posts from 119806 to 120981

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 120982


Kneasy wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/119806 :

<<Now JKR has made it a bit more difficult; the Lestranges were not in
on the secret of the Prophecy. Were the Longbottoms? Possibly so. >>

As James and Lily and Frank and Alice were all members of the Order,
and they were the parents of the two people about whom the Prophecy
might be, DD definitely *should* have told them at least as much of
the Prophecy as LV knew, as part of explaining why LV was determined
to kill their babies.

Kneasy wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/119806 :

<< What information could Bagman have that would interest a Voldy spy
already inside the Ministry? Bagman wasn't working at the Ministry
then, though he had expectations - he says that Rookwood offered to
help. Yet it was Old Rookwood - a friend of Bagman's father - he was
passing the information to. >> 

I figure that young Bagman, as a beloved celebrity, was often invited
to VIP parties, where VIPs, maybe even the heads of MoM departments,
tried to impress him by showing off how much they knew about important
activities, such as the fight against LV. I imagine Rookwood need
merely have taught him to look interested, and to remember what he was
told long enough to regurgitate it into a report. 

Annemehr added in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/119815 :

<< Not only what information could a young Quidditch star obtain, but
what could it be that he could plausibly *think* was to help the good
side but was really for the bad side?  >>

I like to think of young Bagman as stupid enough that it never occured
to him that an MoM intelligence officer didn't need spies to find out
about official MoM secret plans for, oh, a raid at a certain time of a
suspected DE meeting place, or a new kind of Anti-Apparation spell...
 Okay, I suppose Rookwood could have told young Bagman that he was
working for a parallel underground Resistance which existed because
the Ministry was so full of traitors; he could have said that this
Resistance group was led by the widely respected Albus Dumbledore; he
could have said it was the Order of the Phoenix if that name were
publically known.

Alla wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/119859 :

<< Minerva MAY feel affection for Harry, I just don't see it in the
books. Could you give me some canon on this one? (snip) I suppose her
"I wil help you become an auror even if it will be the last thing I
do" counts, but besides that I cannot remember anything. >>

CoS:
<<"Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?"

It was Professor McGonagall, and her mouth was the thinnest of thin
lines.

"We were -we were-" Ron stammered. "We were going to - to go and see
-"

"Hermione," said Harry. Ron and Professor McGonagall both looked at
him.

"We haven't seen her for ages, Professor," Harry went on hurriedly,
treading on Ron's foot, "and we thought we'd sneak into the hospital
wing, you know, and tell her the Mandrakes are nearly ready and, er,
not to worry -"

Professor McGonagall was still staring at him, and for a moment, Harry
thought she was going to explode, but when she spoke, it was in a
strangely croaky voice.

"Of course," she said, and Harry, amazed, saw a tear glistening in her
beady eye. "Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the
friends of those who have been ... I quite understand. Yes, Potter, of
course you may visit Miss Granger. I will inform Professor Binns where
you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given my permission."

Harry and Ron walked away, hardly daring to believe that they'd
avoided detention. As they turned the corner, they distinctly heard
Professor McGonagall blow her nose.

"That," said Ron fervently, "was the best story you've ever come up
with." >>

McGonagall IS A BIG SOFTIE.

"nienna_anwamane" asked in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/119941 :

<< I've wondered if maybe after the parents flat out refuse to allow
their child to go to Hogwarts their memories are erased, but can the
child's magic abilities be bound so they can't use them any more? >>

It seems to be accepted in this Y!group that parents have a right to
prevent their children from getting a suitable education, but *surely*
that doesn't give parents the right to *disable* their child by
destroying one of the child's innate abilities? May they cut out the
child's vocal cords to prevent the child from trying to be a
professional singer (pop or opera)? 

Chrusotoxos wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120042 :

<< << 2. Was Lupin a werewolf on the night that Lily and James were
killed? >> No again. He was suspected, remember? Therefore, he had to
be in his human form to be able to go to Voldemort and betray the
Potters. >>

No, I don't remember Lupin ever being suspected of having led LV to
the Potters on that Halloween night. Sirius was suspected because
Sirius was believed to be the Secret Keeper, and Sirius suspected
Peter because he knew that really Peter was the Secret Keeper. Lupin
was not the Secret Keeper, but he could have led LV there with a note
telling the Secret written by the Secret Keeper (as Harry was led to
12 Grimmauld Place). That everyone suspected Sirius the Secret Keeper
and no one suspected Remus the Secret Keeper's friend who might have
had such a note suggests to me that he WAS transformed that night.

