Crookshanks/Snape/Werewolves-Lupin/DEs&TMR/Chapter12/Fidelius/LotsMoreStuff

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 149831

In PoA, Crookshanks showed signs of wanting to hunt Scabbers and we
thought it was because it was a cat and a rat, but it turned out it
was because Crookshanks detects untrustworthiness and Scabbers was
Pettigrew in disguise. In HBP, Crookshanks showed signs of wanting to
hunt Arnold the Pigmy Puff and I thought it was normal cat behavior,
but later I started to wonder whether I was being fooled the same way
twice. Just where did Fred and George get those Pigmy Puffs?

SNAPE
Betsy Hp wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149464 :

<< Why would *out for HIMSELF*!Snape care about the Malfoys or his
duty as head of house to such an extent he puts his *life* on the
line?  Doesn't that directly oppose someone being out for *himself*
rather than his friends or his duty? >>

When the three choices are
a) ESE = loyally serving Voldemort
b) DDM = loyally serving Dumbledore OR loyally serving Goodness
c) OFH = no loyalty to either Voldemort or Dumbledore

then (as Alla immediately replied) a character (not necessarily
Snape), whose deep loyalty was to his beloved person or to some ideal
other than Goodness or Voldemort's personal triumph has to be OFH by
process of elimination.

Beloved person: inamorato, spouse, child, parent, friend. Lily,
Narcissa, Draco, Lucius. Etc.

One other ideal: a person devoted to pureblood privilege or wizarding
control over Muggles, who joined Voldemort under the impression that
that was Voldemort's goal and then turned against Voldemort because
Voldemort is harmful to that goal. 

Another other ideal: a person dedicated to the protection of wild
hippogryffs who first joined the Ministry's Department for the
Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to keep people out of the
hippogryff preserve, and then turned against the Ministry because of
Buckbeak's execution, and perhaps joined Voldemort in search of allies
in his plot to blow up the Ministry's files on where to find hippogryffs.

Eggplant wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149483 :

<< Off the top of my head I can't think of a historical example of a
good man murdering another very good man with hatred etched into the
harsh lines of his face. >>

Do you have evidence that Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville,
William de Tracey, and Richard le Breton were none of them good men?
(I got their names from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket#Assassination ).

<< if [Draco] doesn't [die in the attempt] that's OK as long as
Dumbledore is dead. Voldemort does not hate Draco, or at least he
doesn't hate him more than any other member of the human species. >>

But Voldemort wants Draco dead in order to hurt Lucius's feelings,
because he is angry at Lucius for screwing up the MoM raid, for
wasting the Diary Horcrux, and for generally thinking that he's
smarter than LV (which is probably correct, as LV doesn't seem
particularly clever).

zgirnius wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149782 :

<< I would not now be surprised to learn that Dumbledore is the first
man Snape has ever, personally, killed. >>

Consider Dumbledore's statement and Draco's demonstraction that
'Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe' (in which I
understand 'innocent' to mean being virgin of killing, not to mean
having an pure soul and untarnished heart). Then consider making a
plan which depends upon your guy, who has never killed before, killing
someone. Killing someone he loves and is supported by. Isn't that a
bit of a gamble about whether your guy will turn out to be as far from
being a killer as young Draco is?

Tonks wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149819 :

<< Snape is a young man.  Yet during the summers, he lives in his
parents home, alone.  >>

I'm usually wrong, but nonetheless I believe that the house in
Spinner's End is not Snape's parents' house. I think he bought it with
his salary from Hogwarts as a place to spend his summers, when (per
JKR) no one stays at Hogwarts except Filch (I imagine the House Elves
stay, and Hagrid in his hut, but those are quibbles).

WEREWOLVES - LUPIN
Jen D wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149660 :

<< The wolfsbane kind, they are like Lupin perhaps and are trying to
pass in "society." They know they have a problem and are doing their
best to control it. But how would you work the non-wolfsbane type into
your society? >>

I agree with whoever said that MoM's Department for the Regulation 
and Control of Magical Creatures's Being Division's Werewolf Support
Services Unit should supply Wolfsbane Potion free (or heavily
subsidized on an ability to pay basis) to people who need it.

