life expectancy, romance, that fatefull night, scabbers
Simon J. Branford
simon.branford at hertford.ox.ac.uk
Sun Oct 22 11:01:29 UTC 2000
No: HPFGUIDX 4379
Neil wrote: "This raises another point, about life expectancy: Do
witches/wizards just live longer or is their life cycle different? As a
Muggle-born witch will Hermione develop differently to the pure-blood or
half blood witches in her year? Are the children grouped by physical age or
chronological age? If it's the latter, won't most of Hermione's classmates
be due for puberty at around 20, instead of 13/14?"
I would guess that puberty still happens at roughly the same age. Even
though human life expectancy has risen quite sharply over the last 100 years
the age that kids go through puberty has remained fairly static. I would
guess that it is the magical medical care that increases life expectancy.
Joywitch wrote: "These are not romances, the books will end when they are
all only 17 years old, and I doubt there will be any time for complicated
romantic pairing and unpairing and all the related angst (thank goodness).
So stop with the Hermione and Harry shipping, already. (Like this is really
going to stop it. Sigh. <g>)"
Penny replied: "Uh, no, it won't stop it because it's one of your list-mom's
favorite topics. And, she's 100% Harry & Hermione shipper. So sorry if
this offends you. Delete the shippy ones if you don't want to read them.
But, I consider the debates ON-topic. I do agree that the books will end
before their ultimate love-lives get resolved. This makes it nice -- I'll
just imagine that it all happens just like in PoU. :--)"
Or maybe Hermione and Ron will get together in the next book and live
happily ever after. Some of the teenage angst and hormonal stuff is even
more difficult to cope with than the adult stuff. It also gives me chance to
think of some even more bizarre pairings, and I have got to think of a very
good pairing to top my Harry/Hedwig one!
Steve wrote: "why Dumbledore doesn't mention the Black/Pettigrew showdown to
McGonagall, especially when Sirius' name is mentioned by Hagrid, even saying
he's going to bring the motorcycle back to him"
There is the possibility that the showdown has not occurred by the time
Dumbledore leaves to go to the Dursley's. At this stage he may suspect that
Sirius is guilty but is waiting for him to be caught before making any
comments. Especially if he thinks saying something will cause Hagrid to go
off and beat Sirius up.
Amanda wrote: "1. Me: even if Scabbers were at Hogwarts with Percy, too, and
thus within the time that Fred and George were using the Map, they'd have
been unlikely to check their dormitory for lurking dangers. They were
checking hallways and offices and such. They didn't have to check for people
who might catch them sneaking around their own rooms."
But there are times when Ron takes Scabbers with him, to lessons and so on.
If Percy did the same, then when he was on patrol as a prefect he would have
Scabbers with him and be more likely to be noticed.
Simon
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