Wasn’t that time device broken by one of the Death Eater’s heads by that point?
As for Ron… if you look at it, Hermione doesn’t seem to have many male friends aside from Krum, Harry, and Ron. I think she sees Harry as too much like a brother, Krum she has feelings for, but he’s in Romania… so who’s left? Yep, ole Ron :D. I have a feeling Ron gets into a life-and-death situation, just barely gets out of it alive, and Hermione begins to dote on him. Just my guess.
I think Sirius was Padfoot and Lupin was Moony, because of his problem with the full moon. Sorry for the nitpick.
There was a brief glimpse of the Ron-Hermione connection, right before the first Quidditch match. He’s freaking out, and she kisses him on the cheek, and he comes around a little bit, looking surprised. I think Rowling is sort of stalling it. I don’t think anything will happen until book seven, and then they’ll realize that they like each other.
I got curious about all that fundamentalist anti-HP hysteria, so I looked up a book written from that point of view: Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace Behind the Magick, by Richard Abanes (Horizon Books, 2001).
Apart from the obvious “magic=New Age Religion” angle, Abanes criticizes the novels for their moral relativism. The heroes, the ones young readers are supposed to identify with and learn from, are always breaking the rules and telling lies; this is implicitly all right because their motives are good ones at bottom.
Well, he has a point – sort of – but I still say it’s better for kids to learn morality from Harry, Ron and Hermione than from any of the characters in, say, Pilgrim’s Progress, or C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. Relativistic morals are the only kind that work in real life.
But Abanes’ criticism points up another distinguishing feature of the HP series: In Rowling’s world, teenagers are constantly getting themselves in danger because they keep getting caught up in the political struggles of adults! They do tend to make it worse for themselves by being headstrong, impulsive and curious. Nevertheless, the fact remains: Every bad thing that has ever happened to or around Harry & Co. was rooted in the great war between the Dark Lord and the legitimate wizarding community, or else in conflicts between different factions in the legitimate wizarding community, e.g., Fudge/Umbridge vs. Dumbledore. And even the most sympathetic adults are shameless liars (Dumbledore) or nurse unresolved grudges and emotional problems (Snape, Sirius).
Obviously, reading this sort of thing might give real-life teenagers the idea that adults do not always tell the truth, do not always act in a mature and rational manner, do not always know what’s best, and are not always looking out for the teenagers’ best interests! That probably galls a social-conservative authoritarian such as Abanes more than anything else about the series. And, as with the moral relativism, it is something that gives the reader a priceless education about how things are in the real world!
You are right…
Black=dog=padfoot
Lupin=werewolf="moon"y
James=deer=prongs
Whatshisname=rat=wormtail
We know Kreacher left and joined the Malfoys (since Narcissa Malfoy is a member of the Black family). He seemed to like Bellatrix Lestrange more though, maybe he’ll join her instead now she’s out of Azkaban.
Amen to that! I’ve thought this since book 3!
**Re: Kreacher **
I thought for certain that when Hermione gave Kreacher the quilt in his little cupboard room as an Xmas present that that would set Kreacher free. I worried over this for quite some time.
Silly Me.
No problem. You’re right, I wasn’t thinking. I appreciate the gentle correction.
look!ninjas: The cynical part of me is still assuming Hermione kissed him purely to distract Ron from the “Weasly is our king” buttons the Sltherins were wearing before the Quidditch match. That it worked highlights the fact HE likes her, just not the other way around. I also have to admit, if I were a student at Hogwarts that button stunt and the Weasly song would have had me hankering to join Slytherin. The “Weasly Is Our King” song is one of the few times I burst out loud laughing while reading TOOTP. (Well, that and all those the Umbridge-MacGonall snipes. Heh heh heh. I guess you have to be a teacher to fully appreciate verbally reprimanding an administrator assessing your teaching performance)
Nobody else thinks Louise Fletcher (Nurse Crachet from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and the last few seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) would make a good Dolores Umbridge??!
Okay – page 790. A brief excerpt:
If we assume the hourglasses in this cabinet were held by The Department of Mysteries were the same time devices used in Goblet of Fire (It’s deeply implied they are), what stopped Harry, Dumbledore – someone, anyone in the Order from grabbing one that didn’t break and using it to go back in time to stop Sirius from being struck down by his cousin Bellatrix?
Even if every single hourglass broke, why not use the"Reparo!" spell?
What we know is that Kreacher went and visited Narcissa Malfoy when Sirius ordered him out of the house during the Christmas break. It is not clear that he is free to pick a new master from among the remainder of Sirius’s blood relations.
