Peter/Remus/Sirius/Severus/Veelas/Apparation/Magical Places/Blood Status

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 118693


PETER
Kneasy in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118273 :

<< As for [Pettigrew] gravitating to the strongest - who's stronger
than DD? No, I suspect that this is Sirius sour grapes; >>

I have long agreed with the above, altho' I feel Sirius' resentment is
that Pettigrew successfully fooled him, not something going back to
schooldays.

<< <<< charme: I don't think this is the mystery you do. Hagrid is
overwhelming a lover of animals and if he saw a rat, he wouldn't kill
it, he'd feed it and take care of it. In other words, the similiarity
 there exists with Peter again being protected by the "biggest and
strongest," just in a different sense. >>> 

Ah. I don't think you see what I was getting at. Scabbers has been
around the school for years. How likely is it that Hagrid wouldn't
recognise him? >>

Personally, I think Peter hid in Hagrid's hut because he knew that the
Marauder's Map doesn't show what's inside Hagrid's hut, and that
Hagrid didn't return Scabbers to Ron because Scabbers successfully hid
from him. As well as from whatever rat-eating indoor pets Hagrid might
have -- he was feeding Buckbeak dead ferrets, a live rat might make a
nice snack.

Azriona in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118416
:

<< 4. [Peter] found Voldemort in Albania without help. >>

If Peter already had the Dark Mark, perhaps it led him there.

<< 5. He lured Bertha Jorkins to Voldy's lair, despite the fact that
Bertha should have known that he was dead. >>

Maybe Peter was just lucky that Bertha's damaged memory had forgotten
that he was dead. Maybe she remembered that Peter Pettigrew was dead,
but his face had changed with age and he didn't mention his surname. I
sympathetically regard poor Bertha as the kind of old spinster
optimistic enough to be eager to go for a walk with just about *any*
unmarried heterosexual wizard over the age of adulthood.

<< 6. He gave Voldy some sort of body to exist in while waiting for
the Final Task. >>

Maybe he did. Maybe he used Voldie's wand to take poor Bertha's corpse
apart and make a Frankenstein baby out of the pieces. But I'm inclined
to believe the plausible tho' disgusting theory as to how Voldie, with
a live male and a not-yet-dead female in his control, created his
baby!body in something resembling the normal way (but faster,
considering the short time between the end of PoA and the beginning of
GoF).

Did it require special spells and/or potions to embed Vapormort in the
creature, or did Voldie just have to do his possession thing, and it
made the body his own because there was no other soul there to
conflict with? Maybe Franken!baby would have to be animated in order
to be possessed, as we have no record of Voldie possessing inanimate
objects?

REMUS
Olivier in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118510
:

<< Even in the Pensieve scene, it is Peter and the pair James/Sirius
who seems very concerned about being liked. Remus is utterly absent,
he reads and wants to do some homework. >>

I utterly adore Remus, but I must admit that in the Pensieve scene, he
was only *pretending* not to notice what his friends are doing to
Snape. The evidence that he noticed is that slight frown that appeared
on his brow when James got started. To me, the frown shows his
internal moral struggle between, on the one hand, he knows he should
do his duty as a prefect by telling James and Sirius to stop messing
with Snape, take points from them if necessary, but on the other hand,
he is scared that if he does, James and Sirius and Peter won't like
him anymore; his fear won out. He's not afraid of death or pain but he
is afraid of being unfavorably regarded by certain few people he cares
about.

I don't know if young Remus recognized the bullying as morally wrong
or merely as against the school rules. If he did (as Harry did, and
most of the reader do, but James, Sirius, Peter, and a number of their
watching classmates did not), then he had a separate internal struggle
between the fact that he liked those boys and the fact that they were
behaving in a very not-like-able way. 

<< I always assumed Lupin did some teaching for a living before coming
to Hogwarts [as DADA professor]. >>

The Shrieking Shack scene in PoA, when Lupin explains about being a
werewolf, his friends becoming Animagi, etc, is very irritatingly
clear in using the term "paid work": "gave me a job when I have been
shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I
am." I *wish* he had said he's unable to find "a job" or "employment",
because I want to believe that he did get occasional work from people
who either didn't know he was a werewolf or had work that could be
done off-site. For example, I like to think that Dumbledore found a
first job for Lupin when he left school, some translation or editting
that he could do at home and send the completed pages to the publisher
by owl. That would be 'paid work', but it wouldn't really be
'employment' because it was one set fee for one finished product.

