CHAP DISC, HBP 25, The Seer Overheard

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 161730

Thanks, Alla!  I love some of your questions so much I'm skipping 
right to them. :-)

QUESTIONS
> 3.	Why does Dumbledore want fewer visits from professor 
> Trelawney?

Jen:  My first thought was DD *knows* doom is coming and doesn't 
need Trelawney to spell it out for him.  He doesn't know precisely 
when or how but knows Voldemort has finally arranged all his chess 
pieces in such a way Dumbledore cannot find a strategy to defeat 
him.  Plus his obsessive focus on the Horcruxes at the expense of 
other things that year led him to overlook important information 
right under his nose (from Harry and Trelawney).  I wonder if he 
thought about Trelawney when he was on the tower?

 
> 4.	The card that Trelawney pulls and reads to Harry correctly 
> predicts what will happen soon. Did that cause you to change your 
> opinion of Trelawney's prediction powers, card reading and other 
> Seer abilities for the better? If not, why not?

Jen:  Hard to say, exactly.  Maybe because I believe there are 
people with such a gift in real life Trelawney was never been a 
completely comic figure to me.  Conversely she's never been shown to 
have predictive powers other than acting as a channel for the 
prophecies.  At the very least she might have better potential as a 
card reader than reading tea leaves or looking into the crystal 
ball!   Charles may be on to something about the sherry releasing 
her inner Seer just as the trance state allowed her to channel the 
prophecies <g>.
 
> 5.	We have discussed many times Trelawney's version of the 
> prophecy, Dumbledore's version of the prophecy, whether they are 
> compatible or not, etc., so I am not going there, but there is a 
> small detail which I am not sure I remember an answer to 
> (speculative answer of course). How did Trelawney know that Snape 
> was looking for a job at the time? Alla imagines Snape and 
> Trelawney's evening tea conversations.

Jen: My guess is Ceridwen nailed this one, they were talking at the 
Hog's Head at some point before the interview and Snape was trying 
to get information.  I don't know *why* he would think a job 
interview could yield something important enough to eavesdrop on.  
Maybe Voldemort just wanted any information he could get regarding 
Dumbledore.  Or he wanted Snape to find out if Dumbledore had 
already hired a Potions prof and when Trelawney didn't know the 
answer, Snape thought the job interview might give him some 
information. 
 
> 6.	"Snape and Peter Pettigrew together had sent Voldemort 
> hunting after Lily and James and their son ..." Do you agree or 
> disagree with this quote? Why? 

Jen: Both of them played a role in Godric's Hollow, one indirect and 
one direct. Snape did influence the events that happened even if he 
was putting an unknown child in harm's way.  I'm not sure this 
speculation would add anything to the story, but I've wondered if 
Voldemort attempted to kill James and Lily when Lily was pregnant or 
was GH the only time?  All the prophecy says is that a baby will be 
born to those who 'thrice defied him' so defiance during pregnancy 
would count.  And the prophecy indicates the child wasn't born yet, 
that he 'approaches' and 'will be born'. OTOH, Dumbledore is vague 
about the timing, he said he heard the prophecy '16 years ago' and 
Harry was born 'nearly 16 years ago' so maybe the prophecy had been 
cooking for awhile inside Trelawney and Harry was already born that 
night.

> 8.	"'He hated my dad like he hated Sirius! Haven't you noticed, 
> Professor, how the people Snape hates tend to end up dead?'" We
> also know so far that people whom Harry loves tend to end up dead 
> and some of the names on the list of people whom Snape hates and 
> Harry loves tend to be the same. If you were to predict the next 
> person to die by that criteria, whom would you pick?

Jen:  I *really* think the tables will be turned in the last book 
and they will lose someone both of them care about to different 
degrees, i.e., Hagrid *sniff*.  Or Harry might learn how many losses 
Snape has endured if Voldemort killed his parents and that was part 
of his turning to Dumbledore.  A last speculation is Snape will be 
the one to lose someone he loves, if Madam Pince is Eileen, and both 
with understand the other's situation better. 

> 11.	 `Thanks,' said Ron. 'Er - why do I need socks?'  Here we 
> meet socks again. In fact, we have attempted to figure out
> possible socks symbolism in the books for quite some time now. So,
> is there any possible symbolic reason why Harry gives Felix 
> felicis to Ron wrapped in sock?

Jen: JKR is messing with us!!  No, actually I have a prediction 
here.  The socks are mainly symbolic for comfort but I think all 
this hiding of stuff in socks also foreshadows Dobby's knitted 
Snitch socks helping Harry in some way <g>.  The least of his 
brothers....

Jen R.