It would be interesting to learn that Sirius made Harry his heir, making Harry the new proprietor of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and Kreacher’s new master. Perhaps, as Dumbledore implied, Kreacher could be rehabilitated. Make a nice project for Hermione, wouldn’t it? Do you suppose Harry would be allowed to have Kreacher with him at Hogwarts?
Just a nitpick. If you’re supposing those are Time Turners, like the one Hermione used in Prisoner of Azkaban, that was in Prisoner of Azkaban, not Goblet of Fire.
I’m wondering if anyone was a bit miffed that all these Hogwarts students could cast the Patronus spell when it was emphasised over and over again how difficult it was to be able to cast a proper one?
And I also wonder about the forms that the Patronus takes for each person. I got a bit confused when Hermione’s was an otter and Cho’s a swan. I was always under the impression that the Patronus should be significant to the person casting it. I.E. James Potter could turn into a stag, and therefore, it stands to reason that Harry things that his father could protect him, therefore, Harry’s stag Patronus. But an OTTER? A SWAN? If I’d had to pick a Patronus for Hermione, I would’ve thought… oh… I don’t know, a whole flock of books flying out to protect her. Afterall, for Hermione, knowledge is power, right? 
Because, as was pointed out in PoA, going back in time to change things that had already happened creates paradoxs that could be much, much worse than leaving them as they are. And as we know that Sirius did go through the veil, we also know no one went back in time to stop him doing it.
Don’t sweat it. I think that the clothing must be an actual, purpose-made garment; like the sock that Dobbie got or the hats that Hermione kept making (and that Dobby also got 
)
Also, I don’t see how Hermione would have the authority to free Kreacher. She’s not a member of the Black family. Remember how Harry had to trick Lucius Malfoy into throwing a sock at Dobby.
Maybe anyone who’s allowed to live in the house can free a house-elf. That would explain why the Hogwarts elves would be afraid of Hermione’s hats. Altho you’d think that the school would have rules against the students interfering with the elves.
Like Crabbe and Goyle? They get along alright…
Ayway, Dudley isn’t dumb. He’s not in Hermione’s league, but he appears to have intellect enough if he applied himself.
I’m not so sure that’s how they work. Hermione may have been fast-forwarding and saving her progress, to use computer terminology. Regardless, there is nothign to indicate they could simply move the time device and then time travel to their whim.
Well, Dobby said they were insulted, not afraid, so I woul surmise that Only Dumbledore or one of the staff at the least could free them. Otherwise Peeves would have long ago.
Well, they have a very good teacher…
I think it was partly because Harry was a good teacher, partly because there were no dementors around to distract them and partly because it was cool to see what everyone’s Patronus was :).
Maybe they don’t consider it because it’s just expected amongst wizard society that they’re slaves. You notice that Hermione is the only one who seems to have any real concern for the liberty of the house elves - even “good” characters like Ron and Harry don’t seem to care that much, and may even view their subservience as just being part of the natural order of things.
I think it would have been a very bad thing if they’d used the Time-Turners to go save Sirius, because Sirius died in a room full of people, including themselves. You’re not supposed to be seen using the Time-Turner, because it would definitely cause confusion and probably wind up getting you killed.
Besides, Rowling can’t keep using the Time-Turners to save people. What about Cedric Diggory? There was a Time-Turner at the school - they could have saved him. What about Harry’s parents? Why didn’t Dumbledore do something about that?
The actions involving the Time-Turner in PoA saved all their lives, essentially, and so it was proper for it to be used there. But you can’t use it every time you want to go back and change things, or no one would ever need fear the consequences of their actions. Or, anyway, that’s my opinion. (stepping off the soapbox…)
Cataclysm: Only two students were able to produce coporeal Patronuses (Patroni?) besides Harry, and they did so under supremely optimal conditions. Even Harry says this, only to be shushed by Cho. The true test is whether they’d be able to produce one in the presence of a boggart or to throw off dementors.
I also thought it was weird that Cho and Hermione had a Swan and Otter (it makes margianlly more sense had it been the other way around, seeing how Hermione’s an “ugly duckling”). I was struck that all the Patroni (Patronuses?) seen so far were European animals. I thought it much more significant that Ron is apparently unable to produce a Patronus; indeed, re-reading the scene, he’s not even mentioned as being in the D.A. room.
I still think that if a cabinet full of Time-Turners was less than two rooms away from where someone close to me JUST died, I’d at least cross my mind to try it…
Oh, and here’s a thought. Is it possible that Neville Longbottom has been held back from his full potential all these years simply because he has been using his father’s wand instead of one crafted specially for him by Mr. Ollivander? “You never get such good results with another magician’s wand.” Assuming he gets a new wand (and not, say, his mother’s), he may come back in the next book a stronger magician.
Hermione’s was appropos due to her previously having extremely large front teeth.