tidbits: fighting dragons, toads

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 18779

Just a couple of things that struck me recently as I work on my own 
personal annotated Harry Potter (you should see my margins!):

1 - When Harry was trying to outfly the Hungarian Horntail, she 
wouldn't rise up and leave her eggs unprotected. What made her 
finally take flight after him? 

   Harry rose a few more feet, and she let out a roar of
   exasperation. He was like a fly to her, a fly she was 
   longing to swat; her tail thrashed again, but he was too high 
   to reach now...She shot fire into the air, which he
   dodged...Her jaws opened wide...

   "Come on," Harry hissed, swerving tantalizingly above her, 
   "come on, come and get me...up you get now..."

   And then she reared, spreading her great, black, leathery 
   wings at last, as wide as those of a small airplane - and 
   Harry dived...

So what happened? Why did she finally decide to come up into the air? 
My guess is that it's the same reason that Nagini obeys Voldemort and 
the same reason that the Basilisk obeyed Tom Riddle and Salazar 
Slytherin...and the same reason that the snake obeyed Harry at the 
Dueling Club. That hissing Harry was doing was Parseltongue, although 
he probably didn't even realize it. He ORDERED her into the air and 
she obeyed. After all, when Harry was looking at the image of a snake 
on the taps in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, he felt that he could only 
speak Parseltongue when faced with a real snake, and the Horntail 
look to Harry, just a few second before, like a snake weaving before 
a charmer.

2 - Doesn't it just figure that Neville would have a toad? It's just 
so "Neville," just like it's so "Ron" to support a Quidditch team 
that perpetually loses. Here's what Hagrid says about toads in Diagon 
Alley:

   "Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went 
   outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at - an' I don' 
   like cats, they make me sneeze..."

And of course, Neville's well-meaning but not very current Great 
Uncle Algie gets him...a toad. 

Note also that Hagrid doesn't like cats. JKR has stated that she 
doesn't like them either.

Back into the research...

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
which just doesn't even have ROOM for all the cool stuff in here!
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon