Rereading SS/PS question(s)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153905

Alla wrote:
> > ...just wanted to ask small question, since my brain is in another
freeze and it should be something obvious.
> >
> > Take a look at this quote.
> >
> <snip quote>
> >
> > Are wierd- looking woman and  bald man somebody we know ( am I
missing something very obvious here), or just no-name episodic characters?
> >
> > Question 2. Isn't that incredibly strange that all those people
can find Harry, KNOW how to find Harry?
> 
> 
Dave responded: 
> My guess is that the people that introduced themselves to Harry were
on duty, either working for the Order directly or just as a favor to
Dumbledore.

Carol adds:
I agree with Dave. Although the Order seems to have disbanded as a
formal organization soon after Godric's Hollow, a number of people
were still working for or with Dumbledore, including Arabella Figg and
presumably Dedalus Diggle (and, of course, Snape if he's DDM). If
they're keeping an eye out for Harry, it's not at all surprising that
he encountered them in the street or that they know how to find him.
(In fact, I suspected something of the sort even before I knew there
was an Order of the Phoenix.) 

I don't think that DD stopped using his network of spies after GH. I
suspect that Snape was still keeping tabs on the Death Eaters and
their children, Mundungus and Aberforth were still feeding DD
information on other disreputable types, and Mrs. Figg and her cats
were watching out for Harry.

To return to the quote in question, as you say, the man in the violet
top hat is certainly Dedalus Diggle (who also shakes hands with Vernon
Dursley on "this happy, happy day," SS Am. ed. 5--no coincidence,
IMO). The bald man could be a youngish Kingsley Shacklebolt, and the
wild-looking old woman waving merrily could be one of the same witches
who waves to DD at Harry's hearing--members of the OoP that we haven't
met yet? (I was thinking that she could be Hestia Smith, who waves at
Harry in "The Advance Guard," but Hestia seems too young and is not
described as "wild-looking." I can't match the old up with any of the
people in the photo that Moody shows Harry, either, but that doesn't
mean she's not an Order member. Neither Mundungus nor Mrs. Figg is in
that photo, and the person who took it obviously is not there,
either.) Maybe she's Doris Crockford, who repeatedly shakes Harry's
hand in the Leaky Cauldron?

At any rate, I keep expecting to see more of Dedalus Diggle, who
appears in all these scenes and is first mentioned by McGonagall in
the first chapter of SS/PS. He's a member of the Advance Guard and is
in the photo Moody shows Harry (along with Aberforth, who is similarly
alluded to in apparently inconsequential scenes throughout the books).
Maybe the old woman is just an old woman (witch), but Dedalus Diggle,
at least, is there for a reason--as is dear Figgy. (I hope.)

On a tangentially related note, since it involves the early chapters
of SS/PS, I just noticed that the customers in the Leaky Cauldron say
things like "Good Lord" and "bless my soul" (69)--more vestiges of
Christianity or contact with Christianity, along with Christmas trees,
Easter eggs, and all the rest.

Carol, sorry that Alla can't appreciate the poetry of Snape's opening
speech because her feelings get in the way and hoping that will change
after Book 7