OoP: 2 things I keep coming back to - Hermione & the Veil

[medeacallous]

No: HPFGUIDX 62254

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ronin_economist" 
<donotexist at a...> wrote:
> About the veil, my first thought was of a wizard oracle of some 
sort, 
> a place where advice from the dead could be thought. But wouldn't 
> that have been covered in Divination? I'm really liking 
> the execution idea, Jen, though the WW does strike me as the kind 
of 
> place that would still have a death penalty. (Which Vernon asks 
> Harry about in the beginning -- is that a hint?) Though since an 
> extended term in Azkaban IS pretty much a death penalty, perhaps 
they 
> decided they don't need to go through the trouble of executing 
anyone 
> anymore.
> 
> Reene

I thought that the Dementor's Kiss was the closest thing the WW had 
to the death penalty??  I like someone else's idea that it might 
have been from ages past (from before the Dementors, maybe?), but I 
also like the idea that it's just a Capital-M-Mystery to be 
explored.  Or maybe, it's not a portal for the living to go over, 
but for the dead to come to us.  Not as ghosts, not even in a 
noticeable form, but just to be with us?  Haven't you ever felt that 
someone dead is with you?  Not as a ghost, but just as a presence, 
like a guardian angel?  Apparently, when I was two, I was often 
found talking to my Great-Grandfather, who had died when I was about 
eight months old.  I wonder if he came through the veil to visit??

MC