Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 22: Owl Post Again

[poohmeg20]

No: HPFGUIDX 191243



<snip of wonderful summary> 

> Questions:
> 
> Everyone pull out your time-turners and give them about five thousand turns. Now that you are back where you were when you just finished reading this book for the first time

> 
> 1.  Snape is raving mad and thinks Potter had a hand in Sirius's escape *before* Dumbledore drops the hints about "being in two places at once". Does Snape suspect time-turning was involved?
> 

Megan: I don't think Snape was exactly creating a rational analysis of possibilities at that point - in his mind, he had just lost his chance to be seen as a hero for taking down one of his top two high school tormentors, possibly because of Harry, the daily reminder of said tormentors. That actually was one of my favorite moments for him - he didn't really seem human to me until that point, when he lost his s*** beyond the point of rationality. :)


> 2. "Harry had the impression that Lupin wanted to leave as quickly as possible." Was he ashamed of himself in front of Dumbledore? Was this more evidence of his cowardice?
> 

Megan: I thought it was actually a pretty logical reaction to the possibly forming lynch mob of angry parents who had just found out their students had spent the year in the presence of a werewolf. That wasn't his first rodeo, and he probably didn't want it to be his last.


> 3. Dumbledore tells Harry that the life debt is "magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable". Knowing now how Pettigrew's debt plays out, are you satisfied with Dumbledore's proclamation? Do you think JKR did this supposedly grave issue justice?
>  

Megan: I thought it was going to come up again in a more obvious way. It seemed like somehow that was going to be connected to the big overall mystery, and I don't think it was, at least in the sense that I expected. I actually didn't even make the connection between this conversation and Pettigrew's death until after the fact - I thought it was a really odd way to kill someone off, even by magical standards, until I read some online comments linking it to this. 


> 4. Remember in the first book, how we learn of Snape's "life debt" to James, and how that comes to the fore in this book. Do you think this life debt "deep magic" is as powerful as the ancient love magic that Lily invoked when saving Harry? Do you see enough evidence of the "life debt" magic to be convinced that it exists?
> 

Megan: No, I don't think it's as powerful as love - and I don't think it's really presented as such in the books. Like I said in the previous answer, I thought the life debt issue would turn out to be bigger than it did, but it never seemed like it was going to be an overarching theme of the series like love. Which is not to say it doesn't exist - even in the real world, someone having saved your life (or that of someone you love) is a pretty powerful thing. 


> 5. Dumbledore also tells Harry that "the time may come when he will be glad he saved Pettigrew's life." For those Lord of the Rings fans amongst the group, how would you compare and contrast this James/Harry-Wormtail connection with the Bilbo/Frodo-Gollum connection?
> 

Megan: Sorry, I've only seen the movies for LOTR, so I have no idea!

> 6.  Did you have any idea what could possibly have been Trelawney's "first" real prediction? Tell the truth now, did you have any inkling that it would turn out to be *the Prophesy* of all prophesies?
> 

Megan: No. One of the things I loved about Dumbledore in the earlier books was how he would throw out these random numbers when he was talking - it was like he just knew every fact in the universe off the top of his head, right down to the number. So I just took this as another one of those, and never thought the content of the first prediction would come up. If I'd had to guess at the time, I probably would have said that she predicted what was for lunch or what color socks Dumbledore wanted or something. :)


> 7. How did Dumbledore know James's nickname was Prongs? Did he know about the Marauder's Map?
> 

Megan: I think I just assumed that in British that must be a more common term for a stag - even though I only have read the American editions, there are still a lot of things in there that sound pretty British to me, so that's usually what I assume. So it didn't occur to me at the time that it was connected to the map, but now that you mention it, maybe Sirius had told him by then. 

> 8. Disregarding the needs of the author for plot development, should Hermione have told Harry and Ron much earlier about the time-turner? If you were Hermione, would you have told the boys sooner?
> 

Megan: McGonagall probably told her not to tell anyone, including them, and at that point she was still generally doing whatever teachers said - so it didn't surprise me that she didn't tell them. I don't think I would have, either - if they had used it for some unauthorized after hours shenanigans, it's not like the grown-ups wouldn't have known where they got it. 

> 9. There are so many more questions that could be posed from this chapter. But I'll leave it to our esteemed members to pose them? :o)
> 

Thanks for the great questions!!