Interesting thread.
There are probably 5 more pages than when I first started writing this, but here goes..........
.........A couple characters I was surprised were missing: Moaning Myrtle and Fawkes. I thought sure Fawkes would come back to Harry, esp after Hagrid died.
I was also surprised that Fawkes didn't come back (Hagrid didn't die though - he is mentioned in the epilogue. The kids are reminded to not forget that they have been invited to tea with Hagrid next Friday).
One of my first questions when i was done was who was the person who came to magic late in life ? did i miss something ?
I was watching for it, but didn't notice anyone in this book. I read somewhere else that it was edited out. If so, I think it was probably Filch. He was at Hogwarts at the battle and we know from previous books that he had been studying. I think the book that Harry saw in his office in one of the previous books was something like "Magic for Squibs". I think a lot of the ability to do magic probably has to do with the witch or wizard's confidence in doing magic. I can't think of a specific quote, but I think Neville is a good example. When he thought he was bumbling and couldn't do magic, he couldn't. Once he got some confidence, he started to make a lot fewer mistakes.
Another possibility is Professor Trelawney. I don't remember if she was ever described to do any magic since her subject was Divination, not really magic. She is described doing magic by making crystal balls sail at Death Eaters during the battle for Hogwarts.
Voldemort only intended on making a total of 7 Horcruxes because 7 was a powerful & mystical number. Harry was unintentionally made into a Horcrux, so in the end, Voldemort was split into 8, not the 7. I don't even think he was aware himself that Harry was a Horcrux.
Voldemort's soul had been so weakened by his continuous creation of Horcruxes that when he fled the scene of the Potters murders, a fragment attatched itself to the only living thing in the room, the infant Harry Potter. I think that Dumbledore figured it out when he heard that Voldemort took Harrys blood. (This is what Dumbledores gleam of triumph refers to
)
From the definition of Horcrux in the books "
'the receptacle in which a Dark wizard has hidden a fragment of his soul for the purposes of attaining immortality', it appears that Harry wasn't technically a Horcrux, since Voldemort had not actually hidden a fragment of his soul in Harry's body. We don't know what 'receptacle' Voldemort had chosen to use, but obviously, when the killing didn't work, it really didn't matter. The soul that was intended to be put in the receptacle ended up glomming on to the only living body in the area - Harry's.
I think Dumbledore had understood that, even though Voldemort had not.
Other people have already posted that Dumblesdore's gleam of triumph on hearing about the blood was because a bit of Harry (and Harry's mom's protection) was inside Voldemort at that point, so DD was quite sure that a tiny part of Harry would still be alive if Voldemort killed Harry.
Since Voldemort was interrupted in creation of the Horcrux he intended to make, I don't think he had any idea that his soul had been split and separated at Godrick's Glen.
Once the parts of himself were in the Horcruxes, he didn't seem to be aware of what happened to them (he obviously didn't know that the ring had been removed from the Gaunt house and the locket removed from the lake and destroyed because he went to look to check on their safety before coming to Hogwarts).
I was disappointed to that there wasn't more about Petunia and Dudley...I liked the scene with Dudley, but really thought there would be more about Petunia or we would find out a secret she had.
There seemed to be a "build-up" about that in previous books that never materialized.
I felt the same way until the chapter about Snape's memories. I really liked the glimpses of the young Evans sisters and how close they once were.
To me, the secret she had seemed to be the fact that far from thinking Lily's magical abilities were horrible or freakish, she was envious. She even went so far as to write to Dumbledore and ask him to allow her to come to Hogwarts, too. He didn't allow it, of course, and it seems that that was the moment she decided that Lily was a "freak" and was never close to her again. Very sad, really, and I think Petunia regretted it, but just couldn't bring herself to say anything to Harry about it when they parted for the final time.
I think the big secret was that, even though she always spoke badly about witches and wizards to Harry, we find out that she wanted to be a witch so badly that she even wrote to Dumbledore to plead with him to be let into Hogwarts. We also found out how she knew what she did know about the Wizarding world and dementors (by listening to Lily and Snape).
I've always wondered this...and now even more...
How exactly did Voldemore "flee" after killing Harry's parents...wasn't he basically nothing? How did he escape the Potter house and get to Albania with his wand?
As for escaping the Potter house, since he had no body, he would have been pure spirit (kind of like he was at the end of book 1, after leaving Quirrel's body) and just sort of floated away. How he ended up in Albania, I don't know.
In the first book, when Voldemort is talking from the back of Quirrell's head about his existance, he says that if he wanted to do anything, his soul was forced to move from body to body of small creatures he came upon. So, apparently, he used one of those small creature bodies to get to Albania. Or, maybe he just flew there as pure energy.
