Dumbledore/Weasleys/McGonagall+Riddle

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 42579

In a message dated 8/13/02 Richelle writes:

<< I can't think of any bees or buzzing, however, there is the statement
Dumbledore made to Harry at the Mirror of Erised.  "I don't need a cloak to
become invisible."  Did he mean literally invisible?  >>

This is short, but I don't see much else to link it to. 

Wouldn't it be a hoot if Dumbledore's animagus form were a demiguise? (Note: 
there are absolutely NO grounds to suspect that animagus forms might not be 
limited to those of natural creatures -- which I personally suspect is 
probably the case, regardless.) The demiguise is described in Fantastic 
Beasts as looking like a graceful ape with soulful eyes and the ability of 
becoming invisible at will. They are very rare and are hunted for their 
pelts, which are used to weave invisibility cloaks. 

In human form Dumbledore certainly has enough hair around him to make a good 
start on a cloak...

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Regarding the Weasley ages; I've not been following this thread all that 
closely over the ladt few Digests, but I did notice while I was doing so that 
a lot of the debate seemed to be focused on the age gap between Charlie and 
Percy. It occurs to me that most of the comments made by characters in 
passing are more tuned to the age difference between Charlie and Ron (and 
Harry). And while the compressed birth year scenareo does work, it isn't 
particularly comfortable. But the extreme age gap between Charlie and Percy 
doesn't feel all that right to me either. On the setting of the long gap 
timing, as I have been following it it reads something like;

1. If the issue is that Gryffandor hasn't won the cup since Charlie was 
Seeker, and; 

2. if Charlie played the position of Seeker throughout his Hogwarts career, 
and;

3. The last year that Gryffandor won the cup was seven years before the date 
that people were bringing up the subject, and;

4. People were bringing up the subject in Harry (and Ron's) first year, then 
--

Charlie LEFT Hogwarts seven years berfore Ron STARTED. (Not Percy. Ron.) 
Charlie would be fourteen years older than Ron. Percy is four years older 
than Ron. Charlie would be ten years older than Percy. 

And, somehow, this just doesn't quite work for me. Why? Because I can't 
really buy the kind of exaggerated hero worship that Oliver Wood has for 
Charlie unless Oliver has some reason to feel that he KNEW Charlie in his 
glory days. Knew him at Hogwarts.

And it isn't that difficult to work out a plausible scenareo which would 
allow for it. It is very easy to accept that Charlie was the Gryffandor 
Seeker for 5-6 years running and that Gryffandor took the cup in the majority 
of those years. But it doesn't have to have taken it EVERY year that Charlie 
was Seeker. We've seen already that even though Harry is a superior Seeker, 
it wasn't until his third year that Gryffandor took the cup. I propose that 
through injury or sheer bad luck Gryffandor may have been edged out for the 
cup in one or two of Charlie's last years. 

Because that would open the possibility that Oliver was a dazzled 2nd year 
who made the team (as a reserve) in Charlie's 7th year, and Charlie was HIS 
Captain. In fact, by Harry's third year, Oliver is the LAST member of 
"Charlie's team" left at Hogwarts. Which to me, at least, just feels RIGHT.

In which case, Charlie is five years older than Percy, and Bill, I think 
would probably be one or two years older than Charlie. A six year gap would 
also work, leaving Oliver as a dazzled firstie watching Charlie save the day 
for Gryffandor, (even it it didn't capture the cup) but not, I think, nearly 
as well.

(Bill's "five years ago" visit could very well have been to watch the twin's 
first game as the Gryffandor Beaters assuming they made the team in their 2nd 
year. The timing certainly works for it.)

Following the 5-year gap scenareo, the ages of the Weasley kids at the end of 
GoF would even out as;

Ginny -14 (April birthday)
Ron - 15 (March Birthday)
Twins - 17 (April birthday)
Percy - 18/19 (I don't know his birthday)
Charlie - 23-25 
Bill - 24+. Around 25-27 feels right.

Which would project Molly into her mid-40s give or take a year or three. 
Arthur anything up to 3 years older.

On that note; I do not have my copy of Goblet with me at the moment, but 
didn't Molly make some comment about she and Arthur dodging the old caretaker 
(or groundskeeper)? That would nail down the assumption that everyone seems 
to be making that she and Arthur first became involved with eash other while 
they were still at Hogwarts. Because it just occurred to me that if Molly and 
Arthur are cousins of some degree they would have had ample opportunity to 
have developed an attraction without needing to be in close year groups at 
Hogwarts and their age difference could well be greater. (Giving Arthur even 
more time to establish himself while waiting for Molly to graduate, and 
lessening any reason to delay starting a family over financial considerations 
once she did.)

Ginny's comment about wanting to go to Hogwarts "ever since Bill started" can 
be interpreted as careless phrasing of; "ever since Bill was there", which 
would be understandable, since in Ginny's early childhood, Bill had *always* 
been at Hogwarts.

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On McGonagall/Riddle at Hogwarts;

Richelle's post on this subject brings up something that has been noted, but, 
as she points out, due to fuzzy information cannot be nailed down exactly 
(yet). Rowling did indeed state that McGonagall was a "sprightly 70" in one 
of her interviews. Unfortunately, this comes across as a general age range 
rather than a definite number. It does firmly land Minerva at Hogwarts during 
at least part of the Riddle era, however. 

