Sectumsempra / ChapterDisc / Ogg&Pringle / lots more stuff

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 153046

Zanooda wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152630>:

<< Most of the spells are based on Latin, and, if Harry knew it, he
could have guessed what the words levicorpus and sectumsempra mean. I
know I guessed, and I studied Latin very briefly and 25 years ago. >>

I never studied Latin but I like to look up word etymologies, so I
knew that 'sect' is cut/separate (dissect, sectarian), so I thought
'Sectumsempra - for enemies' was a spell to make friends into enemies;
young Sevvie might have liked to make James and Sirius hate each other
... Anyway, while strongly criticizing Harry for using a spell that he
didn't know what it would do, I was just as surprised as Harry at what
it did.

Darrell wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152682>:

<< Does anyone else think Snape used sectum sempre against James in
the pensieve scene? The effects seem similiar. >>

Yes, I and several others think so.

SSSusan summarized shapter (sorry! couldn't resist) 16 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152662>:

<< Fred & George do not want to congratulate Ron on achieving A
Relationship; they, rather, elect to ask him how the heck he has
managed one at all – did the girl suffer brain damage or something? >>

That's the male version of congratulations.

<< Lav-Lav has given him a gold necklace bearing the words "My
Sweetheart."  Ron emphatically does not want Fred & George to see 
it.  He admits to Harry that it's mostly just snogging >>

I feel so sorry for poor Lavender! I've been there myself...

<< 2.  So what's your best guess of what the twins' attempted
Unbreakable Vow was all about?  What do you think they tried to get
Ron to do?  Do you think they understood exactly what they were doing?
 How do you image these youngsters (they'd have been about 7) would've
learned about UVs? >>

I figure they would have learned the existence of UVs from overhearing
their parents discussing a recent criminal case or scandal or gossip
('Then he made an Unbreakable Vow never to drink alcoholic beverages
again, but he did, so of course he died, and then"). Surely that
wouldn't have been enough information about HOW to make a UV... 

Maybe they learned both the existence and some of the method from
peeking in the household bookcases that Molly had told them were off
limits to pre-teens. If Bill is the right amount older than them,
maybe it was Bill's textbooks from learning to be a cursebreaker.

<< 9.  Many people fault Molly (or Molly & Ginny) for not being warm
and welcoming with Fleur.  Is there anyone who, to the contrary, finds
Fleur's behavior in the Christmas Eve scene to be rude ["Eez eet over?
 Thank goodness, what an `orrible--"]?  Or should Molly not have
subjected everyone to Celestina Warbeck in the first place? >>

I find almost all of Fleur's behavior at the Burrow to be unspeakably
rude, and feel very sorry for Molly and Ginny compelled to act calm
and polite in her presence despite their red-headed tempers' response
to the abuse heaped on them. (However, Fleur talking about the wedding
and dressing Ginny and Gabrielle in gold because pink would be
'orrible with Ginny's hair was to me adequately nice and polite behavior.)

Even if Fleur learns some manners (not to hit Molly in the face with
her silver hair and not to talk through Molly's radio program), the
Weasley way of life and the Delacour way of life will never get on. I
believe that Bill and Fleur would be well-advised for Bill to resume
his old job as cursebreaker in Egypt so they can live and raise their
children far from both sets of grand-parents. Altho' when the first
kid turns 11, they'll have a truly massive fight about whether to send
the children to Hogwarts or Beauxbatons; they may compromise on the
Egyptian school of wizardry. 

Both sets of grand-parents will demand to have the grand-children for
Christmas *every* year; they may compromise on alternate years, unless
the French wizards make a bigger deal of New Year's Day or Epiphany
than they do of Christmas, but I think everyone will be much happier
(altho' more unconventional) if Bill and Fleur each spend Christmas
with their natal family every year while the children alternate. 

<<  Why does Harry like the HBP so much, and why does he *want* him to
be his father? >>

The Half-Blood Prince's annotated textbook is an enchanted book, and
part of the enchantment is that it makes Harry like and trust it.
There is no reason young Sevvie would have put such a spell on that
book (it wasn't supposed to go out in the world and seduce helpers
like The Diary) unless he consciously or unconsciously put the spell
on the book while plotting to lend it to someone he was sweet on. If
he consciously or unconsciously accompanied that with a spell for the
book to seek out the person, if the book mistook Harry for the person,
that would explain how the book got out of Snape's bookcase into the
Potions classroom cabinet and landed on Harry's desk. If the person
Sevvie was sweet on was Lily, the connection could be that Harry has
Lily's eyes. There are plenty of other things that give me the feeling
that JKR is working up to a big reveal that Sevvie was in love with
Lily, altho' I don't want that to be the story.

