replies to almost 2000 posts

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 116918


I'm up to Message 116713 of 116916 but my brain feels like it may have
stopped working. 

Occlumency: my theory is that Occlumency serves to block Legilimency,
and the connection between the minds of Harry and of LV is not
Legilimency (Snape said so, as Legilimency requires eye contact and
falls off with distance), so even if Harry had learned Occlumency, it
wouldn't have made any different to the mind-link.

Sophierom wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/114856 :

<< So, Dumbledore shoots down (if you believe him) any abstractly
noble reasons for Snape's protection of Harry. It's a truly Slytherin
motive, I suppose: save Harry, pay off life debt, hate in peace. >>

<< I think a lot of it, actually, has to do with what he finds
out from Quirrell and Dumbledore: that Snape hated/hates Harry's
father. Harry is, after all, a boy, a boy who never got to know his
father, who idolizes what little knowledge he has of his father
(mirror, etc.). So, i can see how this piece of information, told in
the way it was, would be enough to keep Harry from changing his
opinion about Snape. >>

Was Dumbledore deliberately trying to ensure hostility between Harry
and Snape? Because Dumbledore could have perfectly well answered
Harry's question without saying one word about James, and even without
saying anything about Harry being the prophecy boy, and even without
saying Snape is a white hat -- he could have said "Professor Snape was
trying to to be awarded the Order of Merlin by capturing Voldemort and
saving the Philosopher's Stone himself, and it would have made a very
bad impression if any students had been harmed."

Del wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGr
ownups/message/114874 :

<< sometimes ... he truly becomes incompassionate, in that he refuses
to care about the feelings of the people close to him. Ron and
Hermione, in particular. He was quite odious to them in OoP. >>

And at that time he was being influenced by feelings that originated
in Voldemort.

Alla wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/114889 :

<< As for heroism, we just have to agree to disagree, because I cannot
envision the hero who is not compassionate in my mind. >>

The hero who rescues victims out of a sense of duty to God or country
or whatever, rather than for the victims' own sakes?

Dungrollin wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/114961 :

<< I ... can't help but wonder how many other degrogatory nicknames
can be made from 'Severus'... >>

I was thinking 'Syphilis' even before listie Phyllis confessed to
having been abused with that nickname in her childhood. 'Sewer-gas'?
Maybe that would be too easy to throw back at Sirius. 'Sulphurous'?
'Sev-venereal'? 'Squibberus'? 'Septicus'?

macfotuk wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115025 :

<< Kreacher clearly owes his allegiance much more to Sirius' mother
than his father and her portrait in an earlier chapter screams of half
breeds and, above all, 'how dare you befoul the house of my fathers
-'. (SURELY, it isn't HER father's house (meaning either her actual
father or her forefathers) since she (presumably) gained the name
Black by marriage? >>

Macfotuk offered several possibilities, of which the one closest to my
belief is <<-It was such a close intermarriage that both were called
Hubby and Wife-to-be were Blacks already and she insisted on living in
'her' home. >>

I believe that Sirius's parents were first cousins; their fathers were
brothers, so it was the house of Mrs. Black's paternal grandfather as
well as Mr. Black's paternal grandfather (same person) -- I get
confused counting the generations, but I think Sirius's parents's
grandfather would be Phineas Nigellus's grandson .... 

Further, I like to think that brothers brought their brides home to
the Black House and raised their children there ... there enough
bedrooms for the Order members who were staying there, therefore
enough for three generations of the family to all live together.

OTOH, Kreachur may have simply formed the habit of devotion to Mrs
Black during however many years she was alive and giving him orders
after Mr Black had died.

