Only TWO Die? No, wait...

[bluesqueak]

 Anne wrote:

> 
> I just reread Firenze's first Divination lesson in OoP this 
> morning, where he told the class, "In the past decade, the 
> indications have been that Wizard-kind is living through nothing 
> more than a brief calm between two wars."
> 
> I don't think we can call what we've had so far a "war."  Not even 
> a little one.  

No,it's a war. It's just that our particular heroes are (until the 
last few chapters) largely on the edges of it - the equivalent of 
schoolkids who'd been evacuated to a safe place in the country, and 
are only seeing the war by the effects on people whose relatives get 
killed. Kids vanish from the school because a parent, or brother, or 
sister has died. Ron gets hit by the equivalent of shrapnel from an 
attack meant on someone else. People are being arrested 'on 
suspicion'. There are attacks on the Order of the Phoenix, all the 
Weasley's are in 'mortal peril', the story starts with a bridge 
being destroyed resulting in people's deaths, it ends with a 
successful enemy invasion of the supposedly safe Hogwarts.

What we're in, in Book Six, is the moment before our heroes are old 
enough to legally say 'stuff school, we're joining in the fight full 
time.' Using a Second World War analogy, it's the moment when 
they're in the Air Cadets and are being used for some of the less 
dangerous tasks, but aren't yet old enough to join the Royal Air 
Force. So there is *a* war - but the Trio themselves aren't yet *at* 
war.



Anne:
>Seems like we ought to be in for a lot of mayhem in the 
> next twelve months while Harry is busy collecting Horcruxes.

I'd agree with that. The difference between on sidelines with bombs 
droppin and being in a full-scale battle. 

Pip!Squeak