Muggle trade/thatNightAtGodric'sHollow/nameKarkaroff/HarryHedwigShip/Persuad

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 95610

Ffred Manawyddan wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/95252 :

<< My POV starts from the Statute of Secrecy, which I read as meaning
that at all costs, the Muggle world _mustn't_ find out about the WW.
So if there are dealers acting as a point of contact between the two,
I don't think the Ministry would be too happy about a certain section
of wizards being able to do something with impunity that others aren't
allowed to do without strict regulation. >>

I agree with Anne about Muggle-Wizard import-export businesses. I
don't agree with your interpretation of the Statute of Secrecy. To 
me, it does not ban the common wizard from mingling with Muggles.
FANTASTIC BEASTS page xvi says: "Older British readers will remember
the Ilfracombe Incident of 1932, when a rogue Welsh Green swooped down
upon a crowded beach full of sunbathing Muggles. Fatalities were
mercifully prevented by the brave actions of a holidaying wizarding
family ... when they immediately performed the largest batch of Memory
Charms this century on the inhabitants of Ilfracombe, thus narrowly
averting catastrophe." Passing by the question of how Memorcy Charms
kept the dragon from *eating* the Muggles, my point is that this shows
that wizarding families go on holiday amongst Muggles (presumably
badly disguised in not-quite-right Muggle clothing).

Carol wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfor
Grownups/message/95546 :

<< -the three defiances had to have occurred before Harry's birth
("born to those who had thrice defied him"), so they can't be the
reason for the delay between the Prophecy and the implementation of
the Fidelius Charm. So I'm as confused as ever on that particular
point. >>

First, Voldemort had to find out about the Prophecy. Then he had to
find out that Harry and Neville were the two possibilities. Surely he
then decided to kill *both* boys, just in case. I'm thinking that the
Potters and the Longbottoms were both already living with all kinds of
defenses against being attacked by Death Eaters, because they were
known to be fighting against the Dark Lord, so the Dark Lord would
have wanted them eliminated even if there were no Prophecy and no
sons.

Fudge told: "Not many people are aware that the Potters knew
You-Know-Who was after them. Dumbledore, who was of course working
tirelessly against You-Know-Who, had a number of useful spies. One of
them tipped him off, and he alerted James and Lily at once. He advised
them to go into hiding. Well, of course, You-Know-Who wasn't an easy
person to hide from. Dumbledore told them that their best chance was
the Fidelius Charm." 

However, I don't know that we can trust Fudge as a source of canon
truth, so maybe what DD was told by his spy was that LV had finally
found a way around their other defenses. 

Carol wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfor
Grownups/message/95266 :

<< I agree that Peter was in the Order before he became a spy and I
don't think he was an Occlumens. But how would LV know who was in the
Order unless a spy had informed him, and who could that spy have been
other than Peter? >>

LV didn't have to know that Peter was in the Order to know that Peter
was a close friend of James Potter. I assume that once LV learned of
Harry and Neville, he assigned agents to probe all close friends of
James, Lily, Frank, or Alice. With Peter, he hit pay dirt. 

Siriusly Snapey Susan wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/95352 :

<< Surely there are theories out there about this?? >>

During long years of wait for OoP, there were a zillion theories. It
was pretty obvious that a Prophecy was involved, so there was
speculation that the Prophecy said Voldemort would be defeated by
James Potter's son, or by "the last Potter", or by "a Potter boy", so
it was necessary to kill Harry and to kill James to prevent him having
another son or in case he was the last Potter boy referred to in the
Prophecy, but not necessary to kill Lily unless she were pregnant with
a son. We now know that Trelawney's Prophecy didn't say any of those
interesting things, but we don't know that Voldemort hadn't heard a
related but different Prophecy from some other seer. 

But surely Voldemort never refrained from killing people just because
it was unneccessary. Some people speculated he was motivated to spare
Lily because she was secretly his daughter. I don't believe that Lily
was Voldemort's daughter because *JKR* said she is Muggle-born, and
the powerful witch being Muggle-born is part of the anti-prejudice
moral of the story, and anyway Voldemort would have had no more qualms
about killing his daughter than about killing his father and
grandparents.

