Scar - Time-turning - Moon - Thigh boots - Dark Mark

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 18015

Neil wrote:

>It's interesting that, in this story, it marks Harry out as 
different, but different in a positive way

and Jenny wrote:

> It is also something that the Dursleys cannot control or erase.

Yeah to both!  Emphases mine, corresponding footnotes follow:

"=The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance= [1] was a very 
thin scar on his forehead which was shaped =like a bolt of lightning= 
[2].  He had had it for as long as he could remember and =the first 
question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia= [3] was how 
he had got it" (PS/SS 2).

To me, this signalled from the start that:

[1]-this is a kid who wouldn't be ashamed for being different
-he is set apart from the world he lives in (the world of the 
Dursleys)
-his history, when he learns it, will be something to be proud of and 
sad about

[2]-the scar is a sign of power.  Yes, I know JKR said the reason she 
chose lightning was that she needed a shape that was distinctive while 
also being a plausible form for a scar to take.  But lightning is also 
symbolic of tremendous power:  in this case, Voldemort's and Harry's 
own.  Twelve years after receiving it, he'll start riding a Firebolt . 
. .

[3]-the most important things about him are encoded in this scar, 
something he intuits even as a tiny child

Scott wrote:

>On a related time travel note how is it that neither Harry nor Ron 
>even think that Hermione might have during all of PoA? Surely, though 
>rare, it is not an unheard of event? I mean if you KNOW someone is in 
>two places at once, or at least suspect so, then wouldn't you 
>consider time-travel (especially in a place where magic is so 
>ordinary.)

Now I feel dumb.  I didn't think of it while I was reading.  My guess 
was that Hermione had somehow split herself in three--hence the 
uncharacteristic behavior (hitting Malfoy, stomping out of Divination) 
and seeming not to know where she'd been at times.

I do think Dumbledore is treading on thin ice when he tells Snape at 
the end, "unless you are suggesting that Harry and Hermione are able 
to be in two places at once..." (PA 22).  It may be that no one but 
McGonagall and Dumbledore knows she has a Time-Turner, but in nine 
months of classes, two professors might easily have discovered that 
they had both taught Hermione at the same time and put two and two 
together.  She makes no effort to conceal her schedule.  Snape surely 
knows about Time-Turners, and it wouldn't take much for it to click 
for him that Hermione certainly =can= be in two places at once.

Scabbers/Moon delurked to say:

<various things about the problems with the moon in PoA>

I was just the other day counting between Halloween and Christmas to 
try to make the full moons match up.  It bugs me that they don't, but 
at least the transformations are spaced at roughly the right times.

There is a hilariously bad movie called Werewolf (I recommend the 
Mystery Science Theater 3000 version--no one should watch this movie 
unaided) in which the moon is full night after night in order to 
accommodate the plot.  I found this unforgivable, yet I'm willing to 
cut PA lots of slack.  But I would have been much happier if the moon 
really worked in PA.

Neil titillated:

>hang on, that's another list, where I pretend to be Captain Janeway 
>in thigh boots...

We let you get away with not posting the bunny slippers picture, but 
this we cannot resist.  I want to see a picture of Neil as Janeway 
pronto, and the thigh-highs had better be in there.

Dave pondered:

> What I don't get is that if the MoM ever had any doubts about
> who was really on V's side and who wasn't, why didn't they
> just look at their arm?

I think it is invisible most of the time.  V may be an Unhinged Evil 
Overlord, but tattooing members of a secret society is dumber than 
dumb.  

Counterevidence: Karkaroff's distress suggests that it was visible 
when Voldemort was powerful, faded after his downfall, and is only now 
becoming visible because he is returning.

Evidence:  "There," said Snape harshly.  "There.  The Dark Mark.  It 
is not as clear as it was, an hour or so ago, when it burnt black, but 
you can still see it" (GF 36).  This suggests that even though 
Voldemort is, as far as we know, alive and feeling fine (if a tad 
peeved), the mark will fade again--to invisibility, perhaps?

More evidence:  Sirius doesn't know anything about it, despite being 
in the resistance and then in Azkaban, where, even if most prisoners 
are in solitary most of the time, you'd think he would have seen it 
sooner or later.

Still, I think V should be more careful.  What if Malfoy had been 
playing tennis with Fudge at the moment V touched Wormtail's mark?  
Bad scene.

Maybe it is visible only to DEs and to those to whom they wish to 
expose it?

Amy Z

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  "Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that
this boy--this boy!--knows nothin' abou'--about ANYTHING?" 
  Harry thought this was going a bit far. 
                               -HP and the Philosopher's Stone 
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