Neri/miniature/DDanimagus/torture/RoR/socialclass/connection/rattlesnake/more

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 167855

Neri wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167565>:

<< And I can't remember any discussion at all about how the Founders
had managed to come up with a wonderfully silly name like "Hogwarts". >>

And I posted *such* an elaborate story about how the mountain was
named Hogmount, and the lake Hoglake, and the Forbidden Forest Hogwood
and the place where the village Hogsmeade now stands was named Hogwald
and the place where Hogwarts castle now stands was named Hogmeade, all
after the monstrous Caledonian Boar who had lurked there in earlier
times (possibly one of the monster boars hunted in The Tale of Culhwch
and Olwen). And the Four Founders had never even visited the area
before it was suggested to them (by Tavish Tartanwool, who should be
considered the Fifth Founder but instead has been erased from history)
as a good isolated site for their proposed school. In their
unfamiliarity, they mixed up the names of Hogmeade and Hogwald. Godric
said 'We'll name it Hogwald School, for its location' and Salazar
complained: "You'll name it with your initials and Helga's, and just
leave out me and Rowena" and the two men snarked at each other until
Helga said: "Why don't we name it with all our initials? HoGwaRTS,
like the herb, H, G, R, T, S" and Salazar started snarking about his
initial being last, but Rowena told him: "If we called it Shogwart,
people would think it was a brothel." And this summary doesn't even
include the murder...

Bart wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167600>:

<< How about having an auror miniaturize himself, and then mail
himself via owl to Sirius? >>

Do we have any canon for there being a magic for miniaturizing a
person? I remember a potion, Shrinking Solution, which Snape tested on
Trevor the Toad, but it didn't so much shrink him as turn him into
'Trevor the Tadpole' -- we might call it a Fountain of Youth potion.
There is an Engorgement Charm to make things larger, but I don't
recall an opposite charm. And would the miniaturized person be able to
resume normal size at the destination? I studied this in vain several
years ago, when I wanted Pansy to mail herself to Draco in my fanfic.

Deborah wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167617>:

<< I am curious as to why so many want to attribute an animagus to
Dumbledore. >>

I think some people think that being a (registered) Animagus is a
requirement to be hired as Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts.

Betsy Hp wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167627>:

<< Like how when "good guys" get tortured it's a heart-wrenching and
terrible thing, but when "bad guys" get tortured it's cartoonish and
funny? >>

When do readers see 'bad guys' being tortured? When they are Crucio'd
by Voldemort, and that is supposed to show that he's as cruel to his
followers as to his enemies. When Dumbledore told Harry how Kreacher
had lied to him about Sirius not being home, DD said: "I — persuaded
him — to tell me the full story". I took that as a reference to
*off-screen* torture but another listie said it was more likely to be
Veritaserum, faster and more reliable. Harry cut Draco up the front,
but that was more like negligent homicide than like torture. Are you
considering stuffing Montague into the Vanishing Cabinet as torture
rather than as battery or attempted murder?

Dana wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167699>:

<<He could have secured the RoR so Draco would no longer have access>>

Do we know whether it is POSSIBLE for anyone, even the Headmaster,
even the House Elves, to lock the Room of Requirement?

Goddlefrood wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167705>:

<< that Snape is from a lower class background than many other Death
Eaters >>

Logic suggests that the wizarding upper class, so proud of their pure
blood and their isolation from Muggles, would have a different snob
accent and other different etiquette than the Muggle upper class. The
wizarding middle, working, and lower classes would probably have less
class differentiation than the Muggle middle, working, and lower
classes, because of the constant influx of Muggle-borns diluting the
accents and so on of the wizard-born members of those classes. 

And a Muggle-born's social class in the wizarding world is not
controlled by his social class in the Muggle world -- I believe that
Rowling was trying to make a point of that by putting Justin
Finch-Fletchley into Hufflepuff and the Creevey boys, a milkman's
sons, into Gryffindor. She showed Draco with the same accent as Justin
because she didn't have enough pages to train the reader to recognize
wizarding social class by its alien behaviors.

Carol wrote in 

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167728>:

<< Alla mentioned Dumbledore's comment in GoF, "A connection I could
have made without help," in relation to the Pensieve memory of Snape
saying that his Dark Mark is growing darker and adding, "Karkaroff's,
too." It does sound as if DD is downplaying the importance of Snape's
revelation, and in front of Harry, too (which I, for one, didn't like
at all), but the memory does show the reader that Snape is reporting
to DD, and I don't think that DD could have known about the Dark Mark
itself growing darker without Snape's telling him (he might have
suspected it, but he couldn't have confirmed it). The connection he
could have on his own relates to Karkaroff: if Snape's is growing
darker, so is Karkaroff's. >>

The new thought that DD put into the Pensieve was about Harry: "Harry
... saw his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl." Then it
changed into Snape's face and the Pensieve memory mentioned above. 

