• Prepublication Blithering June 19 - 1:10 pm

• Board 2 January 10 - 2:23 pm

Your Friendly Tyrannical Moderator has archived all messages previously posted so you don't have to scroll through them to get to the good stuff. This will be a Spoilers Zone, so those who didn't preorder on Amazon or buy theirs at a bookstore at midnight might want to avoid this place until they get a chance to read it.

It just arrived via FedEx!

Did our server crash or something? Surely I can't be the first person to finish reading it...

Anyway, the only comment I have at the present time is that Dumbledore's "I must tell you everything" speech did not, in fact, reveal a whole lot that was previously unknown. It made for good advertising copy, though.

Still REading

Well, normally the mail arrives about 1030 for us. But today it didn't come until 1300, probably due to hauling all those Harry Potter books. You bet I started at it right away. I've had to surrender it to my sister so she can read it while she works night shift (well, she did pay for it). I've only gotten to the part where Arthur Weasley gets severely injured.
I'm starting to wonder if Fudge is more than just a thick semi-incompetent. All the stuff leading to Harry's hearing seems to be a bit too deliberate. It's also interesting that the Daily Pravda-- pardon Prophet is become essentially a propaganda rag.
Great to see Lupin and Moody back in action.
And we finally meet the frequently mentioned but previously never seen Mundungus Fletcher. Not surprising, he appears to be a wizarding world fence.
Heh, that new DADA teacher. Can you say abuse of power? I knew you could. She makes Snape seem nice in comparison. But then it's never a good sign when a person has the title High Inquisitor.

As an additional, I agree with Harry that it kind of weird meeting the real Moody and he obviously hasn't met Harry before. Even though we know that the one we met in GoF was really Crouch Jr., you still feel as though you know him.
And now for a nit: Poor deluded Hermione. Actually thinking that lamebrain plan to free the house elves would work. A particular flaw in it is that the master has to present them with clothes, not just have them pick them up. If that were the case, then you couldn't have them do the laundry. Recall in CoS that one of the Weasley boys commented on how Mrs. Weasley would like a house elf to do the ironing.

Actually, I take that back. One more thing:

Isn't Ginny Weasley just *so cool?*

I'm done with it!

Fred and George's departure from Hogwarts was just spectacular. I cracked up laughing.

And as I stayed up all night to read it, it's time to lay down.

Then I've got to reread it again.

I'm actually a bit worried about Fred and George, but as they have all of Harry's money from the last book, and they seem to be doing good business on their own, they'll probably be fine.

Though if Rowling wants an easy way to get them into the next book, I could easily see a scenario in which they are invited back to Hogwarts to finish their interrupted seventh year. I just hope they don't go the way of Percy (the git). Can you tell they're my favorite characters?

I just finished reading! So,

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS , OKAY?

I stood in line for an hour and a half outside my local bookstore to pick up a copy just after 12am on June 21st.... Normally I'm not that obsessive, but it was sure fun to see the broad spectrum of society that turned up to get those books.

Oh boy...I could make a lot of comments, but most of them would be really general. I'll have to read it again to pick up nits, I think, I was too involved in the story to catch any this time through.

Umbridge is creepy to the point of perversion. Why can't they ever get good DADA teachers?

Of course, this was worth it, since we got the formation of "Dumbledore's Army"...hee hee hee.

I love Fred and George! Honestly, I was not expecting that triumphant exit. I'm still grinning over it.

Even after the death. People were predicting that Sirius would die in Goblet, and he didn't...and I'm actually a bit angry that he died in this one. I was half-expecting Mr. Weasley or Prof. McGonagall (that would've been rather horrible) or Neville, and I'm not sure that any of them wouldn't have been preferable. Harry still needed him, and Sirius himself, well, he still needed to heal. He never really had a chance to fully recover from his years in Azkaban and now he never will.

Of course, his link to Harry is why he died...but that just opens up the one certainty I didn't like in this book: the confirmation of Harry's "lonely destiny". Maybe I'm just fed up with the cliche, but I'd love it if it turned out to be Neville after all, waaaaayyyy off in book 7.

Neville Longbottom is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. He may have seemed like an incompetant wimp in previous books, but he is growing up--and the way he aquits himself in the battle at the end is great.

Trelawny got the sack! *goggles* I made some comment about this back on the Prisoner of Azkaban board, I believe, wishing that she'd get into trouble (as opposed to Lupin, or whoever's in the DADA post) for a change.

I can't believe Harry stuck his face into Snape's thoughts! He deserved whatever he found there. Actually, that revelation, of James and Sirius tormenting Snape, was one of the best moments in the book. I can see Sirius doing it, but till now we've never been quite sure why Snape's hatred of the Potters goes quite as far as it does. But it all fits. And sometimes Harry is honestly just as arrogant as James was at that moment.

Okay, I have to run off to work. Looking forward to posting again, and to reading all the nits you people find!

Ahhhhhhhh... The sweet satisfaction of finishing Book 5... Don't read on if you don't want to get spoiled.

Well, let's see. I was right about who I thought was going to die, and I was right in thinking that the "I am going to tell you everything" was something of a feint. You'll have to wake up earlier in the morning to fool me, Rowling!

But all in all, I'd have to say that this book is definitely more richly detailed and plotted than its predecessors. Rowling's world of magic seems virtually complete here, and the way she ties in so many details from the past books (having Lockhart at St. Mungo's for example) is excellent. And the tone here is really completely different from what we've seen in the past. I found it remarkable that halfway through the book, there had been only the scarcest moments where I had gotten a "happy" vibe from things. It was just more bad news after more bad news after more bad news. There were, of course, happy moments- Harry's finally getting the nerve to ask Cho Chang out was great, and the departure of Fred and George was absolutely classic. Thus, I'll let fly with the one nit I found.

Supposedly one can see the thestrals only after having been in the presence of death (watching someone die). So, why didn't Harry see the thestrals before now? He was present for the deaths of his parents? Did that not count for some reason?

Other notes:

Wonder what life at the Dursley's is going to be like this summer!

Does anyone really think we've seen the last of Cho Chang?

Since Dumbledore totally faced the Ministry of Magic, I really hope Rowling writes some serious Percy-groveling into the next book.

And finally... just how many movies can you make out of seven books?

Ohhh yes. I was completely rooting for Neville in the battle. He was great!

And the way that McGonagall was treating Umbridge during Harry's "Career Counseling" session? She's easily a favourite staff member of mine.

My question is, why didn't Harry see the thestrals at the end of the previous school year? He'd seen Cedric die by then.

Some dead-on characterization by Rowling. Harry is the perfect 15-year old jerk for quite a bit of the book.

Loved the way the staff played incompetent for, hem, hem, Umbridge -- both the fireworks and the swamp.

I have to agree with everyone, Fred and George stole the book.

OK, Harry, Fred & George have been banned from Quidditch. But why have their brooms been locked up (other than the fact that Umbridge is a "rhymes with witch")?

Will Harry be able to fly Seeker for Gryffindor next year? His ban wasn't lifted (at least not in the parts we read).

Whatever happened to Grawp?

We know why Harry didn't go to McGonagall about the "evil" quill, but why didn't Lee Jordan (or was it Dean Thomas?) go to McGonagall about it?


TrekGrrl is trying to cheat -- asking me who died... I told her it was one of... [rattles off every character I could think of].

Great book.

My only nit came when Harry and the gang were in at the dark forest, wondering how they were going to travel to the Ministry of Magic. I thought that the obvious solution was to go back to the Room of Requirement, and conjure a Portkey to take them there instantly. Did I miss some reason they couldn't do that?

I think there was a reference early in the book, when Moody and Remus and everyone else break Harry out of the Dursleys' house, stating that unauthorized Portkey use was "worth more than their lives." I would imagine, then, that it's something that would be instantly detected, probably by someone at the Ministry.

Does anyone know if the thestrals have some basis in mythology or legend, or if Rowling just made them up herself? The various magical creatures and beings that have shown up thus far have tended to be about half one and half the other.

Yeah, but do you think Harry would have cared? Or, they could have made a fireplace that wasn't on the Floo Network. Or, they could have just gone back to Umbridge's office, and used her fireplace, if the Slytherins were well taken of. Or, they could have borrowed some other Gryfindors' brooms.

Not that I don't love the book, I do. :-) But when you create a world where so much is possible, you get a lot of nits. Like, why didn't Harry volunteer to be questioned in front of the whole Ministry while under the influence of Veritaserum?

Yeah, but do you think Harry would have cared?

Well, given that the most likely people to detect unauthorized Portkey use would be *at the Ministry itself*, yes.

Or, they could have made a fireplace that wasn't on the Floo Network.

Given that it's never been established exactly how one connects a fireplace to the Floo Network, this wouldn't have worked so well. Presumably none of the kids knows how to do it, and to have one of them suddenly pipe up with this ability out of nowhere would be rather unbelievable. For reasons inside the story and outside of it, this isn't an option for them.

Or, they could have just gone back to Umbridge's office, and used her fireplace, if the Slytherins were well taken of. Or, they could have borrowed some other Gryfindors' brooms.

Both would take too long and bring them into contact with too many people. Particularly the plan to go into Umbridge's office, because it is known at this point that she has it under constant surveillance.

Like, why didn't Harry volunteer to be questioned in front of the whole Ministry while under the influence of Veritaserum?

Because he didn't have to? Perhaps if the hearing hadn't gone his way, he would have. I think for nitpicking purposes in a world this vast, we need to limit ourselves to issues that arise directly from the text; otherwise you get into arguments like "Why doesn't Captain Janeway just use the holodecks to power the ship already?" that can't be resolved, because the source material gives you nothing to work with.

Umbridge was a great evil character, much scarier then Voldemort. The pen thing was just wrong... Kudos for Rowling for including it.

I had just reread the Song of Fire and Ice series recently, so the death didn't really have any impact. If it was like SoFI then McGonagall and Hagrid would have gotten killed in that scene...

Like, why didn't Harry volunteer to be questioned in front of the whole Ministry while under the influence of Veritaserum?

I wondered that myself while reading, and it just hit me right now... Maybe Harry was worried taht they'd ask about some other items as well... such as the whereabouts of Sirius Black?

Will Harry be able to fly Seeker for Gryffindor next year? His ban wasn't lifted (at least not in the parts we read).ScottN

They said the ban would only last as long as Umbridge was in power. I mean, can you really see Harry getting called to Dumbledore next year and getting told that they were abiding by Umbridge's ruling?

That said, the Gryiffindor team is really in a fix next year, as Angela will be gone (among others?) and I don't see Fred and George coming back, so they'll have to deal with sub-standard Bludgers.

Oh, something else. Dumbledore is the one who assigns Prefects, apparently. So, the reason he chose Malfoy is... what, exactly?

Gotta have *someone*. Since apparently there isn't a single decent Slytherin in the bunch, maybe he figured he'd best pick the ones he needed to keep a closer eye on?

Or maybe that idea, picking as prefects those he needs to keep an eye on, extends to other houses as well. Ron Weasley, anyone? ;)

Sparrow47: Supposedly one can see the thestrals only after having been in the presence of death (watching someone die). So, why didn't Harry see the thestrals before now? He was present for the deaths of his parents? Did that not count for some reason?

This one had me pondering for a while last night. I figured that the death we were supposed to connect Harry to was Cedric's, and that therefore his parents' death didn't count, in some way. We do know that Harry was present and does in fact remember *hearing* his parents die (I don't have a copy of Prisoner of Azkaban here to check on what exactly he remembers under dementor influence)--but James was quite possibly in another room when it happened, and Lily, well, maybe baby Harry didn't actually *see* her die. Didn't Hagrid specifically say that one has to have "seen death" to be able to see a thestral?

Or maybe one has to be a certain age? Neville obviously was old enough to remember his grandfather dying, and Luna was 9 when her mother died.

Matthew Patterson: My question is, why didn't Harry see the thestrals at the end of the previous school year? He'd seen Cedric die by then.

Um. Good question. I don't have a copy of Goblet with me, either, so can't check whether he actually rode in the "horseless" coaches back to Hogwarts Express at the end. Anyone?

I don't remember what the working was, exactly. I think that Hagrid's initial description was somewhat open for interpretation, but later on, characters said openly that it depended on seeing people die.

I don't have a copy of Goblet with me, either, so can't check whether he actually rode in the "horseless" coaches back to Hogwarts Express at the end. Anyone?

I checked, and we get a scene with the kids waiting for the carriages to come, and we get a scene of the kids in the train, but we don't actually get a scene with them riding in the carriages. Still, one would think he'd have seen them then.

Very good book. Definately worth waiting at the bookstore at midnight to get it.

That said, my thoughts:

1. I am very, very glad I never have to go through adolescence again. Rowling got it so right, the confusion about the opposite sex, the frustration, the anger, etc. A few of the teasing scenes made me squirm, reminding me of some of my own unhappy 15-year-old memories.

2. I really, really wanted Umbridge to have to write "I will not be an arrogant b!tch" with her special quill until the message sunk in. She and Voldemort would make a great couple.

3. That said, are there any standards for teachers in the wizarding world? I had to agree somewhat with the ministry wanting to evaluate teachers. Snape and Umbridge should never, ever be teachers. Both would have been tossed out of a Muggle school for abusing their students. For me to become a teacher, I had to take four years of classes and a teaching test before I could start teaching. I also had to earn a license to teach in Ohio and I have to be observed by my department chief or the school superintendent while teaching to maintain this license for four years. After four years, I have to take a test again to retain my license.

4. Parts of this book reminded my of Star Wars, particularly the Occulemency (sp?) sections. Snape telling Harry he had to clear his mind of emotion seemed right out of "Empire Strikes Back." Harry also in constantly compared to his father, and both Snape and Sirius see Harry more as his father than as himself.

5. Finally, both Snape and Harry need some serious therapy. Harry is suffering from extreme stress, both from constant threats from Voldemort and from going through puberty. Hopefully, as he continues to mature he'll deal with it better. Snape needs to learn to let go of all those memories from his adolescence. Yeah, they were bad and yeah, I feel sort of sorry for Snape, but that doesn't excuse his actions today. I had a pretty crappy adolescence, but I don't go around today screaming at kids or making fun of them in class or abusing my position as a teacher.

Finally, I had to include a thought from a review I read on-line (I forget where, exactly). The reviewer stated that he felt Rowling would have to release future books in children's and adult editions. The reviewer specifically said that he felt that the sexual aspect of puberty should have been mentioned more, particularly "the boys should be polishing their "wands" more at night." My overall reaction is: These Are Children's Books! Any other thoughts?

No way. These are children's books. I mean, what is going to be gained by including this information? I think that's one of those things that should just be taken as background material- you know it happens but you don't need to be told about it.

Oh, and an additional question: when Harry and co. break into Umbridge's office and get caught, she summons Snape for some Veritaserum. Snape says he gave her the last of his "to interrogate Potter." She then gives off the vibe of someone with their hand caught in the cookie jar and covers by yelling at Snape. But, unless I missed something, the Veritaserum is never visited again, and was never mentioned before. What did Umbridge do with the potion?

When she invited (ok, insisted that he do so) Harry to have a drink in her office.

Ahhhhhhh, yes, of course. Thanks, Scott!

First things first...

