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1'''"DO NOT WRITE IN FIRST PERSON ON THIS PAGE, PLEASE!"''' Dumbledore said ''calmly''.
2
3Please check [[http://web.archive.org/web/20110623030156/http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq.cfm?ref=aboutthebooks JK's FAQs]] before asking a question that may have already been answered. [[note]]As of Spring 2012, Rowling's website has been fully redesigned and the FAQ contains little of the info that appeared in the original. The provided link is a Web Archive backup, with the presumption that if she said something then, it remains valid now, unless she has specifically contradicted it.[[/note]]
4
5Following issues have their own {{Headscratchers}}:
6[[index]]
7* [[Headscratchers/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFireTheTriwizardTournament The Triwizard Tournament]]
8* [[Headscratchers/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFireThePlan The Plan]]
9[[/index]]
10
11----
12[[foldercontrol]]
13
14[[folder: Dark Arts AND Defence classes at Hogwarts]]
15* In the book, Draco Malfoy mentions that Durmstrang teaches the Dark Arts. In Deathly Hallows, Defence Against the Dark Arts was changed to Dark Arts, but when Voldemort was defeated, it returned to Defence. But why can’t Hogwarts teach both Defence AND Dark Arts? As Barty Crouch Jr says, “You need to know what you’re up against!” Also, the Dark Arts classes can just teach how to use Dark Magic for GOOD. So why can’t they do THAT as well as Defence?
16** Presumably Hogwarts doesn't want to run the risk of creating another Voldemort by planting the idea of practising the Dark Arts for anything other than defence.
17[[/folder]]
18
19[[folder:The Riddles’ Teenage Son]]
20* If Voldemort grew up in an orphanage, and Tom Riddle, Senior left before his son was born, how did the villagers know that Voldemort was the Riddles’ teenage son?
21** Maybe he looked enough like his dad they could put the pieces together.
22*** What is missing here? No one in village knew of Voldemort's existence. Except for Frank Bryce who saw him near the house on the day of the murder, but did not recognize him.
23** Nope, you're not missing anything. The OP might be mistaking the fact that Dumbledore knew from getting information from anyone in town. It was never known that Tom Riddle Sr had a son. The villagers at most thought Merope had lied to say she was pregnant, and Tom had married her for this reason but left her when he 'discovered' the truth. Tom Sr may not have even known he had a son, depending on how far along Merope was when she stopped using the love potion. Actually when Frank Bryce saw the teenage Voldemort on the day of the murder, he didn't even suspect he was related to the Riddles. The only reason Dumbledore knows it was Voldemort who did it was because he saw Morfin's memory.
24[[/folder]]
25
26[[folder:Why is Avada Kedavra an Unforgivable Curse?]]
27* In the Muggle world, there are certain situations where use of deadly force is justified, such as war, self defense against an armed criminal or capital punishment. It seems that AK would actually be a more [[InstantDeathBullet merciful way]] of killing someone than something more elaborate. There's the potential for abuse, it really does, it's just that there's a difference between killing and murder in certain situations.
28** Because there exist non-lethal spells to take someone down in combat, like "stupefy" and "petrificius totalus". You do not need to resort to the AK curse when you can just stun him instead. It should be mentioned that Crouch did allow aurors to use the unforgivable curses against Death Eaters during the war against Voldemort.
29** That's it exactly. Here in the real world, defending yourself with lethal force can be tolerated in situations where it really is your only option other than letting yourself be killed/horribly injured. Wizards, on the other hand, have many completely nonlethal options they can use to defend themselves just as effectively without causing any permanent harm (or at least not killing them, at any rate). Another thing to keep in mind about Avada Kedavra is that one of the requirements to casting it is that you explicitly and sincerely want your target to die. Even if you used it while trying to defend yourself from a dark wizard, the fact that you used it shows that your primary goal was more killing your opponent than saving yourself.
30** Couldn't you make the same argument for the other two Unforgivable Curses?
31** You could probably make a case for the Imperius curse in peacetime - suppose you had to go to the dentist and found it impossible to relax enough to get the procedure done and all other magical-aided attempts to do so had failed? If there was a way for you to sign a consent form and have a witness present (for liability reasons), it could probably be useful in that sense. Can't see any way to justify the Cruciatus though.
32** Even then, there are ways to do that without stripping someone of their free will. Can't relax at the dentist? Here, have a Calming Draught or, worst case, just Stupefy the brat if they bite your hand too many times. The Imperius curse is different because it removes the victim's free will and leaves them open to all sorts of post-hypnotic suggestion.
33** Also it is made clear in the books that in wartime the restrictions on the Unforgivables is at least partially lifted. For instance, Harry uses the ''Cruciatus'' curse in front of the normally-strict Professor [=McGonagall=], without the latter batting an eye.
34*** Though it should be noted that all it did to Amycus Carrow was send him flying and knock him out. Given that the effect was of a Stunner instead of torture and Harry's comment, he could have been observing that he didn't have it in him to truly want his target to endure the Cruciatus Curse.
35*** It did work on Amycus, the narration states that he was "trashing and howling in pain" even as he was knocked over. Harry himself also notes how different it felt it to truly want to hurt somebody, from the time he used it on Bellatrix in rightous anger.
36** There are plenty of directly lethal spells in the [=HP=] universe, and plenty of other damaging spells that could indirectly cause death. Avada Kedavra is what you use when you want the victim to die in excruciating agony and terror in the worst (and last) 1.5 seconds of your life. It's the difference between using a gun in warfare, which is certainly lethal but instantaneous and without pain with the proper aim, and using a flamethrower, which can be just as lethal, but an infinitely worse way to go.
37** Where... did you even get that from?
38** It's established at least a few times in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series that Avada Kedavra kills 100% instantaneously and without pain.
39** The AK is the ''only'' spell shown to be directly lethal. Even spells like Sectumsempra are meant to only hurt, and even that one has a counter-measure.
40** Remember when Harry tries to torture Bellatrix and Amicus with the Cruciatus Curse and can't do it? Bellatrix says "you have to ''mean'' them" - and righteous anger isn't enough to get the spell cast. So in order to pull off Avada Kedavra, you have to be fully willing and determined to perform murder. Just the fact that the curse has been used is an indicator that the caster is a dangerous witch or wizard.
41** So to summarize, every other spell that ''could'' kill someone, could and indeed might specifically be for something else. Avada Kedavra literally has no use except to kill. Your only goal when casting it must be the death of what- or whoever you're casting it at - not to stun, blind, incapacitate, or otherwise stop them, but to ''kill'' them. That is why it is Unforgiveable.
42[[/folder]]
43
44[[folder:Concert Cancelled Due To Inevitable Instrument Failure]]
45* Wait, how can the Weird Sisters perform rock and roll at Hogwarts in the fourth movie? Electronics don't work on Hogwarts grounds, and they were clearly performing with an electric guitar.
46** It's a wizarding equivalent. There are wizard radios, after all. Maybe they're run on magic or mechanics or ThePowerOfRock, but they don't have to be real electric guitars.
47** Ludo Bagman casts the Sonorus spell to amplify his voice, so that takes care of the microphones. Presumably they could cast a spell on the instruments to play as electric ones would.
48[[/folder]]
49
50[[folder:What a Jerk!]]
51* This may seem weird but seriously, what the hell was Ron's problem in this book? He's jealous of Harry getting into the tournament (He isn't blind, or deaf, or forgetful is he?). He's a jerk to Hermione just because she went with Krum and last but not least, yelling at Harry for acting the hero, then being absolute hypocrite about it! What the hell do they have to do for him?!
52** The way he treats Harry stinks of ConflictBall. This seems like a plot point that does not work after three years of knowing that Harry HATES being famous. It cost him his parents and it has done nothing but cause trouble for him. And worse, it doesn't actually lead to anything. Harry and Ron make up and then... it never comes up again until book 7, where there actually are good reasons for Ron to act up. When it comes to Hermione, we can chalk it up to an adolescent boy being an adolescent boy - they are not known for being paragons of reason when another guy takes ''their'' girl.
53** Well here's the thing - Ron can know in theory that Harry hates being famous, but he can still have resentment over the fact that he's known either as that other Weasley brother or Harry's friend. He's had his whole life being left behind; Bill is the oldest son with the exciting curse breaker job, Charlie is likewise established as the dragon carer, Percy is both Molly's favourite and an overachiever that always gets high marks, the twins are popular class clowns and even Ginny stands out by being the only daughter. And in his friendships, Harry is the celebrity who both survived Voldemort and has established himself as a bit of a hero by this stage. Hermione likewise is known for her intelligence and flair with spells - known as the brightest witch in their year. Ron meanwhile? Everyone forgets about him. He never gets that moment to stand on his own until the fifth book when he helps win the Quidditch Cup; he either tags along for Harry's heroics or isn't there. Sure we the readers know he was important, but Ron is dealing with a lifetime of insecurities over feeling inadequate. There is a saying 'the grass is always greener on the other side', and look at the teens and young people who crave being famous thinking it's all glamorous and fun - without considering the drawbacks that come with fame. So along comes another thing that puts Harry front and centre, and Ron's jealousy and resentment issues take over. He probably did realise how stupid he was being, but it's entirely possible he didn't apologise sooner out of shame - and it was probably easier to pretend that Harry was just self-absorbed or something than be that vulnerable.
54** Ron treating Hermione badly again ties into those resentment issues. And there's the fact that he possibly didn't realise his feelings for her until he saw her on the arm of another boy. So again, it's easier for him to get angry than admit his own vulnerabilities - and to be fair, that's a problem both Harry and Hermione display at different times. Not exactly the nicest way to act out, but a very human one, and not uncommon at fourteen.
55** Additionally, it's implied if you read between the lines that Ron wanted to apologize the night Harry was talking to Sirius, but Harry's own ego flared up and renewed the fight. Which, again, is understandable on his part.
56** This isn't new behavior from Ron. He was kind of an asshole to Hermione during their first year, but he greatly softened up towards her after the troll fight. Then, the summer before their third year, Ron's family won that Ministry sweepstakes and got their picture in the ''Daily Prophet''. That and being the brief center of attention after Sirius broke into Gryffindor Tower looking for Pettigrew may have given Ron a taste of fame that was toxic for him. Notice that it's really only after the lottery win that he started having month-long fights with his friends. First with Hermione in the previous book, now with Harry here.
57** As noted above, teenage boys are not noted for being paragons of reason at all. Anyone who's ever been a teenager knows they don't usually need much of an excuse to be a {{Jerkass}} at least once in a while.
58** There's another element that people might miss. For the past three years, Harry and Ron have done just about everything together, unless circumstances prevent it. To an outside view, it suddenly looks like Harry somehow entered his name in the Goblet of Fire, but ''didn't'' include his best friend in on it. Since Ron is not a mind reader, and Harry hadn't given any indication prior that he was against the idea of being in the Tournament (in fact, Harry has a daydream of doing so), what is Ron to think? On top of that, Harry decides that saying "To kill me" in response to Ron's question is too melodramatic and so instead responds with "I dunno". That just further convinces Ron that Harry is not being entirely truthful, whereas the "to kill me response" would have at least given Ron pause and led to him asking for clarification. Then the next morning, Hermione puts it all down to jealousy, when that is not the only reason, which leads to Harry being in no mood to try to explain things to Ron (even though he had woken up that morning with the intent to do so).
59** As for his jealousy for Hermione, his unresolved and confusing feelings for Hermione do play a part, but there is another issue--Krum. Ron was Krum's biggest fan, especially in his family. Now not only does Krum befriend Harry, his fellow Champion, but then Krum takes Hermione to the Yule Ball. This brings out his jealousy for his two best friends becoming close to his idol while his idol still does not pay him any attention. Ron makes up with Hermione and Herry, but even as of Book 7, he still has those unresolved jealous feelings for Krum as shown at the wedding.
60** And here again, Ron's insecurity comes into play--"why should she pay any attention to me when she has this hot, wealthy, internationally famous Quidditch player courting her?" Of course, she'd have gone to the Ball with Ron in a heartbeat if he'd asked, but he hadn't yet matured enough to get over his insecurities. For that matter, he may not have even realized he ''had'' feelings for Hermione until too late!
61[[/folder]]
62
63[[folder:To hell with the madman still on the loose... we don't need to worry about ''him''...]]
64* In the previous book, there was alarm caused about Sirius Black breaking out of Azakaban, and they were warning the wizarding world to be careful. Sure, because of the FourthWall, we all know that Sirius was wrongly accused, but the entire wizarding world still believes he is a threat. So why was there no alarm in this book about the fact that he was still free? Honestly, if the Ministry failed in catching him in one year, they'd want to up the wizarding world's awareness that a supposedly dangerous killer is still on the loose with no hopes in catching him so far.
65** It was more along the lines that Sirius was making more open sightings of him farther and farther south, suggesting that he was running away after being captured. To the fickle Wizarding World, this was a sign that he was scared about being recaptured, so there was no real worry about him. Then the whole Qudditch Cup incident occurred, causing the public to focus on the fact that were multiple wizards that could cause damage and at least another Death Eater on the loose to cast the Dark Mark in the sky, so no doubt the Ministry would have jumped on a reason to blame Sirius for this attack unless he was seen in that area at the time.
66** Presumably, Dumbledore has told Fudge that Sirius is innocent and Pettigrew did it. Fudge would not like to take the risk that Sirius is captured alive and following embarrassing questions.
67** A combination of the fact that he is running around the South away from Hogwarts and Mengele syndrome. Simply put, when you first hear that somebody has escaped custody, you fear for the worst and expect them to act immediately and do something drastic, in the same nature that for decades after Mengele fled the collapsing Reich, East and West suspected each other of taking him in, and there were even wilder conspiracy theories of him leading a team of freelance scientists committing ungodly atrocities and experiments in remote hellholes throughout the world (and indeed, there are a few suspicions to this day that he was still working: see Cândido Godói). Of course, the longer he is on the run, the more the world looks at things and realizes that even if he is not captured, he is effectively cut off from funding and on the run from the most powerful agencies in the world and is probably -- like Mengele actually was -- holed up in a tiny shantytown away from civilization scared out of his wits and slowly descending into complete blathering insanity over the fear that one night, somebody will open the door and his pathetic existence will be snuffed out. After a year on the run, the Wizarding world (even one that assumes he is guilty as sin) assumes that the window of opportunity for doing something massively unsettling for Sirius has passed and he is either on the run, holed up and either biding his time or slowly going crackerjack ALA Mengele, has fled abroad, or has gone underground with his allies. In other words: he's not a major concern.
68** The fifth book states that Kingsley Shacklebolt is using his connections to deliberately mislead the search for Sirius.
69** But that was after the Order of the Phoenix was reinstated at the end of the fourth book. Until then, no one beside the trio and Dumbledore knows Sirius is good. Dumbledore doesn't even tell Molly and Arthur Weasley, who seem like first people he'd tell, if only so they stop having to take additional security precautions for Harry.
70** Sirius says in his letter at the end of the third book that he's going to allow some Muggles to glimpse him further south - specifically to throw them off the scent. As has been said already, the Quidditch World Cup incident happened and that seemed like a bigger deal to focus on.
71[[/folder]]
72
73[[folder:Ogg, look at the time!]]
74* Mrs. Weasley talks with Harry about the previous gameskeeper, Ogg. But Hagrid was 13 when he was expelled and made gameskeeper so he could stay on school grounds, and that was recorded in the diary as taking place in 1943. Which means he has been gameskeeper for about 53 years. And for a student to attend Hogwarts, they have to be at least 11 years old. Which means that for Molly to remember the previous gameskeeper, she has to be at least 64 years old. There's never any indication that she's that old, and in fact JKR has placed her birth year around 1950, 7 years after Hagrid was a gameskeeper. It's not possible for her to have known Ogg.
75** [[WritersCannotDoMath "Oh dear, maths."]]
76** Maybe he was made ''a'' gameskeeper, not ''the'' gameskeeper. Or he was made an assistant or something.
77** Which would make sense, as you don't make a '''13 year old murder suspect''' your only Gameskeeper.
78** Even if he was, if Molly was born in 1950, she wouldn't have even attended school until 1961. Which means he would have been working as ''a'' gameskeeper for about 18 years. Somehow, it's doubtful he would have worked as assistant gameskeeper for 18 years or more...
79** You doubt that... why, exactly? He had nowhere else to go, we know that. He wanted to stay at Hogwarts and Dumbledore let him. So he works for Ogg that whole time, and when Ogg dies or retires or whatever, he takes over the job -- at the age of around thirty, which is perfectly reasonable.
80** Not sure about the passage described, but why assume Molly met him when she was a student at Hogwarts herself? She could have easily met him in Diagon Alley or at a graduation ceremony for an older sibling or something.
81** It's heavily implied that she knew him while she was a student; it mentions in the book that she 'reminisced at length' about him (Chapter 31 of [=GoF=], p617 of the US version), which suggests she had a good number of personal interactions with him.
82** Consider: Armando Dippet was still headmaster when Hagrid was expelled (see Book 2). Nothing seems to tell us either way that Dumbledore was the ''immediate'' replacement when Dippet died or retired. Nothing indicates that Ogg was replaced before his own retirement or death. Presumably Dumbledore and Hagrid re-established contact when Dumbledore was headmaster and the position of groundskeeper became vacant. Hagrid did say (in Book 1) that Dumbledore offered him the position "after me dad died," but then, he was keeping pretty quiet about his past at that point - and there's no record of how his Lost Years were spent. (One pictures him roaming the countryside, trying to coax manticores into a Pokeball.)
83*** According to Pottermore, "Hagrid lived in the Hogwarts grounds (acting as gamekeeper) ever since he was expelled in his third year. Great man, Dumbledore."
84** Actually Hagrid work with Ogg and there was some overlap. This makes sense since Hagrid was underage at the time. Also Molly could be the same age as Hagrid. We know her and Arthur are older than Lilly, James, Snape, ect. So its at least plausible she was in school at the time.
85*** Hagrid is even older then Molly&Arthur since he was a 3rd year when he was expelled from school via a sixth year boy (Tom Marvolo Riddle aka future Voldy) in 1943. Arthur and Molly were born in the 50s. They had their first child William (Bill) at the start of the first Wizarding War with Voldy just about the time James, Lilly, etc were in/at Hogwarts(70s).
86*** We don't know when Arthur and Molly were born but it was almost certainly before 1950, considering their first child was born by 1968 at the latest.
87[[/folder]]
88
89[[folder:AVADA KEDAVRA- *boom*]]
90* During his first DADA lesson (at least with the Trio), when he's teaching about the Unforgivables, Crouch/Moody repeatedly says ''Avada Kedavra''. How is it that it doesn't kill anyone? Hermione says it, as well, but as she presumably doesn't have the strength to make the spell work, that at least can be explained.
