a whole lot of parts of the chapter discussion

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 185291

Siriusly Snapey Susan summarized Chapter 36 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185219>:

<< The Elder Wand, says Harry, will go back where it came from, and if
he dies a natural death, the power will be broken, right? Since its
master will never have been defeated? DD nods, and it is resolved.
"[It's] more trouble than it's worth. And quite honestly, I've had
enough trouble for a lifetime," says Harry [p. 749]. >>

I don't understand all of Harry's logic here. He *knows* that mastery
of the Elder Wand can be taken by a defeat which is not death, because
Draco took it from DD without killing DD, and Harry took it from Draco
without killing Draco. Suggesting that Harry could lose mastery of the
Elder Wand years and decades before his natural death. 

And Harry *knows* that the master of the Elder Wand doesn't have to be
using it nor even be in possession of it to lose mastery by being
defeated, because Draco wasn't using it and didn't possess it at the
time that Harry took its mastery from him.

So if Harry were defeated in any kind of duel, even a sporting
competition rather than a battle, the winner would be become master of
the Elder Wand. And the next person to defeat the new master would
become the newer master, and so on. And none of these people know that
they're the master, so they don't know to go looking for it, but there
is some strong magic involved and eventually it will wind up in the
hand of its current master.

Would defeat in a broomstick race or a chess game suffice to transfer
mastery of the Elder Wand? Mastery first passed by cutting the first
master's throat, which is not magic at all and didn't use the Elder
wand, but was followed by the new master grabbing the Elder Wand and
fleeing with it. Maybe grabbing it and fleeing with it is enough to
gain mastery of it, and when Grindelwald stole it from Gregorovitch,
Grindelwald hadn't really needed to wait around to Stun Gregorovitch.
Which, incidentally, is another example that one can lose mastery of
the Elder Wand without dying.

jkoney said it better in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185268>:

<< But if Harry became master of the elder wand by taking Draco's
regular wand, then wouldn't anyone who beat Harry's holly wand become
master of the elder wand?

So either Harry has to use it or make sure it's hidden where no one
would find it. I'm not sure replacing it into DD's tomb is hiding it
well enough. If he is going to do that shouldn't he just snap the wand
now? That way no one could be its master. >>

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185224>:

<< I totally would have been tempted by resurrection stone – too many
loved ones lost too early. >>

When I read SSSusan's question, I felt tempted by the stone -- but all
the people of whom *I* thought 'If I were offered a chance to bring
him/her back, would I refuse it?', were cats.

<< I still feel that I am missing something about appeal of the cloak. >>

The moral of Ignotus's Cloak is nearly opposite to the intended moral
of the Potter books. 

The moral of Ignotus's Cloak is to keep your head down and stay out of
trouble in order to have a long and safe life. But what Rowling
admires is courage, and people who risk themselves to protect others.
Like Harry in the first book deciding that since the adults refused,
then he himself would go down the hole and try to stop 'Snape' from
stealing the Stone. A person who believed in the moral of Ignotus's
Cloak would have followed Ron's and Hermione's advice not to break the
rules and especially not to try something so dangerous and so unlikely
to be successful. Pettigrew's years as a pet rat and Horace hiding
disguised as an armchair are examples of following the moral of
Ignotus's Cloak.

I *should* be tempted by Ignotus's Cloak, both in the symbolism that
I'm too cowardly/lazy to put my body on the line for things I believe
in, and because I greatly dislike for people to look at me (because
I'm so ugly). However, if I wore an IC while riding the bus, people
would sit on me. Anyway, I don't *feel* tempted by it.

Carol wrote of the Elder Wand in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185232>:

<< Too many unanswered questions, especially what DD wanted Snape to
do with the wand and how DD defeated Grindelwald, the master of the
wand. >>

I think DD must have defeated Grindelwald by trickery, or perhaps
cheating. I want to believe that there was the mighty duel claimed by
Elphias, but it must have been kind of a draw. Maybe DD was injured or
pretended to be injured, and GG called time out and came over to check
if DD were dead and ask him "old friend, wouldn't you rather join my
side than fight me?" and DD Stunned him by surprise while he was
kneeling over him... 

Or they duelled for eighteen hours and it was still a draw, and
Grindelwald called time out for dinner and sleep and resume the duel
in the morning, and invited DD to share a gourmet dinner and drinks
and conversation (and maybe a bed) with him, and DD sneaked a
Clumsiness Concoction into GG's drink so next morning he began the
duel by accidentally dropping the wand... or DD sneaked out of bed
while GG was asleep (Somnus Solution? Sleep Charm?) and grabbed the
Wand from under his pillow and ran away with it...

Or DD kept GG so busy in the duel that GG didn't notice Elphias sneak
up behind him and curse him in the back...

Kemper wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185235>:

<< I think Bellatrix is a beard.
Rodolphus and Walden forever!
Let the ship wars begin!!! >>

Not Rodolphus and Rabastan? Maybe they had separate nannies, separate
tutors, maybe even separate houses with House Elves, until they went
to Hogwarts, so sibling rivalry wouldn't be a factor.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185241>:

<< LV who, I think, has lost the capacity for sexual desire along with
the capacity to love) >>

I think Tom Riddle was born without the capacity for love, but
probably had a little bit of sexual desire when he was an adolescent
and young man. I think he completely lost sexual desire *and* sexual
organs when he completed his transformation into a snake-man. Even
when he was an adolescent, I think it must have been only a little bit
of sexual desire because when Diary!Tom effused about someday all
wizards would fear his name, he didn't throw in 'and all witches
desire me'. Some such phraseology that's clean enough for child
readers. Now someone is going to tell me that the reason he didn't say
that is because he was gay. 

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185248>:

<< A second AK fired at the moment Narcissa revealed that Harry wasn't
dead would have finished Harry off, the shared blood having ceased to
protect him once the soul bit was destroyed and the connection between
them was severed. >>

It is not clear to me that the drop of Harry's blood inside Voldemort
ceased to protect Harry when the bit of Voldemort's soul inside Harry
was destroyed. Surely the blood protection is not related to the
sort-of-Horcrux, but rather to the blood protection spell that DD cast
on baby Harry. Somehow, leaving out the word 'dwells' and the expiry
date on his 17th birthday, Harry is protected while he is in the
presence of a person with Lily's blood in his/her veins, and Harry's
blood is Lily's blood, so he is protected in the presence of LV who
has a drop of Harry's blood in his veins. 

About the above, Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185273>:

<< According to Dumbledore the drop of blood would continue to protect
Harry as long as Voldemort lived in his current body:

"His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment
survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself. >>

"His body keeps her sacrifice alive" agrees with my theory. "And so
does Voldemort's one last hope for himself" confuses the argument. I
think it was just only true at the moment and ceased to be true in the
special circumstances (like Agamemnon and a bunch of Celtic heroes who
can not be be killed in the house or outside of the house, clothed or
naked, fasting or feasting, on land or on water, etc) of the AK would
have killed Harry if not for the blood protection, or maybe it was
because the Elder Wand recognized the wand Harry was using as the wand
of its master...

jkoney65 wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185254>:

<< He was even trying to capture Harry in the RoR. He would have
turned him over to regain his and his family's status with Voldemort.
That means he was working for Voldemort's side. >>

I'm not sure what Draco intended when he followed Harry to the RoR. To
me, Draco figured that Harry was going there to fetch a powerful
weapon against LV, and my first thought was he thought LV would reward
him for giving LV the weapon, which struck me as overly trusting LV.
But eventually I wondered if Draco meant to use the weapon to defeat
LV himself.