Cstadulis, as one teacher to another, I think we've just gotten Rowling's opinion on the current Standards-Based reform movement (not to mention this Back to Basics stuff that's sloshing around). But as to your question about wizarding standards in teaching, I think it's pretty clear that Hogwarts is not in the First in the World Consortium. Any requirements for teacher training are obviously light enough to admit Lockhart, for heaven's sake, not to mention Hagrid, who isn't even a licensed wizard. And as for teaching tests and observations, that's exactly what Umbridge is trying to do! She's evaluating teacher background and suitability, grounding her impressions in repeated classroom observations, and trying to bring all classes up to a nationally recongized content standard. She's even using Assertive Discipline^TM to make her classroom an intellectually safe learning environment. Pedagogically speaking, she's doing a lot of things right. Of course, Standards-Based reform and Assertive Discipline don't really have a lot to say about anyone bothering to make sure that the standards are worth achieving or the pros and cons of corporal punishment or infringement of student rights... or any one of a hundred other concerns that don't prevent this hag from being an evil sadistic power-hungry racist arrogant @#$%^&*...
J

I totally don't buy Mrs. Figg's story that she couldn't be too nice to him or the Dursley's wouldn't send him there. Personally I think she's just an old crotchet who doesn't think kids are worth her time and is only starting to take an interest in Harry now that he's old enough to string three sentences together.

About the Veritaserum at the hearing, considering what Harry knows about Black and the Order of the Phoenix, I sure wouldn't have recommended it.

Regarding Lee and the quill, by the time he got his turn, it was pretty clear who was in charge-- complaining to McGonagall wouldn't have done any good.

Now the big one... I am amazed that Fudge is letting Dumbledore off so freely at the book's end! This man confessed to raising an army for the sole purpose of undermining the ministry and replacing Fudge. Sure You-Know-Who's back, but I'm floored that even that much terror would allow the Minister to forget that Dumbledore is supposedly angling for his job.

That said, a window-rattling standing ovation for Ginny Weasly, who's found the guts to say a lot of things it's high time we heard (not to mention conduct herself like a hero in that battle, carry Gryffindor to Quidditch victory, and net herself some guys). The Silver Palm for heroism goes to Neville, who is just amazing from start to finish and jolly well better get a brand-new personalized wand from his Gran because he sure deserves it. And the Kodak moment goes to Peeves, whipping off his hat to salute the twins as they make their triumphant exit. Gred and Forge forever!

I want to see that swamp they magicked into the corridor. My hats off to Flitwick for leaving part of it behind as a memory to Fred and George. My favorite parts of the book was reading about the DA secret meetings. I'm glad to see Harry trying to better his fellow students. The second is Fred and Georges escape. Number 5 was definately worth the wait.

I wonder who could play Umbridge in the fifth movie, any ideas?

I wonder who could play Umbridge in the fifth movie, any ideas?

I have no idea. Not to mention that even suggesting it is kind of an insult to the actress mentioned.

I have what is probably a rather silly question about Sirius' death. [I am *not* trying to find a loophole, honestly I'm not...] What exactly was it that killed him? He is dueling with Bellatrix, and she hits him smack in the chest with a curse (we're not told which, but the Death Eaters seemed to be using 'Avada Kedavra' rather freely)...and then he falls backwards through the veiled arch and disappears. Lupin knows at once that Sirius is dead, so either he knows what Bellatrix hit Sirius with (which we didn't hear), or he knows something about that arch. Given the kind of stuff they have down in the Dept. of Mysteries, I wouldn't be surprised if the arch is some kind of thing used to research death/the afterlife (hence the voices from behind the veil). Anybody else have thoughts on this?

Things keep popping back into my memory at the oddest times.... "Accio brain!" Okay, Ron, even granting bewitchment, that was a dumb thing to do.

I wonder who could play Umbridge in the fifth movie, any ideas?

She's not British, but... the actress who plays Mimi on Drew Carey?

How about the woman who plays the babysitter in the upcoming The Cat in the Hat? She's in the trailer.

You know, I seriously wonder whether this book can be fit in a 2hr movie at all. Unless they make a lot of cuts. Or it will be very hurried/rushed, as was the second movie (at least for me).

Umbridge = Judi Dench!

As for trying to cram this into one movie... well, you can't. Look for it to be split into at least two parts, a la Book IV.

Is Book IV really going to be split?

That was my question as well, Sarah.

I don't think it was the Killing Curse, though, because IIRC, Sirius was hit with a curse that had a red light, and the Killing Curse is a green lit one.

So I'm baffled why he should be dead.

But now this leaves me to wonder - will Sirius get a funeral of some sort? Will they even bother to attempt to recover his body? Or is gone behind the veil forever?

Didn't bellatrix shout "stupefy" before, which sirius ducked, before the second one hit him? So it must be the passage through the arch that killed him. But I wondered about it, too.

I don't think it was the Killing Curse, though, because IIRC, Sirius was hit with a curse that had a red light, and the Killing Curse is a green lit one.

So I'm baffled why he should be dead.

I don't think that it matters that it wasn't Avada Kedavra, as it seems to me that the only reason it's called the Killing Curse is because that's the only thing it can do. And this it does very well; a near-100% success rate is nothing to sniff at. However... consider this. You have a weak heart. I Stun you. You have a heart attack and die from the shock. I didn't use the Killing Curse, but my curse killed you all the same. (This is nearly what happened to Professor McGonagall.) I think something like this is what happened to Sirius; a lesser curse was used, but with enough power behind it to kill him anyway. Or the veil thingy did it, but since we don't really know what that is yet, I don't want to use it in the calculation.

But mcGonagall was hit by four stunning spells right in the heart and is an old witch/woman, (70 or 90 years old, I think), while Sirius is a strong, young man. We haven't heard of any heart trouble so far (and I think somebody with a weak heart couldn't have survived askaban, the flight, the shrieking shack scene in book 3, being on the run and everything else). So I assume sirius is as healthy as he looks.

I wasn't being literal; I'm not saying that Sirius actually has a weak heart. I'm just saying, it is possible for other spells to kill. (Wasn't it also a concern that whatever was done to Hermione might have killed her, particularly if Rookwood had been able to actually speak the curse?)

Didn't bellatrix shout "stupefy" before, which sirius ducked, before the second one hit him?

Nope. Just checked. She doesn't say anything, jut shoots a "jet of red light," and Sirius ducks it, mocking her. Then: "The second jet of light hit him squarely in the chest. The laughter had not quite died on his face, but his eyes widened in shock...." And he falls backward through the archway.

Hmmm. I assumed that "second jet" meant that it was the same color/type as the first one...I suppose she could've used some other spell. If the archway had something to do with his death, the curse could've been as simple as "Impedimenta," Mpatterson.... I agree with you that the Killing Curse is not necessary to do someone in. BUT I don't think we can take the archway out of our consideration. Either Lupin knew that the curse Bellatrix used would be instantly fatal, or falling through the archway is instantly fatal. There's no hesitation on Lupin's part that Sirius is dead.

But now this leaves me to wonder - will Sirius get a funeral of some sort? Will they even bother to attempt to recover his body? Or is gone behind the veil forever?

The archway is presented as mysterious and dangerous every time we see it. Harry is almost mesmerized into going through the first time; it is associated with death/the afterlife by Harry late in the book; Sirius disappears into it and Lupin won't let Harry go after him, nor does anyone else go. You would think if there was the least chance of saving or at least retrieving Sirius that someone would follow him in. I bet we'll never even see a body. And my question stands: what is the archway? Or was Sirius already dead before he fell through?

I think Rowling has purposly left the arch as a mysterious thing, with unknown powers, though she was pretty adament that the character killed would definately be dead. I keep thinking, though, that Sirius may be back somehow, though the ghost option seems gone thanks to Nearly Headless Nick.

Kira... I agree with you. I sort of agree with what Umbridge was doing, but she was so wrong in going about it. I'm just amazed that a wizard school, training children to have extraordinary powers, wouldn't have some sort of standards for its teachers. It's a pretty chancy thing to not know who's teaching kids with such strong powers. Considering the stuff teachers have to go through just to teach Muggle children, it's amazing there's no such system for wizard children. Of course, maybe that's why there are so many evil wizards running around.

Did anyone else think that it was about time for Harry & Hermione to sit down and explain the telephone system to the Order? It would be a means of communication that Voldemort & co. wouldn't expect.

Jessica, how would you get telephones working at wizard homes, where the magic wrecks electrical appliances (hermione explains that in GoF as why malfoy can't be using a walkie-talkie on hogwarts). How do you get a telephone established at the headquarters, which are unplottable?

Dumbledore even says at the end that the wizards in the order have other means of communication - I guess it has to do with fawkes the phoenix, and that's what gave the order its name, as when mr. weasly is attacked, dumbledore uses fawkes to notify the others - its just that underage, non-order wizards like harry, ron and hermione can't contact the order.

Jessica, how would you get telephones working at wizard homes, where the magic wrecks electrical appliances (hermione explains that in GoF as why malfoy can't be using a walkie-talkie on hogwarts). How do you get a telephone established at the headquarters, which are unplottable?

Couldn't you just go outside and use a cell phone?

On page 489 of the Scholastic HardCover Edition, where Mr. Weasley is in St. Mungo's and his family comes to visit, Fred says: "When you say you were 'on duty'" what were you doing?" However, when explaining what happened to himself, Mr. Weasley never says the phrase "on duty" So why is Fred quoting or using that phrase? (what Mr. Weasley says specifically is "It's very simple--I'd had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on, and bitten")

I probably just missed something, but I don't understand why the Ministry of Magic was deserted when Harry showed up to save Sirius. Fudge and the rest seemed surprised that he was there, so they didn't arrange it for him (and why would they?) and Voldemort didn't seem to have been controlling the Ministry's actions, so if he arranged it, how did he do it? How is it that Harry was able to enter without authorization in the first place? And why did it take so long for Fudge to finally show up?

I have finished reading on Thursday, it was a great book.
The scenes I loved much are when Fred and George begin fighting against Umbridge, the huge firework, the swamp, the special discount for students who swear to use the jokes to get rid of Umbridge, and the thriumphant exit of the Weasleys. "Give her Hell from us, Peewes!"
And of corse McGonagall, who tells Peewes how to unscrew the candle... :-))

Nit and possible anti-nit: Why does Harry not think about the Item Sirius gave to him to send a message to Sirius in case Snape continues taunting Harry? Does Harry think, the only message the Item would be able to carry would be "Snape is mad again", so that Sirius, if he was save in Grimmauld Place, would set off to Hogwarts to talk with Snape?

Here's one: When preparing for his hearing at the Ministry, Harry decides to dress in Muggle clothes, the idea being that he can therefore subtly dissasociate himself from his magical misdeeds. So, he dresses in... jeans and a t-shirt? Sure, it's Muggle clothing, but it doesn't exactly scream "Dressed For Success," either. Couldn't he have opted for something a little snazzier?

What a great book! I really didn't want to finish it because I knew I'd have to wait another two or three years to find out what happens. But, since I couldn't put it down....well, here are my thoughts.

Sirius! Why did it have to be Sirius? Before reading any of the book I was kind of convinced it would be Hagrid. And during the battle at the end, I thought it was Hermione, Neville or Ron.... but Sirius. Poor Harry. He has such a terrible time in this book and then to kill off his surrogate father. I suppose someone had to die - and I really didn't want it to be Ron or Hermione. Rowling wrote about the desperation Harry felt in grasping at straws to get Sirius back in any form, really, really well. And I love that the wizarding world, for all their ghosts and prophesies, are just as in the dark about the afterlife as we are.

As to why Harry doesn't think of using the gift Sirius gave him till after he is killed, I think J.K was just trying to add to the tradgedy of it all - that it could have all been prevented if Harry had just opened the present and used it instead of going into Umbridge's office.

Speaking of which, what a complete b****! I could imagine her looking like the monster in Monster's Inc that's always looking for paperwork from Mike, and sounding like Lena Lamont from Singin' in the Rain. Her detention was so creul, I think of all places inthe book, this is where I felt most sorry for Harry.

As for the Thestrels. I saw a live webcast interview with J.K. Rowling on MSN the other night (don't know the exact address - sorry, but it can easily be found on yahoo) and Stephen Fry asked her about why Harry couldn't see them before Cedric was killed, as he'd seen his parents die. She answered that she was aware of this, but had settled it in her mind that a person had to have not only seen death, but have let it sink in - I suppose she meant that a person had to understand what death meant when they saw it.

As for why he didn't see them at the end of book 4, I haven't a clue. I don't remember it ever saying in any of the books that students use the horseless carraiges to get back to the train at the end of term though - just to get there at the start. In fact I have some vague recollection of them crossing the lake again at the end of term in the second or third book. Of course I could be completely wrong - and please correct me if I am. It's been a while since I've read the books.

Anyway, I loved this book. Fred and George were great. The scenes with Cho just made me smile. Harry is such an idiot when it comes to girls. Dumbedore's line about not coming quietly was so funny I laughed out load. I'm left dying for book six.

constanze asked:
Jessica, how would you get telephones working at wizard homes, where the magic wrecks electrical appliances (hermione explains that in GoF as why malfoy can't be using a walkie-talkie on hogwarts). How do you get a telephone established at the headquarters, which are unplottable?


Matthew Patterson answered:

Couldn't you just go outside and use a cell phone?

I was thinking of pay phones & some sort of schedule, but cell phones would be much more effective. Not infallible, but an extra way of communicating, and one that the Ministry of Magic had no say over.

If they are going to defend the Muggle world as well as the magical, they need to understand it better. Being able to move between the two would be to their advantage.

Sparrow-- keep in mind that all of Harry's clothes are hand-me-downs from Dudley. I don't think he owns anything snazzier.

I'm not entirely clear on how the Pensieve works. Specifically, how can one of Snape's memories show a conversation between James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus before Snape showed up? (I refer to the hilarious, "One: he's wearing my clothes, two: he's sitting in my seat..." exchange, which clearly Snape could not have heard, or he never would have been so dumb as to follow Sirius and Remus down the secret passage on the night of a full moon.)

Another one about this Pensieve: If I haven't misread, Harry thinks, that the Pensieve in Snapes Office is Dumbledores Pensieve.
Hmmmmmm, I don't think so, I think, it is Snape's own Pensieve.
If it was Dumbledore's one, what happened to Dumbledores Thoughts?

Presumably they're back in Dumbledore's head. IIRC, Dumbledore uses the Pensieve to sort through his memories more easily. Since he's well over a hundred years old, his brain has probably accumulated a lot of clutter.

Just thought I'd add the link for the live wencast interview with JK Rowling where she answers the nit about the thestrals:

http://www.msn.co.uk/liveevents/harrypotter/event/Default.asp?Ath=t

Sandy, how do I get the interview without using Microsoft passport?

Quidditch Nit:
In the second Quidditch game (Gryffindor vs. Huffelpuff) Ron lets 14 goals happen before Ginny catches the Snitch. It is then said, that Gryffindor has LOST with a score of 130:140.
WHAT?? Did Umbridge change the Quidditch rules? The Snitch is worth 150 points since it was invented, so Gryffindor must have WON with a score of 150:140. Isn't ist?

You sure about that? I can't check because my sister took our copy of OotP with her to work, but I recall it being more in the range of 16-18. Can anyone else confirm this?

You know, I had some mixed feelings about the publication of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

On the one hand, I was looking forward to reading it, because I had really enjoyed the first four books in the series. On the other hand, I was also positively dreading the release of this book. You see, I work in a Barnes & Noble bookstore (Need I say more?)

But once we got past that, and I had the chance to read the book, I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I agree with a lot of what people have said on this board, especially about Fred and George's antics and their triumphant departure from Hogwart's, and also the growth and development of Neville and Ginny as characters.

Now, I'd like to share a few of my own thoughts about an issue that was raised earlier on this board:

Posted by joeythemighty:
Like, why didn't Harry volunteer to be questioned in front of the whole Ministry while under the influence of Veritaserum?

Posted by ScottN:
I wondered that myself while reading, and it just hit me right now... Maybe Harry was worried taht they'd ask about some other items as well... such as the whereabouts of Sirius Black?

Posted by Kira Sharp:
About the Veritaserum at the hearing, considering what Harry knows about Black and the Order of the Phoenix, I sure wouldn't have recommended it.


