Heart/CAPSLOCK/clock/NotBully!Harry/Choice/Buried/HP'sCareer/Neville/badSNAPE

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 163532

Lorel wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163157>:

<< However, on the same day, the same party also registered these
titles: "The Deadly Veil" (not Deathly) and "The Heart of Ravenclaw." >>

Luna Lovegood is the heart of Ravenclaw. 

All those other kids are the brains of Ravenclaw.

Lilygale wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163162>:

<< OotP Harry [at] times Harry was a rage-driven teenager. His rage
resulted from IMO, post-traumatic stress disorder combined with a year
of stress that most adults would have difficulty in handling. >>

This is a forbidden 'I agree' post. Like Alla, I think it unrealistic
that all the anger and PTSD vanished in the month between OoP and HBP,
especially since Sirius's death was a whole new trauma.

Kelly signed off from
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163166> with:

<< whose 6 children MADE her a Mrs. Weasley Clock for Christmas. >>

With the hands for their names or pictures permanently stuck at 'Being
Good'?

kat7555 wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163152>:

<< Once Harry was out of the Dursley household he could have become a
bully like Dudley but he chose a different path. >>

It would have been terribly likely, statistically, for Harry to have
become a bully like Dudley or, more likely, a bully like Snape -- one
propelled by his own inner damage. It was lucky for Harry and the good
guys and the readers that Harry instead feel compassion (most clearly
stated in the Pensieve-dive to Snape's schoolboy suffering) and an
urge to rescue people. I think that means I agree with you? 

There is some disagreement as to how Harry learned compassion when he
never saw examples in his childhood home with the Dursleys. Some say
he was born with it, maybe due to genetics. Some say he saw enough
examples on TV and in books to decide he'd rather be the 'goody
two-shoes' and 'sucker' at whom Vernon and Dudley sneered and demanded
to change the channel. 

I think it was part of Lily that she magically left with her son;
thus, "Lily's eyes". I think Lily was able, with her magic, to put an
image of herself in her baby's mind, that would be like an 'imaginary
mum' (by analogy with 'imaginary friend') who would cuddle Harry and
tell him that he's a good kid who doesn't deserve Dursley abuse and
tell him about how decent people behave, thus being that one caring
adult said to be necessary to even a 'resilient' child's survival of
serious abuse... I kind of think Lily used her last magic to put this
image in his head intentionally, instead of using her last magic in
one last attempt to escape Voldemort. That is the heroic self-sacrifce
that canon credits her, accepting her own death because it was more
important to her to give her baby this protection of her love. I admit
I don't know why she would do that if she really believed that he
would be dead seconds after she was. 

When Harry resisted the Imperius Curse, the Curse's Moody-voice in his
head told him to jump up on the desk, and "another voice had awoken in
the back of his brain. Stupid to do, really, said the voice." I
believe that that other voice is what's left of the image-Lily after
all these years; she doesn't appear often, she appears as Harry's
voice instead of her own, but she still is caring for Harry -- and
still has free will.

In addition, so far we've always seen Harry wondering and trying to
find out about his father, and not about his mother. Some say that's a
plot device because JKR is saving some big surprise about Lily, and
some say it's normal because Harry is 11 to 16 so far, puberty and
adolescence, and much more concerned about a male image to identify
with. But *I* say that he doesn't search so much for Lily because,
unknown to himself, he already has her with him.

Much of this comment was written before OoP and HBP, in which Harry
did learn some more about Lily. But in OoP, he thought more about
James bullying than Lily stopping him, and in HBP, he listened to
Slughorn praising Lily without asking any questions for information
about her.

Bruce replied in <http://groups.yahoo.com/
group/HPforGrownups/message/163219>:

<< Yes, he CHOSE. That is the point. What was it that the late,
lamented Headmaster said about choices? >>

As above, I don't think he CHOSE. I think he followed his nature. Even
tho' we have canon for him enjoying a fantasy of torturing Snape, when
he saw the real thing in that Pensieve, witnessing it was an
unpleasant experience for him. Avoiding doing something that one finds
unpleasant is 'the pleasure principle' and Harry usually dis-enjoys
bullying. (The exception was being glad when he saw that Hedwig had
pecked Ron and Hermione, which bothered me.)

