Opal Necklace and Dumbledore

[JLyon]

No: HPFGUIDX 169753

limerent  had a question about the cursed opal necklace.

My thoughts are more broad. Listening to the story on CD, I can not  
believe how soon I became really irritated/mad at everyone and the way they simply "blow off" any and all of Harry's concerns. It was even worse then reading the book. It is like Hermy, Ron, Ginny, Nev, Minnie (the "I don't need to listen to children, I just need to star the punishments"), and DoubleDumb all seem to be under some mind charm to ignore everything Harry says. The opal necklace is a very specific item in that, as I read it, DoubleDumb and Snape knew that Dray had to kill DoubleDumb. When the necklace showed up, it would be clear to both of these people that this was an attempt by Dray and they now had a student severely injured and neither did anything to protect the students (such as hitting Dray with some veritaserum).  The need to keep Snape able to protect Dray was more important than the life of any student. When Ron was poisoned, they still considered  Snape and Dray more important than the life of another student.  I started book 1 disliking DoubleDumb and each book has only made me hate the man more. Despite not liking HBP, it certainly followed canon with a DoubleDumb who does nothing and allows Snape and Dray free reign over the school and students.

The other thing that I really noticed listening to HBP is that Harry  
keeps smelling flowers. This starts in his room in #12 where he  
smells flowers and gun powder (wonder where he ever smelled fired gun powder?). Then he smells it again with Ginny, then he smells it ove the love potion in Slug's class, and then he again smells it when Ginny comes up to him. I know JKR won't do it, but it sure seems as though Harry (and many other people) are under the influence of a love potion or other mind altering concoction. I have "shipped" H/G since book 1, but HBP was just not believable and I almost hope that book 7 not only clears things up but gives Harry are believable love interest. Right now, just based on canon characters, I still think Ginny is a good fit for Harry, but the relationship just wasn't "real" in the book.

JLyon