OOP Chapter 3 post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182552

Alla wrote:
> <snip quote>
> Blink. Kingsley never saw Harry before?
> 
Carol responds: 

I'm curious, Alla. Why do you think that Kingsley would have seen
Harry before? Remus Lupin was his his father's friend, but Harry never
saw him till his third year. Harry knew Mrs. Figg, of course, and he'd
met Dedalus Diggle, but unless members of the original Order (the few
who hadn't been killed or incapacitated) were keeping an eye on Harry
before he went to school or during the summers, none of the others had
any reason to see him. And Kingsley, as we see in "The Woes of Mrs.
Weasley," wasn't a member of the original Order. So it seems that
Kingsley knew James (possibly they went to school at approximately the
same time) but not Harry. Sure, he would have seen Harry's photos in
the Daily Prophet, but that's not the same as seeing him in person. So
I think that Kingsley has just the word of the Order members who know
Harry, chiefly Lupin, to go on.

Alla quoted:
> "Very clean, aren't they these muggles? said the witch called Tonks,
who was looking around the kitchen with great interest. "My dad's 
Muggle born and he's right old slob. I suppose it varies, just like 
with wizards" - p.50
> 
Alla commented:
> 
> OY Tonks, all muggles are slobs and that is based on your dad, who
is not even a muggle, but muggle born? Prejudiced a bit, I say.
> 
> What was the reaction you had about her dad after this paragraph?
Did you have any? <snip>

Carol responds:
Well, actually Tonks's first reaction is to the extreme cleanliness of
the house. (She prefers Harry's messy room to Petunia's sterile
kitchen.) So she seems to be contrasting "these Muggles" with her
Muggle-born (and Muggle-raised) father, the closest thing to a real
Muggle that she personally knows. Obviously, neither she nor Hestia
Jones, who's laughing at a potato peeler, have been in many Muggle
houses. (Tonks would feel right at home in mine!)

As for my reaction, I was curious about her parents and wondered
whether we'd find out more about them (especially when I later learned
that her mother was the sister of Narcissa and Bellatrix and burned
off the family tapestry for marrying a Muggle-born), but introducing
her father as "a right old slob" and her mother as a skilled housewife
who can fold socks with a wand as she's packing merely sets them up as
a very mismatched couple. (Tonks had earlier criticized her mother for
naming her Nymphadora, but her cheerful talk about her mother's knack
for packing indicated to me that they were on good terms--if not very
much alike.) 

Alla quoted: 
> "Yeah, it does," said Tonks decisively. She screwed up her eyes in a
strained expression as though she were struggling to remember
something. A second later, her hair had turned bubble-gum pink.
> ****
> "I'm a metamorphmagus..... It means I can change my appearance at 
will" - p.52
> 
Alla commented:
> 
<snip> 
> This description made me think that Tonks or any Metamorphmagus can
change only to somebody whose appearance she already saw at some 
point and remembered, that she cannot just create the appearance out 
of nowhere. Thoughts?

Carol responds:
That wasn't my impression (especially after our glimpses of Teddy in
DH; he's certainly not deliberately turning his hair turquoise because
he's seen someone else do it). You seem to be taking "as thought she
were struggling to remember something" more literally than I do. IMO,
it's just a description of the sort of expression she's wearing,
comparable to comparing Draco's gleeful expression to Christmas coming
a month early (or Snape looking as if Christmas had been canceled).

At any rate, we see her making funny noses, some like those of people
Harry knows (but at one point, she looks like a female Dudley and
Tonks doesn't know Dudley) but others merely described. (One of them
spouts "a great deal of hair from each nostril, not, I hope, the nose
of anyone Tonks has actually seen.) Neither the woman with iron grey
hair that Tonks turns into when they ride the Knight Bus nor the old
woman she becomes when she helps to escort Harry to Platform 9 3/4
seems to be based on anyone she's seen, or at least, there's no
indication of that in the text. I think that, in contrast to
Polyjuice, which enables a wizard to impersonate a real person, Wizard
or Muggle, the people Tonks turns herself into are products of her
imagination.

We don't see her turning herself into a man, so I don't know whether
that's possible. (Maybe she just feels more comfortable in a familiar
body.) I think she chooses a form that suits the purpose, and since
she's very businesslike (or "bossy," from Stan Shunpike's perspective)
when she rides the Knight Bus, she makes herself look formidable. But
she doesn't turn into, say, Neville's gran or McGonagall, both of whom
might be recognized. Instead, she just chooses suitable facial
features, hairstyle, and hair color. (I'm not sure whether she can
also transfigure her clothes. I would think that most skilled wizards
could do that, but we never see it done.)

As for her hair in this scene, I think she likes the boyish (or
punkish) spiky hair, but it's just the purple she doesn't like. (It
makes her look "peaky.") I doubt that she's remembering someone with
pink hair, spiky or otherwise, as she changes the color.

Alla quoted: 
> "Come here boy," said Moody gruffly, beckoning Harry toward him with
his wand. " I need to Disillusion you" - p.54
> 
Alla commented:
> 
> It had been said in the past, I am sure, but when I read things like
that I always think that these things are the reason why I like JKR's
writing, even if it is not always perfect.
> 
> This metaphor is so simple and still so cool to me. Doesn't it 
represent in a couple sentences what Harry will endure in the next
three books? <snip> And of course there will be that specific
disillusionment with Dumbledore. Beatiful.

Carol responds:
There's no question that Harry is headed for disillusionment with DD,
as you say, but it doesn't relate to OoP or to Moody, who's the one
who says he's going to "disillusion" Harry. I do think it's a play on
words, just as "Apparition" as the noun form of "Apparate" <winks at
Lee> is a play on words. So, for that matter, are Diagon Alley and
Knockturn Alley, even though they don't have much to do with
"diagonally" and "nocturnally." So even though I understand what
you're saying, it doesn't work for me. (Now if Dumbledore had been the
one to speak the line . . . .)

What bothers me about the play on words in this instance is that the
name of the spell and its effect are antithetical. Far from
*dis*illusioning Harry, Mad-eye is "illusioning" him, turning him into
an illusion, or, as the narrator puts it, a human chameleon. Turning
him back into himself, or rather, restoring his appearance (it's a
charm, not Transfiguration) removes the illusion. So it would make
more sense to me if it were an Illusionment Charm and the countercharm
was referred to as Disillusionment. (JKR could still keep the line;
she'd just need to move it to the point when Moody removed the spell.)

Carol, who also appreciates JKR's wordplay, just not this particular
example (my favorite is the Griffin door [Gryffindor] knocker)