Speaking of what the late Headmaster said about choices: he said our
choices 'show' what we are, not that they 'make us' what we are. This
was beautifully discussed in a long-ago post:
-------------------------------
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/23598

From:  "Aberforth's Goat" <Aberforths_Goat at Y...> 
Date:  Sat Aug 4, 2001  12:47 pm
Subject:  Re: [HPforGrownups] Re: Calvinism

<< Not so fast! The CoS passage actually has some of the most
"Calvinistic" passages in the canon. In fact, it was 
that passage that got me thinking about this. Let's pull it out for
exegesis:
 
*  "Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which
*  makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices,
*  Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
*  Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. "If you want proof,
*  Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more
*  closely at this." [....]
*
*  "Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat,
*  Harry."
 
So: Harry's choices *reveal* something--they peel the layers off the
onion--they show us the person he actually is. His true identity, his
soul, his platonic essence. And that person is, fundamentally, a
Gryffindor. He may not even have known it, but there's a white hat in
his soul and when it comes to a crisis, he'll wear it.
-------------------------------------------

Finwitch wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163230>:

<< Well, Headmaster/Headmistress indeed. So who ELSE is being buried
at Hogwarts? I'd say that Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff and
Rowena Ravenclaw must be. Not Salazar Slytherin, who left the place,
though. >>

Surely at least one, possibly all, of the Founders were Headmasters/
Headmistresses. Other than that, I like the idea of bringing Salazar's
skeleton (mummy? ashes?) to lie with the other three Founders, perhaps
causing the Chamber of Secrets to transform itself into an only
normally grand mausoleum, or maybe a library. But wouldn't that
require demonstrating that Salazar had either been a good guy or
repented his evil?

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163327>:

<< If DD did not bring Slughorn, Harry carreer prospects could have
been effectively ruined. >>

Inconvenienced, but not ruined. If Harry and Ron still wanted to be
Aurors after finishing Hogwarts without taking NEWT Potions, they
could have found some other potioneer to teach them privately and kept
taking the NEWT Potion test until they passed. Because, as some
listies used to keep saying and saying, NEWTs are based on A-levels
which are run by the government, not the school, and can be taken on a
Royal Navy ship with an officer as monitor as well as a number of
other places. Even in the case of people who hadn't saved the world
from Voldemort before finishing school, the Auror authority might be
favorably impressed by such a show of commitment.

Not to mention, it was almost a whim that Harry said he wanted to be
an Auror. He might be better off as a professional Quidditch player,
which doesn't require any NEWTs.

Sunnylove wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163352>:

<< Why does Neville even come out of this episode alive and unhurt?
I would expect a sadist like Bella to use the baby as a lever over
Alice and Frank. Why doesn't she? >>

Maybe his parents had thrown an Invisibility Cloak over him so Bella &
friends didn't know he was there.

Lois/fourpawsg wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163521>:

<< When did you all figure out when Snape was Bad? >>

Meow <purr> or woof woof <wag>?
I had to laugh at your question because I knew how many people on this
list think Snape is good -- you've already gotten some of the replies
saying so.

Since the end of PS/SS, I would prefer to believe that Snape is on the
good guys's side even tho' he is a nasty piece of work. On first
reading the graveyard scene of GoF, I had no idea who were the DEs who
left forever, was a coward, is LV's faithful servant at Hogwarts. I
thought the three were Bagman, Karkaroff, and Snape, and maybe it was
Bagman as coward, Karkaroff as left forever, and Snape as faithful
servant, which was a very frightening thought. But at the end of GoF,
where Snape showed his Dark Mark to Fudge to try to prove LV's return,
I felt confident that Snape was on the good side. But when he killed
Dumbledore and fled the Tower -- I shouted out: "Rowling is good! Even
after Snape killed Dumbledore, we still don't know which side he's on!"