91** Just saying the name of a spell doesn't set it off, or a lot of wizarding classes would end in fire and feathers.
92** A paraphrase from book 5: "Never used an Unforgivable curse before, eh Potter? You have to ''mean'' them!" Presumably, since Crouch's and Hermione's intent at the time wasn't to kill anyone, they didn't.
93** And another thing, neither of them were equipped at the time. Assuming ''Avada Kedavra'' is one of the spells you can only set off with a wand.
94** Truthfully nearly all spells seem to require a conscious activation rather than just speaking the words.
95** Agreed. This passage makes it clear that Hermione saying the full spell didn't actually do it, but when she made the correct gesture and said it deliberately, it worked fine.
96---> "You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."\
97 "You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.\
98Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"\
99Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.
100** IIRC, Moody says that the students could all point their wands at him, shout "Avada Kedavra" and he wouldn't get more than a bloody nose. You have to mean them.
101
102[[/folder]]
103
104[[folder:Whaddya do with a drunk Abraxan, early in the morning?]]
105* So, wait, Madame Maxine's Abraxans ''only'' drink single-malt whiskey. How were the Beauxbatons teachers and students able to fly their carriage all the way from France to Hogwarts without an EpicFail crash with drunken Abraxans tangling their harnesses and flying willy-nilly?
106* How easily do horses get drunk? [[https://practicalhorsemanmag.com/health-archive/feed-beer-horse-16487 This Practical Horse Man Magazine article]] indicates that mundane horses don't get drunk off of the occasional beer because they naturally produce large amounts of alcohol dehydrogenase. Presumably the Abraxans with their bigger size and liver can produce more alcohol dehydrogenase, but proportionally speaking, the ratio of how much alcohol dehydrogenase per unit of body mass Abraxans make is probably similar enough to the ratio of how much alcohol dehydrogenase per unit of body mass mundane horses make. If no other explanation is simple enough, perhaps Abraxans do indeed make disproportionately more alcohol dehydrogenase. Then the question becomes how much more do they need?
107* How much alcohol is in single-malt whiskey and other alcoholic sources that horses have gotten into? Horses drunk off of fermented apples are [[https://allnaturalpetcare.com/blog/2011/09/19/fermenting-apples-ethanol-poisoningpets-horses-cattle/ actually suffering from ethanol poisoning]], and ethanol is NOT the same thing as the alcohol found in single-malt whiskey. Apparently alcohol dehydrogenase doesn't deal so well with ethanol. Beer is 4.5% alcohol, single-malt whiskey is 40% alcohol.
108* How much single-malt whiskey are the Abraxans consuming? The Practical Horse Man Magazine article was assuming the horses were drinking beer ''in addition to'' water, ''not'' as a substitute for water. Given that and the higher alcohol content of single-malt whiskey, however much liquid the Abraxans are consuming still has them consume much more alcohol than what the Practical Horse Man Magazine article ran calculations for. Even if horses don't get drunk easily, even if Abraxans are much bigger than other horses, isn't it still problematic if the ''only'' thing they drink is a drink with 40% alcohol content?
109* If the Abraxans only drink single-malt whiskey, then where are their alternate sources of hydration? How much water is in their food? Enough to make it a soup or stew or mash or something?
110[[/folder]]
111
112[[folder:Bear Witness to Death]]
113* How can Harry see the Thestrals? In the book, Harry has his eyes closed when Cedric is killed because his scar put him in so much pain. He only saw the green light of Avada Kedavra through his eyelids and then opened his eyes to see Cedric dead.
114** Strictly speaking, the rule is you can see Thestrals if you've seen ''death'', not someone getting killed. Looking at a dead body (perhaps a recently deceased body) is all it takes.
115** WordOfGod: [[TranslationYes Oops]].
116** It's assumed he'd seen either his father or mother die. Is that not the case?
117** No. James died downstairs, and WordOfGod says he was inside his crib and didn't see Lily die, only heard her.
118** Not to mention the fact that if this was true, he would have been able to see the Thestrals all through his time at Hogwarts up to that point. Fairly sure it says in the last book that he was standing in his crib, watching what was going on, though.... but in any case, Word of God says you can only see the Thestrals if you have seen death while old enough to understand what this means. One-year old Harry would have been too young to understand fully at that time.
119** He saw the Basilisk get killed in Chamber Of Secrets, and it was never explicitly stated that you have to see ''human'' death.
120** It probably ''has'' to be ''human'' death. Otherwise a lot more people would see the Thestrals, like people who lost pets. Hell, even people who stepped on ants, realized what they did and understood that the ant was crushed to death, would see them. You have to comprehend the meaning of death, as in, along with grief, guilt, permanent loss and whatever else it carries. About the Basilisk, Harry was most definitely glad when the thing died, since it was trying to kill him; he didn't fully comprehend the meaning of it dying, since it meant nothing to him aside from maybe quick relief. Thinking again, some people who lost dear pets would probably also see Thestrals, but then, there was only a handful of students during the class where Hagrid asks who could see them, so who knows, maybe none of them had pets at home.
121** So, if, say, an assassin killed his mark, obviously with no feel of guilt or grief, it wouldn't work, even though he would still perfectly comprehend what death is? "there was only a handful of students during the class where Hagrid asks who could see them" Which doesn't really matter, since Thestrals pull the carriages with the newcomers, and yet apparently noone ever sees them. Presumably because they didn't exist until they were needed in this book.
122** To the above, he could, if he understands that he took away a life. Not that he has to feel anything towards the victim in itself, but the concept of loss that comes with death would have to be there, probably. That's just an interpretation though. "Which doesn't really matter, since Thestrals pull the carriages with the newcomers, and yet apparently noone ever sees them." Yet apparently none ''of Harry's mates or classmates'' see them, you mean, right? Not like Harry actually goes around socializing with people from other Houses in the carriages, or that we see him doing so until Luna arrives and the subject comes up.
123** Seeing creepy bat-winged horses that nobody else does, like hearing a voice hissing in the Hogwarts corridors, isn't exactly something you go around boasting about among casual acquaintances. Neither is something as personal as whether you saw your mother die when you were little. Sure, if ''Ron or Hermione'' had attended a grandparent's funeral or whatever, Harry would've probably heard all about them well before Year Five, but it just happened that neither of his close personal confidantes had seen death before either.
124** To get back to Harry and the Thestrals, yes he had is eyes closed for the actual moment of death but he was with Cedric before and after. He saw Cedric's body lying on the ground, touched the body, took it back with him, didn't want to leave it, etc. Harry was certainly seeing and experiencing the effects of death. He also had traumatic dreams about Cedric all summer. In fact this might explain why he didn't see them at the end of year four. He would have had he actually seen the moment of death (then again maybe not as he had a lot on his mind and may not have noticed the Thestrals in any event) but the grieving and trauma process brought them in visibility slowly.
125[[/folder]]
126
127[[folder:Seeing Thestrals]]
128
129* Speaking of Thestrals, why doesn't Harry see them at the end of this book? Harry explicitly takes the carriages down to the Hogwarts express to leave, still describing them as 'horseless'.
130** Hhonestly, this had been discussed to death but [[WordOfGod JK]] said that she was originally going to have him see them, but realized that would create an unnecessary cliffhanger for the next book. So instead she delayed it until the start of the next book, and made Harry be in shock and not understand the death enough to see them until after the summer.
131** At some point JK stated you had to process seeing death before you could see thestrals. At the and of book four Harry is still grieving and hasn't fully processed Cedric's death, so he can't see them jet. Then next year he has moved on and has finished processing Cedric's death, so now he can see them.
132** And in the lesson on Thestrals, Hermione only says that they're seen by people who have "seen death". She doesn't go into specifics like "they'll appear the second someone is seen dying". Given that psychology is a relatively modern concept that wizards haven't likely copped onto, there's probably a lot of research that needs to be done on what point Thestrals will appear to someone who has recently seen death.
133[[/folder]]
134
135[[folder:Bumping into Thestrals]]
136
137* Speaking of Thestrals yet again... How is it possible that of all the dozens of children boarding the carriages every year, absolutely nobody managed to either hear them, smell them, or bump into them? There should've been tons of freaking out and "Ohmigod there's an invisible horse here, this is so cool, guys check this out, an invisible horse!"
138** It may be a case where you have to ''know'' they're there to be able to feel them. Otherwise, you pass through them as though they were ghosts. If you can see them, you obviously know they're there. If someone tells you they're there, and you believe them, you know that they're there and can touch them.
139** That WOULD make sense if the beasts didn't carry quite tangible carriages and eat equally tangible meat. So no, they are not ethereal in any way, just invisible.
140** And the kids who haven't seen them DO touch them. They even rode them to the Ministry of Magic in the 5th book when only Harry, Luna, and Neville could see them.
141** Well, when Harry first encountered the carriages in the third book, didn't it say he presumed they were being pulled by invisible horses?
142** He actually didn't, he said horseless. In fact, right after he first sees the Thestrals, he wonders why they would put these beasts in when the carriages were supposedly capable of movement on their own.
143** Even regular, good-natured horses can accidentally hurt humans who come too near their hooves unexpectedly. The teachers surely take care that none of the students get too close to the thestrals, knowing that most of them won't perceive the potential danger.
144** Thestals are good natured horses. And whose to say kids are not bumping into them every once and while. A kid got saved by mermaids in this very book and didn't know exactly what had happened to him. Potter assumed it was the giant squid that saved him but later saw a messaged left by the mermaids that they chase the giant squid away so people in the water do not have to deal with it. Something just hits! Oh, ghosts and poltergeists, both of which can become invisible to witches/wizards, haunt this castle. Further research would reveal nope, thestral, but there is still a rational explanations if one does not look deeper.
145** Doubtful that an invisible horse at a school of wizards, who face weirder things while gardening, would really draw that much attention.
146** Maybe other students did know about them. It's just Harry only finds out in his fifth year and never bothered to ask.
147** Okay, when you ride in a carriage pulled by a horse, you don't generally touch the horse if all you're doing is getting in and out of the carriage. The horses are to the front, and generally not close enough that someone might accidentally bump into them on their way in and out of the door (which might frighten the animal and cause an accident).
148[[/folder]]
149
150[[folder:There's feints, and then there's ''Wronski'' Feints.]]
151* The big deal over the Wronski Feint is always annoying, because didn't Harry do that in Prisoner of Azkaban? Whether if it was against Cho or Draco, but to distinctly remember that someone kept following him during the game, so he took a fake dive to shake them off.
152** That was a feint, but presumably not a ''Wronski'' Feint. The Wronski Feint is getting your opponent to follow closely behind you, pulling up at the last possible second, and allowing your opposing Seeker to plow into the ground.
153** Plus, it retro-actively pimps Harry's flying talents. Krum even compliments him in this book on his flying.
154[[/folder]]
155
156[[folder:The Robes From Nowhere]]
157* Where did Ginny get the dress robes she wore at the Yule Ball? She wasn't in the fourth year, so they presumably wouldn't have been included on her equipment list. And if her mother did buy them, wouldn't they have sucked like Ron's?
158** Borrowed them from a girlfriend? Ginny is described as being quite popular in later books, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that she had a friend who wasn't planning to attend whose dress robes she could squeeze into.
159** Also, teenage girls take dresses and proms and the like very seriously. It's possible that she has saved up for formal wear in the past.
160** Or, because formal wear for women is much more popular/taken seriously, maybe there were more options available second-hand for Ginny's.
161** The second-hand theory is most likely borne out in the films. Whereas most of the other girls are wearing brand new silk or satin gowns, Ginny is wearing a cotton dress/gown hybrid that, while probably not second hand, could easily come off the rack as opposed to being something custom fitted.
162** She could simply have asked her mother to alter one of ''her'' old dress gowns, if she still had any laying around. With magic, the alteration could even have been merely temporary.
163** Hogsmeade, le duh.
164** Honestly, the thing that makes heads scratch is not the provenance of Ginny's robes, but rather why no one thought to use Transfiguration on Ron's, or why fourth years didn't get a a week of special instruction in Transfiguration taught by the Wizarding World's equivalent of Tim Gunn rather than being made to buy dress robes. Hell, the fact that the Yule Ball was a surprise to students is a headscratcher in itself.
165** The Yule Ball being a surprise to the students is actually a really good point. If someone was told before the beginning of the school year to go out and buy a tuxedo for no reason, they probably wouldn't do it.
166** Also, Ron has exactly one friend who's good enough at transfiguration to actually help with his robes like that -- Hermione. And given how badly Ron flubbed up the job of asking Hermione to the Yule Ball, he's definitely not getting any help from that direction anytime soon. (Now why Molly didn't transfigure the damn things themselves before sending them on is a question, but we're never given any indication that Molly Weasley has a functioning fashion sense, so it might just be a function of Molly having horrible taste in clothes. The Weasley knitted jumpers aren't exactly triumphs of clothing design either.)
167** Actually, Ron does try to modify his robes with magic, and even semi-succeeds! It's implied that this is the best job he can do:
168---> In a desperate attempt to make them look more manly, he used a Severing Charm on the ruff and cuffs. It worked fairly well; at least he was now lace-free, although he hadn't done a very neat job, and the edges still looked depressingly frayed as the boys set off downstairs.
169** There is a fair chance it ''was'' on her equipment list. While the fourth-years and up could freely attend the ball without being invited by someone older, they weren't obliged to (unless they were Tournament Champions, but the fourth-years would (legally) be too young for that), but they still had dress robes on their list in ''case'' they wanted to attend. Maybe the same went for the younger students: "In case, you are invited to the Yule Ball by an older student, you may want to buy some dress robes".
170** How often do we see the characters reading the lists that are sent out aside from the book list? They likely assume that, having bought their stuff first year, all they need to do is replace anything that has gotten worn out/broken over the summer, and buy the new books. Worst case, between Apparation, Flooing, and the owls who can deliver packages within a few days, there isn't likely to be a crisis if they forget to pack something that they needed.
171** An alternate interpretation - Molly's funds were tight when she bought Ron's because it was coming up to the start of the school year, and she had books and other supplies to buy for the rest of the children too (Ron, the twins and Ginny). By the time of the Yule Ball - which appears to be announced in November - Molly's able to get her daughter a set because it's just her and Arthur in the house and money isn't as tight.
172** Doesn't Ginny also say she didn't expect she'd be able to go? She was surprised when Neville asked her - so it sounds like Molly got her dress robes much later. Either buying a new set quickly, or altering one of her old gowns.
173** Room of Requirement--teen girls' dress department.
174[[/folder]]
175
176[[folder:Oh dear, wizard genetics.]]
177* Colin Creevey was established as a Muggleborn; he was attacked by the basilisk and talked about how his parents were all shocked and excited that he was a wizard. What are the chances that his brother Dennis is also a wizard? It doesn't run in generations like that, else Petunia would be a witch like her sister. Is it just a weird coincidence?
178** [[http://mypocketshurt90.tumblr.com/post/27495622491/i-sent-this-paper-to-jk-rowling-explaining-how-the This brilliant and nerdishly scientific explanation of wizarding genes in the HP universe says that both Creevey brothers being magical is possible but it's possible that there has been a case of false paternity.]]
179** On the contrary, Petunia may be the odd one out and it does run in families. Alternatively, keep in mind Petunia is the older sibling, and we're not told if Colin's the oldest sibling in his family. Maybe it skips the first sibling? [[AWizardDidIt It's magic, it doesn't need to make sense]].
180** But Hermione's an only child and she's a witch. And if we're not trying to make sense out of everything, what's the point in even having this page?
181** Punnett square genetics. If M=muggle and m=wizard with m as the recessive gene, you have a 1/4 chance of two Mm parents having a child that is mm. Assuming the events are independent, the same is true for any following siblings.
182** Rowling says that the wizarding gene is dominant, but all that proves is that she doesn't know how genetics works.
183** Dominant with variable penetrance would work, and would explain how pureblood families could produce squibs.
184** What's wrong with wizarding being a dominant gene? You have to explain what you mean. Some people don't know what you are talking about.
185** In a nutshell, dominance means that the trait will show even with one allele (so if magic is a dominant gene, anyone with the genotype Mm or MM would have magic, but mm would be a muggle). Muggles cannot ever have a wizard child if magic is dominant, because both parents would have to be mm while the kid would be Mm; the M has to come from either parent, and if either parent had it, they would be a wizard too.
186** Except this in itself only proves that magic is not dependent on simple Mendelian genetics. Reverse it so that the dominant M means muggle, and Squibs automatically disprove that.
187** True but Squibs are noted to be much rarer than Muggle-borns. It's the equivalent of two blonde parents having a brown-haired child, whereas it's more likely for two brown-haired parents to have a blonde child because they could both be carriers since blonde hair is recessive. So being a Squib could be a random and therefore, fairly uncommon, mutation.
188** Why would Petunia be a witch? Even if wizarding is a dominant gene, then the chances would be that about 75% of people in wizarding families would get it.
189** Could be that one or both of their parents were Squibs from a line of both, so long they never knew they were of wizarding stock, and it took this long for the genetic dice to roll "wizard" again.
190** It's kind of assumed that Squibs have the Mm genetic sequence.
191** This would make sense, as then two people with the Mm sequence would be able to produce a magical child (mm), a Squib (Mm), or a full Muggle (MM). This does rely on magic being recessive, and for mutations to occur to produce a Squib. This would also make Squibs carriers of the magic gene.
192** Alternatively, there is the possibility that squibs do possess the necessary magic genes but those genes are simply defective; i.e. cystic fibrosis, where the gene is still present but has some kind of alteration that makes it unusable. This would make more sense; if all squibs are Mm then that would mean that it would be impossible for half-blood children to be magical, because Mm is all they could get (if they had a full muggle parent and a full magic parent they would only get an M from one and an m from the other- they would all be squibs).
193** If one has studied basic genetics for school, and have spent a year overthinking this, only to come to one conclusion: "It's magic, stop questioning it before your Muggle brain melts." (This is also applicable when talking about conservation of matter to do with Transfiguration, and pretty much everything else in HP - it's magic, that's the point.)
194** It could also be multiple alleles, like eye color.
195** True. It works if there's one gene whose dominant allele grants magical powers, but a different, recessive gene that can ''suppress'' them. Muggleborns would be the offspring of Muggles, one of whom has both alleles for suppressing magic as well as the magic-promoting allele, and the other of whom lacks the suppressor allele. (This would mean that one or the other of the Creevy boys' parents only missed out on being born magical because of the suppressor gene.) Squibs could be the offspring of wizard parents who are heterozygous for one or both genes.