DuffyPoo wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115572 :

<< You've just convinced me that not even Sirius knew the whereabouts
of the Potters after the FC was produced making Peter the SK. I've
always thought it would be silly to let a lot of people in on it as LV
could certainly use his magic to torture them into telling. The
problem with it, still, is that Sirius knew where to go to look for
them when he couldn't find Peter that night. However, I still maintain
that the address is blocked from the memories of those who knew when
the FC is produced, so when it is broken - in this case by the
destruction of the house - that it comes back to those memories and
that is how DD knew to send Hagrid and how Sirius knew where to go. >>

That was a popular theory before OoP, but OoP provides much more
explanation of the Fidelius Charm. With Dumbledore as Secret Keeper of
12 Grimmauld Place, Harry could stand right there and not even see a
gap between 11 and 13 until Dumbledore('s handwriting) told him the
secret. Dumbledore told each of the Order members the secret, but that
didn't break the secret for people who had not been told. Black
relatives like Bellatrix and Narcissa surely knew that the Black
family home was at 12 Grimmauld Place, and may even have suspected
that Sirius was hiding there, but they could have stood in the street
all and not been able to see or touch the house despite seeing Order
members appear on the sidewalk (by Apparation) and disappear (into the
house). 

Thus we know that if Peter, as Secret Keeper, had told Sirius and
Dumbledore and Hagrid and nosy, stupid Bertha Jorkins and two hundred
other people where the Potters were hiding, then even if all those
people ran to tell Voldemort that his targets were hiding in Godric's
Hollow, still Voldemort would have not have been able to find them
because it was not *the Secret Keeper* who had told him. 

(Either he could have gone to their address and found not even a gap
between the neighboring houses, as in OoP, or he could have seen the
house but been unable to see whether the occupants were in or out, as
per Flitwick's statement in PS/SS: "As long as the Secret-Keeper
refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and
James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had
his nose pressed against their sitting room window!".) 
(Steve/bboymin suggested an explanation of that discrepancy in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116017 )

So to me it makes the most sense that Peter told Sirius and Dumbledore
and Hagrid, and James's parents if they were still alive, so that
James and Lily didn't have to go completely without visitors despite
being in hiding. The objection is usually raised that Dumbledore would
have known that Peter was the Secret Keeper if Peter had told him the
secret. I think that is why we were shown the written secret in OoP:
to let us know that Peter told the secret in writing, and I suppose he
imitated Sirius's handwriting for that purpose. 

Finwitch wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115203:

<< [Voldemort]'s somewherein Albania (for some reason he was thrown
there). He lived as a spirit and was less than a ghost...>>

Just Carol replied in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115612 :

<< Doesn't he get there by possessing small animals? That's what he
does after he leaves Quirrell, at least. >>

I believe one of the spells or a combination of the spells that
Voldemort used to try to become immortal worked and that he why he
didn't die when he was disembodied by the rebounded curse. I believe
that he happened to be in a forest in Albania when he performed the
spell that actually worked, and that one side-effect is that his
vapour/spirit is always strongly atttacted to that place, as if
magnetically. He can only resist it when anchored in a body. Thus
whenever his body is removed from him, back he zooms to that spot in
the Albanian forest. 

<< As a spirit, all he could do was possess animals (and apparently
understand their thoughts and therefore communicate with other
animals). But he could also use them to kill and eat other animals,
which is why he was regarded as a spirit of terror by the rats and
other creatures that Wormtail talked to after LV's second
vaporization. >>

I have always been under the impression that the little animals were
terrified of that Entity because being possessed by It was immediately
painful and quickly fatal. They saw their relatives cry out in pain,
act weird, and die. That's enough reason to fear. (See Dungrollin's
post on possession 116301.)

<< He was also able, somehow, to communicate with Quirrell and
persuade him to carry him, in some form, back to England. (He only
possessed him as a punishment, and a means of control, after Quirrell
failed to get the stone.) >>

If only Quirrell had been a Parselmouth, Voldemort could have
communicated with him while possessing a snake (and being seduced by a
talking snake is so Biblical). Otherwise, there are some kinds of
birds who are good at imitating sounds including human speech, like
mynah birds -- mynah birds aren't wild in European forests, but maybe
a starling or a magpie? But a lecture on Nietzsche from a little bird
wouldn't be so persuasive ... Could Vapormort have been a light breeze
in his ear?

