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

[Mike Crudele]

No: HPFGUIDX 191252

Mike:

PoA was and remains my favorite book in the whole series. The Knight Bus was cool, and I loved the glimpse of everyday witches and wizards going about their lives. I loved seeing Harry get all that time in Diagon Alley and the interactions in the Leaky Cauldron. Being a sports nut, I was elated to see Quidditch become so important to the story. Then came the bonus of learning so much backstory in the Shrieking Shack. And I was actually reduced to tears by one word from TT!Harry at the lake: Prongs! I must have read this book cover-to-cover at least 20 times.

And still some answers remained elusive.

> > 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?

> Pat:
> Having been a teacher, I always just assumed that something like a student having a time-turner due to his/her heavy load would be mentioned at a staff meeting before the year started. So I feel like this *is* a hint to Snape - and that this is why he was so certain that Harry was involved: Hermione, in addition to being one of his closest friends, was right there in the room with them. In his view, *of course* they were involved. With the time turner that Hermione had.

Mike:
This was one time where Snape seemed to know intuitively what had happened, a quality usually associated with Dumbledore. Here he was as out of control as we ever see him, before or since, and yet he still is spot on as to what happened. Or at least WHO caused it to happen.


> > 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?

> Pat:
> No! In fact, the first several times, the "second" prophecy thing 
> just went right over my head! I guess I'm too used to Dumbledore knowing everything, too!

Mike:
Having read the book so many times, I naturally started to wonder what Dumbledore could have meant by "second". I'll tell the truth, I had no inkling it was going to be *the Prophesy*, but I did believe it must have been something important.


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

> Pat:
> To me, it makes sense that the nicknames were well known, even if 
> the map was not. Everyone seems to have no trouble knowing who Wormtail is, for example. I can totally see James yelling something to Padfoot, and Sirius responding to something Prongs had said.

Mike:
I really did mean this to be 2 associated but separate questions. I always wondered how Dumbledore knew Prongs was James nickname. Yes, they were probably well known back in their day, but would Dumbledore have known them? If he had, would he really remember a nickname some years on? Can you imagine how many nicknames float around that school? And in either of their serious discussions with Dumbledore, do you think Lupin or Black spent the time to explain their nicknames? 

I always wondered whether the guy that seems to know everything that goes on at his school, knew about the Map. I also think the Map was one of the cool things in this book, and that it eventually got passed down from father to son was karmic indeed. Zanooda's answer seals the deal for me, Dumbledore didn't know about either the Marauders anamagi abilities or the Map. 
 
 
> > 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?

> Pat:
> I think Hermione was still young enough to accept the word of an authority figure without question here. Besides, Harry and Ron did enough under the invisibility cloak - I also can imagine the things they would have wanted to do with a time-turner! 

Mike:
I wondered when someone was going to get around to this. Good job, Pat! Still, remember all the things Hermione got up to in CoS? I thought she was thoroughly shot of worrying about what the "authorities" would think of her getting up to more shenanigans. She stole from a professor and brewed an illegal potion in a bathroom for crying out loud. What's a little leaking of a *secret* after all that?

OK, now a little time-turning again and speculating. Anyone remember Steve's calculations for Hermione's time dilation a couple of month's back? A refresher:

Steve:  9 mo X 4wks/mo X 5 days/wk X 4 hrs/day = 720 HOURS
Bart:  720 hours = 30 days
Steve:   If you turn back a full year, then you relive that year, your physical self has to endure it twice, making you one year older than every one else who lived in non-TT linear time.

Mike: Now comes the speculation. What if Hermione had told the boys sooner and they did convince Hermione to let them use it for nefarious reasons, as Pat suggested they might. :o) And what if Harry was actually a couple of days older because of his time-turning.

Dumbledore's Dursley-sponsored protection expires when Harry turns 17-years-old. Magic isn't fooled by time-turning, but I would wager that neither Harry nor anybody else would think to add those couple days to get Harry's actual age. 

And when did the seven Harry's make their escape from Privet Drive, thinking that they still were protected there? Hoo boy, wouldn't that have been a surprise!


> Pat
> Thanks, Mike, for some thought-provoking questions. Enjoyed them!

Mike:
Glad you all liked them. :o)