SIRIUS
Hickengruendler in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118587 :

<< who really thinks, that if the storyline weren't told from Harry's
point of view but from a more objective one, Sirius would look as bad
as Snape. A nasty, prejudiced and dangerous man (with a sad life, that
makes his behaviour understandable), who nonetheless decided to fight
for the good side. It's just Harry's rose-coloured point of view, that
makes look Sirius better. >>

You may be right, but I think that if JKR told the story from a more
omniscent point of view than Harry's, Sirius would still look better,
because I think JKR, not just Harry, likes Sirius. It may be that JKR
is wearing the same rose-colored glasses as Harry, and not capable of
being objective where Sirius is concerned. Me, I think Sirius is a
better person than Severus is, much less nasty and somewhat less
prejudiced. But JKR is very good at convincing me: she has made me
like Ron and consider him a nice kid, even tho' in real life I have no
fondness for ordinary normal sports-obsessed, schoolwork-hating,
looks-ist kids.

SEVERUS
Olivier in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118561
:

<< why [Snape] stopped Harry from warning Dumbledore in GoF when Harry
met Crouch Senior >>

*sigh* I wish I had bookmarked the post in which Pip!Squeak explained
that to me. Harry ran to Dumbledore's staircase gargoyle guardian and
unsuccessfully tried the years-old password "Sherbert lemon". When
that didn't work: 

"But nothing at Hogwarts had ever moved just because he shouted at it;
he knew it was no good. He looked up and down the dark corridor.
Perhaps Dumbledore was in the staff room? He started running as fast
as he could towards the staircase --"  

THEN Snape called him back: "'POTTER!' Harry skidded to a halt and
looked around. Snape had just emerged from the hidden staircase behind
the stone gargoyle. The wall was sliding shut behind him even as he
beckoned Harry back towards him. 'What are you doing here, Potter?'"

"'I need to see Professor Dumbledore!' said Harry, running back up the
corridor and skidding to a standstill in front of Snape instead."

Pip!Squeak explained that Snape had just come down from Dumbledore's
office and knew that Dumbledore was on the way down behind him, so
Snape prevented Harry from running off to look for Dumbledore in the
staff room. Snape actually HELPED Harry get the info to Dumbledore
promptly, altho' while doing so, he amused himself taunting Harry so
as to make not only Harry, but us readers, think that he was HINDERING
Harry from getting the information to Dumbledore promptly.

Del in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118430 :

<< Severus was unpopular because he was in the Dark Arts >>

I don't recall the canon for *why* Severus was unpopular at school --
in fact, the canon I recall that he WAS unpopular was the Pensieve
scene, in which many students enjoyed his humiliation and no friend
defended him. 

Alla in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118299 :

<< By the way, whatever happens, it is not going to be in book 6, you
know that right? JKR said that we will find out more about Snape in
book 7 >>

It seems to me perfectly possible that Snape could die in Book 6 (I
think he will last until Book 7 because 'he is such a gift of a
character') and then Harry finds out more about Snape in Book 7,
possibly by some normal mundane method like Dumbledore telling him
(except I expect Dumbledore to die in Book 6) or Harry reads a letter
or Will that Snape left.

The Blood Status thread reminded me of the following:

Some listie proposed a theory that Severus Snape was the son of Sirius
Black's father by a Miss Snape (possibly a Muggle-born witch) and grew
up in poverty and disgrace, desperately eager to win the regard of his
father and yearning for the noble Dark Magic pureblood heritage that
Sirius spurned. A personal reason for the two S's very personal
animosity. The two might even have met as young children, if Severus's
mother so impolitely took him to the Black house to demand her child
support.

VEELA
Flop in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118666 :

<< Kneasy said: <<<I suspect that Veelas are another mythological
reference that JKR has slipped into her books, this time from Ulysses
- Sirens. <snip> >>>

Now, I agree that this is one possibility (you'll forgive me for
snipping your support; consider it point taken) but I wanted to air my
theory on the Veela.

