Chapter17Discussion/Levicorpus/Halloween as ProphecyDate/casualties of war

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 153339

AnitaKH summarized Chapter 17 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153064>:

<< Seamus, lost in dreams of besting his cousin in Apparating,
inadvertently flattens Professor Flitwick with a blast of water. 
While Seamus is set writing his lines, >>

"I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick." That seemed to me
out of character for kindly Flitwick, who made no fuss about Neville
whooshing him across the room instead of the cushion. It also reminded
me of Ron in OoP dreaming of making Goyle do lines: 'I  . . must. . .
not. . . look . . .like . . . a . . . baboon's . . . backside.' I
wonder if Rowling has been infected with the word 'baboon' by her
children?

<< Harry asks why the Ministry didn't realize someone else was
involved, since Tom at the time was underage and the Ministry can
detect underage magic. Dumbledore explains that they can detect the
magic but not the perpetrator, hence Harry's trouble when Dobby
performed magic at number four, Privet Drive. He goes on to say that
the Ministry relies on parents to monitor their children's use of
magic, which Harry points out is faulty, at best. >>

A shout-out to the fans, who have been arguing this matter forever.
Confirmation of the fan theory that seemed to have gathered majority
support, altho' there are always some fans who disagree with a theory
until Rowling states it in so many words.

<< 7. We now have some explanation of how detection of underage magic
works and the Ministry's decision to allow families to monitor their
own children.  Did you find this to match your earlier presumptions? 
Do you agree with Harry that this policy is "rubbish"? >>

I think having a laW against against underage magic is rubbish. Misuse
of magic by underage wizards is covered by other laws -- wizarding
secrecy, muggle-baiting, etc. Legitimate use should not be prevented.

As long as they have a law against underage magic and the ability to
detect that magic was done, but not who did it, it CAN be enforced in
magical families and magical places (e.g. the Quidditch World Cup
campground) only by use of witnesses, not by use of detectors. Using
detectors to enforce it on magical children in non-magical families is
unfair, but unfairness to the Muggle-born is not uncommon, and it
could be argued that those children have no one else to guide them not
to risk wizarding secrecy, etc.

<< 6. Dumbledore describes the group of Tom's friends as "a mixture of
the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory,
and the thuggish, gravitating towards a leader who could show them
more refined forms of cruelty." Can we apply this description to any
other groups in the series, both within and outside of Hogwarts? >>

Presumably there were also some few who were simply in love with Tom's
charm and charisma.

Of course the description applies to the Death Eaters (the grown-up
version of Tom's school-boy clique), with the amendment that the
ambitious may seek power or money instead of glory and the thuggish
may seek to avoid punishment for their ordinary thuggery more than to
learn new forms of cruelty, and some may have joined in a sincere but
mistaken goal of genociding Muggle-borns. 

In some ways it also applies to the Ministry of Magic. One assumes
that some employees (Arthur Weasley, Newt Scamander, Nymphadora Tonks)
joined for idealistic reasons, but definitely some joined for ambition
(Percy Weasley) and some for an opportunity to practise thuggishness
(Walden Macnair).

<< 11. Fawkes "speaks" twice in this scene, once after Harry calls
himself Dumbledore's man and once after Dumbledore replies to Phineas.
 What is the significance of the placement of these two cries? >>

The first acknowledges Harry's loyalty to DD and the second
acknowledges DD's loyalty to Harry.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153088>:

<< How James could have learned a nonverbal spell from Severus, who
certainly would not have taught it to him, also remains unexplained.>>

It is canon that many many students knew the Levicorpus spell, not
just Severus and James: "Oh, that one had a great vogue during my time
at Hogwarts," said Lupin reminiscently. "There were a few months in my
fifth year when you couldn't move for being hoisted into the air by
your ankle."

As I've said before, I think Sevvie taught his spell to just a few of
his Slytherin friends, and they told just a few of their friends, and
it spread exponentially.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153301>:

<< Any takers on Halloween 1979 as the Prophecy date? >>

Wouldn't DD have been overseeing his students' Halloween party in the
Great Hall? (I agree about the prophecy boys being conceived on that
magically powerful date. In my fanfic, so was Susan Bones.)

a_svirn wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153338>:

<< I'd like to see the Epitome of Goodness blithely telling the
grief-stricken parents that their children were casualties of war. No
hard feeling, hey! Happens all the time. Of course, it's something the
Epitome of Evilness would be all too likely to say, but surely
Dumbledore's audience would know the difference. >>

What did he tell Cedric's parents?