<< 12. Why would werewolves have a better life under Voldemort? >>

For the ones like Fenrir, they would (as others havE already said)
have more victims ... hunting Muggles would be *encouraged*, and
wizard folk who had displeased LV might be *given* to them.

For the ones who would like to sleep under a roof in a heated room and
take a hot bath and eat sweets and learn to use a wand, they know
they're not getting it under the current regime, so change the regime
... LV loves to lie, and at least when he was TMR, he did so very
convincingly, so he probably promised to give that to them.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152681>:

<< We know that DD was there to admit eleven-year-old Remus Lupin in
that year. Did Ogg and Pringle conveniently retire (or die) that same
year? Did Dumbledore ease them out and substitute protected people of
his own choice, the half-giant Hagrid and the Squib Filch, at the same
time outlawing the old punishments (including whipping, manacles, and
possibly Transfiguration)? >>

Apparently DD as professor, not yet headmaster, had enough influence
to get Hagrid (and possibly Filch) taken on as *assistants* ... 
I can't find a quote that Molly didn't know Hagrid when she was 
at Hogwarts, so both Hagrid and Ogg could have been working as
gamekeepers when Molly's age-group started at Hogwarts. If Ogg
provided enough material for stories in her first year, he could have
retired before her second year. Or he could have still been working
when Remus's age-group started at Hogwarts, and maybe even when they
finished, as long as he was gone by Harry's first year.

Pringle was there in Molly's seventh-year (based on my recollection
that the late-night stroll was in seventh year) and he might still
been there when Remus's age-group started at Hogwarts, but I just got
the idea that he retired in disgust when DD abolished the old punishments.

If Arthur and Molly are older than Muggles and were married for
decades before starting to have children (which is possible if they
were saving to buy a house before starting their family), they could
have gone to school under a headmaster before Dumbledore -- they could
be the same age as McGonagall or Hagrid. But it seems to me that JKR
intends them to be the same school year as Lucius (and I'm not sure
that works unless Bill was conceived while they were still at school,
and even then  they'd have to be a pair of Leos and Lucius a Libra or
Scorpio), so DD must have been headmaster, so Steve bboyminn must be
right about DD didn't abolish the old punishments for like ten years,
which seems terribly out of character for him, and this is one long
sentence.

Elaine wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152752>:

<< On her website, Jo says when referring to the title of HBP:
"I was delighted to see that a hard core of super-bright fans knew
that the real title was once, in the long distant past, a possibility
for 'Chamber of Secrets'" >>

When Harry Potter and the CHamber of Secrets was published. Rowling
gave publicity interviews to newspapers. Some of the resultant
articles said that the working title had been HP & the Half-Blood
Prince (one said HP & the Half-Loved Prince). These articles are
archived on the Web somewhere, or I would never have seen them,
because I didn't join the fun until PoA came out in paperback, 

Nikkalmati wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152864>:

<< I've seen other listees refer to Peeves as a ghost, but I am not
sure if there is any canon for that. I always thought a poltergeist is
a different kind or creature entirely, not someone who was once alive.
Is there some evidence in the books to the contrary? >>

There is canon that poltergeists are NOT ghosts. In PS/SS, when the
ickle firsties are waiting to be led into the Great Hall, "About
twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white
and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one
another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be
arguing." (snip) "My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the
chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not
really even a ghost --"

Btw, altho' Sir Nick said in OoP that [wizard] people become ghosts
because they're afraid of going into the Unknown, I agree with Steve
that Myrtle shows no sign of having been *afraid* of the afterlife or
lack thereof. It definitely seems to me that her 'unfinished business'
was desire to torment Olive Hornby rather than fear.

Leslie41 wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152868>:

<< [Snape's] apparent "meanness" in refusing to call on [Hermione],
and discouraging her from being so eager all the time, is to give the
other students a chance to participate and learn as well. >>

Dear gods, I wish I were half as smart as Hermione. I have a low
opinion of Mensa because *I* meet the admission requirements (770 V
700 M on the old 800 point SAT in 1974) and I'm nothing special except
that I like books. But even mere me learned from second through
twelfth grade that most teachers are CRUEL to smart kids because they
HATE smart kids because, most teachers being terribly average
themselves, they're JEALOUS of smart kids. By eighth grade, the smart
kids are catching the teachers in outright, provable errors --
provable by reference to the textbook, or pointing out that 3 times 3
is not equal 6 like the teacher wrote on the board. The purpose of
public school is to enforce equality by beating the intelligent and
even the average students down to the level of the Educable Mentally
Retarded (as they were called in my day).

Getting back on topic, I cannot understand why Snape hates Hermione.
The kind of student he likes should be *exactly* her: she's
intelligent like him, respectful of him, attentive to his lectures,
careful with the potion ingredients, and truly interested in Potions.
I can't understand Snape hating smart kids, nor being so committed to
House loyalty or racism that he'd hate a Gryffindor or a Muggle-born
for not being stupid like they're 'supposed' to be.

