A few random puzzles

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 117637


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at m...> wrote:
> 
> My timeturner must have slipped, because I found myself reading this 
> very old post. > 
> >>>In Oct 2001 Cindy wrote
> > Here are a few things that came to mind:
> > 
> > 1.  In PS/SS, Vernon insults Dumbledore, and Hagrid tries to turn 
> > Dudley into a pig, giving him a pig tail that has to be surgically 
> > removed.  But why?  If Vernon is the problem, why hex an innocent 
> > boy?
> 
> Potioncat:
> In the medium which not be named, Dudley is stealing Harry's cake, 
> but in canon, he's not doing anything.  Did Hagrid just hex him 
> because he exists?  Are we seeing a long standing trend of bullying 
> by Gryffindors?  No, really, what is going on here?  

Kneasy:
Usual  WW stuff, I think.
Despite all the thousands of posts on the subject since the site started,
nobody has ever managed to demonstrate that the WW is 'fair' or moral
in a way that is congruent with the Real World. In fact it manifestly isn't.
Power counts. Over Muggles, Elves, other beings, other wizards. The
competitors in the TWT are told "it's usual to cheat";  family arguments
end up with the losers at St Mungo's having hexes or worse removed.
Mostly the rule seems to be - do what you like, if you can get away with it.
Unless of course, in this particular instance  it's a foreshadowing - 
shades of things to come. Nobody turned up called Circe, have they?


> > 
> >>>Cindy
> > 2.  In PS/SS, Hagrid tells Harry about Gringotts.  He says it is 
> > guarded by "spells -- enchantments", with dragons guarding the 
> >high-security vaults.  As Bill is a curse-breaker and Charlie is a 
> >dragon  specialist, are the Weasleys going to break into Gringotts 
> >in a future book?
> 
> Potioncat:
> Well, Percy seems to have taken a bad turn, could be possible.  But 
> maybe there will be something going on that will require these two 
> to team up?

Kneasy:
Ummm. I  did once pen a TBAY where Bill was ripping off the Bank to
retain the interest of a girl with very expensive tastes - Mlle. Delacorte.
But that was mere whimsy.
You know, there could be something in this Bill/Charlie thing, Raffles
and Bunty, doing something technically criminal but in a good cause.
After all, there must be a  reason for the swarms of Weasleys cluttering
up the background. Apart from constituting a significant fraction of
the casualty list. Might as well do something useful before they join
the  choir invisible.

>  
> >>>Cindy
> > 3.  In the Pensieve, Bertha Jorkins appears and delivers the 
> >famous  lines that have us all so baffled:  "He put a hex on me, 
> >Professor  Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir, I only said 
> >I'd seen him  kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last 
> >Thursday . . . "  "But  why, Bertha," said Dumbledore sadly, 
> >looking up at the now silently  revolving girl, "why did you have 
> >to follow him in the first place."
> > 
> > For this Bertha Jorkins stuff to be important to make it into the 
> > Pensieve and for Dumbledore to still be sad about it, 
> >the "kissing"  has to be more than garden-variety kissing.  So I 
> >wonder if Bertha  saw Snape, who is half-dementor, administering 
> >the Kiss to someone.  Or maybe he is a vampire, and what Bertha 
> >mistakes for a kiss is really a bite.
> 
> 
> Potioncat:
> I don't think it was the kiss so much, but this idea would turn HP 
> into a bodice ripper. Let's all pause to consider that....
> 
> 
> Any way, IMHO the important thing was that Bertha was getting into 
> trouble for poking her nose where it didn't belong...foreshadowing 
> Harry's dive into Snape's borrowed Pensieve.
> 
Kneasy:
Shame on you. You haven't been reading my back posts. Tsk, tsk.
Well, lean closer and I'll let you into a secret - just so long as you
promise not to spread it around. Florence and Snape. Yes. But it
got even more intense. You know that memory, the arguing couple
and the child? That was chez Snape - Sevvy and Flo, plus Snape!Son.
It was what happened to them that made him leave Voldy, you know.
Terribly sad. Never got over it. Always quarreling, but some couples
are like that;  but let anybody else poke their noses in and there's
hell to pay.

> Potioncat, hoping you enjoyed this little trip through time and 
> wondering if Cindy is still with us?

Kneasy
Ah. No. The Poster Who Must Not Be Named.