Grindel - R&S anger - Letters - SS liking AD - Ginny crush - R/H friendship

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 20970

David wrote:

>My personal favourite theory is that Defeat The Dark Wizard
>Grindelwald is a popular contest run annually by the Daily Prophet
>(who sponsor the Chocolate Frog cards).  Dumbledore won in 1945 and
>it has nothing more to do with anything in the story.

LSHIGAPIMS!  (Laughed So Hard I Got A Pain In My Side)

David also wrote:

>Lupin's behaviour to Snape is one of the (many) minor puzzles of 
>PoA:  he goes out of his way to praise Snape to Harry (compare 
>Hagrid's embarrasment in PS/SS and amusement in GOF) and seems not to 
>have the intense loathing that Sirius has.  Either Lupin has accepted 
>his experiences at Hogwarts better than Sirius has, or their 
>experiences of Snape were different in the first place.

Their initial experiences with Snape may have been different, and 
their subsequent experiences certainly have been (Lupin's clearly had 
a tough 15 years, but nothing remotely as tough as Azkaban--great 
place to stew about old grudges), but more than these things, I'm 
inclined to put it down to basic personality differences.  Lupin is 
just a milder, gentler person than Sirius generally, and I think his 
approach to someone who's trying to make life hard for him is to be 
polite and friendly, not put up his dukes.  He isn't a saint (he's not 
above making a joke at Snape's expense, e.g.); he's just trying to 
make a bad situation easier for himself.  Ever work with a colleague 
who didn't want you to be hired and hates you?  Sirius probably would 
have challenged Snape to a duel by day two.  That just isn't Lupin's 
way of doing things; it shows in the simplest things, like his 
defusing Malfoy with "Is there a problem?" instead of "You!  Boy!  Get 
in that castle and stop making trouble!"  (That would be Snape's 
approach.  I'm not sure what Sirius's would be--Sirius as 
disciplinarian evokes Moodylike images of turning students into newts. 
 That's the Dursleys' fantasy of how he'd deal with =them=, and we 
know he's really good at Transfiguration...)  This personality 
difference between Remus and Sirius might be attributed to Azkaban or 
it might always have been there.

Emma wrote:

>One has to wonder what dear Remus was thinking when all of this went 
>down. 

I could analyze our favorite werewolf 'til doomsday too, so I'll take 
this opportunity.  I think survivor guilt applies to Remus too.  He 
lost all of them in the space of two days--James and Lily, Peter, 
Sirius, and for all intents and purposes Harry, assuming he cared 
about keeping that connection--all because he hadn't seen clearly 
enough to realize Sirius was a DE.  That must really be torturing him 
all those years, especially since he could go over and over all he 
knew about Sirius and still not see what he missed, since there was 
nothing to see.

Magda wrote:

>Sirius (still clueless after twenty years)

Hark, I hear a filk.  "I met my old schoolmate on the street last 
night . . . "

I think you're a little hard on Sirius, but I'm tired and someone else 
will no doubt go to bat for him.  I'd just say that he says the "he 
deserved it" under extreme stress and that no one can be fairly 
expected to come out of Azkaban without bitterness and vindictiveness. 
 

Someone wrote (sorry):

> Would it have come on my 11th birthday (the 16th of October) and 
then
> I would wait until September the next year before I went to 
Hogwarts.
> Or would the letter arrive in the summer just before September. 
Please
> tell me what you think, this one kept me up last night

Rachel wrote:

>I think actually it would arrive in the July AFTER your eleventh 
birthday.

That seems like it would introduce a very long delay, though.  The 
magic quill knows exactly when you are born, which allows McGonagall 
to write to people who aren't 11 when the owls go out but will be 
before September 1--Harry, for example.  Why not do this with people 
born later still than Harry?  If the cutoff date is January 1, as it 
is in many US schools (it varies from town to town), then Harry 
wouldn't be particularly young--he'd be in about the middle of his 
schoolmates--and owls would have to go out to people who aren't going 
to be 11 until well into their first year.  No matter how you manage a 
system, there will always be some students in a grade who are almost a 
year older than some other students.  Simple math.

Maybe the quill (or whatever decides when to send the owls) measures 
emotional and magical readiness, too, like parents who can choose to 
make their kids on the young or old side for their grade?

Good luck with your NEWTs.

Lilith wrote:

>If Albus got a couple of Viagra boxes somewhere I see no 
>actual resons to why they couldn't have a cosy time together...

Who needs Viagra when he has Skelegro?  (This sick little thought is 
not original with me, drat it.  See msg. #20371 for the genius of 
Robert Carnegie.)

Re: whether Snape likes (rather than loves and/or trusts) Dumbledore, 
I agree that Snape probably hates being beholden to anyone, but I 
think there are other reasons he might not "like" Dumbledore.  He 
doesn't share his sense of humor; he disagrees with his methods of 
discipline; I doubt he thinks it appropriate to choose something as 
trivial as sweets for the password to someplace as important as the 
Hogwarts Headmaster's Office.  But you can greatly admire, love, 
trust, respect, etc. someone whom you don't particularly like, IMO.  
It might go the other way, too; Snape is not very likeable, even by 
someone as easygoing as Dumbledore, but he commands great respect and 
admiration from his colleagues, including Dumbledore.

Barbara wrote:

>I think the only real problem with a Harry/Cho relationship (not
>race, not age) is the fact that he simply saw her from afar and was
>smitten.

Ebony wrote:

>What's wrong with that?  Ginny saw Harry from afar and was 
smitten--yet 
>people defend her crush all the time.

You are right on about the date-and-see-if-you're-suited approach, but 
I just want to defend Ginny defenders here by pointing out that 
Ginny's crush may have started from afar, but she and Harry aren't 
afar any more.  They really know each other, if not very well, then 
way better than Harry and Cho do.  Common room time, visits to the 
Burrow, meals . . . we see enough of these to know Harry and Ginny 
have had some actual conversations, whereas we've seen no interactions 
between Cho and Harry whatsoever besides one Quidditch match and one 
picking up of a quill.

Ebony wrote later:

>QUESTION:  What is the basis of Ron and Hermione's friendship? 

What is the basis of Ron and Harry's?

I'm not trying to be difficult.  I just don't see how we see more of 
the one than the other.  As I said earlier, the friendship among R, H, 
and H is something we all accept--and sure enough, here's someone to 
say "I don't!" <g>  (I know that isn't exactly what you're saying, 
Ebony.)

I agree that friendship is based largely on common interests.  
It's also based on meshing (not necessarily similar) personalities.  
When you go to school together and live together and spend all your 
time with the same group of people, you have plenty to talk about 
without sharing any outside interests at all, as long as you have the 
right personalities for talking to each other about all those shared 
experiences.  But anyway, I don't know what interests Ron and Hermione 
have in common; I don't know what interests Ron and Harry have in 
common (Quidditch will only take you so far); and I don't know what 
interests Harry and Hermione have in common.  I believe nevertheless 
that they have plenty because I see the rapport between them.

This writing business is positively magical.  How =does= JKR make it 
so obvious to me that these three are such good friends?  

Re: the outside romantic relationships tarnishing the friendship, 
despair not.  People do remain very close to old friends right through 
their also-close marriages.  It can be done.

Amy Z

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 "I'm =not= going to be murdered," Harry said out loud.
 "That's the spirit, dear," said his mirror sleepily.
                       -HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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