<< whatever form he had when he met Quirrell. (Could he have been a
monstrous infant then, as he is in GoF, transformed through Nagini's
milk and an incantation without the use of a wand? Or could that
transformation have taken place only once, with Wormtail using
Voldemort's own wand to transform him?) >>

It may be that more than magic and Nagini's venom (to "milk" a snake
is to extract its venom such as for making antivenin) was used to make
V's ugly-baby body. Some insightful listie suggested that poor Bertha
may have provided more than information to LV. I imagine LV having a
female captive, a male servant, magic to speed up the process (there
wasn't any nine months between Bertha's disappearance and the murder
of Frank Bryce), and magic for Vapormort to possess the fetus or
embryo in such a way that it became his own body rather than a
possessed body ... 

Magda wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115788 :

<< My assumptions about Peter are:
- he's able to project back at you whatever image of himself is
necessary for you to drop your guard and let him get close to you;
- he's lazy and more than pleased to let you do all the scut work
that's necessary to change into animagi or finish a Charms essay or
whatever, and he's willing to abase himself to get you to do it ("Oh
I'll NEVER get this essay finished! I haven't got your brains,
James!");
- he doesn't lose his head in a crisis (snip)
- (snip). He's in it for the power. >>

Replace the laziness & abasement by vanity & arrogance, and that
describes Tom Riddle.

Kneasy wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115855 :

<< A werewolf in a wizard society. Bitter? Feels that life is unfair?
Particularly as Sirius sees their jaunts at the full moon as an
occasion for fun, for entertainment - and it can't come soon enough
for him. Lupin thinks differently; it's painful, it's a loss of
humanity, of intellect; it's to be feared. >>

PoA: "they did something for me that would make my transformations not
only bearable, but the best times of my life. They became Animagi." I
don't think young Remus was really annoyed that Sirius wished it was
Full Moon. 

Cat_kind wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/115911 :

<< The remaining Heads of House would seem to be the obvious
candidates, i.e. Snape, Flitwick and Sprout. Snape seems to be a
generally nasty piece of work, and I wouldn't put very high odds on
him surviving the series either, so we are left with Flitwick and
Sprout. We haven't heard much about either of them, but we have to
assume some leadership qualities and they seem to be good and unbiased
teachers.

It would be nice to think the WW will be sufficiently revolutionised
that Lupin is a candidate. He seems to be one of the cooler heads in
the books, and is depicted as an inspired/inspiring teacher, even
above McGonagall. I could see him slipping into the wise leader role,
if he's got over the blind loyalty to his friends. The poor sod
hardly has friends left to be blindly loyal to. >>

This is a forbidden "I agree" post. Btw I wish JKR hadn't put the
kibosh on notions of Harry becoming a Hogwarts professor if he
survives ... I *do* think he'd be a fine DADA teacher, Head of
Gryffindor House, and eventually Headmaster after retiring from being
an Auror.

Just Carol wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116004 :

<< Also, I can understand Black, who had escaped Azkaban with the
intention of murdering Pettigrew, being more than ready, even able, to
cast an AK to do it. But Lupin? Knowing that using an AK means life in
Azkaban or having your soul sucked by the Dementors? Does Lupin have a
death wish? And could he even conjure up the cold indifference to the
life of a former friend necessary to cast an AK? >>

I don't think they were going to cast AK. There are other curses that
can kill -- when Sirius *supposedly* killed Pettigrew and 12 Muggles,
he supposedly used some curse that killed 13 people and exploded the
street, which doesn't sound like AK to me. 

Your point about Lupin in effect volunteering for a life sentence in
Azkaban still holds. Especially as I think Remus must have a very
strong survival instinct or love of life -- he didn't have much else
to live for in those twelve years between Godric's Hollow and being
given the DADA teacher job at Hogwarts -- twelve years with no job, no
friends, a lot of poverty, and some horrible memories (of one of his
best friends murdering the rest of his best friends). *waves to
Kethryn's post 116122* I think it was a demonstration of how much he's
willing to sacrifice for loyalty to his friend, in line with all that
talk about Marauders dying to protect each other.  

