two weeks of replies, ctl-F for YOUR name or topic

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 138855

Vivian wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137647 :

<< I would talk to the twins. It seems like they know that school
inside out. They know all of the passageways, everything. >>

Nitpick: the Twins didn't know about the Chamber of Secrets and
thought the Room of Requirement was only a small closet.

Potioncat wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137682 :

<< We know that in Harry's 6th year, Slughorn avoids taking any
DE-connected students into his club. I wonder about the Marauders'
time. We think he had Snape in his club. Was he aware of which ones
were connected, or was he not so particular then? >>

Was Slughorn in HBP rejecting *all* DE connected students, or only
students connected with DEs who had been caught? In the Marauders'
time, we believe he had Regulus in his club, and Regulus became a DE.
I think his reasoning was to reject students related to people who had
been disgraced, such as by being sentenced to Azkaban.

Marianne S wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137700 :

<< "Snape wiped the residue from Malfoy's face and repeated his spell.
Now the wounds seemed to be knitting." I find [this] sentence in this
quote interesting.... knitting.... didn't DD say (as a reason for his
longish stay in Sluggie's bathroom while Sluggie and Harry spoke) that
he liked Knitting Patterns? Just struck me as an interesting parallel
..... >>

I admire your attentiveness to the text, that found the word 'knit'
used in such separate places. Speaking of a wound, cut flesh, or
broken bone 'knitting' is a normal terminology. www.dictionary.com
found me the following:

<<Main Entry: knit
Pronunciation: 'nit
Function: verb
Inflected Forms: knit or knit·ted; knit·ting
transitive senses
: to cause to grow together <time and rest will knit a fractured
bone>  
intransitive senses
: to grow together <fractures in old bones knit slowly>

Source: Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002
Merriam-Webster,
Inc.>>

So I suppose that DD's reference to Muggle *knitting* magazines,
instead of e.g. Muggle gourmet magazines or such, *could* be a
reference to uniting the good guys or uniting the Houses, in this
chapter by recruiting Slughorn.

CathyD wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137773 :
<< He will perform some small *heroic* act (curing Bill, saving Draco,
saving any one member of the Order), and then he will die. >>

I want (almost expect) Snape to die in the process of, and for the
sake of, saving Harry's life from some damn-fool trap Harry has let
himself get caught in. I want Snape to utter some viciously sarcastic
and innately commanding last words, telling Potter that, as the only
person who can vanquish Voldemort, it is very irresponsible of him to
get himself killed while Voldemort is still a public danger, and
ending something like: "Get the hell out, Potter. I would prefer to be
spend the last moments of my life without the irritation of your
company."

If this occurs in the first half of book 7, it will be part of
removing all Harry's support before the final confrontation with LV.

Vivian wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137783 :

<< JKR has said that Snape is based on a teacher she once had. She
also mentions that Snape is a sadistic teacher and that children can
see right through this kind of teacher.

I admit that I myself had a sadistic professor like this, so this may
prejudice my point of view. (snip) She was a blood sucking, soul
sucking dementor. And I'll never forget her. >>

I wish you'd been in the many threads (over the YEARS!) in which
several listies have insisted that Snape is a good teacher, some that
they had had teachers like whom they hated at the time but came to
love and respect when they realised how much they had learned in those
classes, and at least one described herself as a Snape-like teacher.

Kathryn Jones wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137894 :

<< Why did it take 1-2 months for Voldemort to attack the Potters
before Peter was made Secretkeeper if they were not hiding? Were the
Potters not told until a week before they died that Voldemort was
after them? What was Voldemort doing to confirm which boy was the one
he wanted? Why did he not make his move for 15 months after the boys
were born? >> 

The Potters, at least, were already in hiding when Harry was born
(according to the Mugglenet/Leaky Cauldron interview):
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/070
5-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm

<< JKR: At the time that they christened Harry, they were in hiding.
This was not going to be a widely attended christening, because he was
already in danger. So this is something they were going to do very
quietly, with as few people as possible, that they wanted to make
this commitment with Sirius. >>

I suppose that they changed hiding places whenever one of DD's spies
reported that LV had learned of the latest. I suppose they resorted to
Fidelius when LV got much too quick at finding their hiding places.
There was a spy in the Order for a year before Godric's Hollow,
apparently Peter, who presumably was well placed to know where the 
Potters were hiding and pass on that information.