196** Alternative explanation: JK Rowling hasn't studied punnett square genetics and mistakenly said the gene was dominant and now we're hell bent on trying to explain it. Had she known how recessive genes work in Mendelian genetic she probably would have said it was recessive.
197** There's the reminder of Liquid Snake's nonsensical explanation of ''dominant'' and ''recessive'' genes from VideoGame/MetalGearSolid.
198** Punnett square genetic would suggest that magic is recessive and parents of Muggle-borns are carriers and that being a Squib is due to random mutation which is why it's so "unusual". But, this doesn't fit with most of the wizarding world being half-bloods. It is suggested that the child of a wizard/witch and a Muggle is almost sure to be magical, which is why even a non-magical child with one magical and one non-magical parent is called a Squib. So Mendelian genetics doesn't explain it either way.
199** What a nice idea on the suppressor gene idea. Trinucleotide repeats are another explanation (Look up Huntingon's disease). Variable penetrance is problematic because it gives some validation to the Death Eater ideas about pure-bloods being the best wizards and Muggle-borns being the worst which is shown in the story to be BS. The other explanation of course is that it's a story and doesn't have to make sense although IT IS fun to discuss. :D
200** Mendelian inheritance may be taught as a basic high-school level crash course in genetics, but that just serves to cause more misinformation and false assumptions than anything else. Not to sound condescending here, but insisting something is impossible or wrong because it doesn't conform to Mendelian laws [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2475 makes you look really uneducated.]] A few tropers have already mentioned some various mechanisms that can allow for random-yet-common mutations to occur sporadically, but the idea that fits HP the best is epigenetics. Meaning, a random but heritable change to the DNA structure (that's simplifying it, but bear with this.) With fate and odd magic laws, a child conceived by Muggles that is "meant" to have magic, or spends enough time near magic(?), can acquire this change early enough in development to maintain the magic. However, the change is not a "normal" alteration that can be detected or replicated in a lab like methylation or deacetylation, it's a magical change. Same thing with squibs in reverse: Random chance or issues in early development (like using strong potions/Firewhisky or being hit by a curse in early pregnancy for instance) might mess with that DNA structure too.
201** There was the impression that squib refers only to muggles born of pure blood wizards. Word of God states the Gilderoy Lockhart, a halfblood (witch mother, muggle father) has two elder muggle sisters, indicating that they are not called squibs. It is never mentioned that they are half sisters. Pureblooded wizards are mentioned to be incredibly inbred and the genetic mutation of a squib becomes more common down the road. Those squibs have children who have children who eventually produce a muggleborn wizard. It is not impossible that two muggles could produce more than one wizard child. Although it is unlikely it is not an impossible thing. In fact if both the of Colin and Dennis Creevey's parents had a squib ancestor then producing two muggleborn children seems pretty likely. But if only one parent had a squib ancestor then it seems more likely that not all their children would be muggleborns. Who knows maybe if the Evans had more children they'd have had another wizard. Maybe if the Grangers had another child it may have been a wizard or a muggle.
202** When talking about the final book, specifically the epilogue, Rowling mentioned she considered having Dudley there with a wizard/witch child of his own but then decided that magic wouldn't survive contact with Vernon's genes. While a joke it may imply that there's not just a Magic gene and a Muggle gene but there may also be an Anti-Magic gene that prevents magic from manifesting even when it should, which would explain where Squibs come from.
203** Perhaps it's just a gene that's easily mutated.
204** No one thought this possibility? Both Lily and Petunia are witches (because it jump a generation) but Petunia is a Squib. Though as said before culturally she's not consider one as the term is generally applied to children of purebloods.
205** ...What? Lily is a Muggleborn witch--both of her parents are muggles. A Squib is a person born in a magical family with no magical abilities of their own. That's what makes them so unique in the wizarding world--by your logic, all Muggles would have to be Squibs. If Petunia doesn't have magic, it doesn't make her a Squib, it just makes her a Muggle like her parents.
206** To be fair, we don't encounter a lot of Muggle Borns with siblings in the series. Hermione was meant to have a sister but she was dropped from the story (the sister would have been Muggle). So for the sake of argument, here are a few fun theories: a) the genetics argument is 100% valid and Dennis is Colin's adopted brother, also a wizard by pure coincidence, b) the magic gene does not obey the laws of science and does whatever it wants, which is how Lily can be a witch and not Petunia and both Creeveys can be wizards, c) the magic manifests in every child born after one who has it; Petunia is older than Lily and so Lily was the first in the family, and if they'd had another sibling, they would have gotten magic too; d) JK Rowling forgot Colin was a Muggle-Born and gave him a brother without thinking how that would work.
207** Why has this devolved to discussions about applying Mendelian genetics to magic and suggestions that Petunia might be a Squib or witch when it was clearly established that her parents were both Muggles? It seems the answer is quite simple and logical. When two Muggle parents have a child, there's a small chance the child will be magical. We can assume that if a couple has multiple children, each child's chance being magical are independent of its siblings chances, since it's never stated that a Muggle couple can never have more than one magical child. Thus, it's perfectly possible (though extremely unlikely) for two Muggle parents to have more than one magical child, which explains why Colin and Dennis are both wizards while Lily is a witch and Petunia a Muggle.
208** It could be that Wizarding genetics was the result of a combination of genes. The Wizarding gene could be dominant but controlled by another gene that either turns it on or off, which is also dominant. For Wizards, they have a dominant Wizard gene and a recessive switch gene. Muggle-borns have a dominant Wizard gene, but their parents passed down the recessive switch gene. This is how two Petunia and Lily could be different. It could also be that the switch gene could be defective in certain wizard-borns and it results in it becoming turned on, resulting in Squibs.
209[[/folder]]
210
211[[folder:Chain of Memory]]
212* How does the Pensieve work? Supposedly, there are basically two different ways it could be interpreted:
213** 1.Dumbledore says that it helps when he has too many thoughts and memories crammed into his mind. So it suggests that you could put your thought or memory in the Pensieve and it wouldn't be in your head anymore. The fact that Snape used to put his worst memory in it to avoid Harry seeing it suggest the same. But if that's true, does it mean, that you forget the whole event when you put your memory in it? 'cause if it's not in your head, you've forgotten it. And if that's true, does it mean that Slughorn doesn't remember anything about talking to Riddle about Horcruxes?
214** Which in turn begs the question of why didn't he remove that memory long ago if he's so ashamed of it. Unlike Snape, he doesn't look like [[TheAtoner a masochistic type who would willingly torture himself by dwelling over his guilt]].
215** It's not self-torture. It's a reminder of what happens [[KnightTemplar when he becomes power hungry]].
216** 2.One could think, that when you put your memory in Pensieve, or just extract it from your head, you're just creating a copy of it, while leaving the original in your head. But if so, why does Snape bother to put it in Pensieve?
217** Oh, and about "moving freely in Memories"-thing... Just how are the people visiting the memories able to see/hear/visit the thing the author of the memory couldn't have possibly seen/heard? As an example, in Snape's worst memory, Harry hears and sees the Marauders talking about/doing stuff, while the Author of the memory is far away and doesn't look at them/listen to them talking. Does that mean that if the memory is long enaugh, you could just go to a completely diferent room and see what people were doing during the time of the memory? May be go to the Ministry of Magic and learn some secrets, which were discussed at that point, or go to girl's locker room and watch them naked? How does it work?
218** The book does mention that Harry stays in sight of Snape the whole time. Also, it's entirely likely that Snape did hear (at least subconsciously) what the Marauder's were saying, he just filtered it out as background noise. Doesn't mean his mind didn't still record it. The human brain is an amazing thing. There's about a guy with DID, and one of his personalities could only speak Hungarian, even though the dominant personality couldn't speak any Hungarian at all. He had some Hungarian co-workers, and the assumption was that his subconscious mind picked up on their conversations and learned some phrases that way.
219** OK, it could be so with hearing stuff, but what about seing? You know, like seing what James is doing while Snape is reading and not watching him. If it works that way, one could just use Pensieve to see the stuff that happened around you but couldn't see. For example, what your classmate was writing in his letter while sitting in front of you or something like that.
220** WordOfGod says that the Pensieve is more than just a memory storer, it allows people to actually "return" to a certain point in time in which they were present. Creator/JKRowling's reasoning is that subconsciously, everyone is aware of everything around them more or less, but it's not that she thought it through straight down to being 360 degree total awareness. Chalk this up as a mistake on her part.
221** OK, but it would make much more sense for the memories being seen from the [=PoV=] of their owner.
222** On the original point, lets say a middle ground: you still have the memory, but it is put to the back of your mind so someone is less likely to see it and it bothers you less.
223*** Or possibly: putting the memory in the Pensieve ''does'' erase it from your mind, but odds are if it's a memory worth storing, there are other memories pointing to what happened. For the Slughorn example: if he took the memory of the Riddle encounter out, he won't remember the encounter itself, but ''will'' remember all the guilt he felt after the fact. Or with Snape, he might not remember the encounter with the Marauders, but he will remember going see Lily later that night to apologize for calling her a Mudblood. Dumbledore might not remember the encounter that ended up with Arianna dead, but remembers that it was his and G's fault.
224** To remember when Harry goes into Snape's memory, he hopes that Snape remains in the same area as the teenage Marauders so he can still overhear them. If Snape hadn't been near them, he wouldn't have been able to really experience their conversation. Dumbledore also uses the Pensieve to study events he was there for to get a different perspective than his own - so it's a memory of an event the person witnessed, but from a neutral perspective.
225* As for how you remember it when the memory is out--you may remember ''that'' the event happened, but not the specifics. For example, like putting someone's college graduation in a Penseive, they wouldn't forget that they'd graduated college. They just wouldn't remember any details of the event. So Snape can remember that he got bullied by the Marauders, maybe even that he called her a you-know-what, but he won't remember anything else about it.
226[[/folder]]
227
228[[folder:The most loyal Death Eater? Sure Crouch. Sure.]]
229* A lot of fuss is made in this book that Barty Crouch Jr. was one of the only Death Eaters who truly remained loyal to Voldemort, never renouncing him, but wait, hold the phone! God knows he ''tried'' his damndest to renounce Voldemort when he was on trial! The only real difference between him and the likes of Lucius was that Lucius got away with serving Voldemort and Crouch Jr. didn't. This is opposed to Bellatrix, for instance, who basically laughs off her Azakaban sentence, while the other two present don't really react at all. As for helping Voldemort regain his body? That was when serving Voldemort seemed like it could pan out again, just like the other Death Eaters who returned at the end of the book.
230** Crouch, Jr. probably just has a bad case of MoralMyopia and it's possible that Voldemort only has his account to go on. Besides, he was pretty well prevented from doing anything until Voldemort rescued him. It's possible that he would have gone back to looking for Voldemort if the Ministry had bought his story. No, that's not necessarily so, but the point is Death Eaters like Lucius had opportunities to look for Voldemort which Crouch, Jr. didn't have.
231** It's assumed that lying/infiltration/spying has always been Crouch Jr's talent, and his vehement protests at the trial were a pre-approved attempt to retain his not-a-Death-Eater credentials. It would explain why Bellatrix didn't turn on him despite her contempt for those who betrayed their loyalty.
232** That makes a certain amount of sense. If the son of one of your greatest enemies has joined you, what's the most logical assignment to give him? Send him to spy on his father, of course.
233** He never renounced V - he just cried to his father to spare him. Which was either a normal reaction of a young man about to be cast into hell, or a performance aimed at avoiding punishment and remaining free where he could serve his master.
234** As opposed to Wormtail, who found Voldemort out of fear and a desire for protection - Barty Jr sought him out for no reason other than to serve him. He literally fought off the Imperius Curse, cast the Dark Mark in his name, impersonated someone for a year, and killed his own father for the sake of their plan. So Voldemort did see Barty Jr as one of his most loyal followers.
235[[/folder]]
236
237[[folder:The odd couple]]
238* Okay, so Hagrid's mother is a giantess while he father was a rather small man...how does that work? How would they even...or is it better off not knowing?
239** Engorgio. In the opposite case, maybe Alohamora.
240** "[[BrainBleach Somebody, please, Obliviate me]]."
241** You know, there's a fanfic series in which Harry gets TheTalk from various characters. [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2562768/1/A_New_Kind_of_Horrible One of them]] features Hagrid telling Harry and Draco how giants and humans mate:
242--->''"Now if the man is a giant, and the woman is a human, then it is real painful fer her, as she is so small an' he is so big. Most of the time the woman will die givin' birth, cause the baby is too big. Sometimes the woman will die during sex, cause the man is too big. [[{{Squick}} Do yeh know what I mean by too big?]]"\
243[[TooMuchInformation "Yes." yelled Draco and Harry at once]], both terrified that he might go into greater detail if he thought they had doubts.''
244[[/folder]]
245
246
247[[folder:'''GASP!''' It's an Invisibility Cloak!!!]]
248* Why does nobody react to Barty Crouch Jr.'s revelation that his family has an Invisibility Cloak? In Deathly Hallows, it is rather important that Harry has one -- and in fact, his is revealed to be the ''only'' "real" one. Crouch's cloak seems to work just like Harry's. It smells of {{Retcon}}.
249** To recall, they mention in the first book that Harry's cloak was unique in that it produced total invisibility and never faded. Other cloaks exist, but they're pale knockoffs.
250** Alternatively, the person could have bought several Invisibility Cloaks. Seems expensive, but then since Crouch Sr. is a high-up official, he could have access to the confiscated Invisibility Cloaks used by criminals. Or perhaps he could re-enchant the same cloak? If he's powerful enough to use the Imperius Curse for a long period of time, perhaps he could have made his Invisibility Cloaks last longer, too.
251** Yeah, Invisibility Cloaks are rare but far from unheard of. In ''Deathly Hallows'', it wasn't important that Harry had one; it's that he had one for so long without it fading. Harry's has been in use at ''least'' since James was a kid, and any other Invisibility Cloak would have turned opaque over that much time.
252** What Xenophilius Lovegood describes says that a regular invisibility cloak is woven from Demiguise hair or has a charm cast on it, both of which fade with time. Harry's has been passed down through his family for generations (he's descended from the third Peverell brother).
253[[/folder]]
254
255[[folder:Seeing through the cloak]]
256* How about the obvious plothole: How in the heck did Barty Crouch Jr. manage to see through Harry's Invisibility Cloak anyway? Besides the Unholy Power of the RetCon?
257** How on Earth is that a plothole? It's explained in the scene when Harry's in the Three Broomsticks with Hermione while hiding under his cloak that Moody's eye can see through them.
258*** When the real Moody first lost his natural eye and had to have a prosthesis enchanted, he knew very well that illusions and invisibility left him vulnerable to surprise attack. It's hard to say what he did as a work-around, but it clearly doesn't require unbroken line of sight (he can see through solid objects), so it's clearly not based on light. (Though it works much as if it did: "Nice socks, Potter.")
259** It was likely a reference to the aforementioned revelation that Harry's cloak is the only "real" one, i.e. "completely" impenetrable and everlasting. Retcon or not, there isn't THAT much of a plothole since it's also stated that the Hallows while powerful are NOT as 100% infallible as the legends claim: after all, the "unbeatable" wand was beaten at least once, right? Ergo, even Harry's Legendary Cloak of Invisibility +5 could be penetrated by SOMETHING.
260** Concurring with the above point. Considering it's a setting where magic ''actually'' exists, Rowling has a fondness for imbuing her characters with a MagicFeather mentality (see also: the self-fulfilling nature of prophesies, Harry's non-use of Felix Felicis on Ron in ''Half-Blood Prince''), the assumption that nothing can surmount the Hallows is probably another symptom of this. Moody's eye being able to see through the cloak is probably a weird case of MugglesDoItBetter, where "muggle" in this case is "wizard living in more modern age".
261** It's also possible that he ''didn't,'' but just deduced it's existence. Consider the following hypothetical situation (or something like it): Ron and Hermione are sitting at the table, with a person-sized gap in between. Three tankards are sitting in front of them. Ron and Hermione are usually seen with Harry, who's not exactly the most rule-abiding of folks. Gee, what could the explanation possibly be?
262[[/folder]]
263
264[[folder:Ya know those armies of Voldemort we kept mentioning? Yeah, they actually have a formal name that we never bothered to share.]]
265* How come Harry doesn't hear the term "Death Eater" until this book? You'd think what Voldemort's followers call themselves would be one of the first things Hagrid would have mentioned when telling Harry his history back in the first book. Even if Hagrid did decide to leave that out/didn't think to mention it, you would at least think that sometime during ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]'', Harry would have heard someone refer to Sirius Black as a Death Eater. It's almost like everyone was in on some kind of conspiracy of "we can't use the word 'Death Eater' because Harry doesn't know it yet."
266** Same as the absence of the term "Auror" when it would have made sense for them to apprehend Sirius rather than "Hit-Wizards", this is just an example of Rowling not planning every minor detail of the books ahead of time. She likely didn't think about or decide on the name "Death Eater" until she had finished Prisoner and was writing Goblet.
267** They said that only Hit Wizards can stand against Sirius. Maybe they are elite compared to regular Aurors.
268** One figured that Hit Wizards were special Aurors used by Crouch, Sr. specifically to ''eliminate'' dark wizards rather than bring them in. Considering that Crouch Sr. was said to have become as ruthless as some on the dark side, it wouldn't be all that surprising to learn that he had a group of dark wizard killers in addition to normal dark wizard hunters.
269** [[http://www.hp-lexicon.org/ministry/auror.html Hit-Wizards]] are sent after particularly dangerous criminals, where Aurors are explicitly dark wizard catchers. Compare local and county police, who would be called in on a murder or robbery, to state police and the feds, who go after larger-scale criminals and serial killers. Likewise, they never refer to Sirius Black as a Death Eater because even the idiots at the Ministry could lift up his sleeve and see he doesn't have a Dark Mark. Assuming that Pettigrew's explosion spell wasn't Dark (it was very likely just a high powered Reducto), they would have had no reason to call in Aurors on him. It wasn't until later, after Peter's accusation and Dumbledore's release that Sirius was supposedly the Secret Keeper, that he was believed to be a Voldemort supporter and not just insane. Why they thought he was Voldemort's right hand man, considering that he wasn't Marked, is anyone's guess.
270** Does the Ministry even know the Death Eaters have the Mark? When Snape showed his to Fudge to try to convince him Voldemort was back, he ''also'' had to explain what it was, who gave it to him, and how it worked. And Fudge still looked at him like he had three heads...and each head was spouting gibberish.
271** It's possible just that Snape told him how the Mark worked as proof that he really has returned, what with the Mark being visibly affected by Voldemort's call, and that Fudge simply had more of a problem with Voldemort's actual return and not the existence of the Marks.
