Something Small

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 92763

Jenni wrote:
<snip> 
Dean values his right hand, and fears losing it.
 
Carol: 
Do you remember where you read this? All I remember about Dean
(besides being Muggle-born and Seamus's best friend) is that he's good
with a quill. His drawing ability or his skill at forging signatures
has been mentioned IIRC in every book. Maybe that's the "something
small" (a minor skill) that will play a big role. At any rate, it's
been mentioned do often that it has to be important at some point--I
have absolutely no idea how.

Paula: 
Prisoner of Azkaban, us edition, The Bogart in the Wardrobe, Pg. 139
"'it's confused!' shouted Lupin.  'We're getting there! Dean!'
Dean hurried forward.
Crack! The eyeball became a severed hand, which flipped over and began
to creep alond the floor like a crab."

He most fears a severed hand, presumably his own.
 
Carol:
Thanks for the passage. I read it differently--IMO the idea of a hand
severed from a body but still moving as if it were alive was what
terrified him. It brought to my mind the scene in "Fellowship of the
Ring" ("Fog on the Barrow Downs") where Frodo cuts off the barrow
wight's hand, which was crawling on its fingertips toward him, and it
keeps "wriggling still, like a wounded spider," until Tom Bombadil
stomps it into oblivion ("dead hand is broken"). Now, though, the
severed-hand boggart makes me think of the hand of glory description
that someone posted recently (the hand is that of a hanged murderer),
which sounds sufficiently terrifying for Dean to be afraid of it. The
only hitch is that he's a Muggle-born and may not have heard of the
hand of glory. OTOH, as a soccer fan, he probably watches a lot of
television. Too many horror movies, Dean?

Anyway, I do think Dean's skill as an artist (or forger) will play a
role in later books, but I'll keep my optimistic view that he won't
lose a hand (any more than Parvati will encounter a mummy). Bad enough
when Wormtail lost his and I had to pity *him*!

And just as a side note, if Dean really fears losing a hand, it might
not be his right hand. Lots of creative artistic types are lefthanded. :-)

Carol