Quidditch - Leather Trousers - Sirius' Beard - Ages - More topics

[Catlady]

No: HPFGUIDX 12499

Doreen Rich wrote:
> I dont think that Ron is not a Quidditch Player because he lacks a
> broom. In SS, once Harry is recognized as a valuable Quidditch
> Player, he is sent a broom, with a note attached from Professor
> McGonagall, saying not to open the package at the table. So... did
> she send him the broom? Or did someone else send it to him and I
>  forgot? (I am re-reading SS and have not come across who sent
> Harry the broom, yet)
> If McGonagall did send Harry the broom, she could send Ron one
> as well.

I don't recall SS ever telling us who sent Harry the Nimbus 2000, so I
suspect it was McGonagall with her own money, an act of favoritism that
she wanted plausible deniability for. She sent Harry the broom because
he was not merely a valuable player, but an *essential* one: the team
had no other Seeker: he was the only Seeker Gryffindor had! If Ron was
the only Keeper that Gryffindor had, McGonagall would have seen to it
that he got a broom somehow (maybe by a graduating student giving their
old broomstick to Ron on grounds of getting a newer one as a graduation
present), but Ron is obviously not the ONLY Keeper as long as Oliver is
around, and probably not even the BEST Keeper. The same goes for the
other positions: Gryffindor doesn't have a shortage of Beaters while
Fred and George are on the team, nor a shortage of Chasers while Katie,
Angie, and Alicia are there.

jennifer k wrote:
> oh, I really would like to watch those pictures by ms/mr/mrs
> Starling, I have read so much about them....especially the ones of
> Draco... so is there anyone out there to write the link to her/his
> pictures....? I would be so thankful :)

Last I looked, there was an unbearably irresistible Starling picture of
Draco on Cassandra Claire's author profile page on www.fanfiction.net
-- I'd include the URL, but ffnet seems to be down AGAIN. There are some
at the Paradigm of Uncertainty egroup:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ParadigmOfUncertainty/files/FanArt/

Kimberly Moon wrote:
> Am I the only one who thinks Snape writes sappy poetry in his spare
> time?  Remember his potion portion of the puzzle (alliteration is
> fun!) in SS/PS - the poem accompanying the little bottles?  And this
> bit at the beginning of his first class...

I dunno about Snape writing poetry on a regular basis, but I have formed
a suspicion that he reads Shakespeare aloud to his Slytherins in their
common room (and perhaps other Poetry: they would like Yeats' "Second
Coming") and perhaps requires the older ones to participate in a
Shakespeare reading club.

Amy Z wrote:
> Although against all reason, I picture [Sirius] being clean-shaven
(sure,
> he hasn't had time or breath for a haircut since leaving Azkaban, but
> he hates a scratchy chin, so he does a quick wandless "Depilio!" every

> morning).

Long, long ago -- I think before GoF was released -- there was debate on
e-mail-lists about Why Was Sirius Beardless when he escaped from
Azkaban, a place not well equipped with razors? Someone suggested that
he was at least half Native American and (therefore?) naturally
beardless. My theory was that, back in the good old days when all his
friends were still alive, he awoke one morning beside a pretty young
witch (not an uncommon event), but she complained about his stubble
scratching her, so he (gallantly? humorously?) cast a Beard-Be-Gone
Charm on his face. He hadn't remembered to take it off yet a day or two
later when everything went all to hell.

Gwen lee_hillman wrote:
> JKR interview: She said that Dumbledore is 150, and that
> McGonagall is 70--but did she actually SAY that wizards
> have longer lifespans? I assumed that Dumbledore's advanced age
> has to do with working with Nick Flaumel on the Philospher's
> Stone, not with any natural tendency to live longer.

Yes. She said //Wizards have longer lifespans than Muggles -- Harry
doesn't know that yet.//

She implied that they also age slower, by telling us that McGonagall is
'a sprightly seventy' when everyone has read the description of her with
black hair and so on and assumed she was only 50-ish. I expect that
Molly Weasley could also be 70.

But we still don't know whether 150 is a normal age for a wizard to
still be working at (or still be living at!), as Dumbledore could be
living longer and aging slower than normal wizards. He could have been
sharing Flamel's Elixir as you said -- no more Elixir after end of SS
would explain why he is looking older in GoF. The long lifespan might be
the result of carrying magic inside oneself, and Dumbledore the greatest
wizard carries the most magic and lives the longest. Or he might just
have particularly healthy genes, like that Muggle woman in France who
lived to 123 years old. Him looking older in GoF could be the result of
stress or simply that Harry, growing up, is more observant.

Milz wrote:
> But, I thought Morgana from the Chocolate Frog cards was female. I
> don't have the books with me at this moment, but didn't say he had a
> number of 'her' cards already and gave it to Harry?

I thought Morgana on the Famous Wizards and Witches card is Morgan le
Fay from the story of King Arthur, in which case she is not only female,
but a sexpot.

