Chapter Summary / Riddle / Flitwick / Lupin / Dursleys

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 25503

Allison wrote:

> Harry, despite Ron's protests, keeps the diary, occasionally 
> looking through it as if expecting to find writing.  He feels like
> he used to know Riddle, as if he'd been an old childhood friend,

Does Harry feels as if he used to know Riddle (or that the name 
sounds familiar) because he got some of Voldemort's memories along 
with his Parselmouth ability? Or is JKR building up to something by
emphasizing that Harry feels as if he knew Riddle and that Harry 
looks like Riddle. 

> In Charms, Harry notices that while all his other books are covered 
> in scarlet ink from his broken ink bottle (even his ink is in a 
> House color - taking the House pride a bit far, ain't it?), the 
> diary is completely dry.  

I asssumed that Harry's school bag also contains black ink for normal 
purposes, but the red ink is used for some special purpose. If he was 
studying bookkeepping, it would be for writing negative numbers (an 
old tradition which gave us the phrasews 'in the red' and 'in the 
black' but died out because of photocopy machines). Maybe their 
Astronomy or Divination class requires drawing horoscopes in which 
each planet's aspects are marked in a different color (since the vast 
majority of aspects are between two planets, that would be a two 
color line) for easier visibility or just to burden the students.

Susan Hall wrote:

> Wasn't [Flitwick} also a duelling ace?  Perhaps he had a secret 
> double life as the Scarlet Pimpernel.  Our only evidence that he 
> wasn't is that he is short, has a squeaky voice, and drinks very 
> girly drinks in public.  All an obvious cover up.  

When I read the above, I suddenly realised that I had never wondered 
why Flitwick is so tiny. Maybe it is some magic that happened to 
him after an adventurous youth ... Maybe the remnant of a Death Spell 
which he MOSTLY  blocked....

elbereth wrote:

> I wonder, will we meet Lupin's parents (as I can't imagine someone 
> in his situation buying a house!) 

If (to pile up more tragedies on poor Remus) his parents had died, 
he could have inherited their house. Or from grandparents -- maybe 
he was the only grandchild. A totally different possibility is that 
"Lupin's house" is some isolated cabin that came along with some 
isolated job that Dumbledore was able to get for him, caretaker of an 
abandoned estate or something.  

Mindy wrote:

> One thing they have been told to provide is a Christmas present, so
> they send a tissue out of fear that if they do nothing, Voldemort 
> will blow up their house.

Excellent! I never thought of anything like this, but as soon as I 
read your suggestion, I thought it was the most likely a answer.