Interesting . . . You know, at first, I thought that ScottN and Kira Sharp were right that it would be very dangerous for Harry to be speaking to the Ministry while under the influence of Veritaserum.

At the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione tried (without success) to convince Cornelius Fudge that Sirius was innocent. When Snape later accused Harry of helping Sirius to escape, Fudge (who didn't know about Hermione's Time-Turner) was certain that Harry couldn't have.

But at the end of Goblet of Fire, Harry tried (again, without success) to convince Fudge that Voldemort had returned. After this, Fudge apparently became determined to discredit Harry in any way he could.

Given Fudge's new attitude toward Harry, it isn't too far-fetched to imagine that Fudge might remember Harry's impassioned defense of Sirius in the third book, and decide that maybe Harry did know something about Sirius's escape after all.

So, as ScottN and Kira Sharp have pointed out, it would have been very dangerous for Harry to speak to the Ministry under the influence of Veritaserum. Fudge could have easily decided to ask Harry if he knew anything about Sirius Black's whereabouts, and Harry would have been forced to tell him where Sirius was.

But, then, another thought occurred to me: Does anybody know how exactly Veritaserum works? I gather, of course, that a person under the influence of Veritaserum has to answer every question he is asked, and answer it truthfully.

But is that all he can do? I mean, can he also volunteer additional information that he wasn't asked for, just so long as the additional information is also truthful?

If so, then even if Fudge were to ask Harry where Sirius was, and Harry was forced by the Veritaserum to tell him, couldn't Harry then tell the Ministry that Sirius was innocent of the crimes he was accused of?

And for that matter, couldn't Harry also tell the Ministry that Lord Voldemort really did return to his body the previous June?

If he did that while under the influence of Veritaserum, then wouldn't the Ministry be forced to accept that Sirius Black was actually innocent, and that Harry had been telling the truth about Voldemort's return?

Of course, Fudge just might have been stubborn enough to insist that Voldemort couldn't have returned, even in the face of Harry's Veritaserum-enforced testimony.

But I would bet that a good number of the more rational-minded Ministry wizards and witches would have decided that this testimony is enough to at least cast some real doubt on Fudge's insistence that Voldemort couldn't have returned.

With luck, Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix might have been able to obtain a lot of additional support in the Ministry of Magic than they previously had. And it also might have been enough to get Sirius cleared of the charges against him.

It would have been very risky, though, I admit. We can't really be sure how the Ministry would have reacted.

One more thing : If anybody thought that Harry's knowledge of the Order of the Phoenix's activities, and the location of their headquarters, would have made it dangerous for him to testify before the Ministry under the influence of Veritaserum . . . You didn't really need to worry.

Harry couldn't have revealed that information, even if he wanted to. Remember, the Order's Secret-Keeper was Dumbledore, not Harry.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, it was explained how the Fidelius Charm works. It conceals a secret inside a single, living soul. Thereafter, the information is hidden inside that person, the Secret-Keeper, and is impossible to find unless the Secret-Keeper chooses to reveal it.

Dumbledore had advised James and Lily Potter to use the Fidelius Charm as a means of hiding from Voldemort. The plan was to conceal the location of their hiding place inside a Secret-Keeper.

It was explained that as long as the Secret-Keeper refused to reveal the Potters' location, it would have been impossible for Voldemort to find them, even if Voldemort walked right up to the Potters' house and pressed his nose against their window.

Unfortunately, of course, the plan backfired. Sirius chose Peter Pettigrew to be the Secret-Keeper, as a bluff. He figured that Voldemort would never expect the Potters to use a weak, talentless wizard like Pettigrew as their Secret-Keeper.

Everybody believed that Sirius was going to be the Potters' Secret-Keeper. The plan was for Sirius to act as a decoy, while the real Secret-Keeper, Pettigrew, would be in hiding. Neither Sirius nor the Potters knew, of course, that Pettigrew was actually a spy for Voldemort.

Anyway, when the Order of the Phoenix performed the Fidelius Charm and chose Dumbledore as their Secret-Keeper, it became impossible for anybody to learn the whereabouts of the Order's headquarters unless Dumbledore himself revealed it to them.

Remember that when Moody, Lupin, and Tonks brought Harry to Grimmauld Place, Harry couldn't see Building # 12, where the Order was headquartered. It was only after Harry read Dumbledore's note (telling him where the Order's headquarters was located) that the building became visible to Harry.

Moody, Lupin, and Tonks knew, of course, where the Order's headquarters was located, but the Fidelius Charm made it impossible for them to reveal that information to Harry (or anybody else). Only Dumbledore could do that.

Similarly, even though Harry knew where the Order of the Phoenix was headquartered, he wouldn't have been able to reveal it to anybody, even if he wanted to, because he wasn't the Order's Secret-Keeper.

I think that veritaserum wouldn't make any difference at the ministry hearing. The reason is: most of the wizards and witches present believe Harry isn't telling the truth. It's a minor point whether Harry is deliberately lying (because he is seeking attention) or disturbed in his mind (because of the curse, shown by his scar and the dreams he had last year). If he is disturbed, he will believe he is telling the truth, and veritaserum won't change his story. (there are enough people in real life who have such a warped view of reality that they can tell the greatest lies without any discomfort, because they believe the distorted versions they are telling).

In PoA, Snape mentions a Confundus charm. Together with Oblivate, and other mind-influencing charms (or potions) we don't know about yet, its hard to see how the truth can come to light even with veritaserum. If Fudge or the others don't want to believe it, they can find a number of reasons when telling the truth isn't what really happened.

As for the dangers of using veritaserum, in GoF its used on barty crouch jr. and he tells much more than he is asked, he tells the whole story, and implicates e.g. harry with the map. I think therefore its much too dangerous.

Constanze

I wasn't even aware that I had microsoft passport!! I'm not sure what this is exactly, but if you are having trouble getting the interview, I found a transcript of it at:

http://www.mugglenet.com/jkr-royalalbert.shtml

Try the link to the live interview on that page also, and maybe you'll have more luck though, because there seems to be some pieces missing from the transcript.

As for Veritaserum. Something occurred to me when reading the chapter where Umbridge nearly forced Harry to drink some. Harry has proven that he can resist the Imperious curse. It is possible that he can also resist veritaserum (which is what I initially thought was going to happen in that chapter). All I'm saying is that maybe Veritaserm is not foolproof, maybe even to the point where it's, well, inadmissable in court, so to speak. Just a thought.

Sandy,

thanks for the new link, this worked better.

I was surprised when I looked into "fantastatic beasts.." that thestrals weren't an entry, but under winged horses, the several colours were listed, and there thestral were mentioned! Amazing how much details she has mapped out beforehand.

About harry resisting veritaserum: I don't think so. Spells and curses are affected by how much magic power the wizard has, how well trained, how much intention he has. Potions, on the other hand, seem to work on an almost chemical basis, very predictable - if you have done every small detail right! - so I don't think there's room for resisting the influence (unless taking an antidote).

I think its also nice how many explanations of previous puzzlements rowling has written in this book, for example we learn that to make veritaserum you need one whole month (polyjuice took one month, too), and since potions are made of chemicals, plants and minerals, I guess that they won't keep for long. So that might explain why veritaserum isn't used more often. Also, most wizards would be afraid of being implicated when somebody is interrogated.

I loved the sarcasm in this book. One of the best lines was Harry's "Yeah, Quirrel was a great teacher, there was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out the back of his head."
Also, I loved the part when Kingsley put the spell on Cho's friend in Dumbledore's office. However, I thought you had to be forceful when you say a spell. Here it works with the slightest whisper.

I don't think it says anywhere you have to be forceful to say the spell. You have to be concentrated and have intent, but then you often don't need to say the full words for minor spells. Dumbledore or mcgonagall only wave their wands to conjure up tea, armchairs, sleeping-bags, etc. A student would probably need the words of what he was conjuring up. Kinglsey is so accomplished, and the spell is only minor (he is only oblivating a small part of her memory), so whispering is enough.

I just finished it this morning.

Holy ••••, it was intense! I especially enjoyed the political undercurrent.

Be honest folks, how many of you were picturing George W. Bush in your heads everytime Fudge did soemthing mind-bogglingly stoopid and/or beauecratic(sp?)?

I have to be honest, right until Sirius was pulled into that veil thingee, I honestly thought that Hermione had bought it.

I too was quite pleased with how far Neville has evolved sicne his first appearence.

Be honest folks, how many of you were picturing George W. Bush in your heads everytime Fudge did soemthing mind-bogglingly stoopid and/or beauecratic(sp?)

Nope. Not me.

Nor I. Did we forget, Brian, that J. K. Rowling is British?

On the other hand, Brian, now that you bring it up, I can see a bit of Neville Chamberlain. (again, remembering that Rowling is British).

You're probably right; I only think of Dubya because I'm more familiar with American politics then British. Though now that you bring it up, the Chamberlain corelary is a solid one.

Gordon Lawyer about the Quidditch Nit above:
You sure about that? I can't check because my sister took our copy of OotP with her to work, but I recall it being more in the range of 16-18. Can anyone else confirm this?

I can't check it now, because I'm at work now (No, it's not a nightshift, it's 9:41 am GMT+2), but when I first read the scene I was so amazed that I've reread the page three times to be sure not to have misread the thing. I can recheck it til monday (no Internet at home yet), but I think it was really 130:140, at least in the (british) copy which I bought here in Austria.

Brian, that sort of discussion belongs over at the Political Musings board. Just a warning from your Friendly Tyrannical Moderator.
What did folks think of Luna's headgear for the Quidditch match. I'll bet Packers fans everywhere are feeling so inadequate.

Just read it. Here's my impressions:

CHARACTERS:
By the time Fred and George were demonstrating their vomit-sweets in the Common room, I was really hoping that at least one of them, if not both, would buy it.
Hermione shone, but Harry came across as completely unlikeable, not to mention full of himself, at several points. By the time he had landed himself in his second week of detention, I was really waiting for him to get expelled. It's easy to see why the Order would not let someone as dumb and badly controlled join. And his looking into Snape's Pensieve didn't endear him to me either.
I liked Sirius' background and I'm half convinced that he was Sorted into Slytherin. Shame Harry never asked him about it.

LOGIC:
Is there any reason why Harry never told Hermione about the house elves? He might have seemed that it would be cruel, but surely not more cruel than having her spending all her free time and getting her hopes up on a hopeless cause.
So Hermione thinks that it would be unfair not to give others the chance to learn and defend themselves, but she never even considers including a Slytherin in the DA. Of course, there are some very obvious risks associated, but you might think that at least they would have considered (and decided against) it.

DEATHS:
JK really overdid it with the death scares, I mean with all the people being placed in mortal danger. First Mr Weasley was attacked and I tried to figure out how his death would affect people. Then McGonagall. Then Hermione. Then Neville. By the time Sirius died, I really didn't care very much any more, partly because I'm a Snape fan, but mostly because it felt as if JK had been playing with us.

SURPRISE:
Either I'm getting smarter or the books are getting a lot more predictable - I had never before known so many twists in advance, such as:
- that Kreacher's absences would mean trouble,
- that Hermione would go and find the Centaurs that do not kill foals (which was SO spelled out),
- that a member of the Order was still here to rely on,
- that Snape had gotten Harry's message,
- that Voldemort sent Harry the dreams of the corridors and that he wanted Harry to go there,
- that the prophecy was by Sybil Trelawney,
- that the dream about Sirius was a trap ...
These are just off the top of my head.

OTHER THINGS:
There is no indication that Snape was ever in love with Lily, nor that Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor. I can't tell you how glad I am. On the other hand, Snape had only two scenes within the first three hundred pages - and he's my favourite character!
The Quidditch team comprised of Weasleys was comical more than anything else. Plus, their winning of the Cup felt like JK shaking my shoulders, shouting "See? Gryffindors always win!" Same for the shower of House points near the end - can you even award points, legally, for something that happened in LONDON?

Forgot the point that bothered me the most - I'm not sure if I missed something because it seemed like such a huge obvious nit:

The prophecy goes something like this: ... and neither can live without the other ...

Which, in my humble opinion, would mean that in order for the world to ever be rid of Vol-, sorry, He Who Must Not Be Named :-), Harry will die. Simply as that. I should think that this would worry Harry, but he's only concerned about maybe having to kill the most evil man the wizarding world has ever seen!


Oh, and the bit about the two-way mirror was off. First of all, if Harry blames himself so much for Sirius' death, he should point out that if he had used the mirror to check on Sirius before going to London, his godfather would not have died. Secondly, since the mirror would be a much better means of communication that the floo (which almost lead to Sirius' capture early in the story), surely Sirius would have reminded Harry of it.

Posted by netrat:

And his looking into Snape's Pensieve didn't endear him to me either.

Indeed. If you're saying that Harry shouldn't have violated Professor Snape's privacy, then I agree. It was out of line.

Frankly, though, that didn't bother me nearly as much as the way Harry reacted to seeing his father and Sirius tormenting Snape in the Pensieve.

"For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone told him he was like James he had glowed with pride inside. And now . . . now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him." (Chapter 29)

Now, of course, I can understand that Harry is rather sensitive to seeing people being humiliated in front of large crowds of onlookers, since Harry has experienced such humiliation himself.

I can also understand that, after relying on thoughts of his parents as a source of comfort and strength for five years, it must have been hard for Harry to see that his father wasn't exactly a saint, after all.

But even so, I thought that for Harry to start thinking that maybe he no longer wanted to be "like his father," and to even wonder if James had "forced" Lily into marrying him . . . I thought this reaction was a bit extreme.

I found it rather sad that Harry seemed to have forgotten (even if he only forgot it for a short time), who and what James Potter was:

1. A member of the original Order of the Phoenix, who fought courageously against the most evil wizard to ever live.

According to Remus Lupin, the original Order had been outnumbered 20-to-1 by the Death-Eaters, and the members of the Order were being ruthlessly killed, one by one. But despite those overwhelming odds, and the losses of many of their friends and allies, the members of the Order, including James Potter, never gave up their fight against Voldemort.

2. A person who did not hesitate to risk his life to save somebody else, even somebody he loathed, like Severus Snape.

When James found out that Sirius had tricked Snape into entering the shack holding Remus Lupin (who was undergoing his monthly transformation into a werewolf), James ran into the tunnels (at great risk to his own life), and pulled Snape away from Lupin's hiding place.

3. The man who sacrificed his own life to protect his wife and son from Voldemort.

When Voldemort attacked the Potters' home, James Potter fought against Voldemort himself, in a desperate attempt to buy enough time for Lily and Harry to escape.

James must have known that a duel with Voldemort would almost certainly end in James's death, but he was willing to lay down his life to save his family.


Why, I wondered, wouldn't Harry want to be like the man who bravely fought against Voldemort, who risked his life to save other people, who sacrificed his life to protect his family?

I would have thought that everything he had learned about his father in the first four books would pretty much tell Harry exactly what kind of person James Potter was. At any rate, I would think that it would have been far more revealing of James's character than an incident that occurred when he was fifteen years old.

To be honest, I think that the real crime that James Potter committed here was that he failed to live up to his son's expectations of him.

ANTHONY K SHIN: That's exactly what I meant. Snape was trying to help him and Harry had no right whatsoever to do this to him. Also, given Snape's hatred of Harry, I have to commend him for only chasing him out of his office as opposed to, say, poisoning him.

Personally, I thought that Harry's reaction was a bit extreme, but plausible - after all, he had always thought his father was the best person that had ever lived, and now he was shocked to see the truth. Of course, if Harry had ever taken anything of an interest in his parents, he'd have known. It has bothered me since PoA that Harry knew his parents went to Hogwarts, yet never asked any of the teachers about them - what sort of persons they were, what they were good at, not even what Quidditch position his father had played!