The reason that Harry was so urgent to see Dumbledore was to tell him
about his dream in which he saw Voldemort receive a letter and torture
Wormtail. Dumbledore may have known that from Legilimency as soon as
he saw Harry ("I wanted to talk to you, Professor," Harry said
quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave him a swift, searching
look"). Some people think Dumbledore knew about it when it happened
due to some connection between DD and the insect that was buzzing in
the window when Harry fell asleep. Even if DD didn't already know
about the new dream, he knew about the previous dream.

Therefore, I thought that the connection that Dumbledore could have
made without the Pensieve was between DEs's Dark MarKs getting darker
and Harry dreaming of Voldemort -- both due to Voldemort getting
stronger. After all, one purpose of the Pensieve is find connections
between *different* memories.

Julie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167759>:

<< Then maybe it's more like a student tossing a rattlesnake into
a dorm room. The snake doesn't have a nefarious purpose, it only
acts on its instinct to survive. But if it strikes another student
and kills said student, is the student who tossed the rattlesnake
into the dorm room responsible for murder? Or can he just say "I
tossed it in the room for, er...I tell you it was the snake that
did it!"

The student who tossed it into the room knew it was deadly.
He knew what could--and likely would--happen. He's guilty.

Julie (who does know rattlesnake bites don't usually kill but
let's just say this one does) >>

For the purpose of making a Horcrux, what matters is how the soul is
torn. That doesn't have to correlate with legal guilt, and I'm pretty
sure it doesn't correlate with how guilty the killer feels, as Tom
Riddle didn't feel guilty about any of his murders.

If the student who tossed the snake into the room just wanted to cause
a panic, he should have known better, but he was stupid or drunk or
(like the Marauders) somehow under the impression that everyone else
was as safe from the werewolf as he happened to be. Or if he meant for
someone he disliked to be bitten but to be cured in hospital wing with
no lasting damage, is his soul just ripped or is a piece of it torn
off completely? I suspect the former.

zgirnius wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167774>:

<< Quidditch brought them to one another's attention (as I would
imagine class brought Lily and Snape to one another's) but that
relationship was pursued in Hogsmeade and other non-class locations.>>

It's possible they met in the Slug Club. It seems neither was worth
collecting for bloodlines, but both were worth collecting for brains,
and Lily for looks.

<< I just don't see evidence that if attraction occurs across house
lines, people nonetheless stay away from one another. >>

Among the cross-House romances in canon, We haven't seen a
Gryffindor-Slytherin romance. The dislike between Gryffindor and
Slytherin is so intense that I think Romeo's housemates would hate him
for being a traitor and Juliet's housemates would hate her for being a
traitor, and there is a LOT one can do against a person one hates who
lives in the same dorm. I don't know long that dislike has been that
intense.

Also, regardless of House, a student whose friends were all
pureblood-supremacists would be at least mocked by those friends for
going out with a 'Mudblood'. Canon seems to be the kind of place where
'Yeah, she's a Mudblood, but she puts out' is not said (nor thought).

<< I guess I just don't see why the old wounds would be coming up in
HBP. I could see Snape blaming Dumbledore as you suggest, but don't
see what was bringing this to a head in HBP, >>

I suppose if Severus thought that Dumbledore was mourning the death of
Sirius, it could have stirred up his old jealousy.

<< unless you are suggesting the general stressfulness of the
situation, which I would have to agree was generally stressful. >>

This is a forbidden LOL reply.

Goddlefrood wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167824>:

<< (i)When Hagrid says "No one ever lived after Lord Voldemort decided
to kill them", it is my prediction that Snape will be one possible
exception to this. >>

*HARRY* lived after Voldemort decided to kill him.

AmanitaMuscaria wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167835>:

<< I'm interested in how Peter became Voldemort's servant though - do
you think he sought Voldemort out after maybe one too many put-down,
or that he was befriended and recruited subtly, without knowing who it
was he was telling secrets to until it was too late? Or do you think
Voldemort just threatened him and he collapsed and told all? >>

*I* think Peter was befriended and recruited subtly, without knowing
to whom he was telling secrets until it was too late -- I'm amazed how
*precisely* your words match my imagine of what happened, except you
didn't specify that he was lured by a beautiful girl. The kid *was*
Sorted into Gryffindor, he can't be cowardly in *every* respect. He
became an Animagus and, as a little rat, he ran with a werewolf and a
big dog, either of whom could have swallowed him in one bite. He
couldn't have been as useless as Sirius bitterly accused him of. I
figure, as a young man he didn't lack physical courage (begging on his
knees for his life was after twelve years hiding as a rat); the thing
he feared was James's disapproval. It's a piece of irony that he ended
up murdering his hero to prevent said hero from finding out his
misdeeds, when if any time he had confessed and said he wanted to get
out of Lord Voldemort's service, James would have been eager for
Dumbledore to give Peter a second chance.