OBHWF+

In PoA, when Lupin tracks Harry, Hermione, Ron, Sirius, and Wormtail into the Shrieking Shack, why the hell does he leave the Marauder’s Map on his desk? Wouldn’t it have been good to have just in case the kids et al. moved? Wouldn’t it have been better to just not have the map lying around no matter what? For serious, is Lupin an idiot?

Just after Sirius dies in OoTP, Dumbledore sends Harry to his (Dumbledore’s) office to wait while Dumbledore sorts things out with and for Fudge. When Dumbledore arrives in his office to talk to Harry, Harry is still thinking of Sirius:

Harry turned his back on Dumbledore and stared determindedly out of the opposite window. He could see the Quidditch stadium in the distance. Sirius had appeared there once, disguised as the shaggy black dog, so he could watch Harry play…. He had probably come to see whether Harry was as good at James had been…. Harry had never asked him….(823)

Harry is beating himself up over Sirius’s death and agonizing over Sirius’s life. The thing is, however, that the question of why Sirius came to watch Harry play was answered in PoA. While Sirius is telling of his escape from Azkaban, he says:

I swam as a dog back to the mainland….I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I’ve been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry…(372)

cited:

Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York, Toronto, London, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Scholastic Inc., 2003.

Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York, Toronto, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Scholastic Inc., 1999.

In HBP, during Aragog’s funeral, Hagrid says “The good die young.” I know that’s kind of vague. But it really made me wonder what’s coming for Harry. Of course, there’s always been a chance that he’ll die. The prophecy says “neither can live while the other survives,” but it doesn’t say that one can exist if the other dies. So maybe they will both have to die. So, is it possible that Hagrid is foreshadowing Harry’s death?

My friend Megin speculates that the R.A.B., who left the note with the fake Horcrux in HBP, is liable to be Regulus Black. I think that’s a definite possibility. In fact, I think it’s extremely likely. I also think it’s likely that we’ve seen the real locket horcrux in OotP when Molly and the kids were cleaning 12 Grimmauld Place. They did indeed find such a locket. Because of that, I feel 12 Grimmauld Place just might have a part in book 7.

What I wonder is, where is the locket now? Does Mundungus have it? Does Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth, have it? (He did seem to be making a deal with Mundungus when Harry stumbled on them in HBP.) Perhaps. I think it’s also possible that Kreature has it either on him or stashed at 12 Grimmauld Place. And that possibility makes me wonder what’s coming from Kreature. We already know he can be a duplicitous bastard. When Sirius died, did Kreature really pass on to Harry? Or did he actually pass on to Bellatrix and is she having him pretend to serve “that Potter brat?” I wonder.

I also wonder what this says about Regulus. Is he dead? Or only pretending? What hanged his mind about Voldemort? Upon searching his name, I found that the Wikipedia has some interesting bits about him–very interesting.

If someone can only get information protected by the fidelius charm from the secret keeper, how did Hagrid rescue Harry from the ruined house after Voldemort’s attack without knowing that Sirius Black WASN’T really the secret keeper?

When he faces Malfoy at the end of HBP, Dumbledore is weak, maybe even (probably even) dying. He is unarmed. He is injured. Malfoy seems to have the upper hand in every way, but Dumbledore is really the one in charge. He even makes it clear that Malfoy is at his, Dumbledore’s, mercy. And Malfoy really is. Even while Malfoy was plotting against Dumbledore, Dumbledore protected and watched out over him. And while Malfoy stood holding his wand at the “defenseless” Dumbledore, Dumbledore was still willing to forgive everything and take Malfoy and his family into protection.

Dumbledore, even at what is arguably his weakest moment, is fully in charge. He doesn’t beg for mercy. Instead, he gives it. That’s his strength of character. And that’s why I believe his pleas to Snape a few minutes later are not pleas to spare his life. He’s not begging Severus to spare him, but to kill him–to end his life. I fully believe this because I fully believe that there is no one from whom Dumbledore would ever need to beg for mercy. I’m sure Dumbledore has a reason for doing it.

Maybe he does it to save Malfoy–to spread the love that he, Dumbledore, has valued so highly. Maybe Malfoy will see this sacrifice and understand the real power of love. I think he does see it there at the end, as he drops his wand. Malfoy doesn’t kill Dumbledore, though he could. He doesn’t cross that line. All the same, Dumbledore knows that if he survives, Malfoy will not. So Dumbledore allows himself to be killed–even, I believe, begs to be killed–in a way that both frees and protects Malfoy much the way Lily begs Voldemort to kill her instead of Harry.

Will Dumbledore’s sacrifice, his love, pass on an extra mark of protection to Malfoy the way Lily’s did to Harry? Will it show him the vast strength and power of love? Or did it merely allow Snape to maintain his footing within Voldemort’s ranks, thereby maintaining a spy for The Order? I think it did all of these things. I hope it did. I hope it wasn’t just treachery by Snape. I trust Dumbledore’s opinion too much to think he was wrong about Snape, to think it was really just simple treachery. I hope that’s justified. Still, right now, I kind of hate Severus Snape.

