Portkey/Pets/FewWords/Veil/Exams/Revenge/WeirdSis/Baby/ShotSB?/Crookshnk/More

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 94315

Amy Oceangirl wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/92866 :

<< The question I do have is about the portkey. We see in GoF that
when people arrive at the Quidditch World Cup that the portkeys are
tossed aside and then used again for the return trip at the end, but
have to be re-charmed. Who then was the person that made the portkey
two way. Was this done before, or during the Graveyard? Was Snape may
be actually at the Graveyard, but just not mentioned, and during the
whole wand duel snuck over to the portkey. This leaves things very
open. I'm very intrigued to hear what other people think. >> 

Many people including me believe that the Triwizard Tournament Portkey
had originally been charmed to transport the person who touched it
from the center of the maze to the judges' stand, but Crouch!Moody
inserted an intermediate stop at the Graveyard into its programming.
Therefore it didn't need to be Charmed again at the Graveyard. If
Hogwarts' magic prevents any Portkey not made by the Headmaster from
working on Hogwarts grounds (OoP shows that one made by the Headmaster
works), that would explain why LV's plot to capture Harry required a
whole year of conspiratorial high jinks piggybacked on the Triwizard
Tournament, rather than Crouch!Moody simply turning Harry's toothbrush
into a Portkey sometime in September. However, that would require
Crouch!Moody's Veritaserum statement that he turned the Cup into a
Portkey to mean only that he inserted an extra destination into a
pre-made Portkey.

Angie Garcia wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/92867 :

<< I've read all 5 books in it's Spanish version, (I live in Mexico),
and now that I'm re-reading OoP, I realized about something. ¿Does
Ginny Weasly have a pet? Because she's always taking care of
Crockshanks. ¿Is it needed for every student to bring their own pet
to Hogwarts? >>

Harry has Hedwig, Ron has first Scabbers and then Pigwidgeon, Neville
has Trevor, but we never hear of Dean or Seamus having a pet. Hermione
doesn't have a pet first or second year, and Lavender left her bunny
at home where a fox could get at it. There is no sign of the Twins
having a pet, and Lee's tarantula was new for Harry's first year
(Lee's third). To me this means that students are not required to
bring any pet to Hogwarts. Nowhere in the books yet have they used
their pets in a class -- the pets being Transfigured into goblets was
invented for the movie.

I'm sure Ginny wants a cat -- CoS quote: "Ginny Weasley seemed very
disturbed by Mrs. Norris's fate. According to Ron, she was a great cat
lover." That she doesn't have a pet is probably supposed to represent
Weasley poverty; they can't afford pets (except as a reward for being
appointed Prefect, or a rat that wandered in on its own). That doesn't
make sense to me: cats are as readily available, and likely to wander
in on their own, as rats. It also doesn't make sense that people
supposedly so desperately poor somehow come up with the money for
lavish gifts to a new prefect -- I have seen no other sign that the
Wizarding World has credit cards.

Julie Howard wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/92871 :

<< I tried searching the archives but coule not find anything on this.
It is from the first book, so something must have been posted about
it. On US hardback 123, Dumbledore's few words were 
"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
Question 1: What in the world does it mean?
Question 2: Are they the same in the UK version? >>

There are theories that Nitwick, Blubber, Oddment, and Tweak are more
than a joke on the usual way speeches start with "Let me say a few
words". A theory that they are the words of some kind of protective
spell DD is casting on Harry. A theory that they are nicknames of DD
and his school-friends (nicknames like Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and
Prongs). A theory that somehow these words are key to a puzzle that
Harry will have to solve in his final conflict with LV. Scrabble to
the death at fifteen paces?

Renee wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfor
Grownups/message/92916 :

<< Hi, has anybody noticed that Harry has a fascination with the Room
with the Veil in the Dept of Mysteries and feels drawn to see behind
it? Only Ginny and Neville seem to share the fascination. Neville has
seen death but Ginny hasn't. >> 

We don't know if Ginny has seen a person die, but she was almost dead
herself when Harry rescued her in the Chamber of Secrets.

