Snape, Harry vs. V, Fudge, photos, knitting

[Elizabeth Dalton]

No: HPFGUIDX 30996

Heather wrote something that started with:

> I've been turning things over today:

Heather, that was one heck of a post. I'm not sure I follow you all the way to 
the Snape-as-godfather part, but I can certainly see Snape being resentful 
toward James if he'd gone to great lengths and risks to get the word to them in 
time, and then it hadn't done any good. Even if it wasn't really James' fault, I 
could see Snape blaming him, just on general principle and because he needs 
*someone* to blame for his effort coming to naught.

Has anyone ever gotten any info out of JKR (e.g. in an interview) about the 
mysterious 23 hours? Any chance it's just an error? These things do happen, 
after all.

~Cassie~ wrote:

> Voldemort may be been more noble during their first duel, but he is capable 
> of not playing fair. He should that when he tried to kill a seemingly 
> defenseless baby.

I don't think Voldemort was trying to be "fair" or "noble" during their last 
duel. I think he has a leadership problem on his hands. The DEs are muttering 
about his inability to defeat Harry. He needed to give Harry some play to be 
able to point to his (he assumed) defeat of Harry as significant.

And then he lost after all. Not a good day for the Dark Lord.

David responded to a reference to the dwarfs in Lewis' "The Last Battle" by 
saying: "(liberal theologians, I believe)". Erm, I think "hardline athiest" 
would be a more accurate term. But I suppose that's OT.

Mahoney came up with a cool theory explaining Fudge's idiotic behavior, 
involving the imperius curse. I like this idea. And, at the risk of having to 
dodge overripe tomatoes, I'll also suggest that it might not even have been 
Fudge by that point. I don't think we've necessarily seen the last of Polyjuice 
Potion.

Joanne and her kids had some good ideas about the wizard photo vs. painting 
issue. I wonder if carefully hand-made photos could have sound added?

The still-bloodthirsty Cindy remarked:
> On the other hand, Dumbledore vacates his Chocolate Frog card in 
> PS/SS, and Ron observes that it isn't reasonable to expect Dumbledore 
> to hang around forever.  That suggests that the Chocolate Frog 
> pictures aren't ordinary wizarding photos, either.

I don't think so. Harry gets his picture taken with Lockheart against his will 
in CoS, and he's struggling to get out of the picture all the time afterward. It 
might just be more indicative of Dumbledore's quirky personality.

I like Aurora's knitting theory (I'm a weaver, myself), but I find the idea of 
Petunia doing anything as menial (and competent) as knitting completely 
untenable.

I can't believe I'm actually keeping up with the digests....

Elizabeth