What I didn't like at all was Sirius' reaction to the Pensieve memory, saying - and even spelling out - that you cannot judge people by what they did at age fifteen. Given the timeframe, Snape was probably around eighteen when he became a Death Eater. By Sirius' logic, nobody would hold that against him either.
Also, when Sirius casually said that James continued to torture Snape all through school, he might have wanted to point out that James was unlikely to ever get the best of Snape if he and SOMEONE ELSE hadn't continuously outnumbered him two to one.

I also have to say that I found Snape's Pensieve memory a lot worse than Sirius' eventual death. Or maybe that's just because I can relate a lot better to Snape than to Sirius.

NITS:
In PoA, we learn that James was Head Boy at school. I really can't see why, given that he was such a bully and that Sirius talks of them being constantly in detention ... Of course, Dumbledore was headmaster then and we know how biased he is about Gryffindors.

This book confirms that Lucius Malfoy is 41 years old, thus also confirming what I said about CoS - that Lucius was nowhere old enough to have opened the Chamber fifty years ago and that Ron, whose father works at the Ministry, really should have known that.

NIT:
In OotP, it says that prefects can give detentions but not take points. Correct me if I'm wrong (as I'm sure someone will :-)), but I think that Percy was a prefect in CoS, and when he found Ron and Harry outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, he took away points or at least threatened to.

Also, while I can see Malfoy being made a prefect, I can't see why anyone would make Ron a prefect even though Harry's out of the question. (Harry would be an even worse choice than Ron, in my humble opinion.)
Malfoy is reasonably good at school from what we've seen. The fact that his father is a Death Eater could not be taken into the equation. I would imagine that the Head of House would have some say in the choice and Snape obviously likes Malfoy, or at least pretends to. Plus, Malfoy is the Slytherins' leader, and anybody else would probably get in trouble with him if he were chosen a prefect instead of Malfoy. And given that his classmates include Crabbe and Goyle, a more suitable male candidate would be hard to find.
Ron, on the other hand, is even more aggressive and out of control than Harry. He has repeatedly attacked other students and gotten in detention. That the fact that the biggest troublemakers are his elder brothers would stop him from standing up against them was obvious from the start. He's bad at school and would be even worse if it weren't for Hermione, which McGonagall, as the Head of House, should know. Surely Seamus or Dean would be a more logical choice!

Oh, so I went back and checked Book IV, and while we don't actually get a scene with the students riding in the "horseless" carraiges, there is a scene in which Harry, Hermoine, and Ron see them approaching to take them back. So Harry definitely, definitely should've seen them at that point.

I'd just like to share a couple of random thoughts I've had about Order of the Phoenix:

1. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Marcus Flint (the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team) had made a few changes in his team's lineup shortly before the Quidditch final against Gryffindor. Lee Jordan remarked that Flint seemed to be going for size rather than skill, because Malfoy was the smallest member of the team. The rest were enormous.

In Order of the Phoenix, Angelina Johnson notes that the Slytherin team's previous Beaters, Derrick and Bole, had both left, and Montague (who was a Slytherin Chaser, I think, in the previous books, and was now the team captain after Flint's departure) had replaced them with "the usual gorillas, rather than anyone who can fly particularly well."

(The new Beaters, of course, were Crabbe and Goyle. What in the world Montague was thinking, I have no idea.)

You know, if this is the way that the Slytherin Quidditch team usually chooses its members, it's no wonder that they've never won a single match against Gryffindor during the five books in the series.

I understand, of course, that physical strength is always a valuable asset to any athlete, but it's more critical in some sports than in others.

It seems to me that in a game like Quidditch, physical strength, although perhaps important, is FAR less important than such attributes as hand-eye coordination, reflexes, speed, agility, flying skill and control, and the ability to think quickly.

Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out if Crabbe and Goyle can even think at all, let alone think quickly.

Granted, physical strength would be more important for a Beater than for any of the other positions, because a Beater needs to be able to hit the Bludgers hard to get them to fly where the Beater wants them to.

But in general, it doesn't seem to me that physical strength would be all that much of a factor in a game like Quidditch. Being stronger than your opponents won't do you much good if your opponents are so fast and agile that you can't get anywhere near them.

2. You know, Harry really should learn to pay more attention to things.

When he was looking into the Pensieve in Snape's office, he saw his father (who had just finished taking his "Defense Against the Dark Arts" O.W.L. exam) doodling on a spare piece of parchment. James Potter had drawn a Snitch and was tracing the letters, "L.E." Harry wondered, "What did they stand for?"

What did they stand for? Was he kidding? What did he think they stood for?

Has Harry forgotten that Lily Potter's maiden name was Evans?

Posted by netrat:

In PoA, we learn that James was Head Boy at school. I really can't see why, given that he was such a bully and that Sirius talks of them being constantly in detention ... Of course, Dumbledore was headmaster then and we know how biased he is about Gryffindors.


I could be wrong here (and I'm more than willing to be corrected if I am), but I don't think that the Headmaster of Hogwart's chooses the Head Boy and Head Girl.

The Headmaster does choose the prefects, yes, according to the books, but I think that the Head Boy and Head Girl are elected by the students. In Prisoner of Azkaban, it was mentioned that Percy Weasley was the "newly elected Head Boy."

I don't know very much about British schools, but from what I've read, Hogwart's seems to be generally based on actual British school traditions.

For example, the "Ordinary Wizarding Level" exams that fifth-year Hogwart's students take correspond roughly to the "Ordinary Level" exams that real British schools administer, and the "N.E.W.T.s" for Hogwart's students correspond to "Advanced Levels" for actual British students.

I did a quick Web search and I found a number of references to students in real British schools "electing" their "Head Boy and Head Girl" for recent school years.

Now, I don't know if I would call Dumbledore "biased" toward Gryffindors (That's a whole other issue), but if the Headmaster isn't involved in the process of choosing the Head Boy and Head Girl, then it wouldn't matter.

Based on what we've seen of Lily Evans (including the way she tried to stop James and Sirius from tormenting Snape in the Pensieve), I can very easily believe that she was well-liked enough by her classmates for her to be elected Head Girl.

And as for James . . . Well, there have been several references in the books to James being popular among the students. In Order of the Phoenix, Sirius described James as "popular...good at Quidditch...good at pretty much everything."

Granted, he may have been somewhat less popular among the students he bullied, but I wouldn't be surprised if the students James picked on were probably mostly people like Snape, who weren't well-liked by most of the students anyway. So that behavior may not have hurt his popularity too much among most of the students. And Sirius did say that he stopped doing that, eventually.

So I find it plausible that James was popular enough among the students for them to elect him Head Boy.

All of which reminds me of something I've been wondering ever since I finished reading the fifth book ... Who do you suppose will be the Head Boy and Head Girl for Harry's class?

Well, let's see . . . Prefect, probably the top student in her class for five years straight, and despite being a "know-it-all" and a bit of a "goody-two-shoes," she's nice enough that she's probably become well-liked by most of the students in their year . . . Is it a foregone conclusion that Hermione Granger will be elected Head Girl? I think so.

As for who gets to be Head Boy . . . Well, there's the obvious choice, but how do we know Harry will even want the position? If he really wants to be an Auror, after all, he's going to have a huge workload in his seventh year as it is. Of course, that never stopped Hermione . . .

What do you think? Who will J.K. Rowling pick to be Head Boy and Head Girl?

Hermoine, probably. Maybe Ron? And since Rowling always throws him in where he can seemingly do the most damage, I'd not discount Malfoy.

Oh, and this board has topped 100k.

I'm pretty sure Ron will be Head Boy. I was thinking back to his vision in the Mirror of Erised, where he saw himself as Head Boy, and Quidditch captain too. He's already on the Quidditch team now, so that dream seems a likely possibility, and having made prefect, maybe Head Boy will be in the works. I don't know how plausible it is, but I can see how Rowling might want to reward Ron after he's played second fiddle all these years.

And as for Head Girl, I can't picture anyone but Hermione.

Posted by Sparrow47:

And since Rowling always throws him in where he can seemingly do the most damage, I'd not discount Malfoy.


You know, that possibility has occurred to me, too. But I really don't see any way that it could happen.

Of course, I agree that it would serve dramatic purpose for Draco Malfoy to be Head Boy, and once again be in a position to make life miserable for Harry and his friends.

But if J.K. Rowling does have Malfoy become Head Boy, it would, I think, create a huge plausibility problem. In the five years that he's been at Hogwart's so far, Draco Malfoy has become pretty thoroughly loathed . . . not only by the students in Gryffindor, but Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff as well.

I think this is partly because of a very longstanding hostility between Slytherin and the other three houses in general. Remember that when Gryffindor won the House Cup in Sorcerer's Stone, the students of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were celebrating right along with the Gryffindor students, because they had all been longing to see Slytherin lose the House Cup.

When Gryffindor faced off against Slytherin for the Quidditch Cup in Prisoner of Azkaban, the students of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were supporting Gryffindor.

It seems that it has always been the case that while Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff do compete with each other over such things as the House Cup and Quidditch Cup, they would nevertheless all support each other in a heartbeat against Slytherin.

So it was, perhaps, inevitable that Draco Malfoy, who is now the acknowledged leader of Slytherin, would become an object of great dislike by the other three schools. But more than that, Malfoy himself seems to have personally earned the hatred of most Hogwart's students outside of Slytherin.

He was a member of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, for example, and Umbridge was pretty much universally despised by Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff students. With Crabbe and Goyle behind him, Malfoy has probably bullied more students in the school than James Potter and Sirius Black did.

He's made no secret of his prejudice against Muggle-borns, and it seems that a fair number of Hogwart's students (who will be voting for the new head Boy) are Muggle-born. And I think that we've seen plenty of examples of how openly arrogant, snide, contemptuous of other people, and an all-around rotten guy Draco Malfoy is.

I have no doubt that Harry, of course, would sooner write a thousand more lines with Umbridge's cursed pen than vote for Draco Malfoy to be Head Boy, and I'm sure that most (if not all) of the students in Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and especially Gryffindor feel the same way. That's three-quarters of the voting students against Malfoy.

And the fact that his father has been exposed (for the second time, I believe) as a Death-Eater wouldn't help Draco Malfoy's chances of getting elected Head Boy, either.

I just don't see any way that it could plausibly happen.

Gordon Lawyer about the Quidditch Nit above:
You sure about that? I can't check because my sister took our copy of OotP with her to work, but I recall it being more in the range of 16-18. Can anyone else confirm this?

I can't check it now, because I'm at work now (No, it's not a nightshift, it's 9:41 am GMT+2), but when I first read the scene I was so amazed that I've reread the page three times to be sure not to have misread the thing. I can recheck it til monday (no Internet at home yet), but I think it was really 130:140, at least in the (british) copy which I bought here in Austria.

Correction to that "nit"
I've rechecked the scene this weekend. Ron's 14th failed save is pointed out two or three times, but the final score is twohundred thirty to twohundred and fourty. Sorry, I missed the two, so actually there is no nit with the quidditch score.

Are British streets numbered differently from American streets? When Harry first arrives at 12 Grimwald Place, it's squeezed between eleven and thirteen. The typical system is to have odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other. So it should be between ten and fourteen.

I guess the numbering is continually because its grimmauld place: places are often numbered running from one point around clockwise or counterclockwise.

Doh! Sorry about that.

McGonnagall states that she been teaching for thirty-nine years this December. Why'd she start partway through the school year?

Merlin's beard, but that was an exhausting read. I don't know when I've been so frustrated with a book. I kept wanting to reach in and throttle Umbridge and Fudge. It kept going down and down and down, and when I thought that it couldn't get worse, it did. It only really started picking up when Umbridge was made headmistress, and Fred and George began organizing their revenge.
Umbridge and Fudge provide excellent examples of that little homily, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." They were, after all, the "good" guys to begin with, but they kept getting worse and worse until they were making decrees against the least little thing, turning Hogwarts into a dictatorship, and culminating with Umbridge actually planning to use an Unforgiveable Curse against a student--in front of witnesses!
I got the impression that Umbridge is really not a very talented witch. Her DADA class could have been phoned in, if you'll pardon the Muggle expression. She was helpless against Fred and George's tricks. And notice that when the twins decided that it was time to cut out, they retrieved their brooms with no trouble whatsoever.
I loved the other teachers quiet defiance against Umbridge. ("I could have cleaned it up, but I didn't know if I had the authority." "It unscrews the other way.")
What I don't understand is how Umbridge was simply allowed to leave at the end. Surely her vicious assault on Professor McGonigal would have earned her a stay in Azkaban, at least for a few months. Or did they feel her experience at the hands and hooves of the centaurs was punishment enough?

I enjoyed seeing Harry as a typical teenager, rather full of himself and convinced that no one, particularly any grown-up, could possibly understand what he's going through. Perfect, saintly heros are a bit passe these days.

I loved the improvement in Neville! I've always thought that his problem was a lack of confidence. Taking so long to show his magical ability, plus the heroic examples of his parents to live up to, would daunt anyone.

I couldn't really guess who would die in this one, but if I'd thought about it, Sirius would be an obvious choice. He was so utterly frustrated at his inability to get out and do things. Plus, I think that Rowling wants Harry to remain orphaned and alone, with no close parental figure. (Dumbledore could be one, but he's trying to keep himself distant, too.)

That closing fight was AWESOME! It was hard to keep track of who was doing what to whom. Sirius' cousin could rival Voldemort for sheer sadism. (Actually, so could Umbridge; maybe she'll change sides in the next two books!)

And the tear in Dumbledore's eye....

I wonder if the portrait of Sirius' mother will grieve when she knows that he is gone, as his x-times grandfather seems to.

I also wonder if Percy will reconcile with his family, or if his pride (and general "git"-ishness) will refuse to let him admit that he was wrong? (Is he still seeing Penelope? How does she feel about his family problems?)

Actually, so could Umbridge; maybe she'll change sides in the next two books

I'm not so sure she wasn't already there. You can't tell me her "poison pen" wasn't dark magick.

Well, as Sirius says when Harry complains about Umbridge: "the world isn't divided into good people and death eaters". Percy and Fudge cause a lot of damage just by not wanting to get involved and looking the other way, as the other quote (Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely) from the same guy shows (Along the lines of: When you don't prevent evil from happening, you are allowing it to happen).

I think percy is just a bad egg in a good family, the counter-point to sirius, who is a good guy in a bad family. I got the impression that he has picked up fudges' ability to deny everything unpleasant: therefore, he won't be able to acknowledge even to himself that he was wrong and his family right. He will likely just shut his eyes, pretend nothing happened, and continue his rise in the ministry.

I also thought the prophecy dumbledore told harry was a big surprise. In GoF, Mr. weasly told harry that "half the muggle killings during voldemorts reign were done for fun" when the death eaters turn up, and voldemort orders cedric to be killed because he is the spare. Somebody that psychopatic doesn't need a reason to kill a baby or wipe out a whole family.

And in the previous books, harry got into voldemorts way more by accident - thwarting the stone, hearing the basilisk and being kidnapped because voldemort wanted him. Now he learns that he has to kill voldemort or that voldemort will hunt him forever. I think it would be terrible if a fifteen-year-old, despite the events he has been through, can take it easily into stride that he has to kill somebody else, no matter how evil. Its quite different to hoping somebody else will solve the problem - maybe the whole order together - or battling for your life and seeking somebody out in cold blood to kill him. Remember that in PoA Harry couldn't kill Sirius in the shrieking shack, either, once the fight was over and he was no longer threatened. Also, at the very beginning, Harry doesn't hesitate for one moment to rescue dudley, despite 14 years of being terrorized by him. That shows what kind of person harry is, that despite his temper tantrums, he is a very kind, soft-hearted guy who doesn't want to kill.

