Hedwig/SortgHt/Switchingl/IWant/Bode'sVisitor/Pensieve/Wedding/Luna/Bike/

Sun Jun 26 09:22:42 UTC 2005

No: HPFGUIDX 131444

"sesshomiru25" wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/130988 :

<< Has anyone ever thought that Dumbledore may be an animagus and his
form may be a white owl, say "Hedgwig". This is just a theory but
it would explain how Dumbledore knows a lot about what Harry does
without using occulmency. >>

Whenever this is suggested, someone points out that it's impossible
because DD is a MALE wizard and Hedwig is a FEMALE owl, so it is
unneccessary to search canon for scenes in which they appear together.

Tinglinger wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/130996 :

<< 9. The sorting hat's song ....
(ss 117) "There's nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat
can't see" and later ...
(ss 121) "you could be great you know, it's all here in your head"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah.....like the Dark Lord is... just biding his time.... >>

As Firebird wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131424 << Let's
recall Harry's first encounter with the Sorting Hat, and why he was so
hard to place:
"Plenty of courage, I see ..." (a classic Gryffindor trait)
"Not a bad mind either ..." (sounds like Ravenclaw)
"There's talent, oh my goodness, yes ..." (probably points to
Slytherin, but not definitive)
"-- and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting."
(ambition = Slytherin). >> except that some listie once suggested that
'now that's interesting' was Parselmouth. In your theory here, it
could be Dark Lord. 

Tinglinger wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/130996 :

<< 10. (ss 155) Hermione to Ron and Harry "... and you'll lose all
the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about
Switching Spells"
-------------------------------------------------------------
Switching spells are mentioned but never described - what are the
consequences of a Switching Spell gone wrong? I always felt that
Harry was hit by this spell rather than an AK spell at
Godric's Hollow... >> 

Well, we know that Switching Spells are part of Transfiguration,
because the first year Transfiguration textbook was authored by Emeric
Switch, and McGonagall, the Transfiguration teacher, hissed at Neville
not to let anyone from Durmstrang know that he couldn't even do a
simple Switching Spell. 

Lupinlore wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131005 :

<< What conversations do you want most to see in HBP? What characters
do you really want to see interacting and how? >>

1. Ginny and Hermione to Ron and Harry: "We're engaged! Pick your jaw
up off the floor, Ron. Of course we can't get married until Ginny
leaves school, but then we want you both to be our best man, or man of
honor, or whatever the word is."

Meri August wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131011 :

<< The visitor is described as an "old and stooped wizard with a
hearing trumpet". Now, what I want to know is, who the heck is this
guy? It is possible, and entirely likely, that it is just one of
Bode's relations come to cheer him up, but couldn't it also have been
a disguised DE come to see how he's doing and whether or not he'll
need to be finished off?  >>

I always assumed it was Croaker, Bode's work colleague. When Arthur
was telling the kids the names of passing wizards at the QWC site, one
pair was "Bode and Croaker -- they're Unspeakables," meaning that they
worked in the Department of Mysteries.

Pitaprh wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131064 :

<< When you put memories into a pensive are they then removed from
your mind? (snip) Does Dumbledor on a daily basis remember the court
case of Barty Crouch JR, does he have to return to the pensive to
recall it? >>

I think that Dumbledore on a daily basis remembers that he was at the
sentencing of Barty Crouch Jr and that he put the details into his
Pensieve.

Gerry Festuco wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131085 :

<< I would prefer Hagrid and Mme Maxine's wedding. I want true love
for Hagrid! >>

I don't think Olympe would be happy if she stopped being Headmistress
of Beauxbatons. Whether Hagrid would be happy as gamekeeper, keeper of
the keys, and headmistress's husband at Beauxbatons would depend on
whether 'interestin' critters' are allowed at Beauxbatons ... Fleur's
rude comments about, I think it was Peeves, wouldn't be allowed
at Beauxbatons suggest that it's not a good fit for Hagrid. Anyway,
Hagrid wouldn't want to leave Hogwarts as long as Dumbledore and Harry
were there, so the wedding should wait for the end of book 7, when
Harry leaves school and DD goes to his 'next great adventure'.

Betsy hp wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131104 :

<< Gryffindor would have refused Luna. >>

Not if her courageous disregard for facing physical danger matches up
to her courageous disregard for being unpopular and mocked.

saieditor predicted in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131105 :

<< Harry will have a dream communication from Sirius and locate the
Flying Motorbike. Harry will use this Motorbike to travel ~ and fly
back in time with Hermione (and possibly Ron) to Godrics Hollow
looking for a certain clue. >>

Is the Flying Motorcycle on that little island where Hagrid caught up
with Harry and the Dursleys (sounds like a bad name for a rockk band)?
When Hagrid said he 'flew' to the island, he meant he flew on the
motorcycle? Then he left it behind when he left by boat?

Betsy hp wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131209 :

<< we know of at least one Slytherin who rejected
the ideology enough to *marry* a muggle-born. >>

Do you mean Tom Marvolo Riddle's mother? I don't think we know that
she was in Slytherin House just because she was a descendent of
Slytherin.

