CHAPDISC: DH35, KING'S CROSS

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 185114

> Alla: 
> Zara, thank you so so much for your help. You are amazing. :)

Zara:
*blushes*

> 1.	How many nods to Greek philosophers you can find in this 
> chapter?

Zara:
Gosh, homework! Now I will hve to dig out my copy of DH and try to 
thoink back to freshman year of college, lo these 26 (!!) years ago.

> 2.    Is the action in this chapter happens in Harry's head or some 
> other place?               
>         Explain why or why not.

Zara:
In my opinion, this cannot definitively be established from the text. 
It could be that Harry is unconscious and is having a brief 
hallucination or similar in his head, in which "Dumbledore" is just 
Harry helping himself think through everything he already knows and 
suspects. Or, Harry is having a near-death experience and his "soul" 
has arrived on the threshhold of ther afterlife, where he convereses 
with Albus, who is of course, dead, so can conceivably have access 
tyo such a place. Making the former an option seems to me respectful 
to persons who do not believe in an afterlife, or who have strongly 
felt beliefs of what an afertlife must be like which might be 
contradicted by detail sof Rowling;s artistic vision.

My preferred reading (despite falling into the category of non-
belivers) is that the "place" is the taking off point to the 
Potterverse afterlife. For me, personally, it is more satisfying for 
this to be a real dialogue between Harry and Albus, because there is 
so much I feel Albus should have said to Harry at some point.

On the other hand, the artistic choice also forces what to me remains 
the biggest hole in the story. We do not know what, if anything, 
SNape and Albus ever said to one another regarding the Elder 
Wand/Dumbledore's wand. (To me it is irritating to be still asking 
such a question of myself about two major characters and the magical 
artifact that mediated the final vctory in the principal copnflict of 
the series). Harry, of course, would have no way of knowing. He knows 
no more and no less about the interactions of Albus and Severus than 
I do, and based ont hat knowledge (and a great deal more time and 
effort, I suspect) I am not able to decide. So if I were given that 
answer here, I suppose I would have been foreced to concede that this 
*is* provably not just Harry talking to himslef.

> 3.    Where do you think Dumbledore spends his days now?

Zara:
Visiting with his family minus the yet living Aberforth, Gellert, and 
whatever others of his loved ones are deceased. (Yeah, I figure if 
the afterlife is fair and at all similar to the various Judeo-
Christian ideas of it I have encountered in my day, Gellert has a lot 
to pay for, but I figure time must somehow work differently. And I 
read canon as saying Gellert did come to feel remorse for his crimes).
 
> 4. When Harry makes his decision to go back 
> did you feel at any time that he is going back to die for real now? 
> Explain why or why not.

Zara:
I never doubted Harry would live to marry Ginny, produce lots of 
little Potters, and enjoy a long happy life visiting with his best 
friends Ron and Hermione Weasley. It always seemed that sort of 
story, and Rowling's apparent love for Harry was such that I could 
not conceive the woman would ever kill him, his beloved, or his best 
friends, off. Put him through the wringer, sure, but he'd get his 
happily ever after in the end.

> 7.	Can somebody explain to me one more time what was 
> Dumbledore's rationale in sending Harry on Hallows Quest?

Zara:
He wanted Harry to know what the Resurrection Stone was - he hoped 
that Harry would figure out the riddle of the Snitch and use the 
Stone to help him when the time came for him to die. He did not 
simply tell Harry what it was and give it to him, because he feared 
Harry would misuse it, to Harry's own detriment, if he knew of it in 
advance of that moment.

It seems that Albus never intended Harry to have the Elder Wand. 
Nonetheless, that Harry knew what it was and learned its history 
proved useful, as Albus's plans for that Hallow went awry and 
knowledge of the wand proved necessary to Harry. Whether Albus 
considered this possibility or not, the Hallows quest thus also 
proved a useful contingency backup to the original plan. It also 
provided Harry with some information about his family's history to 
which Albus doubtless felt Harry was entitled. (That he was the heir 
of one of the Peverell brothers, and the cloak was an heirloom of his 
family).