CoS Chapter 16 / Pregnant unmarried witches / CoS Chapter 17

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

No: HPFGUIDX 189245

Geoff discussed CoS Chapter 16 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189199>:

<< (1) What was your initial thought about what was troubling Ginny when she came to sit with Harry and Ron? >>

When she was struggling over what to tell them, I assumed she had seen some evidence about the attacks. When Percy hastened to shut her up, I assumed that she had seen some evidence that Percy was involved in the attacks, and he knew it.

<< (3) Does your view of Lockhart change after reading this chapter? If so, in what way. >>

I was shocked. I had thought he was just a vainglorious lying idiot who was just a joke, but he actually was a doer of planned, intentional evil.

Joey added questions in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189202>:

<< 1. Did anyone feel sorry for Lockhart when he was forced at wandpoint to accompany Harry and Ron to the CoS? >>

No. He deserved it.

<< What use do you think Harry and Ron expected out of Lockhart in such a serious situation >>

I wondered that myself.

<< Harry says that as their DADA teacher, Lockhart must show more
responsibility. Do you concur? >>

It appears that the terms of employment at Hogwarts specify that the DADA teacher is responsible to fight Dark Arts in the Castle.

Pippin wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189210>:

<< But Leanne ignored or forgot that she was supposed to notify a member of staff if she noticed anything suspicious >>

I assume that Leeanne thought that the danger was too imminent to have time to go all the way to Hogwarts to find a member of staff.

Nicole asked in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189225>:

<< How do you think teen pregnancy is dealt with in the wizarding world? >>

Well, as has been said, the wizarding world seems to be a very old-fashioned place. Old-fashioned like 1950s, 19th century, Renaissance, Medieval... 

On another tentacle, the wizarding world has long had powerful witches in government and bureaucracy, and female Aurors and co-ed Quidditch teams. Magic gives power to individuals regardless of physical strength, somewhat as technology does for us modern Muggles, except they've had magic way longer that we've had handguns and electrical appliances. They've had time to build it into their culture, leading to social division of labor based on who has more inborn magical power rather than on other inborn physical traits like sex or skin color.

Also leading to it being much easier for single people and single parents (the ones in canon are widowed) to live in a small household rather than having to be part of a large household. For a long part of the past, households produced their own food, clothing, blankets, mattresses, tables, storage jars, herbal medicines ... it took the full-time work of a lot of people with a lot of different skills to maintain a household, so households had to be large. It still takes a lot of people with a lot of different skills to maintain a household, but now we can just buy their products instead of having to live with the producers.

The former fact gives me the impression that they condemn unmarried parenthood, including pregnancy, like old-fashioned Muggles. The latter fact gives me the impression that they have a good deal of unmarried parenthood and consider it rather ordinary, like modern Muggles.

I can compromise the two by making up a story that they believe that common decency requires that a child have two parents, so they condemn single-parents-by-choice. I imagine they discriminate against and successfully humiliate any unmarried mother who is not such a rich and powerful witch that she can beat a crowd of average witches and wizards, and also condemn an unmarried father unless he is rich or powerful or the mother is a Muggle or far below him in social class.

So they would try to prevent unmarried pregnancy by use of contraceptive spells -- maybe there are contraceptive potions in all that pumpkin juice! And deal with it when it happens by allowing a youthful marriage, forcing a wandpoint wedding, or by faking  that a quick wedding to a foreigner, honeymoon, impregnation, and widowhood had occurred, or by abortion.

Because I am in love with a fanfic idea that Eileen Prince (who must not have been as ugly as the HBP description of her photo suggests, or maybe she used a Beautification Potion) got pregnant from Orion Black's casual dalliance. He obviously couldn't have married her, being already married, but he scornfully refused even to acknowledge the baby and pay child support (which would have been semi- respectable for her, considering his social class). Then her parents refused to raise a parthenogenic child in their house, so she had quickly to find someone to marry. She must have been rather poor and rather ugly, that even with magic like Love Potions she could catch only a working class Muggle, not even a rich Muggle or a poverty-stricken wizard. Maybe he was a little less bad-tempered before living with a witch wife who was in love with someone else and a wizard child who scorned him.

Potioncat summarized CoS Chapter 17 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189231>:

<< 3. Riddle says he grew stronger on the diet of deepest fears and darkest secrets. What dark creature does this recall? >>

Dementors, of course, but the information about Dementors is inconsistent. They cause people to feel despair by draining all the hope and happiness out of the people. The hope and happiness is what they eat. So it may be only magical logic that what defeats them, a Patronus, is made out of as much happiness and hope as the spellcaster can put together. What nourishes them destroys them.

"They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them." I suppose the places are dark and filthy and decaying and despairing because the Dementors are there, because if they sought out already dark and filthy places of decay and despair, there would be no hope and happiness there for them to eat.

Unless you were thinking of Boggarts being able to detect one's "worst fear", but the Boggart isn't nourished by the fear; it merely camouflages itself for self-defense.

As for Memory!Riddle eating Ginny's soul to make itself alive, I suppose it ate all her soul, the courage and happy memories and loyalty and daydreams of Romance!Harry as well as the fears and shames. But only mentioned the fears and shames because it enjoyed them more.

<< Is this also the nature of a Horcrux? Did the locket in DH do the same thing? >>

Umm. Maybe. The locket drew out Ron's fears to use as camouflage for self-defense (and perhaps also as camouflage for recruiting him to the Dark Side). That was more the Boggart sort of thing. 

But it also made each person who wore it (each hero, anyway -- no sign that Umbridge was any worse than usual) have selfish, scornful, irritable, envious, distrustful thoughts about their friends and their goal. I thought that was just Riddle's soul piece's nasty attitude being contagious. (As in the 'leakage' theory of why Harry had such a bad attitude in OoP. Personally, I think it was PTSD from the Graveyard Event.)

I suppose it could also be part of the spell of protection on the locket -- causing discord among the finders of the Horcrux makes it less likely they will succeed in destroying it.

But I suppose it could also be some kind of fuel for the Horcrux. 

<< 4. How did Ginny hide her feather-covered, paint-splattered robes? Did House Elves clean them without telling anyone? >>

I think the House Elves tell Dumbledore a lot, so maybe they told him about Ginny's robes. Maybe he knew that Ginny was somehow involved long before us readers did.