CHAPDISC: DH2, In Memoriam

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176694

CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 2,
In Memoriam

<snip Anita's thorough summary>
    
> 1. Harry believes the teacup in the hall is a prank.  What was your
reaction the first time you read this?

Carol:
Probably, "Huh?' or "What the--?" I don't recall thinking anything
specific. I certainly didn't think that Dudley had left it there as a
placatory gesture.
> 
> 2. Harry ruminates on Hogwarts' inattention to teaching healing 
charms.  Is this a flaw in the curriculum?  Do you suspect that it 
might be taught at NEWT level?  Is this a post-Hogwarts curriculum as
 Auror training is?  

Carol:
Definitely a flaw in the curriculum, but then, they've never has a
standard curriculum for DADA, assuming that healing cuts counts as a
defensive spell. If it's a charm, it should be taught around the
fourth year, when the kids have developed some responsibility and
skill. BTW, if Dumbledore had used a verbal rather than a nonverbal
spell to heal his knife cut in the cave scene, Harry would already
know the spell and could perhaps recall the wand movement. (The
complex countercurse that Snape used to heal Draco was, IMO,
altogether different and perhaps unique to that curse.) If the spell
is taught at NEWT level, Harry certainly didn't learn it, but Snape
was concentrating on practical defense to prepare the students to
fight DEs. Not sure what Flitwick was focusing on (nonverbal charms,
yes, but I can't remember what kind.) My reaction on reading the scene
was to wonder whether Harry would need the spell later, and apparently
he does. Even Hermione can't fully repair Ron's splinched arm (dittany
has advanced from preventing scarring to stopping bleeding, yet
another inconsistency between HBP and DH). I wondered when I reread
this scene whether a spell to stop bleeding, combined with dittany,
could have saved Snape, but perhaps Nagini's venom would have
prevented him from healing. Phoenix tears might have been the only
remedy, and Fawkes was gone. Maybe the scene was only intended to call
attention to the broken mirror, but I can't help feeling that it
foreshadows something sinister. As for learning healing in Auror
training, I would hope that it's a standard part of the Auror
curriculum, like "Episkey" to fix a broken nose (Tonks in HBP).
 
> 3. On a related note, why does Harry think Hermione will know
healing charms?  Is he right?

Carol:
Harry thinks that Hermione knows everything (except Dark Arts) and she
certainly knows a lot of protective spells that older wizards like Ted
Tonks and Dirk Cresswell don't seem to know, but if she knew a spell
to stop bleeding, she could probably have cured Ron's splinching
faster and more effectively. As it is, he seems to have been left with
a hunk of flesh scooped out of his arm but the skin healed over it.
And she either can't save Snape or doesn't try (though she does
conjure a vial to contain his memories). At any rate, I don't think
that Hermione is a healer, and no one has taught her the simple spell
that DD uses to heal his hand. Definitely, a flaw in the curriculum
somewhere. 
> 
> 4. When Harry discovers the mirror shard, it brings back the old 
memories and feelings, but he suppresses them quickly.  How does this
demonstrate the progress has Harry made in controlling his feelings?
Has he made much progress?

Carol:
In contrast to accidental magic like blowing up Aunt Marge in Poa and
yelling at his friends when they oppose him or throwing things in
Dumbledore's office in OoP, Harry is getting pretty good at
controlling his emotions from HBP onward. I'm guessing that the
contest of wills with Umbridge in OoP helped him learn to keep his
anger in check. (Maybe the consequences of running off to the MoM
half-cocked did, too.) He doesn't like the distrust and resentment of
Dumbledore that these articles arouse in him, but balling up the
article and throwing it and bellowing "Lies!" out the window is at
least a less violent reaction to his emotions than we've seen in the
past. I think the flash of blue that he imagines as Dumbledore's eye
(really Aberforth's, of course) stops his emotions in their tracks.
Even his hatred of Snape and his desire for vengeance seem to be
reasonably under control in DH, so I'd say that, yes, Harry is making
progress toward controlling his emotions, more so than Ron or Hermione
(who, of course, have not yet appeared in DH at this point).
> 
> 5. Apart from the books, JKR is quite specific about what Harry 
packs.  Why do you think she wanted to name each item?  Several 
reappear, but not all.

