WhoToldJames?/Moonrise/InjuredSeeker/MGoshawk/SS&HG'sTeeth/Points/SortSlyths

Sun Feb 2 04:02:34 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 51428

People in the latest Prank!thread seem to have made an axiom that 
canon says that James did not hear about the Prank from Sirius so he 
must have heard about it from someone else. I think they are going by 
this Remus statement in PoA: "... but your father, who'd heard what 
Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back ... "

To me, that piece of canon does NOT SAY that James didn't hear about 
it FROM SIRIUS and I continue to believe that he DID hear about it 
from Sirius.

Pip!Squeak wrote:

<< Harry has the invisibility cloak, just like his father, right? 
Wrong. James used it 'mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to 
steal food'. Even with that big hint from Dumbledore, Harry never 
sneaks off to the kitchens until GoF (three years later)and then 
it's to meet Dobby. >>

Well ... as Dumbledore didn't know yet that James had used the Cloak 
monthly (at least) to sneak the Animagi into the Shrieking Shack, I'm 
not sure he can be taken as an expert on what James did with the 
Cloak. James may have used it for a great deal more sneaking into the 
Restricted Books section, stealing Potion ingredients, going to 
Hogsmeade at unapproved times, etc, than Dumbledore knew about.  

Sushi wrote:

> The full moon does not rise at sunset. It rises at noon, 
> and sets at midnight,

This post caused me to search When does the Full Moon rise on Ask 
Jeeves, and these are some relevant answers that I found: 

http://astro.gmu.edu/classes/a10594/notes/l03/l03.html  

http://www.olemiss.edu/courses/astr103/Tests/2001-T01sol.html
(25) At what time will a full Moon rise?
-- Noon.
b. Sunset.
-- Midnight.
-- The answer depends on the time of year.

(26) If the Moon high in the sky at sunset, what can you conclude?
-- It must be a new Moon.
b. It must be a first quarter Moon (waxing).
-- It must be a full Moon.
-- It must be a third quarter Moon (waning).

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/amoon.html
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a10559.html
Q: Does the Full Moon rise exactly at the same time that the Sun 
sets?
A: No. For example, on May 22, the Full Moon rises between 5 to 20 
minutes AFTER the sun sets between latitudes of 0 and +50 degrees 
north. It rises 20 minutes after sunset at the equator, and 4 minutes 
after sunset near +42 North latitude. The orbit of the Moon is not 
co-planar with the ecliptic so the Moon and Sun are not 180 degrees 
apart on the sky for all geographic latitudes. 

Steve bboy_mn wrote:

<< Since I have seen the moon in the daylight hours of late afternoon 
and at other time seen the moon appear long after it was dark, I have 
to assume that the moon rises and falls on a varying schedule just 
like the sun. >>

While I checking out Jeeves's answers (above), one of the sites that 
I *didn't* record said the Moon rises about 50 minutes later each 
night. So if it rose at 6pm on Full Moon night, it would rise around 
6:50pm the next night, 7:40 the next night, and eventually around 
midnight on the night of the waning half-moon (which is named Third 
Quarter on purpose to confuse me). 

Eileen wrote:

<< Do you really think Gryffindor played without a seeker? Why would 
they do this? Surely, someone played seeker. Just not someone who was 
properly trained. >>

QTTA page 38 listing the rules of Quidditch says "5. In the case of 
injury, no substitution of of players will take place. The team will 
play on without the injured player." I thought that rule meant if the 
player was injured DURING THE MATCH, but maybe it isn't that limited. 
Maybe the rules didn't let them use a substitute for a player who was 
injured WELL BEFORE THE MATCH. 

Btw, that rule 5 does not contradict the tale of a match that went on 
for months so that the teams had to bring in substitute players so 
the first-string players could get some sleep, because needing sleep 
is NOT AN INJURY. Other reasons for bringing in substitute players, 
besides injury (forbidden) and sleep, include if one of the first- 
string players is being an unlucky klutz today, or needing a player 
with a different skill-set (e.g. when the weather turns to rain, 
bring on the Seeker who is especally good in rain).

Star Opal wrote:

<< Okay, yet ANOTHER suggestion for the new DADA teacher: Miranda 
Goshawk. She's the one who writes The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 
_) books that Harry gets each year. >>

Do we know whether she is even still alive? How often does Hogwarts 
update its textbooks? They might have been using the same Miranda 
Goshawk texts for 200 years.

Pippin wrote:

<< Oh for goodness sake, you two! This is *Snape* we're talking 
about. Snape doesn't have to *think up* insults. They're like Kleenex 
-- they pop out instantly from some reservoir of inner spleen. >>

Lord Cassie wrote:

<< If he just told Hermione to go to the hospital wing and then went 
on with class I would just seem...unSnapeish to me. >>

Hey! Maybe that moment of thought, which so many listies have 
mentioned, was Snape thinking what to do in order to maintain his 
"cover" as the vile teacher. Maybe the "I see no difference" 
statement sprang into his mind INSTANTLY upon seeing the problem, 
simply from his particular sense of humor, as Pippin so very 
wonderfully stated, and he stopped and thought about whether to say 
something so cruel ... Personally, I don't think he thought at all 
about whether or not it was cruel, merely whether it was useful. 

Steve bboy_mn wrote:

<< he should have had the totals boards, which I believe are out in 
the hallways in the school common area >>

Nitpick: PS/SS says they aren't board, they are hourglasses: "At 
first, Gryffindors passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the 
house points the next day thought there'd been a mistake. How could 
they suddenly have a hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday?" 
I assume they are hourglasses filled with one bead per point, and 
lines painted across the hourglass showing the number of points at 
each multiple of 100, and that the beads are in each House's colors.

Derannimer wrote:

<< The Sorting Hat does not put the biased in Slytherin; it puts the 
*ambitious* in Slytherin. Ambition is, canonically, the standard the 
Hat uses to Sort the Slytherins. >>

Maybe the Sorting Hat LIES about what criteria it uses to select 
Slytherins. I personally think that bitter VENGEFULNESS is more of a 
common trait shared by the Slythies we've met than is ambition.