a sentimental streak that Wormtail has for Harry.  I don't 
doubt that he would be perfectly willing at this point to hand Harry 
over to Voldemort, but I think in PS he betrayed that part of him 
still remembers his friendship with James and he wanted to help Harry 
then because of it.  This aspect of his personality combined with 
owing Harry his life just may help Wormtail reform in the end.