Carol:
Interesting question! I think she wants us to see what he values
(e.g., the photo album) and possibly, what he thinks may be useful. Of
course, there's an element of foreshadowing, too, and she always mixes
important items (the locket in OoP, the Vanishing Cabinet and tiara in
HBP) in with insignificant items. Of course, the fake locket, the
wand, and the Invisibility Cloak will obviously prove important, but I
was surprised that he'd take the Marauder's Map and his potion-making
kit (the latter of which wasn't even used, and what good is it without
his cauldron)? And BTW, why in the world would he have a "Support
Cedric Diggory" badge in his trunk, especially when they were made by
Draco Malfoy specifically to insult him? Anyway, I think that naming
the items is a reminder of scenes from past books, much better than
the clumsy exposition near the beginning of CoS and PoA intended to
fill in the backstory for readers unfamiliar with earlier books.

> 6. Already as a child, Dumbledore seems to be inclined to withhold
information, as we find in Doge's tribute. He is referred to as "more
 reserved" when Doge returns from his travels.   Do we attribute this
to personality or to "family secrets?"  In other words, is he trained
 to be secretive or would he have been anyway?  (All speculation 
welcome!)

Carol:
Well, the "more reserved" comment relates to the eighteen-year-old
Albus that Elphias encounters when he returns from his world tour, not
to the boy he knew at Hogwarts. Still, though, the schoolboy Albus
didn't talk about his father other than to admit that he was guilty
(he could have defended him, but evidently his mother doesn't want the
circumstances known and neither did Percival himself, to protect
Arizna), nor did he talk about Ariana while she was alive other than
to say (as his mother taught him and Aberforth) that she was too frail
to go to school (which is, of course, a cover story). By the time
Elphias returns, Albus has still more to cover up: the circumstances
involving her death as well as their mother's, his brief friendship
with Grindelwald, his flirtation with the idea of using magic to
control Muggles for "the greater good," and his breach with Aberforth
(though he chooses not to heal his own broken nose--as a permanent
reminder of his own folly?) Far from trusting too readily, he doesn't
trust at all, not even his devoted friend, Elphias, who sees DD as
something like a saint to the end of DD's days. Aberforth says later
that Albus learned secrecy at our mother's knee and that he was a
natural (paraphrased from memory). I think that both are true.
However, had Ariana not been attacked by the Muggle boys and their
father not arrested for retaliating, none of the other events would
have happened--even the friendship with Grindelwald, whom he would not
have met if the family had remained in Mould-on-the Wold (charming
name!). It's hard to say what kind of person DD would have been had he
not learned these bitter lessons about himself so early in life and
had so many secrets, including a heavy burden of guilt, to conceal.
Would he have been more open with Harry if these things hadn't
happened? Would he have trusted young Snape if he had not made
mistakes himself in his youth? Impossible to say. Personally, I think
that if he'd had a normal childhood (if the attack on Ariana hadn't
happened, his parents and Ariana had survived in an intact family, and
the breach with Aberforth hadn't occurred), he'd have ended up as
Minister of Magic and never become headmaster of Hogwarts at all.
> 
> 7. We see Dumbledore writing as a Hogwarts student to luminaries
such as Flamel, Bathilda Bagshot and Waffling.  We know Bathilda has a
role later in Rita Skeeter's expose; any speculation on how much of 
early Dumbledore's correspondence she shared?

Carol:
I think the letter to his dear friend Gellert is all we would get if
we could read the whole biography. Nothing else would have been
scandalous enough for Rita to print. (I love having a photograph of
that letter appear in the biography later, irrefutable evidence of the
Grindelwald connection.) BTW, it's odd that Bathilda would preserve
that letter considering what her great-nephew later became!
> 
> 8. Doge just happens to be gone when Dumbledore and Grindelwald 
become friends.  How much did/didn't Doge know about their friendship?

Carol:
He didn't know anything about it, having left for the continent right
after Kendra's death. He comes back in time for Ariana's funeral, but
by that time, Gellert has already fled the scene. The only reference
to Grindelwald in his obituary is DD's victory in the 1945 duel (which
Rita Skeeter has tantalizingly suggested involved GG's conjuring a
white flag). Later (in "The Wedding") Elphias talks about Ariana, but
Grindelwald isn't discussed. I don't think he has any idea that Albus
and Gellert were once friends.
> 
> 9. Doge mentions the Grindelwald/Dumbledore duel, but clearly is 
reporting from second-hand (at best) sources.  Are we looking at a 
duel that grew in legend?  Is Rita Skeeter right?

