Draco/Morality-Ethics-Values/Flitwick/HalfBreeds/SidVici/MuggleUni/Alice/GH

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 112803

Susana replied in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112294 :

<< Why do you say Draco is not a good seeker? Harry is better than
Draco because he's *very* good but the Slytherin always seem to be a
strong candidate to the Quidditch cup. And I recall that Draco knew
how to fly before entering Hogwarts. I know he bought his place on the
team, but that doesn't mean his lousy. >>

This is a forbidden "I agree" post.

SSSusan wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112389 :

<< Is JKR's model so recognizably a '50s system that we should all
just be *assuming* that the moral/ethical considerations are being
handled at home? >> 

It seems quite clear that different homes are teaching different
moralities/ethics. Homes which teach equal rights for all magic-using
humans versus those which teach the greater rights of purebloods.
Homes which stress the importance of good sportsmanship (like Cedric
wanting to replay the match he won because Harry was affected by the
Dementors) versus those which stress the importance of winning, and
perhaps instruct their children in different means of cheating. And
one presumes that there are some who emphasize obedience to the
official authorities versus those who emphasize following one's
conscience.

So if Hogwarts did have some kind of class in Ethics, called Religious
Instruction or Civic Hygiene or Reading the Socratic Dialogues, there
would be endless complaints from parents that DD was trying to
brainwash their children against their parents' values.

Huntergreen wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112730 :

<< But she was acting on an internalized sense of values, just a
different set of values than Hermione. That's the thing with values,
everyone has different ones. Especially in this case, where to obey
or disobey authority is so subjective, varying from person to person,
mostly based on the experiences they've had, and (as evidenced by
Seamus and Neville) their family. >>

Like I just said (above).

Nora wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/112404 :

<<  I'm not going to go into the responsibility of the community to
police its members, okay? :) >>

On this detail, I agree with Kneasy. Each individual witch or wizard
has their innate power, and some are very powerful. Like Tom Riddle
/LV, he can throw AKs around like crazy and blast buildings to pieces
and stuff, it takes one Dumbledore or a whole army of Aurors to duel
one LV. So even if the great majority of the community thought evil is
bad (which I think is not even the bare majority of wizarding folk),
they have very limited ability to enforce that opinion.   

Theotokos wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112465 :

<< What is Prof. Flitwick? Is he just a short wizard? >>

I used to think that he had been hit by an incurable Shrinking Curse
in one of his duels (he is said to have been a duelling champion), but
the Elkins Enneology led to the suggestion that he was half House Elf.
As there is excessive RL precedent of slave owners begetting children
on female slaves. To me, that is something that surely fellow students
would pick on him for, even just for the suspicion, which might
account for why he got so good at duelling. And might he be another
one of Dumbledore's charity cases, like Hagrid and Lupin, unable to
find a job elsewhere because of discrimination, despite being very
well-qualified? (Hagrid is well-qualified with magical beasts, even if
not as a sorceror.)

So I was thinking that his father the wizard acknowledged him and took
him away from his mother the House Elf to be raised by his father's
wife the witch, and wondering why his father was willing to take
responsibility for such shame, and the wife was probably not all that
happy about it, instead of just leaving the baby with its mother to be
raised as a House Elf servant. But maybe his wizard father DID abandon
him to his House Elf mother, and then his Hogwarts letter came anyway.

If it was his mother the witch and his father the House Elf, that
would be a whole different scenario ... it would be a lot easier for
the mother to claim that the father of her child was a wizard (her
husband, if she was married) than to claim that she hadn't been
pregnant and borne a child.