The part about why harry has to live at his aunts was explained by voldemort himself in the graveyard in GoF, but I think its very interesting that petunia had to agree to make the contract binding - blood does not automatically determine one's destiny, its the choices of people. Just as sirius wasn't destined to become like malfoy because he was born a black.

netrat, Anthony: As to Harry being disappointed in his father, I thought that was a very great scene: He finally starts to grow up (there is a saying: You are no longer a child when you realize your parents aren't gods. You have grown up when you can forgive them their faults). And that's what harry is doing in this book: he realizes his father wasn't good or nice all the time. He realizes that sirius and dumbledore make mistakes. He learns that even dumbledore can't turn back some events like sirius death. In PoA, harry learns about the joke played on snape, but at that time he isn't ready to accept the cruelty behind that. Now he sees the bad side of his father, and stops wanting to be a copy of his father - now he is ready to become an individual person. That doesn't mean that he won't follow james aims, battle voldemort and so on. But he doesn't want to be a spitting image of james. And he won't be - growing up with muggles, being humilitated himself, as well as his friendship with hermione, who has a very good sense of good and bad and justice and fairness, will make him very different as person, though following the same aims.

I have no problem with ron becoming prefect, as there are only 5 boys to choose from. Obviously, Mcgonagal as head of griffindor chooses the prefects. And ron doesn't pick fights with students all the time or have detention all the time - he is a stalwart friend to harry, showing courage and fidelty by accompanying him on his adventures. Those are qualities worthy of a griffindor. He doesn't get into as much trouble as harry himself, so ron is a good choice of indirectly rewarding the whole trio.

I think its interesting how many previous questions and ruminations rowling picked up in this book:

we finally learn about trewlaneys first prediction and why voldemort wanted to kill harry as baby.

we learn about the reason for snapes hate.

we learn that sirius comes from a bad family like malfoy, but went against them to the good side, while percy, coming from a good family, turns bad by being in denial, thus adding depth to the characters and making character not an inherited trait, but a choice. It fits very good with the age of fifteen, when teenagers start to make their choices and discover that their values and beliefs may differ from their parents.

we see that neville, who so far was more of a comic relief, has spent 4 years at hogwarts, after all, and if he has determination and someone who believes in him, he can do magic (I love when mcgonagal tells him he only needs confidence).

I also love that ginny finally turns out to be more than a blushing groupie for harry, but a quite capable girl - after all, she is in her fourth year! And the fact that she did things behind her brothers back -wonderful.

We also learn why ron didn't apply to the quidditch before (as many wondered in PS when he saw himself in the mirror of erised): there were no free positions, as there are no reserves, and he didn't stand a chance with his old broom. Its also very nice to see him suceeding at something, and being famous, too.
In GoF, when ron was jealous of harry, harry said that this was stopid, but now, when ron gets chosen as prefect, harry is jealous - as would be normal for a teenager! The fact that he stops to think and questions himself if he is arrogant shows that he isn't - people like draco or dursley never question themselves. Its good that he overcomes his jealousy quickly.

It would have been decent of harry to apologize to snape and show him thus that he is different from james, but at this time its probably too difficult for him. I hope we will see it in the future.

Snape is becoming a better character, too: not only is his resentment and hate suddenly explained - and also its understandable (not excusable) why he would be drawn to the dark arts, to get an advantage and power over james and to prevent people from tormenting him again. Its also interesting that suddenly, much of what he says to harry has an amount of truth in it, which harry just can't hear because of his hate for snape - again, a very human reaction: isn't it difficult for everybody to accept criticism or take advice from people you loathe? I hope someone whom harry respects will give him advice in the future.

We still don't know why snape changed sides at great personal risk (as dumbledore said at the trial) - I still wonder if that refers to a relative or love of his that suffered somehow or was threatened by voldemort or snapes change?

And who will become new DADA teacher?

The link to the interview sandy provided is very interesting, as it explains not only the thestrals, but offers other interesting insights about lupin, and her view on magic. (waving a wand will not right all wrongs. Its also interesting that people have to spend a lot of time learning how to use the magic; muggles spend the same amount of time using non-magical items.)

As for the order using muggle ways: I think unless they are muggle-raised like hermione and the others, the world of muggles is completly alien to wizards and they have a hard time understanding the concept, while they need the time to learn more spells and work their magic.

I wonder what worthwhile career hermione will follow. If she wants to help SPEW and bring more justice and fairness to the wizarding world, she could either join the ministry, work her way up and make better laws, (although I don't know how good her chances are because she is muggle-born and fudge puts stress on old families like the malfoys), or she could help raise the level of the Quibbler by writing articles to make wizards aware, maybe work her society on the side.

Prediction: at the end of Vol VII, Harry becomes an Auror and is appointed the new DADA instructor.

You know, maybe it was really obvious, but it just barely occurred to me that pensieve is just a word play with pensive (thoughtful) and sieve (a device for separating and sorting). That's a rather clever name, I think.

D.K., you forgot "It takes a full moon cycle to mature, so I should have it ready for you in around a month."
Scott, not likely. It states in this book that Auror training takes three years.
If Umbridge isn't Evil, then at least she's Evil's mean ugly stepsister. And you call that teaching? While there are some folks who can learn a subject by reading it from a book, most folks can't.

I'm not entirely clear on how the Pensieve works. Specifically, how can one of Snape's memories show a conversation between James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus before Snape showed up? (I refer to the hilarious, "One: he's wearing my clothes, two: he's sitting in my seat..." exchange, which clearly Snape could not have heard, or he never would have been so dumb as to follow Sirius and Remus down the secret passage on the night of a full moon.)

Okay, I was pondering this as well. I just re-read Goblet of Fire, so after thinking over both Pensieve scenes I think I might have a better idea of how they work.

First, both times Harry falls into someone else's thoughts, he seems to be an observer. Ie, he does not take the part of whoever's memory he has entered (unlike the dreams where he IS Voldemort), but watches the scene from another angle. Maybe this is part of how the Pensieve helps its user sort through their thoughts: by giving them a bit wider perspective on what happened.

It would really be helpful if it can even bring to attention things/sounds/conversations that were not consciously overheard at the time. It's quite possible that Snape did overhear the "One: he's wearing my clothes, two: he's sitting in my seat..." conversation and simply didn't actually take it in because he was too absorbed in thinking about the test he'd just finished. But the words were there in his memory...and that's why Harry can hear them.

So either Snape overheard but didn't take in the fact that Lupin is a werewolf.... Or, since this scene takes place near the end of the Marauder's 5th year (Sirius says they were 15 and it's obviously end-of-year exams), maybe that particularly nasty prank has already been played. The Marauders became Animagi during their 5th year.

If I had to pick I'd pick the first option, but....

scratches head

Hmmm... I'd go with the second myself.

How did Sirius get Buckbeak to stand living indoors in a bedroom it wasn't allowed to leave for the foreseeable future? Don't tell me that this bone-snapping, arm-crunching, high-flying beast has suddenly become an indoor cat.

Maybe being on the run with sirius the previous year, where buckbeak either had to cover very long distances in short time or hide in caves has somewhat prepared him for this? Tired him out somewhat?

Also, to be fair, he is bone-crunching only because he eats small rodents and the like, as eagles do. Besides Malfoy, who insulted him, there has been no arm-slashing. He isn't vicious once you treat him right.

Sarah, about the pensieve scene: In GoF, Harry doesn't try to change the perspective, so we don't know if it would be possible. Also, we didn't hear yet when the prank was played, so I agree with you it might have taken place already.

Did they become animagi in their fifth year? I thought it took them the better part of three years to work it out.

I think its interesting that for james and sirius the OWL exams are quite easy - as is bullying snape - while harry has had to study hard so far for all of his exams. Harry is, as he himself knows very well, only good at quidditch, and not better than anybody at the rest, while james was good at everything.
Also, harry has never been popular like james: in his first year, he was simply famous, and after loosing house points, infamous.
In CoS, he was suspected, and people were frightened of him.
In PoA, teachers were worried, and students didn't care about him.
In GoF, everybody hated him again for supposedly cheating to be on the triwizard.
In OP, most students think him crazy.
Harry is very different from james.

Re-Reading PoA, its interesting how harry immediately jumps at snape when he says that james strutted around: harry simply thinks that his father was like him in every positive aspect. Even the prank, which could have turned out deadly for snape, doesn't diminish harrys respect for james.
Now, two years later, he realizes the truth.

I've just finished reading PoA again and it's funny how you notice all the little clues Ms. Rowling put in there that we would never really notice without having read the next few books. Like when Harry tells Dumbledore about about the prediction Trelawny made and he tells Harry in a jokey sort of way, that this brings her number of real predictions up to two.

It's something I've always loved about these books and it mades rereading them almost as good as reading them for the first time. It makes me wonder though, what kind of clues have been left in this book that will set up events or feature heavily in the next books.

For example, since CoS, I've been thinking that there is more to these house elves than meets the eye. Dobby seems to have alot of power and since the forth book especially, with Hermione's SPEW organisation, I've been feeling that maybe they will have a hugh role to play in future books. J.K.'s trying to slip it past us. Make us think thay're comic relief, but with the introduction of Kreacher in OoP, I definately think there will be more to them. What about that dream Harry had, when Mrs. Weasley was crying over Kreacher's body - it just seems like a clue to me, and I have a feeling that the time will come that Hermione will be very glad she was kind to the house elves. (Don't we keep reading about how they studied the Goblin rebellions in History of Magic??)

Also does anyone think there's going to be more Luna Lovegood than we're being told? She's too wierd to be true. I dunno. Could be wrong. I was always a bit suspicious of Crookshanks too. The explanation in PoA that he's just very smart seems a bit neat to me. I think there will be more to the "other" boy being Neville too. What if he had also been marked, but we don't know? Do you really think we've seen the last of Karrakoff, or Krum? In one of the books it says the Lestranges, plural, went to Askaban and in this book only Bellatrix escapes. Hmmm.

OK so I'm only speculating but I was just wondering if anyone else thinks they've spotted any clues in this or the other books?

And since we're predicting, ScottN, I have a feeling That maybe Dumbledore will die in the next book. Not that I want him to, but I did have a feeling he was going to be the one to die in this book, simply because they'd all be so lost without him, and it would up the stakes a lot. As soon as Hagrid said at the end of GoF that they'd be OK as long as they had Dumbledore, I thought - Oh no, Dumbledore is dead! Now, after book five, I definately think he's a gonner, because he's already had his big manno a manno fight with Voldemort and he's told Harry about the prophesy. There's nowhere left for his character to go and things are probobly going to get alot worse before they get better.

Maybe this isn't the board for this but I just thought I'd see what people thought.

I think, if Dumbledore dies in one of the next books, that'll be a nit:

Dumbledore has written the prefaces of the Muggle editions of "Fantastic Beasts" and "Quidditch troughout the ages" which were released in 2001. Harrys last year in Hogwarts ends in June 1998. Well, it is not said in which year has D. written the prefaces, but I don't think that it took JKR more than 3 years to finish the books after she had gotten the prefaces from Dumbledore. (Urks, I hope, this are not too many grammar mistakes.) Well, it took her 3 years to write OoP, but this is over 700 pages!

Sandy: About Crookshanks; JK has supposedly said in an interview that he is part Kneazle. The Kneazle, as described in "Fantastic Beasts", has for its unusual abilities the ability to spot who is trustworthy and who isn't (but we already had that in PoA), and the ability to always find the way home.

Scott N: About Harry teaching DADA, JK has supposedly said that one of the students would become a teacher and it's not the obvious choice. I am thinking of Neville, although for all that I care about him he might well be dead by the end of book 7 (as would Hagrid if I had any say ... luckily for all you Gryffindors out there, I don't). Since Harry would be the most obvious choice I guess it's not him - then again, she might have considered Hermione the most obvious choice.
I don't really see how Harry would become an Auror, even if McGonagall stands by him. It would probably take Dumbledore to bully Snape into changing Harry's potions grades again, like he did in PoA ... even then, I don't think someone that self-righteous and uncontrolled should be an Auror. But I guess I'm the minority there.
By the way, why didn't Super!James and Super!Sirius become Aurors? They would have been old enough when James died, but I don't think it's ever mentioned.

I really think that Hagrid should be sent to Azkaban for several attempted murders:
1) Draco Malfoy, Harry, Neville, and Ron in PS/SS - the First years whom he took on detention into the Forest to look for a Unicorn Slayer, and then split up so that Harry and Draco had only a cowardly dog for protection;
2) all of his schoolmates fifty years ago when he bred monsters in the school,
3) Harry and Ron in C0S ("Talk to the spiders, they'll help you" - really),
4) Harry and Hermione in OotP (and are you telling me that Dumbledore wouldn't know about it if a giant lived in the Forest?) ...

... that's all just off the top of my head. Still, I think you could make a valid case that Hagrid has tried to kill Harry at least as often as Voldemort has.

Um, I know that Hagrid's not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes his somewhat dangerous charges, but murder? It's only murder if you show that he's deliberately trying to kill Harry and co. If someone had died from any of those circumstances, the worst they could pin up on Hagrid would probably be manslaughter, not murder.

Netrat, Harry actually does fairly well with Potions when Snape doesn't go about giving him a hard time. The major factors in determining one's career are the OWLs and NEWTs, which are conducted by outsiders.

Pacing and plotwise: disappointing. Characterwise: a thing of beauty.

I finished reading it early yesterday morning. I usually only have time to read when I’m on the bus going to and from work, or when I’m on the bus or subway going from place to place in NYC, but when I got home a couple of nights ago, I had only 100 pages to go, so I decided to stay up all night and finish it, and now that I’m done with it, I can read Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so that I can have it in mind when I go watch the film. My feelings on Order are mixed.

The first impression that dawned on me in reading it was how repetitive and monotone the plot was in depicting Umbridge’s repeated abuses of Harry and the school’s staff and students, and how I was pretty sure that it would all be reset by the book’s end. None of the previous books had ever used the reset button, but here I turned out to be right, and I wondered what the point was of most of the middle 500 pages of the book of the book. In the previous books, the plot developed as new events unfolded, building upon the story. In Order of the Phoenix, it doesn’t seem so much that things developed as that one thing happens, then another thing happens, and then we're getting near the end of the school year, so we better have a threat from Voldemort. The way the kids’ concluded that Voldemort was after a “weapon” seemed more like the non-sequitural manner of forcing characters into actions because the plot requires it than any natural chain of logic, and much like many other readers have opined, the prophecy was so obvious and lacking in any surprise that it made everything leading up to it seem like a waste. Umbridge’s behavior was so outrageous, so over the top, that you just knew she’d be gone by the end of the book, with everything she did undone. It might’ve been nice if J.K. had proved me wrong by actually having her stay, or as a compromise, have her gone, but Fudge renounce her, put McGonagle in charge as Headmistress, perhaps keep Hagrid on the run, and keep Firenze as the sole Divination teacher, so that we would at least have some lasting changes to the status quo. On the one hand, I’m glad Fudge eventually came around, but I’m left wondering what will happen when the students’ parents learn that mail between them and their children was read, that students were tortured in detention with a blood-draining quill, that two Dementors were sicced on a student and his Muggle cousin, that civil liberties were shredded, etc. Won’t they be outraged that Umbridge is not in prison, and that the guy she was working under is still head of the Ministry?
---Sirius’ death? A disappointment. The manner in which he died was just too vague for me, and while I have no trouble believing Harry experienced loss, I could not as a reader. Just what was that veiled archway? Why didn’t we get any explanation of what it was? With Cedric Diggory, we knew exactly what killed him, and it was clear and definitive. But no one explains what that veil is. A gateway to another dimension? The afterlife? What? This reminds me of the way an issue of Uncanny X-Men was hyped up many years ago because it would supposedly feature a character’s death. What ended up happening was that Rogue ended up being sucked into a dimensional portal called the Seige Perilous, which was a rip-off, because stepping through the Perilous was never indicated to be dangerous, much less lethal, but rather an opportunity to live another type of life. I knew Rogue would show up again, and of course, she did a couple of years later. What happened to Sirius seemed like the exact same type of setup. Yes, I know that J.K. said in an interview that he’s dead, period. I know that to pass "beyond the vale" is to leave this world ("vale" means world) and go to the next one, i.e., die., and that J.K. likes to use similar-sounding words and phrases to allude to the true identity of the artifacts in the books, but that’s not good enough for me. Why doesn’t someone just tell Harry that, “Oh, that’s the Veil of Tears, and it leads to the afterlife”? Why doesn’t someone explain what those voices were behind it? And why is this think in a room in The Department of Mysteries? Because of this, I can’t really feel about Sirius’ death the way I felt about Cedric Diggory’s, despite the fact that Sirius has a larger role.
---In addition, even the first 100 pages or so dragged a bit. The events prior to the school year in Goblet of Fire were not only interesting, but contained significant setups that would be paid off at the end of the story. But a lot of the business with the Order and with cleaning up Grimmauld Place in Order of the Phoenix just seemed like it could’ve been condensed a bit. I wondered if some of this material was intended not so much for this book, but to set up things that would show up later in the last two books of the series, and reading that webcast interview with her, it turns out I was right.

