Luna Lovegood can see the future.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 87292

vmonte wrote:
> > Also, I think Luna may be able to see the future. I don't think she 
> > has completely mastered it, but the idea makes sense if you think 
> > about some of her behavior in OOTP. 
>
> Alice responded:
> I think this is a really good idea. I'm not sure it's right, but hey
> I'd love it to be.
> 
> If it were, my take on it would be as follows:
> She is not a Seer in the way Trelawney is, spitting out
> predicitions/prophecies at random moments and not remembering having
> ever said them afterwards. Maybe there's another form to Seeing. Like
> old Snape said about mind-reading: it's not as simple as that, you
> can't just open the mind like a book and start reading. So maybe you
> can't just open the future like a book and start reading. But Luna may
> have the gift to FEEL certain things, have notions about what TYPE of
> thing is going to happen, not always but more often than not, and
> definitely more often than Hag Trelawney. These feelings may not be
> easy to interpret, even to herself. So she doesn't talk.
> 
> Love, Alice
> ---desperate for a Heliopath (spirits of flame, weren't they, or does
> my memory betray me?) to appear... they sound like fun & danger


Carol:
I think Alice is on the right track: Luna isn't exactly a seer, but
her intuition is strong and usually correct, a balance to Hermione as
a number of people have said. It would be really funny if Luna were
right about heliopaths (or crumple-horned snorkacks) and they showed
up in Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class. Imagine Hermione's
reaction! Actually, given her native skepticism and Muggle upbringing,
I'm surprised that she didn't start out disbelieving in dragons and
unicorns. Maybe the difference is that the latter two are staples of
mythology and/or folklore and therefore easier to believe in--or she
read about them in her textbooks the summer before attending Hogwarts.
How does she *know* there's no such thing as a heliopath? Just the
fact that she's never seen one doesn't mean they don't exist. For all
we know, the WW may think there's no such thing as a microbe or a
molecule because they don't study biology or physics at Hogwarts.
(Maybe a smattering of science should be included in Muggle Studies.
We know a thing or two that the wizards don't.)

Carol, who can't help protesting the phrase "old Snape." Even in OoP
he's only 36 or 37, in his "youth" by Dumbledore's standards ;-)