Also, I don’t think the original plan was to go camping at all, Hermione put the tent in her bag just in case. When they leave the Weasley’s house after the Death Eaters take control of the ministry (remember everyone fleeing at the wedding), they stay at Harry’s house on Grimmauld Street until that hideout is compromised, then they start the camping. At this point I doubt they would be very safe at the Weasley’s house.
Actually Harry Potter disarmed Draco Malfoy at the time of their escape from Malfoy manor with the help of Dobby.
No, Snape would never have been the master of the Elder wand - Snape didn’t really “vanquish” Dumbledore, since Dumbledore arranged in advance for Snape to kill him. I don’t know if Dumbledore really had plans for the Elder wand being passed on to anyone else after himself.
Dumbledore was the master of the Elder Wand, by virtue of defeating Grindelwald in 1945. In The Lightning-Struck Tower in HBP, Draco Malfoy disarms Dumbledore, and causes the Elder Wand to fall to the ground at the bottom of the tower. By virtue of this “defeat” of Dumbledore, the Elder Wand now chooses Draco as its rightful master.
Later, when Voldemort is researching why the Elder Wand is not working to full capacity for him, he learns that he must not simply seize the wand (as he did in the Dumbledore’s Tomb-robbing scene); he must have the wand acknowledge him as its true master, and he can only do this by defeating the current true master of the wand. Because Snape was the one who performed the coup de grace on Dumbledore, he assumes that Snape is the Elder Wand’s true master, so he kills Snape.
However, in the escape from Malfoy Manor scene, Harry disarms Draco as they battle in Draco’s living room. This makes Harry the true master of both Draco’s regular wand, and the Elder Wand…
ETA:
No. According to the scene where Harry says just about everything except “Do you feel lucky?”, Dumbledore’s intention had been to die undefeated so that the Elder wand would lose the invincibility property that made it such a dangerous artifact.
Oh, right. Was the discussion surrounding how the part of Dumbledore’s plan, for the wand’s power to die with him “failed”? I should be glad I’m not posting in GQ.
Dumbledore’s plan was this, as far as I can tell; by arranging for his death with Snape, he made it so that Snape could kill him without becoming the master of the wand. Had Draco not disarmed him first, Snape would have killed him, and Dumbledore would have been the last master. Given his approval of Harry’s choice of what to do with it, he does seem to be happy about the idea of breaking the cycle.
Yes, I understand that. I apparently hallucinated some conversation wherein some character, maybe Voldemort or Snape says something to the effect that “Dumbledore wanted Snape to get the wand” except that the conversation was really “Dumbledore arranged his death and was never defeated, so even though Snape killed him, Dumbledore knew that the power wouldn’t transfer to Snape. Voldemort just assumed that the killing part was the important bit”.
I really can’t explain, but I’m going to bed now ;).
No, it was the actual Elder Wand. Dumbledore died as the only man who knew what it was, and it was entombed with him. Voldemort (with Harry watching with his Picture-in-Picture Legilimency connection) deduced the identity of the Elder Wand and seized it.
No, no, the wand in the tomb was the right (super)wand. Draco never knew about the superwand and didn’t go down to the grounds and pick up Dumbledore’s wand after disarming him. The wand he’s carrying and Harry took from him is his (Draco’s) own howthorn wand. Voldemort is in posession of the superwand, but Harry is the rightful master because he bested Draco, the previous master, regardless of what wand Draco was carrying at the time.
No, the wand in the tomb was the Elder Wand. You don’t have to actually have physical possession of the wand to be it’s master. The Elder Wand itself goes from Dumbledore, to whoever put it in the tomb, to Voldemort, and then to Harry at the end. Mastery of the Elder Wand, OTOH, goes from Dumbledore, to Draco (who never physically has it), to Harry (who only physically has it at the end). The wand that Harry takes from Draco (the beating that also grants him mastery) is just Draco’s wand.
NajaNivea; I think Voldemort does say that. But the reason is as you say; he may say that, but he’s actually jumped to the wrong conclusion by being too focused on the death part (as he would be).
Oh, that’s true. I’d forgotten that. Still, I don’t understand why they planned on leaving and not using the Burrow as their home base, in the first place. Unless, you think that was the plan (and Mrs. Weasly was complaining more about them going off into danger rather than to school) and they only stayed at #12 because of the crashed wedding?
Yeah, and as soon as I noticed your edit, I composed one of my own. But I took too long about it, and it timed out. Grrrr.
Anyway, the last thing Harry says to Voldemort before the final showdown is:* So what it all comes down to is, does the Elder Wand know that it’s true master was disarmed? Because if it does, then I’m the true master.
Turns out that Voldemort and Harry both had evidence to conclude that the Elder Wand would know. Grindelwald’s theft of the Wand from Gregorovitch, had Grindelwald stealing the wand from a workbench, and firing a Stunning Spell into the workshop while Gregorovitch’s guard was down. Gregorovitch wasn’t holding the wand at the time of the “attack”, but he was successfully attacked, and the Wand seized from his possession.
I’m pretty sure they had no intention of endangering the Weasley family by operating out of the Burrow.
That said, I don’t have any clear idea of where Hermione and Ron had thought they would be staying, or indeed, whether they had any one place in mind. The sudden downfall of the Ministry kind of forced their hands, and made them begin improvising right at the outset.
I think her appearance was behind Harry’s impulse to become an Auror when he was taking his O.W.L.S. She was young and punky (literally, with the hair) and showed us that Aurors and those fighting Voldemort aren’t simply crazy old men of Harry’s parents’ and grandparents’ generations, like Mad-Eye or Sirius or Lupin. Being an Auror was (briefly) a viable career path for a young person, as Tonks’ appearance showed us.
And, of course, she gave Lupin something to be angsty over. Not an entirely glamorous role, but it gave Lupin’s character more depth, and allowed for a better articulation of the whole Werewolf Rights drama.
Finally, she (or rather, her son) provided a nice neat little “full circle” moment when Harry becomes godfather (showing that he’s now A Man) and her and Lupin’s deaths leave Harry in the adult role of godfather to an orphaned boy - a dynamic he was on the child side of before. It shows Harry’s really Of Age in a meaningful way.
So, yes, I think there was some reason for her. Maybe not a lot, but at least as much as, say, Ernie MacMillan. The role *could *be excised, but the richness of the world and the depth of the characters would suffer for it.
Not badass – evil. This is one of my biggest beefs: Harry’s hands weren’t clean. He talked big about principle, and fought Voldemort with the intent of disarming him, but he used two unforgivable curses on the way there. I can understand using Imperio to steer a guard away from his duties (especially when he could have done so much worse), but to use Crucio on someone… for spitting? Ridiculous. Can you imagine Neville’s reaction? Dumbledore’s?
Professor McGonagle should have torn him a new one right then and there, but she came off as surprised and a little flattered. She’s made a history of always having her game-face on, always being able to say the Right Thing as a teacher, and then her star pupil violates the most basic principles of wizarding and she doesn’t even flinch.
But I guess if you’re Harry Potter, the rules don’t apply after all? So much for being defined by our choices. So much for the memory of Severus Snape. So much for Dumbledore trying to teach him that the ends don’t justify the means. I wanted to see Harry pay for using the Unforgivables. It would have given more meaning to his final decision to Disarm Voldemort (rather than shooting to kill and completing the trifecta).
