Bill Weasley - PoA Chapter Questions - More Little Weasleys

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 21449

Caitlin MacCallum wrote:

> In response to the alphebetical Weasley names, 
> wouldn't Bill actually be William?

I always wonder if 'Bill' is short for Bilius, after Ron's uncle (who
was probably also Bill's uncle) who died from seeing a Grim.

Milz wrote:

> (IIRC, in PS/SS, Ron states that Charlie is 
> *studying* dragons in Romania, implying to me,
> that Charlie is in some kind of post-Hogwarts
> study program similar to graduate school in the US.) 

'Studying' is a great word, as it can mean grad school or apprenticeship
or being the lead researcher. What we've seen of Charlie and dragons
looks to me a lot more like wrangling dragons than studying them, but
FABULOUS BEASTS says something about the wizard folk gathered specimens
of all 16 species of dragons in the world and put them together in a
Muggle-proof are of Rumania in order to study them.  I suspect it's not
a very academic kind of study, more trying out different techniques of
dragon husbandry to see which are the least dangerous ...

Zarleycat wrote:

> 3.  Trelawney questions Harry's interpretation of
> his imaginary vision of the hippogriff in the
> crystal ball.  Is this because she knows he's 
> faking it or because she is actually making a
> prediciton herself about the outcome of the appeal? 

IMHO she doesn't know that Harry is faking and happily believes that he
is reporting a real vision. She 'knows' that if only Harry were better
at seeing the future, he would see the execution, because 'everyone
knows' that a Beast brought up on charges before the committee is always
executed: only Hagrid and the children are naive enough to believe in
the judicial process. It's like predicting that the sun will rise
tomorrow: no Divination is needed.

> 4.  Why doesn't Trelawney recognize that she has 
> made a prediciton when she speaks about the servant 
> of the Dark Lord?

Her mind was in a fugue state while her body/voice were being possessed
(new question: was she possessed by her own dissociated pre-cog ability,
or by some other being as in "channelling"?) so she has amnesia about
it.

> 5.  Ron sees Hermione in a different light since 
> she slapped Draco, dropped Divination class and now 
> volunteers to retrieve the Cloak. What is it about 
> her actions that he finds most appealing? 

Personally, I don't read it as JKR making a feminist point about
assertive girls being attractive. I read it that what most bugged Ron
about Hermione was that she was a goody-goody, who obeyed rules and
respected teachers, and here she is most dramatically BREAKING rules and
dissing the Divination teacher.

> 4.  Why is there a magnificent bed in the Shrieking
> Shack, when everything else in the building is stained
> and broken?

"On a magnificent four-poster bed with dusty hangings lay Crookshanks,"

It never occurred to me that there weren't chunks bitten out of the
formerly magnificent four-poster. If there aren't,, someone must have
repaired it with as many repetitions as needed of the Reparo! Charm
(IIRC, that's the one Arthur used on Harry's glasses). Someone who, in
the intervening years, found that the Shrieking Shack was not actually
haunted and would therefore be a good hiding place, may have found the
secret passageway which would make it an even better hiding place, and
had a need for a hidden bed. Sounds like someone having romantic trysts.
*snicker* Maybe dear Severus, who already knew about the secret passage,
and that it wasn't really haunted...

Jenny from Ravenclaw wrote:

> First of all, how would Harry have killed Sirius?  
> Avada Kedavra was not known to Harry yet.    

Avada Kedavra is not the only way to kill someone. Levitation can do it
-- remember in Book 1, when Ron cast Wingardium Leviosa and the troll's
own club hit it on the head? That would have killed someone with a less
hard head than a troll's.

Susan wrote:

> The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell (our Dog) 
> ruleth all England under a Hog?

I read that verse in Josephine Tey's THE DAUGHTER OF TIME. IIRC, she
said the Cat and the Rat were Sir William Catesby and Sir Richard
Ratcliffe. There was a Virginian girl named Catesby in my college dorm
who claimed to be descended from that Sir William Catesby.

Lindsay Stirton wrote:

> Molly could announce the happy news that she is 
> expecting a seventh son/second daughter of a seventh 
> son any day now.

Not if she is through menopause, which would relate to other questions
such as how old is Molly and in what age range do witches (living longer
and aging slower than Muggle women) have menopause?

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