Either way, it’s pretty clear that this bit of mercy has marked Malfoy as Harry’s counterpart–opposite but equal, in a way. What this will mean is yet to be seen.

People who ship (or just plain talk about Harry Potter) often compare Harry to his father. People say he is James, to Ginny’s Lily. That doesn’t hold true for me. One constant theme in OoTP was that Harry is NOT James. Molly says it. Sirius says it. Harry is not James. However, what occurred to me while reading HBP is that it’s more likely that Harry is Lily to Ginny’s James.

Harry has Lily’s eyes and it’s been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. I think that translates here in a way that gives Harry Lily’s sensitivity, her delicacy. I don’t mean those as signifiers for weakness–I consider neither Harry nor Lily weak. I just mean that like his mother, Harry is good at sensing and understanding the delicate nuances of situations. It’s what made Lily great with potions. Snape himself describes potion making by saying, “I don’t expect you [students] will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…” (Rowling 137). But Lily obviously did understand the delicacy of potions.

Harry displays that same kind of ability with people–he sees them and through them. More so in HBP than any of the other books, certainly, but all along really. It’s just that HBP shows a more mature focused Harry–a Harry very much similar to his sensitive and temperate, though passionate, mother. Meanwhile, brash, smart, popular, outgoing Ginny is much more James-like.

Moreover, I think Harry’s similarity to his mother is going to really come to mean something big. All through HBP I wondered if perhaps Snape hadn’t been in love with Lily when they were in school. True, as seen in OoTP, he wasn’t exactly nice to her–but then when he was working as hard as he could to SAVE Harry’s life, he wasn’t being nice to Harry either. One gets the feeling that Snape doesn’t much appreciate goodness and what it does to him–as though he still hasn’t matured emotionally enough to handle the intense welling up of LOVE or HAPPINESS. Because of that, he lashes out instead.

If he does love her, or at least did, it would certainly shed greater light onto why he hated James and why James hated him. It would further explain why the sight of Harry inflames Snape so much. To see Lily in Harry’s eyes, trapped in the face that James gave him…well that would inflame his jealousy and anger and pain. Furthermore, I think it might have spurred him on toward leaving the Death Eaters. He didn’t know when he delivered the prophacy that it would result in Lily’s death. He didn’t know that Voldemort would choose Harry. And when Lily died, I think Snape couldn’t take it–couldn’t ever again really side with Voldemort. So he came to Dumbledore. So he spends his time torn between wanting to help Harry for Lily’s sake and wanting to hurt him because of James.

cited:

Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York, Toronto:, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires Scholastic Inc., 1997.

My friend Shawn claims that Sirius can’t really be dead, even though he seems to be by all accounts. My mom thinks he’ll be back, too. I’ve been reluctant to believe that because going beyond the veil equals death and that’s just what Sirius did. However, I was just rereading PoA and I found a line that I find interesting:

“Harry looked into the shadowed eyes of Sirius Black, the only part of the sunken face that seemed alive. Harry had never met a vampire, but he had seen pictures of them in his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes, and Black, with his waxy white skin, looked just like one.” (Rowling 38)

The Potters and Dumbledore seem to get on very well with “half breeds.” Take Lupin and Hagrid for examples. While being a vampire wouldn’t actually make Sirius a half breed, it amounts to nearly the same thing. So what if Sirius IS a vampire? That could mean that he’d be back. For me, it’s something to think about.

cited:

Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York, Toronto:, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires Scholastic Inc., 1999.

Even given the fact that Trelawney has made some real and accurate predictions, both small and, indeed, very large, she mostly seems like a flake. The first time we meet her, in PoA during the first class she has with The Trio, she predicts Harry’s death via the Grim.

His death is debatable at best for now, but in a way, she also predicts the appearance of the Grim itself. Far from being a symbol in a teacup, a great black dog actually appears. One can argue that she’s really only seeing the arrival of Sirius. One could also argue, however, that Sirius Black is rather a symbol for death himself. It certainly follows him. So perhaps Trelawney has some Sight.

However, what really grabbed my attention in that scene, on my second time through the series, are the predictions that Ron makes while looking at Harry’s tea cup. Ron doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing, or at least he thinks he doesn’t, but what he says makes a lot of sense.

Ron’s first words of divination are “There’s a blob a bit like a bowler hat” (Rowling, 105). He goes on to predict that Harry may end up in the Ministry of Magic. Most likely, the bowler conjures images of Minister Fudge, which would explain Ron’s association.

Ron then goes on to say, “But this way it looks more like an acorn” which symbolizes “a windfall, unexpected gold” (Rowling, 105-06). Anyone familiar with TGoF knows just how Fudge and a pile of unexpected gold really will soon be connected to Harry and in a very meaningful way.

Does that mean Ron has the Sight?

cited:

Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York, Toronto:, Aukland, Sydney, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires Scholastic Inc., 1999.

If they are visible to people who’ve witnessed death, how come Harry couldn’t see them on the journey back to Hogsmeade at the end of his 4th year? He’d already seen the death of Cedric Diggory at that point…had in fact JUST seen it.