Random Thoughts // Last of the Potters

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 58093

"...ready to strike the moment he could be sure of allies ... to 
deliver the last Potter to them. If he gave them Harry, who'd dare to 
say he'd betrayed Lord Voldemort? He'd be welcomed back with 
honors..." PoA page 272 of UK paperback, apparently 1999.

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Ladi lyndi <ladilyndi at y...> 
wrote:

> 1.  Now that Percy is working, is he paying his
> parents room and board?  

I suspect that Arthur and Molly would rather he saved his money. So 
as to have enough savings to get married and give them grandchildren.

> 2.  At what age do wizards move out from mummy
> and daddy's and get their own place?  

I imagine that it varies tremendously. For example, I imagine Malfoy 
Manor as so huge a place that several generations of Malfoys could 
all be living there, raising families there, in apartments of their 
own, all at that same time.
> 
> 3.  Are there special wizard realtors or do
> wizards have to deal with Muggle realtors when
> they want to buy a house?
> 
I imagine there are wizard realtors (they'd be 'estate agents' in 
Britain, and even in USA 'realtor' is a trade-marked word) to help 
wizarding folk buy and sell wizarding houses, but wizard folk who 
wanted to buy a Muggle house, or buy Muggle land to build a wizarding 
house, would have to deal with Muggle estate agents, and Muggle 
government entities. However, all the Muggles could be put under 
Confundus Charms and Memory Charms.

> 4.  Why didn't Bill, Charlie or Mr. Weasley lend
> Ron their dress robes for the Yule Ball?  Even a
> bit big, it would have been better than what Ron
> had to wear.  I'm assuming Fred and George were
> wearing Bill and Charlie's old ones.  

As someone already said, there is no reason to assume that Bill or 
Charlie HAVE dress robes -- there was no Yule Ball when they were in 
school and we have not heard of any other reason why Hogwarts kids 
would need dress robes. Bill might well have a set of dress robes for 
job-related "social" events (he works for a bank) but Charlie seems 
to be some combination of dragon wrangler and starving grad student, 
no obvious need for dress robes. Mr Weasley's dress robes probably 
are as worn out as his day robes. PERCY might have brand-new dress 
robes, bought with his first several paychecks...

Bill, Percy, and Ron as built tall and skinny like Arthur, and 
Charlie and Fred and George are built wide and strong, so I would 
have assumed that Bill's and Arthur's and Percy's robes would fit Ron 
but not the twins, and Charlie's robes, if he had any, would fit the 
twins but not Ron ...  

I don't know the twins dealt with the dress robes situation, other 
than they aren't as self-conscious as Ron. Maybe Molly was able to 
find less horrible second-hand robes in their sizes, maybe she found 
them equally horrible robes but they were able to improve them better 
(due to being more advanced in magic or due to being willing to ask 
for help). Or, inspired by your suggestion, maybe they were able to 
wear Bill's and Percy's robes, somehow Charmed to fit.

BTW, I AM AN IDIOT, I only noticed two days ago that Most Charming 
Smile has a double meaning! 

> 5.  Why do the Weasleys keep buying the textbooks
> second hand when the older kids could just pass
> down their books?

I assume that the some of the textbooks are the kind that one wants 
to keep as reference books throughout one's schooling and possibly 
into one's adult career -- here in Muggledom, I have madly obsolete 
over 20 year old COBOL text books that I keep at my desk at work!

> 10.  Why did Lucius Malfoy have no choice but to
> leave when Dooby told him too?  Is an elves
> finger the equivalent of a wizard's wand?

I think Dobby's pointed finger was simply a threat to do more than 
what he had just done: "There was a loud bang, and Mr Malfoy was 
thrown backwards. He crashed down the stairs three at a time, landing 
in a crumpled heap on the landing below." You may be right that a 
House Elf's finger is the equivalent of a wand, but then I would 
have expected some mention of Dobby's finger when his spell threw 
Lucius down. The phrase "Lucius had no choice" means to me that he 
had no USEFUL choice: he could stay and throw fireballs or Cruciatis 
at Harry and Dobby, but only at the risk of Dobby throwing even 
bigger fireballs back at him, or Dumbledore, with other witnesses 
(it was a public space), testifying to the MoM that he had performed 
an Unforgiveable Curse.

> 11.  Was Harry able to throw off the Imperious
> Curse put on him by Voldemort so easily because
> they are connected by the curse that failed? 
> Because, as Dumbledore has surmised, Voldemort
> transferred some of himself to Harry?

My theory on that is that Harry was able to throw off the Imperius 
Curse because Lily was helping him: that was her voice telling him 
not to obey. Here comes my usual rant:

If Dumbledore knew just how badly the Dursleys would treat Harry, it 
was foolish or desperate of him to leave Harry there, or wizards' 
psychology is different from that of Muggles, dogs, and cats. The 
kinds of beings that I know about, bring them up in constant abuse 
and no example of goodness, and they grow up either broken terrified 
cowards who'll do anything to (something like Pettigrew in GoF) or 
cynical tough guys who'll do anything to triumph (something like Tom 
Riddle). Neither is good preparation for being a hero to rescue the 
wizarding world.

I think Lily was able, with her magic, to put an image of herself in 
her baby's mind, that would be like an 'imaginary mum' (by analogy 
with 'imaginary friend') who would cuddle Harry and tell him that 
he's a good kid who doesn't deserve Dursley abuse and tell him about 
how decent people behave, thus being that one caring adult ("example 
of goodness" in previous paragraph) said to be necessary to even a 
'resilient' child's survival of serious abuse... I kind of think Lily 
used her last magic to put this image in his head intentionally, 
instead of using her last magic in one last attempt to escape 
Voldemort. That is the heroic self-sacrifce that canon credits her, 
accepting her own death because it was more important to her to give 
this protection (from abusive Dursleys) of her love. I don't know 
why she would do that if she really believed that he would be dead 
seconds after she was, so I am left sympathetic to the theories that 
Harry survived AK because of some magic that had been done on him 
(presumably by Lily) or that he had been born with. 

When Harry resisted the Imperius Curse, the Curse's Moody-voice in 
his head told him to jump up on the desk, and "another voice had 
awoken in the back of his brain. Stupid to do, really, said the 
voice." I believe that that other voice is what's left of the 
image-Lily after all these years; she doesn't appear often, she 
appears as Harry's voice instead of her own, but she still is caring 
for Harry -- and still has free will.

In addition, so far we've always seen Harry wondering and trying to 
find out about his father, and not about his mother. Some say that's 
a plot device because JKR is saving some big surprise about Lily, and 
some say it's normal because Harry is 11 to 14 so far, puberty and 
adolescence, and much more concerned about a male image to identify 
with. But *I* say that he doesn't search so much for Lily because, 
unknown to himself, he already has her with him.
> 
> 16.  Why does Snape have an apparent phobia about
> washing his hair?
> 
Maybe he doesn't have a phobia about washing his hair. Maybe he washes 
it all the time, but it's greasey by nature. Or gets greasey each day 
spent leaning over fuming cauldrons in the Potions dungeon.

> 18.  Why would there still be a wizarding
> contract for Harry if he didn't put his name into
> the Goblet of Fire?  

Apparently the Goblet of Fire doesn't care whether or not the person 
consented to their name being entered, it puts a contract on them 
anyway. There is no reason why magic would have to obey modern law of 
contracts ... and I imagine that what makes the magical contract 
"binding" is that it magically makes very bad things happen to the 
person who breaks it. Dumbledore saying that Harry had to participate 
in the Tournament due to a "binding magical contract" meant, in my 
opinion, that even worse things would happen to him if he didn't 
participate than if he did.