[HPforGrownups] How Book 5 should start

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 2457


----- Original Message -----
From: <eggplant88 at hotmail.com>
To: <HPforGrownups at egroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2000 11:36 PM
Subject: [HPforGrownups] How Book 5 should start


>
> After Harry's friend is murdered right before his eyes, after being
> threatened with death and stabbed, after being tied to a tombstone
> and tortured so badly he wants to die, poor Harry is suffering from
> something like post traumatic stress disorder. Harry is like a shell
> shocked soldier at the start of book 5. A month after his horrible
> encounter with the dark lord he's at the Durseleys and he's still
> having nightmares, his hand shakes, he's lost a lot weight, he isn't
> sleeping or eating much and he just doesn't look good. His friends
> are worried about him so he spends the last month of the vacation
> with Ron and Hermione at the Weasleys home.

And then he appears on Oprah and Jerry Springer.......

Sorry: your plot synopsis sounds like pop psychology at its most trivial.
Surely part of the point of the otherwise tedious return to the Dursleys is
that the utter banality of their existence helps Harry to regain his
equilibrium, and set his cosmic struggles with his Destiny in a more
humorous (and therefore human) context.  And the beginning of Book Four
shows that the story is not just about Harry anymore......

How about this for a Book Five starter:

Cornelius Fudge appears as the keynote speaker at some very important
official wizardly function.  After praising the accomplishments of the
present administration, he pooh-poohs the recent rumors - including those
spread by a man they might otherwise considered reliable, Albus Dumbeldore -
about the return of the Dark Lord.  As he recites the reasons why Voldy's
return is impossible, Lord V. makes some dramatic demonstration of his
power: the lights go out, things explode, Corny shrinks to a nine-inch
height, etc. One or more of the Weasley family is among the missing. Panic
grips the Wizard world - Harry, ensconced in deepest Suburbia, once more
departs from the Dursley's under conditions of maximum discord to assist
those he loves (hey,  that's how heroes operate - they care about others,
they don't obsess over their little maladies).

    - CMC