J+L are dead / Snow's questions / Dr 90210

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Talisman wrote a fine essay in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3723 and I feel
guilty about not having any comment on it.

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3713 :

<< Mind you, being sneaky, if J&L hadn't appeared as play-back ghosts
in the graveyard, then I'd be theorising that they're not dead after
all and that Peter is the key to everything. >>

PoA. Sirius. "I set out for your parents' house straight away. And
when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies... I realized what
Peter must've done... what I'd done...." The deaths are known because
the bodies were found.

Snow wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3718 :

<< (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? >>

I was going to suggest that it was protected against broomsticks and
flying carpets, not flying cars or motorcycles, until a post reminded
me of Charlie's friends fetching Norbert on broomsticks. So I have to
retreat to suggesting that Hogwart's aerial walls depend on checking
the motives of the intruders: "Do they intend to harm Hogwarts?".

<< (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? >>

JKR has decreed that in the Potterverse, no magic can reverse death.
Thus, not even Phoenix tears can reverse death. That's a good argument
for the suggestion made on TOL that DUmbledore's hand is DEAD and
Snape used his 'stopper death' ability mentioned in his opening speech
to keep DEATH from spreading further through DD's body.

<< (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? >>

I don't know, but I still yearn to know why Peeves, who is scared of
no one else, is scared of the Bloody Baron. What does the Bloody Baron
have that frightens Peeves?

<< (5) How would the twins even know about the `unbreakable vow' at
age nine let alone attempt to perform it on a five-year-old Ron? Where
did they see someone doing this at age nine that they would even know
of `its' existence? >>

My childhood recollection is that smart kids in a house with books
read all the books, even if they don't understand them. My Muggle
memories instead hearing some adult expressing regret that in his
childhood, he had climbed to the top shelf of the bookcase to get the
books his parents had put out of his reach, especially his father (a
police officer)'s photographically illustrated textbook on determining
how long a corpse had been dead.

<< (6) Does anyone else see the big blonde death eater as a giant with
less skill with his wand than even Hagrid? Is that why the blonde
death eater chose to ignite Hagrid's cabin because he realized it
would be futile to engage stunners against a giant, being one
himself? >>

No. Not only are full-blood giants twenty feet tall, which surely
Rowling have described not merely as 'big', but she specified that
"Unlike Hagrid, who simply looked like an oversized human, Grawp
looked strangely misshapen. What Harry had taken to be a vast mossy
boulder to the left of the great earthen mound he now recognised as
Grawp's head. It was much larger in proportion to the body than a
human head, and was almost perfectly round and covered with tightly
curling, close-growing hair the colour of bracken. The rim of a single
large, fleshy ear was visible on top of the head, which seemed to sit,
rather like Uncle Vernon's, directly upon the shoulders with little or
no neck in between." (from the OoP Chapter titled "Grawp") 

Snow wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3727 :

<< I could accept that answer for the teddy bear/spider incident, >>

Surely the teddy bear/spider incident was an act of childhood
unintended magic, like Harry finding himself suddenly on the roof when
having been pursued by bullies, or turning his teacher's wig blue. As
in Rowling's response to the Rumor that "Harry is a Metamorphmagus": 
<< Anyway: before they have received training, very young witches and
wizards are prone to unstable surges of power, often accidentally
producing effects that they may have to train for a few years to be
able to reproduce deliberately. Their magical ability is bottled up
for weeks at a time and then, when made angry or frightened, it simply
explodes out of them, sometimes (as in the case of the vanishing glass
in the chapter of the same name, 'Philosopher's Stone) causing at
least as much inconvenience to themselves as others. >>

Randy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/3731 :

<< Personally, I would use some of my magical power to make it
possible for me to eat as much as I want and never gain a pound! >>

Wouldn't we all! But Molly Weasley, Professor Sprout, and Madam M
alkin haven't done it to themselves with their own magic, which 
surely Molly and Pomona have plenty of, and they haven't had it done
by a professional, which surely Malkin can afford.