Harry Potter: Discussion

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First — Spoilers are in invisible ink. So you can’t accidentally see anything unless you try.
I want to thank Amazon a thousand times for delivering the book around 10:00 am, Saturday, July 21. We were prepared for it to arrive between July 24 and July 26 because of the embargo figuring the publishers put online stores under strict orders not to ship books before Saturday to avoid any arriving early.
While eager to read the book, I didn’t want to stay up past midnight and spend that time waiting in line. Furthermore, I didn’t want to shlep from store to store looking for copies. Turned out a store near us had plenty of copies… frustrated and disappointed… 30 minutes later, we got the delivery.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) yesterday (had to — or else it would interfere with work!). I’m content with how Rowling completed the book and tied the story. The ending fit — it wasn’t a phony ending where she felt pressured to satisfy her readers.
I have a couple of questions that went unanswered or I missed the answers, but nothing that would drive me batty. Those who haven’t finished the book, stop here to avoid spoilers from comments that don’t appear in invisible ink. If you’ve finished the book and want to discuss. Select the below space and scroll the mouse pointer to highlight the space to read it.

What was the point of the baby that made Harry uncomfortable while he talked to Dumbledore?

What was significant about Harry’s green eyes? Rowling said it was important.
How can Draco Malfoy and then Harry be the last true owner of the Elder Wand though he disarmed Dumbledore and Harry disarmed Draco (but not with the Elder Wand)? After all, “a wand chooses its owner.”
What happens to the Elder Wand? Harry said, “I’m putting the Elder Wand back where it came from.” I doubt Harry is going to open Dumbledore’s crypt out of respect.
Is Teddy a werewolf? Assume that Tonks’ parents raised Ted.
Snape was supposed to tell Harry about death at the time that Voldemort put protection on Nagini. Snape cut it close and it was luck that Harry happened to be there at Snape’s death without Voldemort knowing. Why would Snape risk going to Voldemort before telling Harry? He could’ve died without telling Harry.
How did the Sorting Hat come in possession of the Griffindor sword where Neville found it? Griphook ran off with the real sword.
Harry recalled having put a wig and a battered old tiara on an old ugly warlock (page 620). When did this happen? Why did he do that?
What were the careers of Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny? We only learn of Neville’s career.
Any questions of your own?

15 thoughts on “Harry Potter: Discussion”

  1. Yes, like you, I have plenty of questions myself. I won’t repeat the ones you listed, but just add to the list.

    • When Ron, Hermione, Harry wear the horcruxed Locket, it has telling effects on them, especially Ron. Harry is so weakened, he can’t produce a Patronus. But Umbridge, who had the locket and wore it during the hearings, seems to be unfazed by – even produces her Cat Patronus to keep warm at the hearing of the muggle-borns. How come?
    • When the wizarding world was falling apart at the Battle of Hogwarts, and Voldemort had given Harry only an hour to surrender himself, why would then Harry choose to spend the hour in the memories of Snape? He never liked or trusted Snape, and there was nothing to redeem Snape in Harry’s eyes prior to his visit to the Pensieve; neither does Snape say something like “this will help you fight the Dark Lord” or some such indication about the importance of his memories. Why then, would Harry choose to prioritize his review of Snape’s memories over the life and death of so many people?
    • JKR has developed Ginny’s character really well through the course of the last 2 books; why then was she sidelined completely in the Deathly Hallows. She was capable of giving a good fight in the Battle of Hogwarts – yet, she’s just made to sit out and let others protect her. I found that surprising and underwhelming.
    • Voldemort went to extreme precaution when guarding the locket horcrux – this included an underwater cave, a stone wall that needed a blood sacrifice to open, a first-invisible boat, a lake full of inferi, and a basin full of horrible potion. Why then, would he be so negligent about the rest of them?
      The snake: He kept her close to himself, so let’s assume she’s well protected
      The diary: he created when he was 16, so let’s assume he wasn’t as powerful a wizard then
      The ring: we don’t know what protections it had; so let’s assume for a moment, they were as extreme as the locket
      The cup: It was in a vault at Gringotts among hundreds of other items. This is still believable to some extent, since it’s supposedly impossible to break into Gringotts, and that there was a charm to multiply the objects when touched by thieves and also burn them. We could grant this as decent protection, though not infallible
      The diadem/tiara: This one is left completely unprotected in the Room of Requirement, where hundreds of students before him have hidden various objects such as dungbombs, books etc. (refer HBP). Even Trelawney has been hiding her empty bottles of sherry in there. Why then would Voldemort think that he’s only one who knows the secret of this room – and even if does, why does he not put any protection on it?

