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

[Jean]

No: HPFGUIDX 191247

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?

Jean:
Snape would have known about the Time Turners, all the teachers 
would, otherwise how would they explain Hermione's presencea at 
Multiple Lessons? I think this comes from the usual suspicions 
of Harry that Snape has all through the book.


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?

Jean:
I think it was more his own shame in allowing himself to forget the
Wolfsbane and put the student's in danger.


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?

Jean:
Well you could perhaps argue that Harry owes a Life Debt to his 
mother, I suspect this life debt thing is perhaps more to make it 
more believable that Snape would be protecting Harry all this time, 
rather than you think it the love of Lily being his primary motive. 
I think Life Debt magic exists, we've seen it evidenced at least 
twice in the books, perhaps three times if we consider the whole 
Malfoy situation where Harry had saved Draco's life in the Room of 
Requirement.

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?

Jean:
I think that there are similarities indeed between these characters,
Gandalf told Frodo that perhaps not killing Gollum was a good thing 
that Bilbo did, and Gollum helped Frodo hugely becuase he trusted 
him to do the right thing. And then we have Dumbldore saying the 
same thing with Wormtail. Maybe the life debt passed on in a similar 
way to that of James/Snape. Bilbo 'saved' Gollum, and in turn Gollum 
helped protect Frodo, and James 'saved' Snape, who helped protect Harry.

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?

Jean:
No, not at all, but I did wonder why Dumbldore kept her as a teacher 
and suspected there was more to her that met the eye!

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

Jean: Dumbldore knows EVERYTHING :)

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

Jean:
She was sworn to secrecy, however the story is a little farfetched, 
but the time-turners served their purpose and were quite conveniently
destroyed in the MoM! It does make you wonder why they weren't used
elsewhere, and they were (conveniently!) under 'strict ministry 
control' it just all seems a bit conveneint that Dumbledore would be 
able to get one for a 13 year old girl!!