Erised/spyLudo/goodDraco/skrewtHagrid/VaporMort/1styrSnape/plumbing/loveLily

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) <catlady@wicca.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 47956

Is "metalanguage" made of metal?

Pippin wrote:

<< The idea was, I think, to lure Voldemort on with the fair puzzles, 
and get him to look in the Mirror. In the event he was too shrewd to 
do so, but if he had looked, he would have seen himself experiencing 
immortality, and so been caught forever. >>

He might have seen himself torturing and dismembering Dumbledore. I 
always get the feeling that Voldemort's quest for immortality was 
more a means than an end...

Marlys wrote:

<< [and just how was Ludo privy to anything Voldemort needed to know? 
I doubt beater strategies were high on his list] >>

Bagman was such a popular celebrity, as we saw in the Pensieve, that 
important, rich, socially prominent people would go out of their way 
to try to make friends with him. Thus he could get invited to dinner 
parties and stuff. Then some of the VIPs who really *were* important, 
or any high-ranking in important departments, could try to impress 
him with their importance by dropping a little bit of inside 
information, especially if they'd had a drop too much, and then he 
encouraged them with rapt, admiring attention and flattering 
questions.  

I was thinking that Bagman must have been kind of a "walk-in" to 
Rookwood, as why would a spymaster go out of his way to recruit a 
star athlete, when any very rich wizard or very eautiful witch could 
do the job I've just suggested that Bagman did... then I vaguely 
remembered something, which led me to As Jeeves: "Who was that 
baseball player who was a spy for the Americans in World War II?" 
(and *I* am NOT smart enough to format that as a Google query!) and, 
mixed in with the ads for spy equipment stores and Arab American 
baseball players (I am always amused by the utter WRONGness of some 
of Jeeves's suggestions), was 
http://travel.boston.com/places/getaways/south/080402_dc_spy_museum.ht
ml which contains "Moe Berg is remembered partly as a baseball player 
and partly as a spy; he slipped into occupied Norway during the war 
and his "home movies," taken during a baseball tour of Japan, were 
used to plan World War II bombing raids."

I poked around some more, finding 
http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/history/mo.html where I learned that 
Bagman was NO Moe Berg .. Berg spoke several languages when he 
graduated from university before he was signed to Brooklyn Dodgers, 
and went to law school and passed the bar while playing with the 
White Sox, and was called "the brainiest player in baseball". So on 
the one hand, I don't know if there is any value to Moe Berg as an 
analogy for an athlete/spy, but on the other hand, Bagman WOULD have 
been travelling with his team like Berg...

Anyway, no one would suspect an idiot like Bagman the way some 
people would suspect a rich man or beautiful woman who asked a lot
of questions about classified material.

Carol Bainbridge wrote:

<< He was accused of *passing* information to Voldemort's 
supporters, but he says he thought he was *collecting* 
information for "our side." Now how can you mistake the 
direction information is flowing? >>

I don't have a problem with that. *If* Bagman was just stupid, then 
he knew he was passing information to Rookwood, but he thought 
Rookwood was one of the good guys, so he thought he was passing TO 
the good guys. He presumably asked the questions Rookwood suggested, 
of the people whom Rookwood suggested. 

Oryomai wrote:

<< Will the good guys take/believe a Good!Draco? >>

Dumbledore would. He's a big believer in giving people second 
chances. I think Snape would... If Snape believe Draco to be 
irredeemably evil (despite not yet having done anything as bad as 
some of what Snape presumably had to do as a Death Eater), it would 
be for some other reason than Draco picking on Harry & Co.

Shane wrote:

<< We don't actually ever see Hagrid get aggressive, but the 
*potential* for ferocious violence is very much there. >>

We do. GoF, "The Madness of Mr. Crouch": "Karkaroff spat onto the 
ground at Dumbledore's feet. In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the 
front of Karkaroff's furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him 
against a nearby tree." I only remembered this because it was 
discussed recently.