272
273[[/folder]]
274
275[[folder:Hogwarts's Teleportation Loopholes]]
276* So you can't Dis/Apparate in or out of Hogwarts, but you can use a Portkey? It can't work like Floo, because Floo is stated to be a NETWORK, which needs established stations, but Portkeys just seem to work to teleport people around.
277** Even then, it seems to be an iffy situation, as we only see it happening with the Cup (not inside the castle itself) and when Dumbledore makes them. So it's possible that wards preventing their use were removed for the third task to transport the winner out of the maze, but it was hijacked for another use (or Portkeys are stopped inside the castle only). It's also likely that only the headmaster can make Portkeys that work in and near Hogwarts.
278** Not true. While under the influence of Veritaserum, fake Moody said that he ''turned'' the Cup into a Portkey. Not modified the existing Portkey enchantment, he specifically said that he turned the Cup into a Portkey before placing it in the maze.
279** But in HBP, Harry heard Dumbledore muttering some spells to take the protective charms off the walls of Hogwarts, so it obviously took some time. And even if that were so, didn't fake Moody charm the cup to be a Portkey that would bring Harry to Voldy? Guess Dumbledore might have given him permission to do it, since he trusted Moody and all...
280** It's a very common theory (especially due to the movie) that the Cup was meant to be a Portkey from the center of the maze to the start. Thus, if there were wards over the grounds for Portkeys, they were taken down in advance. It's just that fake Moody charmed it to take a detour along the way when he placed it in the center of the maze.
281** According to what he said in the book when questioned under Veritaserum, it wasn't a Portkey until he enchanted it.
282** Crouch Jr. might've only thought he turned the the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey because he didn't know the organizers had done it already. Veritaserum only makes you tell the truth from your point of view, after all. That could also explain why the Cup wasn't immediately destroyed after Harry and Cedric were sent to the graveyard; neither Wormtail no Voldemort knew it could be used to go back to the maze entrance. Dumbledore might've taken down some of the protective charms on the Hogwarts school grounds for that day alone to allow the Triwizard Cup Portkey to work for the Third Task.
283** Considering that when the Portkey returned Harry and Dead!Diggory, it returned them not to the point of departure - in the centre of the maze - but to the grounds of Hogwarts, well outside the maze, assuming that the Cup was indeed meant to be a portkey, and that all Fake Moody did was divert the Portkey to Voldy first, assuming that no one would survive to make the legitimate trip after the graveyard...
284** Hogwarts has a shedload of ancient wards and shields surrounding it, whch can only be bypassed by the headmaster. With the cup, DD enchanted it so it could pass the wards. This enchantment is applied to the cup itself, not an addition to the portus. DD himself added that enchantment ''and the first portus to take the winner outside the maze.'' Fake Moody could not lift the first portus as it was done by DD. He simply added on a second portus which activated first.
285** Why is everyone assuming that DD did that? The Triwizard is ''old''. If the Cup can bypass the wards, or was let into the wards deliberately, that probably happened centuries ago, especially if the traditional last task is 'put everyone in one place, winner is the one who grab the cup first'. In fact, someone grabbing the cup after the task start might signify the 'legal' end to the magically binding contract everyone is in. And each Triwizard someone is supposed to program a logical destination into the cup for the winner. (This would obviously change from year to year...you wouldn't want the winner of a Triwizard to appear at the Quidditch stands if the last task was a three-way duel in the Great Hall, or whatever.) Fake Moody did just one of two things:
286** Cast a portkey in front of the existing one, somehow. So the 'victory' portkey didn't trigger until the second touch. In this hypothetical, the Triwizard wasn't over until the ''second'' time Harry touched it, making Harry alone the actual winner. This requires the 'Hogwart ward override' to be part of the Cup, instead of part of the 'winner Portkey spell', which makes the cup a rather large security risk. If any Portkey cast on the thing can avoid the wards it raise the question of why Fake Moody didn't just hunt Harry down and throw the cup at him at the start of the year.
287** Or he reprogrammed the winner destination like normal, like happens every year. Which means Harry and Cedric did, legally, tie, as the Triwizard was over the second they touched it the first time. This makes the cup more secure if it can only go through the wards during the third task, and can possibly only take contestants. However, it makes it hard to explain why it returned.
288** No, he specifically says that the Goblet wasn't a Portkey until he enchanted it to be one while they were questioning him under Veritaserum.
289** Possible explanation of the return trip: There's some sort of anti-theft system of the cup which thought someone ran off with it. The cup is probably supposed to stay on the campus of the winner between tourneys, so if the tourney is over and the next one hasn't started, and someone is touching it off-campus, bam, Portkey to a known location on the last winner's campus. (Which would be Hogwarts, as the campus of Harry's fictional school does not exist.)
290** Alternate explanation: All Portkeys are bi-directional, or just that one, and the cup was simply trying to return him to the center of the maze. However, Harry had moved the cup at one end, by summoning it, so when he used it, he ended up outside the maze at the other end. (In normal practice, the very first thing the officials would do after the winner shows up would be to erase any destination from the Cup before the winner puts it down.)
291
292[[/folder]]
293
294[[folder:We've got to have... ''mon-'' '''SHUT IT!''']]
295* At one point, after Draco puts down Ron yet again for being poor, Ron says something to the effect of "Arthur could get a promotion any time he wants, he just likes it where he is." Now, you know that money isn't everything, and that the Weasley family's financial situation is supposed to demonstrate that family togetherness is much more important than wealth... but does that strike anyone else as just a teensy bit selfish on Arthur's part? "Oh, I have a wife and ''seven freaking kids'' to take care of, and we can barely make ends meet, and the only reason I can afford to send my younger kids to Hogwarts at all is I have older kids to give them all their old crap, and I ''could'' give my family a better life, but I choose not to because I like tinkering with Muggle artifacts." What?
296** It's Ron saying that, not Arthur. It's not like Molly would let him get away with risking their younger children starving just so he can tinker with his stupid, illegal Muggle toys. It's like "my dad could beat up your dad if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to, so reality will never [[{{Jossed}} joss]] my flimsy justification," but economically.
297** Agreed. Ron was clearly bullshitting.
298** Doesn't Molly even say to Dumbledore at the end of the book, when Dumbledore is sending people people out to recruit members for the Order, that it's always been Arthur's "fondness for Muggles" that has kept him from advancing in the ministry while Fudge is in charge?
299** There are different ways to interpret that. On the one hand, Arthur is holding himself back because he likes working on Muggle-related subjects, or rather because he's known as a Muggle-lover, he's passed up for promotions. That or, like Ron, Molly simply doesn't know exactly why he hasn't been promoted yet.
300** Going back and checking ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]]'', it's actually quite clear that Molly knows exactly why Arthur hasn't received a promotion, and it's not because he doesn't want one. While less hateful and militant than the Malfoys or Voldemort's other direct supporters, Fudge is still a supporter of the ideas of wizard superiority and blood purity.
301--->'''Dumbledore''': Molly, am I right in thinking I can count on you and Arthur?\
302'''Molly''': Of course you can! We know what Fudge is. It's Arthur's fondness for Muggles that has held him back at The Ministry all these years. Fudge thinks he lacks proper wizarding pride.
303** Also, the Weasleys aren't THAT bad off, at least not to the point of starving.
304** Is there any indication that the Wealseys are really struggling to get by? Okay, sure, they don't have enough money for lots and lots of treats (although Arthur and Molly are certainly capable of putting enough money together for a reward for when one of their kids becomes a prefect or something), and yes, they have to subject their kids to the [[SarcasmMode sheer HORROR of wearing second hand clothes!]] But they're supporting seven kids in a pretty big house, plus they often have Harry and Hermione over for the summer, and yet they seem to have enough money and resources to put food on the table every day (and pretty generous portions by the sound of things) and there's no indication that they're in any debt. They seem to get by quite well on what they earn, they're just not greedy for anything that they don't need.
305** To recall in Chamber of Secrets that Harry accompanies the Weaselys to Gringotts and sees Molly literally empty their bank vault, which just about buys their school supplies. Yeah, that'd be struggling.
306** One thing to keep in mind that the main reason the school supplies were such a drain on the Weasleys' resources in ''Chamber of Secrets'' is that Molly and Arthur had to buy five copies of Gilderoy Lockhart's entire library.
307** And next week, in comes Arthur's next paycheck. Sure, they don't have a ''lot'' of money, but there's no indication of debt so far as the eye can see. That money only just paid for school supplies, but they only have to do that once a year. They don't have much, but they have enough to get by.
308** Also keep in mind that the number of Weasleys in the house dwindles through the course of the books. Bill and Charlie have already left home before the series starts, Percy leaves between books four and five, and Fred and George leave during book five. By this point, Arthur and Molly are only supporting two kids and it won't be too long before they leave as well. If Arthur's paycheck can ''just'' cover seven kids in the house, imagine how much money he'll have in reserve once they all leave home. From Arthur's point of view, he's probably thinking: "Why give up the job I love when my kids will have all left home soon and then I'll be able to save up plenty of money for a nice retirement?"
309** Not to mention that ''if you already have food'', you can modify it (including increasing the quantity); it's just that you can't conjure food out of nothing. Hogwarts tuition, books, and supplies are likely to be the biggest bite to the Weasleys' finances, in which case Books 2 and 3 would be the toughest with five students there (Percy in 6th/7th year, the twins in 4th/5th, Ron in 2nd/3rd, and Ginny in 1st/2nd). It's possible that they might have had to dig into savings accounts or something that year.
310** FridgeBrilliance: The Weasleys get by during the 2nd and 3rd year thanks to the windfall they gained in the summer between the years (the decent amount of money they won through the wizard lottery).
311** Also, what expenses do the Weasleys really have for most of the year? No mortgage, It's doubtful they have a utilities bill, and every year another kid takes off for Hogwarts for 9 months, meaning 9 months with one less mouth to feed, dress, and provide for. Extra money can go right into Gringotts, so that they can afford to have times like Lockhart pimping his biography's on the required books list or Ron cracking his wand on their stolen car. Example: At the start of the school year, i.e. when money would be tightest, Ron has to take sandwiches for the ride to Hogwarts. However, when he gets his trip to Hogsmeade, he obviously has spending money to buy candy and butterbeer with.
312** It could be that the Weasleys are perpetually broke. Not homeless, not very hungry, not in debt, not diseased, but broke. They've got all they need but little of what they want because they quickly burn through disposable income. They can stretch money due to not having to directly care for kids most of the year, using magic in house work, using magic to keep the very house together, but that car, it's not getting replaced. The tools will always be the cheap ones. The infestations will never truly be gone. Leaks are constant maintenance because time is cheaper than outright repair. That fishing licensee sounds nice but it is a yearly expense they can't justify when surplus fish is on discount at the end of the week. The gym membership is just a fantasy too. It may get annoying when a band or sporting event just happens to come into town when it can't be afforded, when the richer classmates or employees reveal how much more money they have, when a well liked book series is taking forever to finish because the installments can't be bought as quickly as they come out, but then the Weaselys have a good laugh over a good dinner and forget about it.
313[[/folder]]
314
315[[folder:Tuition]]
316* Um, does Hogwarts even have tuition? One wouldn't think so if anyone from rich pure-blood families (like Malfoy's) or families that are like the Weasly's and are poor, to Muggle-born students like Harry's friend Hermione and his mother. Since there's no mention of a tuition anywhere. Anyway isn't it word of God that there's is a magical quill that writes down the name of any student when they're born that will attend Hogwarts 11-12?
317** Maybe Hogwarts has some sort of financial aid system and Gringott's offers student loans. There's the inclination to think Hogwarts receives some government support, or else why would the Ministry be able to appoint teachers and otherwise meddle in school affairs?
318** That doesn't really count in the Potter series because like Hermione said "The ministry was interfering ar Hogwarts" since the Ministry didn't want Harry or Dumbledore to try to persuade people that Voldemort was back. Also that Fudge was afraid that Albus was going to try to usurp the Minister postion.
319*** Education Decree 22 was passed at the end of the summer vacation in the fifth book that allowed the Ministry to appoint someone to any vacancy that the Headmaster has not found someone for. This allowed them to appoint Umbridge and why Dumbledore was so prepared with Firnze when he knew Trelawney was about to be fired. That decree, and all of the others that were passed during that school year were rescinded after Fudge's humiliation when it became apparent that Voldy was back.
320** Dumbledore tells a young Tom Riddle in HBP that there's a fund that will help him buy books and robes and stuff, albeit probably mostly second-hand. He doesn't mention actual tuition, though.
321** Given how many wizarding families seem to have dwindled away to a single child, of late, Hogwarts probably receives some of its funds as bequests from wizards who die without an heir. Possibly a ''lot'' of its funding in recent times, as the property of Voldemort's victims would've been bequeathed to worthy causes in the absence of a surviving heir, and most wizards are sentimental enough about Hogwarts to leave it some money in their will.
322** WordOfGod states that the Ministry of Magic covers the cost of all magical education.
323** Which makes more sense later, when the book series is already finished, when we learn the possible consequences of a potential ''not'' getting any education in magic, particularly in regards to that ''international'' statute of secrecy.
324
325[[/folder]]
326
327[[folder:Steven Kloves Fails Magic Forever]]
328* When Cedric Diggory and Krum briefly duel in the movie, Cedric nails Krum with an Expelliarmus, the ''disarming'' spell. Krum drops like a sack of potatoes, and Cedric strides over to him and '''kicks Krum's wand out of his hand'''. '''AHHHHHH!!!!!'''
329** Maybe Cedric simply missed, and hit Krum's body instead of his wand, so the spell essentially acted like a blast of force knocking him back and out? Note that in both ''Chamber of Secrets'' and ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' (the books), a powerful Expelliarmus is shown to physically throw a character backwards, so it ''can'' do damage.
330** The OP's problem with the scene wasn't that Expelliarmus physically disables Krum (as you said, it happened in the books on numerous occasions), it was the fact that it hit Krum hard enough to knock him down but still ''failed to disarm him''. In each instance of Expelliarmus hitting someone hard enough to knock them back/over in the books, it also sends their wand flying across the room like it's supposed to.
331** Maybe Krum just had a really good grip on his wand?
332** [[FlatWhat What.]] Every other time, in the books and movies, the spell cast (as long as it hits) did exactly what it was supposed to do (Stupefy stupefies, AK kills, Expelliarmus knocks your weapon out of your hand, etc.) The spell hit Krum dead on: knocking his wand away should have been the very ''least'' it did. The script writers/director/editors were just dumb.
333** Disagreeing with the above; in the next book, one of the death eaters uses 'Accio' on the Prophecy, but Harry manages to hold onto it. So couldn't it be the same here? That, indeed, Krum just had a really good grip on his wand?
334** Because having a really good grip on something doesn't stop Expelliarmus. The entire purpose of Expelliarmus is to forcibly cause someone to fail to continue holding something and at no point in the books does it ever fail. The Death Eaters fail to Accio the prophecy from Harry's grip in the next book because all Accio does is pull on something remotely without actually preventing them from holding onto it.
335** That would be true if the spell used was Accio, and it might work with Expelliarmus being used, but it works differently, so we can't be certain. The fact that he's knocked out should render whether he had a good grip on his wand null.
336** Well, yeah, these are also the same writers who decided, "Hey! Let's have Lucius Malfoy perform an UNFORGIVABLE KILLING CURSE on a twelve-year-old boy because he's throwing a hissy fit over losing his slave! [[ForTheEvulz CUZ HE'S EVOL!!!]]"
337** That last one was technically not in the script, but an improvisation by the actor (who had only heard the phrase "Avada Kedavra" and didn't know what it did). They decided to ThrowItIn because, yeah.
338** Wait, Accio didn't work on the prophecy either because a) the prophecies are enchanted to not be Summonable, or b) the Death Eater didn't know what the prophecy was, seeing as none of the Death Eaters knew anything about it.
339** Maybe he only ''said'' Expelliarmus, and what he actually cast was Reducto or something, nonverbally. For some reason.
340** If that's the case, then that ''would'' a good way of tricking a opponent.
341** The thing with the Accio Prophecy is that (at least in the book) Harry was just in time to protect the prophecy (probably with Protego?), so that it was only a part of the normal force for the Accio spell. This allowed him to keep hold of it - by the tips of his fingers.
342** Krum is a world-class champion Seeker. It's possible that he ''caught'' his own wand as it was knocked from his grip.
343** He was hit by the spell, and managed to catch his own wand in the half-millisecond between the spell's impact and said impact knocking him out? He really is the greatest Seeker in the world, or has truly incredible muscle memory.
344** Might be Kloves was simply hit with a confundus before writing it ... or was on some bad potion.
345[[/folder]]
346
347[[folder:Just where the hell ''is'' Durmstrang?]]
348* Why are some tropers so insistent that Durmstrang (note the German name) is in Bulgaria? OK, so one Durmstrang student is Viktor Krum, Seeker for the Bulgarian national team -- '''so bloody what'''? By that "logic", since Hogwarts' students include Seamus Finnigan, Hogwarts "must" be in Ireland.\
349Also regarding the "Bulgaria is ''south'' of Britain" cry -- again, so what? Even assuming that Durmstrang ''is'' in Bulgaria, the fact remains that Dumbledore wasn't stating a specific bearing from Hogwarts, but only stating that Durmstrang is "in the north" -- as Bulgaria indeed is, and so is Britain.
350** But that kind of thing is useless. You could make the argument that Mississippi is in the north if you're looking on a global scale. A Continental view, one typical of people in Europe, would make the claim that Bulgaria is northerly as laughable as claiming Mississippi is.
351** That argument is good evidence for this main point, that Durmstrang '''isn't''' in Bulgaria. If it was, would its students need fur cloaks?
352** There's no reason why it has to be in Bulgaria; wizards are perfectly able to attend school in another country. The most likely explanation, noting names like Karkaroff and Poliakoff, is that Durmstrang is in Russia (and has a German name because it is a royal institution from the 17th-18th century, à la St Petersburg).
353** Except that in the Royal Courts of Czarist Russia, they spoke French, not German.
354** On Seamus; surely there are people with Irish names all over Britain. One kinda assumed Durmstrang might have been in Romania, because of Transylvania. What's buggingis that there are apparently just three wizarding schools in the whole of Europe, and at least two of them seem to have students from just one country each.
355** Didn't Dumbledore said they were the biggest schools or something? There's the take that there ''were'' other schools, particularly in bigger countries, but Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang were the biggest.
356** Dumbledore does indeed specifically describe Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang as "the three largest European schools of wizardry."
357** Judging by its blend of Germanic, Slavic, Romanian, and Hungarian cultures, Durmstrang may be a remnant of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and serviced everyone in Eastern and Central Europe, perhaps with several national campuses under one name, as in a university system. When the muggle Austro-Hungarian Empire fell, the wizarding subculture of that multi-ethnic empire didn't really care, and continued to sending their children to it.