I had assumed them to be related to the Willis (or, in German: Vilja)
who IIRC figure in Germanic mythology somewhere. I'm most familiar
with them from the second act of the ballet Giselle. Basically, they
take revenge on men who jilt their ladies by DANCING them to death! >>

Flop is right, but omitted that Swan Lake is another ballet about a
Veela/Vila/Wili/Rusalka/etc. ("Wili" is said to be the origin of the
obsolete American slang phrase: "He's got the willies" meaning "he's
scared"). 

The Veelas are from Slavic mythology/folklore. They are kind of like
nature spirits, because they can bring good weather and good harvest
to farmers who please them, and bad weather and other disasters to
farmers who displease them. So there are holidays to put out food and
flowers as gifts for the veelas. Various books say that they are the
spirits of girls and young women who died unmarried and/or childless,
so they still have unused fertility they can give to the crops. (Some
books say they are the spirits of babies who died unbaptized or of
women who were wicked. Some author pointed out that the more southerly
vilas are nicer and the more northerly ones are nastier.)

They appear as groups of beautiful young women, who dance in the
woods and try to lure any man who walks alone in the woods to dance
with them, and then dance him to death or something. (That probably
would be a tale that mothers and wives tell to try to keep their sons
and husbands home at night.)

They take the form of swans in order to fly, and upon arrival at their
dancing-place, they return to human form by taking off their swan
skins. If a man steals a vila's swan skin, she has to marry him and
keep his house and bear his children, but if she ever gets a chance,
she will steal back her swan skin and escape. This is supposed to be
the origin of the plots of Swan Lake and another ballet that I forget.
(As well as reminding me of Irish tales about selkies and their seal
skins.) (And one listie pointed out a possible resemblance to Hagrid's
mother, a magical woman who was married to a human until she left or
escaped.)

The vila who live underwater, in streams and pools, come up to the
surface to lure both young men and children to come be hugged. When
the water vila is hugging and kissing a man or a child, she descends
underwater, thus drowning the human she pulled down with her. The
water vila are called 'nereids' in Greece ('nereid' is classical
Greek for an ocean nymph and almost-modern English for a mermaid). 

Water vila are called 'rusalka' (plural: rusalki) in Bulgaria or
someplace, from the name of the Greek holiday Rosalia, which IIRC has
something to do with putting roses on the family graves (more death).
Another listie added:  
Rusalki are from the Russian folklore, and they are water spirits.
There was a traditional holiday in Russia, called Rusalnaya nyedyelya,
or Rusalki week, the name is said to be derived from the name Rosalia.
The week was dedicated to honouring the Rusalki.

APPARATION
Ces in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118501 :

<< I think maybe Arthur or Molly goes and gets her and apparates with
her? >>

Is it possible to Apparate carrying another person? Does canon tell
us? If it is possible, why did James tell Lily to 'take Harry and
run', rather than 'take Harry and Apparate'? 

Juli in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118348 :

<< I was driving to work and a thought came to my mind, how does
Hermione goes to The Burrow and other magical places? >>

The Burrow isn't the same kind of magical place as 12 Grimmauld Place,
Diagon Alley, Platform 9 3/4 or Hogwarts -- it doesn't have spells on
it to repel Muggles or make it invisible (or disguised as an old ruin)
to Muggles or hide it by the Fidelius Charm -- we know that because
three Muggle taxis drive there in GoF. The inhabitants must relay on
distance from the main road, and being screened by trees and hedges,
for concealment from Muggles.   

Is the way that the Leaky Cauldon is invisible to Muggles but visible
to wizarding folk simply that it is disguised as an alley or
something, or is it like the way 12 Grimmauld Place is concealed from
those who haven't been told the Secret: neither it nor its space is
there, and when it appears to Harry, it pushes aside the houses on
either side of it? 

I thought that Diagon Alley and Platform 9 3/4 are spaces bigger
inside than they are outside, like the Flying Ford Anglia, but the
resemblance between Leaky Cauldron/Diagon Alley for Muggles and 12
Grimmauld Place for people who haven't been told the secret is
confusing me.

<< I laugh at loud thinking of it: her very normal parents at the
Burrow, Arthur showing them his muggle's artifacts collection,
they must think he's crazy (just like Molly does). >>

They presumably got used to it when they met in Gringotts Bank early
in CoS.

