CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 2, The Vanishing Glass

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 187729

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 CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone/Philosopher Stone

Chapter Two, The Vanishing Glass

It's been ten years since the Dursleys found Harry on their doorstep. They've pampered Dudley while barely tolerating Harry, who sleeps in a cupboard under the stairs. Strange things happen around Harry, who can't explain them but is usually punished, anyway. When the Dursleys reluctantly include Harry in Dudley's birthday outing to the zoo, Harry discovers that he can communicate with a boa constrictor. As Dudley pushes Harry out of the way and leans against the glass of the snake's display case, the glass vanishes and the snake escapes.


1.	"Don't ask questions--that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys." It seems Harry and DD learned similar rules. Harry doesn't ask questions; Dumbledore doesn't tell more than he has to. Do you think JKR is merely withholding information from the reader as a plot device, or is communication breakdown also a true theme within the HP series?

2.	The only thing Harry likes about his appearance is the thin scar shaped like a bolt of lightning on his forehead. Why do you think he likes it? How do you feel about that piece of information? Do you think the soul bit communicated with Baby Harry at one time, or does the soul bit have its own emotions that Harry sometimes feels?

3.	Petunia says she doesn't want to leave Harry alone because she'd come home to find the house in ruins. Harry says he won't blow up the house. Just how much does Petunia know about Lily's death? What is she really concerned about?

4.	Why does Petunia treat Harry so badly--jealousy or resentment or something else? Does Harry's accidental magic remind Petunia of her childhood with Lily and Sev? Now that you know about the childhood of this trio, how do you feel about the way the Dursleys and Snape treat Harry?

5.	Piers Polkiss, a rat-faced boy, attends Dudley's birthday outing. He usually holds victims while the other gang members hit them. Who does he remind you of? Any comparisons between Dudley's gang and other gangs we'll see in the series?

6.	The narrator describes the boa constrictor as "the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can
." How does this snake compare to the basilisk or to Nagini? In Deathly Hallows (ch 13), Tom Riddle says that snakes find him and whisper to him. How does this affect your reaction to Harry's conversation with the boa constrictor?

7.	Vernon sends Harry to the cupboard after they return home. There he thinks about strangers who have spoken to him on the street-- a tiny man in a violet top hat; a wild-looking old woman dressed all in green; a bald man in a very long purple coat. How did these witches and wizards recognize Harry? Is it just coincidence that they're there? Can we identify any of them?

8.	The chapter ends with this paragraph, "At school Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang." What do these sentences tell us about gangs and odd kids? How does being "odd Harry Potter" affect the way Harry will treat the odd people he'll meet in the coming years? What do you think it was like to go from being odd Harry Potter to the Boy Who Lived?

9.	Add your own questions here.


Potioncat, who would like to thank Carol for her help.



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Next Chapter Discussion, Chapter 3, The Letters from No One, on September 15 2009.