SnapeGag/HxHunt/Ginny/LND/LostMagic/Brave/MoreLND/PoA/SnapeHouse/More things

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 171074

Lanval wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170700>:

Ouch, bless him! I hope this was not the incident that caused him to
become a 'late dog'? >>

I answered in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/32366 because I
don't want to push the Elves' tolerance for going off-topic TOO far.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170744>:

<< According to Fudge, murdering Pettigrew was not the worst thing
Black did. The worst thing Black did was betray the secret. And --
this is important-- Harry was **not** to be told about this. Of course
Snape doesn't know, no one does, that Harry has already found out. >>

Yes, but ... surely the reason for keeping it secret from Harry that
Black had betrayed James and Lily was to prevent Harry from
endangering himself by seeking vengeance on Black, and surely that
risk was gone when Sirius was imprisoned and soon to be soul-sucked.
So surely it wouldn't have bothered Fudge if Sirius on his way to the
Dementor's Kiss cried out: "It was I who betrayed your parents, Harry
Potter!" So Snape didn't need to gag Sirius to prevent that. (However,
I'm persuaded by the posts that pointed out that Snape uses one spell
that simultaneously binds and gags.)

<< Do you think Snape had it figured out about the Secret Keeper
switch? I don't. Harry himself doesn't know about that until after
Snape is knocked out, and even then Harry isn't sure he can believe it. >>

Why didn't Snape Legilimens Lupin and Black, ideally before throwing
off the Invisibility Cloak? 

Ann wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170809>:

<< DH theories which ignore the Department of Mysteries or Horcruxes
are unlikely and inconceivable, respectively. >>

I wouldn't be in the least surprised if DH began with Harry
discovering that all the Horcruxes have already been destroyed, altho'
I'd be less surprised if he discovered it in the third or fourth
chapter. If she doesn't want to write the Horcrux Hunt videogame, she
doesn't have to.

mjanetd wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170819>:

<< Does Ginny remind anyone else of Harry's parents? She looks like
Lilly (long red hair) and acts like his father (hexing anyone who
looks at her in the hallways). >>

This is a forbidden 'I totally agree' post.

SSSusan wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170832>:

<< What Little Niggling Details do you fear will be left unanswered at
the end? >>

I want to know why Peeves fears/obeys the Bloody Baron.

Phoenixgod2000 wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170840>:

<< I've always been of the opinion that Harry losing his magic is
actually worse than him dying. (snip) If he flees the wizarding world,
he has to live in the muggle world and he is totally unprepared for
that considering his muggle education goes to about 5th grade. >>

Between Harry having inherited enough money to live on, and most of
the subject material learned in school being useless, Muggle!Harry has
plenty of time to make up his missing Muggle education. If the WW
continues to exist, Muggle!Harry could go into the import-export
business, importing Muggle goods to the wizarding world and importing
wizarding products to the Muggle world. 

If the whole wizarding world is destroyed (some people survive but all
lose their magic), he would have to come up with a purely Muggle
career. Maybe he'll be very good at some sport besides Quidditch. If
said sport were a respectable martial art, he could become a teacher
of it, as he was a good teacher of the Defense Association.

I think if Harry remains alive and magical and in the Wizarding World,
he ought to take the opportunity to play professional Quidditch while
young enough, then become an Auror, then become (unjinxed) DADA
teacher at Hogwarts and eventually Headmaster. I don't agree with
Rowling's suggestion that Harry's had such an adventurous life that
being a teacher would be too dull for his tastes, and I don't agree
with listies who say that Harry's had such an adventurous life already
that he won't want an adventurous job like being an Auror.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170852>:

<< For example in PS/SS, (snip) he shows through his actions that
making friends and learning to be brave are important to him. >>

Harry was already brave before PS/SS began. Despite how the Dursleys
had treated him and kept treating him, he still talked back to them,
asked questions they didn't want him to ask, and generally
demonstrated that they hadn't crushed his spirit.

mz_annethrope wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170855>:

<< Some smaller niggling things:

-How did Harry's grandparents die? >>

Deepthi gave the link in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171033>:

<http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm>
says:

<< MA: What about Harry's family — his grandparents — were they killed?

JKR: No. This takes us into more mundane territory. As a writer, it
was more interesting, plot-wise, if Harry was completely alone. So I
rather ruthlessly disposed of his entire family apart from Aunt
Petunia. I mean, James and Lily are massively important to the plot,
of course, but the grandparents? No. And, because I do like my
backstory: Petunia and Lily's parents, normal Muggle death. James's
parents were elderly, were getting on a little when he was born, which
explains the only child, very pampered, had-him-late-in-life-so-he's
-an-extra-treasure, as often happens, I think. They were old in
wizarding terms, and they died. They succumbed to a wizarding illness.
That's as far as it goes. There's nothing serious or sinister about
those deaths. I just needed them out of the way so I killed them. >>

<< -How did Remus Lupin prevent himself from biting people when he
transformed after his time at Hogwarts and before the invention of
the wolfsbane potion? >>

I suppose that, when possible, he locked himself into a sturdy steel
shed before each transformation. It helps to have a friend who owned
the shed and locked and unlocked the chain and padlock, but I believe
there are also time-controlled locks. I suppose when no cage and lock
were available, he went as far away as he could, perhaps in the
Forbidden Forest, and just hoped he wouldn't stumble across any humans.  