K Cawte wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/93149 :

<< I never got the impression that failing the end of year exams at
Hogwarts would get you kept back or kicked out but rather that they
were there to show the students (and their parents) and their teachers
where the students were magically and where their strengths and
weaknesses lay. I suspect a 'failing' student would simply be given
extra coaching and such rather than being kept back. >>

There is canon suggesting that Hogwarts end of year exams matter. In
PS/SS, Hermione is depicted as saying: "What am I studying for? Are
you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the
second year?" and later the narration says: "Harry had almost
forgotten that the exam results were still to come, but come they did.
To their great surprise, both he and Ron passed with good marks;
Hermione, of course, had the best grades of the first years. Even
Neville scraped through, his good Herbology mark making up for his
abysmal Potions one. They had hoped that Goyle, who was almost as
stupid as he was mean, might be thrown out, but he had passed, too. It
was a shame, but as Ron said, you couldn't have everything in life."

Or do you interpret Goyle "passing" as evidence that people being held
back for failing the exams is just a student myth?

Potioncat wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/93507 :

<< [Draco] taunts Harry about wanting revenge. (He, of course, seems
to think Black was the one who betrayed them.) >>

What does Draco know or think happened? The conversation among the
adults at The Three Broomsticks indicates that witches and wizards who
were adults by Halloween 1981 'know' that Sirius Black and James
Potter were best friends but Sirius Black served LV and betrayed James
to his death and killed all those poor Muggles, but not about the
Fidelius Charm nor about Pettigrew's 'heroic death' unless they are
Hogwarts Professors or Fudge. Is that what Draco thinks, or did his
father tell him more? Hey, how much more did Lucius know? Only what
Fudge (and other Ministry contacts) told him, or did he know that
Sirius was not working for LV and did he know that Pettigrew was? 

It seems to me that Lucius was pretty close to LV, so he must have
known about Pettigrew if the DEs in Azkaban knew. Some people think he
even went along on the Godric's Hollow attack -- Harry's dream about
the turban telling him to transfer to Slytherin (already recently
quoted on list) includes "and there was Malfoy, laughing at him as he
struggled with it -then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher,
Snape, whose laugh became high and cold -- there was a burst of green
light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking." It has been suggested
that these dream elements come from Harry's memories of that night:
Lucius was there (Harry thinks Draco because they look alike), Snape
was there, LV and AK were there.

So does Draco think that Sirius Black is a stupid sucker or a
prodigal-son hero of the Dark Side?

Eric Oppen wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/93866 :

<< I daresay that without Harry _having to go,_ Ron wouldn't have even
considered going to the Ball. >>

Surely some students who would never want to go to the ball to dance
or romance, and who didn't like wearing dress robes, nonetheless
wanted to go to the Ball just to see and hear The Weird Sisters live.
The narration said that they were a very popular band.

On a related note, Carolyn White in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94119 quoted
Kirley McCormack saying:

<< We played at the school Christmas ball as a favour to him - we
don't usually do kid's discos, >>

I think there are barely 20,000 witches and wizards in the British
Isles. If they have an auditorium that can seat 1000 people, it would
take only 20 concerts for all of them to hear The Weird Sisters live.
I take this to mean that even a top wizarding band like The Weird
Sisters usually plays smaller venues and doesn't turn down any paying
gig.   

TigerPatronus wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/93931 :

<< It seems to me that a reflexive, unreasoning hatred of an entire
species of creature is the sign of extreme immaturity and possibly an
evil nature. >>

Cockroaches? Tiger mosquitoes? Formosan termites? Fleas?

Inky/Julie wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/93994 :

<< Sirius himself might also just not have considered raising a baby
on his own. Sirius is a batchlor, he's in the Order so he's presumable
in a high risk occupation (I know LV is presumed dead but lots of
mopping up to do), and he might not have a settled home. (snip) Even
if Sirius hadn't been on a tear after Peter or suspected of betrayal,
he might not have taken Harry to live with him until the boy was
older. >>

Lynette corrected her in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94017

<< Sirius DID want to take Harry, but Hagrid told him no, that
Professor Dumbledore had told him to bring Harry to him. That's when
Sirius gave/loaned him the motorbike. AFTER Hagrid says he is taking
Harry. >>

Here's the canon, from PoA: "How was I ter know he wasn' upset abou'
Lily an' James? It was You-Know-Who he cared abou'! An' then he says,
'Give Harry ter me, Hagrid, I'm his godfather, I'll look after him --'
Ha! But I'd had me orders from Dumbledore, an' I told Black no,
Dumbledore said Harry was ter go ter his aunt an' uncle's. Black
argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter
get Harry there. 'I won't need it anymore,' he says.

