Good Writing (was Why now?)

pippin_999 foxmoth at qnet.com
Mon Aug 23 19:17:00 UTC 2004


No: HPFGUIDX 111011

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "quigonginger" 
<quigonginger at y...> wrote:
> > Del wrote:
> (snip)
> > ! My personal pet peeve being that if Harry could get his head 
at  GP, and if he didn't intend to take his friends with him to the 
MoM, and if he was in such a hurry to get to London, then why on 
Earth didn't he take *all of himself* to GP, and checked on his 
own whether Sirius was there or not ??? (snip the rest)
> 
> Ginger ponders:
  I can see why Harry wouldn't want to go completely into 
 GP just to check and see if Sirius was there.  <

Especially because Harry hates floo travel. This is the reason 
that working the reason floo travel isn't used to get to and from 
Hogwarts into the story would be awkward for me. Harry just isn't 
going to ask someone, "Why don't we floo?"

 The question would have to be given to another character. I 
always find it a little jarring when Harry pays attention to a 
conversation which tells him things he's never been curious 
about, like how to pronounce Hermione or why she isn't in 
Ravenclaw. I appreciate the information, but it takes me out of 
the story a little.

But nobody ever  thinks of leaving Hogwarts by floo...Fudge 
doesn't even suspect it when Dumbledore vanishes from his 
office via Phoenix  nor does Voldemort consider it as a means of 
kidnapping Harry in GoF. I think the fireplaces at Hogwarts have 
enough magic in them to know they shouldn't  allow people to 
use them for transport off campus. We've heard often enough 
how strongly Hogwarts is protected. It just doesn't make sense 
to me that the floo network would be ignored. Dumbledore, and 
only Dumbledore, is able to floo into his office fireplace from 
Outside, as far as we've seen. 

Likewise there's a whole lot of to-ing and fro-ing from GP, via foot 
travel, Knight bus, and broomstick, but nobody uses the floo 
network, even to go to St Mungo's. Harry doesn't know what 
security devices are on the fires at GP, he doesn't know whether 
it's even possible to floo out of Hogwarts. It's not a good time to 
experiment--what if he splinched?

 Sirius  using the fires is a special case because he is in 
correspondence with Dumbledore.  If students could ordinarily 
use the fires to communicate with people, they'd be doing it 
constantly, trying to get money and treats from home and talking 
to their friends off campus or in other Houses. Would Narcissa 
bother to send treats to Draco by owl if she could just pass them 
through the fire? Should we be expecting an invasion of DE 
parents via the Gryffindor fire?  Sirius certainly wouldn't have had 
to try to slash his way through the Fat Lady or have Crookie steal 
the passwords for him if he could have flooed into the Gryffindor 
Common Room. 

As for Amos Diggory, he's a neighbor of the Weasleys as well as 
a colleague of Arthur's. It's perfectly logical that whatever
security there is on fireplaces would allow him to drop in, just as 
I know the gate codes to my friends' houses.

Pippin







More information about the HPforGrownups archive