Just finished reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the last one I hadn’t read.
I have some different thoughts / questions.
So Snape is probably not evil. But how can it possibly be an advantage to kill Dumbledore?
I get a feeling that Snape didn’t know the dark lords plan in the meeting with Narcissa in the beginning of book 6, and just fakes it to get info. He then tells Dumbledore about it, and they work out some sort of plan. The only thing I can imagine is that Dumbledore will be reborn somehow, perhaps something to do with the phoenix. Dumbledore the white.
How do the wizards know what to do in order to make spells? Do they stand all day trying different combinations of wand movements, thoughts and words? How do they know what to add to potions?
When Trelawney was asked to make e prophecy or be sacked, she should’ve just said: “I see in the future that I will be removed from my job.”
Don’t tell me you-know-who isn’t able to kill Harry Potter. Just convince a single Slytherin student, and it’s done. Malfoy could’ve killed him as easy as pie in the Half-blood Prince
Maybe not an advantage per se. But if Snape hadn’t killed Dumbledore, Snape would have been killed by the Unbreakabl e Vow. Dumbledore or Snape may have thought having a spy in Voldemort’s ranks is more important than Dumbledore being alive.
That was my feeling on it, too.
JK’s ruled out Dumbledore pulling a Gandalf.
Well, they’re taught in schools and learn things from books. The Department of Mysteries seem to be looking into magic for new things, and Luna Lovegood’s mother was a sort of research witch. Snape invented some new spells and improved potions, too. I think it’s probably trial and error.
Smartassness is probably just as unimpressive in the HP universe as it is here.
Not really. Malfoy doesn’t have the power to cast a killing curse until arguably the last year, at which point Harry’s suspicious of him anyway. As far as just stabbing him with a big knife goes, remember, they’ve got magic to fix him up again.
My guess is that Dumbledore was sufficiently injured when he got the ring (the withered hand incident) that he planned with Snape that if push came to shove, Snape should kill him as the ultimate “proof” of his loyalty to the Dark Lord. I predict that Snape will die to protect Harry in some major way that allows Harry to kill Voldemort in the final book, thereby posthumously proving his ultimate loyalty to the Order of the Phoenix.
I am mildly puzzled by a feature of the magic animal club to which Harry’s dad belonged in school. Everyone else in the gang had names that presaged their animal form in some manner, however oblique. Sirius (mythical dog) Black becomes a black dog, Remus (guy raised by a wolf) Lupin (wolflike) becomes a werewolf, Peter Pettigrew winds up as somebody’s (pet) rat. Yet James Potter somehow becomes a stag, despite having no obviously relevant affinity of nomenclature! What up with that crap?! You can’t make a pot out of a stag! If anything, he ought to turn into a wasp, not a stag. Maybe in the last book it’ll turn out that his middle name is “Actaeon” or “Roebuck” or “McMuntjac” or something.
Hmm, maybe the stuff dumbledore has to drink in the half-blood prince is certain to kill him, and he knows this. But he also know that he has to drink it, otherwise Voldemort will be immortal. So since he is going to die, they can as well use the opportunity to “prove” Snapes allegience to the dark side.
The avada cadavera spell doesn’t throw people like Dumbledore was thrown. They just freeze in place, dead as a doornail. Dumbledore was hurled off the castle by the force of whatever struck him.
Fawkes was heard crying afterwards. He cries when someone is really injured so that his tears can heal them.
He had mentioned a while back something about people not feeling threatened by those they thought were dead. (Can’t remember where or when, but it sticks out in my memory.)
We never saw the body. We saw Hagrid carrying something during the funeral, but there’s no evidence that it was really Dumbledore.
I have wondered sometimes about the names in the wizarding community as well, since they seem to range from the highly unusual, such as Albus Dumbledore, to the utterly mundane (Harry Potter).
But I think the examples you’ve given (and I think Peter Pettigrew is a stretch, btw) are just examples of Rowling having fun with names. She does that a lot, and I think it’s one of the great charms of the HP books.
So he can be in the portraits, as well as on the chocolate frog cards. When they kicked him out of the Wizengamot, all Dumbledore said he cared about was that he remained on the chocolate frog cards. This will be significant.
They do learn magical theory in class; we just haven’t seen much of it in the books. Presumably, were Hermione the focus character, we would (just as we would also know what the heck Arithmancy is about). Remember in the Potions class in Half-Blood Prince, Harry is relying entirely on the book, and Hermione chides him because he won’t learn any of the theory that way? She knows enough theory that she was able, on the spot, to mostly concoct an antidote to the compound poison they were working on (she probably would have succeeded completely, given enough time).
Also, I don’t think that developing new spells, potions, or items was extraordinarily difficult. Remember, Gred and Feorge, a couple of teenagers (albeit rather gifted ones, in their own way), managed to do it all the time. Also note that the professors, once Umbridge was out of the way, were able to adapt on the fly to deal with their pranks. The spell or combination of spells to remove a Portable Bog in the third-floor hallway had to have been improvised, and Flitwick’s improvisation wasn’t nearly as… Explosive… as the twins’ usually was.
I think we can chalk this one up to artistic license. It’s more dramatic to have Dumbledore thrown from the castle.
I don’t believe that, in the two cases we’ve seen Fawkes heal someone with tears(CoS and GoF), Fawkes has needed to wail in order to produce tears. Besides, wasn’t Fawkes singing?
He said it to Malfoy just before the Death Eaters broke in.
We see the body at the base of the Astronomy Tower.
They can’t fix him up if he has been dead for some time, can they? Take the time where Malfoy had petrified Harry in HBP. He surely must’ve been able to kill him. Or the time where Narcissa meets Harry in Diagon Alley.
There is nothing that indicates that this injury is worse than just the withered hand, is there?
heh, forget learning how to do spells and potions, do these kids ever take Literature classes, or Math or something? “let’s see, this potion is for 10 people, but we are only 3, and so if it asks for 245 g of toad spleens, how much do I really need to add?”
Harry was, what, 11? when he went to Hogwarts. Blame the school systems in Québec, but that kind of math wasn’t taught for another year or two, IIRC!
Of course, having Harry et al take Algebra and Geometry would be a lot duller than the bit of Divination and Potions and Defence against the Dark Arts classes we’ve seen!
From what I can tell, once you’re dead, you’re dead. There might be a resuscitation spell, but generally it looks like magic lags behind muggle technology in that regard.
And you’re right, there were opportunities for Harry to get killed. But remember, aside from him and Dumbledore, no-one knows that Harry is all-important to the anti-Voldy side. For them, Dumbledore is the bigger threat; hence why Malfoy would be tasked with killing him and not Harry, which would be much easier for him.
She clearly knows more than she’s willing to admit (even to herself) - she prevented Harry from being abandoned to the Dementors after receiving the Howler - could her blood-relationship with Harry be significant?
Look at their precious li’l 