Mead/haircut&beard/Kreacher/plumbing/wizarding technology and manufacturing

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 143010

Carol wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142638 :

<< aside from Side-Along Apparition as an escape mechanism >>

Being as how Side-Along Apparition turns out to be possible, WHY
didn't Lily follow James's yelled instruction to 'take Harry and run
[Apparate]' away?

<< How can DD conjure *Madam Rosmerta's* mead? Well, never mind.) >>

Maybe he Summoned it (Accio!) from his liquor cabinet at Hogwarts
rather than conjuring it from nothing.

Lealess wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142647 :

<< (and have you ever had mead -- yuck). >>

Mead is WONDERFUL. It takes like liquid honey, except with some
authority, and it's hardly sticky at all.

Elyse wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142574 :

<< how does one cut his or her hair at Hogwarts? Do they have a spell
that stops it growing? How come Harry, Ron, the Weasleys all have no
haircuts? >>

I imagine that a barber comes from Hogsmead to Hogswarts School once 
a month and the boys with pocket money get hair-cuts. The boys without
pocket money would have to cut each other's hair, which would explain
why the WB merchandisers gave their drawing of Ron such a HIDEOUS
bowl-cut.

Carol wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142626 :

<< I think he has long, matted hair in PoA simply because he's been 
in Azkaban, and logically he should have a long, matted beard to go
with it. >>

I fantasize that, shortly before everything went all to Hell (aka
Halloween night at Godric's Hollow), Sirius had put a permanent
depilatory charm on his face for a joke, and never got around to
taking it off. 

Pippin wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142580 :

<< Kreacher did have to obey.
Sirius said "Out!" which Kreacher interpreted as an order to leave. >>

And even tho' Harry warned Sirius about that at the time, he has
forgotten that lesson by HBP ... in Chapter 20, when he receives the
report from the 'Elf Tails': '"Kreacher's done well too," said
Hermione kindly; but far from looking grateful, Kreacher averted his
huge, bloodshot eyes and croaked at the ceiling, "The Mudblood is
speaking to Kreacher, Kreacher will pretend he cannot hear —" 
"Get out of it," Harry snapped at him, and Kreacher made one last deep
bow and Disapparated.' I EXPECTED that to lead to another Kreacher
betrayal of some kind, just as I expected all the security questions
to detect imposters to foreshadow an imposter (presumably one
pretending to be Tonks, who was *so* OOC)...

<< What I wonder is whether Dumbledore offered Sirius the option of
having Kreacher work at Hogwarts. If so, did Sirius turn it down? >>

I hate to think that DD didn't offer Sirius that option simply out of
a desire to force Sirius to learn to deal with Kreacher, so I've
invented a theory that sending Kreacher to work at Hogwarts wouldn't
work unless Kreacher's owner was at Hogwarts.

Darqali wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142597 :

<< Now, my theory is that some poor squib had to make his way in the
Muggle world, being unable to use magic, and he became the first to
introduce modern plumbing to Muggles. [We may even know his name
.... Thomas Crapper, was it not, credited with "inventing" the flush
toilet? But he must have been just a poor squib, passing off a long
held Wizzard technology as his own invention ... :-} ]. Of course,
our Muggle plumbing has no magic to keep it going so we need
"plumbles" to sort things out when pipes clog up and tiolets up-
chuck their contents..... >>

Darqali wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142808 :

<< Sure, we have Muggle radio .... who is to say Wizarding Wireless
doesn't *predate* it? >>

I completely agree with you about the plumbing, but not about the
Wireless. I always say, in the Potterverse, the wizarding folk had
indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush toilets ever
since Atlantis. All the various Muggles who 'invented' indoor plumbing
(Minoans, Romans, 18th century, etc) were really trying to copy what
they had seen when a guest in a wizarding home. Also, the wizarding
folk had elaborate castles ever since Atlantis, so it doesn't matter
that Muggle 'castles' were IIRC wooden huts surrounded by a muddy
ditch and a picket fence at the time of the Founders.

I personally don't believe in Atlantis or primordial matriarchies, but
I also don't believe in flying carpets or House Elves. A large part of
the gimmick of the Potterverse is that many things which are familiar
folklore or fantasy motifs which every reader *knows* aren't real,
*are* real (altho' often garbled) in the Potterverse. So I think I'm
tremendously amusing to add Atlantis and primordial matriarchies to
the list of things that Muggles are too stupid to believe in.

***

I believe that their plumbing empties into the lake via a magical
cleaning spell that transmutes all the waste products into pretty
flowers or such, but I fear that that mgical cleaning spell was put in
place by the lake's inhabitants, such as the merpeople, rather 
than by the castle's occupants. Even tho' I believe that wizards have
had indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush toilets
for over nine thousand years, I have no evidence that medieval wizards
had a higher concern for clean drinking water and pleasant smelling
surroundings than their Muggle contemporaries did.