Phabala wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112494 :

<< For me this also brings up the question of "half breeds" and the
laws regarding them. For example, we know from GoF that house-elves
are not allowed wands. Neither, it seems, are centaurs or goblins.
Hagrid is half-giant, and he was allowed a wand (although whether or
not the Ministry knew of his parantage is questionable). I wonder
when the line between "magical being" and witch/wizard become
blurred. >>

As far as I can tell, the Ministry views offspring, with magic powers,
of one wizard/witch and one other person as being a wizard/witch,
entitled to an education and to use a wand, but not to laws against
discrimination. It seems the same rule whether the non-wizard parents
is a Muggle or a Veela or whatever. I suppose the Hogwarts Quill must
have the same rule, because Hagrid got his letter, but none of the
House Elves or Centaurs get Hogwarts letters.   

Annegirl wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112623 :

<< Am I the only one who sees Sirius as a total punk? Maybe even
Lupin, too, but he grew out of it more. >>

Despite all Lexicon timelines, I insist on continuing to believe that
Sirius and his year-mates were born in the 1957-1958 year (because I
was, November '57) and therefore were Hogwarts class of '76. I
absolutely totally see Sirius devoted to Led Zeppelin, bouncing around
playing air guitar to their recordings. Lupin maybe liked Steeleye
Span or Fairport Convention...    

Cunning Spirit wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112632 :

<< However how would students trained in WW schools provide school
transfer records that muggle colleges and universities would accept?
>>

I feel sure that magic is very useful for forging official records,
and that Confundus Charms work as well on computer databases as they
do on Goblets of Fire, so a witch or wizard who wanted to pass as a
Muggle for a while wouldn't have problems getting the right
paperwork.  

Nora wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/112640 :

<< Even with the adorable level of oddness and eccentricity amongst
the college population, kids at Hogwarts would be hard-pressed to
really fit in. >>

Presumably only a Muggle-born or half-and-half, or someone who is
practically obsessed with Muggles, would even *want* to go to a Muggle
university. It would be to please a Muggle parent or for the sake of
the 'exotic' experience, not because Muggle universities teach
something they want to know. 

Doddiemoemoe wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112687 :

<< Can't you just imagine....Alice Longbottome re: Alice Evans....
or Alice Potter? Perhaps this is why the prophecy tends to be so
ambiguous. >>

It's already been posted that Neville's mother can't be Lily's sister
because Neville is pureblood. And Neville's mother can't be James's
sister because Petunia is 'all the family he has left'. Yeah, someone
pointed out correctly that relatives on the Potter side wouldn't serve
for the Lily's blood charm, but remember: when McG protested leaving
baby Harry with those awful Dursleys, he didn't say it was a
protection charm; he said they were the only family he had left. McG
would have said: "What about his AUNT? Both aurors, and son the same
age, what better place for him?"

Karen wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112719 :

<< Is there also a Potter family house, mansion or even castle
somewhere with a Potter family tree hanging on the wall?

James was wealthy enough to leave Harry a lot of gold. Did the
Potter's also have a house elf or two?? Are the Potter elves waiting
for Harry to come of age before reveling themselves? >>

Some listies think that the hiding place in Godric's Hollow was the
old Potter family home -- with Fidelius, a known place can become a
hiding place. (Other listies think that it was a rented Muggle house
in Godric's Hollow.) Some listies think that Dobby was the Potter
House Elf and that is why he's so loyal to Harry. 

Hannah wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/112782 :

<< I think, knowing Peter's cowardice, he is unlikely to have gone
along with LV to actually witness the murders of the friends he has
just sold. >>

I don't think LV gave him any choice in the matter. I used to think LV
made Peter personally take him to the Potter so that Peter wouldn't
fob him off with a lie (no Potters = Cruciatus'ed Peter) or lead him
into a trap (trap closes on Peter), but LV's Legilimency makes that
unneccessary (unless Peter was an Occulemens). Still, LV could have
forced him to lead in person simply out of LV cruelty.

The possibility that Severus and Lucius were ALSO in the murder party
is suggested by Harry's dream that conflated Quirrell's turban with
the Sorting Hat: "Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he
had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell's turban,
which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin
at once, because it was his destiny. Harry told the turban he didn't
want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull
it off but it tightened painfully -- 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."