Siriusly Snapey Susan  wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94078 :

<< I desperately do NOT want Lupin to be ESE!Lupin, so I'm begging
someone else to take Inge's son's comment and develop a theory for
someone *besides* Lupin to have been the "shooter" so that I don't
have to lose faith in Lupin >> 

Listies have suggested two theories in which Good!Remus is the
shooter. I think it was Kneasy who suggested that Remus eliminated
Sirius because Sirius's recklessness was endangering Harry and the
Order. I think it was Talisman who suggested that Remus was following
DD's orders to make sure that Sirius didn't come out of Department of
Mysteries alive ... she had a theory that for the only person whom
Harry could ever remember loving like a parent to die in front of him
would trigger emotions in Harry (some combo of love, grief, and
willingness to die) which would be Harry's weapon against LV. 

She said, from the time the Prophecy was made, DD was arranging
everything for Harry to defeat LV. He meant for James and Lily to die
defending Harry to activate that mother-love charm. 

Then he did everything for Harry to love one parent-type and to kill
that parent-type -- he put Harry with the abusive Dursleys and left
innocent Sirius in Azkaban so neither of them would love anyone else.
Then he made sure that Sirius saw that newspaper photo, he secretly
assissted Sirius to escape, and he threw Harry and Sirius together at
the end of PoA in circumstances where they would emotionally bond;
then he separated them because absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Her theory goes on that DD spent OoP putting Harry, Sirius, and LV
together in the DoM. He used the Prophecy as bait for LV. He avoided
Harry so that Harry would have only Sirius to turn to. He insisted on
Occlumency lessons BECAUSE they left Harry's mind more open to LV's
illusions -- he WANTED LV to lure Harry to DoM. He knew Sirius would
rush to rescue Harry. He arranged for Sirius to be in poor fighting
condition at the time, with weakened mental and physical health, by
having kept him confined in that horrible house, with Snape taunting
him, and maybe having him doped with that recklessness potion. The
usual argument against (Kreachur, Snape, or DD) doping Sirius with the
recklessness potion is, if Sirius was out of character, Remus would
have noticed it. If Remus was in on it, then Remus would not have
commented on Sirius's personality being changed by the recklessness
potion. 

In any theory, if Remus shot Sirius, I so desperately hope that Sirius
didn't see who shot him! Spare Sirius one last heartbreak! 

Demuko http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94110

<< Has anyone seen the striking resemblence between Mundungus Fletcher
and Crookshanks? I can't think of any great examples right now.
However, I do remember reading OotP for the first time a while ago
and thinking to myself that these two characters are very similar in
detail. >>

Ginger hair and bandy legs. Plenty of people have noticed the
similarity, but Mundungus and Crookshanks are not the same person
because they appear in the same scene at Grimmauld Place. Probably
they resemble each other only because JKR drew them both as ugly.

<< I know that Crookshanks is supposed to be a Kneazel. However, I'm
not completely sure what that is either. >>

Kneazles are in FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM. However, you
can look them up in the Lexicon: "This very intelligent cat-like
creature can detect unsavory or suspicious persons very well and will
react badly to them. However, if a kneazle takes a liking to a witch
or wizard, it makes an excellent pet. The kneazle has spotted fur,
large ears, and a lion-like tail (FB). Crookshanks is part kneazle
(Nr).". 

You can buy FB via the Lexicon by clicking on the Red book on
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/index-2.html before or after you click to go
to Bestiary to look up Kneazle.

Viridis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94157

<< Slytherin built in the Chamber of Secrets ca. thousands years ago.
The entrance to the chapter is behind the sink on which tap there is a
tiny snake engraved. Was such modern plumbing available at Founders'
times? Or the ntrance then was masked by stone basin with cold water
and in the course of Hogwarts many rebuilts magically "transplanted"
itself onto more modern homologue? >>

I believe that Potterverse wizarding folk have had late twentieth
century indoor plumbing and Renaissance 'replica' castles since back
before Atlantis sank. They didn't need to know any plumbing,
hydraulics, metallurgy, stonecarving, or architecture because they
made their bathrooms and castles by MAGIC! However, Muggles who visted
wizards and saw the nice things the wizards had, had to invent all
that technology in order to imitate the wizarding goodies. There is a
long history of Muggles trying to imitate wizarding plumbing: Minoan,
Classical Roman, etc.
 
