Many replies

[Catlady]

No: HPFGUIDX 9172

Belated Happy Birthday, Heidi.

The next one is off-topic and not a reply: the high-rise office building
(new, boasted, expensive) that I work in caught fire yesterday. What I
know from being there is that the fire alarm went off, everyone
evacuated the building, we stood outside in the rain for two-some hours,
at first watching black smoke issue from the roof and many many many
fire trucks arrive, and then watching there be no more smoke, and at the
time that they finally let us back in the building, they also let us go
home early for the three-day weekend.

The rest of my knowledge comes from KFWB newsradio  (I remembered to
bring my Walkclone with me when I exited, altho' not my jacket and
umbrella) (www.kfwb.com local headlines) which said the fire was on the
27th floor and burned up the microwave communication equipment that we
use for computer networks with far-flung sites and vehicles.

It is a 26-story building, and the so-called 27th floor is shown on maps
as 'mechanical area' altho' I admit it is underneath the helipad.
Speaking of the helipad, when the building was new and the stairwells
were not yet fixed to set off fire alarms, my friend Jim made me walk up
to the roof with him and see the view, which on a clear day is like 100
miles in each direction.

Back to topic.

milz wrote: I always got the impression that Avery was one of them too.

Is one of them Death Eaters, or Longbottom torturers? He was in the
graveyard DE circle (he was the one who, consumed with guilt/fear over
his disloyalty, broke the circle to fling himself at V's feet grovelling
apologies, for which V gave him Cruciatis). This shows that he was a DE
but not (at least, no longer) in Azkaban with the Lestranges. The things
JKR does with names, I have been thinking that 'Avery' was chosen to
sound like 'avarice', so I gave him the front names Cassius Richmond
(Cash Rich) which  makes the initials C. R. Avery, which is like
'crave', but then I thought of 'aviary' -- the meaning of 'avery' would
be quite different if the front name was Birdie.

Storm wrote the character summary of Lucius.

> Name: Lucius - 'Lucifer', also suggests to me light (from Latin, Lux)
which would seem, if intended, to be ironic.

As people have pointed out,  'Lucifer' also from 'lux', because it means
light-bearer (the same way that a nuciferous tree bears nuts).
Light-bearer / Lucifer was a Latin name for the Morning Star (the world
is full of cosmologies in which the Morning Star brings the day rather
than merely signalling it), and was applied to the God of Evil (itself a
concept borrowed from Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Persians
who conquered Babylon and let the Judaeans go home) based on the theory
that IIRC Isaiah's verse "Oh, Morning Star, how thou hast fallen"
referred to the God of Evil being a Fallen Angel, when actually it
referred to the Emperor of Babylon being defeated by the Persians --
Morning Star was a poetic term of flattery which his courtiers had
called him.

There are Web pages out there claiming that the full name of the Emperor
Severus was Lucius Septimus Severus, which would be a Clue of some kind
if we met another DE named Septimus, and claiming that King Arthur
warred with Emperor Lucius of Rome.

> Good Qualities - None (I haven't even come across any fan-fiction
writers who   have been able to invent any - maybe I'm not widely enough
read <g>)

It seems to be generally agreed that he is an elegant dresser, and
various people have also assigned him skill at fencing, horse riding,
and Quidditch playing (that last in his younger days).

> 1. Does Lucius have any good qualities?

It is possible that he loves his child (in his own twisted way) and that
he and his wife are each other's best friends, with the same values and
goals and sense of humor.

> 2. What does Lucius want? - to be Voldemort's lieutenant or to be
Voldemort?

To use V's power to gain his own ends, which have a lot to do with
beating up on people and being fawned on.

>  4. What does Lucius do with his days? Surely plotting to overthrow
the world as we know it can only fill in so much time.

Possibly managing the Malfoy family fortune (investing the money part
and collecting rents for the land part and even being CEO of
family-owned businesses located on the land) is a full-time job.

> 5. Did Snape and Malfoy ever have a fling?

Read my latest story in this egroup's files/fanfic/fanfic by catlady for
the answer.

Amy Z wrote: Here's the problem: Ginny says flat out that she can
remember when Bill went to Hogwarts: "I've looked forward to coming to
Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave . . ." (CoS
323 in US ed, chapter 17).

My best theory on this is it is a typo (like the scene in GoF where
Fudge is speaking, but one place says 'Crouch' instead of 'Fudge'): she
really SAID: ever since PERCY came.

Amanda wrote:  It must [magic], for a guy to willingly undergo the nine
months of total discomfort, shapelessness, sleeplessness, sickness, and
self-image erosion we call the joy of pregnancy....

Who said he was WILLING?
Do you think the wizarding folk have magic to reduce (even eliminate)
the discomfort, sleeplessness, and sickness? That they have magic to go
through pregnancy looking like Demi Moore? Or that they scrupulously
avoid all such magic on the theory that it would harm the fetus?

<dherreid at c...> wrote: Why was Snape so startled when Harry told
Cornelius Fudge that Lucius Malfoy was a death eater?

In my story, Snape had managed to fool himself into believing Lucius's
claim of having been bewitched by V and therefore was shocked to learn
that Lucius is still a loyal DE.

Dinah wrote: Although I had already thought of a Colin/Ginny pairing I
just think they wouldn't get to see much of Harry because he'd be
running screaming out of the room.

OTOH, Harry might be so pleased to see them with their faces glued
together instead of pestering HIM, that he'd give them a really
expensive engagement present, like a trip to Hawaii.

Amy Z wrote: I think it's the other way around, for the most part.
Muggles have found all sorts of ways to cope with the inability to do
magic. This is not only funny and more sympathetic to the wizarding
world, but it fits with the way history has really gone.

In my universe, that was true for centuries (e.g. my theory on the hot
and cold running water and flush toilets at Hogwarts is that the
wizarding folk have had modern plumbing since Atlantis, and the Minoans,
Romans, and Thomas Crapper were all just trying to imitate what they had
seen as guests in wizarding houses), but at some point the Muggles got
ahead in the invention race, and since then the wizarding folk have been
imitating *us*.

There's room for a lot of discussion over *when* the Muggles got ahead
on inventions. I have a conspiracy theorist friend who claims that all
technology from the invention of the transistor on was not invented by
humans, but rather copied from the UFOs at Area 51. He refuses to
believe my explanations that copying electronic devices from broken
'black boxes' that one has found is Much Harder than inventing an
electronic science and technology by starting by discovering the basic
principles.... But I suppose an anti-Muggle theorist could claim that it
was only because of help from UFOs that Muggles got to inventing faster
than wizard folks.

In particular, telephones: JKR hasn't shown us any way for wizard folk
to speak at a distance, other than physically sticking their head up out
of a fire. Many fanfic writers (I among them) have found a need to
invent some magical version of a telephone for our plots to work....

Angela wrote: My Muggle job is answering customer service calls for
Canada's premiere satellite TV service. On days like today, where I'm
taking calls from customers who couldn't aim a satellite dish if their
life depended on it, sometimes I think technology has become too
available. They seem to think I have some magic Alignment Powder hanging
around!

The wizarding world has enough people who aren't very good at doing
their magic for KWIKSPEL to be profitable. To whom do wizards and
witches call for customer service?
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