Dragons / Trelawney / Memory Charm / Snape / Crouch / Longbottom

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 36814

finwitch wrote:

> Does one need to kill a dragon in order to get it's heart-string
> for a wand, BTW?

I think so. And I think dragons must be killed to get their hides for 
all those dragon-hide gloves and boots we see in canon, and the 
dragon liver at the Diagon Alley apothecary during Harry's first 
shopping trip. In the Potterverse, they're just animals. Big, 
dangerous animals.

Tabouli wrote:

> I've always imagined [Trelawney] as late forties or so, old enough
> to have a face written with lines of mystic wisdom, but young
> enough to retain a mass of untidy dark curls,

IE, the same age as McGonagall in the books, whose hair is still 
black. "Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun" when Harry was 
left on the Dursley doorstep. "A tall, black-haired witch in 
emerald-green robes stood there" at the beginning of Sorting Hat 
chapter. JKR's illo: 
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hpforgrownups/vwp?.dir=/Harry+Pot
ter+%26+Me&.src=gr&.dnm=dursleysdoorstep.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//ph
otos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hpforgrownups/lst%3f%26.dir=/Harry%2bPotte
r%2b%2526%2bMe%26.src=gr%26.view=t 

Personally, I envisioned Trelawney with gray hair...

> You know, despite the ever-proliferating flotillas roaming Theory
> Bay, I have yet to witness a ship which rustles up some romance
> for the slender, sultry Sibyll.

I don't think she ever had a romance, but I do think she's 
heterosexual and desperate. I think she's pursuing Lupin in PoA: when 
she came to Christmas Dinner, almost the first thing she said was, 
"But where is dear Professor Lupin?" and I said "She only came in 
search of him". Then she said: "He positively fled when I offered to 
crystal gaze for him --" and I said: "He fled because he perceived 
that she was just seeking an excuse to get him alone and grope him." 

> [Memory Charms] Have an effect which wears off within a few hours
> at most (hence Mr Roberts needed to be re-Charmed several times
> each day)

I think not: the Muggles, and Lockhart's victims, don't need to be 
re-Charmed. I had immediately assumed that Mr Roberts needed to be 
Charmed (not re-Charmed) several times each day because he needed to 
be Charmed for EACH incident in which careless wizards made him 
suspicious.

It just now occurred to me that it would have been more practical for 
the MoM co-ordinators to have knocked the Robertses unconscious for 
the duration of the event & run the campground Themselves  -- okay, 
I'm not sure how they would give them a false memory to explain the 
lost weekend, so send the Robertses on an all-expenses-paid, 
magically-winning weekend in Las Vegas & run the campground 
Themselves, cleaning it up afterwards so that the Roberts don't know 
that there were Tons of Trepassers. 

Eloise wrote:

> My original speculation (going back to my musings about his
> childhood in my last post) was that [Snape] was seeking a 
> father-figure in the big D, his own having let him down by never 
> showing him any approval.

Agreed. In addition, there have been theories of Snape joining the 
Death Eaters out of anger at Dumbledore siding with the Marauders or 
out of despair at losing a girlfriend to a Gryffindor, but I think he 
was led into Death Eating by his quest for approval from people who 
just happened to be DEs, if not actually having fastened on a DE as 
his attempted father-figure. I imagine Severus's parents as having 
shown him very little attention at all, almost as little disapproval 
as approval. They just found him and his entire existence a total 
bore. Therefore, the primary school serves as the source of 
spontaneous vicious cruelty directed at him, thus explaining the 
sarcasm and vengefulness and uncontrollably strong emotions.

Marina Rusalka wrote:

> I hope I don't alienate myself from the other Snapefans too much
> with this theory, but I have this strong suspicion that the 
> 16-year-old Severus did not acquit himself at all well when faced 
> with a snarling werewolf in a narrow tunnel. He was not Tough. He 
> screamed like a girl and went wobbly in the knees and forgot all 
> those vaunted Dark Hexes he's been so famous for since he was 
> eleven. In short, he panicked, and to make it worse, he was *seen* 
> panicking --

In my own view of the Potterverse, 16-year-old Severus feels as 
humiliated and as resentful of the humiliation as in your theory, but 
all he did to be ashamed of was that he (finally!) ran away, leaving 
Potter behind him, between him and the onrushing werewolf (which is 
what Potter had urgently been ordering him to do and he kept refusing 
until the monster was actually approaching). Upon exiting the 
Whomping Willow, he *suddenly realises* that *he* Ran Away, leaving 
Potter as diversion for the monster, while *Potter* has died at the 
teeth of a werewolf to save him! 

The knowledge that Potter will be viewed as a hero and memorialized
at Hogwarts while he is considered a coward bites at him much more 
urgently than any later thought of life-debt, and causes him to run 
for help (!) to his Head of House or Headmaster. When he discovers 
that Potter was Perfectly Safe as an Animagus (note: not Perfectly 
Safe, considering the werewolf/Padfoot fight in PoA), he is totally 
convinced that Potter and Black set this up On Purpose to make him 
run away like a coward. He could believe that Lupin was in on That 
Plan, as in it, Lupin was not in any danger of biting him (and being 
sent to Azkaban, or whatever the punishment is for a werewolf who 
bites a wizard).

Betty wrote:

> To me, Crouch was right to prosecute his son. (snip). The biggest
> mistake, I think, was releasing him from Azkaban.

Yes, I think this is a trick that JKR played on us. Sirius and the 
Pensieve told us things that made us think Jr was an innocent boy 
railroaded by Sr, that Sr was cruel to imprison his own son, that 
Sr's strict merciless adherence to the rule of Law was itself an 
Error... but Jr WAS guilty, Sr WAS right to imprison him, Sr's Error 
was his merciful violation of Law i.e. helping Jr escape from Azkaban.

Eileen Lucky Kari wrote:

> more likely to emphasize that it is up to Nevillus to wipe out
> this blot on the honour of the Lombotommi

Agreed with essay, <snicker>ed at Romanization, noticed that 
Lombotommi looked at first like Lobotomi...