Still, it was a great read. Why?

One word: Characterization.

It is truly amazing to read how J.K. has increased the complexity and realism of the characters as they live out their teenage years, and how little by little, she introduces new characters, and shows others evolving into the adults they may yet be. I picked up my copy of Sorcerer’s Stone, and was just shocked by how comparatively simplistic and child-like it seemed. I’m am thoroughly impressed with the fact that while J.K. had always planned a mature story with mature themes, she was able to hold back enough in the first book or two to make them just appealing enough to both the child and adult reader, but without putting in all the complexity she knew she eventually would in latter books. Kudos, of course, to showing Neville and Ginny’s growing confidence and assertiveness, to introducing an outcast oddball sort of character with Luna, and in letting Ron shine a bit—but only after showing him stumble with fear and self-doubt. Most importantly, J.K. is to be congratulated for how she is not afraid to depict behavior that is counterintuitive and flawed, yet realistic and understandable. Yes, it is truly shocking to see Harry picking a fight with Dudley in the beginning of story, his jealousy over Ron making prefect, his arrogant boasts of his past brave deeds, and his continued anger and his snapping at Hermione, Ron, Cho and even Dumbeldore throughout the story is frustrating because we want to like him. We may even disapprove when he violates Snape’s innermost thoughts.

But it’s realistic.

Harry isn’t Captain America. He isn’t a boy scout. In short, he’s not a Platonic ideal, and I, for one, wouldn’t want to read him if he was. He’s a teenage boy with a lot of pent-up anger at the lot in life that he’s been placed, and is lashing out at those he loves, and making bad choices and rash decisions the same way so many teenagers do in real life. Whether it’s right for him to do so is beside the point. It is a rite of passage for him to go through, just like any other. We’ve seen him experience joy and wonder when discovering his birthright. We’ve seen him make friends. We’ve seen him feel affection for the opposite sex. We’ve seen him having a falling out with Ron. We’ve seen him experience loss. And now we’ve seen him being persecuted, act out his frustrations and pain by being mean to those around him who don’t deserve. Such is how children grow into adults. Maturity comes not only with age and experience, but with the intelligence and the wisdom to properly place those experiences in their proper perspective so that one can learn their significance. We can assume that by the end of Book 7, he will have begun to do so.

The readers who complain that, “Oh, he’s so arrogant to invade Snape’s thoughts in the pensieve,” or “How dare he blame Snape for Sirius’ death when Snape understood his message and went to look for Sirius and then went to the forest to look for Harry,” or “Why is Harry judging his father on that one incident with Snape” are missing the point. Teenagers do act that way. Is it possible for some teenagers to act all perfect and obedient, never getting into trouble, and always making the right decision? Maybe. But I wouldn’t want to read about such unrealistic and boring people. I want to read what J.K is giving us, and for that, I thank her.

So, when’s the next one come out? Anyone have any idea of what type of timetable J.K. intends to work with?

NITS & NOTES:
I guess the incompetence and draconian nature of the wizard world’s legal system in general and the Ministry of Magic in particular is an ongoing premise that allows certain plot points, so I’ll make this next note while keeping that in mind: First, Harry should’ve cleared up the matter of the charm Dobby used in Chamber of Secrets a long time ago, either by speaking to the Ministry, or asking Dobby to explain it to them himself. He should not have waiting until now, when everyone thinks he’s either a lunatic or a liar. When he gets the letter informing him of his expulsion, the letter references that prior act. In addition, the letter indicates that they knew it was a Patronus charm. Given that that is a protective charm, you’d think it might’ve occurred to them that he was defending himself from an attack, and to simply ask Harry who he was trying to protect himself from, rather than simply expel him.

After Harry gets the first letter from the Ministry telling him his wand will be broken, he freaks out, and wonders if he’ll have to go on the run, or fight Ministry wizards, etc. I guess he’s not thinking clearly, because if he were, he’d just let them break his wand, and get a contraband replacement from wherever Hagrid got his after his wand was broken, given that he had one in his umbrella up until his name was cleared at the end of Chamber of Secrets, or from wherever Sirius got his current one.

The signature of Mafalda Hopkirk, the Minister who sends Harry his letter, is present on the letters, but it isn’t typewritten underneath the signature, as is usually done in letters, and as was done with the letter she sent Harry in the beginning of Chamber of Secrets.

Why does Moody give Harry a Disillusionment charm to make him chameleonic, but the rest of the Advance Guard doesn’t? Sure, he’s the one they want to protect, but wouldn’t all of them being invisible be even better? After taking off on their brooms, Moody steers the guard away from motorways, cities, Muggles on the ground looking up, etc. Wouldn’t invisibility be a good idea here?

For that matter, can’t wizards carry others with them when they apparate? They say Harry’s too young to do so himself, but why can’t they just do so themselves and carry him with them? If they can take their clothes with them, can’t they take a 15-year old boy?

Is the hearing the first time that Harry’s middle name is established to be James?

So Dumbeldore’s full name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbeldore. Brian????

So how in the world did Draco get prefect? Aren’t there some Slytherins, are aren’t quite as evil or racist as he is?

If prefects are chosen from fifth years, then that means they have authority over students a year and two years older than them. Does this make sense? Shouldn’t they be chosen from seventh years? Or is this a British thing?

Also, when Ron gets prefect, his mom says that’s everyone in the family, except for the twins, who point this out. But Ginny won’t get it either. If prefects are chosen from fifth years, and only after the previous prefects graduate after their seventh, then Ginny won’t become prefect (barring some special circumstance), because when Ron and Hermione graduate, Ginny will be a sixth year, and in her first year without them, she’ll be a seventh, so the new prefect during her last year will be chosen from the current second-years in the novel, and will be two years younger than her.

Sirius tells Ginny at the celebratory dinner for Ron and Hermione that he and James were in detention, and never got prefect. Waitaminute—I could swear that an earlier book established that James and Lily were Head Boy and Head Girl. Is my memory playing tricks on me?

After Umbridge sends Harry to McGonagle after their first class, McGonagle asks him if he called Umbridge a liar, and for some reason, Harry says, “Yes.” Why does he say this? He didn’t call her a liar. She called him a liar (at least somewhat indirectly, in that she repeatedly referred to his account with Voldemort as lies).

The evening after Harry and Umbridge’s confrontation, he sits in the Gryffindor common room with Ron and Hermione, and Harry says, “Well, we’ve never had great Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, have we?” What about Lupin? And although Mad Eye Moody was really Barty Crouch Jr. in disguise, he did teach them about the three unforgivable curses, which enabled Harry to partially withstand them in Goblet of Fire, didn’t he?

Hermione leaves hats in the Gryffindor common room with rubbish on top of them so that the house elves will take them away, hoping that they’ll be freed once they are given clothing, but the end of Chamber of Secrets makes clear that only a house elf’s owner can set them free, because Harry had to trick Lucius Malfoy into giving Dobby a sock. If any old person could do it, Harry could’ve freed Dobby himself. Hermione should know this.

When Harry tells Hermione about the Requirement Room that Dobby told him about, Hermione is skeptical because Dobby’s plans are not always safe, and reminds Harry of how Dobby removed all the bones in Harry’s arm once (in Chamber of Secrets). But Dobby didn’t do that. Gilderoy Lockhart did. What she should’ve mentioned was how Dobby jinxed the bludger during the Quidditch match that broke his arm in the first place.

When Hagrid tells the kids about his trip to see the giants, he tells him that he had to speak with the ones who could speak English. What, there’s no wizard world equivalent of a universal translator? Or a spell that can allow two people of different languages to understand one another?

On Page 493, while at St. Mungo’s visiting Arthur Weasely, Harry comes to the conclusion that the reason the Order’s Advance Guard surrounded him on their flight to their headquarters at Grimmauld Place was not to protect him from Voldemort’s Death Eaters, but to protect others from himself. Obviously, he’s panicking, and letting all sorts of paranoid thoughts enter his mind, but it might serve to point out to him that if this were true, they wouldn’t have used a Disillusionment charm on him to make him invisible to others.

On page 593, Snape refers to Voldemort as “The Dark Lord,” and Harry mentions that only Death Eaters refer to Voldemort as such. First, Draco referred to Voldemort as such at the end of Goblet of Fire, on the train ride back to King’s Cross. Second, it should be pointed out to Harry that since Snape is masquerading as a Death Eater to Voldemort, he needs to be in the habit of referring to him as such.

Harry, warning Sirius about Kreacher, correctly points out to Sirius that Dobby was able to act of his own free will and against Lucius Malfoy’s wishes when he warned Harry of Lucius’ plot to open the Chamber of Secrets three years previously. Sirius brushes off the warning, and oddly enough, so does it seem J.K. did too. We eventually find out that what enabled Kreacher to contact Narcissa was Sirius’ order to Kreacher to “get out,” but even had that not happened, just what would have prevented Kreacher from doing what Dobby did? J.K. doesn’t seem to answer this question. I don’t see anything in Dumbeldore’s explanation to Harry about house elves at the end of the book that would account for Dobby having this capability, but Kreacher not.

On Page 667, it is indicated that Snape, Lupin, Sirius and James Potter were in their fifth year “more than twenty years ago.” Harry was born between fifteen and sixteen years ago, which means he was born “more than” five years after Snape and his father and friends were in their fifth years, or “more than” three years after they graduated. If James, Snape and the other others were 20 years old three years after they graduated, “more than” that could be no more than 23 or 24, making Snape, Sirius and Lupin now 39 at the most, possibly less. Somehow, I assumed they were older than that. And while I don’t recall any prior specific indication of their ages in the books, in the movies, they are considerably older. James looked to be in his late thirties or early forties at the time of his death.

How is Grawp able to get up if he’s tied to the trees at every joint? And what good are mere ropes for a giant, anyway? And if they’re enchanted ropes, why do they eventually break?

I could put this in any of the previous books, which feature Peeves’ mischief, but I’ll put it here regarding his attempt to unscrew the chandelier after Dumbeldore escapes Hogwarts, and his use of McGonagle’s walking stick when chasing Umbridge out of Hogwarts at the end of the book: Can or cannot ghosts touch and pick up solid objects? I ask, because Nick’s deathday party in Chamber of Secrets established that they can’t eat food because it passes right through them.

During the battle between the Death Eaters and the Order at the end of the book, Tonks is hit with a curse that produces a green light. I assumed that this meant she was dead, since the Avada Kedavra curse emits a green light. But she’s alive at the end. So another curse emits a green light? Which one?

Why does Dumbeldore no longer fear looking directly at Harry by the time he explains everything to him in his office at the end of the story? Is the danger of Voldemort possessing Harry no longer present? If so, why? I don’t recall anything during Voldemort’s duel with Dumbeldore that indicated he could no longer do this.

Why did Mrs. Weasley not order Fred and George to return to Hogwarts to finish their N.E.W.T.s and graduate? I could understand if they moved out of the Burrow and got their own place to live, which they could do now that they’re of age, but I can’t imagine Molly being okay with this, and I was surprised no mention was made of how Molly feels about the twins not having finished their seventh year.

So now that Harry has been vindicated by Fudge’s turnaround at the end of the story, has Sirius Black been exonerated for the crimes he was convicted of? Or did Harry include an explanation of what really happened with him and Wormtail in his interview in The Quibbler? I would’ve liked to know.

Similarly, did Percy have a change of heart as well, now that Voldemort’s been proven to have returned? Sure, the schism between him and his parents stemmed partly from what he perceives as his father’s employment in a thankless, directionless job, and that’s still going to be an issue, but might there not have been some mention of his admitting he was wrong about Harry and Dumbeldore?

Okay, so they just let Umbridge GO FREE? After she sicked two dementors on Harry and a Muggle, and without Fudge’s knowledge, not to violating the student’s rights by torturing them in detention, reading their mail, and attacking two teachers without provocation, landing one of them in the hospital? Uh-huh, sorry, no way.

Why are all three Dursleys present to pick up Harry at King’s Cross at the end of the book. Isn’t Vernon the only one needed to do this? He was the only one of the three there to pick Harry up at the end of Goblet of Fire. (It’s because they want all three to be present when the Order warns them not to mistreat Harry.)

Matthew Patterson: I could easily see a scenario in which [the Weasley twins] are invited back to Hogwarts to finish their interrupted seventh year. I just hope they don't go the way of Percy (the git).
Luigi Novi: I think that’s highly unlikely, Matt.

Sarah Perkins: Why can't they ever get good DADA teachers?
Luigi Novi: Lupin was a good teacher. So was Barty Crouch Jr.

Sparrow47: Supposedly one can see the thestrals only after having been in the presence of death (watching someone die). So, why didn't Harry see the thestrals before now? He was present for the deaths of his parents? Did that not count for some reason?
Luigi Novi: I understood it to mean that you had to witness the person dying. He wasn’t present for his father’s death, and when his mom bought it, he might have had his eyes partially closed, or looked elsewhere. Or perhaps seeing thestrals requires the psychological state of mind of someone who can remember it more clearly than an infant can. Since Harry’s memories of his mother’s death are limited to a vague recollection of a flash of green light, perhaps this is why he never saw them before. (J.K. confirmed this in that webcast interview.)

Sparrow47: Does anyone really think we've seen the last of Cho Chang?
Luigi Novi: I see no reason to assume this. Just because she and Harry may no longer be an item doesn’t mean she won’t be at the school.

Matthew Patterson: My question is, why didn't Harry see the thestrals at the end of the previous school year? He'd seen Cedric die by then.
Luigi Novi: Good one, Matt. Maybe the sight takes some time to develop, say a few days?

ScottN: O K, Harry, Fred & George have been banned from Quidditch. But why have their brooms been locked up?
Luigi Novi: To keep them from practicing or playing it in their off-hours.

ScottN: Will Harry be able to fly Seeker for Gryffindor next year? His ban wasn't lifted (at least not in the parts we read).
Luigi Novi: Scott, I pretty much assumed that all the decrees and other new things that Umbridge did while at the school—reading kids’ mail, torturing those in detention, having a High Inquisitor, were, much as Dumbeldore’s removal as Headmaster, reversed.

joeythemighty: My only nit came when Harry and the gang were in at the dark forest, wondering how they were going to travel to the Ministry of Magic. I thought that the obvious solution was to go back to the Room of Requirement, and conjure a Portkey to take them there instantly. Did I miss some reason they couldn't do that?
Luigi Novi: That’s the problem with such can-o-worms devices, much like the transporters, replicators and holodecks in Star Trek. Time Turners and veritaserum are another. If I were J.K., I’d write a line saying that the Room can only conjure “conventional” things like broomsticks, books, etc., and that the construction of such exotic devices like portkeys require a more involved setup between the two locations linked by it. And as Matthew Patterson, pointed out, it’s illegal, and probably detectable.