<< -Are there female centaurs? Male hags? If not, how do they
reproduce? >>

You left out male Veelas. I have a theory that hags are the females
and ogres or trolls the males of the same species. And I once offered
a theory that Veelas grow on trees.

<< -Come to think of it, how do house elves reproduce given that there
doesn't usually seem to be more than one per house? Well, maybe I
don't want to know the answer to that. Sounds too grim. >>

We know that House Elves have mothers, because in GoF, Winky cried:
"My poor Mr Crouch, what is he doing without Winky? He is needing me,
he is needing my help! I is looking after the Crouches all my life,
and my mother is doing it before me, and my grandmother is doing it
before her 
 oh, what is they saying if they knew Winky was freed? Oh,
the shame, the shame!" and in OoP, '[Kreachur's] life's ambition is to
have his head cut off and stuck up on plaque just like his mother.' I
think they must have fathers as well, or why would the species bother
having males? I like to think that House Elves are permitting to go,
late at night while masters are asleep and all work is completed, to a
House Elf pub, where they can meet and fall in love for purposes of
getting married and producing more servants (this might explain how
Dobby and winky came to know each other before freedom), but other
listies think it more likely that the masters arrange to breed them.

Betsy Hp wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170953>:

<< But I'm not questioning the plausibility of PoA. I just question
the delivery system. Lupin had to make this massive speech to fill the
kids in on the Marauder background. It's a boring bit of story-telling. >>

No, it isn't. It's an exciting, fascinating story. 

In the book, we are reading words on the page, whether they're the
narrator's words or a character's words. In a movie, we see either
people acting out a story or one person talking, so in a movie this
sort of story-telling has to dissolve into a flashback.

Ann wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170961>:

<< I suspect he's done some *major* refurbishing, at a guess to hide
his Potions lab. But why is he living there at all, when Hogwarts is
presumably safer and more convenient? >>

In <http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0700-swns-alfie.htm>, JKR
says:

<< Q: Where do the Hogwarts teachers live during the school holidays ?
Do they stay at Hogwarts ? (Andrew Zimmer)
A: No, they don't. Filch, the caretaker, stays. >>

I guess none of them stay at Hogwarts over the summer because they
aren't allowed to.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/170999>:

<< > 8. Assuming Hogwarts reopens as a school, who will be the:
> a. Head Boy?
Neville
> b. Head Girl?
Ron >>

Alla, is that a typo or are you hinting at a Potion of Instant Sex Change?

Lizzyben wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171036>:

<< But if [one] think[s] of DD a calculating man who deliberately let
the prophecy loose to create an "equal" capable of defeating VD >>

Then one thinks that DD believed in the prophecy. It's one thing to
calculate that Voldemort's personality is that if he hears a prophecy
that someone is a danger to him, he will kill that person. It's
another thing to calculate that Voldemort's attempt to kill a baby
born at the end of July will cause the AK to rebound, disembodying
Voldemort and giving the baby extra powers.

Geoff wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171060>:

<< I replied to this in 84552 by writing:
"I feel that I can only disagree with your view on Harry Potter. He
cannot be an everyman or Christ. No person can be a Christ figure
except Christ himself, God in human form. We can be Christ-like; we
are enjoined to imitate Christ – read Philippians 2 for example." >>

When an author is writing an allegory, a character in that allegory
can be a Christ figure, such as Aslan in Narnia. Granted, Aslan is a
supernatural lion rather than an apparently natural human, but I
believe allegorical stories have been written in which a human
character represents Christ.

Bart wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171066>:

<< one of the major themes of the series is that nobody starts out as
good or evil; it's our choices that make us good and evil. >>

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.

Mike Crudele wrotein
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171071>:

<< Since when can a third party commit someone else to a binding
wizard contract? If Dumbledore knew that Harry didn't put his own name
into the Goblet, he knew that it couldn't bind Harry to compete,
couldn't compel someone that didn't volunteer his own person. The
Goblet may have been confused by Fake!Moody into picking Harry, but
the deeper magic of binding wizard contracts cannot be so easily
manipulated, else that would present an impossible condition to deal
with. >>

It's not just a wizarding contract, which could be defined by
wizarding law and thus could be changed by wizarding law, it's a
MAGICAL contract, and therefore part of MAGICAL Law, which (despite
the name of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement) is a subset of
Natural Law, and needs no more enforcement than does the Law of
Gravity or Conservation of Mass-Energy. I don't doubt that a person
could be stuck with a binding magical contract by someone else's
action -- the person might not even KNOW they were bound by a magical
contract until some wizarding diagnostician run a lot of tests.