Werewolves who get their jollies killing some people and deliberately
infecting some other people with their disease are anti-social
criminals and society should be protected from them, not try to
include them. I suppose that is the job of MoM's Department for the
Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures's Beast Division's
Werewolf Capture Unit. While in prison, they could be heavily chained
and caged during the Full Moon period.

I have a suggestion for Werewolves who don't *want* to kill and injure
people but do want to experience their un-medicated transformation.
The Ministry of Magic should supply them an island -- wizarding magic
should be able to protect it so that no Muggles ever go to it and no
non-humans ever leave it -- and the werewolves could live normal human
lives most of each month, but they would go to their island before
Full Moon. 

When they transformed, they would all be werewolves together, and they
could run around in the woods and hunt wild animals, but there would
be no humans for them to harm. When Full Moon was over and they were
back to human, they could leave their island and return to their human
lives. The ones who want to camp in the woods and eat wild animals
full-time could live on their island full-time.

On the whole thread 'Maligning Lupin', he is my favorite character and
I'm in love with him (I'll share) (especially with Sirius) and I hate
Pippin's ESE!Lupin theory, but I cannot disprove it with canon. I can
disprove it only by the fact, already pointed out by so many, that
Rowling WOULD NOT make EVERY werewolf character evil. If there was a
good werewolf character, my argument would be shot down. At one time,
Pippin said Luna Lovegood is the good werewolf character. I have seen
no evidence that Luna is a werewolf, but if she is, then it is
possibly that Rowling could do a big reveal "Lupin is ESE", even tho'
I'd be furious at her and say she framed him. Later, Pippin said Bill
is the good werewolf character, but Bill isn't a werewolf, he's just a
man with a badly scarred face.

Pippin wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149754 :

<< Werewolves attack people whom they believe are depriving them of
their rights and freedoms.  YMMV. >>

Werewolves in wolf form attack any human they can catch/reach. The
wolf form has an automatic biomagical stimulus-response reaction in
which the stimulus is perceiving the presence (I'm sure it's the
scent, but canon doesn't specify) of human, and the response is an
overpowering compulsion / desire to attack. All that stuff in PoA
about it wasn't safe for Remus's friends to keep him company during
his transformation in human form, but they could do it in animal form
because werewolves are only dangerous to humans -- that doesn't sound
like Remus wanted to attack them to punish society for abusing
werewolves. 

Christina wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149774 :

<< Pretty stupid, if Lupin is giving this information to Sirius in
secret (and while we're on it, why would he do that in the first
place?).  >> 

Pillow talk.

(Sorry, I actually agree with you that just about all the adults at
the table knew as much as Sirius about the subject that Harry was
being informed about, but I couldn't resist the one-liner. Well, it IS
past my bedtime.)
 
DEATH EATERS
Katssirius wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149486 :

<< I am not clear what Voldemort and his Death Eater's want.  Any
level of power or money Tom Riddle desired he could have gotten as Tom
Riddle. Lucius Malfoy obviously has both as well.  So what do these
guys want. Is it just unlimited torture?  These are smart people.  If
you kill all of the mudbloods then there are not enough wizards to
maintain a gene pool and no one to torture.  >>

I'm sorry that I had to snip the rest of your lovely comment for space
reasons. Here come my opinions. 

Lucius does understand that Voldemort's plan will destroy the
wizarding world (economy first) rather than rule it, and he does not
want to destroy the wizarding world. Lucius wants always more power
and he thinks he will get it by helping Voldemort conquer the world,
and then Voldemort will control the world and he, Lucius, will control
Voldemort by smarminess and treachery. I used to think that LV knew
that is Lucius's plan and he was carefully watching and waiting to
gain as much as he can from Lucius and then kill him, but that has
been damaged by Lucius in Book 6 safe in Azkaban rather than dead.