<< Now answer me this, it's obsessing me: did Lucius teach Snape all
those drawling tones and silky voices? The self-assurances, the feline
grace? Was he trained that way in order to fight as a Death Eater? Are
they friends? >>

I'm sure that Snape learned all that style from Lucius, from carefully
observing and imitating Lucius rather than direct lessons. We don't
know if they're *friends*, but they certainly are associates of *some*
kind: Umbridge told Snape that Lucius Malfoy had spoken well of him. I
believe that the reason for Snape's 'sudden movement' when Harry said
Lucius was at the Graveyard (late in GoF) was because Snape liked
(hero-worshipped) Lucius so much that he had, until then, managed to
fool himself into believing Lucius's claim of having been Imperio'd
into Death Eating, and he was shocked to find that Lucius was a
voluntary Death Eater. However, I can't imagine that Lucius had any
warmer feeling toward Severus than finding him useful. 

K Cawte wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120182 :

<< And if we give Harry a pass on killing Voldemort (snip), how is he
supposed to go about it? AK is after all illegal. >>

Throw him through that Veil in the Department of Mysteries. 

Del wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGr
ownups/message/120192 :

<< was Sirius an Occlumens? If not, how come DD didn't know Sirius
wasn't the traitor? >>

I find it hard to imagine that Sirius was an Occlumens, as he is even
less able to control or conceal his emotions than Snape is. Of course,
it is possible that he had more self-control before Azkaban, or that
self-control has nothing to do with Occlumency. If Sirius was not an
Occlumens, so DD could see that he had no treason in mind when last
they met, DD could have thought that the treason came into him near
the last minute ... I don't *recall* DD saying that Sirius had been
the Dark Lord's right-hand servant or had been biding his time or any
of those things Fudge said; DD may have thought that Sirius broke
under torture or was tricked in some way....

Tammy wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120397 :

<< Madam Hooch - If she's brave enough to be a Quidditch Ref, she's
probably a Gryffindor, I'd say. She'd be cool to see as Head of House
too, would she still be an impartial referee? >>

I've always thought of Madam Hooch as a Hufflepuff. Following the
rules is a Hufflepuff trait good for a referee to have. I think that a
Gryffindor teacher would concentrate most on teaching the most
talented students and get impatient with the least talented ones (as
McGonagall with Hermione and Neville in Transfiguration) and a
Hufflepuff teacher would concentrate most on patiently teaching the
least talented students in an effort to get them up to mediocrity. I
think the 'Hufflepuff' style is better for a Flying (or Driver Ed)
teacher, as the students who are good at it quickly pass and leave the
class, while the struggling students need to learn this skill for the
sake of the rest of their lives. 

Speaking of Madam Hooch, why does she have yellow eyes like a hawk and
like Hedwig?

<< Kingsley would be a lovely Head of House, but who'd want to stop
being an Auror to be a teacher? >>

I imagine that an Auror who reaches a certain age (maybe 60 or 70)
without having been promoted into management usually makes a career
change, and that Defense Against Dark Arts teacher would be a suitable
new career. Despite JKR having indicated that Harry is not going to be
a professor, I like to think that (if he survives the series) he could
play Quidditch professionally for a couple or up to twenty years, then
be an Auror for 30-40 years, then become DADA teacher at Hogwarts,
then become Headmaster. I doubt he'd be a good Head of House but I
feel he would be a good Headmaster by the time he's old enough.