Cathy D wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/138178 :

<<  If the secret was just James, Lily and Harry though, would the
protection be broken with Harry still alive? Only JKR knows for
certain but somehow Hagrid and Sirius got in when they shouldn't
normally have been able to. >>

I believe that at least Sirius and Dumbledore, probably Hagrid as
well, WERE let in on the secret, without revealing that Peter was the
Secret Keeper. OoP showed that the Secret can be revealed in a written
note. So Peter could write the note in a disguised handwriting and
send it to Dumbledore and then DD could pass it on to Hagrid. Peter 
could have shown Sirius the same note before he sent it, or just TOLD
Sirius, as Sirius did know about the Secret Keeper switch.

lazyvix3n wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137931 :

<< Fred, George, here's my new product and I'm hoping that you might
be prepared to sell it in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. It's a really
useful item that can be used to protect wizards and witches from
disarmament charms. This may look like an ordinary muggle-household
piece of string, but tie this end to your belt, button, wrist, neck,
ankle, friend or whatever and this end to your wand, Voila! You 
never need fear being disarmed again! >>

Maybe it's been tried and discovered that any decent Expelliarmus will
just break the string. (Altho' Ffred's
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/138007 
is funnier and just as likely.) 

Cathy D wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/138699 :

<< It is interesting to note that Expelliarmus, which usually simply
disarms the other person, acted very strangely when Snape used it on 
Lockhart in Duelling Club: "Both of them swung their wands up and over
their shoulders. Snape cried: 'Expelliarmus!' There was a dazzling
flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: he flew
backwards off the stage, smashed into the wall and slid down it to
sprawl on the floor." (CoS pg 142 Can Ed) 

Extra powerful Expelliarmus or an extra spell? Only JKR knows for
sure! ;-) >>

PoA: ""Expelliarmus!" he yelled -- except that his wasn't the only
voice that shouted. There was a blast that made the door rattle on its
hinges; Snape was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, then
slid down it to the floor, a trickle of blood oozing from under his
hair. He had been knocked out. Harry looked around. Both Ron and
Hermione had tried to disarm Snape at exactly the same moment."

As Harry is the viewpoint character, we know that he didn't throw in
an extra spell with his Expelliarmus, and I don't think Ron or
Hermione did either.

Betsy Hp wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137935 :

<< If Dumbledore didn't have a definite trust in Snape's overall
goodness, (snip) I *really* doubt he'd have allowed him to be a
teacher. (Not all Order members are teachers after all.) >>

And not all teachers are Order members. I can't believe Dumbledore had
a definite trust in Lockhart's overall goodness, as he knew about
Lockhart's real line of work (Memory Charm: "Impaled on your own
sword, Gilderoy?")

Klodiana wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137960 :

<< I don't know if you noticed this but when Harry tries to find out
if his dad is the HBP, Lupin tells him to check out how old the book
was. The book was 50 years old, so Harry dismisses the possibility
that it was James' or any other's who was around at his time. How come
Snape is the owner of the book? Is it because he uses secondhand
books (do we know that?)? Is it just an error or something else? >>

I think it was just a red herring, with the explanation that he used
second-hand books because he came from a low-income family, but it's
nice to pretend that it was his mother's old textbook WITH his
mother's old notes written in it, so he was just as much of a cheat
using those notes as Harry was.

Ravenclaw Bookworm wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/138210 :

<< Unless [Percy's] letter to Ron was some in very secret code that no
one has figured out, he was praising Umbridge. >>

There's a letter in code very soon after that in that book -- when
Harry writes to Sirius that Professor Umbridge is almost as nice as
Sirius's mum.

C S Wagon wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/138651 :

<< Why are Voldemort's followers called Deatheaters? Does any one have
any theories? >>

I believe that Voldemort gave them that name. One theory is he just
wanted an impressively scary-sounding name. Another is that the name
implies that the Death Eaters gain (extra magic power, extra years of
life, something like that) by taking it from the people they kill.
Another used to be that part of LV's recipe for immortality was that
his Death Eaters had eaten his death, altho' it seems to me that they
should have died as soon as they ate it, not still be hanging around
alive.

Fabian wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/138774 :

<< About the diary horcrux, from what I understand the Basilisk killed
Myrtle (since the last thing she saw was the basilisk's eyes). So how
could this tear Tom Riddle's soul apart? >>

Riddle was in that bathroom -- the reason Myrtle came out of her stall
was that she heard a boy's voice and was going to tell him off for
being in a girls' bathroom. Maybe he saw a witness (Myrtle), panicked,
and command the basilisk to 'Sic her!'.