Luna's Dad

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180557

Lauren wrote:
> > One person I was disappointed in was Luna's Dad.  Luna was one of
 Harry's best friends and her Dad ended up betraying Harry and his 
friends.  It made for a scary part of the story but still, I was 
disappointed.
> 
> zgirnius:
> I liked Xenophilius (though he was surely a bit nutty). His heart
was definitely with the good side. After the fall of the Ministry,
when the Daily Prophet printed Voldemort's party line, Xeno printed
real news in  the Quibbler and urged people to support Harry.
> 
> This changed when the Death Eaters kidnapped Luna from the train 
station and held her hostage at Malfoy Manor. I'm not saying his 
decision to betray the Trio was right, but I certainly found it 
understandable. The life of his own child was at stake.

Carol raises her hand:
I 'gree with zgirnius. Harry and Hermione, though perhaps not Ron,
sympathize with Xeno and hope he doesn't go to prison. He had
courageously supported Harry through the Quibbler, but when his
beloved only child is kidnapped by DEs and threatened with death, he
knuckles under, not only printed the pro-Voldie version of events but,
after an apparent struggle with his conscience, betraying Harry's
presence to the DEs in hopes of getting his Luna safely back. Not
admirable but understandable. Luna is everything to him. He reminds me
of Narcissa in HBP, who says that she'll do anything to protect Draco
(and lives up to her word by lying to the Dark Lord--without looking
into his eyes, of course).

At any rate, I think we're meant to hope, along with Hermione, that
Xeno doesn't go to prison for (accidentally) letting Harry escape and
to admire Hermione's resourcefulness and kindness in letting Travers
and Selwyn glimpse Harry so that they know Xeno wasn't lying. (Too bad
she doesn't hide under the Invisibility Cloak with Ron instead of
letting the DEs know that she's traveling with Harry.)

At any rate, Xeno Lovegood is a widowed father who reminds me of the
mothers in the series rather than the mostly ineffectual, absent, or
bad fathers in the series. He loves his daughter as those mothers love
their sons (and one daughter, Ginny), and when it comes to a choice
between the courage of his convictions and the life of his daughter,
or between his beloved Luna and a boy who is nothing to him but a
symbol, he chooses his daughter. How many of us, faced with a similar
choice, would have chosen as he did? Let's hope that no one on this
list is ever faced with such a terrible dilemma.

BTW, Luna isn't really one of Harry's best friends despite the artwork
on her ceiling (which, I confess, brought a tear to my sentimental
eye). She's a year younger than he is and in a different House. They
have no classes together (unless you count the DA). He doesn't meet
her till his fifth year (her fourth) and still thinks of her as "just
a little oddball" (to borrow a phrase) until she fights with him and
his best friends, Ron and Hermione (along with two other people he has
underestimated, Ginny and Neville). Her words to him at the end of OoP
help him to deal with Sirius Black's death, and she's enough of a
friend that he asks her to go to Slughorn's party with him "as
friends," but she's never part of his inner circle, which consists
solely of Ron and Hermione (and possibly, sometimes, Hagrid). 

Carol, who likes the eccentric Xenophilius, who would be at home in a
Dickens novel if he'd been born a Muggle