OOP Chapter 9-10 post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182854

Alla quoted:
> "Mr.Weasley," said Harry slowly, "if Fudge is meeting Death Eaters
like Malfoy, if he's seeing them alone, how do we know they haven't 
put Imperius curse on him?" - -p.155
 
> Alla:
> 
> Oh don't you worry Harry, there is always a book 7 for puttin 
Imperius on Ministry employees and there were also couple other names
in book 7 working in the Ministry, weren't they?

Carol:
Well, Lucius Malfoy does put the Imperius Curse on Bode (and on Order
member Sturgis Podmore, hiding under the Invisibility Cloak), so I
think this is one of those moments in which Harry is partly right.
And, certainly, the scene foreshadows the Imperius Curse on Pius
Thicknesse in DH. I'd really like to know what was going on outside
Harry's pov and to what degree Malfoy and Umbridge were working
together to manipulate Fudge.
> 
Ala quoting: 
> "And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other 
side... That's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this
was taken, they got her whole family. That's Frank and Alice
Longbottom-" - p.175
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Okay, not typing the whole description of who is who on this
picture, anybody can check the whole quote out.
> 
> I wonder, I counted 21 members of the original order, it is a bit
more than I remembered and that brings me to another math question 
connected to Lupin's overpowered 20:1 remark.
> 
> So, 21x20 that makes it 420 Deatheaters. Huh, JKR? Did I miscount?

Carol:
I counted 22 (including both Prewett brothers), not including whoever
took the photograph and anyone who was absent that day (or already
killed). But, yeah. Outnumbered twenty to one makes no sense even
after the deaths and disappearances that Moody mentioned. Maybe it
should have been two to one? (I can just see JKR writing out a check
for a thousand pounds to pay her one-hundred pound electirc bill . . .
.) Or is it Lupin who can't count or multiply? ;-)

Alla: 
> I have not noticed anything new in chapter 10. Well, Luna is 
introduced. Did you think she will play special role? Were your
expectations fulfilled?

Carol responds:

Funny, I was just talking about Luna (one of my favorite characters
now) in my previous post. I should have realized from all the excerpts
from the Quibbler that it would be important later. I figured that
Luna herself would be important, too, given that she had a whole
chapter named after her, but I had no idea how, especially since she
was clearly as odd as everyone considered her to be. I expected a
connection with Mr. Ollivander (nothing like the two of them as
prisoners in the Malfoys' basement, however!) based on her silvery
eyes. I was sure that they were related. (Mr. Ollivander doesn't seem
to have an heir--another Pure-Blood family dying out? Too bad Luna
couldn't have been his granddaughter and taken over the family
business!) And Luna, like Harry, can see the skeletal horses that pull
the carriages. I knew that that would be important, too, but I had no
idea how. I didn't, however, anticipate the role that Luna's father
would play in the seventh book, though I should have realized that her
constant references to him and his strange ideas were in the books for
a reason. :-)

Also, we find out who the fifth-year Prefects for each House are in
this chapter. Draco is a Prefect and Harry isn't. I expected trouble
of some sort to come from that (though I'm happy with Ron's selection
as Prefect--too bad he didn't do a better job).

And I think it's important that Sirius accompanies Harry to Platform 9
3/4 in chapter 10. I was sure that no good would come of that,
especially after Draco's sneer about "*dogging*" (OoP Am. ed. 194).

Carol, who appreciates chapter 10 on a post-DH rereading much more
than she did the first time through