358** Well there's the thought it was Russia since 1)fur cloaks 2) doesn't someone say they (Durmstrang) only use fire for their Poitions class? and 3)didn't Hermione say that the water is much colder near Durmstrang, so that the water the Giant Squid is warm? (it was probably January when Victor Krum did that)
359** Given that so much of Eastern and Central Europe is mountainous, the use of fur trim on robes shouldn't be given too much weight as a clue. Altitude can make a place just as cold as latitude does.
360** Drumstrang is not a german word or name nor does it sound really german to somebody who knows the language (well you could make a {{Spoonerism}} for Sturm und Drang (a period of german literature) of it). If they didn't say it was to the north, it seems a reasonable guess that it's located in a country which was part of the austro-hungarian empire. There have always been relations to russia in the past (pan slawism), so it would make sense that russians as well as eastern europeans attend it.
361** WordOfGod states that Durmstrang is in northern Scandinavia, specifically Sweden or Norway. During the Yule ball Krum gives several clues about where Durmstrang is located, which are apparently telling enough for Karkaroff to interrupt him before he had given away the school's location. First, Durmstrang has apparently very short days in winter, implying that it's even farther north than Scotland, though there seem to be some daylight in winter, so it's south of the polar circle. These facts together limit it to Scandinavia, Iceland and northern European Russia (it's stated earlier in the book that Durmstrang is an European school). The second clue is that there are lots of mountains and lakes around the school. Mountains are not that common in this part of Europe, so this narrows it down to Iceland, Norway, western Sweden and the Ural mountains. Iceland and Norway do not really seem to fit with other descriptions of Durmstrang. It's not really that cold there and it's also not really that far away from Scotland. The mountains of western Sweden are more appropriate regarding the cold weather, though they're not that far away, either. The Ural mountains on the other hand are very far away, very cold and this fits better the Russian influence in Durmstrang (if nothing else, the headmaster has an obvious Russian name). In the region, there is also a series of large lakes, which coincides with Viktor stating there are two large lakes near Durmstrang.
362** Given the fact that Karkaroff and his students arrived on a boat rising from underwater, why isn't it possible that Durmstrang is located somewhere underwater near the Arctic Circle?
363[[/folder]]
364
365[[folder:Wait, I thought nobody used that name!]]
366* All throughout [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]], Peter Pettigrew is referred to by his name, and it's established at the end that he was known as Wormtail only to his 3 closest friends, so why is it that all throughout ''Goblet of Fire'', everyone addresses or refers to him by his old nickname? There's even one part right after Harry first uses the Pensieve where he's telling Dumbledore about his latest vision of Voldemort, and he says something along the lines of "Voldemort was talking to Peter, you know, Wormtail." Why did he need to clarify who Peter Pettigrew was by referring to him by his old nickname that only 3 other people ever used?
367** The actual quote was "Voldemort was talking to Wormtail - you know who, Wormtail-" at which point Dumbledore interrupted and said that he did know who Wormtail is. So the actual quote makes more sense. For the rest, since the fact that he's alive isn't public knowledge, it's safe to say that Voldemort decided that referring to him by his real name would be a bad idea. Since his name didn't really come up outside of conversations between Voldemort and Pettigrew until after Harry heard Voldemort calling him "Wormtail," Harry probably just picked up on it without thinking.
368** It may also be a nickname that Voldemort uses in order to belittle Peter. This is the nickname given to him by the only real friends he's ever had (regardless of the reasons he may have had to betray them, because there were some issues he had with their treatment of him). It's possible that Peter regrets what he did, and as such the use of the nickname is humiliating to him. It also might be a reminder to Peter that Voldemort knows how Peter is when it comes to betrayal - he's a freaking traitor. It could be a subtle way to drive home the fact that Peter might be on Voldie's side NOW, but Voldemort is no fool who will trust Peter unconditionally. It's a way to warn Peter not to act suspiciously, or Voldemort will think he's betrayed him, and that would certainly end more unpleasantly for him than his betrayal of Sirius and the Potters.
369** For Voldemort it's likely a way of mocking him, treating him like vermin instead of a man, and Harry is likely dehumanizing Peter to make it easier to hate and want him dead.
370** On a similar note, why does Peter call Voldemort by his name in the film? Surely he would be too terrified to pronounce it?
371*** Because the people making the movie couldn't be bothered with details like that. It's the same as the other example posted on this page about expelliarmus physically incapacitating Krum but failing to disarm him, the people making the movie just didn't care about getting details like that right.
372*** While to agree that it was out-of-character and not very well thought through, it’s important to remember that Voldemort (not counting his teenage Horcrux self) hadn’t made an appearance since the end of the first movie (where he was played by a different actor), nor did the intervening movies explain where he’s been hiding all this time. The filmmakers could have been worried that audiences wouldn’t piece together that it was him Peter was talking to, especially since the significance of the house they’re staying in also isn’t explained, so they had Peter namedrop him to get the point across that he’s coming back into focus.
373*** Couldn't they have just had Voldemort refer to himself cockily like in the book? How many hours worth of duration would that have taken?
374[[/folder]]
375
376[[folder:Oh, our headmasters and students are leaving, no big deal.]]
377* The headmasters and best students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang spend an entire school year at Hogwarts. They don't go to Hogwarts classes, so what the hell do they do all year? And are the Headmasters of the other schools so ubiquitous that they're unneeded for an entire year?
378** Presumably, the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were getting private lessons from Madame Maxime and Karkaroff, respectively. And going to Hogsmeade/hanging out with friends they'd made at Hogwarts/finding other ways to entertain themselves while their teachers were busy romancing Hagrid and agonizing over his Dark Mark. As for the latter, we saw later on that [=McGonagall=] became Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, and could take over when Dumbledore was away/dead. It's likely that such a position existed at the other schools too, and they were in charge for the duration.
379** Also like to point out that the headmistress at our school sometimes leaves for months on end, leaving our deputy headmaster in charge. And isn't it plausible that the kids often drop into the Hogwarts class to learn too? Just because it's not mentioned doesn't mean it's implausible.
380** Especially given that these would be seventh years, maybe a couple of sixth years - it's not like Harry would encounter them in any of his classes.
381** It's also never explicitly mentioned that they ''don't'' take classes. One would actually think they would since one of the goals is to learn from each other.
382** Add in that at meals, the Beauxbatons student sat with Ravenclaw and Durmstrang sat with Slytherin. If they were in classes, they likely would have learned with them as well.
383** There's thought of it as the wizard world equivalent of independent study. They're all past the point of compulsory education and studying for [=NEWTs=] at this point. Plus, the schools would have brought their best and brightest for the tournament. They could have easily done a combination of Hogwarts classes in their subjects and independent training with their own headmasters or even each other (Dumbledore's Army proves this to be effective in a later book). If it comes down to it, they might have even been willing to delay their [=NEWTs=] a year if they had to in exchange for the chance to win the tournament - in-universe it's a pretty big deal.
384** Isn't Fleur's sister about 8?. So unless Fleur's school started REALLY Young (which is doubtful) , what in the world was an EXTREMELY under-age witch doing at Hogwarts?
385** Providing moral support.
386** Yup. It's assumed she was just transported down to participate in the second task, and then to watch her sister finish the tournament much like how the family members of other champions (Weasleys, etc. came down to watch) Transportation in the Wizarding World is much faster.
387** To remember correctly, her sister was actually like, 11 Harry just thought she was 8 because she looked so young.
388** Think of it like spending a year abroad in college. You don't take very many regular classes. Instead, your goal is to get to know the country, which is, in itself, considered educational.
389** All of the above is possibly wrong. Remember, this is a universe where instant long-range teleportation is as easy as walking into a fireplace. Logic dictates that the Durmstrang ship and the Beauxbatons carriage both have classrooms and fireplaces which allow any foreign teachers to 'floo' into their classrooms to teach their students who are in another country. The students could probably even 'floo' back to Europe over the weekend if they so wished. Same goes for the Headmasters. Think of it like a really quick commute. The only limitation to this operation is the scarcity of floo powder, which the novels have never gone into any detail on.
390** Presumably when they decided to revive the tournament, this kind of thing was discussed until they found a solution that benefited everyone. The students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are seventh years, so maybe they do take classes with Hogwarts students - but because Harry wouldn't be in class with them, we don't hear about it. Or Madam Maxime and Karkaroff hold lessons for them (principals usually start out as regular teachers anyway so they would have that training). Meanwhile, Maxime and Karkaroff's deputies can run things at their schools with the other students.
391[[/folder]]
392
393[[folder:The Coroner Doth Exist Too Little]]
394* So, the wizarding world has no magical autopsies or magical coroners? Because if they ''did'', they'd autopsy Cedric's corpse, find that he was murdered, and then Fudge could pin the murder on Harry and cart him off to Azkaban.
395** They assume he was killed by Crouch Jr, and make a Dementor kiss Crouch.
396** AK ''doesn't'' leave traces. Of course, it means that a seemingly causeless death of a healthy teenager screams "Avada Kedavra", but then Harry wasn't powerful enough to cast it.
397** There are conditions like this in the real world as well. They're called "diseases of exclusion". Basically, doctors eliminate all possibilities for the symptoms. Can't be any of these, therefore it is this.
398** Besides, someone (most likely Dumbledore) would think to cast "Priori Incantem" to see what spells Harry's wand had cast, and they'd see that he never cast Avada Kedavra, ever.
399** And let's not forget he's Harry Frickin Potter, The Boy Who Lived. Fudge hauling him away for murder right then might be a little too absurd for the public to take. (Maybe that was the eventual intended outcome of Fudge's smear campaign, though, if DD didn't back down on the whole 'Voldemort is back' thing.) When Harry does get hit with a bogus 'might have murdered someone' claim in book seven, no one seems to believe it.
400** The assumption ''is'' that Harry's wand was checked at some point, and it was proven he didn't cast the Killing curse. Of course, logically, Crouch Jr.'s wand also should have been, and it didn't cast the Killing Curse either. (Then again, we must assume that Crouch Jr.'s was normally using Moody's wand, so he obviously has at least one other wand, if only because he didn't attack the real Moody at the start of the book with his bare hands. So perhaps Fudge handwaved that problem away simply by pointing out that Crouch probably used a different wand.)
401** There's the assumption that an AK victim would look as if their heart simply stopped (it has to be more complex than that or you could revive them with CPR, but the body looks like that) and so it could be argued that Cedric died due to the portkey causing a freak heart attack. No need for a killing curse at all.
402** Who says you can't revive them with CPR? Has anyone ever tried? Do wizards have the slightest idea of the existence of CPR? (One would suspect CPR doesn't work, because if it did, Rennervate or some other spell done fast enough would probably bring AK victims back also, and we'd know if that was possible. But let's not assume wizards know anything about any muggle medicine.)
403*** Even in real life CPR does not revive people, you’re thinking in what you see in movies, which is unrealistic. In real life CPR is done in order for the heart to keep beating artificially and the brain keep receiving oxygen thus avoiding brain damage until higher medical treatment is applied. If the person survives long enough until medical care is giving by paramedics then probably would expend at least two weeks in bed, if not more (as other organs like the liver may have suffer damage do to lack of blood flow). So even if CPR exist in the magical world it can’t be apply to a person whose heart is already paralyzed.
404** Considering that the spell was invented in the Early Middle Ages (5th-8th Centuries), and has seen plenty of use, one would think they have had plenty of chances to try and figure out a countercurse. Remember also that muggles have seen the effects, and simply have no explanation for it. Muggle medicine can't fix what it can't explain.
405** They have tons of means to verify what actually happened: Veritaserum, Legilimancy, Pensieve, Time Turners. Also, Cedric's ghost. If "moving on" or staying behind is a choice, don't you think he'd choose to stay and testify? It's rather hard to dismiss the victim's own testimony.
406** The stay as a ghost might be permanent. He might only get on chance to move on upon death and avoiding it then would be mean being stuck as a ghost forever. Note how Nearly Headless Nick regrets staying a ghost and yet hasn't moved on to the afterlife, implying he ''can't'' now.
407[[/folder]]
408
409[[folder:Disposal of Evidence]]
410* Similair to the previous book, is there anyone else who have the feeling that a perfectly good way to resolve the matters was quietly omitted in the end? "Omigod, the evil Minister's just fed the very important witness to a Dementor, and now we have no way to prove the truth!" Yet the confession of said witness is recorded in the memories of four people along with, in one case, the very events in question. Make a quick dash for the Pensieve, and suddenly Fudge is faced not with an unsubstantiated allegation, but with a solid (well, ethereal) proof that is far harder to reject without looking like a coward.
411** Well, Fudge didn't actually deny what Crouch had confessed, he just dismissed it as the ramblings of a madman (at least at first).
412** That's where Harry's memories would come in. It's not likely that even Fudge could claim that Harry simply imagined the whole scene down to the very last detail, like the real-life cemetery he'd never been to (easily verifiable, since D knows of Riddle's origins).
413** Or they could have just used the very convenient time traveling devices introduced in the ''previous book'' to just go back in time and see that wizard-Hitler was back. Even if Fudge didn't want to it beggars belief to think that Dumbledore wouldn't be able to prove it.
414** For the memories and veritaserum, the books tend to prove that these can be tainted by [=PoV=]; i.e. can be altered by the enforced belief of the person to whom the memories belong. Crouch Jr. editorializes when speaking under Veritaserum, and Slughorn showed that Pensieve memories can be tampered with. As Fudge spends the next book making Harry out to be borderline insane, this would be a plausible excuse to ignore Harry's testimony.
415*** Note that Slughorn's example also shows that Pensieve tampering is ''really really easy to spot''. It's blatantly visible even to the naked eye of an untrained observer, such as Harry. And Slughorn is an Occlumens skilled enough to block out the goddamned Dumbledore mentally, so it's not just that Slughorn is being rubbish at mind magic. So refusing to use Pensieve because of fears of tampering seems silly; it would be like if every Photoshop-like software in existence always left big glaring watermarks, but people still were afraid that photos were 'shopped.
416** What's more egregious is that Dumbledore at this point wields immense political influence as both Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Yet as far we can tell, there is no attempt ever to have Harry testify to Voldemort's return in front of the Wizengamot, or to Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, or really, well... ''anything'' that could circumvent Fudge. Despite their ability to prove that Harry speaks the truth several ways. That just is a pretty huge plot convenience.
417** Except that Fudge has a lot more influence, and presumably blocked Dumbledore whenever he tried to do so. As noted below, Fudge is in aggressive denial, and besides, the last thing he wants is to fight Fudge with one hand and Voldy with the other. Best to just back off from direct confrontation with Fudge and fight underground.
418
419* In a similar vein; ''verita-frigging-serum''.
420** Veritaserum not only would tell them what would happen in the graveyard but could possibly tell you who stole the boomslang skin in Harry's 2nd year, the elf responsible with the Rogue bludger in the same year. The fact Harry was in contact with Sirus..a lot of stuff he doesn't want to be found out.
421** All that stuff was completely irrelevant and inconsequnetial in comparison to V's return, and who would even bother to ask him those things?
422** The way Veritaserum is talked about, it's entirely possible Harry could end up ''volunteering'' said information - IIRC, Snape makes a (probably facetious or at least empty) threat at one point to slip some in Harry's drink and let him embarrass himself in front of the school. This could especially be the case if the dosage was wrong - for instance, Snape "miscalculating" out of spite or (assuming this is too important for him to bring said spite into it) Fudge not trusting the school's Potions master and bringing in a less-competent official who actually ''does'' miscalculate the dose.
423** Snape himself states that it's use on students is prohibited. WordOfGod says that use of it is strictly regulation by the Ministry. It also works best on those taken by surprise, the weak minded, and those with little skill in magic. Harry is none of those. Other limitations include that [[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade it doesn't produce facts, but instead truth]]. If Harry legitimately thinks Voldemort returned and killed Cedric, that is what he would say under the influence of veritaserum no matter what the facts were. It's also an excuse for not believing Barty Jr - he's so crazy he's just spilling insanity. It can also be magically fought, and for that reason is forbidden for use of testimony similar to a muggle polygraph.
424* None of these points actually matter. It wasn't that Fudge actually thought Harry and Crouch Jr were mad. He probably did think Voldemort was back. He was just straight up in denial about it. Aggressively so. Fudge didn't want to believe it and refused to see the evidence. Preferring to blissfully live in the world where everything's fine and he's in control for as long as possible.
425* And what does convincing Fudge that Voldemort is back accomplish? Sure the Ministry could lend a hand to the defensive forces but in the sixth book when everyone's in the know, they aren't much use in stopping the Death Eaters kidnapping or killing people. Ideally Dumbledore would like Fudge to be on their side, but he's clearly refusing to listen to reason, so Dumbledore isn't going to waste too much time trying to convince him. He goes about being productive and raising the resistance forces in secret, while quietly converting key people in the Ministry to their cause anyway. And when the trial for Harry is on, Dumbledore tries to present more evidence of Voldemort's return again and it falls on deaf ears.
426* Additionally, the teachers could take Veritaserum, pour memories into the Penseive, and all that--but as long as ''Fudge'' controls the courts and the papers, there's not much they can do, aside from reach out to people individually. Which is pretty much what they did anyway.
427[[/folder]]
428
429[[folder:Perv-Eye Moody]]
430* So Moody's eye (even when used by Crouch Jr.) can see through anything. Did anyone else find it disturbing that an old man could walk through a school, seeing all the children naked if he wanted to?
431** Yes, lots of people have. It's been suggested that Parvati's line "I don't think that eye should be allowed!" is a nod to this.
432** There's the impression that the eye has different 'settings,' as in, you can choose to focus it differently so it doesn't always see through things like clothes. We know it can see through walls (when Moody looks at the Boggart in [=OotP=]), but if it were seeing through walls all the time, it'd be pretty much impossible to walk anywhere without running into things. [[{{Squick}} Of course, who knows how often fake Moody used the eye to perv...]]
433** This was from the perspective of somone who used to work in a 1-hour photo processing lab. About 97 percent of the people out there, [[BrainBleach you don't wanna see naked.]] Hooray for clothes, that's what we always say. You can tell Moody isn't using his eye for that because he isn't constantly ''Obliviating'' himself.
434** Alastor Moody is not a paedophile. Dumbledore and the other ex-members of the Order know this for a fact and imagine most of the parents are pretty confident the most celebrated cop in history isn't either. Besides which even if for arguments sake you wanted to argue that he was; the potential BrainBleach implications of love and polyjuice potions are infinitely more disgusting than x-ray vision.