Carol:
Rita is insinuating that she knows something about the relationship
between Dumbledore and Grindelwald (and possibly the reasons why it
took so long for DD to actually duel with him). She has an ace up her
sleeves--the boyhood friendship, complete with that incriminating
letter--but she wants people to read the book, so is only providing
tantalizing hints. But, no, she's not right about the duel itself. We
know that DD somehow won the "unbeatable" Elder Wand. We know from OoP
that Dumbledore is marvelously skilled at duelling Dark wizards
without killing or being killed. And there were evidently eye
witnesses (not that eye witnesses in these books always know what
they're seeing, but I don't see how they could mistake a wizarding
duel for anything else (or vice versa). Dead!DD himself says in
"King's Cross" that he won the duel and that he was "a shade more
skillful" than Grindelwald (DH Am. ed. 718) though he doesn't provide
details. So Rita is right that Albus and Gellert were friends but
wrong (IMO) that Grindelwald willingly surrendered to Dumbledore. I'm
pretty sure that both of them would want to show off their skills,
seeing the duel as a challenge, a contest of power and skill. And
Grindelwald would have been sure that he was unbeatable given his
mastery of the Elder Wand (a subject I don't want to stray onto!)
> 
> 10. Following his perusal of Doge's tribute, Harry realizes he was 
very bad at asking questions.  Is this a JKR sop to readers' 
frustration with his lack of curiosity, or do you think she had 
always planned for Harry to have this realization?

Carol:
Hm. She certainly didn't want Harry to ask questions about DD or her
revelations would be ruined, and I'm sure that she's aware of readers'
annoyance on the matter, but it's an established character trait (way
back in SS/PS, IIRC, the narrator states that the first rule of living
with the Dursleys was "Don't ask questions"). And Harry is
understandably rather self-centered in the sense of being preoccupied
with his own concerns and predicaments. Almost the only person he asks
questions about is Professor Snape, and usually he gets responses like
"That is a matter between Professor Snape and myself, Harry." He never
asks his friends (except Ron) about their homelife and consequently is
surprised to learn (in GoF) why Neville was raised by his grandmother.
He seldom even asks about his own parents, especially his mother. It's
not at all surprising that he never asks Dumbledore about his personal
life ("Why didn't you ever marry, sir?" or "Where did you live when
you were a kid?"). And when the subject of DD's brother comes up (in
GoF), DD himself dismisses him by saying that he's not even sure that
Aberforth can read. (Boo, Albus! Low blow!) Besides, Harry, like most
teenagers, seems to think that DD was born old (or else "back in the
dinosaur age," to quote someone I know).
> 
> 11. Harry suspects that Dumbledore didn't answer frankly the one 
personal question he asked.  What's the likelihood Dumbledore would
have answered any of Harry's personal questions frankly?

Carol:
Nil. None. Zilch. Zero. "That is a matter between me and myself,
Harry." Well, maybe he would have admitted a Godric's Hollow
connection if Harry had asked, but since he refused to talk with his
friends about his father or Ariana and made disparaging remarks about
Aberforth, I don't think he'd have been very informative. The duel
with Grindelwald he might have talked about, but that was public
knowledge. And his favorite flavor of jam or his interest in chamber
music and ten-pin bowling. Important stuff like that.
> 
> 12. Rita Skeeter clearly lies in her interview, calling her 
relationship with Harry Potter "close."  Did this mislead you on the
first read, or did you suspect some of what she found was true?

