Lily's Height/Harry Has TWO Parents

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51299

Lilac found evidence for Lily being short!

(Since there's an absence of any textual evidence at *all* for Lily's 
height, even *I,* Enemy of Authorial Hegemony Extraordinaire, am 
willing to accept JKR's drawings as Good Enough For Now <g>).  

She also wrote:

> This goes along with Elkin's theory that Harry is more like his 
> mother than his father. Yeah, he got his dad's hair, but he got 
> his mum's height. 

Oh, dear.  Thank you, Lilac, but although my inner Lockhart is 
going to be absolutely *furious* with me for admitting this, it 
was actually Pip's theory, not mine.

I only really *wish* that I'd written that post.  

About which, just a few additional thoughts to add to Pip's, 
which I hope might save me from just mouthing 'me toos' like 
some stupefied Imperius victim.

Pip wrote:

> Subtle indications suggest that Lily may have been the more 
> dominant partner. Hagrid and McGonagall both refer to Lily and 
> James as - well, as 'Lily and James'. [Ch 1 and Ch 4 in PS/SS]. In 
> the UK people tend to put the male name *first* in a partnership 
> (James and Lily) *unless* the female name is the person they 
> naturally think of first.

There's also the fact that the text strongly suggests that Lily
was the one who cast the Fidelius Charm.  The only people who 
knew about the Secret Keeper switch seem to have been Lily, 
James and Sirius.  JKR went out of her way to establish that 
Lily's wand was particularly suited to Charm work.  I think that 
this combination of factors does serve to imply that Lily was the 
one to cast the Fidelius, which given that she was only 21 or so 
at the time, and given that even Flitwick describes the spell as 
"immensely complex," does suggest to my mind that she was one 
seriously formidable witch.

> Harry is not like his father in an extremely important way. The 
> Marauder's map [PoA] suggests strongly that its inventors made 
> mischief for the fun of it. Its codewords are 'I solemnly swear I 
> am up to no good', and 'mischief managed'. When Snape tries to 
> break its secrets, it insults him. 

It's also really hard for me to imagine Harry enjoying programming
a magical artifact with quite the same *sort* of insults that
we see the Map deliver.  It's really not his style at all.  He's
quite skilled with the verbal zingers, Harry is, but he rarely
initiates verbal battle, and his style of put-down is rather
different.  It tends to be more dismissive than straightforward,
and more reactive than active.

Not that this is so enormous a difference, mind you.  But it
does speak to a difference in personality and verbal style
between father and son.

> Harry really isn't his father's sort of prankster. He plays games 
> (duelling with fake wands with Ron in GoF), but any practical jokes 
> usually have a serious purpose behind them. The firework in the 
> cauldron in CoS [Ch.11, p140 UK paperback] is to create a 
> diversion, not just to enjoy the chaos. 

Harry isn't much of a prankster at all, actually, is he?  He 
appreciates pranks a good deal when *others* play them, but do we 
*ever* see him planning one himself?  When it comes to pranks, it 
seems to me that Harry is always playing the role of appreciative 
audience, never of performer.

And finally. . . .

> James isn't real. He's a character in a book. You don't *need* to 
> feel sorry for him.

Careful, Pip!  The meta-thinking bunny might hear you!


I do disagree on the subject of Lily's role in the Prank, though.  
But I think that's another post.


-- Elkins (who thinks it quite possible that James really *might* have
"strutted" from time to time, but is willing to withhold judgement on
that until either canon confirms or denies it, or Book Seven comes 
to an end)