Curses and non-descriptions (was: DDM!Snape clue)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 148458

Neri:
> 
> So here is my question: can anybody think of even a single
> non-description in the series that JKR later used in order to spring
> an unexpected solution for a mystery? I can't think of even a single
> example. The only case I can think of is when JKR didn't describe
> Harry not putting the Felix Felicis in Ron's drink. But I think this
> example doesn't really qualify, because it's Harry in this case who
> uses the non-description to play the trick on us (and on Ron and
> Hermione). But is there a case were JKR uses a non-description to play
> a trick on both Harry and us?

Pippin:
Quirrell's broomstick curse has already been mentioned, so I'll just add
that JKR actually changed the narrator's point of view (a cardinal no-no
according to my eighth grade English composition text) to
avoid  letting Harry or the reader find out  that the  hexing stopped as 
soon as Quirrell was knocked over. JKR  clearly and obviously
made it a rule, right in the first book,  that  literary conventions may be 
overturned to serve the plot.

So if she does it again, she's not cheating, just playing by her own
previously established rules. Caveat lector.

Another example of non-description is the composition of the 
Irish Quidditch team. At least two of the chasers are female, but the 
only indication is a  pronoun or two -- they're never described as 
women. Many readers have failed to notice this and railed at 
JKR for sending two all male teams to the World Cup, ironically
exposing their own stereotyped thinking rather than hers.

For the record, I assumed on first reading that someone else cursed 
Fenrir. What's curious is that we don't hear anything more about FG at 
all. You'd think the capture of such a notorious criminal would set 
the WW abuzz, but nothing, which makes me wonder if whoever
hexed him didn't smuggle him out of the castle as well. There's
another non-description for you -- we aren't told what
happened after Snape called the DE's off, so we don't know what
became of Fenrir.

As for Tonks not hearing what Snape said, it wouldn't do for
the Order to understand that Snape had called the Death Eaters
off since they were supposed to believe that the Death Eaters
were chasing Snape and Draco. And that's another mystery -- 
why didn't at least some of the Order members go in pursuit of the
fleeing Death Eaters? Why is Harry the only one who chases
them to the gate? Tonks's description leaves off at Snape's
departure so we don't know.

I can understand Harry using petrificus totalus on the DE he hexed,
because the spell was on his mind, but I'd think a trained warrior 
would prefer stupefy -- it's faster to say and if you were hexing
a wizard it would stop them from casting non-verbals at you.
Was it important to whoever hexed Fenrir that Fenrir see what
happened next?

Pippin