Carol responds:
There was just enough overlap between her version of DD's life and
Doge's to make me think that the truth lay somewhere in between. The
references to Aberforth and Grindelwald and DD's broken nose made me
anticipate revelations of some sort, but in a distorted form if they
came from Rita. (As an aside, I liked her directing suspicion of DD's
murder away from Severus Snape--it made me realize that Snape was not
Undesirable Number One in the WW as I had anticipated he'd be after
HBP. Of course, her shifting suspicion to Harry was obviously Rita
Skeeter through and through, but I was curious as to how Snape had
escaped being a wanted fugitive when LV had not yet taken over the
Ministry.) Anyway, Harry's desire for "the truth" about Dumbledore is
supposed to reflect or arouse a similar desire on the part of the
reader. Harry seizes every scrap of information he can find though
he's a bit slow in fitting the pieces together. (Where have I seen
that golden-haired boy before? Hmmm.) With Snape, in contrast, Harry
thinks he already knows the truth so he doesn't recognize the clues
when he sees or hears them. 
> 
> 13. The uses of dragon's blood is mentioned more than once in this
chapter and has been known since book 1, yet it never figures into 
the denouement. Any speculation?  

Carol:
Something to do with healing, maybe, since Hagrid uses a raw dragon
steak to heal his bruises in OoP. But, then, putting raw steak against
a black eye is a fairly well-known Muggle remedy, so it's rather like
Lupin's use of chocolate, a well-known Muggle "cure" for depression
(till the fat cells or pimples make you even more depressed). I posted
in message 168475 about the medicinal uses of the *plant* dragon's
blood as possibly providing some clues to DD's twelve uses of the
creatures' actual blood, but only one person responded. (The resin  of
the plant "is used for power, purification, protection, consecration
and ritual energy," if anyone is interested. More details can be found
by clicking links in the original post:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168475
> 
> 14. Rita refers to Dumbledore's relationship with Harry as
"unhealthy."  While she is mining for sensation, how much of this do
you think has a ring of truth?

Carol:
Another good question. Maybe Harry's anger is in part a response to a
nagging suspicion that she's right. Of course, it's unclear how much
Rita knows or suspects or exactly what she wants her readers to think.
We know that she talked with Draco and his friends in GoF. I think
it's very likely that Draco charged Dumbledore with favoritism (not
without cause). She also knows that DD allowed (or could not prevent)
Harry's participation as an underage contestant in a highly dangerous
tournament, not to mention what happened afterwards, revealed to her
in an exclusive interview during OoP. "A most troubled adolescence"
doesn't begin to describe it, and it's certainly true that "Dumbledore
took an unnatural interest in Potter from the word go" (27). DD has a
plan centering on Harry, which he admits in OoP. But if he hadn't
taken such an interest in Harry, testing and preparing him and
eventually revealing the Prophecy (while still withholding bits of the
truth until the very end), how could Harry have faced Voldemort, who
would have gone after him to kill him no matter what?
> 
> 15. Doge's tribute is glowing, and Rita Skeeter's report insinuates
 sensational scandal.  Which one is more honest?  Do both withhold 
certain truths?  

Carol:
"Darling Dodgy" is fervent in his admiration but also honest, telling
all he knows (which happens to be favorable to DD in all cases). The
problem is, DD has not been honest with *him*, and there are important
gaps in his knowledge, especially of the crucial two months when
Elphias was on the world tour that he and Albus would have taken
together if Kendra hadn't been killed. Skeeter doesn't have an honest
bone in her insect body, but she does have access to information that
Doge doesn't have (obtained, in may cases, through illicit or
disreputable means). Skeeter deliberately withholds information to
tantalize her readers (she wants them to buy the book), but she also
hints and distorts and insinuates in her usual style in both the
article and the book itself. Doge, admittedly, doesn't want to hear
anything bad about his hero, but I don't think he deliberately
distorts or withholds any information. He honestly believes that
Dumbledore was a paragon of virtue rather than the flawed and
manipulative but primarily well-intentioned human being that we see at
the end. Too bad he never had a heart-to-heart talk with Aberforth!
 
> 16. What was your reaction to the flash of blue in the mirror the
first time you read the book?

Carol:
I's hard to remember first reactions, especially to a book that I was
devouring at top speed to find out what happened and who died and why
Snape killed Dumbledore. I *think* I suspected that it was DD somehow
peering through the Veil even though I knew that he was really dead
and that Sirius Black had been unable to use the other mirror after
his death (assuming that he had it with him). The answer was there in
the chapter plain as day with all the references to Aberforth, whom I
knew would be a character in the book, but I don't think I stopped
long enough to put two and two together. I was reading emotionally,
not analytically, and waiting for something exciting or scary to happen.

Thanks for the thought-provoking questions!

Carol, who has not read anyone else's responses because she didn't
want them to influence her own