Most of the other Death Eaters want promotions at work, money,
opportunities to torture, high status, concubines, and other common
desires that they feel they can't get on their own -- few of them are
as rich as Lucius. Some (Regulus Black) were attracted by the ideology
of Pureblood Superiority; Regulus was rich and well-connected (and
handsome and intelligent -- that's not canon, but his brother and his
cousins are handsome and Slughorn had him in the Slug Club ('collect
the set')) and probably could have gotten whatever he personally
wanted, but he wanted stupid, poor Purebloods to have [almost] the
same privileges he did.

Bellatrix and Barty Jr are fanatics. They're in love with Voldemort.
In Bella's case, I do mean (unfulfilled) sexual love, inspired by her
literally sadistic pleasure in finding out about what he did to his
victims, with specifics. I don't see anything sexual in young Barty's
love of LV, more of a father-figure thing. In real life also, there
are people who become totally devoted to some evil 'cult' leader. 

<<  I do not understand what Voldemort wants that Tom Riddle could not
have had.  Dismissing him as psychotic as the entire explanation is
weak for a series with this many pages. >>

Tom Riddle Voldemort unfortunately IS pyschotic.

Lots of people change their names. Diary!Tom explained: "I, keep the
name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was
born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry - I
fashioned myself a new name," 

Diary!Tom continued that speech by stating one of his big goals: "a
name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak". He is
full of generalized hate/anger of everyone (not just Muggles) and he
wants to be feared by everyone. Destroying the entire wizarding world,
and the entire planet Earth if he can achieve it, is a pleasant
fantasy of acting on one's anger/hate, and will scare everyone who
knows that he is effectively acting on it. *Acting* on one's fantasies
of mass murder IS a psychotic way of dealing with one's anger and hate.

Unfortunately there is a contradiction between his unstated goal of
destroying the world and his both stated and acted goal of
immortality; I don't understand why he wants to be immortal. However,
using Horcruxes is a rational means to that goal, and it was making
all those Horcruxes that turned him into a red-eyed snake-man instead
of a handsome human. I was disappointed, having long thought that it
was drinking one of his immortality potions that transformed his
physical appearance. I also don't understand why Vapor!mort hangs out
in Albania -- I had a theory that his soul is magnetically pulled to
that particular rock in that particular forest whenever not anchored
by a body because that was the spot on which he drank the hypothetical
potion.

Now I must wave at Sydney's
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149710 paragraph
about << "Kill Harry" is only one item on Voldemort's to-do list. 
Last time I checked, 'terrorize people', 'kill all who oppose me',
'randomly torture muggles', and 'take over the world' were also on the
list. Oh, and 'conquer death' (note to Voldemort:  you might have more
success at achieving your goals if you narrow your focus.  Hey, I have
the same problem, I empathise). >>

Carol wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149748 :

<< (As an aside, surely there are more than four children of DEs in
Hogwarts and surely they're not all in Harry's class. that seems too
big a coincidence to me.) >>

Surely there are more than four children of DEs in Hogwarts and surely
they're not ALL Slytherins, but you know that I'm in love with a
no-evidence theory that there was a prophecy to Voldemort or Lucius
Malfoy a bit before Trelawney's prophecy to Dumbledore. The
hypothetical prophecy that a boy conceived this autumn (*I* LIKE 'at
Halloween', but that's a touch too early for Harry and more too late
for Draco) will have tremendous powers and/or will bring victory to
his father's side. Because of that prophecy, Voldemort ordered all his
followers (or Lucius ordered those DEs who reported to him) to go home
to their wives and make babies, y'know, one week from tonight. I can
say it in American: "He said, go home and knock up your wife." but I
haven't figured out how to say it in British: "Put your wife up the
spout"?

Lyra of Jordan summarized CHAPTER 12 in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149558 :

<< 1) In GoF, it says something to the effect of "four years in the
magical world had taught Harry it wasn't a good idea to stick his hand
into some unknown magical substance." But by 6th year, Harry is
willing to try incantations without a clue of what their effect will
be. Does this change of attitude tell us something about Harry? Is he
becoming reckless? >>

I think it is not that Harry is becoming reckless, but that that book
has a magical hold on him, slightly similar to The Diary.