Anyway, why did they roll up their sleeves before casting that curse?
Until now, I thought that was just silly, but now I realised they may
have been planning to use something that would splash blood on them
... maybe a Severing Spell on a big artery? But wouldn't that get
blood on more than their sleeves?

Just Carol wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116194 :

<< Snape addressing Lupin by his last name to distance him (contrast
Lupin's use of "Severus" to suggest friendship or equality). >>

It never occured to me that Remus suggesting that Neville dress the
Snape boggart in Gran's clothes was a Remus jab at Snape, or anything
but Remus doing his teaching job. But it always seemed to me that
Remus addressed Snape as 'Severus' as a way of intentionally
irritating Snape for which he could not be blamed as surely Dumbledore
always urged all his staff to first-name each other for the sake of
collegiality. So much more elegant to knife your enemy by your perfect
behavior than by childish name-calling that makes you look bad.

Siriusly Snape Susan wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116202 :

<< Or perhaps we are back to students as a rule not complaining to
teachers, and so [McGonagall], really doesn't know what goes on re:
Snape & a couple of select Gryffindors? >>

If, as has been speculated, the Castle's paintings, ghosts, and/or
House Elfs give the Headmaster an earful about everything the Castle's
occupants are up to, and we even have OoP canon that one of the
paintings in Dumbledore's office told a *student* (Dean Thomas?) that
Harry had killed a basilisk with Godric Gryffindor's sword, then
surely the Heads of House also get some information that students
never tell them.

SSSusan in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116207
:

<< Oh, goody! Someone bringing up MM's possible crush on DD! I was
hoping someone would pick up on that when I first posted on MM a
couple of weeks ago, but no one did then. >>

McGonagall showed a bit of hero-worship ("Only because you're too
noble to use them") in that 10 to 14 years-ago and out-of-character
Book 1, Chapter 1, but not since then. Far from having a crush on DD,
she has been happily paired up with Hooch since before she (McG) got
the job at Hogwarts (canon evidence = it's so *obvious*, why doesn't
everyone *see* it?). I suppose they live together unostentatiously in
staff living quarters in the Castle; I imagine McG proposed Hooch for
the Flying teacher job when it became available.

Snape has much more of a crush on DD. Not explicitly sexual. Snape has
a huge father-figure projection on DD, with hero-worship of DD, and a
psychological desperate need to be approved, praised, forgiven by DD,
and sibling rivalry with Harry ... 

Lady MacBeth wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116290 :

<< There's also the possibility that Narcissa's family and Lucius's
family are not that distantly removed. Sirius went off on a tangent at
one point about how he was related to the Weasleys - plus, there's at
least two surnames besides the Weasleys on his tree. Phinneas Nigellus
was a prominent person on his family tree, yet Sirius's surname is
Black. That suggests close interconnectedness between the families. >>

I personally feel certain that Phineas Nigellus is Phineas Nigellus
Black. (One doesn't have to be a Southerner to be known by two given
names, like my New Jersey born and raised friend Lee Ann Whatever-her-
husband's-surname-is.) Phineas is a Bible name, also spelled Pinhas
which the Hebrews got from the Eqyptian name Pa-N'hasi which means
"the Nubian", like modern people naming their kid Scot or Dane.
(Altho't it turns out that there are so many people who have heard
that Phineas is Hebrew for snake-mouth that JKR must have heard that
story and probably is referencing it as well.) And Nigellus is Latin
for Neil but widely thought to derive from "niger" the Latin word for
"black". Thus, our charming Slytherin Headmaster's name is (close
enough) Black Black Black. I tried to think up other names in the same
pattern and came up only with Ciaran Cole and Melanie Maura.