Jeanne jsommer wrote:
> By the way, aren't there an awful lot of orphans -- perhaps that's
> why no one thought to ask Neville about why he lives with his
> grandmother.

It actually makes sense for there to be so many orphans, because so many
people were killed during the Voldemort years. Some of the people killed
were children or entire families and some were adults who didn't have
young children, but some were adults whose young children were left as
orphans. Also, if there were any couples sentenced to Azkaban who had
children, those children would also need foster families. I wonder if
the wizarding community of Britain has any MoM Department of Children's
Social Services or Family Court, or do they leave it informally up to
relatives and neighbors to volunteer to foster a child?

PS, I never noticed a comparison between Lily and Mrs. Crouch until you
pointed it out.

Ebony wrote:
> Make [Draco] a Scorpio or a Capricorn, *please*.

**I** am a Scorpio (Sun, with Taurus Moon and Capricorn Rising). I
suppose canon Draco could be a Scorpio, but WE'RE NOT COMPLICATED ENOUGH
to be fanon Draco.

> And why does it seem as if JKR and her fans are situating a lot of
these
> birthdays in the spring and the summer?  Is no one born during the
Hogwarts
> school year?

JKR: Hermione, Sept 19, during the school year. Angelina, one week
before the Goblet of Fire drawing right around Halloween, during the
school year.

Fans: speaking for myself, I put Harry, Susan Bones, and the Death Eater
brats all in the same summer because they were conceived right around
the same time. That'll be in installment 5 of my Lilyfic.

Celeste Chang wrote:
> What do you guys think Draco's birthday is then? I thought he was a
> Cancer or a Scorpio... he seems to fit both descriptions. But I
> thought he'd be older than Harry...

**I** think his birthday is June 24, 1980, which is 3 degrees of Cancer,
and one month plus one week older than Harry.

bbennett at j... wrote:
> I realize you guys are having fun figuring this all out, but can you
> imagine what Hermione would think about it? She probably
> ranks star charting as only slightly more reliable than divination

Remember, they study Astronomy for all seven years. Hermione must be
good at star charts even if she doesn't believe that they predict the
future. I assume that the reason for studying so much Astronomy must be
that the positions of planets, moons, and distant galaxies influence the
magical energies of each moment, which could affect spells -- under some
influences, some spells will be less likely to work or more likely to
work or more likely to blow up in your face or just need some adjusting
for the environment.

 "Caius Marcius" <coriolanus wrote:
> the number four in ancient numerology signified the world (i.e., the
> four corners of the earth), and  the number three represented the
> Triune God.  So three times four signifies God's intervention in the
> terrestrial domain (so does three plus four =  hence the multiple
> references to seven in the Revelations:

The number Seven has long been considered a very magical number. I
believe the reason is because there are seven astrological planets --
that is, objects seen with the naked eye to move regularly in the sky.
Granted, it can also be four (the four alchemical Elements) plus three
(past, present, future). Note: I heard an archaeologist lecturer say
that the Babylonian phrase usually translated as 'ruler of the four
corners of the world' might really be 'ruler of the four riverbanks'..

Twelve is the twelve astrological constellations. Granted, the
constellations were invented by people, other cultures make different
constellations out of the same starts, but the reason our Western
Culture chose to have 12 of them along the ecliptic is because of the
average twelve months per year, with 'month' meaning a moon cycle.

In your Bible Study, you would want to remember Seven candlesticks on
the Menorah in the Temple and Twelve sons of Jacob leading to Twelve
tribes.

Stephanie Malfoy wrote:
> My english teacher goes on and on and on about the
> significance of the number 3, and we are about to start Macbeth <vbg>
> Anyways, she looks as it is an evil thing

If she really thinks that the number 3 is an evil thing, ask her if she
means that the Christian Trinity is evil.

Meghan wrote:
> And for some reason I thought you had to have an exact twin core
> to do [Priori Incantatem] in the first place? O.o

No. When wands that have twin cores try to fight each other, they can
make Priori Incantatem instead of what their humans wanted them to do.
But Priori Incantatem is a charm that any mage with a wand can cast on
any wand deliberately. Amos Diggory did PI on the wand that Winky was
holding, to show that it had cast the Dark Mark. The PI in the duel was
many spells in reverse chronological order, but I am not at all sure if
PI as a charm can bring out another spell after it brings out the very
last one cast.

Doreen Rich wrote:
> In SS,  Hagrid tells Harry about the job of the MOM and Harry
> asks, "Why?"
> "Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their
> problems. Nah, we're best left alone." SS-5

That is what Hagrid said, and it probably is what Hagrid was told when
he was young, and it might be what all wizarding young-uns are told, but
I suspect it is only an excuse, and the real reason is that the
wizarding folk are scared of being harmed by jealous/fearful Muggles.
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