ChapterDiscussion/PostBirds/RevengeHarry/LV'sTrace/RoR/RiddleHouse

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 181719

Doddiemoe discussed Chapter 14 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181629>:

<< Hermione uses the Dittany on Ron's wound which heals significantly.>>

I was annoyed that Dittany in DH was a miracle cure that stopped the
bleeding and knit up the severed flesh, while Dittany in HBP was
prescribed only to prevent scarring after a spell had stopped the
bleeding and knit up the wound.

<< In Gregorovitch's memories we see a workshop with a young man with
golden hair perched on the window ledge [pause here for emphasis] who
stunned Gregorovitch before jumping out of the window. 
(big snip) 
10. The first time you read about the merry-faced golden-haired
youngster hopping out a window, did you remember where Harry had
glimpsed his face before? >>

My recollection is that I was as mystified as Harry about from where
did he remember that face. I had no idea what the thief had stolen,
and I was much more mystified about why he waited on the window sill
for a witness to see him. The book eventually revealed that what he
had stolen was the Elder Wand, but it took a long time for me to
figure out that the reason he'd waited around was because he needed to
defeat Gregorovitch to become Master of the Elder Wand, and he figured
Stunning a wizard counts as defeating him, but wasn't confident that
stealing something from a wizard by sneakiness counted as defeating him.

I remain obsessed with Grindelwald not having killed Gregorovitch.
Maybe I'm too affected by golden curls and a merry face, and I
dutifully made up other reasons for him to leave Gregorovitch alive
(his kingdom will need a skilled wand-maker, the local wizarding
police have an AK detector in place, etc), but I keep wondering if
Grindelwald was not really so bad, and hadn't *intended* to kill
anyone, nor to make anyone suffer who didn't deserve it as punishment....

Bex wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181630>:

<< I still wonder how someone can veil themselves from owls, as Sirius
must have done in PoA. >>

Rowling answered on her website:
<http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=18>:

"Just as wizards can make buildings unplottable, they can also make
themselves untraceable. Voldemort would have been found long ago if it
had been as simple as sending him an owl!"

Sirius may have been untraceable while hiding in PoA, but he wasn't
untraceable while hiding in that cave near Hogwarts in GoF - Harry
sent owls to him there.

My own theory is that post owls cannot be followed because they travel
by their own owl form of Apparation, which may be slower than the
wizard form but allows them to breathe en route. It seems to me that
when wizards Apparate, they don't leave any trail that other wizards
can follow (Yaxley saw Hermione but the only way he could have
followed her is if he physically grabbed her). Still less can wizards
follow an owl's trail, through a magic direction that humans can't
even enter.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181717>:

<< "Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had become
back at privet Drive. Both had been delivered not by owls (as was
usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds"

As it was usual with wizards? Did Sirius use non-magical birds? Or
is it how wizards in those countries communicate by letters?

What birds these are do you think? >>

I think they were normal post birds in the place where Sirius was
resting up, because how could non-magical birds have found Harry?
Normal Muggle birds can't even read the street address.

What kind of birds they are would depend on where Sirus was. All
Rowling said about that was "Someplace warm!" I like it to be in the
Caribbean, but I suppose even France would be considered warm compared
to England. 

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181631>:

<< maybe the bit of Voldie!soul in Harry made him seek or desire
revenge, (snip) Maybe that was the end of his desire to inflict pain,
to be like Voldemort, as well as the end of his desire for revenge. >>

A person doesn't need a piece of voldie!soul inside them to desire
revenge. Desire for revenge seems to be a normal part of very many
people's nature, even people who resist acting on that desire.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181637>:

<< I also think, though I know that Catlady disagrees with me, that a
similar jinx may have been used in VW1, which resulted in people
fearing to speak Voldemort's name. (snip) Alternatively, LV could have
gotten the idea for the jinx from the widespread fear of his name. Why
not give them a *reason* to fear it? >>

As you know, I think the second suggestion much more plausible,
because if the name had had a Trace on it in VWI, all those Order
members whom DD taught to say 'Voldemort' ("Fear of a name increases
fear of the thing itself", wasn't it?) would have been painting
targets on their own backs ... h'mmm. If it's possible that the name
had a Trace on it without DD knowing, then that could account for
almost all the Order members having been killed by DEs. Dumbledore
would have been just like all the real life experts who dismiss
something as superstition (how could putting disgusting mold on a
wound possibly prevent infection! It's a superstition!) that is
actually true, attributing all the anecdotal evidence (examples) as
co-incidences or the placebo effect. To think Severus and Harry put
their own brains on hold to obey him... 

Zara wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181692>:

<< Perhaps Tom asked for a room where he could hide the Horcrux, and
when he saw it was FULL OF STUFF, thought to himself, "Brilliant! The
room is obedient to my command! Even if anyone ever finds this room,
they'll never find the diadem among ALL THIS STUFF the room has
created to camouflage it." >>

This is a forbidden "I agree" post.

Edna wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181697>:

<< Tom Riddle was so arrogant, so self absorbed, that discovering the
RofR was something only he could do. I'm sure he thought that it was
impossible for anyone else to be clever enough to find it, at least in
recent years. I don't think he knew that the room could become
anything else but a hidden room full of junk. Imagine what he would
have been able to do at school if he knew it was a room of requirement! >>

This is another forbidden "I agree" post.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181717>:

<< to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only heir would
have owned [the Riddle House] >>

I don't think anyone owned the Riddle House as heir. "But Frank did
not leave [after the triple murder]. He stayed to tend the garden for
the next family who lived in the Riddle House, and then the next – for
neither family stayed long. Perhaps it was partly because of Frank
that each new owner said there was a nasty feeling about the place,
which, in the absence of inhabitants, started to fall into disrepair."
I think the two families that lived there after the murder were
buyers, not renters.

I don't think Tom, Sr, nor his parents, nor the Probate Court, knew
that he had fathered a child, so Tom Jr would not have inherited
anything from them. Unless Mr and Mrs had other children, who had
moved out and therefore weren't killed by Tom, Jr, they had probably
willed everything to Tom, Sr. If a childless, sibling-less, both
parents are dead, man dies without a will, does the government inherit
his property?