435** It's not a matter of being a “paedophile”, Hogwarts is not a primary school with children. It has teenagers who can be sexually appealing to any normal heterosexual man, especially if naked and it also has grown adult teachers and female adult personnel. It is actually a valid questioning as how invasive his eye can be on other people’s privacy including underage girls. Of course, if Moody feels any sexual arousal for seeing female naked bodies [Assuming he’s straight] he apparently doesn’t show, whether because he honestly doesn’t feel the urges or he is professional enough to suppress them. Of course Moody is, as said, a professional, probably will be the equivalent of being naked in front of a medic. Now the real issue is what Fake Moody did with his eye, being a convicted criminal and not having any professional ethics to abide.
436** Also, a nude body is way less interesting when you're seeing nude bodies all the time. Ethics that Crouch did or did not adhere to aside, Moody probably doesn't actual care about people's nude bodies because he has unconstrained access to them. Compare a nudist's reaction to other people's nudity to people who don't see other people naked often: very different. He's desensitized. This theory, though, is that because he can see things, he's got to have some sort of control of what he does and does not see through. Otherwise, how could he see a solid book through a desk without also seeing right through the book? It doesn't always see through things combined with his ability to perv whenever he wants to making it wholly uninteresting equals a Moody who doesn't bother with seeing through clothes.
437* He does seem to be focusing at the area under the desk of a girl in Harry's first class. You know when he tells her to stop showing her book off to someone. Why was he focusing there in the first place...?
438** Speaking as someone who's taught high-school aged children before, let's just say: it is extremely obvious when students aren't paying attention. It's even more obvious when they're showing their friend something under the desk. It's at least as likely that Fake Moody noticed (Lavender?) showing her friend something, and checked behind the desk to see what exactly was disturbing his class.
439* It's more likely he was simply using the eye to survey the room to make sure everyone was paying attention. Which Lavender wasn't.
440** Don't forget that it was Crouch using polyjuice aka Fake Moody at this point.
441** So? All evidence suggests that Crouch was trying to be the best teacher he could be as to do anything less would not be what Moody would do.
442[[/folder]]
443
444[[folder:Trace [Faulty] Memory]]
445* Why didn't the Trace provide positive proof that something magical happened around Harry out in the graveyard of Little Hangleton? Does it deactivate during the school-year even when off-campus or something?
446** It'd be assumed as part of the preparations, Voldemort had Peter mask the location and hide or distort anything that occurred there that night. After all, it wouldn't do for there to suddenly be an owl that flies in and drops off a letter while the ceremony occurs.
447** It would think that it deactivates during the school year, considering all the students will be using magic and be around it pretty much all the time. The ministry would be flooded with messages of underage magical activity.
448** Especially since, as Hermione mentions in Book 7, not all underage wizards in Britain go to Hogwarts. There's a lot who are home-schooled.
449** It's probably safe to assume it deactivates during the school year, or else the Ministry would be deafened by the amount of alarms going off on Hogsmeade weekends (it's an all-wizard settlement but still outside the grounds). Or it would have gone off when Harry went to the cave with Dumbledore as well.
450** It may not be that specific. It may just be that it tells the Ministry, "this guy cast a spell." Which is hardly proof that Voldemort is back.
451** All the trace shows is that a spell is cast near an underage wizard. The Ministry doesn't go investigate every instance of this as that would be inconvenient. There would have been no reason for the Ministry to believe anything was going on wrong simply because wizardry was going on at this house at that time.
452[[/folder]]
453
454[[folder:The Wards Must Be Crazy]]
455* The blood wards on Privet drive. Yes, this plot device didn't show up until the next book (which makes it a worse AssPull than the usual plot devices in the HP world), but they stopped working in ''this'' book. Voldemort ''specifically'' uses Harry's blood in his resurrection so that he would be able to bypass Harry's mysterious blood protection that vanquished him as Quirrelmort. That's the ''entire reason'' he had this elaborate scheme to kidnap Harry. He ''proves'' that his plan worked by touching Harry as much as he wants without getting burned (eew, [[NoYay what a pedo]]). So, why does Harry have to go back to the Dursleys again?
456** In Voldemort's own words, "Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's protection as long as he is in his relations' care. Not even I can touch him there."
457** In context, he's telling his life story ''before'' Harry's fourth year, before he even had a body. This has no bearing at all any more now that ''he has Harry's blood running in his veins.''
458** As stated on one of these Headscratchers pages, there are two protections on Harry. The one from his mother, in his blood, which Voldemort takes here. The second is from Dumbledore, put on the Dursley's house, which protects Harry as long as he calls it his home. Voldemort took the blood protection, which, yes, allows him to physically touch Harry and not get burned, but it's still working. The fact that Voldie has Harry's blood in him protects Harry later in Hallows. That protection never stops working. The house protection, as stated by Dumbledore, stops working when 1. Harry no longer calls Privet Drive home and 2. on his 17th birthday.
459** Except that the second protection derives from the first and works precisely because Petunia was Lily's sister. So it should've been negated as well.
460** But it wasn't, as is made quite obvious in Deathly Hallows when they repeatedly refer to the wards as still working until Harry ceases calling it his home, and then when it becomes apparent that the Death Eaters are fully aware of where Harry has been living, and yet did not take the opportunity during any of the summers Harry spent at Number 4 Privet Drive to attack him, preferably by magical firebombing (and no, the Dementor attack does not count, because the wards are over the house, not the entire area). The description we are given of the wards would lead a person to believe that they would fail once Voldemort had Harry's blood, but clearly the magical mechanics don't lend themselves to that. An easy answer would be that Voldemort having Harry's blood didn't '''end''' any of the magic or protections on him, it just cancelled out the whole extreme-pain-on-contact thing. The magic was still there, and thus the wards were still up and still protected Harry from those who meant him magical harm.
461** Yes, that's what we call a PlotHole around here. When some significant event with potential for plot alteration ''should've'' happened by means of story's [[MagicAIsMagicA in-universe conventions]] and logic, but didn't.
462** There's a logic. Dumbledore's wards on the Dursley house protected Harry from Voldemort until he either left 'home' forever or turned seventeen. Voldemore ''would only'' have been able to also claim that protection (get inside the wards) if he'd also called the Dursley's house home, or had been under seventeen. He is neither, so while the blood brother thing means he can now touch Harry, he still can't get inside the Dursley's house.
463** Now imagine a scenario where a youthened Voldemort rents a room from the Dursleys to try to kill Harry. It's like the OddCouple, except with the killing curse.
464** And [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/501055 written]]
465** Lily's sacrifice gave Dumbledore the opportunity to invoke a second protection spell, one that is separate from the primary spell. It matters not that Voldemort has stolen the primary protection as the protection on the Dursley's is independent and simply initiated from the same source.
466** That theory doesn't make sense- we know that Harry must return to Privet Drive to recharge the wards, so they're still dependent on the Harry's personal blood protection to keep running.
467** No, that shows they're dependent on Harry's presence to stay functioning. It's also dependent on Harry's age, it stops working once he's an adult, which is different than the blood protection.
468** It's fairly certain the wards on Privet Drive that keep Harry safe are 1) never actually called blood wards and 2) would only qualify for the name in that they are contingent upon Harry living with blood relatives. The shield from Lily's sacrifice has exactly jack and all to do with the wards on Privet Drive. If either of the Potters had any other immediate family, said wards would have worked equally well there; presumably James was an only child and neither his nor Lily's parents are still around, or there would have been more options than just the Dursleys.
469
470 If James had any close relatives, it would have not matter a bit since it was Lilly's sacrifice which was important not James straight out dying. Harry would have to live with his MUGGLE relatives due to its Lilly's protection.
471
472[[/folder]]
473
474[[folder:Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Dragons, For You Are Crunchy And Taste Good With Ketchup]]
475* Okay, so, if one's absolutely clear on this, and clearly not, because it's just far too insane, the First Task is for the champions to face off against a nesting dragon, that is, a female dragon (and dragons, being lizards, are logically going to see females be the more aggressive) guarding her eggs and therefore at her most aggressive, most agitated, and most paranoid, and try to retrieve a golden egg -- note that this is going to look no different to the dragon from her regular eggs -- from amongst the clutch, with supposedly no advanced warning unless their headmasters cheated (which clearly was not the expectation, as Dumbledore didn't warn Cedric at all), at age 17-18. Are they out of their freaking minds?
476** Yes. The wizarding world is big on putting kids in mortal danger. You haven't figured this out by now?
477** Also, since Harry's only 14, and clearly the magical contract that binds him to the tournament doesn't punish anyone for having an unfair judge (Karkaroff), or giving them supposedly-secret knowledge (everyone), why didn't Dumbledore do anything to help prepare Harry to not die?
478** This further reinforces the point, that DD was the one behind Harry's participation and intended the Tournament to [[DieOrFly motivate]] the usually laid-back Harry [[TrainingFromHell to learn useful stuff]]. And you've got to admit he succeeded in that, it's just that he got carried away a little and had Lord Voldemort resurrected in the process. Oops.
479** If that's the theory, then Dumbledore failed spectacularly. Harry was amazingly lazy in all of Book 4. He just goes nuts pulling his hair out and putting off the preparation till the last minute. In the first task, Moody pretty much gave him the answer and he had no backup plan. For the second, he puts it off until literally the last minute and Dobby hands him the solution minutes before the task begins. He finally practices with Hermione and Ron for the third task, but there's a world of difference between the ''motivation'' to learn and ''actually'' learning. A proper teacher (like Flitwick, [=McGonagall=], or Dumbledore himself) would have taught him so much more.
480** We-e-ell, this one actually makes a bit of sense. The school staff were forbidden from helping the Champions. Of course they still did, but secretly. Besides it seems that it was an instrumental part of DD's Master Plan to ingrain in Harry that AdultsAreUseless. When your plan involves a bunch of kids saving the world on their own, it's kind of justified, even though the plan itself is idiotic and unfeasible. Also, "proper teachers" were teaching him during normal classes, and guess what, it didn't work too well.
481** Or, alternatively, Dumbledore knew that Moody was already intervening on behalf of the Hogwarts Champions, and didn't feel the need to do so himself. This, of course, backfired spectacularly.
482** It's testing their improvisational skills and knowledge of magic. You don't have to succeed at each task to stay in the tournament and they grade by what you do, not how successful you were. Obviously, since the others got their eggs they would have got more points for actually accomplishing the task but Harry still could have racked up a lot of points for creativity and moral fiber and the like.
483** The problem is that this doesn't matter much since it's outright said that Harry's involvement in the tournament was orchestrated by Voldemort and Crouch Jr. Dumbledore ''might'' have been aware that 'Moody' was interfering to help Harry (or he might not) but we have no reason to think that Dumbledore knew or approved of Harry being entered in the first place. And incidentally the original point is absolutely correct. The tournament is ludicrous and liable to get every participant killed. Considering that this is apparently toned down compared to what the earlier wizards did we can safely assume that the wizarding world isn't exactly 'nice'.
484** Page 328: ''"Just get past [the dragons], I think," said Charlie. "[The trained dragon handlers]'ll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready..."''
485** And need we remind everyone that three of the four contestants are legally adults? Students yes but legal adults. And they're allowed their wands to defend themselves. The movie admittedly is to blame here, since the dragon breaks free and chases Harry around the castle. But in the book, the dragon never leaves her perch and Harry barely gets injured. Let's also not forget that Madam Pomfrey can heal most injuries instantly. So it's not as bad as you'd think.
486** Well Dumbledore would have been sad if Harry died, but not ''that'' sad. It was only during the events of this book where his plan changed from the Potter boy eventually having to be killed for the benefit of everyone else to the Potter boy might be able to live something resembling a full life after all.
487** Seriously, the amount of brain-wracking that some are ready to do to put malicious manipulation on ol' Dumbles is staggering. Ok the sod is a secretive ManipulativeBastard, but not to that point. It is crystal clear from the get go that he had NO intention to put Harry through the Triwizard for training or anything else. He was as surprised as the others and did not know of the plan until the very end, he says so himself. Also "not that sad if the Potter boy died"? He has a look of triumph when he figures out that Harry will survive. Let the evil Dumbles to the bad fanfics will you?
488*** Welcome to TV Tropes where the Evil Dumbledore conspiracy theory is a thing and some people really go through great lengths to "prove" it.
489[[/folder]]
490
491[[folder:Hagrid the Horrible]]
492* Are Hagrid's character flaws often glorified? Specifically, the part where Hermione says that she thinks it is irresponsible of Hagrid to have bred the Blast Ended Skrewts and to be exposing them to a class of children. Harry (and IIRC Ron too) won't speak to her for weeks because of this comment. This seems like ProtagonistCenteredMorality. When any of the bad guys break the law, they're EVIL! But good guys get a free pass to do things like teach even though they never graduated from school, illegally possess dragons, illegally possess Acromantula and breed a pack of them on school grounds, and indeed nearly get two students eaten by them, illegally cross-breed Fire Crabs and Manticores to create a dangerous and totally unpredictable new species of monster, and then order 14 year olds to deal with them. Oh, and when the Trio try to warn him to be careful around Umbridge, he completely (and very rudely) ignores them and gets sacked. So what does he do then? Guilts a bunch of 15 year olds who he is supposed to regard as friends into putting themselves into danger to take care of his apparently "not dangerous" giant half brother, even though it was his own fault he got sacked. And on top of apparently caring more about monsters than people, and being an awful teacher, he's also xenophobic. (He tells Harry not trust Viktor Krum because he's a foreigner.) Really, J.K., did you have to give him ''another'' flaw when he's already teetering on the edge between unsympathetic and downright unlikeable? No hate on Hagrid or anything, one just can't understand why it seems that ''everyone'' loves him no matter what and no one ever really calls him on his flaws (not to mention crimes.) He never even gets any CharacterDevelopment! He's exactly the same in Deathly Hallows as he was in Philospher's Stone. He never learnt anything or progressed past any flaws, when every single other important character matured or changed in some way.
493** Because the books are from Harry's point of view, so it has to be ProtagonistCenteredMorality. That's how people work. Almost everyone has frowned on someone doing something which they have or will do in the future. And since it's from Harry's [=PoV=], Hagrid is going to be covered by rose coloured glasses. Harry views Hagrid as an extremely special friend because it was Hagrid who told him that he was a wizard and rescued him from the Dursleys. To Harry, that was something he could never repay.
494** They're irrational children, they overreact to valid critism and ignore redeeming actions of people they hate. It should have been obvious after the first book where Snape's loyalties lay but it was dismissed because Snape saving Harry despite apparently being a Death Eater because James once saved Snape makes sense in kid logic.
495** They don't fall out with Hermione for weeks. Not even a day.
496** As for the xenophobia, Hagrid was just projecting his aggravation at Madame Maxime (who's French) upon foreigners in general. That doesn't make his comment OK, but it also doesn't mean he always thinks that way about foreigners. In case the books didn't make it completely obvious, Hagrid tends to let his emotions do the thinking.
497** There's no proof he did illegally create the skrewts through experimental breeding. What there is proof of is that he was being irresponsible for showing them to an under aged class, but given that one of them was an obstacle in the tri wizard tournament, them being illegal creations is ''highly'' unlikely. More likely, Hagrid clammed up on the subject because he was ''cheating'' by allowing one of the participants in said tournament to familiarize himself with one of the dangers he would be facing early.
498[[/folder]]
499
500[[folder:There's Just Too Many Transvestites These Days]]
501* There is a minor scene in the beginning of the book that has some headscratching. A man (Archie) is cleverly disguised as a Muggle... woman. He is literally wearing a dress and is convinced that all Muggles wear dresses. Seriously? Do Wizards not wear pants? What do they wear, then? The text says he is an old man, so he could just be traditional, but still.
502** The scene in question: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.creativefamily.net%2Femmy%2Fmugglepants%2F&h=ee39e. Remember that wizards don't know too much about Muggles; it happens to be that in the book, not many wizards wear Muggle regular clothes like pants, at least not as often as they wear robes. This is sorta unexcuasable though. In the movies, there aren't too many people wearing cloaks; in the first two films, it seems to be that everyone wore cloaks all the time, but starting with the third installment, cloaks have sorta become TheArtifact. Same goes for wizarding hats. Apparently, Rowling always pictured the students at Hogwarts wearing conical wizarding hats, as evidenced by a few of the passages, but in the movie, they wore them, like, twice, and even in the illustrations of the books, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are never shown wearing their wizarding hats.
503** Maybe the wizard in question was Scottish, used to wear a kilt[[note]]Yes, it is a stereotype, but wizards tend to be a)traditionalists and b)a little eccentric[[/note]] and reached the conclusion that, since most muggles don't wear kilts, kilts are wizardwear, therefore other clothing mus be aquired for going inkognito.
504** To answer part of the original question: no, most traditionalist/old wizards don't wear pants, they wear robes.
505** As undergarments go, they presumably wear [[http://historicenterprises.com/package-14th-century-braies-chausses-wool-p-1477.html?cPath=99_117 braies and chausses]] under their robes, or just underpants in warmer weather. One would really find the movies radically different from what is described in the book, especially in terms of clothing: The muggle-style uniforms and having everyone bum around in muggle clothes really makes no sense.
506** The fact that wizards don't ever really look at the muggles, which comprise the parents of at least half of their students, fill the train station a bunch of said students catch the train to school from, and are basically just on the other side of an alley is what makes no sense. It's not saying that they have to be up on muggle fashion, or can't have their own trends, but it's completely perplexing that they don't know what pants are, especially when they couldn't have split from muggle society so long ago as to have done so before their advent.
507** The problem here is that it was Archie was wearing a NIGHTGOWN. Only women (Muggle and Not) wear night gowns for sleeping in not 'day wear'. Didn't you read what Archie said "I like breeze around my privates". His friend said only earlier "Only Muggle women wear them!" Here's the passage from the book:
508--->One of them was a very old wizard who was wearing a long flowery nightgown. The other was clearly a Ministry wizard; he was holding out a pair of pinstriped trousers and almost crying with exasperation.\
509"Just put them on, Archie, there's a good chap. You can't walk around like that, the Muggle at the gate's already getting suspicious-"\
510"I bought this in a Muggle shop," said the old wizard stubbornly. "Muggles wear them."\
511"Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these," said the Ministry wizard, and he brandished the pinstriped trousers.\
512"I'm not putting them on," said old Archie in indignation. "I like a healthy breeze 'round my privates, thanks."
513** WordOfGod: Archie is a bit of a kook even by wizarding standards.
514** This is one of the biggest differences between the films and the books. There is plenty of evidence in the books that wizards and witches are naked except for underwear underneath their robes - even the kids. In book 6, there is a scene where James hangs Snape up by the ankle revealing ''a pair of greying underpants''. This would not be the case if he was wearing trousers like they do in the films. There is also no mention of ties or colour-coded uniforms by House either.