WaltD4Me said:
Before reading book 7, I always assumed someone was at the house with Voldemort who stole him and his wand away, but it doesn't seem like there was now.
Didn't Voldemort say something about Wormtail keeping his wand safe for him or something like that in book 4? I could very well be wrong about that, but it seems to stick in my mind that Pettigrew had the wand.
I don't think it says directly about how Wormtail had his wand, but the assumption is that Peter Pettigrew had the wand since he is the one who gives it back to Voldemort in the graveyard after Voldemort has a body.
I caught one error the first time around, when they were at Xeno Lovegoods, he comments "Luna is out in the garden getting things for our dinner" How would she know they were there, and why isn't she there to see the friends she so adores? That one line there told me something was up...
At the time I read it, I took it to mean that he was saying Luna was out getting their (his and Luna's) supper. I did think it odd that he didn't call her in right away though (especially since he had to know that she had practically a shrine to them in her room).
I also wondered when they arrived at Grimmauld place, why they hadn't covered Nigellus's portrait? Nice touch with Kreacher, and gosh, I felt sad for Kreacher that he finally felt respected by his masters and lost them after the Ministry fiasco.
I liked what happened to Kreacher. It would be nice to think of him (19 years later) willingly serving Harry and his family.
About the portrait, considering what they had been thru before they arrived at Grimmauld place, I'm surprised they thought at all about the portrait.
Interesting that the symbol was misinterpreted at Durmstrang from what it truly was...
I think I'll start rereading tomorrow. I loved it.
Suzanne
It made me think of the
Swastika, which had a lot of positive meanings before it was taken over as a symbol by the Nazis.
I didn't have time to read the whole thread, but I wanted to ask my questions before I leave for work! Sorry if the answers are somewhere in pages 6-15 of the thread!
1) HOW did Dumbledore get the wand from Grindelwald if it was a wand that could never lose a duel? Was that ever explained? Or am I not understanding the Elder Wand?
I think that is answered by some of the things said about wands - Hermione says that "wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them."
We know that Dumbledore was a more skillful wizard that Grindelwand and we also know that Harry had seen a vision of Voldemort torturing Gregorovitch (the wandmaker) on pages 281 and 282. Voldemort had read Gregorovitc's mind and Harry had seen a "young blond bloke" who had stollen the wand (Harry had not seen what was stollen from the wand maker, but we finnd out later in the book that Gregorovitch apparently had the Elder Wand.
Harry didn't find out who the blond boy was until later when they saw the pictures of young Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
So, my thought is that the wand was stolen by Grindelwald, so even though he had done some pretty horrific things with the wand by the time that the duel took place, the wand was not totally allied with him, even though it was held by him (sort of the same way that they later explained the wand was not really allied with Voldemort since he had taken it).
Dumbledore took it from Grindewald in a duel, so it would have allied with Dumbledore.
I guess it's obvious now that "that awful (dreadful?) boy that Petunia talked about was the young Snape who taught the sisters about the magical world. I didn't know until Book 7 whether she was talking about James or Severus.
I kind of wondered whether she was talking about Snape as the "dreadful boy" because it seemd to fit him better than James.
I, too, wished Petunia had been able to say something nice to Harry as she was leaving. I didn't expect anything of her husband, but I really thought she might have. I was impressed by Dudders - the boy dis manage to mature and appreciate Harry as much as he was able. I've always felt sympathetic towards Dudders - look at how he was raised, the odds were well stacked against him becoming a nice boy!
It would have been nice if Petunia had been able to say something. It was obvious though in Snape's memories how much Petunia
had loved her sister at one point and how much she had shut Lily out of her life out of jealousy. I didn't know Snape was involved until book 7, but I thought that extreme jealousy was behind Petunia's actions. So, I guess, knowing that I was not surprised.
I heard on the Mugglenet podcast yesterday that the American cover is actually supposed to be Harry in the Gringott's vault and the red eyes behind him are the dragon's. I'm not sure where they got this info though.
Someone already posted, but it's the
cover of the UK version that shows Gringott's vault.
In regard to the US cover, it's clearly intended to be the climax in the Great Hall. Voldemort has just lost the Elder wand to the Expelliarmus spell and Harry is reaching to catch it. Above them the sky can be seen because the Great Hall ceiling is bewitched to look like the sky...and it's at the very break of dawn. However, there is one problem. Harry's not holding a wand...and he would have been holding Draco's still at that point
I noticed that right away after I finished reading too. Harry should have had Draco's wand. Here's a
link to the American cover.