Tonks_op wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152927>:

<< Tonks and Lupin will marry and live happily ever after. .... >>

Wasn't it you, Tonks, who explained that Snape and Lupin will die for
Harry's sake, together, probably by beheading, because they represent
the Black King and Grey King of alchemy, and that you were glad Lupin
was the Grey King because the Grey King has a young and joyful wife,
and that was before HBP came out and revealed (or confirmed, to those
who had predicted it) that Nymphadora was chasing him? In which case,
they will marry and live happily until some time in book 7.

Jeannette wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152943>:

<< obviously [Lupin] is a very competant wizard.  Why are his clothes
always worn or a bit ragged?  Can't he do a repair spell? >>

I believe that Molly is a very competent witch, but she and her
husband are always wearing shabby robes, and she didn't do anything to
fix Ron's horrible second-hand dress robes. I get this feeling that
'Reparo' works on glass and ceramic and maybe wood, stone, metal, but
a repair spell for clothing has not yet been invented. 

Or if spells for clothing *have* been invented, they have been
suppressed or kept as trade secrets by the Clothiers' Guild. In PS/SS,
we saw Madam Malkin pinning up the hem of Harry's new robe by hand,
while one of her journeywomen did the same for Draco. Pinning hems is
probably the most annoying part of the whole annoying art of making
clothes, so *I* would want to just point a wand at the bottom of the
robe worn by the boy on the chair, and have the cloth fold itself up
so that the hemline is the right length. But possibly in the back room
of the shop, where customers can't see, they have spools that thread
the needles upon the word of command, and needles that sew a fine seam
with no hand guiding them. Or maybe they just have House Elves sewing.

(canon reference: GoF chapter 4: "Harry ... had rarely seen Mr or Mrs
Weasley wearing anything that the Dursleys would call "normal". Their
children might don Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr and Mrs
Weasley usually wore long robes in varying states of shabbiness."

Sandy wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152966>:

<< We know that there are no higher institutes of learning in the WW.
It's not like you graduate from Hogwarts and then go on to wizard's
college. So what qualifies someone to teach (or be a Healer or any
other profession for that matter)?  >>

When Arthur is in St Mungo's in OoP, UK hardcover p430: "the second
door on the right bore the words:'Dangerous' Dai Llewellyn Ward.
Serious Bites.* Underneath this was a card in a brass holder on which
had been handwritten: *Healer-in-Charge: Hippocrates Smethwyck.
Trainee Healer: Augustus Pye*'

>From this, I deduce that people who want to be Healers apply for
training either to St. Mungo's as an institution, to the Healers'
Guild as an institution (which might be the same thing), or to a
Master Healer individually. 

I believe very much that there is a Guild system which teaches by
apprenticeship, and in most Guilds the apprentice makes a contract to
be trained by one Master until ready to take the Guild's proficiency
exam to be a journeyman. Masters can assign book study and lab
exercises as well as working in the shop, and Guilds can supply a
little or a lot of classroom teaching that Masters can send their
Apprentices to. 

I think there are some Guilds where trainees are Apprenticed to the
whole Guild instead of to one Master, and their training is based on
classroom instruction, with the hands-on being circulated among
different Masters. The 20th-century university model of Bachelor,
Thesis, Master, Dissertation, and Doctor is based on the Guild system
('collegium' is Latin for guild), with undergraduates the equivalent
of apprentices, graduates the equivalent of Journeymen, the doctoral
dissertation the equivalent of a masterpiece, and a PhD the equivalent
of a Master, so I believe that young Snape, as an apprentice in the
Potioneers Guild, was a grad student in Potions Research.

TOnks_op wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152977>:

<< We know that Ginny is the 7th daughter of the 7th daughter.  >>

We do? We apparently know that Ginny is a 7th child, and her father is
one of three brothers with no sisters. (Reference:
<http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=7>)
Ginny's mother had two brothers (Fabian and Gideon) famously killed by
Death Eaters. What do we know about her other siblings? Btw, if Draco
could quote his father saying that 'all the Weasleys' had too many
children, surely each of those three Weasley brothers must have had at
least four children. Where are Ron's at least 8 red-haired cousins who
should be at Hogwarts or in adult life?

Betsey Hp wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153014>:

<< What we *have* seen is pressure to join the Ministry, and we've
seen that this is where ambitious characters tend to go, or get told
to go.  Potions isn't a requirement in this case. >>

Just a little nitpick: I would think that whether a Potions NEWT is a
requirement would depend on which entry-level job at the Ministry the
ambitious character is aiming toward. Auror is a job at the Ministry
which can be the start of a career culminating in becoming Minister
for Magic.