515** Maybe he usually wears trousers, but finds the nightgown to be refreshingly airy?
516[[/folder]]
517
518[[folder:Sweep the Dementors under the rug!]]
519* So, in the end, while DD is enlightening Fudge on the current situation with all the subtlety of a battering ram, he, among other things, semands that "the Dementors must be removed from Azkhaban". Ok, Captain Smarty Beard, two questions here:
520** First. How and where to exactly was the Ministry supposed to "remove" the demons? As the next books show, the Ministry had little to no actual control over them and definitely no ways of containing/basnishing/destroying them. Seeing how, according to Fudge himself in HBP, "Dementors left the Azkhaban and joined You-Know-Who" the moment his ugly face emerged from the woodworks, the relations between the Ministery and the demons were strictly contractual, so what exactly would have prevented the "removed" demons from joining LV and pouncing at the general population a year earlier than they eventually did?
521** The dementors are going to join Voldemort either way. If they're still guarding Azkaban, the difference is that Voldemort can just come in and scoop out his most dangerous followers with no effort.
522** While that is probably true, the question still remains what DD intended to do with them. Was he fine that the retired Dementors would insted join V immediately and attack the general population?
523** It comes down to which is the lesser of two evils, (a) the dementors join Voldemort right away, but the big-time Death Eaters like Bellatrix never escape, or (b) we get six months free of dementor attacks before they join Voldemort anyway and the big-time Death Eaters all escape. So is basically letting Bellatrix and her ilk go free a fair price to pay for six months free of dementor attacks?
524** First, one would say that the Dementors are no lesser threat than the DEs, so not much of a "lesser evil". Second, there are huuuge doubts about the "never escape" part. What or who exactly would prevent V from freeing his followers anyway, especially when he's backed by the Dementors and when the wizard law enforcers failed miserably on each and every other occasion? As far as the eye can see, trying to work around this dilemma is akin to making yourself comfortable on a trident: if there was a way to safely contain the prisoners without the Dementors, than the whole wizarding population up to and including DD (''especially'' DD) were evil, because they didn't use it. If, as suggested below, they kept the Azkhaban as it was to prevent Dementors from attacking the general population, it means that after the end of ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' the world should be a Dementor-infested hellhole, and the whole sappy epilogue was one big pile of bullshit. And if there was a way to contain prisoners ''and'' get rid of the Dementors, it means, that the whole wizarding population up to and including DD (''especially'' DD) were ''completely'' evil for not using it.
525** Second. Who was supposed to guard the prisoners instead of the demons? And one would not willing to be lenient here. Because the ''only'' reason to accept for the Wizarding population in general and DD in particular to have ever tolerated the existance of those monstrosities yet alone allowed them to torment people, without seeing the lot of them as Complete...well, asses at best, would be the ''utter'' lack of other options. Like, say, the anti-magic aura of the Dementors being the ''only'', and emphasizing the '''ONLY''', way in that wretched Verse to suppress the magic abilities of the prisoners. But the way DD puts it, there ''must'' be some alternative, right? Otherwise he'd be just deliberately spurting pretentious bullshit. But if there was, then what the hell were the Dementors still doing in Azkhaban and how the hell could the ostensibly "good" guys still live with themselves?
526** The Ministry probably just figured that as long as dementors are around, having them guard bad people would be preferable to letting them fly around the countryside unregulated. And since when have dementors had an "anti-magic aura"? What do you think the Patronus Charm is?
527** Lupin explained at some point that exposure to Dementors drains spellpower. Patronus, obviously, has to be cast quickly, before it happens. As for the first, again it's likely true, but it finds the implications horrifying. Basically the whole wizarding world is held hostage by the Dementors and is forced to feed them its outcasts and, consequently, to make sure Azkhaban ''never'' runs out of inmates, lest the demons descend upon the helpless population. Which, by the way, begs the question what exactly happens after the end of "Deathly Hallows". There was some babbling in the Wiki that the Ministery no longer employs Dementors, but does this mean that the Dementors are romaing wild? How the hell can "everything be good" in this case? There's a strong sense of InferredHolocaust.
528** Patronuses have to be cast quickly because they need a happy memory to be cast from and that's the first thing the dementor will suck out of you. Even if dementors do drain your magic somehow, it's got to be a gradual process and likely wears off, otherwise Sirius wouldn't have been fit to fight with the rest of the Order at the end of [=OotP=].
529** Well, yeah, nobody says the process is irreversable - it obviously wasn't. As said - dementors draining magic is the only semi-legitimate reason seeing to keep those abominations around and let them torment people. If it's not a factor, then there's no excuse, and either all the "good guys" were asses, or that world was held hostage by the dementors, Rowling's been missing the real villains the whole story, and the finale is BS. Both variants are found equally amusing.
530** It's possible that dementors CAN be destroyed or sealed away, and it's just really hard and the Wizarding World just has an "out of sight, out of mind" approach, since from their perspective the Azkaban plan has things under control. Or no methods were known until Hermione and some other genius wizards got to work on it, thus resolving the problem.
531** In terms of "the entire wizard population being completely evil" - there are major problems with the way we treat prisoners in the real world. Without wanting to write an essay about that, suffice to say that there are a lot of ethical dilemmas faced in trying to balance securing dangerous people while respecting the human rights of those people, and many people in the real world have serious ethical issues with the way we resolve those issues in practice. Dumbledore is against the use of the dementors here, and implies in his conversation with Fudge that there are many others who dislike the use of dementors in Azkaban. (Granted, he only brings up the practical concern of their inevitable turn to supporting Voldemort again, but it's not hard to imagine that he and people like [=McGonagall=] have a problem with the ethical side of things too, given their reaction to the use of dementors in "Prisoner of Azkaban" and in this book) So that's how they "live with themselves". Plus, there are loads of systemic problems in the wizarding world (much like the real world) that run through the books - racism, classism, awful treatment of "part-humans". Part of the point of the books is that "good" and "evil" aren't as simple as "Bad people do bad things, good people do good things, the end"; part of the point of the ending of this book is that the ostensible good guys, like Fudge, can also do awful things for selfish reasons. So you may find it vile that the wizarding population of Britain prefers security over human rights, and opts for a prison management strategy that effectively tortures the prisoners in exchange for being virtually inescapable (as long as the Dementors are kept satisfied), but one doesn't see how it's a headscratcher. Wizard Britain has done something pretty awful. It ends up backfiring spectacularly. The smartest of the good guys didn't like it while it was happening and warned against doing it. That's a pretty standard fictional setup.
532** Even when some troppers apparently really hate Dumbledore and try very hard to make him the villain, truth is he did expressed objection to the use of Dementors far back to Prisoner of Azkaban and even when Dementors are truly something horrible and staying in Azkaban all they long for years been drained of energy sounds terrible, it’s still probably even less cruel that the kind of treatment that WE in the real world do to some prisoners. Pretty sure Azkaban was like a nice resort compare to Britain’s real life prison two centuries ago. That said, the use of Dementors is still highly unethical and the fact that the wizarding world stop using them it is a good thing, even if that implies that they’re on the loose. As how does the wizarding world deal with them, well EVEN during the war when the Dementors apparently could go around the country with no limit they seem to be not too much and not attacking largely populated areas, so it’s possible that they can be handle in the same way wizards handle giants and other hostile magical creatures.
533* The corruption and hypocrisy of the Ministry for Magic is a major theme of the books. It's no surprise that some of the things they do are horribly unethical. As far as calling all of the wizarding world evil for allowing them to get away with their unethical policies, you might want to take a closer look at our real world. Our governments do things that are less than ethical, to say the least, every day and we don't all drop what we're doing and rise up to oppose them.
534* Defeating, even destroying dementors, is a rather simple task. They eat, therefore, they can starve. Containing the fiend fungus until it expires is not likely to be easy. Such a task would likely take dozens, perhaps hundreds of ''qualified'' wizards working together, which might take time considering even ministry officials apparently have trouble producing corporeal patroni([[PerplexingPlurals spelling?]]). But it's not complicated, WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer you hit the problem with the hammer until it breaks. Push the bastards back into a corner, down a shaft, fence off the corner, put wooden board in the shaft, have a patronus lean on it, have a patronus sit on it. Rotate the patronus casters a regular inttervals. Bring lots of water, food, funny books to read, portable toilets. Also bring some orators too, some poets, anyone who can give long drawn out [[CharacterFilibuster filibusters about how the dementors suck, are going to die, are powerless to do anything about it and won't be missed]]. Surely there would be some musicians willing to hold benefit concerts to keep everything funded and lively, once the dementors have been cornered, {{Pom Pom|Girl}} squads too. Once they're trapped it can be advertised as a prolonged public extermination project parents can take the kids to see. Skeeter wants the eradication of vampires? We'll do her one better, the end of dementors on the British Isles.
535[[/folder]]
536
537[[folder:You stole from a dragon, this means friendship]]
538* So why exactly does Ron instantly forgive Harry after the first task? He was angry at Harry since he thought that Harry had been entering for more fame and stuff, yet once Harry beat the dragon he immediately thought "You stole from a dragon! Somehow this explains everything!". What.
539** Apparently, after he saw Harry being chased by a dragon, it finally dawned on Ron that the Tournament was *gasp* actually pretty dangerous and thus that Harry would hardly sign for it himself.
540** Except of course that by the time of Harry's conjectural signing he would have had no way of knowing about those dangers, so Ron's change of heart, what a shock, makes no goddamned sense.
541** Actually, it's surprising that ''Ron'' had to forgive ''Harry'' for anything.
542** It wasn't about getting an explanation -- it was that "Harry's taking all the attention and nobody ever so much as looks at me" suddenly seemed rather petty compared to the realization that "holy crap, someone's out to ''kill'' Harry and here I am feeling sorry for myself when ''my best friend might die!''"
543** Still, Ron looks like an incredible arse when his reason for being shitty with Harry up until the First Task was over was 'you're a liar, and you got in this tournament deliberately just to score some cheap fame!'. Now look at what Ron does after the Second Task -- brag to all the girls at Hogwarts about how badass he was fighting off fifty mermen with his wand and how he saved everybody down there. (Yes, that's in the [=GoF=] novel, that's not fanon.) What is this that Ron is doing here, given that he actually spent the entire Second Task unconscious? Ron is ''lying to try and score some cheap fame''. Ron Weasley is being an astounding hypocrite for doing this at all, much less for doing this ''after'' he's already had Harry 'forgive' him.
544** It's been a trait of his from the beginning. Recall that in the first book he looked in the Mirror of Erised and saw himself famous and award laden. The reason why he was so bitter against Harry becoming a Champion was because of all his pent-up jealously of Harry and of Ron's older brothers.
545** The way on sing it (and this may be reaction to the movie, haven't read the book in a while), but there's the impression that Ron was wanting to bury the hatchet for a little while before the first task, but his pride and harry's idiocy stopped him from ever apologizing prior. (i.e. When he comes downstairs when Harry's talking to Sirius, Ron's trying to act normal, but Harry takes a tone.)
546** There's more to it than just simple jealousy. Both Ron and Harry have fantasized about entering the Tournament and Harry even states that if it were him entering, he'd do it at night rather than during the day where everyone can see. It never crosses Ron's mind at all that he would ever try to enter the Tournament without Harry or vice versa. Therefore, when Harry's name does come out, it looks rather like Harry did enter without including his best friend in it. Ron tries to overlook that, but Harry's responses don't really help matters. In fact, when Ron asks why anyone would want to enter Harry's name, Harry thinks that saying "To kill me" would be too melodramtic and instead responds with "I dunno". If he'd just explained things, then the fight might have been avoided.
547It doesn't help matters either when Hermione gets to Harry first the following morning. Harry had planned, upon waking up, to force Ron to listen to his explanation. However, as Ron had already left the dorm room, Harry doesn't immediately get the chance. Then once Hermione explains Ron's behavior as due to jealousy, when that's not the only reason, Harry decides that Ron is being an idiot and has no further interest in getting him to see reason.
548** In the books, there was a scene where Harry was in Divination and gave Trelawney some lip and he noticed Ron looked like he was about to laugh but held it in. So basically, Ron started to get over his grudge before the first task but both he and Harry's pride kept them from reconciling. It was acknowledged in-universe that Rons feelings were irrational but considering he has to compete with all his brothers for parental attention and lives in Harrys shadow a lot of the time, his inferiority complex is understandable. He's only human. In fact he's only a kid.
549[[/folder]]
550
551[[folder:Informed inability to duel]]
552* So, when Harry is supposed to duel with Voldemort, he remembers his dueling classes and says that he knows only one dueling spell - the Expelliarmus. Really? He spent weeks preparing for the Maze, learning things like Stupefy, Impedimenta, Protego etc, most of which would be very useful and legit dueling spells. Those were, BTW, the spells he taught to the Dumbledore's Army next year, he hadn't learned anything new since then because of Umbridge.
553** Write it off to shock and panic. Also, Expelliarmus was the only spell he'd actually used in a real fight (against Snape in [=PoA=]) sucessfully.
554** When he learned the other spells, he'd been focused on how to use them against ''monsters'', not a fellow wand-wielder. He was probably thinking that it's only ''Expelliarmus'' which he'd specifically learned how to use in the context of a duel.
555** Don't forget that the Killing Curse is unblockable so shield charms won't work. Probably thinking he just wanted to end the duel as fast as he could.
556** He might also be thinking that maybe if he got lucky and did disarm Voldemort, it might buy him enough time to summon the cup and escape. Voldemort would have to get another wand or retrieve his, which would give Harry a few seconds to act.
557** I've never understood why 'Expelliarmus'' wasn't everyone's default spell. 'Expelliarmus'', "Stupefy", "Petrificus Totalus", you're opponent is no longer a threat. Would be very useful for students against adult wizards.
558*** From a practical standpoint, those spells WOULD be the most useful, which, conversely, makes them less useful because they'd be the things you expect. Wizard duels often rely on outsmarting your opponent in unique ways (Flitwick was a champion because he used charms in novel ways that his opponents couldn't expect or counter).
559[[/folder]]
560
561[[folder: Voldemort's Wand]]
562* So, Voldemort tried to killed Harry, it didn't work out, the House exploded, Voldemort's Body disappeared. OK, let's assume that the Wand survived all that. Shouldn't it remain in Potter's House? And if so, how come that no one from ministry or whatever found it and disposed of it? How did it get in Wormtail's possession so that he could return it to his Master?
563** Uhm, Pettigrew went there first (or probably waited around) and took it with him?
564** And carry around for 13 years? He didn't intend to find Voldemort, He did it only when he had to. And he didn't even seem to have his own Wand anymore.
565** No, hide it in case V ever returns and it could be used as a token of loyalty and usefulness to try and buy his miserable hide out, or just in case Pete might desperately need a wand himself someday.
566** Ok, that makes sense. But there's another Question: Priori Incantatem shows the shadow of every spell performed in reverse order. Does that mean that Voldemort only used his Wand for killing Bertha, Old man and creating Wormtails new hand? If nothing else, he tortured Bertha so long she had her memory spell removed. And quite sure Voldemort would have used his wand several times. So, why did nothing else appeared? And did Voldemort really do nothing with his Wand between killing Lily and encounter with Bertha? Why?
567** The book mentions that Harry can hear screams of pain coming from the wand as well. It's certainly possible that with screams of pain and the shadows of the dead, Harry simply didn't notice other spells that may have regurgitated.
568** Since Bertha's torture happened right after Wormtail'd found V, i.e. when V hadn't yet had any body, apparently he tortured her with...well, himself, possessing her and doing everything directly. As for other tasks, one presumes Wormtail performed them with Bertha's wand, both because it would serve him better since he overpowered her, and because V would certainly NOT allow him to use his wand. As for the second part, between killing Lily and encounter with Bertha V had been mostly ''dead'' (or possessing Quirrel and thus using his Wand), and his Wand had been in Wormtail's possession. How the was he supposed to do anything with it?
569** Speaking of which. Why doesn't Wormtail have his wand? Apparently, when an Animagus transforms, all of his possessions are incorporated in the animal form, and there's no reason for him to hide his own wand.
570** It's seems possible that he left his wand behind with his finger. Yes, no one ever says they found it, just 'his finger', but if his wand had been missing, it would seem like Peter had apparated away, and yet everyone assumes he's dead. All signs points to the inability to apparate without a wand, as taking people's wands seems to be considered enough to ground them. (Ron tries without a wand at one point, but he's not thinking clearly at the time.)
571** No, it would seem like it was destroyed in the explosion.
572** Of course, a point against this theory is that if he had left his wand behind, they could have checked it for the last spell during the trial. Granted, Sirius's psychotic break at having his 'family' fall apart, and the subsequent 'confession', means they didn't, but Peter couldn't know that in advance. But that's a plot hole no matter what, as Sirius's wand wouldn't show the right curse anyway. To think we should conclude either there's a way of having a wand not record a spell, or that Wizard courts are absolutely useless. (And we already knew that last is true.)
573** Neither; due to strict anti-Death Eater policies at the time, Sirius was sent to Azkaban without a trial.
574** As for "other spells", it was only "regurgitating" the results of successful killing curses, not every last act of magic ever done. Still, it implies Voldemort hadn't been killing too many people lately, relative to his fearsome reputation. Or maybe he doesn't use his supposed signature move [[InformedAttribute as much we're lead to believe]] when he wants to kill someone...
575** It's possible Wormtail dropped the wand in the sewers immediately after he transformed. After all, he couldn't carry it as a rat (and even if he could, he'd look pretty darn weird with a wand in his mouth).
576[[/folder]]
577
578[[folder: No modern numerals?]]
579* When Arthur Weasley is trying to pay the camp manager, he needs Harry's help to distinguish between the 'little symbols' that represent numbers. He doesn't even know what a five looks like! Since he runs the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, does this mean the rest of the wizarding community have never seen modern numerals in their lives? Of the many problems this would cause, how would they even recognise Platform 9 and 3/4s, for a start? What about essay writing, or textbooks? When a potion recipe says heat your cauldron for 30 minutes, do they spell it out all the time, or use Roman numerals or something? What about transactions at Gringotts, how complicated would the calculations be?
580** Arthur certainly did recognize the numbers; it just takes him a moment to spot the "10" because he's unfamiliar with how a ten-note's various markings are arranged. His mistaking the twenty-note for a fiver is probably due to his confusing the pound sign (which can look odd even to non-British Muggles) for some sort of weird cursive "5".
581** He had rarely used Muggle money before, so was unfamiliar with the denominations. It's no different than an American who's spent their whole life using US Dollars being confronted with a Euro for the first time.
582** There's another theory that he was intentionally giving Harry something to do to make him feel useful, as parents often do with their kids.
