CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181179

Alla wrote:
<snip>
> 
> "If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" - p.116
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Not that I really wish to get into that famous introduction about
Mudbloods, etc, but did he not meant to say muggle- borns here?

Carol:
I think you're right. It's unclear from this snippet whether "we"
refers to Wizards and Witches in general, in which case, Ron does mean
Muggles, or to "Pure-bloods," in which case he means "Muggle-borns."
Does the larger context help?
> 
Alla: 
> "Hagrid wasn't supposed to use magic. He had been expelled from 
> Hogwarts in his third year, but Harry never found out why - any 
> mention of the matter and Hagrid would clear his throat loudly and 
> become mysteriously deaf until the subject was changed." - p.118
> 
 Alla:
> 
> Wait a second. It seems to me that Hagrid can keep secrets very well 
> when he chooses to here. Um, don't you think that his talkativeness 
> in PS/SS may have been deliberate then? <snip>

Carol:
Maybe the fact that he's concealing information about himself that he
doesn't want Harry and his friends to know makes it easier for him to
keep a secret. When he's blundering on about Madam Maxime, OTOH, he
doesn't seem to realize that he's not saying anything that HRH aren't
already supposed to know. I think he isn't secretive by nature--unlike
snape, he'd be a very bad liar because he'd forget that he had lied.
But in this case, he's keeping his own secret, not one that dumbledore
was foolish enough to entrust him with. (If DD *did* want Harry and
his friends to try to protect the Stone, he would have expected Hagrid
to let the secret slip.)

Alla: 
> "But, Albus... surely... who?"
> "The question is not who," said Dumbledore, his eyes on Collin. "The 
> question is, how..." - p.181
> 
> Alla:
> 
> This quote was underlined in my copy of CoS from past reading, that
means that I may have asked this question already, but I am still 
unsure of answer.
> 
> So Dumbledore KNEW who opened the chamber? Oy.

Carol:
I don't think that he knew it was Ginny or that he knew about
Diary!Tom. I've always read this passage to mean that he's referring
to Voldemort. He know that Tom Riddle opened the Chamber fifty years
earlier. The question is not who (Voldemort again) but how he can be
opening it when he's still vapor (and not possessing a staff member or
student, as far as DD knows). I don't think he could possibly have
known that the unwitting culprit was Ginny, or he'd have questioned
her and found out about the diary.

Granted, Diary!Tom isn't exactly Voldemort, only a kind of not-quite
human alter identity, but had he encountered the disembodied older
self, they would undoubtedly have merged.

Carol, wondering whether that newly embodied version of LV would have
looked like a sixteen-year-old boy and how the DEs would have reacted
to taking orders from a kid