Too many, let's simply say "Varia"

[pigwidgeon37 at yahoo.it]

No: HPFGUIDX 20885

1) hallo and thanks to all the newcomers who have outed themselves as 
such, so I don't feel quite so stupid because of repeating things 
that supposedly have already been said over and over again.

2) Sirius' wand: There is a bit of a logical problem with this: 
Remember that, when Wormtail escapes, he has to grab Ron's wand to 
transform himself back into a human? So, does one need a wand to 
transform or is it necessary for some and for others not? Because it 
is said more than once that Pettigrew was the least talented of the 
Marauders' group, so maybe he needed a wand to help him transform, 
and Sirius, James and McGonagall don't.

Which brings me to 

3): Do you agree that, the more your magical skills are advanced, the 
less you need to talk when doing magic? When Dumbledore does magic, 
he nearly never has to actually say the words and it's the same for 
most of the grown-up wizards.

4) Tom Riddle/Voldemort: I suppose we all can agree that Tom Riddle 
killed his father and his father's parents with the Avada Kedavra 
Curse, as at the beginning of GoF it is clearly stated the police had 
to release Frank Bryce, as the three Riddles had "neither been shot, 
nor strangled nor poisoned nor strangled to death, and in fact seemed 
to enjoy excellent health, apart from the fact that they were dead". 
They were completely unmarked and just had that look of terror on 
their faces. (When Moody demostrates the curse on the spiders, the 
fact of their being unmarked is particularly stressed, same goes for 
Cedric Diggory). So far, so good. BUT: Combining the time lines of 
CoS and GoF, we know that fifty years ago 1) Tom Riddle opened the 
Chamber and 2) killed his father+ family. BIG question: If Riddle had 
been brought up in a Muggle orphanage until the age of 11, how on 
earth was he able to perform the Avada Kedavra Curse at 13??? Moody 
himself says to his 4th- years: "You could all point your wands at me 
and pronounce the words and I doubt I would get as much as a 
nosebleed". Voldemort is the legitimate heir of Slytherin, I'll give 
you that, but was he really so powerful at the age of 13 to be able 
to do the curse? I'm very curious to read your thoughts.

5) In the light of the deplorable message about Cho and Harry, I just 
wonder how anybody with an even slightly racistic attitude can like 
any of the HP books: It starts in CoS and gets extremely outspoken in 
GoF: There is an anti-racist, anti-discrimination, I'd even say anti-
nazi message that hopefully, as it's so well conferred to the reader, 
will have more effects than many more obvious pedagogic efforts. I 
don't know whether this has already been discussed, it might also be 
my combined austro-jewish sensibility that made me notice: Has 
anybody already underlined the strong ressemblance between the Death 
Eaters' "fun" with Muggles at the Quidditch World Cup and anti- 
jewish pogromes? Did you notice that the trials Harry witnesses after 
falling into the pensieve, bear a strong ressemblance with the 
Nurenberg processes? This aspect of JKR's writing struck me very much.

6) About book 5: IMO, there are clues that JKR herself gives us in 
PoA and in GoF: In PoA, Dumbledore says to Harry that saving the life 
of another wizard creates a very strong bond between saver and saved. 
And that Voldemort would not like to have a devoted servant- 
Wormtail- who's got that kind of debt with Harry. To me, this seems a 
clue for a big conflict that might arise in OoP- how long will 
Wormtail remain faithful to the Dark Lord and to which lengths will 
he go against Harry? Second clue: When, at the end of GoF, Harry has 
to tell Dumbledore all over again, he of course mentions that 
Wormtail took his blood. And for just a brief moment, he thinks "to 
see a look of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes" but then convinces 
himself he was wrong. I can#t imagine what that means, but am sure it 
is a clue for OoP.

Well, I think that'll be all for today, please tell me what you think 
about it.

Susanna