The wizarding folk teach their children a lot of self-enhancing
falsehoods. For example, they teach their children that the reason to
keep magic secret from Muggles is to avoid being pestered by Muggles
wanting favors (and Hagrid, not having completed his education, still
believes that), when in reality the wizarding folk went into hiding
because they were scared of the Muggles attacking them.

Another example is that they teach their children that Muggles use
technology to imitate what wizards do by magic. Technology probably
*started* that way, Muggles trying to figure out how to make bathrooms
and castles and swords like the wizards had ... this may have remained
true up to the Steam Age, with Muggles inventing horseless carriages
to imitate the horseless carriages that carry students from Hogsmeade
Station to Hogwarts, inventing railroads to imitate wizarding
self-propelled wagons like at Gringotts, gaslight to imitate the
magical self-lighting candles on the wall of wizarding houses ... but
by then the discovery and invention of science and technology had
become self-propelling themselves, and with Electricity, Muggles went
on to invent things that the wizarding folk copy. The Wizarding
Wireless Network is obviously an imitation of Muggle radio, because
it's named after "wireles", the British Muggle name for radio. The
wizarding folk would have no other reason to name it "wireless",
because they didn't have a preceeding technology named "wire" (the
telegraph).

Melclaros http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94234

<< Are you a teacher? I have taught and I've had students who were
like Hermione. They, without fail, intimidated the rest of the class.
Everyone knew who'd shout out the answer and whose hand would shoot
up first (usually those two things happened simultaneously) and if
there wasn't a unanimous groan when it happened it was giggles
all 'round. >>

My theory is that the reason average schoolteachers hate bright
students who learn all the material is because average schoolteachers
aren't particularly bright, and either feel envious resentment of
everyone who is, or are afraid that the bright students will show up
the teacher's ignorance. If having bright students in class is so hard
for the teacher, how come the teachers' unions all insist on putting
all children of the same age, from genius to mentally retarded, from
took all this subject matter last year in a different school district
to never went to school before and can't even read or write into the
same class?

Neri http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94236

<< Sorry Snape fans, our Potion Master may be talented, charismatic,
sexy, brave, shrewd, and a superb secret agent. He is also a chronic
child abuser. I see no way out of this conclusion. And in my book,
people who abuse children are bad people. >>

I think Snape enjoys abusing anyone who is vulnerable to him, not just
children.

Seren unbound_to_the_circles
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94240

<< traditionally, we know that Gryffindor is aligned with Hufflepuff;
conversely, this means Ravenclaw is tradionally aligned with
Slytherin. >>

I think Ravenclaw is traditionally neutral rather than traditionally
aligned with Slytherin. You mentioned that Draco said that being
Sorted into Ravenclaw wouldn't be that bad, but didn't mention times
that Ravenclaws were against Slytherin House. In PS/SS, "From being
one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was
suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on
him, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose the house
cup." and "Which means," Dumbledore called over the storm of applause,
for even Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were celebrating the downfall of
Slytherin, "we need a little change of decoration."

Kathy King http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/94248

<< At least one of them is quite skilled having turned Ron's teddy
bear into a spider when he was three, which would have meant the twins
were five (not bad transfiguration for a 5 year old, which was Fred by
the way) >>

Am I the only person who read "It's not funny," said Ron, fiercely.
"If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my - my teddy bear
into a great big fiIthy spider because I broke his toy broomstick ....
You wouldn't like them either if you'd been holding your bear and
suddenly it had too many legs and ... " to mean that Fred's anger
caused unintentional magic like Harry's anger caused blowing up Aunt
Marge?

Anne Siverthorne http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPf
orGrownups/message/94298

<< who are about to go into real situations where the Zen Buddist,
live and let live, No need To Be Pissy and Stressed Out way of dealing
Will Not Work. >>

Please be a darling kitty and leave Zen Buddhism out of it. My
impression from ZEN IN THE ART OF ARCHERY is that Zen was intended for
warriors, not panickers; some place the teacher explains concentration
by saying, suppose you were in a duel to the death, as used to occur
in Japan. People gather to watch, and since you are not blind you see
them, and since you are not deaf you hear them, but you pay no
attention to them because you are totally concentrating on your
opponent's movements.