BLOOD STATUS
Alshain in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/118274
:

<< For all that pure-bloods are said to be rare, there seems to be a
lot of them dotted throughout the books. The Blacks, the Crouches, the
Lestranges and the Malfoys are explicitly pure-blooded, the Fudges
probably so as well (assuming that Cornelius isn't just projecting
his own insecurities when he's placing overmuch importance on blood
purity), the Longbottoms, the Snapes as per JKR, the Death Eater
families -- Crabbes, Goyles, Notts, Mulcibers, Traverses, Rosiers,
Wilkeses. Several possible others, including but not limited to
Weasleys, Flints, Bletchleys, Warringtons, Bulstrodes, Derricks,
Boles, Higgses, Montagues, Zabinis, Parkinsons, Puceys, Browns,
Cornfoots, Greengrasses, and MacDougals. >>

It is not an axiom that being a Death Eater (or in Slytherin House)
proves being a pureblood. 

What JKR said about Snape in
http://www.jkrowling.co.uk/textonly/news_view.cfm?id=80 is 
<< Snape's ancestry is hinted at. He was a Death Eater, so
clearly he is no Muggle born, because Muggle borns are not allowed
to be Death Eaters, except in rare circumstances. >> 

(Hi, khinterberg and Sandy gave the same quote much quicker than I.)

Her statement that Muggle-borns are not allowed to be Death Eaters
(and why would they *want* to join a movement whose goal was to 
kill *them*?) didn't rule out Snape and other Death Eaters being
Halfbloods. 

In http://www.jkrowling.co.uk/textonly/faq_view.cfm?id=58 she said:
<<Q: Why are some people in the wizarding world (e.g., Harry) called
'half-blood' even though both their parents were magical?

A: The expressions 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' have
been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express
their originators' prejudices. As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy
is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle.
Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard, because of his
mother's grandparents.

If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the
Nazis used to show what constituted 'Aryan' or 'Jewish' blood. I saw
one in the Holocaust Museum in Washington when I had already devised
the 'pure-blood', 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' definitions, and was
chilled to see that the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as
the Death Eaters. A single Jewish grandparent 'polluted' the blood,
according to their propaganda. >> 

I went web-searching for the Nazi laws and found a great deal of
agreement among them that Nazi laws defined a "Jew" as a person with
at least three fully-Jewish grandparents, or with two fully-Jewish
grandparents and an affiliation with the Jewish community and "a
grandparent is automatically considered a full Jew if he was a member
of a Jewish community", but they had the term 'Mischling' for a person
who had one or two Jewish grandparents but no affiliation with the
Jewish community. 'Mischling' seems like 'mixed' and therefore I would
imagine it to be the parallel to "Halfblood" to which JKR referred.

I would understand why JKR mentioned Lily's GRANDparents if the
Pureblood-ist definition of Half-blood dealt with the number of Muggle
great-grandparents a wizard had (one Muggle great-grandparent makes
him an octaroon, two a quadroon ... oops, sorry, wrong racism), but it
seems that the Purebloodist call a wizard with one or two Muggle
grandparents a Halfblood.  

Next, a distinction between purebloods and what Steve bboyminn called
"Fullbloods". It seems to me that the purebloods are those whose
ancestors for some number of generations or years were all magical
folk -- it *might* be nine generations, as per Ernie Macmillan in CoS:
"I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine
generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as pure as
anyone's, so --" 

So suppose a person had a Muggle great-great-great-grandparent (five
generations back); that person is not a Pureblood because of the
Muggle ancestor within the set number of generations, but not a
Halfblood either because of zero Muggle grandparents, so Steve
labelled them "Fullbloods". The Death Eater ideology would make a
Fullblood free to look down on Halfbloods and Muggleborns, and to
*hunt* Muggles, as long as he/she looks *up* to Purebloods. 

A *lot* of RL people have the psychology that they don't have to be at
the very top of the social hierarchy as long as there are more people
under them than over them, so I'm sure many Fullbloods would join the
Pureblood ideology, and Fudge seems to me to have the psychology to be
one of them.

It seems to me that the Purebloodists (unlike the Nazis) want to keep
the Halfbloods alive and in wizarding society, so that they'll have
someone to look down on and force to do the least pleasant work (and
their descendents can eventually rise to Fullblood). Why that would
encourage a Halfblood to join the Death Eaters, I can't imagine.