  2. Thanks for adding on, Arti! All excellent thoughts and questions especially the one about Snape. He just said “Take it… Take it” You’d think Harry would’ve waited until after dealing with the war to dig in his memories. Simple fix to have Snape say, “Take it… use now.”

    Regarding the diadem/tiara, page 620 explains why Voldemort thought he hid it well:

    Tom Riddle, who confided in no one and operated alone, might have been arrogant enough to assume that he, and only he, had penetrated the deepest mysteries of Hogwarts Castle. Of course, Dumbledore and Flitwick, whose model pupils, had never set foot in that particular place, but he, Harry, had strayed off the beaten track in his time at school — here at last was a secret he and Voldemort knew, that Dumbledore had never discovered —

  3. Yeah – what you pointed out is what JKR is trying to say herself, but if you look through the passage below from “Half Blood Prince” – this is when Harry rushes to the Room of Requirement to hide his copy of the potions’ book.

    So when Harry wanted to hide something, he found that same room that had been used by “objects hidden by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants” – Hogwarts is at least 10 centuries old – and Voldemort was in Hogwarts about 45-50 years before Harry. When he went to deposit the Tiara/Diadem, he could not have missed the objects hidden by previous generations.

    Even if we grant that Voldemort may have been the very first depositor of “items to hide”, and therefore could not imagine any other Hogwarts resident to know about this room, the previous year Malfoy had spent half his time in this room, and eventually managed to get the Vanishing Cabinet(again, mentioned in the passage below) in working condition for the Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts through the Room of Requirement. The fact that his followers had entered Hogwarts grounds through this route(given there’s no other unguarded way to enter Hogwarts) should have tipped Voldemort that many others knew about the Room of Requirement’s usage as a hiding place as well, and that his deposited item wasn’t safe. So when he got access to Hogwarts, why would he not add layers of protection to the precious horcrux?

    “He skidded to a halt beside the tapestry of dancing trolls, closed his eyes, and began to walk.
    I need a place to hide my book. . . . I need a place to hide my book. . . . I need a place to hide my book. …
    Three times he walked up and down in front of the stretch of blank wall. When he opened his eyes, there it was at last: the door to the Room of Requirement. Harry wrenched it open, flung him self inside, and slammed it shut.
    He gasped. Despite his haste, his panic, his fear of what awaited him back in the bathroom, he could not help but be overawed by what he was looking at. He was standing in a room the size of a large cathedral, whose high windows were sending shafts of light down upon what looked like a city with towering walls, built of what Harry knew must be objects hidden by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants. There were alleyways and roads bordered by tetering piles of broken and damaged furniture, stowed away, perhaps, to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, or else hidden by castle-proud house-elves. There were thousands and thousands of books, no doubt banned or graffitied or stolen. There were winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees, some still with enough life in them to hover halfheartedly over the mountains of other forbidden items; there were chipped bottles of congealed potions, hats, jewels, cloaks; there were what looked like dragon eggshells, corked bottles whose contents still shimmered evilly, several rusting swords, and a heavy, bloodstained axe.
    Harry hurried forward into one of the many alleyways between all this hidden treasure. He turned right past an enormous stuffed troll, ran on a short way, took a left at the broken Vanishing Cabinet in which Montague had got lost the previous year, finally pausing beside a large cupboard that seemed to have had acid thrown at its blistered surface. He opened one of the cupboard’s creaking doors: It had already been used as a hiding place for
    something in a cage that had long since died; its skeleton had five legs. He stuffed the Half-Blood Princes book behind the cage and slammed the door. He paused for a moment, his heart thumping horribly, gazing around at all the clutter. . . . Would he be able to find this spot again amidst all this junk? Seizing the chipped bust of an ugly old warlock from on top of a nearby crate, he stood it on top of the cupboard where the book was now hidden, perched a dusty old wig and a tarnished tiara on the statues head to make it more distinctive, then sprinted back through the alleyways of hidden junk as fast as he could go, back to the door, back out onto the corridor, where he slammed the door behind him, and it turned at once back into stone.”

  4. I thought the book was a great rollercoaster ride. I pretty much cried my way through it – every time someone talked about Dumbledore, I got weepy.

    Yes, there were some questions left unanswered, but most of them can be figured out if you think about it long enough. I think JKR wanted to leave a few things for us to discuss on all the Harry Potter websites like the Leaky Lounge and the Chamber of Secrets Forums!