"jaymzhuk" wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120400 :

<< Perhaps it's fallen off the bottom of the search, but I noticed on
looking at JK Rowling's website that Ginny's full name is Ginevra, but
nobody seems to have commented on this! >>  

Various people commented back then that 'Ginevra' is a form of
'Gwenevere" (as is "Jennifer" but I can't think how to work in a
reference to the Donovan song "Jennifer Juniper") and might therefore
have some Arthurian (matiere de Bretagne) symbolism. Arthur is named
"Arthur" and Percy's name is reminiscent of (but not short for)
"Percival", and some listies have said that the Welsh Arthur's spear
was named "Ron", but I can't remember any Arthurian referents for
"Molly", "Bill", "Charlie", "Fred", "George".

Dungrollin wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120407 :

<< Guinevere, which is an Old French form of the Welsh name
Gwenhwyfar, from gwen meaning "fair, white" and hwyfar meaning
"smooth". >>

For what it's worth, Marion Zimmer Bradley had "Gwenevere" as Gwyn
Aver meaning White Bird, and I've also seen White Shadow offered as a
meaning.

<< I'm afraid that Juniper only makes me think of gin. 

:) "Gin" is short for "geneva". I thought the liquor was named after
the city Geneva, but the dictionary now claims that the liquor was
named for juniper and the city's name started out meaning "knee" --
"same as Genoa". Anyway, in my mind the connotation of the city of
Geneva is international treaties and international organizations, so
maybe Ginevra Weasley's role is to make peace between two sides.

Btw, JKR's comment also said that Ginny is the first Weasley daughter
in some (three?) generations, which someone commented must mean that
there is something important about being a Weasley daughter. All I
know is it screwed up my fanfic in which Arthur's older sister Willa
was a hot-shot wizarding lawyer.

Moonmyst wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120439 :

<< << 1. It's the Chamber of Secrets - plural. What else was down
there? >> << I don't know but I bet the veiled gateway started life
there! >> It would be interesting to know what could possibly have
been started out of the veil. Why does this make me think of the
riddle with "prince" as the answer? >>

It never occured to me that mooseming's answer could be read as
meaning that the Veiled Gateway created (started) a life (living
creature) in the Chamber of Secrets, as I always assumed that it meant
that the Veiled Gateway's own "life" (existence) was started there,
meaning it was invented/constructed there. (As in, "she started life
named Wendy Wilson but soon became Amy Gurevitch when she was adopted
four days later"). 

I personally dislike the idea that the Veiled Gateway was constructed
in Salazar's Chamber of Secrets, therefore not much more than 1000
years old, because I so much loved someone's suggestion that it had
been in its current position when humans first came to the Island of
Britain, that a wizards tried to study it (maybe mixed wizards and
Muggles, back in those days), that a settlement grew around it to
house the researchers, that that settlement eventually became the city
of London, and the Ministry building was built around the Veil.

But if the Veiled Gateway were buried within what I choose to call
Hogmount (or Mt. Hog) before Hogwarts Castle was built over it ---
that would correlate with Cuaron's interview statement that JKR said
Hogwarts was built on an old Celtic site (presumably itself built on
an older pre=Celtic site) --- it could be that Salazar found the
Veiled Gateway and built his Chamber around it. It could be that the
evil spirit (which some of us hypothesized possessed Salazar, turned
him evil, and possessed a series of Dark Lords ever after) came out of
the Veil and possessed a previously non-evil Salazar. (My fanfic
assumes that Salazar was already evil long before the Founding, but my
fanfic has been wrong about plenty of other things.) The only thing
that requires some fast talking is why an evil being came from a place
that contains good people like Sirius and presumably Harry's parents
and Luna's mother. 

Laurasia wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120445 :

<< And using a visible/opinionated narrator means that there is no
mistaking the author's intent. >>

Well, maybe not. Sometimes a writer uses a visibly opinionated
narrator to show how wrong the narrator's opinions are, like an
anti-racism book narrated by a racist who praises all the bad things
that happen and criticizes the good things. That is not relevant to HP
(sorry, List Elves!) but your statement was phrased as a
generalization. 

Heather wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120447 :

<< I went back and found that Jo's date of joining was June 27, 2003.
So I started searching. Here is her first post: (#64851)
<< anybody else beginning to suspect that the 'lightening bolt' could
in fact be a snake shaped scar? What could this mean? >> >>

And mooseming's later posts included the suggestion that the Heir of
Slytherin, i.e. the person whom the evil spirit possesses when its
previous host dies, gets a silver snake mark on the forehead at time
of possession. However, IIRC someone asked JKR if Harry's scar is
shaped like the "sig" rune and JKR said The Shape Is Not The Most
Important Thing About That Scar.