Matthew Patterson: otherwise you get into arguments like "Why doesn't Captain Janeway just use the holodecks to power the ship already?"
Luigi Novi: To digress a bit, holodecks cannot create energy. The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy prevents it. Holodecks need the same power as the engines to work, and are not a wellspring of energy themselves. Besides, they’ve never had any long-term problems powering the ship anyway.

Matthew Patterson: Gotta have *someone*. Since apparently there isn't a single decent Slytherin in the bunch, maybe he figured he'd best pick the ones he needed to keep a closer eye on?
Luigi Novi: How does making one a prefect make it easier to keep your eye on them?

Sarah Perkins: Um. Good question. I don't have a copy of Goblet with me, either, so can't check whether he actually rode in the "horseless" coaches back to Hogwarts Express at the end. Anyone?
Luigi Novi: This is what J.K. said on that webcast:

JK Rowling: I knew I was going to get that one…that is an excellent question. And here is the truth. At the end of Goblet of Fire we sent Harry home more depressed than he had ever been leaving Howarts. I knew that Thestrals were coming, and I can prove that because they’re in the book I’d produced for Comic Relief (UK) “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. These are lucky Black Winged Horses. However, if Harry had seen them and it had not been explained then it would cheat the reader. So, to explain that to myself, I decided you had to have seen the death and allowed it to sink in a bit… slowly…these creatures became solid in front of you. So that’s how I’m going to sneak past that one.

cstadulis: [A] reviewer stated that he felt Rowling would have to release future books in children's and adult editions. The reviewer specifically said that he felt that the sexual aspect of puberty should have been mentioned more, particularly "the boys should be polishing their "wands" more at night." My overall reaction is: These Are Children's Books! Any other thoughts?
Luigi Novi: I see them as general reader books that were geared somewhat more towards children with the first two volumes. As the children age, so too has the tone and theme and maturity level of the books. But whether they are intended for adults or not is irrelevant to the issue of including mentions of masturbation. Peter David’s Star Trek novels are for adults, but he doesn’t include such things.

Kira Sharp: I am amazed that Fudge is letting Dumbledore off so freely at the book's end! This man confessed to raising an army for the sole purpose of undermining the ministry and replacing Fudge. Sure You-Know-Who's back, but I'm floored that even that much terror would allow the Minister to forget that Dumbledore is supposedly angling for his job.
Luigi Novi: Dumbeldore isn’t angling for his job, and I assumed that Dumbeldore probably indicated to Fudge that his “confession” in his officer prior to his fleeing was a ruse to protect Harry’s D.A. club.

bajoran: I wonder who could play Umbridge in the fifth movie, any ideas?
Luigi Novi: I saw the teaser trailer for Mike Myer’s upcoming new movie, The Cat in the Hat here, and thought the babysitter in the beginning of the trailer could do it. If we’re talking about a well-known actor, how about Zelda Rubinstein from the Poltergeist movies? Or Megan Cavanagh, who played Broomhilde in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Marla Hooch, the unattractive wallflower with the killer homerun in A League of Their Own? And if we’re talking about a Britisher (since I think all the actors cast have been British), then how about Joan Plowright? Sparrow’s suggestion of Judi Dench is also a good one.

constanze: Dumbledore even says at the end that the wizards in the order have other means of communication - I guess it has to do with fawkes the phoenix…
Luigi Novi: There’s also the two-way mirror Sirius gave to Harry for Christmas, which Harry opens at the end of the story.

Matthew Patterson: Couldn't you just go outside and use a cell phone?
Luigi Novi: Outside where? Outside the gates? Far enough away from the magic that surrounds and permeates the school grounds? We’ve never been told how far it extends, and I always assumed it was a large field.

Sandy: As to why Harry doesn't think of using the gift Sirius gave him till after he is killed, I think J.K was just trying to add to the tradgedy of it all - that it could have all been prevented if Harry had just opened the present and used it instead of going into Umbridge's office.
Luigi Novi: The way I saw it was that he didn’t used it for the simple reason that he forgot about it. I did. He packed at the bottom of his trunk, and with all the stuff going on at school, it slipped out of his mind. If I could forget, so could he.

Sandy: As for why he didn't see them at the end of book 4, I haven't a clue. I don't remember it ever saying in any of the books that students use the horseless carraiges to get back to the train at the end of term though - just to get there at the start.
Luigi Novi: No, they’re mentioned at the end of Goblet of Fire as being there to pick up the students to go to the train.

Sandy: Anyway, I loved this book. Fred and George were great. The scenes with Cho just made me smile. Harry is such an idiot when it comes to girls.
Luigi Novi: In other words, he’s a teenage boy.

Anthony K Shin: In Prisoner of Azkaban, it was explained how the Fidelius Charm works. It conceals a secret inside a single, living soul. Thereafter, the information is hidden inside that person, the Secret-Keeper, and is impossible to find unless the Secret-Keeper chooses to reveal it.
Luigi Novi: Was it explicitly explained that someone else privy to the information would not be able to divulge it?

Anthony K Shin: Anyway, when the Order of the Phoenix performed the Fidelius Charm and chose Dumbledore as their Secret-Keeper, it became impossible for anybody to learn the whereabouts of the Order's headquarters unless Dumbledore himself revealed it to them.
Luigi Novi: Harry referred to “Number 12 Grimmauld Place” in the story when he used Umbridge’s fireplace to talk with Sirius and Lupin.

constanze: I think that veritaserum wouldn't make any difference at the ministry hearing. The reason is: most of the wizards and witches present believe Harry isn't telling the truth. It's a minor point whether Harry is deliberately lying (because he is seeking attention) or disturbed in his mind (because of the curse, shown by his scar and the dreams he had last year). If he is disturbed, he will believe he is telling the truth, and veritaserum won't change his story.
Luigi Novi: I thought of that myself.

Anonymous: I loved the part when Kingsley put the spell on Cho's friend in Dumbledore's office. However, I thought you had to be forceful when you say a spell. Here it works with the slightest whisper.
Luigi Novi: Many times, we see wizards not even speaking at all. Often Dumbeldore and Snape effect spells with wands only.

Brian Webber: Be honest folks, how many of you were picturing George W. Bush in your heads everytime Fudge did soemthing mind-bogglingly stoopid and/or beauecratic(sp?)?
Luigi Novi: I was thinking more about believers in pseudoscience, and about the adage that no amount of proof will convince a true believer. Fudge believed only what he wanted to be true about Voldemort until the end, and only because he saws him with his own eyes. (Although I did think of John Ashcroft a bit when thinking about Umbridge.)

Gordon Lawyer: Brian, that sort of discussion belongs over at the Political Musings board.
Luigi Novi: No, it doesn’t. Just as the Death Eaters, Fudge and Umbridge can be seen as a parallel to today’s racists, and people like Lupin as those suffering from an incurable disease who are discriminated against, so too may people see other parallels, including some to politicians. Brian was just expressing what sprang into his mind when he read certain elements of the story.

netrat: So Hermione thinks that it would be unfair not to give others the chance to learn and defend themselves, but she never even considers including a Slytherin in the DA. Of course, there are some very obvious risks associated, but you might think that at least they would have considered (and decided against) it.
Luigi Novi: I don’t think anyone brought it up precisely because they all realized it was too risky, as the Slytherins follow Draco’s lead, and hate Harry.

netrat: Either I'm getting smarter or the books are getting a lot more predictable - I had never before known so many twists in advance, such as:
Luigi Novi: I got them too, netrat. The only one I didn’t see was Hermione’s plan with the centaurs. I thought she was going to go to Grawp.

netrat: can you even award points, legally, for something that happened in LONDON?
Luigi Novi: Why not? The points are for the students’ conduct during the school session. I don’t recall anything about location being an issue.

netrat : The prophecy goes something like this: ... and neither can live without the other ... Which, in my humble opinion, would mean that in order for the world to ever be rid of Vol-, sorry, He Who Must Not Be Named :-), Harry will die.
Luigi Novi: No, that’s not what it said. It says that either must die at the hand of the other because neither can live while the other lives, not that they need one another to live.

Anthony K Shin: If you're saying that Harry shouldn't have violated Professor Snape's privacy, then I agree. It was out of line.
Luigi Novi: I agree too, but Harry felt violated by Snape’s sudden intrusion into Harry’s memories during Occlumency, so while it was wrong (since Snape was teaching Harry an important skill), it made sense that Harry was resentful, and wanted to even the playing field. Given that Snape abuses Harry and sabotages his class work because he’s taking out his hatred of James Potter out on Harry, and has done so since day 1 in Year 1, I’d say all the culpability for improper behavior should be put into a balanced perspective.

Anthony K Shin: Why, I wondered, wouldn't Harry want to be like the man who bravely fought against Voldemort, who risked his life to save other people, who sacrificed his life to protect his family?
Luigi Novi: Because it is a normal human reaction to react in one way when you see extreme behavior from someone in one situation, and to react different when they exhibit different behavior in another. People’s moods, emotions and opinions often fluctuate depending on the situation. You’re saying that Harry should’ve thought of the things you pointed out about James, but that’s not how the situation works. Harry is reacting to the shocking new info he just obtained, not the previous idea he had which is now being challenged. His reaction, therefore, is psychologically realistic.

Anthony K Shin: I would have thought that everything he had learned about his father in the first four books would pretty much tell Harry exactly what kind of person James Potter was.
Luigi Novi: He can never know “exactly” what kind of person James was. He never knew him. All he can do is form an idea of him, and that idea will be influenced by both information given to him from different people who knew James, some of whom liked him, some of whom didn’t, and Harry’s own ability to accept or compartmentalize whatever information he wants to. There are people you might actually know in real life for decades that you don’t really know on certain levels. (The reaction of people when they find out a neighbor is a vicious serial killer applies here: “He was such a quite person…”) To think that Harry can know “exactly” what type of person someone who’s been dead for 14 was is to ignore how the mind works.

Anthony K Shin: At any rate, I would think that it would have been far more revealing of James's character than an incident that occurred when he was fifteen years old.
Luigi Novi: But there isn’t any one incident or act with which you can definitively sum up a person’s character, unless you’re talking about extreme cases like Mother Teresa or Hitler. A person is the sum of ALL their life actions, and no one ever said J.K. was treating the incident as if it was the most accurate portrayal of James, because there isn’t one and only thing that is revealing above all others of a person’s character. A person’s character is defined by many things, not just one, and J.K. was merely trying to challenge Harry’s idealized perception of James because doing so would create more conflict, would be another event in Harry’s maturing and education, and because it makes all the characters involved more interesting and more realistic.

netrat: The fact that [Draco’s] father is a Death Eater could not be taken into the equation.
Luigi Novi: How do you figure? Dumbeldore is going to make Malfoy a prefect because his dad’s a Death Eater?

netrat: I would imagine that the Head of House would have some say in the choice and Snape obviously likes Malfoy, or at least pretends to. Plus, Malfoy is the Slytherins' leader, and anybody else would probably get in trouble with him if he were chosen a prefect instead of Malfoy.
Luigi Novi: How so? How could a prefect get into trouble with Draco if they were made prefect instead of him? Unless every single Slytherin is an evil racist like him, and agrees with him on every single matter and looks up to him—which is not believable, it would be Draco that would be prone to getting into trouble with the prefect.

netrat: He's bad at school and would be even worse if it weren't for Hermione, which McGonagall, as the Head of House, should know. Surely Seamus or Dean would be a more logical choice!
Luigi Novi: Where was it established that Seamus or Dean were better at schoolwork than Ron?

Gordon Lawyer: McGonnagall states that she been teaching for thirty-nine years this December. Why'd she start partway through the school year?
Luigi Novi: The previous teacher died, retired, grew ill and didn’t want to come back, was sacked for being a lousy teacher, McGonagle was scheduled for September but was ill or busy with something else, take your pick.

ScottN: I'm not so sure she wasn't already there. You can't tell me her "poison pen" wasn't dark magick.
Luigi Novi: While an abuse of her position, I don’t see this as an Unforgivable Curse.

constanze: I think percy is just a bad egg in a good family, the counter-point to sirius, who is a good guy in a bad family.
Luigi Novi: This is an exaggeration. Percy has been unable to see the truth for what it was, and allowed personal shame over his father’s position in life to cloud his judgment about Fudge Harry, and Dumbeldore. This doesn’t make him “bad,” or on a par with Sirius’ family. It just makes him human.

constanze: I have no problem with ron becoming prefect, as there are only 5 boys to choose from.
Luigi Novi: Where has it been established that the five boys in Harry’s dorm are the only males in his year?

constanze: Obviously, Mcgonagal as head of griffindor chooses the prefects. And ron doesn't pick fights with students all the time or have detention all the time
Luigi Novi: Neither does Harry. Harry only responds when Malfoy attacks or provokes him, and in Chamber of Secrets, it was Ron, not Harry, who tried to attack Malfoy with the slug hex for calling Hermione a Mudblood. The one thing I can think of that Harry did that was reckless and unnecessary was when he took the car in the beginning of Chamber of Secrets, and Ron not only participated in that with him, but came up with the idea himself. Harry only ended up in detention in this book for standing up to Umbridge’s abuse.

constanze: percy, coming from a good family, turns bad by being in denial…
Luigi Novi: He didn’t “turn bad,” he just made the wrong choice. Why are such things seen as “turning bad”? That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it, IMHO.

constanze: Its also very nice to see [Ron] suceeding at something, and being famous, too.
Luigi Novi: How was he famous?

ScottN: Prediction: at the end of Vol VII, Harry becomes an Auror and is appointed the new DADA instructor.
Luigi Novi: He can’t become an Auror until he undergoes an additional 3 years of Auror training, as McGonagle tells him on page 665. I would imagine teachers should require similar training, and an 18-year old who just graduated would not have the experience to be picked for this.

constanze: Did they become animagi in their fifth year? I thought it took them the better part of three years to work it out.
Luigi Novi: You might be thinking of Auror training, which is said to be an additional three years in Chapter 29. I don’t know if any time table for Animagical studies has ever been established.

Sandy: For example, since CoS, I've been thinking that there is more to these house elves than meets the eye. Dobby seems to have alot of power and since the forth book especially…
Luigi Novi: Well, I noticed as early as the end of the second one, as he easily dispatches Lucius with barely an effort.

Sandy: Also does anyone think there's going to be more Luna Lovegood than we're being told? She's too wierd to be true.
Luigi Novi: She seems like every other “oddball” student in every class in real life, much like the girl Kevin had to learn to dance with in gym class in that episode of The Wonder Years, or Barclay from Star Trek The Next Generation. She’s the odd one out. The weird loner. J.K. is to be commended for including characters of all types.

netrat: I really think that Hagrid should be sent to Azkaban for several attempted murders:
1) Draco Malfoy, Harry, Neville, and Ron in PS/SS - the First years whom he took on detention into the Forest to look for a Unicorn Slayer, and then split up so that Harry and Draco had only a cowardly dog for protection…
Luigi Novi: That’s not attempted murder. At best, it’s reckless endangerment. Murder, even an attempted one, requires intent. And it was Draco who asked for Fang. Nowhere was it established that Hagrid’s intent was to kill anyone. In fact, he insisted to Tom Riddle that Aragog would never hurt anyone, even if he ended up attempting to do so in Chamber of Secrets. Murder requires deliberation.