    • M

  5. Marcheline, thanks for the comment. It prompted me to share my thoughts to Arti’s questions:

    Ron, Hermione, Harry wearing the horcruxed Locket has telling effects on them, but not Umbridge.

    Maybe because Umbridge is an adult and a long-time witch. The kids, at age 15, aren’t fully grown yet in terms of size and magical abilities. While Umbridge was not strong magically, she’s been around long enough.

    Why would Harry choose to spend the hour in the memories of Snape instead of battling?

    Since Snape was a long-time staff member at Hogwarts and a Voldemort following, Harry might’ve thought he could get new information to help them in the war.

    Ginny’s missing out on the fight…

    For one thing, she was underaged. Any use of magic by her is traceable — thus giving her no way to go with Harry without risking exposure (Thanks, Paul). If you mean fight at Hogwarts while Harry was out in the open — though she was just one year from completing her education, it was enough.

    Voldemort and the the protection of Horcruxes

    Figuring there were six of them (not counting Harry), he probably figured it was almost an impossibility for anyone to find and identify a horcrux. But to be on the safe side, he made one extremely difficult that Remus, an experienced wizard, died in his attempt to swap the lockets. Harry and Dumbledore had better luck since there were two of them to support each other. Harry helped Dumbledore through the drinking of the potion in the basin.

  6. Does anyone else wonder what happened considering that the 7th year students did not gradute from Hogwarts?

  7. Kate, my thought is that they finished out the school year after the clean up, temporarily set up school elsewhere while repairing the school (maybe it doesn’t take so long with magic) — the school year wasn’t too far from over since it was already spring when all this happened. Just the three (Ron, Hermione and Harry) missed the entire school year — but Hermione probably far more credits than needed. Ron and Harry, perhaps, got an exception since they mastered magic in the war or there’s a witch equivalent of the GEDs.

  9. Regarding Umbridge’s not being affected by the locket — I believe that she embraces evil, therefore she can handle it. Ron, Harry and Hermione are “good” and it could explain why Ron was more affected than the other two. Harry was getting angrier with all that was happening, so that made him less susceptible than Ron. Can’t explain Hermione except she’s the strongest in terms of performing magic.

  10. I had some of these same questions, and here are the answers I’ve come up with (please forgive in advance my not finding the actual text from the seven books 🙂

    What was the point of the baby that made Harry uncomfortable while he talked to Dumbledore?

    I thought that the baby represented Voldemort – what he really was. In his final fight with Voldemort, Harry says something like, “I’ve seen what you are.”

    What was significant about Harry’s green eyes? Rowling said it was important.

    Harry has his mother’s eyes. So, when Snape died, he told Harry to look at him. He wanted to see Lily’s eyes as he died.

    How did the Sorting Hat come in possession of the Griffindor sword where Neville found it? Griphook ran off with the real sword.

    There was something said at some point that the sword had to be given; it couldn’t be stolen. My thinking was that since Griphook stole it, it wasn’t ever gone. Also, it was stated that it comes in time of valor and need. Neville certainly showed valor, and we all know there was a need.

    Just my thoughts on the matter!

  11. One more question….

    Hermione says she has modified her parents’ memories and sent them off to Australia as Wilkins’, who’re unaware they have a daughter.

    When they escape to Tottenhem Court Road and have to fight Death Eaters in the cafe, Harry decides to clean up after stunning them. Ron asks Hermione whether she can modify their memories – she says she only knows the theory; she’s never done it before.

    But she HAS done it before. What’s more, she has done it on her parents who’re likely to be the most important people in her life, so she’d have taken ample care to ensure she doesn’t do it wrong. Thus her knowledge is likely to be pretty good – given she must’ve studied the theory deeply and then implemented it correctly.

    I think JKR and her editors missed this slip.

  12. I was really confused about the true home of the elder wand or “I’m putting the Elder Wand back where it came from”. No one I ask seens to know it and I was hoping some of you would…..

  13. Read or heard somewhere that the elder wand went back into Dumbledore’s crypt which is where it belongs since Voldy stole it from there.

  14. I actually went on websites yesterday to find out about it and there was an interview with JKR and she said that the true home was Draco Malfoy….so yeah

  15. Is it just me or did anyone find The Deathly Hallows eerily reminiscent of both Lord of the Rings and The Da Vinci Code?

    The whole ‘quest for the hallows’ and hidden meanings in supposed children literature was very similar to Disney with his references to the Holy Grail in the Da Vinci Code.

    The way the locket is worn by the Big 3 and how it affects them is also very similar to the hobbits wearing the ring and enduring the damning affects of its power in Lord of the Rings.

    Cold not help but notice…

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