[the_old_crowd] Re: Some questions

Sun Jan 15 00:41:48 UTC 2006

Constance Vigilance snipped:

Blondie is fighting Tonks and again is missing all the vitals but
doing heavy damage to the surroundings. Harry is trying to follow
Snape, but Blondie's blasts are slowing him down. Harry hexes
Blondie, painfully, and is able to resume chasing Amycus, Alecto and
Snape. Someone (Blondie?) is calling Harry to come back, but Harry
ignores it.

Snow:

Your first sentence here emphasizes the reason for my belief that Blondie is
a giant who has learned 'A' spell (possibly the one that ignites Hagrid's
Hut) and it's the only one he knows. Blondie is never seen actually hurting
anyone other than by his spells destructive behavior. His spells ricochet
off the walls causing them to come crashing down around them but not once,
that I noticed, did he issue a spell that did any more than damage to the
surroundings with the exception of Hagrid's Hut.

Harry hexed Blondie painfully making him howl with pain, tis true, but it
did not stop him or slow him down because he departed along with (the twins)
Amycus and Alecto. Here again, Blondie is representative of Hagrid because
it is the face of a partial giant that appears to be his Achilles heal.
Hagrid, in OOP, was being beat up by his 'lil' brother and the only real
visible signs were to Hagrid's face. Again, in HBP, when Harry sees Hagrid
after the fight with Snape, it is Hagrid's face that took a hit. It makes me
believe that (a) you can only hurt a partial giant in the face to cause
damage and (b) partial giants are not very good with a wand. This quotient
would not allow for Blondie to be pureblood giant, as the arrows of the
Centaurs hurt Grawp and we know he is a pureblood giant with no apparent
magical power.

Your last sentence, I would have to say it was Ginny who was calling to
Harry amongst others because as I said above, Blondie left with the twins:

"The man gave a howl of pain as the spell hit him in the face: He wheeled
around, staggered, and then pounded away after the brother and sister. Harry
scrambled along the corridor, ignoring the bangs issuing from behind him,
the yells of the others to comeback…" HBP pg. 599

Constance Vigilance snipped again:

So who is Blondie? JKR says that all major characters have been
introduced. He could be another giant. But I think pure giants have
no magic, else they would not be so fascinated by a magical gift
from a wizard. I think he is not a giant. Besides, he is "enormous",
not gigantic. Could he be Olympe under polyjuice? He never speaks.
Or Aberforth? The Dumbledore brothers are known to be tall.

Snow:

I liked your scenario and I still feel it's doable despite my comments. The
only issue I would have is that; if the Order were to choose someone from
their side, or win someone from Voldemort's side to their favor as a spy, I
would think it would be someone with a bit more talent with a wand. But then
again, like you said, it could be Olympe; we don't know how talented she is
with a wand.

Snow wrote:
>
> (2) If the castle is protected from anyone flying into the grounds
> (via Dumbledore and Harry flying into Hogwarts for the final
showdown
> on the tower), how did the Ford Anglia manage to get through the
> magical defenses in COS?

Kathy W:

We have another time that someone gets though. Charlie's friends come
to pick up Norbet and land right on the Tower. Hogwarts doesn't seem
very secure does it?

Snow:

I totally forgot about Charlie landing, of all places, the top of the
Astronomy Tower, how interesting.

Kathy W:

It could be that the magic defenses we saw in
HBP were part of the extra defenses put in place, as discussed
earlier in the book, but that would still have left it very
vulnerable before. I think the defenses were there all along and that
DD knew about the dragon and the Ford Anglia. He would be able to
adjust the magic to allow them in.

Snow:

I thought it might have been one of the extra defenses that were discussed
earlier in the book too but decided that the Order was the extra defenses
since Hogwarts had already been known to have its own spells cast so no one
could apparate etc.

I came to the same conclusion that you seem to have; Dumbledore knew what
was going on and made the proper adjustments to security.

> Snow
> (4) Why was the Bloody Baron hanging around the Astronomy tower
(like
> a lookout?) the night Harry got the Slughorn memory? Whose side is
> the Baron on, is he one of the ghosts who was interested in Harry
> being the Chosen One that Nick refused to comment on in the chapter
> Snape Victorious?

Kathy W:
It seems a bit creepy to me, that the Bloody Baron was "haunting" the
tower and DD will later be killed there.

Snow:

Yes, five chapters before the fateful scene on top the tower we find the
Baron "groaning and clanking" as it is now his favorite pastime to reside
there but why, what for?

Kathy W:

I lost the phoenix question as I was scrolling around.

Snow:

This is why I like Gmail…all responses on a thread neatly in one folder.

(3) If the Phoenix has healing powers in its tears, why didn't Fawkes
just cry on Dumbledore's wand hand that was burned by the Horcrux to
heal it?

Kathy W:

I think it was an injury that wouldn't respond to phoenix tears. Just like
in the RW
with all the wonderful things we can do, there are some diseases we
can't cure.

Snow:

Nice out, but that would mean that this injury is worse than the poison from
a Basilisk. Anything is plausible in the JKR world but a poison of venomous
proportion, to me, is equal in its strength: if a venomous fang can kill a
Horcrux but could be healed from its bite through Phoenix tears why couldn't
a Horcrux defense (bite) be healed from the tears as well? (hoping that made
sense to more than just me)

Kneasy snipped:

However - another thing worth thinking about; Bill was consiidered at
risk from a werewolf bite when the biter wasn't in werewolf form.
How very interesting.
There is a definite transmission risk at any time, it seems.
What does this say about the ethics of DD admitting a covert w-w into
the Hogwarts school population? Tut, tut, Alby-baby.

Snow:

Yes, tis true but Alby knew that lil Lupin hadn't got the taste for humans
yet that could not be satisfied once a month. Albus attempted to give Lupin
a real choice by letting him into an establishment were he would be rewarded
for good behavior and not acquire an insatiable taste for humans.

Pippin snipped:

A human bite could be dangerous and disfiguring whether the biter is a
 werewolf or not. Human mouths are all full of nasty germs. But Fenrir
is unusual in *wanting* to bite people when he's not transformed. No clue
whether this is a psychological quirk or the result of some kind of
reverse wolfsbane potion.

Snow:

Ooh, I like the reverse potion! Fenrir even appears to be taking on physical
features of the werewolf  i.e. the pointed fangs that are dripping blood.

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