***

I believe that Potterverse wizarding folk have had late twentieth
century indoor plumbing and Renaissance 'replica' castles since back
before Atlantis sank. They didn't need to know any plumbing,
hydraulics, metallurgy, stonecarving, or architecture because they
made their bathrooms and castles by MAGIC! However, Muggles who visted
wizards and saw the nice things the wizards had, had to invent all
that technology in order to imitate the wizarding goodies. There is a
long history of Muggles trying to imitate wizarding plumbing: Minoan,
Classical Roman, etc.
 
The wizarding folk teach their children a lot of self-enhancing
falsehoods. For example, they teach their children that the reason to
keep magic secret from Muggles is to avoid being pestered by Muggles
wanting favors (and Hagrid, not having completed his education, still
believes that), when in reality the wizarding folk went into hiding
because they were scared of the Muggles attacking them. 

Another example is that they teach their children that Muggles use
technology to imitate what wizards do by magic. Technology probably
*started* that way, Muggles trying to figure out how to make bathrooms
and castles and swords like the wizards had ... this may have remained
true up to the Steam Age, with Muggles inventing inventing railroads
to imitate wizarding self-propelled wagons like at Gringotts and
gaslight to imitate the magical self-lighting candles on the walls 
of wizarding houses ... but by then the discovery and invention of
science and technology had become self-propelling themselves, and with
Electricity, Muggles went on to invent things that the wizarding folk
copy. The Wizarding Wireless Network is obviously an imitation of
Muggle radio, because it's named after "wireless", the British Muggle
name for radio. The wizarding folk would have no other reason to name
it "wireless", because they didn't have a preceeding technology named
"wire" (the telegraph).

***

The kindly condescension to Muggles shown by the older Weasleys IS a
little off. They say, isn't it marvellous that Muggles and their cute
little toys are able to make do without magic? One common Muggle cute
little toy, the telephone, can send a message a great deal faster than
an owl! Other listies have mentioned Muggle bombs that blow up a great
deal more than one street and twelve people. 

Betsy HP wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142558 :

<< Their books are printed in enough of a mass production that the
price of books is not outrageous. >>

You jumped to conclusion that mass production is the wizarding way of
holding prices down. I suspect they use magical production instead. No
printing press at all. Perhaps each copy is produced individually (as
in some ultra modern plans of manufacturing books on demand based on
some digital archive) by piling a number of blank sheets of paper,
placing a master copy on top of the pile, and tapping it with one's
wand while uttering the 'Gutenbergius!' charm (because I have no idea
of the Latin of 'let this word go out to all nations'...) so the pile
of paper is Transfigured into another copy of the book. 

<<  Which means that the WW has a cheap and steady supply of paper
products. Where do they get their oranges or wool or cotton or
cardboard boxes? >> 

The paper and cardboard may well be Transfigured from fallen autumn
leaves. 

... do robe-makers buy cloth or conjure up cloth? If the robe-makers
buy cloth (probably from a middle-man, a jobber), is it cloth that 
was conjured up or Transfigured from raw materials by wizarding 
clothmakers, woven (perhaps on magical looms) by wizarding weavers in
scattered homes or in factories, or woven by Muggles? If it was woven
by wizards (whether Muggle-ishly, on enchanted looms, or simply by
waving a wand over a pile of warp and woof threads), where did they
get the raw materials? I can't off-hand think of what could be
Transfigured into cotton or woolen fiber -- maybe shed cat hair, of
which there seems to be an infinite supply (at least in *my* home).
Maybe the fallen autumn leaves can even be Transfigured into yard
goods. 

The idea that Mrs Weasley can't Transfigure autumn leaves and cat 
hair into new, un-shabby robes for her family but a wizarding factory
can, is similar to the idea that I can't make a sports bottle at home,
but factories make them so cheaply that lots of businesses want to
give them away (with advertising logos on them). 

Asking where they get cotton and wool and silk fiber is similar to
asking where they get food items: are there wizarding farms who grow
grains, fruits, vegetables, and meat animals and sell at wizarding
Farmers' Markets or to wizarding butchers and bakers and greengrocers?
If there are no wizarding farmers (whose existence JKR could easily
prove by Ron mentioning an uncle, aunt, and cousins who are a farm
family), do they conjure up this stuff or do they buy it from Muggles?
If they buy it from Muggles, what do they think about pesticides and
synthetic chemical fertilizers and genetically modified foodstuffs? 

In general, it seems that you and I agree that a lot of stuff is
imported from the Muggle world into the wizarding world; to me, going
into the import-export business is a good opportunity for Muggle-born
wizards and witches. Many of the young people wearing Muggle-style
clothing know only that it's 'cool', not that it's Muggle-style and
sometimes even Muggle-made.

<< There's not been a single mention of a wizard factory. >>

Quidditch Through the Ages. Chapter Nine, "The Development of the
Racing Broom". "[N]ineteenth century broomsticks ... tended to be
hand-produced by individual broom-makers[.]" "The breakthrough
occurred in 1926, when the brothers Bob, Bill, and Barnaby Ollerton
started the Cleansweep Broom Company. Their first model, the
Cleansweep One, was produced in numbers never seen before[.]"