Karen the Unicorn wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131232c :

<< The idea of being Pureblood, the big ideas of having kids continue
the pureblood ideals, and the pureblood line, don't seem like very non
gender related topic to me. It is harkening back to the days when
women were sold to the highest bidder, and, (snip) it is also being
brought up in a very non gender friendly way, if you ask me. A woman
would be forced to accept her family's choice, purely based on the
bloodline and nothing else. >>

I don't think the pure-bloodism is a sign of gender bias. A woman,
like Andromeda Black, could be disowned by her racist family for
marrying a Muggle born, but surely a man could also be disowned by his
racist family for marrying a Muggle born (as Alisha mentioned in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131276 ).

There IS some appearance of gender bias in the appearance that married
witches take their husband's surnames (Molly Weasley, Narcissa Malfoy)
and therefore the family line must be passed through the male
offspring ... On the one hand, that victimizes daughters by limiting
how much of their parents' property they can inherit. But on the other
hand, it makes the (oldest or favored) son more victimised than the
daughter in terms of choosing whom to marry. 

Because the daughter could marry the man of her choice merely at the
cost of being disowned by her family, while the son would be limited
to marrying a pureblood witch, even if he were in love with a Muggle
or a male ... I could imagine a family like the Blacks using anything
from an Imperius curse to a threat of murdering the beloved to force
their heir to marry a pureblood. 

Tamara wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131242 :

<< Do you think Lord Voldemort was born so terribly evil, or was he
made that way by his circumstances? >>

Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort was so terribly evil ever since he was first
conceived in the mind of Joanne Rowling. 

No one in this novel (or any novel) has any free will and none made
any free choice, because they are all controlled by The Author. And at
any point in the story, the Author knows what will happen to them in
the rest of the story. It is not clear whether Real Life is similar
... I will speak of knowing the future a couple of paragraphs down.

The effect that circumstances have on a person differs from person to
person. Some, maybe a large part, of the difference is because of the
person's in-born traits and some is because of (the effect of) the
person's previous experiences. So one difference between abused baby
Tom and abused baby Harry is that they are different people, and
another is that Tom went in the orphanage directly at birth, while
Harry had a first year and a half with loving parents (and IMHO Lily
magically stayed in his mind to comfort and advise him after her
death).

Reading Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets, I am convinced that he
is a sociopath, which I believe has been discovered to be a mental
condition caused by the physical brain that a person is born with.
That makes the comparison between him and Harry as an example of free
will be not a very good comparison, because little Tommy baby didn't
CHOOSE to be physically unable to empathise with other people or to
feel love for anyone. It is a trait that made it a whole lot easier
for him to become evil.

Eustace Scrubb wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131376 :

<< But having free will doesn't mean that one escapes the prophecy.
Oedipus later discovered that he had been adopted by Polybus of
Corinth and that the man he killed on the road to Delphi was in fact
his real father and that he had in fact married his mother. Prophecy
fulfilled. And it's not just a matter of interpretation. It
objectively worked out that way. >>

Prophecies that come true because they are true prophecies (as opposed
to prophecies that come true because of co-incidence, or because they
were cleverly worded to be true no matter what happened, or because
they were predicted by someone who had a lot of information) raise the
same problem as time travel where visitors from the future cannot
change the past. It is the famous Problem of Free Will. Every present
is someone else's past, so if the past cannot be changed, all a person
can do in the present is what the future knows that he/she did. How
can my will be free if I can only choose the choice that actually will
happened? ("will happened" is my feeble attempt at vocabulary for time
travel).

JoTwo wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131383 :

<< To recap, the canon argument for Snape being there is that
originally Dumbledore was tipped off by a spy that the Potters were
in danger, and we know Snape was a spy. If he was trying to protect
Lily and James, on finding out that the Secret Keeper had told
Voldemort of their whereabouts, it would be logical for Snape to have
gone to Godric's Hollow to warn them. >>

Snape couldn't have gone to Godric's Hollow to warn them, unless he as
well as Voldemort had been told the Secret by the Secret Keeper.
Dumbledore could have told the Potters about Snape's warning.
Dumbledore could have summoned James to Floo his head to Hogwarts
for Snape to warn him. Someone (Dumbledore or LV) who had a note on
which the Secret Keeper had written the Secret could have showed Snape
the note, and *then* he could have gone to Godric's Hollow to warn
them. I believe Dumbledore was told the Secret via note, which is how
he failed to know that Peter, not Sirius, was the Secret Keeper. I
can't think of any particular reason why LV would have been told the
Secret by note. 

Alice Loves Cats wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/131433 :

<< In many ways, the Wizarding World is old-fashioned, conservative,
something from past centuries. Maybe one reason for this is that
wizards and witches seem to live longer. Therefore it takes longer for
the older generation to "die off" and for the new generation to get
its voice heard. >>

This is a forbidden "I quite agree!" post.