<< 6) Is there any particular symbolism or meaning to the opal
necklace (or to opals or necklaces), or is it simply a convenient
McGuffin? >>

Listies have mentioned the old tradition that opals are bad luck
(except if they're your birthstone) which inspired books like Wilkie
Collins's THE MOONSTONE (which I haven't read). Incidentally, opals
ARE excessively breakable. I used to wear 13 rings spread over 10
fingers and the opals set in some of them would get chipped and broken
and lose their fire even faster than the malachite would get scratched
and lose its shine, which IS a mild form of bad luck. Eventually I
decided to limit opals and malachite to necklaces and use only sturdy
stones like turquoise, lapis lazuli, amethyst, Sri Lankan moonstone,
and tiger's-eye on my hands.

<< 8) In OOTP Sirius says the barman at the Hogs Head threw Mundungus
out of his bar 20 years ago and has banned him since. That seems to
suggest some bad blood between the two. Yet Harry sees the same two
talking on the street in Hogsmeade. What are we to think? >>

I thought that they were speaking together, tolerating each other, on
Order business, for the Order's sake, which is a bit more than Sirius
and Severus managed to do. 

FIDELIUS
Ana wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149577 :

<< As a matter of fact, how did Hagrid managed to find [Godric's
Hollow] to take baby Harry to Dumbledore? >>

When 12 Grimmauld Place was hidden under Fidelius, Harry was given the
Secret by a written note from the Secret Keeper. When GH was hidden
under Fidelius, and Sirius and Peter were pretending that Sirius was
the Secret Keeper, people could have been given the Secret by notes
that the real Secret Keeper had written, but disguising his
handwriting in hope it would look like Sirius's handwriting. James and
Lily and Harry were surely inside the Secret, Peter was the Secret
Keeper, Sirius is the first-most person to whom James would want the
Secret to be given (he would want Sirius to visit them), and
Dumbledore is probably the second-most (leader and planner of the
Order). James and Lily may have specified that they wanted a written
note of the Secret given to Hagrid so that their friend Hagrid could
visit them, or DD might have shown his copy of the note to Hagrid when
he ordered Hagrid to go there. 

Even if they didn't trust Lupin, they could have shown him the note so
he could visit, and still he wouldn't have been able to give away the
secret to anyone else (the bad guys).

Some listie had a theory in which Sirius really was the Secret Keeper
and one of the notes he'd written was left lying around and thus fell
into Voldemort's hands and he invented the whole story of switching
Secret Keepers to Peter to conceal his guilt for his friends' deaths.

LOTS MORE STUFF
Victoria wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149487 : 

<< Just recently been on JKR's website to hear for myself what the
radio announcer said. Sounds pretty interesting and that also the red
rejuices and green regerminates, therefore the 'Gryffindors' and the
'Slytherins' will have two different jobs to perform in the task to
bring whatever it may be back to life. >>

Six Gryffindors and three Slytherins. I, like most people, expect that
five of the Gryffindors are Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Ginny.
Luna (the remaining member of Book 5's second trio) is a Ravenclaw, so
who is the sixth Gryffindor? Dean, who has a backstory that was left
out of the books? Seamus, with whom the Sorting Hat hesitated almost a
whole minute? Lupin? A Weasley? Someone dead? Why no one drop of blue
potion? 

Who are the three Slytherins? I'd like them to be Draco, Pansy, and
Snape, but few people care my love of Pansy (whom I would absolutely
HATE in real life -- Ron is another person whom I love in the books
and would hate in real life). Maybe my second choice would be Draco,
Snape, and the Bloody Baron -- I've always wanted to know why he can
control Peeves (via fear) when no one else can.

