Beginning of OotP (Re: How hard would it be..)

[grace701]

No: HPFGUIDX 53862

GulPlum wrote: 
>Absolutely. As may people have suggested, now that he's back, 
>Voldemort isn't going to wait until 1st September to make his 
>presence felt. I for one fully expect the "meat" of the story to 
>start very quickly, even while Harry is still at the Dursleys'.  
>However, I don't expect much to have happened between the return 
>from Hogwarts at the end of the fourth year at the beginning of July 
>(the third task was on the 24th June, and there's a reference to the 
>school year ending two weeks later), and Harry's birthday.
 
>The first words of GoF's last chapter are "When he looked back, even 
a month later...".This would indicate that JKR considers Harry's eye-
>view of that month to have been covered, so the narrative of OotP 
>won't start before 24th July (if we take "month" literally).  Of 
>course, this doesn't mean that something very important hasn't 
>happened during that month (or at least the two weeks since Harry's 
>return to the Dursleys) - it's just that Harry doesn't know it yet. 
>As I said at the top, I don't expect Voldemort to be waiting 
>patiently, so the very first page of the book, even before Harry's 
>birthday (I assume that the first or second chapter will focus on 
>31st July as usual) could feature some dangerous omen...
 
>And of course there's the issue of that boy lying in the flower 
bed...



Whoa! Gul! I had not realized at all that a month had past by and it 
was July 24.  Thanks for showing that to me.  Now I got confused, as 
always, and thought how is it that they're still in school in July.  
So I went back and re-read the first few lines and JKR writes three 
sentences into the first paragraph that of the last chapter in GoF:

"The recollections he did have were very painful.  The worst, 
perhaps, was the meeting with the Diggory's that took place the 
following morning."

Then in the next "section":

"Harry returned to Gryffindor Tower the following evening."

Following meaning means that night of the following morning. Am I 
right?  If this is the case, then he's been recalling everything all 
along.  Which makes the beginning of OoTP much more intersting than 
before (to me that is).  It starts that he is lying on a flower bed 
recalling the last chapter of GoF.  He'll most likely get up after 
recalling all of this and continue his day.

I agree with a lot of people on the board who'd see that a completely 
different beginning would be an interesting twist.  I like the idea 
that he may have to defend the Dursleys.  They may not be his biggest 
fans, but let's consider, for some miracle, things become better 
between them and then Harry would feel even more guilty if they die 
later on in the book.  

I'd, unfortunately, have to suggest that something may happen to 
Hermione.  She is muggle born after all and if, as Mattie Stepanek 
hinted on the Oprah show, that muggles will be involved why not start 
by attacking the Grangers.  Leaving Hermione an orphan and distressed 
that she cannot even be her regular bossy/studious self.  Which in 
turn will jeopardize her position as prefect.  Her whole world will 
come crumbling down and in a way only Harry will be able to 
understand what's she's feeling because he's been through it.

Someone mentioned before an attack on the Hogwarts train.  Sounds 
good to me.  Also, the book I'm reading, Ultimate Unofficial Guide to 
the Mysteries of Harry Potter, suggest maybe an attack on the 
horseless carriages because they seem vulnerable.   You never know....


Greicy