"jiggsvelasco" wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116327 :

<< I have a question about the Fountain of the magical brethen in the
MoM. Why are merfolks not included in it? >>

It is my theory that that Fountain refers to some specific episode in
wizarding history, and that part of DD's plan for Harry's destiny is
to do it over again, except get it right this time. So far he has
gathered Harry and Ron (wizards), Hermione (witch), Dobby (House Elf),
and Firenze (centaur) to his team. He still needs Bill Weasley to
recruit a goblin for the re-creation.

Neri TBAYed in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116369 :

<< "Those ships that are NOT sea worthy just sink under their own
weight, and I've found that this is the most accurate and simple way
to ascertain that they aren't sea worthy". >>

This is a forbidden LOL post!

Tonks wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116374 :

<< Also I think that Occlumency gives a person the ability to block
evil thoughts and so called *the devil made me do it* impulses. >>

Snape is said to be a superb Occlumens. Do you think he blocks evil
thoughts and "the devil made me do it" impulses. 

Charme wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116435 :

<< Ancient Egyptian words like "mut" (mother) and "baal" (bull)
are all derivatives of the words we still know in English today, >>

I don't know how many Kemeti words for "bull" there were, but IIRC the
most common was "ka", possibly able to make a pun on another word "ka"
that meant kind of "soul".

"Baal' means "lord" in Hebrew and some related Semitic languages.
"Mut" seems to have meant "death" and "vulture" as well as "mother". 

(I once took a summer school class in Hieroglypics, but I am nowhere
near smart enough to take Stuart Tyson Smith's class on how to figure
out how Egyptian was actually pronounced in different centuries, so I
cannot even speculate on how the different words written with the same
phonemes and different determinatives were  pronounced, differently or
the same.)

Boyd wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/116494 :

<< Having narrowly escaped Azkaban, they turned more to their families
(most appear to have had children about Harry's age...hmmmm) and other
diversions. >>

I have a theory that there was Another Prophecy, one known to
Voldemort, but not to Dumbledore. This other prophecy was something
like a boy born at such and such a time will bring victory to his
father's side. So LV ordered all his Death Eaters to go home and
procreate ... actually, there isn't much evidence of DE children in
Harry's year except from Lucius Malfoy and his buddies, so maybe it
was Lucius rather than Voldie who heard and acted on this prophecy.

LisaMarie wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/116705 :

<< In the chapter when Harry goes to the Leaky Cauldron (shoddy
reference, sorry), the inn-keeper, Tom, /clicks his fingers/ to make a
fire in Harry's room. Hagrid and Hermione both also conjure fires (in
PS/SS), but use wands to do so. What's with all this /finger
clicking/?!? >>

The Leaky Cauldron is a very important place, gateway to Diagon Alley,
so maybe Tom the inn-keeper is a very powerful mage who can do lots of
wandless magic. 

Or maybe Tom is not an especially powerful mage and can't especially
do wandless magic, but hired someone to enchant all *his* fireplaces
so that they light when he clicks his fingers (I imagine that means
the same as 'snap his fingers'). It's not like we'll ever see him
lighting a fire anywhere other than the Leaky Cauldron, to see if he
uses a wand then.

Lucy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/116711 :

<< How long do you think house elves live? just a random question.
Kreacher is old but how old? and how much longer is he going to go on
living? Dobby has been with the Malfoys for a while. is winky still
quite young? >>

Kreachur is old enough that he knew Mrs Black in person even tho'
she's been dead for ten years. Dobby at the beginning of CoS
apparently remembers the bad old days when Voldemort was in power,
then eleven years past. From my memory, Sirius said his Aunt Elladora
had started the custom of beheading House Elves when they got too old
to carry a tea-tray, and mounting their heads on the wall. That was
long enough ago that there were enough House Elf head on plaques to go
all the way up the stairway. Just how long ago did Aunt Elladora start
that custom, and was she really a great-great-aunt?

Btw, has anyone mentioned that all those House Elf heads were
described as having a family resemblance to each other and to Kreachur
in terms of having a prominent snout?