blond/murder-Lily/Phoenix/Gray Lady/Prefect/Potions/Ron

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 27990

Doseylel wrote:

> 1. Has it occurred to anyone out there that all of the blond 
> characters in the books are antagonists?  Petunia, Dudley, Draco 
> and his mother, Lockhart, Rita Skeeter (younger, in the pensieve), 
> the veelas (including Fleur).  I don't recall any of the good guys 
> as being blond.  Just curious.

Yes, JKR is so repetitive about making bad guys blond (not all the
bad guys are blond, but NONE of the good guys are) that I suspect 
that her ex-husband was blond. I don't consider Fleur to be a bad guy
even tho' she is very annoying but I don't consider her to be a good 
guy, either. You left out Pansy Parkinson being blonde.

fourfuries wrote:

> Even He knows murder is wrong.  It is distasteful, and wasteful.
> It  eliminates wizards who would otherwise be available to worship
> or fear him. 

Counter-example: Cedric. "Kill the spare" without even a moment's 
thought. Killed without even ONE attempt to recruit him. Never mind 
the utter callousness: it was WASTEFUL. A young man from an old 
Pureblood family, talented enough to be a Triwizard Champion, 
handsome and popular: surely he would be quite a valuable asset if 
recruited: surely worth at least 30 seconds of recruiting effort!

Dorothy wrote:

> Only one phoenix lives at a time. It dies and a new one rises from
> its ashes.

That is the ancient tradition known to us Muggles, but FANTASTIC 
BEASTS doesn't say that there is only one Phoenix at a time, so maybe 
that is not the case in the Potterverse. OTOH, FB doesn't say that 
there IS more than one Phoenix at a time.... It says the Phoenix 
"lives to an immense age as it can regenerate" by bursting into 
flames etc. It doesn't say the Phoenix is immortal.

Dorothy also asked after the Grey Lady.

She appears in the chapter of Book 1 where Harry takes Ron to see the 
Mirror of Erised: "They passed the ghost of a tall witch gliding in 
the opposite direction, but saw no one else. just as Ron started 
moaning that his feet were dead with cold, Harry spotted the suit of 
armor."

Andrea wrote:

> Perhaps Cho Chang will become a prefect if it isn't Hermione.
> That might build her as a character.

I get the impression that whether or not Cho becomes a Ravenclaw 
prefect doesn't affect whether Hermione becomes a Gryffindor 
prefect. Anyway, Cho is a year ahead of Harry so she should be a fifth 
year in GoF, so shouldn't she be a prefect already then?

Caius Marcius Coriolanus wrote:

> That Willow 
> Dedicated to Rita Winston

Me! Me! Me! Meow! I'm so excited! thnx

Invizible Amber? girl wrote:

> I must say I'm a tad sad that practically nobody has responded
> to my chapter summaries.

Meow! I read them! I liked them! I have trouble thinking of things 
to say at 1:40 in the morning...

> 1) I've asked this before, but I thought I'd ask it again. Besides 
> the magical quality of the ingredients themselves, there doesn't 
> seem to be any overt magic used in the making of a potion. Do you 
> think that if a Muggle were to prepare a potion correctly, it would 
> work? If not, why not?

I am convinced that if a Muggle followed all the right instructions 
for making a potion, using all the right ingredients including pieces 
of magical beasts and plants, they would come out with a stinky mud 
colored mess that might be poisonous but would not be have any 
magical effect. Because I am convinced that the way that the potion 
does magic (shrinking or age-reversing Neville's toad, making Harry 
and Ron into replicas of Crabbe and Goyle) is a spell made by the 
magical person brewing the potion.

> 2) What is the difference between a potion, draft, draught,
> solution, and concoction? Or is there no distinction and they are
> simply arbitrary names? (I wouldn't know, I struggled quite a bit
> in chemistry class in school!)

'Draft' and 'draught' are two spellings of the same word 
(pronounced 'draft') so it would be weird if they meant different 
things.

> 4) It should be noted the Madam Pomfrey uses Potions as well 
> (Pepperup Potion); do you think these are drastically different
> from the kind that Snape prepares? Do you think Snape could prepare
> "health' potions or does it demand extra training? Is this a silly
> question?

Of course. No, not 'of course' it's silly! 'Of course' Snape can make 
medimagical potions! I don't think there is any systematic difference 
between medimagical potions and non-medimagical potions. I wonder if 
medimages (like Madam Pomfrey) have to make any of their own potions, 
or if they always use potions made by specialists, such as 
apothecaries?

> 5) Would you personally enjoy Potions class? Forget about
> controversial Snape for the moment, what about the actual class 
> itself?

Oh, I'd HATE it. Same as I hated Chem labs despite my enjoyment of 
the lecture and paper part of the class and same as I hate cooking. 
Being terribly neat and careful is NOT part of my personality. Even 
my fetal pig dissection was sloppy. I like things, like COBOL and 
knitting, where sloppiness doesn't ruin it.

> 6)Fun Question: If you could make up a potion, what would be its
> name, what would it do, and what ingredients would go into it?

If I were a good person, I would mumble something about curing 
AIDS, Alzheimer's Disease, or bigotry, but actually I think more about 
weight loss, wrinkle remover, and other cosmetic potions.

Jennifer asked:

> When in the books is it said that he is tall? I've tried to find it 
> but I couldn't. I'm pretty intested in Dean :)

While they are being Sorted in Book 1, "And now there were only three 
people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller
than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table."

That is from the American edition. I have heard that the British 
edition mentions that he is tall but not that he is black?