Chapter Discussion 16 / Alla's comments on GoF (and replies to her)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 182223

Caius Marcius summarized Chapter 16 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182113>:

<< At the same time, he feels great anger over Ron's unanswerable
accusation, "We thought you knew what you were doing!" >>

It's not unanswerable! I just can't get over Harry's foolishness
(previous chapter) at feeling guilty at that accusation instead of
saying: "I *told* you I don't know what Dumbledore meant for me to do!
I tried to talk you out of coming with me!"

<< why didn't Scrimgeour recognize it? >>

That's a good question, which IIRC canon never answered. It seemed
that a lot of British wizarding folk didn't recognize that symbol worn
by nutty Xenophilius as Grindelwald's sign. One possibility is that
British wizarding paid no attention to what Grindelwald was doing on
the Continent (IIRC Herself said something like that in an interview)
and another possibility is that it *wasn't* Grindelwald's sign. Krum
recognized it from where Grindelwald had carved it in a wall at
Durmstrang. He might have carved it in his student days rather than
his dictator days. He might have carved it as the sign of the Deathly
Hallows rather than as the sign of his future empire. He might have
had a *different* sign to put on the flags and prisons and other
government buildings of his empire.

Even so, Scrimgeour should have had access to wizarding reference
books of symbols which should have listed it as the sign of the
Deathly Hallows, worn by nutcases who thought they could obtain
earthly immortality by finding three treasures described in a fairy
tale. Maybe he did, and Albus, who was a nutcase himself, had written
the sign on the specific fairy tale, maybe just because he wanted to
write down the connection.

It seems that Herself chose the names of the Peverell brothers,
Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus, for their initial letters, in which I is
the straight line representing the wand, A is the triangle
representing the cloak, and C is the circle representing the stone,
adding up to that symbol. 

Any one have any idea what she meant by Antioch and Cadmus? Didn't
Cadmus in mythology sow the dragon's teeth that quickly turned into
warriors who immediately killed each other until only six were left?
She may have meant that for the violent brother. 

Then why Antioch for the brother whose heart was in the grave? He
could have been Orpheus (O is closer than C) with A for the violent
brother, maybe Alexander.

 I looked up 'Antioch' in Wikipedia and one entry was 'Ignatius of
Antioch', a first-century bishop, so that may have been the link in
Her mind.

<< Godric's Hollow, she explains, being the birthplace of Godric
Gryffindor >>

If Godric's Hollow was named after Godric Gryffindor, it must have had
a different name before he had been born there (in fact, before he had
become famous). I always preferred the idea that Godric Gryffindor had
founded the village, by choosing that spot for his retirement home.
And I suppose, if the Potters were hiding in Dumbledore's old family
home, then it wasn't the home town of James Potter's family, alas.

<< Hermione, seeming to realize his need, conjures of a wreath of
Christmas roses, which Harry catches and lays upon their grave. >>

In contrast to Harry's refusal to use any magic when burying Dobby.

<< "Where your treasure is, there too your heart will be also" ...
Harry says he does not know what the inscription means. What does it
mean? (in the context of DH). >>

It means Ariana was her parents' treasure but not a treasure to Albus.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182109>:

<< If Sirius knows about DE, why doesn't he know what Dark mark is? >>

If the Dark Mark had been visible on DEs' arms in Vold War I, it would
have been easy to arrest all the DEs -- just examine every wizard and
witch's forearm. I suppose part of LV's spell for branding his vassals
was that the Mark was invisible to everyone except people bearing the
Mark, and LV himself of course. 

Pippin replied in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182117> and 
Alla replied to Pippin in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182117>:

<< How come people who were with Snape could see the mark then in 
GoF? >>

Apparently LV was less magically powerful [great and terrible] then
than he had been before he lost his body. He was no longer able to
maintain the spell of optional invisibility of the returned Dark Marks.

<< I was never able to jump from the fence on this one. Was he or was
not he? >>

Well, Barty Jr was quite a loyal servant of LV by the time DD gave him
Veritaserum and he bragged about it. If he had been innocent when
convicted, but picked up that obsessive devotion to LV while
imprisoned in Azkaban or under his father's Invisibility Cloak, then
it must have been Bertha who told Peter and LV about it.

<< "That man too had been conversing wildly with thin air. " - p.554
Huh? Is it Barty [Sr] being completely crasy already or something else? >>

It's not that he's talking sanely to an invisible person (Barty Jr
hidden under an Invisibility Cloak), because what he says ("... and
when you've done that, Weatherby, send an owl to Dumbledore confirming
the number of Durmstrang students who will be attending the
Tournament, Karkaroff has just sent word there will be twelve ...")
shows that his mind is re-living the past.

Potioncat wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182126>:

<< while DD collected his thoughts. >>

LOL. Did he take them out of the Pensieve to put them back in his
head, or take them out of his head to put in little bottles?

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182178>:

<< Why JKR, why, why do you feel that you should make such a change? I
could care less if Alice Longbottom was an auror or not, but if in
your head she was not initially, I wish you would stick to your guts
and would not add an extra working woman to appease people ( if that
is what it is) >>

IIRC after GoF, a whole bunch of listies assumed that Frank and Alice
had both been Aurors and other listies asserted that there was no
canon that Alice had been an Auror. So I figure that JKR later
specified that Alice had been an Auror just to clarify her initial
meaning which only some people had picked up on. I'm trying to recall
what were the other criticized non-canon assumptions that JKR
confirmed in later books or interviews; I remember that there were some.