Our information on Riddle's time at Hogwarts, so far comes entirely from CoS. 
And hangs on the date printed on the cover of the diary. Harry and Ron didn't 
get hold of the diary until after the Christmas break, so if the diary was 
dated "50 years earlier" -- which it would have been, since that "50 years" 
was their only inital clue -- then it would have been dated 1943. Which 
presents its own continuity problems. 

The diary, to all appearances, was purchased for the purpose of embeding the 
revenant into it (since there are no traces of its having been used for 
anything else). Riddle could not very well have gone off to Hogwarts the year 
before intending to put himself into a book. So the revenant was embedded 
into the diary AFTER the whole Chamber interlude and the framing and 
expulsion of Hagrid. We do not know HOW long after, but given that the book 
was purchased in a London shop (am I correct in my vague reccollection that 
the address given of the stationer's shop is near King's Cross Station?) the 
probability is that Riddle bought (or shoplifted?, probably from a discount 
cart since it was June of the year that the diary was printed for and still 
unsold) the diary during the summer and embedded the revenant into it early 
in the following school term, since to do so over the summer would have drawn 
the attention Mafalda Hopkirk or her predecessor. 

Therefore; the diary revenant was embedded in Riddle's sixth year. Which 
would agree with the revenant being Riddle's 16-year-old self. But the 
Chamber was actually opened in his fifth year (academic year '42-'43). From 
which we can work out that Tom Riddle graduated with Hogwarts' Class of 1945. 
(Ring any bells?) Had Hagrid not been expelled in his 3rd year, he would have 
graduated in the class of '47.

As to McGonagall, if GoF is taking place in the academic year of '94-'95 and 
she is roughly 70 years old at that time, we can extrapolate her birth as 
being at some point in the mid 1920s. If Riddle was class of '45, and that 
seems pretty definite, he would have started hogwarts in the academic year of 
'38-'39, and have been born somewhere between September of 1926 and August of 
1927. Tom and Minerva's time at Hogwarts certainly overlapped, but the degree 
of uncertainty over Minerva's actual birth date makes it difficult to 
determine how much. Since she makes no statements related to the Chamber of 
Secrets incident it is tempting to claim that it took place after she 
graduated, but the fact that the whole matter was supressed by Headmaster 
Dippett could simply mean that she does not feel herself at liberty to 
mention the incident even now. (If she was Head Girl during the year the 
Chamber was opened, she could have been directly told to say anything about 
it, much as Snape was forbidden to speak of the werewolf prank.) It would 
also not be difficult to apply enough flexibility to the question of when she 
was born to make an arguement that she and Riddle were in the same year, 
although that seems less likely.

--------------------------------
Which brings me to another issue regarding the Riddle era at Hogwarts. Harry 
immediately noticed the similarity in type of artifact between the Marauder's 
Map and the Riddle diary. And one thing that we are given to understand (or 
at least assume) is that the Marauders did not make a name for themselves for 
messing with the Dark Arts. The fact that the diary was a consious entity did 
not in itself make it a piece of Dark magic. But the fact that it seems to 
have deffinitely been a Dark artifact seems clear to every reader of Chamber. 
After all, it harbored the revenant of a Dark wizard. 

Tom Riddle may have been decended from Salizar Slytherin, but he was no scion 
of an ancient name raised in a manor with an extensive library on the Dark 
Arts. He was a peniless orphan who never heard of the wizarding world OR 
Salizar Slytherin until he went to Hogwarts. And yet, only five years later 
he is a Dark wizard of considerable power, and only at the beginning of his 
career.

Who TOLD him he was the last known decendent of Salizar Slytherin?

Who TAUGHT him the Dark Arts? Hogwarts, unlike Durmstrang, is not a Dark Arts 
school. Was it different in Dippett's day? I tend to doubt it.

Because Riddle was taught. He had to have been. All the sneaking into the 
Restricted Section or staying with Slytherin schoolmates over the term breaks 
would not account for his reaching the point he had reached by the time the 
revenant was embedded into the diary. Not without making mistakes. I contend 
that there is no way that Tom Riddle could have gotten his foothold in the 
Dark Arts by independent study without at least one blunder which would have 
given somebody on the Hogwarts staff a clue of what he was up to. 

Someone who took an interest. 

Are we looking at the possibility of a PROFESSOR Grindlewald? (Durmstrang, 
class of '94, maybe?) 

Because we only know that Grindlewald was a Dark wizard. We have been given 
NO information in canon to make us run away with the idea that he was a 
self-anointed Dark LORD. Or that he ever had any interest AT ALL with 
whatever some crazy Muggles were up to. And in 1945, Dumbledore was 
Transfiguration master at Hogwarts, not engaging in espionage on the 
contenent. Maybe he was simply recruiting a new generation of Dark wizards at 
Hogwarts.

DId the pupil surpass the master? Did the master decide to make use of the 
pupil? Did the pupil decide that he didn't choose to be used? Murders are 
inconvenient and draw so much attention. Maybe we should make a study of 
betrayal? 

In any case, it seems likely that Riddle managed to slip out of the situation 
with his public reputation unblemished. One wonders if Dumbledore was left 
with suspicions that there was more to the Grindlewald incident than ever 
came to light. How long have Riddle and Dumbledore been engaged in this 
covert duel?

--JOdel