No, I disagree. I think it was a spell to protect the horcrux. Some of the horcruxes had powerful spells to protect most of them. The cup burned you and then multiplied, the locket had the liquid you had to drink. Not sure why the crown didn't.
It was when he put the ring on that it hurt him, I believe. After all, Harry "accessed" the stone and it didn't hurt him.
The spell on the cup (burning you and then multiplying) was not a protection spell on the cup. It was a protection spell on some things stored in a vault at Gringott's. On page 537, Griphook says the Curses are "Gemino and Flagrante Curses" and he explains how they work.
I've started re-reading and I'm wondering who was giving Snape information. After he killed Dumbledore, he was obviously out of The Order, but in the scene in Malfoy's dining room where they are talking about when Harry is going to be moved, Snape knows the day and tells Voldemort he got it from "the source we discussed." - So who is the source?
I think it was Mundugas Fletcher. He was kind of a 'dodgy' guy all the time and we know later on that Snape did 'imperious' him to suggest the fake Harrys.
Another thing that has bothered me. I heard that JK Rowling told the filmmakers not to cut Kreacher from the OotP film because he would be important in book/film 7. Yet Mundungus Fletcher was completely cut out of OotP and it seems to me his role was as important as Kreacher's in both OotP and DH.
Kreacher is also important in book 6 - Harry's ability to give him orders is what 'proves' to everyone that Harry is Sirius' true heir (which means that in book 6, they can continue to use Grimmauld Place as the Order's Headquarter and that everything that had been Sirius' was inherited by Harry). So, he's actually important in both the movies that are left.
One loose end though, after getting control of Kreacher, Harry had ordered him to work at Hogwarts with the house elves there. I don't recall hearing of Harry ever telling him to go back to Grimmauld Place.
Why did Narcissa lie about harry being dead? Did she know that Harry had saved Malfoy somehow??? Why did she do it?
I think the Malfoys had their eyes opened when Voldermort made it Draco's duty to kill DD. Voldermort didn't think he would accomplish it actually he thought he would probably be killed. Also all the torture they incurred while Voldermort was possessing their house. Narcissa knew that if Draco was still in the castle and alive she had to get to him. It was again a mother's love that brought Voldermort down. She wanted him brought down she was tired of her family suffering at his hands and she knew that Harry could succeed in doing that. I never had the feeling that Narcissa was as evil as her husband or her sister. She showed that at the beginning of The Half Blood Prince when she went to Snape for help. Saving her son was more important than the "cause".
I think she knew that back at their home, Draco had lied when asked if the prisoners were Harry, Ron and Hermione.
I think like some others said, that Narcissa was not really as evil as some of the others. I think that she had begun to lose her true belief in Voldemort at the beginning of book 6, when she knew that Voldemort had told Draco to kill Dumbledore. I think at that point, she was just out for survival and protecting her son.
We also don't know what the people with Voldemort saw while Harry was at the 'station'. She knew that Voldemort had tried to kill Harry several times before and had not succeeded, so maybe when she knew Harry was alive now, she thought he would untimately be on the winning side in the end.
Patronus. What is up with being able to send a message with your patronus. I know Tonks did it in HBP, but how handy would that have been in OOTP, when Harry was rushing to the ministry. Maybe that is suppose to be new technology or something. The wizarding world version of the iPhone.
I agree with others who mentioned that this was probably a much more difficult piece of magic than just producing a Patronus. It was mentioned (I think during Harry's trial in book 5) that even producing a Patronus was a NEWT level skill that some witches and wizards never mastered.
Hermione says in book 7 that she has studied 'sending' a Patronus as a messenger and is not totally sure she will be able to do it.
I think, (need to reread) that he said at the end he wanted to put the wand back (I am assuming in the grave with DD body) and we would still be the master of it.) If he died of natural causes then, the power of the wand would die with him.
Is this what others thought?
I think he already conquered death. I thought DD explained that conquering death was not living forever, but to accept it willingly.
When Harry found the mirror after Sirius' death, he tried to contact Sirius. When he got no answer, he threw it in his trunk in anger and it broke.
I thought the part was from the movie for book 5? That would mean it wasn't the sword, but it would have been the mirror from Sirius (the one that Alberford got).
I read an interview on usatoday.com last week that JKR gave after the book was released. She said that it was Mr. Weasly that got the "reprieve". In a very early draft he was killed off. Tonks and Lupin were her unexpected deaths. Orginally they were not supposed to die. I hated that she killed them - it's the Mom in me I suppose. I don't like the idea of Teddy growing up without his parents. But it does tie into the story of both Harry and Voldy being orphans. 