Rachel wrote:

<< I've always been curious just what Blast-Ended Skrewts are a cross 
OF, >>

Manticore and Fire Crab. Someone already said WHERE this is found in 
canon: in Rita Skeeter's article against Hagrid.

Melody wrote:

<< Why Voldemort once he left Quirrell ran, well glided, back to 
Albania if he is not able to be killed, injured, captured...
whatever? >>

Someone proposed a theory that VaporMort is magnetically attracted to 
one spot in Albania, so that whenever he loses his body he is pulled 
there, and he can't leave without some kind of body. When he left 
with Quirrel, before he was living permanently on the back of 
Quirrel's head, maybe he possessed Quirrel just briefly, just long 
enough to leave his hiding place...

I like that theory, even tho' I haven't exactly worked out how he 
left with Quirrel, because I added an epicycle to it: the reason 
that one particular place pulls him like that is because that is the 
place where he did some part, maybe the final successful part, of his 
immortality spell.

Audra wrote:

<< How else would someone know that he knew more curses than a 
seventh year unless Snape told them? >>

Maybe the whole school knew because Snape was a sensation at 
duelling, astonishing all spectators by how many curses he knew and 
how quickly he cast them.... Maybe the word got out more slowly, 
through the teachers, because Snape always used different curses 
as his examples in all the homework essays he wrote in all his 
classes...

"whirlillusory" <holtfinder at y...>  wrote:

<< If the founders of Hogwarts lived 1000 years ago, that puts their 
time a little before indoor plumbing! >>

I always say, in the Potterverse, the wizarding folk had indoor 
plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush toilets ever since 
Atlantis. All the various Muggles who 'invented' indoor plumbing 
(Minoans, Romans, 18th century, etc) were really trying to copy what 
they had seen when a guest in a wizarding home. Also, the wizarding 
folk had elaborate castles ever since Atlantis, so it doesn't matter 
that Muggle 'castles' were IIRC wooden huts surrounded by a muddy 
ditch and a picket fence at the time of the Founders.

I personally don't believe in Atlantis or primordial matriarchies, 
but I also don't believe in flying carpets or House Elves. A large 
part of the gimmick of the Potterverse is that many things which are 
familiar folklore or fantasy motifs which every reader *knows* aren't 
real, *are* real (altho' often garbled) in the Potterverse. So I 
think I'm tremendously amusing to add Atlantis and primordial 
matriarchies to the list of things that Muggles are too stupid to 
believe in.

Chthonia  wrote:

<< Only thing I can think of is that the magic invoked by his 
mother's death allowed him to psychologically survive the Dursleys 
(even though Harry didn't know about that consciously, the Dementors 
in PoA showed that he had deeply buried memories of it), as well as 
physically surviving Voldemort. >>

Yes! I think Lily was able, with her magic, to put an image of 
herself in her baby's mind, that would be like an 'imaginary mum' 
(by analogy with 'imaginary friend') who would cuddle Harry and tell 
him that he's a good kid who doesn't deserve Dursley abuse and tell 
him about how decent people behave, thus being that one caring adult 
said to be necessary to even a 'resilient' child's survival of 
serious abuse... I kind of think Lily used her last magic to put this 
image in his head intentionally, instead of using her last magic in 
one last attempt to escape Voldemort, except I don't know why she 
would do that if she really believed that he would be dead seconds 
after she was. 

When Harry resisted the Imperius Curse, the Curse's Moody-voice in 
his head told him to jump up on the desk, and "another voice had 
awoken in the back of his brain. Stupid to do, really, said the 
voice." I believe that that other voice is what's left of the 
image-Lily after all these years; she doesn't appear often, she 
appears as Harry's voice instead of her own, but she still is 
caring for Harry -- and still has free will.

In addition, so far we've always seen Harry wondering and trying to 
find out about his father, and not about his mother. Some say that's 
a plot device because JKR is saving some big surprise about Lily, and 
some say it's normal because Harry is 11 to 14 so far, puberty and 
adolescence, and much more concerned about a male image to identify 
with. But *I* say that he doesn't search so much for Lily because, 
unknown to himself, he already has her with him.