Buck Teeth - Pensieve - PWD Students - Owls - Ships -

[Catlady]

No: HPFGUIDX 12137

The great Steve Vander Ark wrote:
> Then does the fact fit in that it took an unusual and slightly
> underhanded situation for Hermione to "fix" her teeth? She wouldn't
> have been able to just ask Pomfrey to change her teeth, but since she
> was in that unexpectedly perfect situation, she went for it. I mean,
> that's a clear example of a spell being available and Hermione not
> using it. I know, I know, her parents wanted her to have braces (for
> the same character reasons, probably) but she could have snuck around
> that, certainly.

Hermione SAID that the reason she hadn't previously fixed her teeth by
magic was because her parents wouldn't allow it because they are
dentists and believe that magic and teeth don't mix. What evidence is
there that Hermione was not telling the truth? Without evidence, why
assert 'she could have snuck around that'?-- maybe she obeyed because
she is a good kid with a lot more respect for her parents than I had for
mine.  Why assert that the parents' motive was to build her character
rather than being convinced that they, as professionals, knew the best
way to fix teeth for long-term health and not getting jaw diseases in
later life? Why assert that the wizarding world has a taboo, that we
have never heard about, against fixing 'minor' problems for the sake of
building character -- look at the Malfoys, Fudge, Bagman -- what makes
you think they CARE about character?

Flying Ford Anglia wrote:
> (2) Curiosity is not a sin ... but we should exercise caution with
our
> curiosity, says message-of-the-day-Dumbledore.  Would Harry find
> something he didn't want to know if he dug too deeply?

I took this as general praise of caution in all circumstances.  For
example, when satisfying your curiosity, take care not to *get caught*
breaking the rules.

Scott wrote:
> > (6) Crouch says to Karkaroff: "you have been brought from
> > Azkaban to give evidence to the Ministry of Magic." So, was
> > this dungeon at the MoM?
> That seems very likely. Does this mean that the Wizarding world
> doesn't have an established court system...

I assume that that dungeon/courtroom was at the MoM building, but that
the MoM building is huge, much bigger inside than out, and contains the
courthouse as well as city hall and the library and the museum and the
police (Auror, Enforcer) headquarters (Department of Magical Law
Enforcement) and the fire department headquarters (Emergency Magical
Service) and the registry office (for quick weddings) and all the other
stuff that makes a Civic Center a Civic Center.

ender wrote:
> I have to disagree here.  I think this is oversimplifying.  The
sonorous
> charm works on the voice itself. Most children who are nonverbal due
to
> neurological disabilities have absolutely no problem with their
voices, but
> instead with the parts of their brain that control their ability to
use language.

First, we were discussing some list member's brother who cannot speak,
but uses language by typing on some adaptive device that requires
electricity to run. That doesn't sound like he's non-verbal or unable to
use language. However, I don't deny that the problem might be in the
parts of the brain that control the voice rather than in mouth or
throat. However, just because the problem is in the brain doesn't mean
it can't be cured by a spell on the mouth.

Someone (was it Steve Van der Ark? Jim Flanagan?) long ago wrote about
magic producing results according to Intention.  His example was the
Skele-Grow Potion, which was intended to regrow the missing bone from
Harry's arm and that is what it did, unlike a Muggle drug which would
have caused every bone of his body to to start growing unnecessary and
harmful bone spurs or tumors. The same way, the variant of the Sonorus
charm would work its effect wherever it was needed to achieve the
Intended result, despite being cast on the mouth or throat because that
tells the magic what result is wanted.

> Besides, I'd like to think that if a child has a disability that can
> be fixed or changed by magic, it would be done in the early years
> by  trained medical wizards.

For wizard-born children, I certainly agree with you! But for
Muggle-born witch and wizard children, do you mean that medimages should
Apparate into the neonatal nursery to cast spells on the children?

Meredith Wilson <aviationoutreachcoord at m...> wrote:
> why then in PoA did nobody ever send an owl to
> Sirius and just follow it on broomstick to find his whereabouts?

There must be some reason why NO ONE can follow an owl letter-carrier
even if the recipient ISN'T in hiding. I like to think that owls fly
'between' like Pern dragons (i.e. they go to their destination through
an alternate dimension), but I have to think up a reason the owls can be
seen passing overhead. Maybe they flick in and out of 'between'. At any
rate, they flick out of 'between' before coming in for landing, because
Sirius told Harry to use a different owl for each post to him, lest
someone see the same owl arriving all the time and get suspicious.

Having noticed your edress, were you planning to follow an owl to Sirius
in a light plane?

Meredith Wilson wrote:
> Ebony wrote:
> > 1)  Stealth owls.  These owls are invisible in flight...
> > ** bird and post only ** appear to sender and recipient.
> That would show how Sirius could possibly send an owl to Harry
> without being seen although the Firebolt came by regular owl(s),
> but there's no reason to send a stealth owl  _to_  him.

The reason to send a stealth owl TO Sirius (altho' I don't believe in
stealth owls) is so that no one can find Sirius's hiding place by
watching to see where the owl lands.

The Firebolt came from Sirius only in the sense that he paid for it --
physically, it came from Quality Quidditch or the Firebolt factory.
Finding out where the six delivery owls came from wouldn't have been a
clue to Sirius's hiding place.

Mo wrote:
> I was a kid when Star Wars came out.  We all thought Luke and
> Leia were the perfect couple.  Really there was nothing to base it on
> except HGTG.

Star Wars was deliberately made of archetypes. It is an archetype that
siblings have a special rapport, even if they were separated at birth.
Therefore, it is part of the archetype that a boy and a girl who don't
know that they are siblings will feel the rapport without understanding
the reason and therefore think that they are falling in love. The
expectation wasn't based on nothing, it was based on the actors having
successfully portrayed rapport.

The alleged rapport between siblings could be based either on
metaphysical reasons like they have the same ancestral spirits looking
after them, or on scientific reductionist reasons like they have
similarities in those of their personality traits that are genetic, or
they smell like family -- that sounds ridiculous, but you know how a dog
can recognize people by smell? The unique individual smell comes from a
combination of genes, so siblings would have a lot of the same genes
and  would smell similar, and there has been research on rats showing
that rats attack unrelated rats but tolerate their siblings because they
recognize the familiar smell.
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