possible Molly death/family broomstick/Idiot Lockhart/Hogwarts Quill, etc

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 59106

Lennyb2002 wrote:

<< What if Molly Weasley is the horrible death for book five? (snip)  
But what's to say wizzards don't get cancer or have heart attacks? 
What made me think she could have a 'muggle' sort of health condition 
is that in GoF, Bill and Charlie Weasley seem to have returned to the 
Burrow and accompany her previously ordinary trips(to the train 
station, Hogwarts, and she does not attend QWC). It is a fairly 
common thing for children to move back/ closer to home when a relative 
has become sick in order to provide support. >>

Molly Weasley *could* (please, JKR, no!) be the "horrible death" for 
book five, but there is no reason to expect her to die of a Muggle 
condition. The usual speculation is that Bill and Charlie returned to 
the Burrow to attend the QWC, a big event, and then accompanied 
*Harry* everywhere to help guard him from returning Voldemort 
loyalists. They went to the QWC with Harry, not shopping on Diagon 
Alley with Molly, which could be either that they were already 
guarding Harry before the Death Eater riot at QWC or co-incidence, 
but is not likely that they had returned home to spend every last 
possible minute with their sick mother.

Maria maryblue67 wrote:

<< [Broomsticks] are not a family vehicle (like the carpet) >>

One of the QWC pre-game ads on the scoreboard was: "The Bluebottle: A 
Broom for All the Family -- safe, reliable and with In-built 
Anti-Burglar Buzzer". That gave me the idea that it was the mini-van 
of broomsticks, for the whole family (and their groceries) to ride at 
once. Altho' I suppose they could have meant that it's safe and slow 
enough to let the kids borrow it.

Koticzka wrote:

<< What did seem strange to me was that Lockhart appeared so careless 
about displaying his blatant ignorance about spells. >>

Example of Lockhart's more-than-careless display of his ignorance:

--Lockhart: "It was definitely a curse that killed her - probably the 
Transmogrifian Torture - I've seen it used many times, so unlucky I 
wasn't there, I know the very countercurse that would have saved her 
...... "

--Dumbledore: "She's not dead, Argus, she has been Petrified," 

--Lockhart: "Ah! I thought so!" 

Why didn't he think someone might notice that he had just blatantly 
contradicted himself?

--Dumbledore: " I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. 
Norris."

--Lockhart: "I'll make it, I must have done it a hundred times. I 
could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep -"

Why wasn't he afraid that if they did allow him to make the potion, 
someone would notice that it was a bungled mess?

It almost seems as if he believes his own hype, until they find him 
packing to leave. Does he *want* those closer to him than a book shop 
autograph session to think him a harmless idiot?

Fred manawydan wrote:

<< Also, who decides which students in the WW go to Hogwarts, and 
which don't? (snip) Also, if the Quill lists in order of magical 
power, what about the Hogwarts students who are neither (apparently) 
Old Magic not particularly bright (Crabbe and Goyle jump to mind, 
even if Neville isn't a good example). >>

I believe that all the magic children, whether Muggle-born or 
wizarding born, get an invite to Hogwarts. That would be 1000 kids at 
Hogwarts, as JKR stated in an interview, to account for a wizarding 
population around 20,000, to maintain the wizarding economy that we 
have seen. My multi-campus theory explains how there can be 1000 kids 
at Hogwarts like JKR said and only 280 at Hogwarts Castle as we have 
seen in the books. I say, Hogwarts at the castle is the original and 
most prestigeous campus of the Hogwarts systems and is called just 
"Hogwarts" like UC Berkeley is called just "Cal". There are two or 
three other campuses. If one of them is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft 
and Wizardry at Woodhenge, it is colloquially called just "Woodhenge". 

This is where the Quill listing the children in order of magical 
power and the wizarding official making adjustments comes in. The top 
280 go to the Castle, the next 280 go to Woodhenge, the remainder go 
to Fuzzybunny. The human adjustments are to make sure that children 
of fine old wizarding families and wizarding families with political 
influence get raised on the list. I believe young Crabbe and Goyle 
fall into both those favored categories: I believe they are descended 
from old, Dark, stupid, wizarding families AND Lucius Malfoy pulled 
for his son's friends and his friends' sons as well as for his own 
son. Neville MIGHT have been adjusted upward out of pity for his 
well-known (to the older generation) tragic situation and the 
popularity of his "late" parents.

(By the way, I don't think in order of magic power and in order of 
intelligence are the same. There could be very intelligent kids 
with low power and very powerful kids wiwh low intelligence.) 

I believe that the high proportion of Muggle-born students in current 
classes of the Hogwarts system is a demographic blip that should go 
away after Ginny's year. (An on-going high proportion of Muggle-born 
students at Hogwarts Castle could indicate that the Muggle-born tend 
to have stronger magical powers.)  Here is something I posted long 
ago:

In my theory, the inheritance of magic is partly genetic and partly 
magical. I suggest that in general, there are a whole bunch of pairs 
of recessive genes that usually combine to make a person magical. How 
many of these pairs a person is double-recessive for, and which ones, 
would influence or control how strong their magic power is, and what 
forms of magic they are most talented at. 

But I also suggest that there is also a Magic that keeps the total 
number of wizarding people constant. When a wizard or witch dies, 
their magic goes to the next suitable child born in their area. 
Suitability would be a combination of the genes and of being 
surrounded by magic at the time. (A fetus in a witch's womb is the 
most possible surrounded by magic! So the child of a witch and a 
Muggle is almost as likely to be magic as the child of a witch and a 
wizard.) The longer the magic goes searching for a suitable host, the 
geographically wider an area it searches, and also it becomes less 
picky about suitabilty, such as choosing Muggle-born children who at 
least have SOME of the right genes, even tho' there is no magic 
around them at all. 

This theory also explains Squibs, as children of a wizard and a witch 
who were born at a moment when more wizarding babies were being born 
than wizarding folk were dying. THEREFORE, if two Squibs marry, their 
children would have the right genes, and if the Squib couple lived 
(unhappily and in poverty) in the wizarding world, their children 
would have been somewhat surrounded by magic, and therefore children 
of Squibs who remain in the wizarding world are likely to be 
non-Squib. Squibs who move to the Muggle world, make a life there and 
marry a Muggle, would probably have children who were Muggles, but 
with the genes to be very attractive to magic looking for a 
Muggle-born person to reside in.

This theory also implies that there would be more Muggle-borns than 
usual during The Bad Years. That would be an ironic result of 
Voldemort's attempt to eliminate Muggle-borns! But, as you said, more 
wizarding folk than usual were dying during The Bad Years, because of 
all the murders, and fewer were being born than usual, because of 
parents reluctant to bring children into such a dreadful world. Thus, 
quite a number of witches and wizards died with no wizarding child 
being born at their death-time, so their magic went looking for a 
Muggle-born host. Thus, more 'Mudbloods'. That could explain why 
wizarding folk from Bill Weasley's age on down are more familiar with 
Muggle things than their parents are, and take it for granted to wear 
Muggle-style clothes: they learned it from their classmates.

A further implication is that a post-Harry Potter Day wizarding baby 
boom may have resulted in an epidemic of Squibs. (My notion is that 
the 'normal' number of Squibs is one per generation. To me, Kwikspel 
was aimed at low-power wizards rather than at Squibs.)