Tonks wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149518 :

<< I would guess that, for whatever reason, James, Peter and Remus
were not invited to Sluggy's parties. >>

I would guess that Peter and Remus weren't invited because they
weren't stars and weren't related to important (or rich) people, but
both James and Sirius would have been invited because they both were
stars and both were related to important people. Sirius wouldn't go,
at least not after the first time, because cousin Bellatrix was there
and Slughorn spoke to Sirius of his dad and mum, all people Sirius
disliked. James may have quit the Slug Club in solidarity with Sirius
or he may have kept going -- at least until Lily deflated his head,
James like being fawned over.

Elfun Deb wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149542 :

<< Hermione should turn her talents to developing an antidote for
Marietta, who also has had punishment enough for her crime >>

Which could be connected to the theory offered recently that Marietta
is the Heir of Ravenclaw, McLaggen of Gryffindor, and Zacharias of
Hufflepuff, and our Heroes, needing the assistance of The Four Heirs
in their Quest, will have to make nice to people whom they have given
good reason for grudges.

Thanks for directing us to those 2003 posts; I very much enjoyed
re-reading them.

Ginger wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149704 :

<< If [Myrtle] was killed by LV (or Tom, as he was then) and fancies
Harry, what sort of council did she give Draco when he was spilling
his heart out to her? Does she know that Tom, who killed her, is now
LV, for whom Draco is supposed to kill? >>

I don't think she knows that Tom killed her, or even that the glowing
yellow eyes that killed her were a basilisk. So it doesn't matter that
I think she doesn't know that LV is Tom.

<< Does she still fancy Harry?  Or has Draco become her new intrest?
(snip) She wasted no time sounding the alarm when Harry cursed Draco.
Was that for attention? Or did she really care about saving Draco's
life? >>

When Harry intruded on her sixth floor bathroom, she didn't try to
flirt with him. She outright expressed disappointment that it was just
him. To me, she is no longer interested in Harry, but could easily
become interested in him again. To you, she's playing the same game as
Hermione played: try to make the boy jealous. 

Anyway, remember how disappointed she was that Harry didn't die in the
Chamber of Secrets so that he could share her toilet home? If she
fancies Draco, then she wants him to die.

Darqali wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149730 :

<< I myself wonder what "side" Trelawney serves.  We are led to
discount her by her odd manners; we may laugh, or pity her.  But see
her as an agent of evil?  No, we are led to disregard Sibyll.  Yet
again, I note, her last name is Cornish, usually a signal of an "evil"
character in English tales. >>

As an American reader, I've never noticed a cliche of evil characters
having Cornish names, altho' I take your word there is one.

Rowling doesn't re-use (and thus re-new) every cliche from literature,
only the ones that she wants to. I'm tempted to believe that she
wouldn't use the cliche of Cornings being evil when she is a real-life
anti-prejudice activist, but then she did use anti-French stereotypes
to portray silly Beauxbatons folks, and are there any good charaters
with French-derived surnames to balance Malfoy and Lestrange?

<< And her first name is no accident, either. >>

Of course Rowling had a reason (a little joke with the readers) for
choosing that name, as with the name of Remus Lupin. But unlike
Lupin's parents, who couldn't have known or hoped he would become a
werewolf when they named him, I can imagine that Cassandra Trelawney,
famous Seer, named her daughter Sibyl in hope of her daughter
following in her footsteps. And Sibyl Sr named her own daughter
Cassandra after her mother. And Cassandra Jr named *her* daughter
Sibyl after *her* mother.

Deb (aka djklaugh) wondered in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149735 : 

<< which rooms in the castle were created by Rowena Ravenclaw  and
Helga Hugglepuff - Chamber of Secrets= Slytherin, Headmaster's office=
Griffindor (IMO)... maybe library and kitchen respectively? >>

I never before wondered who created the Room of Requirement (it's just
there), but suddenly I suggest that Helga Hufflepuff created it. She
seems to have been a practical person and the RoR serves practical
purposes.

Kemper wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149737 :

<< 'theater' which seems light, frivolous, and gay >>

Thus you view something which started as a serious religious ritual 
to directly replace (by acting it out instead of doing it) an earlier
ritual that involved human sacrifice by being torn to bits,
cannibalism, and a sexual orgy. There's a reason Dionysus is the god
of theater.