Figg/Cats - Priori Incantatem sequence - Sirius questions - Creature Curriculum

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 24527

Becky wrote

> Mrs Figg is also absurdly fond of her cats. 

Mrs. Figg is quite reasonably and appropriately fond of her cats IMHO. 

lou lou san wrote:

> Hello, having just found this group, I was 
> hoping to find out others opinions on:

Tell me if you find it offensive when I mention past posts and the
Lexicon in my following answers, please? The Lexicon is
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/index.html and is a FABULOUS
resource.

> The prior incantantem at the end of GoF, the order 
> of Lily and Jamaes doesn't seem to make sense.

JKR agrees with you that having James come out of the wand before Lily
didn't make sense, as she had it changed after the ninth US printing and
twelfth UK printing to having Lily come out before James. I believe it
was better written the first way, and members of this group came up with
lovely explanations of why there was this apparent contradiction to the
spells coming out in reverse order of being cast, including but not
limited to:
     1) Harry's strong will, strong magic power, and strong desire to
see his father warped the normal order.
     2) That wasn't really James who came out, it was Harry himself
(Harry already mistook himself for James in PoA in Patronus scene) and
represented the killing curse that Voldemort cast on Harry that
rebounded on Voldemort. If the connection had continued one spell
longer, the real shadow of James would have come out.
     3) Lily really was killed before James. The voice that Harry
remembered hearing shout "Take Harry and run!" wasn't really James, it
was James's father, Harry's grandfather, who was there helping guard
Harry.
     There is a FAQ somewhere explaining all this, but I don't remember
where. Even if JKR did write James before Lily as a mistake rather than
as a hint, she could have adopted one of our explanations rather than
changing text between printings.

> Who is Arabella figg? Are the witch referred to 
> by Dumbledore as part of the 'old crowd' and Harry's
> neighbour the same person? 

Arabella Figg is Mrs. Figg. Post #24497 from earlier today said: << This
isn't just jumping to conclusions. JKR stated it specifically in the
Blue Peter show interview.
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/figg.html >>

> What happened to Buckbeak near the end of GoF? 
> Sirius is in the school and takes dog form to 
> Lupin's so where does he fit into it all?

> Why did Sirius have to hang around as a stray 
> near Hogsmeade rather than hiding out with
> someone who lived there (possibly a convinently 
> moved Lupin, financed by Sirius)

> Is there any continuing resentment between Lupin
> and Black regarding them each thinking the other
> had betrayed James and Lily?  There initial embrace
> indicates not, but if so, why didn't they get in 
> touch during GoF?

Three good questions with no canon answers yet. I speculate that Lupin
was sent on some mission by Dumbledore that had him out of Britain for
the whole school year of GoF, thus accounting for his absence from GoF
and Sirius's lack of contact with him.

As for whether there is resentment between Sirius and Remus over each
having thought the other a traitor, I want to write a fanfic about it.
In which Sirius and Remus at that time were (secretly) lovers and (not
secretly) living together, and when James and Sirius very reluctantly
came to suspect Remus (in my fic, because some of the info that had been
handed over was info they thought was known only to themselves and
Remus, not remembering that Peter had hanging around while they told
Remus about), Sirius went through this big emotional crisis thing of HOW
is it he can sleep beside me, be embraced in my arms, without showing
any sign that he is planning to kill all of us? I thought I knew him
completely, but I was wrong, do I in fact actually know him at all? and
forcing himself to put on an act of feeling the same way he always did,
to avoid letting the spy know that he suspected ... altho' a certain
amount of worry and absent-mindedness would have been attributed by
Remus to Sirius's burden of being Secret Keeper. 
     And after That Night (Halloween 1981), Remus gets to spend 12 years
not only without the only friends he ever had, but brooding over how
could he have been so very deceived about the person he loved --
torturing himself with memories of some last kiss, and trying to
understand how he hadn't realised at the time that Sirius was going off
to betray everything they had ever believed in.... He must come around
each time to thinking that Sirius hadn't INTENDED treason, had 'merely'
been careless, allowed himself to be captured, somehow not resisted
Imperius ... and then scolded himself viciously each time for believing
in pleasant fantasies... 

> Are there any heavily supported rumours about the next 
> book, other than Lupin being in it and it being called 
> Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?

Rumors: We will find out why Mrs. Figg has all those cats. We will find
out whether Percy is going to turn evil. Harry will go to a magical
place which the readers have heard of but never seen before. [Guesses as
to what that place is include St. Mungo's, Azkaban, the chamberpot room
at Hogwarts, Egypt where Bill Weasley works as a cursebreaker.] Rumor:
We will learn the magic properties of a room at Hogwarts whose existence
but not whose magic we already know about. [Guesses as to which room
include: the chamberpot room, the prefects' bathroom (and that its magic
is that boys and girls can bathe at the same time without seeing each
other), and the small room next to the Great Hall with the portraits of
deceased Headmasters.] Rumor: A beloved character will die. I'm very
much afraid it will be Remus, who is MUCH beloved by me and other women
with good taste.

Mindy wrote:

> Oddly enough, the DADA teachers seem to be teaching a 
> lot about creatures  -- grindlylows, pixies, and such.
> Doesnt that rather belong to the Magical Creatures dept.?

You are right that FABULOUS BEASTS treats all those critters as Magical
Creatures, not as a separate category of Dark Creatures. I can
understand that they aren't in CARE OF magical creatures, as people
don't want to CARE for them. I understand why they are covered in a
class named DEFENSE but not AGAINST DARK ARTS.
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