I could put this in any of the previous books, which feature Peeves’ mischief, but I’ll put it here regarding his attempt to unscrew the chandelier after Dumbeldore escapes Hogwarts, and his use of McGonagle’s walking stick when chasing Umbridge out of Hogwarts at the end of the book: Can or cannot ghosts touch and pick up solid objects? I ask, because Nick’s deathday party in Chamber of Secrets established that they can’t eat food because it passes right through them. LUIGI NOVI

Peeves isn't a ghost, though. He's a poltergeist. What the difference is, I don't know, but apparently poltergeists can manipulate objects, whether or not ghosts can.

Luigi, Peeves is not a ghost he is a poltergeist. A poltergeist is able to interact with the physical world and cause effects while a normal ghost is only able to cause an apparation to form and interact in a more limited fashion. Ie. the cold chills and such of having one touch you. As for apparating and such the way i understood it a wizard is only able to apparate himself and a small amount of stuff he is carrying. I suppose a small baby or toddler could be brought along but a full grown or nearly so teenager would exceed some kind of limit on the apparate spell.

Sandy: For example, since CoS, I've been thinking that there is more to these house elves than meets the eye. Dobby seems to have alot of power and since the forth book especially…

Luigi Novi: Well, I noticed as early as the end of the second one, as he easily dispatches Lucius with barely an effort.

NANJAO, Luigi, but CoS is the second one.

Oh yeah. Got mixed up. Good point on Peeves, too, Lolar.

Anthony K Shin: In Prisoner of Azkaban, it was explained how the Fidelius Charm works. It conceals a secret inside a single, living soul. Thereafter, the information is hidden inside that person, the Secret-Keeper, and is impossible to find unless the Secret-Keeper chooses to reveal it.

Luigi Novi: Was it explicitly explained that someone else privy to the information would not be able to divulge it?


"An immensely complex spell . . . involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find - unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it. As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!"

- Professor Flitwick, explaining the Fidelius Charm to Madam Rosmerta, in Prisoner of Azkaban


Was it ever explicitly said that a person, other than the Secret-Keeper, who knows the secret could not reveal it after the Fidelius Charm was performed? Well, no, not in so many words.

But Professor Flitwick's description of the Fidelius Charm certainly makes it sound as if the Secret-Keeper is the sole person who can reveal the secret once the Fidelius Charm is completed.

If it was possible for somebody else who knows the secret to reveal it, wouldn't Professor Flitwick have mentioned that while explaining the charm to Madam Rosmerta? More to the point, if such a thing was possible, why would everybody automatically assume that Sirius Black (who was believed to be James and Lily Potter's Secret-Keeper) must have betrayed the Potters to Voldemort after the attack on the Potters' home?

Wouldn't Dumbledore and the rest of the original Order of the Phoenix have at least considered the possibility that somebody else who knew the Potters' location before Black supposedly became their Secret-Keeper might have revealed the secret to Voldemort?

There were several points in Prisoner of Azkaban, in fact, where people spoke as if it would have been impossible for Voldemort to learn the location of the Potters' hiding place if the Secret-Keeper had not personally revealed it to him.

Also, it wouldn't really make any sense for the Fidelius Charm to allow anybody, other than the Secret-Keeper, who knows the secret to reveal it. If such a thing were possible, then the Fidelius Charm would be virtually useless.

Think about it. Suppose that the Fidelius Charm allowed anybody who currently knows the secret (regardless of whether that person is the Secret-Keeper or not) to reveal it.

Well, then, it wouldn't actually make any difference at all who the Secret-Keeper was, because then anybody who knows the secret could reveal it if they chose to. And the people they reveal it to would then know the secret, so they could reveal it as well.

In other words, at any given time, anybody who knows the secret can reveal it to anybody they choose . . . Wait a minute. How exactly would that be any different from how the situation would be if the Fidelius Charm had never been performed in the first place?

However, if the Fidelius Charm prevents anybody who knows the secret (except for the Secret-Keeper) from revealing it, then the Fidelius Charm would provide a powerful protection.

It is fairly clear that the Fidelius Charm does not do anything to change who currently knows the secret when the spell is performed. It does not, for example, erase the memories of people so that they won't know the secret anymore. (If it did, then Sirius would not have been able to go to the Potters' home on the night of Voldemort's attack, after he discovered that Peter Pettigrew was missing.)

It does, however, prevent people who currently know the secret (except the Secret-Keeper) from revealing it. In this way, the Fidelius Charm would prevent the secret from falling into the hands of the wizard or witch's enemies, which would provide a secure protection for the wizard or witch casting the spell . . . provided, of course, that one's Secret-Keeper is not a spy working for one's enemies.

Also, as I pointed out in my previous post on this subject, when Harry was brought to Grimmauld Place in Order of the Phoenix, he was handed a note (written by Dumbledore, the Order's Secret-Keeper) revealing the location of the Order's headquarters. It was only after reading Dumbledore's note that Harry was able to see Building #12.

Remember that Moody, Lupin, and Tonks (who brought Harry to Grimmauld Place), all knew the location of the Order's headquarters. If the Fidelius Charm allowed anybody who knows the secret to reveal it, then they could have simply told Harry themselves where the Order's headquarters was.

But instead, they had to give Harry a note from Dumbledore revealing this information. Naturally, because the magic of the Fidelius Charm made it impossible for Moody, Lupin, and Tonks to reveal the secret to Harry, or anybody else. Only Dumbledore, as the Order's Secret-Keeper, could do that.


Anthony K Shin: Anyway, when the Order of the Phoenix performed the Fidelius Charm and chose Dumbledore as their Secret-Keeper, it became impossible for anybody to learn the whereabouts of the Order's headquarters unless Dumbledore himself revealed it to them.

Luigi Novi: Harry referred to “Number 12 Grimmauld Place” in the story when he used Umbridge’s fireplace to talk with Sirius and Lupin.

If I understand the effects of the Fidelius Charm correctly, then it prevents Harry (or anybody else, other than Dumbledore) from revealing the fact that the Order of the Phoenix is headquartered at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. It might also prevent Harry from revealing that Number 12 Grimmauld Place even exists. (I'm not really sure if it goes that far, though.)

But Harry was alone in Umbridge's office when he said "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place!"

He wasn't actually revealing any information to anybody. He was using the Floo powder to travel to Number 12 Grimmauld Place. (Well, okay, technically only his head travelled there, and the rest of his body stayed at Hogwart's, but I think the principle is the same.)

I don't think that using the Floo powder to travel to the Order's headquarters is really any different, in principle, from walking up to the building and entering it, as Harry did earlier in the book. Perhaps the Fidelius Charm would prevent Harry from saying "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place" to use the Floo Powder if somebody else was in the office with him at the time. But since he was alone, it was permissible, because saying that address aloud when nobody is around is not actually revealing it to anybody.

As an aside . . . When I first read your comment, Luigi, I thought that you were saying that Harry mentioned the address while he was speaking to Sirius and Lupin. It was only after checking the book that I saw that he actually said the address to use the Floo powder.

But . . . would it have been a "nit" if Harry had mentioned the address while speaking to Sirius and Lupin? Actually, I don't think so. The Fidelius Charm prevents Harry from revealing the location of the Order's headquarters. But Sirius and Lupin already knew about 12 Grimmauld Place (They were standing in it at the time, after all), so Harry would not actually have been revealing anything to them by mentioning the address while talking to them.

It strikes me as quite plausible, actually, that the Fidelius Charm would allow Harry to freely talk about the Order's location while speaking to people who already know the secret (because he wouldn't be actually be revealing it to them, since they already know), but prevent him from saying it while in the presence of a person who does not know.

Magic works in curious ways, after all.

Regarding James becoming Head Boy when he had not been a prefect--is there any law against it? Presumably under Lily's influence he improved his behavior to the point that they gave him the responsibility.

Luigi Novi: "Why does Dumbeldore no longer fear looking directly at Harry by the time he explains everything to him in his office at the end of the story? Is the danger of Voldemort possessing Harry no longer present? If so, why? I don’t recall anything during Voldemort’s duel with Dumbeldore that indicated he could no longer do this."

I think Dumbledore says something to Harry in the office along the lines of Voldemort not being able to stay in his body because of his heart and the love he feel for others. When Voldemort is posessing Harry during the fight with Dumbledore, it's only when Harry starts to feel loyaly and love that Voldemort leaves him because, Dubledore says, he couldn't stand it. I'm not sure what this means in terms of Harry's mind now being safe from invasion by Voldemort - is it? Does it say anything at the end of the book about a necessity for Harry to continue studying occlumancy?

Luigi Novi: "When Hagrid tells the kids about his trip to see the giants, he tells him that he had to speak with the ones who could speak English. What, there’s no wizard world equivalent of a universal translator? Or a spell that can allow two people of different languages to understand one another?"

Evidently not, because in GoF at the Quidditch World Cup Fudge has trouble talking to the Bulgarian Prime Minister and says he needs Barty Crouch to translate(who, apparantly speaks 150 different languages). I actually think it's kinda nice that J.K. didn't write something like a 'universal translater' into the story. It means that wizards have to work at languages like everyone else! I always found things like that a bit too convenient.

I wonder when and where do wizards go to learn languages though? Hogwarts doesn't seem to teach anything like this. Maybe there's a wizard's university out there somewhere. I can see it now: Harry Potter, the college years.

Luigi, your Star Trek analogy reminded me of how I always wondered why they didn't just replicate gold pressed latinum on Star Trek. Why don't they all transfigure tea bags into galleons or something? I suppose there's probably some sort of ministry regulation regarding this. Maybe it would all turn out like leprechaun gold.

Kira Sharp: I am amazed that Fudge is letting Dumbledore off so freely at the book's end! This man confessed to raising an army for the sole purpose of undermining the ministry and replacing Fudge. Sure You-Know-Who's back, but I'm floored that even that much terror would allow the Minister to forget that Dumbledore is supposedly angling for his job.
Luigi Novi: Dumbeldore isn’t angling for his job, and I assumed that Dumbeldore probably indicated to Fudge that his “confession” in his officer prior to his fleeing was a ruse to protect Harry’s D.A. club.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, although in my head it goes more like this;

Dumbledore: Allright Fudge. You wanna keep your job?
Fudge: Y-yes? Yes.
Dumbledore: OK, here's what you have to do. 1: Clear Harry Potter. 2: Give me my job back. 3: Exonerate Sirius (albeit posthumously).

Or something like that. Personally it would've been worth making the book an even 900 pages just to se that conversation.

netrat: By the way, why didn't Super!James and Super!Sirius become Aurors? They would have been old enough when James died, but I don't think it's ever mentioned.

So far, I haven't noticed any mention of what Sirius and James did for a living after school, so maybe they were aurors?

Luigi: ...On the one hand, I’m glad Fudge eventually came around, but I’m left wondering what will happen when the students’ parents learn that mail between them and their children was read, that students were tortured in detention with a blood-draining quill, that two Dementors were sicced on a student and his Muggle cousin, that civil liberties were shredded, etc. Won’t they be outraged that Umbridge is not in prison, and that the guy she was working under is still head of the Ministry?

Okay, so they just let Umbridge GO FREE? After she sicked two dementors on Harry and a Muggle, and without Fudge’s knowledge, not to violating the student’s rights by torturing them in detention, reading their mail, and attacking two teachers without provocation, landing one of them in the hospital? Uh-huh, sorry, no way.

Because the wizard world is structured about power, not justice and fairness. Although the wizards live in england, there is no democratic structure with seperate instititutons, a free press, a constititution - all the things muggles hold important. Wizards don't even understand the principle of fairness - look at how ron reacts to hermiones and deans reactions to unfairness: thats the way it is. (hermione who protests against the house elf enslavment, dean who protests at the first quidditch matches about fouls and demands a red card.)
Fudges as Minister of Magic passes the laws himself, and the MOM enforces the laws, too. There is no indepent parliament, to which fudge has to answer. The wizengamot isn't called on matters of constitituotanal rights or whether some laws go against these rights. Nobody seems to be answerable to anybody, its just a question of how much power a wizard has.

So how in the world did Draco get prefect? Aren’t there some Slytherins, are aren’t quite as evil or racist as he is?

Sirius makes an interesting remark to snape in this book: how does lucius malfoy like his favorite lapdog working at hogwarts? After seeing snapes memory in the pensieve, I think that snape doesn't like draco as favorite student because he sees himself in him - draco is a bully like james was to snape, and even snapes hate of james and harry shouldn't prevent him seeing how much draco bullies everybody else, too. But nobody except dumbledore and a few trusted wizards know that snape is a death eater who changed sides. So if certain death eaters know each other without the masks, too, lucius malfoy would expect snape to use his influence to favour draco, and snape, who is good at hiding his true feelings when he wants to, does so. Making draco prefect would be the only option for snape, therefore, to avoid unpleasant questions and suspicions from lucius malfoy. As for the other slytherins, since draco has not only two bodyguards, but also continually boasts about the huge influence his father has with the MOM - and has shown it, i.e. the incident with the hippogriff in PoA -, I think nobody in Slytherin dares to disagree with draco, because they are afraid of the punishment (like the kids at primary school didn't dare to disagree with dudley and his gang, as harry describes in PS).

Waitaminute—I could swear that an earlier book established that James and Lily were Head Boy and Head Girl.

see the discussion above about how head boy and girl are chosen - it varies with schools whether they are voted by the students or chosen by the teachers, and whether they were prefects before or not.

After Umbridge sends Harry to McGonagle after their first class, McGonagle asks him if he called Umbridge a liar, and for some reason, Harry says, “Yes.” Why does he say this? He didn’t call her a liar. She called him a liar (at least somewhat indirectly, in that she repeatedly referred to his account with Voldemort as lies).

Harry called umbridge indirectly a liar, since he contradicted her version of events.

Hermione leaves hats in the Gryffindor common room with rubbish on top of them so that the house elves will take them away, hoping that they’ll be freed once they are given clothing, but the end of Chamber of Secrets makes clear that only a house elf’s owner can set them free, because Harry had to trick Lucius Malfoy into giving Dobby a sock. If any old person could do it, Harry could’ve freed Dobby himself. Hermione should know this.

Hermione should certainly know this, but I guess she wants to do something for the elves, and simply forgets it. Harry doesn't think of that reason, either, he just doesn't have the heart to tell hermione that only dobby takes the hats.

When Hagrid tells the kids about his trip to see the giants, he tells him that he had to speak with the ones who could speak English. What, there’s no wizard world equivalent of a universal translator? Or a spell that can allow two people of different languages to understand one another?

The other argument is that hagrid tells quite clearly that the giants don't like magic.

joeythemighty: My only nit came when Harry and the gang were in at the dark forest, wondering how they were going to travel to the Ministry of Magic. I thought that the obvious solution was to go back to the Room of Requirement, and conjure a Portkey to take them there instantly. Did I miss some reason they couldn't do that?
Luigi Novi: That’s the problem with such can-o-worms devices, much like the transporters, replicators and holodecks in Star Trek. Time Turners and veritaserum are another. If I were J.K., I’d write a line saying that the Room can only conjure “conventional” things like broomsticks, books, etc., and that the construction of such exotic devices like portkeys require a more involved setup between the two locations linked by it. And as Matthew Patterson, pointed out, it’s illegal, and probably detectable.

Making a portkey requires a spell - dumbledore says "portus" in the MOM when sending harry back to school - which is probably a very advanced one, so I don't think the Room could provide one. It only provides things which already exist, not things you have to change with spells yourself.

You might ask why they don't go back to the castle and use their brooms, and my guess is that they are so glad to have escaped the Inquisitorial squad and gotten rid of umbridge, that they don't want to stress their luck by going back to school and running into other people - filch, other slytherins, whoever else - or the again awoken squad.

General: I think most of the scenes which seem to be missing will be explored in the next book, during the summer holiday, as it would have been too much to go into depth after all that has happened at this book's end.

It hasn't even been a month yet and this board is already getting quite full. Discussion shall continue on Board 2.