TIPS ON WORKING OUT CLUES IN THE HARRY POTTER SERIES

[thesparksiii]

No: HPFGUIDX 84280

TIPS ON WORKING OUT CLUES IN THE HARRY POTTER SERIES

	Do you want few important tips on how to figure out 
significant stuff hidden in the books???

	Check out some of the patterns I have noticed about the 
manner JKR gives clues while I was reading the books:

	First, look closely at the statement following the 
phrase "AS THOUGH." I used to pay a little attention with them 
before, assuming that it was just part of the way JKR describes the 
situation so as to give the readers a clear idea or picture of the 
things around. Little did I know that most of the statements 
following that phrase (as though) are giving away an awful lot of 
highly significant ideas of what might happen. Here are few 
examples, excerpts, actually, from the HP books:

1.	In Chapter 4 of  Book 5 p.60 (American ed., hardbound)
"The others' hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of 
foreboding; it was AS THOUGH they had just entered the house of a 
dying person."
See! How huge a clue that was! It actually gave us an idea of who 
might die.

2.	In Chapter 9 of Book 4 p.124 (American ed. Hardbound)
"Winky the house-elf was fighting her way out of a clump bushes 
nearby. She was moving a most peculiar fashion, apparently with 
great difficulty; it was AS THOUGH someone invisible were trying to 
hold her back."
See again! And in the end, there was really someone invisible 
holding her back, Barty Crouch, who was one of the main, but secret 
villain in Book 4.

	And there are numerous AS THOUGHs you can find in the books 
that give out important statements. You can check out lot of the 
others yourself.

	Second, watch out for what seems like only a couple of 
uninteresting descriptions of situations that we barely notice. Most 
of the time you can snatch hidden valuable facts from there. I've 
learned in reading HP that you have to focus on the description more 
than what the characters are saying: Examples again:

1.	In Book 3, while Harry was reading and looking at the 
newspaper sent by Ron during his vacation in Privet Drive about the 
fortune their family got, everyone in the photograph was described, 
including Scabbers, mentioning that it looked sickly and missing a 
toe. It turned out that Scabbers was important part of the story and 
the toe missing was a marking of Peter Pettigrew.

2.	In Book 5, when they were hurrying to get down to the 
courtroom for Harry's hearing, he accidentally ran into the 
windowless corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries, but Mr. 
Weasley grabbed and lead him the other way. At first, it looked like 
JKR was just describing the surroundings, but it turned out that 
that it was the corridor haunting his dreams.

3.	In Book 1, on the train to Hogwarts they've actually read 
the name Nicholas Flammel at the back of the Chocolate Frog Card 
featuring Albus Dumbledore. It seemed to be some kind of description 
only. But later in the story, they worried about where to find his 
name, which is an important piece of information about the 
Sorcerer's Stone as he was one of the brainchild of it.

Last, DIVERSION. In the middle of an exciting scene, JKR slips in 
important stuff that is quite immaterial on what's exciting and 
tension-filled that is happening, we tend to overlook it. Examples 
for the last time:

1.	When Hermione saw Snape in some kind of a trance, she 
hurried toward him, knocked Quirrel out on her way and set Snape's 
robe on fire. I was focusing so much on how Hermione would stop 
Snape and of course, I was hating Snape thinking that he was trying 
to kill Harry that I did not notice the Quirrel part, who was the 
one actually trying to kill Harry.

2.	The beetle, Rita Skeeter. During the Yule Ball I never 
noticed the beetle on the statue because I'm very much concentrating 
on what Hagrid was saying to Madam Maxime. Hagrid was finally 
talking about his mother so who would give a damn about the beetle. 
Then it appeared again on Hermione's hair while there were so much 
commotion in the aftermath of the second task. Then up in the 
divination tower, it appeared again, or was described to be there as 
it was buzzing while we focus on Harry howling in pain.

3.	Book 2, in the Flourish and Blott's. While there is a row 
going on between Mr. Weasley and Lucius Malfoy, little did we know 
that Malfoy was actually slipping in Tom Riddle's diary in Ginny's 
book. We are so much focused on the tension between Mr. Weasley and 
Lucius.

Those are just some of my tips on how to work out clues in the 
story. I hope find it helpful. And you can add more of your own tips 
on working out clues. Or you can add more examples for the tips 
aforementioned.