Dementors/Baby on doorstep discussion: missing day/Mrs FIgg/Snape's soul

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 187718

Oops, I accidentally posted this first to OT.

Zanooda wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187657>:

<< I thought ministry workers don't have to go to Azkaban if they need a Dementor. In GoF Fudge just summoned one to Hogwarts (the one that Kissed Crouch Jr.) when he thought he was in danger, why couldn't Umbridge do the same :-)? I don't know if Fudge summoned it from Azkaban or some other place, but either way he didn't have to go anywhere to get that Dementor, the Dementor came to him :-). >>

I expect that not all MoM workers have the same privileges or powers that the Minister (Fudge) had, but, yes, if any MoM worker besides the Minister had a ministerial power, it would be Fudge's Umbridge.

I believe that in GoF, Fudge was being escorted by Dementors as bodyguards to protect him and somehow not being affected by their Demention. DD required him to leave the Dementors waiting at the Hogwarts front gate, so Fudge summoned the Dementor from less than a mile away, not from Azkaban. Someone could check canon and see if I am wrong.

Powerbabe/Trianarose summarized PS/SS Chapter 1 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187670> and asked
discussion questions which got responses including the following:

JLyon asked in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187680>:

<< Why was McG there unless Bumbles told her? >>

And Zanooda abswered in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187684>:

<< According to McGonagall, it was Hagrid who told her that DD will come to the Privet Drive: "'Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?' - 'Yes'". She was waiting not for hagrid, but for DD. She probably knew that Hagrid was also supposed to come, but she didn't even know why. She also only knew the address, not that Harry's relatives lived there, and she didn't seem to know when exactly to expect DD. This is all a little confusing to me, I must say :-). >>

It seems Hagrid hadn't told her AT ALL "when exactly to expect DD". I assume she 'heard' the commotion, went to DD's office to ask whether it was true that You Know Who was dead, found Hagrid leaving the office but DD not there, and then asked Hagrid if he knew where to find DD, and Hagrid replied: "I'm going to meet him in front of Lily's sister's house. Lily and James Potter were killed so Dumbledore asked me to take baby Harry to her sister. I'm just now off to get him." Making it sound as if they would meet in 2 hours rather than 20 hours.

If he had told her that he was going to meet up with DD in about 23 hours, or at 2AM or 'tomorrow night, well I guess it's today by this time', she wouldn't have had to wait there all day long.

Hagrid must have told her that James and Lily were dead, baby Harry had survived, and somehow baby Harry's survival had killed Voldemort, because she asked DD for confirmation of all those things. How else would she have heard them? I can't imagine how he would tell her that without telling her that he was taking Harry to his aunt and uncle.

I suppose McGonagall asking DD why he was here, and protesting 'you can't mean these people!' was part of her trying to persuade DD not to leave Harry with people whom she had observed all day to be unsuitable. Step one: pretend that the thing you want not to be true isn't true. Step two: pretend to be surprised as well as horrified when told the horrifying truth.

Geoff wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187683>:

<< Seeing that Hagrid has just brought Harry straight in from Godric's Hollow, Madam Pomfrey hasn't had an opportunity to be anywhere near Harry. >>

As shown by the above discussion, it seems that Hagrid had not just brought Harry straight from Godric's Hollow. The famous 'missing day' was between the time Hagrid got Harry at Godric's Hollow and the time Hagrid left Harry at the Dursley house. Since Rowling's text mentions that McGonagall waited all day and skipped all the feasts and celebrations, it appears to me that Rowling knew there was a day-long gap between the two events. Unless she figured that DD figured it would take Hagrid that long to travel from Godric's Hollow to Little Whinging, she must have had some idea where they spent the day, and also where DD spent the day. Unless she figured that McG figured it would take Hagrid that long, it would not have been unreasonable, time-wise, for her to have McG ask Hagrid whether Madam Pomfrey had checked the baby.

As it turned out not to be a big plot mystery where they had spent the missing day, Rowling could have told the readers by having McG ask Hagrid where they had been all day, and Hagrid could have answered, even if the answer was that it took him that long to fly that distance even on the flying motorcycle, and he could even throw in that DD was at the Ministry of Magic helping direct which leading Death Eaters to round up, or whatever.

Geoff wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187690>:

<< The need for Harry to go to the Dursleys wasn't something that was planned. It came out of the blue. Mrs.Figg, as a Squib, couldn't be installed in a suburban English road at such short notice. There wouldn't be a property available in the time frame. And you could hardly do a "Grimmauld Place" and insert a magical house into the scenery. >>

That suggests that DD had found out about Lily's Muggle relatives and placed Mrs Figg nearby to keep an eye on them long ago, including that she had told him what yucky people they were. If he hadn't been thinking of a need to place Lily's orphaned baby with someone other than the guardian chosen by his parents (who might have been killed in the same battle), why was he interested in Lily's Muggle relatives? Could the Death Eaters have used them to attack Lily, perhaps via the 'blood' shared by Lily and Petunia?

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187695>:

<< We know that he never killed anyone before DD. That's clear from his fear of splitting his soul and DD's question, "How many people have you watched die, Severus?" as opposed to "How many people have you killed?" >>

We do NOT *know* that he never killed anyone before DD. I read his question less as fear for his soul than as resentment that DD didn't care about his soul nearly as much as about Draco's. Maybe DD could have answered truthfully, but less persuasively, "oh, your ragged old soul is already torn to tatters, and young Malfoy's is still untorn."

I'm more inclined to believe that a torn soul, if not put in a Horcrux, can be mended, by repentance and trying to behave better, so Snape's concern could have been that his soul had already been torn and laboriously mended and maybe tearing it again in the same place couldn't be mended again.

And DD asked Ss 'How many men and women have you watched die?' instead of 'How many have you killed?' because the context was DD telling SS to tell HP information that would make HP die. DD was not telling SS to kill HP, so 'how many people have you killed' is not relevant. DD is telling SS that DD plans for HP to die, so 'watched die' is relevant.