Tim Regan wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120475 :

<< 1, 15
Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. They showed Harry and Hermione
the harness they'd rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between
them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it and then Harry
and Hermione shook hands with the others and thanked them very much.
Harry and Hermione : Charlie and his colleagues >>

<< 4, 5
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they
must be: Bill and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.
"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at
him and holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling
calluses and blisters under his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who
worked with dragons in Romania.
Charlie : Harry >>

I went back to check PS/SS and found that GoF is correct that Harry
had never seen Charlie before: Charlie was not with his friends who
picked up Norbert. So you should change your summary from "Charlie and
his colleagues" to "Charlie's colleagues". Here's the quote from
Charlie's letter in PS/SS: "I'd be glad to take the Norwegian
Ridgeback, but it won't be easy getting him here. I think the best
thing will be to send him over with some friends of mine who are
coming to visit me next week."

Chancie wrote of the idea that Snape warned James that their Secret
Keeper had betrayed them to LV in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120550 :

<< I agree that IF something like this did happen, then James would
probably be very scepical to say the least. However, James and Lily
did know Voldemort was looking for them. I have a hard time believing
that they would take a chance like that. I mean, ignoring a threat
that could very well kill their son??? If I heard some one was looking
to kill my baby girl, and that they knew were I was and they were on
their way, I would definatly not just take my chances, whether I
believed this person or not. >>

As various people have pointed out, if Snape came to the Potters'
hiding place to warn them that their Secret Keeper had revealed the
Secret to LV, they should have realized that their Secret had been
revealed at least to *Snape*. So someone suggested that Snape got DD
to summon James to Hogwarts so Snape could tell him. In that case, one
parent could make the point you made: IF THIS CLAIM IS TRUE, WE MUST
RUN AWAY! but the other parent could worry that, if this claim is
false, it could be a deliberate trick to get us to leave our safe
hiding place and come out into danger.

Valky wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120581 :

<< Is this the authoritative word on ?Why on Earth? did JKR tell us
now-relatively-insignificant-since-Harry-got-over-her!Cho's patronus
?? >>

IIRC John Granger, who writes the books on alchemical meaning of the
Potter ouevre, said it was a way to slip in a swan because the swan is
an alchemical symbol for the next step in the recipe.

Jen Reese wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120757 :

<< World domination is a little mundane, yet remains popular among the
evil overlord set. >>

You phrased that so well!

Pippin wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120760 :

<< did that make it okay for Umbridge to use the quill? Of course not,
she was violating the policy that corporal punishments should not be
used against students. >>

To me, there is a wrongness to that quill beyond it being corporal
punishment, much worse than caning or or even being hung from the
ceiling in chains. A pen that drinks the blood of the writer *must* be
some kind of Dark Magic! And branding his flesh with what she *knew*
was a false accusation!

Del wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGr
ownups/message/120899 :

<< We're told that everyone at school read the Quibbler article,
so this must include Marrietta. As I said in another post, I think JKR
didn't give us any logical reason for Marrietta to have acted when she
did because Marrietta was never supposed to be anything more than a
plot device. I find that quite frustrating though. >>

I assume that Marietta acted when she did because that is when her
parents put some heavy emotional pressure on her, which may have been
because Fudge's paranoia had gone up a few notches resulting in
increased pressure on all Ministry employees. Or may have been because
they somehow found out (she actually let some words slip out) that she
was closer to the suspect Harry Potter than they had warned her
against being. 

Saraquel wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/120978 :

<< With all due respect, in my opinion, likening centaurs in a
children's book series to 'corrupt, evil, black' people and
discussing lynchings and the KKK does an incredible disservice to
the scores of innocent real human beings who were lynched and
murdered by the KKK. >>

Um, I think Pippin was comparing Umbridge to an evil Black person in
relation to comparing the centaurs to the KKK. Just because all the
victims of real-life lynchings were innocent doesn't make it
impossible for a hypothetical person to be both Black and evil.