[HPforGrownups] PoA Chapters 18-20 Summary

[Susan Hall]

No: HPFGUIDX 21825

Questions:

1. Do you think it was all right that Lupin didn't tell Dumbledore about
Sirius?

In the words of TS Eliot, Lupin's "last temptation was the greatest
treason/to do the right deed for the wrong reason".

Dumbledore might well have turned Sirius in (Dumbledore honestly believed
that Sirius had been the Secret keeper and hence had betrayed Lily and
James.  He only changed his view after the events in the Shrieking Shack.
Had Lupin told him about the Animagi business he probably would have started
a chain of events off that would have been fatal to Sirius (the news that
the Kiss will be performed on Sirius when caught is released later than
Lupin's first suspicions, and Dumbeldore might have assumed that 12 years
after the event the Ministry might be willing to listen to Sirius'
explanation, if any, before he learned that the Kiss was to be performed).

Having said which, it was clearly Lupin's duty as a staff member to mention
it.  I mean, he thought Sirius was a dangerous psychopath with a grudge at
the time.


2. Did you have any suspicions about Scabbers not being a rat? After all, we
already knew that he had been in the Weasley family for quite some time.

None whatsoever.  I don't think I had a clear idea of how long rats were
supposed to live, or if wizarding ones lived longer.

3. What did you think when Harry, Ron and Hermione disarmed Snape? Do you
think
they did the right thing or should they have waited for something actually
to
happen?

It was a wonderful idea.  I cheered .  Especially with Hermione joining in
and *then* getting qualms of conscience.  the only problem was they *all*
did it.  if one had done it Snape would have been disarmed, but conscious,
and the whole rest of the series would have taken a different turn.

4. When did you start to believe Sirius? When you heard that Scabbers was
actually an Animagus or did it take you as long as it took Harry?

At the moment when the cat hopped onto his chest .  This was, I think, a
very subliminal response of "Ah Crookshank.  Crookshank has been *falsely
accused* for the last few chapters.  Black says he's got something to
expalin. Could it be that Crookshanks recognises someone who has also been
falsely accused"


5. When Sirius told them about the night when James and Lily died, he had
tears
in his eyes. Did this scene have some kind of effect on you and deflected a
bit
from the evil wizard he was supposed to be?

It linked back beautifully to Hagrid's "And I comforted the murdering
traitor".  Two very different witnesses whose testimony collides. But by
that time I was sure he couldn't be an evil wizard.

6. Why do you think has Sirius waited so long before he escaped from
Azkaban?
After all, he could have gotten away years ago, since it couldn't have taken
him
twelve years to get thin enough to pass through the bars?

No point until he knows that Pettigrew is alive and still a danger.

7. When Sirius accused Pettigrew of having sold James and Lily to Voldemort,
he
was shaking all over. Why do you think did he have this kind of reaction?

Sheer blind rage.  Not to mention malnutrition, hypothermia, and post
traumatic stress syndrome.  The fact that the man's coherent at this stage
is a minor miracle.

8. We know Lupin as a very kind and calm person. Why do you think was he
almost
as eager to kill Pettigrew as Sirius was?

Once a month Lupin turns into something whose natural instinct is to rip
throats out.  I imagine he's terrified of showing even ordinary annoyance
and irritation the rest of the time, in case the underlying beast gets free.
As a result he is abnormally calm and controlled even when confronted with
overwhelming betrayal (and even, incidentally, when he is on the verge of
changing, when presumably his emotions are running very high).  Sirius has
hot anger, Remus' is cold.  However, when Lupin's anger is triggered I
imagine very little would stop it.  He is a much more frightening person
for this reason, because he does think it through and weigh the consequences

9. Now that you know what happened at the end of Book 4, do you think that
Harry
would have been better off if he would have let Lupin and Black kill
Pettigrew?

No.  "It was Pity that stayed his hand.  Pity and Mercy, not to strike
without need".  On the other hand, if ever a snivelling little worm deserved
it, he did.


10. Did you feel any kind of sympathy for Pettigrew?

See answer to 9 above.


11. When Sirius offers Harry to live with him, Harry immediately says yes.
Now,
we know that there aren't many adults Harry trusts. Why do you think does he
trust Sirius to the point of going to live with him, even though he has
known
him only for about an hour or so?

Anything is better than the Dursleys, I think.

12. Did you think that Harry really saw his father, or the ghost of his
father
across the lake, or did you think someone else must have cast the Patronus?


I think at that moment in time Harry saw either his father's ghost *or*
himself, and it was the use of the time-turner that tipped history one way
rather than the other.  Likewise, from Hagrid's hut they heard either McNair
kill Beaky and Hagrid exclaim in grief or Mcnair hit the fence in anger and
Hagrid sob with joy, and the time turner crystallised one possibility not
the other.  And, of course, if they had happened to have Crookshanks, a
single radium atom, a time-turner and a lead-lined box.......


13. Do you think it was an accident that this Dementor tried to administer
the
Kiss to Harry, or do you think the Dementors aren't as loyal to Fudge as he
would like them to be?

Accident?  What accident?
Dementores non simul canes domesticatos sunt.

Susan