Youth Potion/archway to Diagon Alley/Expelliarmus/Grindel Wand/Bins/Reckless

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 181270

Mike Crudele wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181123>:

<< If they really had a potion that reversed aging, wouldn't you think
we'd have a bunch of buff 21-year-old-looking witches and wizards all
over the WW? ;-) >>

Not if it erased everything one had learned in the years that one
reversed.

Anyway, it's canon that they have Beautification Potions and very
little sign of anyone using them except Malodora Grymm.

Zanooda wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181163>:

<< I noticed that the way to open the archway to Diagon Alley in Ch.5
is a little different from the way it is described in DH, when
Bellatrix!Hermione opens it in "Gringotts" chapter. In PS/SS only one
brick is mentioned, with a hole appearing in it, but in DH "the
bricks began to whirl and spin: a hole appeared in the middle of them"
etc. >>

<> A TV interview gave words AND pictures for how Rowling herself
imagined the archway to open in PS/SS:

words from
<http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2001/1201-bbc-hpandme.htm>:
<< And I like this one -- I thought I'd lost this picture, actually,
because I was gonna show it to Chris Columbus, and true to form I only
found it when it was no use and they'd already they'd already filmed
that bit anyway... This is how the entrance to Diagon Alley works in
my imagination. So Chris is gonna murder me when he finds out I had it
there all along, and he was asking me how it worked, but it was buried
in a box. >>

Picture from our very own Y!Groups photo section:  
<http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/photos/view/bde4?b=6>

I remember when I saw the PS/SS movie, I saw the bricks moving plus
and minus in the thin dimension of the wall (it's so simple to see and
so hard to say!) and was annoyed that what had been magic in the book
had been turned into mechanics, maybe clockwork, in the movie. I
remember when I saw that TV show picture, I thought 'Yes! That's what
it looked like in the book!' I have to say what remember thinking then
because now I'm so old and jaded that I don't have thoughts about it
at all.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181209>:

<< Snape introduces Expelliarmus, curse that Harry would use in many
significant situations as we know now. Scarlet light? Gryffindor
color? >>

It seems that all the spells have signature colored light beams, which
seem to have no connection to House colors, except that Rowling may
have been careful to make Avada Kedavra green and Expelliarmus red so
when they met in GoF graveyard scene, the result would be gold. This
causes me to wonder if Harry's first test of his wand casting red and
gold sparks had anything to do with school Houses except in the
author's conscious or unconscious symbolism. Maybe Draco's wand cast
red and gold sparks when it chose him and maybe Ron's new wand cast a
big green and blue bubble when it chose him.

Zanooda wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181215>:

<< GG had the wand from the moment he stole it from Gregorovitch and
until Dumbledore took it from him after winning the duel, right? >>

When we first saw Gregorovitch's memory of 'the merry-faced thief'
taking something and then waiting in the window until Gregorovitch got
a good look at him and then Stunning Gregorovitch, I was quite
agitated about why would a thief go out of his way to make sure there
was a witness who could identify him? Was the thief someone else using
Polyjuice?

Later I understood that it had nothing to do with leaving a witness,
but Grindelwald waited because he had to defeat Gregorovitch in order
to make the Wand his own. In that case, it seems quite restrained that
Grindelwald used Stupefy instead of Avada Kevadra. Why? Did he believe
that the local wizarding police had an Avada Kevadra detector in the
area? Did he plan that his new empire would need good wandmakers such
as Gregorovitch? Was he merely reluctant to kill unless neccessary?

Potioncat wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181221>:

<< I got the "Binns/bins" once I was clued into bins for trash cans >>

Once a British listies told us that 'bins' is also slang for very
thick eyeglasses, from 'binoculars'.

Jayne wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181233>:

<< As he followed Bill back to the others, a wry thought came to him,
born of the wine he had just drunk. He seemed set on course to become
just as reckless a godfather to Teddy Lupin as Sirius Black had been
to him

This made me smile. I don't think that would be true. Any comments
from you wise people out there >>

Recently a listie was complaining how unfair that was of JKR to
Sirius, to call him reckless without taking the circumstances into
account. I think it's Harry's thought rather than JKR's thought, but I
also think it is canon fact that Sirius was a reckless person. 

Harry is planning to steal (a Horcrux) from a Gringotts high security
vault, after all he's been told about the numerous and powerful
protections that Gringotts has. After he's been told that anyone who
breaks into a Gringotts high security vault will remain there without
food or water until the goblins clear hiser skeleton away. 

I suppose he hasn't believed that it is IMPOSSIBLE to break into
Gringotts and get out alive since Quirrell did it, but it's pretty
reckless to figure that three teen-age students can do something just
because Voldemort was able to do it. Even tho' an insider, a former
Gringotts goblin, will help him, he should have reflected that he was
on track to be a MUCH MORE reckless godfather to Teddy than Sirius had
been to him, because robbing Gringotts is more reckless than going to
Platform 9 3/4 in dog disguise or trying to kill Pettigrew single-handed.