Another theory is that the Prophecy said that Lily's son would win the
war for his father's side so he intended to keep Lily alive long
enough to give him a son. I don't believe that, partly because I
believe that by the time he started recruiting Death Eaters for a
Reign of Terror, he had already turned himself into an immortal
red-eyed snake-man, and one of the side-effects was losing both sexual
desire and sexual organs. 

One theory that doesn't depend on Prophecy is LOLLIPOPS (acronym for
Love Of Lily Left Ire Polluting Our Poor Severus). He was always in
love with Lily. When he, as a Death Eater, found that LV was going to
kill the Potters, he tried to save Lily's life by begging LV to give
her to him as a reward. LV promised (for what that's worth) that he
would do so as long as Lily didn't interfere with him killing James
and Harry. Severus knew that Lily would never stand by to let her baby
be killed, so his next attempt to save Lily's life was to turn traitor
against LV and warn DD that of LV's upcoming attack on the Potters.
However much he hated James and Sirius at school, he hated them more
when he believed that they had spoiled his effort to save Lily's life,
and he could hate Harry for having been the cause of Lily's death. I
DO NOT believe this theory myself (for one thing, I believe that
Sevvie is exclusively gay), but I'm afraid that JKR might be saving it
as her big surprise.

A similar theory is that LV promised to give Lily to Peter as a reward
for betraying their Fidelius Secret. After having seen Voldemort abuse
Peter while totally dependent on him in GoF, I can't imagine Peter
daring to ask for such a reward, or LV intending for one moment to
give it to him.

In other words, I personally have no idea WHY LV told Lily to stand
aside.

Sherrie asked in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/95404 :

<< (As a side note - any other students of Russian out there? The
closest cognate I can find to "Karkaroff" is the sound that's used to
signify laughter, the Russian version of "ha-ha" (which sounds more
gutteral than the English). Anyone got any other suggestions as to the
source of the name? >>

A former listie named Aleksandr Lomski who was Russian said that
Karkarov was a quite normal name for a pet crow or raven because
"kar-kar" is what they say in Russian (in English, they say
"kaw-kaw"). He said that was the name of the pet crow his father had
had as a boy.

For me, the name Karkaroff reminds of unpleasant words like Carcass
and Corpse and Canker and Cancer. I used to loathe this slimey,
cowardly, dishonest, vain, mercenary character, but I've warmed a bit
to him since Tabouli pointed out that his pursuit of Viktor Krumm had
many word usages indicating that he was trying to abuse his position
as schoolmaster to seduce that unwilling young student. Sexual lust is
so much less disgusting that the other motives he has revealed! 

Neri http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/95567

<< So how about a Harry/Hedwig ship? She could be a norse princess
under a curse, and she's been living in his room all these years and
watching him taking off his closes, or perhaps she was being a nice
girl and closed her eyes? This could be entertaining. Maybe she had a
personal reason when nipping Hermione's fingers...  >>

Simon's Harry/Hedwig ship involved Harry being turned into an owl by
some curse, so he marries Hedwig and raises owlets to carry mail for
Ron and Hermione's children.

Kneasy http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/95570

<< "He did not wish to tell me," said Dumbledore. "But I am a
sufficiently accomplished Legilimens myself to know when I am being
lied to and I - persuaded him - to tell me the full story, before I
left for the Department of Mysteries."

The bracketing of a phrase with dashes, as above, is a generally
accepted convention for the use of a euphemism, a bland phrase that
replaces something not very pleasant or downright nasty. Is JKR
following common prctice? Now all we have to do is determine just what
sort of 'persuasion' DD used when rushing to rescue Harry. >>

You imply Imperius, but Veritaserum would be just as effective (and
apparently not Unforgiveable). I actually had read the euphemism as
referring to physical torture -- by tying hands to feet bent
backwards, etc, not by Crucio -- but physical torture wouldn't be as
*fast* a way to get the information, and you have reminded me that he
was in a hurry. A pity. I had been thinking happily that Kreacher had
died from the 'persuasion'.