583[[/folder]]
584
585[[folder:So who were they planning to kill?]]
586* At the beginning of the book, Voldemort and Wormtail have a conversation where there is much talk of "if I murder" and "One more murder... my faithful servant at Hogwarts... Harry Potter is as good as mine." Yet if Wormtail ever does murder this person they're talking about, ''we'' certainly don't hear about it. Frank Bryce and Cedric Diggory are only victims of circumstance. Bertha Jorkins was ''already'' dead and Barty Crouch Sr. was originally imperiused and only killed because he escaped. So who was it that Voldemort and Wormtail were planning to murder?
587** Perhaps Voldy wanted Crouch Jr. to kill Moody. That explain the "faithful servant at Hogwarts" bit. When Crouch Jr. got to Moody's place he found the trunk and realized he could keep Moody in it. Having him alive would give him time to learn his mannerisms and provide extra ingredients for more Polyjuice potion.
588** In later editions, this was corrected to "if I curse" and "One more curse". They were referring to putting the Imperius Curse on Crouch.
589*** Maybe he intended to kill Crouch Sr. originally, but then realized that the Imperius Curse would work much better. It's also likely that they always intended to kill him, but they had to do it much sooner after he escaped.
590** Harry himself? Once V has what he needs, then Harry is not only expendable, but an active threat. One more murder, and he is free to do as he wishes with no one to stop him, since the Prophecy Boy is now a corpse.
591** Upon going back and checking the book, it seems the original plan was for them to kill Moody. Voldemort mentions that his faithful servant will have joined them once the time for the murder comes and that if all goes well, the Ministry won't even know about the death until it's too late - both of these make it unlikely he'd meant Crouch, since Jr. would be under his protection ''until'' they took him out, and the Ministry would've found out almost instantly if something happened to him. And later, near the end of their conversation, Voldemort starts musing to himself, "One more murder...My faithful servant at Hogwarts...Harry Potter is as good as mine..." which would translate out to "Have Wormtail and Crouch Jr. kill Moody > Have Jr. impersonate Moody to infiltrate Hogwarts, then enter Harry's name in the tournament and guide him through it."
592[[/folder]]
593
594[[folder:Rita Skeeter only exists to cause trouble! Now excuse me while I believe everything she says]]
595* What is with Molly Weasley's inconsistent opinion of Rita Skeeter? After the World Cup, Molly agrees with everyone else that Rita Skeeter is the worst kind of "journalist," one that spreads sensationalist lies to get more readers and is not to be believed. After Rita's article about the Triwizard Champions (the colorful life story of Harry) we hear from Charlie that Mrs. Weasley was quite upset when she heard that Harry still cries over his parents. After Rita's article about the supposed love triangle between Hermione, Harry, and Krum, Mrs. Weasley sends Hermione an insultingly small Easter Egg. When Mrs. Weasley and Bill arrive at Hogwarts to cheer for Harry in the third task, Amos Diggory gives Harry a bunch of crap over the colorful life story article and Mrs. Weasley snaps at him that he should know better than to believe anything Rita Skeeter says. At dinner, Mrs. Weasley treats Hermione coldly until Harry explains to her that Hermione was never his girlfriend and that Rita Skeeter was making up more lies (you know, like what Mrs. Weasley was just telling Mr. Diggory). So over the course of the book, Mrs. Weasley's opinion of Rita Skeeter goes from Disbelief to belief, then more belief, then back to disbelief, right back to belief, then finally settles on disbelief. [[FlatWhat What.]]
596** It's actually very simple if you connect the dots. Molly doesn't believe for a second that Hermione is using magic (or love potions) to make Harry her boyfriend. If she did, then it's not likely her reaction would simply be to send her smaller chocolate. Molly's not stupid, she doesn't believe that Hermione would do that...but she might believe that Harry and Hermione are an actual couple. And after having known them for so many years, she's likely aware of Ron's interest in Hermione, even if Ron himself is not, so having Harry and Hermione hook up would break Ron's heart, so she's not angry but also not too thrilled about it. Things get cleared up when Harry states specifically that he and Hermione are not a couple. So she knew not to believe Rita but didn't think Rita would completely make something like that up out of nothing as she merely just twists facts and exaggerates.
597** You connected the dots wrong. If the reason Mrs. Weasley was upset with Hermione over the Hermione/Harry/Krum love triangle is because she knew it was upsetting Ron that Hermione wasn't in a relationship with him, she would still be upset with Hermione even after Harry explains that they're not in a relationship, because it means Hermione's still running around with Krum instead of Ron. It's pretty clear that the whole reason the article upset Mrs. Weasley is because she thought Hermione was being a bad girlfriend to Harry.
598** She went out with Krum once and was just nice to him the rest of the time, he was only there temporarily, they were never a couple.
599** When was it ever established, or even slightly suggested, that Molly knew about Ron fancying Hermione by the time Skeeter printed that article? Hell if the shipping wars that went on are any indication half the fanbase didn't realize Ron fancied Hermione so it's quite interestingto know how she figured it out. And no Ron didn't tell her because any parent who has a teenage boy knows that the last person they want to discuss their love life with is their mother.
600** Exactly, Mrs. Weasley had no idea that Ron was into Hermione. The whole reason she was upset at Hermione is because Rita Skeeter's article made her think that Hermione was running around behind Harry's back....which, as the original post points out, makes no sense. Molly slingshots back and forth between hating Rita Skeeter and not believing a word she says and taking it all to heart repeatedly throughout the book.
601** At this point in the series even Harry knows that Ron and Hermione fancy each other and he's blind to relationships and girls. Of course Molly knows, Hermione was living with them for a while that summer and she and Ron have the exact same dynamic that Molly and Arthur have. It's obvious to everyone who isn't blind due to shipping goggles. Hermione/Ron is one of those relationships where it's obvious to everyone but them.
602** The simplest explanation might just be that Molly is flawed. She wants to think that she's above believing anything Skeeter says, but in fact she falls for Skeeter's lies herself sometimes in cases where she doesn't already know from personal experience that they are lies. It doesn't help that, while some of Skeeter's articles are flat-out lies, most are simply highly biased accounts of actual events. Molly might have read the Witch Weekly article, disbelieved the details, but still accepted the premise that Harry and Hermione were dating. She was probably rather embarrassed when she realized her mistake.
603** Exactly! It's like hating the ''Daily Mail'' but still reading their Side-Bar of Shame as a guilty pleasure.
604** Or like what she says at one point in ''Half-Blood Prince'', commenting that Bill and Fleur shouldn't be getting married after having known each other so little, and that they're only doing it because of the war...then the kids remind her that a similarly rushed union took place between her and Arthur, to which her response is that in her case, it was ''true love.''
605** Doesn't Molly read an article of Rita's about the incident at the World Cup and go into a panic? So despite who's written the story, she still kinda buys it. A good comparison is the wrestling dirt sheets - news sites that post backstage gossip that is pretty much all made up based on guesswork or just outright fabrication. Multiple wrestlers have said that the dirt sheets make everything up, but people still continue to read them and believe the stories. And Charlie says that Molly believed Rita's other article about Harry too, so it appears she makes a habit of believing her tabloid nonsense.
606[[/folder]]
607
608[[folder:Practicing for his Twilight audition?]]
609* At the beginning of the movie, when Harry and company meet up with Amos Diggory, and then Cedric just falls into the shot... what was Cedric doing in the tree? Seems like kind of an odd place to be if you're not expecting to be waiting for long.
610** There's the thought that it was just done as a more interesting way to introduce Cedric than just having him standing next to his dad.
611** Trying to get a better vantage on the area, to see if he could spot the Weasleys, most likely. It was implied that the Weasleys were running a bit late, and the portkey won't wait for you, so Cedric was probably hoping to spot them from on high.
612** Maybe...he just likes climbing trees? If one could climb them as well as he probably can, they'd do it all the time, especially if they're bored or tired of waiting for someone to arrive.
613[[/folder]]
614
615
616
617[[folder: Ron's robes]]
618* Minor nitpick: Why did Molly give Ron hand-me-down robes for Yule Ball, without even trying to fit it into something more fashionable? She is a housewife with required manual talent and plenty of free time, surely enough free time to make nice clothes for a once in lifetime event for her son? Lots of people use second hand clothes as a base for more fashionable creations and not-so-rich mother of several children should have all sewing tricks in her fingertips.
619** It's always presumed that she didn't think it was that bad and that Ron was just exaggerating about how awful it looked, so she just let it be.
620** Possibly a combination of the fact that the robes she sent are a traditional style coupled with her wanting to punish Ron for being such a git towards Harry during the First Task.
621** Not in the book. In the book, Ron gets the horrible dress robes the day before they leave for Hogwarts and Ron groans "Why is everything I own rubbish?!"
622** Molly is both TheChessmaster and a ShipperOnDeck: she gave Ron hideous robes so no girl will go to the ball with him, forcing Hermione to take him out of pity. BOOM, Ron and Hermione are at the ball together.
623*** If that is true she failed absolutely. In fact if Ron had taken out his anger on Krum (instead of just brooding about it), he could have ended up seriously damaging his relationship with Hermione.
624** Or, maybe Molly just isn't any good at sewing. Not every housewife is good at creating fashionable, comfortable, or even not-lopsided clothing!
625** If Ron had asked her nicely instead of throwing a tantrum she likely could have fixed it up a bit for him. She's not going to reward a teenager for throwing a tantrum over something she couldn't have helped.
626[[/folder]]
627
628[[folder:It's Rude to Check Back?]]
629* After Harry told Sirius about the dragons, and Sirius said he had a solution which he was going to reveal right after he finishes dumping out exposition and, of course, he never got a chance to reveal it, what exactly prevented Harry from writing a letter to him ''and asking him for that solution''?! It's not the secrecy thing, since he had no qualms to write Sirius about his victory, he certainly wasn't embarrassed to ask for help, so what gives? One could understand why Sirius didn't write to him and told it, since [[note]]Crazy conspiracy theorist mode ON[[/note]]he was instructed by DD to only give the kid a hint so that Harry thinks of the spell by himself[[note]]Crazy conspiracy theorist mode OFF[[/note]], but Harry didn't know that.
630** The conversation with Sirius was ''three days'' before the task. At this point in the story, owls to and from Sirius were taking a long time because he was a long way away; he didn't return to Hogsmeade until after the second task.
631[[/folder]]
632
633
634[[folder: So if Fleur was a male...]]
635* Would he still have the ability to entrance people using Veela love magic? Although it is not stated (as least as far as the brain can remember) It's guessing the Veela are a OneGenderRace but that doesn't necessarily mean that any child from a Human Veela union would automatically be female. And yes there's also no reason why the power would shift from [[HoYay entrancing men to entrancing women]] although there is no reason why it wouldn't either.
636** It is confirmed that Fleur has a son, among two daughters, with Bill Weasley, but he's not seen and therefore his possible Veela charm can't be judged. Veela charm also seems to diminish by generation, since Fleur, a quarter-Veela, was able to turn heads but not cause near-suicide like Harry almost did for the Veela at the World Cup. Thus, as a one-eighth-Veela, Louis might have at best enough charm to draw attention but not hypnotically entrance.
637** Also, do Veela powers work by gender or sexuality? Would lesbian and bisexual women be enchanted? Would a gay man be immune?
638*** Since the nature of Veela magic is to inspire attraction in people that they wouldn't normally feel, the person's default sexuality wouldn't matter. The magic would make them feel attracted to the Veela. Like in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' when RJ's spell still made Willow attracted to him even though she was lesbian/bisexual.
639** According to Harry's description of Veela at the World Cup, "Veela were women". So yes, they're a OneGenderRace. If Veela and a human man had a daughter she'd be half-Veela. If they had a son he'd just be human.
640** Veelas seem to only charm men, and actually seem to repel women, though in Fleur's case that also came from being a FrenchJerk. Still, a male veela would probably charm women and repel men.
641** As a Squick, do Veela powers of attraction only appear when they are adults or do young girl Veela also have the same attractive abilities?
642
643[[/folder]]
644
645
646[[folder: The strange first evening at Hogwarts in the film.]]
647* The students from the other two schools arrive for the first day feast and sorting - Dumbledore even says they've just been sorted. However... the Hogwarts students watch and point as the two schools arrive in broad daylight - but Hogwarts students usually step off of the Hogwarts Express ''after sundown'' and go straight to the feast.
648** The film clearly shows that they arrived at Hogwarts before sundown, in time to witness the arrival of the international students, and then they headed off to the feast.
649[[/folder]]
650
651[[folder: What would have happened if someone had swatted Rita Skeeter in insect form?]]
652* Would she have reverted to her human form, squashed flat? And would that have been considered a crime under Wizarding law? No; since she was an unregistered Animagus, nobody would have any way of knowing she wasn't a real bug.
653** She would be dead make no mistake about that. Even if the transformation cancels itself upon death; she would still have suffered an impact by something hundreds of times larger and stronger than herself and there is simply no evidence whatsoever that any injuries are healed upon returning to human form. At bare minimum she would have severe internal haemorrhaging. As for any illegalities involved it would probably rely entirely on whether you knew she was actually a human or not when you swatted her transformed state. Doubting the fact she was an unregistered Animagus would save you from the murder charge if you were fully aware of her identity and attacked anyway.
654** Although they'd have a heck of a time proving that you knew someone was an unregistered Animagus. Especially if that Animagus was something as inconspicuous as a bug.
655** With all the frogs around, she was lucky not to be caught by one of their tongues.
656[[/folder]]
657
658[[folder: Bellatrix and Snape]]
659* According to Sirius, Snape was part of a gang of Slytherins that included Rosier, Wilkes, Avery, Mulciber, and the Lestranges, a married couple. Since Rabastan Lestrange was never shown to have a wife it's fairly certain that said Lestranges are meant to be Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. The only problem with this is the timeline. Snape is said to have attended Hogwarts from 1971-1978. Bellatrix however, according to the Black Family Tapestry was born in 1951, meaning that she would've attended Hogwarts from 1962-1969 or 1963-1970 depending on what month she was born in. How could they have attended school together if she was old enough to have graduated before he even set foot in Hogwarts?
660** [[WritersCannotDoMath Rowling sucks at math]].
661** Maybe Rodolphus is a few years younger than Bellatrix, and Rabastan a few years younger than Rodolphus.
662** No, that theory makes no sense. Sirius specifically says the Lestranges were "a married couple, they're in Azkaban". If he were talking about Rabastan and Rodolphus he would've said "they are brothers". Besides, when looking at the tapestry in the next book Harry references this conversation when he points out that Sirius didn't tell him that Bellatrix was his cousin. To think it's more likely that Bellatrix had attended Hogwarts when Snape and Sirius were there and JK Rowling messed up when giving the dates for the family tree. Personally anytime JK Rowling uses specific dates or numbers to indicate the period where the Marauders and Snape were young usually leads to a SeriesContinuityError. Take her timeline with a grain of salt.
663** All this theory makes no sense because Bellatrix is just a Lestrange by marriage. In Hogwarts, her name was still Bellatrix Black.
664** I always took it to mean that Bellatrix had her group of friends, some of whom were younger, who turned out to be Death Eaters. They were young enough that some were still at Hogwarts when Snape arrived. Lucius was born in 1953/4 and would have overlapped with both of them.
665[[/folder]]
666
667[[folder:Crouch Sr. freeing Winky]]
668* Why would Crouch Sr. risk firing Winky, when she has enough incriminating information to put Crouch Sr. in Azkaban for life? (At the very least; breaking his own son out of Azkaban then placing him under the Imperius Curse seems bad enough for the Dementor's Kiss).
669** Remember, that she stole Harry's wand. It's clearly a very serious crime, so even if Crouch Sr. didn't want to do it, he might've had no choice. After all, what would people think if Barty Crouch Sr., ByTheBookCop through and through, who didn't even spare his own son in the service of Justice, suddenly let such a transgression from his house-elf pass? Hell, they might correctly suspect that very thing you wrote, that she has dirt on him, and force her to talk. This way no one was going to pay attention to the incident, and apparently loyal house elves keep their masters' secrets even after they are freed (later Winky complained that someone heavily implied to be Dumbledore had been pecking his nose into her master's affairs).
670** Crouch probably knows Winky well enough to know that she wouldn't betray sensitive information about him. Crouch Jr says she was dismissed because she had failed him by letting him get hold of a wand. She admittedly did mess up royally; not paying enough attention to the man she was supposed to be guarding because she was afraid of heights. And the whole reason they were there at the event was because she suggested it. So it's all her fault that Crouch Jr got free for a moment and pure luck that it didn't result in anything worse happening. So you can understand his reasons.
671** It's explicitly stated that Crouch despises the Dark Arts so deeply and utterly, and has made that so much of his public image that he ''had'' to dismiss Winky just because she happened to be holding a wand that cast the Dark Mark.
672[[/folder]]
673
674[[folder: The Trace- So Important, and Yet So Underutilized]]
675* Mad-Eye himself tells Harry that the trace means if he sneezes, the Ministry will know who wipes his nose. Even assuming a bit of colourful exaggeration, this implies that the Trace tells the Ministry the source of magic around an underaged wizard, which makes sense, since they would need to know if the magic came from the underage wizard. Given that there is no statement that the Trace is either dormant or unmonitored during the school year, it's safe to assume that neither is the case, and in fact it would be reasonable to assume that it ''does'' function and ''is'' monitored, as there's every possibility that an underaged wizard would use an unforgiveable curse in a fit of anger or desperation. All that said, why did no one from the ministry notice that trace was reporting Barty Crouch Jr using the unforgivable curses in a classroom? We already know from the marauder's map that flawless pinpoint accuracy and identification of disguised targets--even those disguised with magic--are entirely within the realm of possibility. If anyone were paying attention, and the Ministry cares at all about the safety of children, at the very least this would have merited an investigation.
676** The sixth book says that the Trace cannot detect ''who'' is doing magic, hence why Morfin was blamed for Riddle's murders or Harry blamed for Dobby's Hover Charm. It's also likely that the Ministry won't spend too much security on Trace-monitoring Hogwarts, since there will be hundreds of spells occurring inside it every hour.
677*** Wouldn't the Trace not matter if Harry had Side-Along Apparated in the beginning of DH, since adult wizards don't have the Trace on them and the Ministry shouldn't be able to tell if Harry is along for the ride?
678*** Harry was still underage, which is why they couldn't use any magic around Harry.
679[[/folder]]
680
681[[folder: Fudge the Death Eater]]
682* Cornelius Fudge brought a dementor into the school for protection. Not an auror, a ''dementor''. A creature described as pure evil that devours happiness and souls. And when it executed Crouch Jr., everyone basically talked about how he couldn't testify why he did it. Nobody seemed to be bothered that a man was just given a summary execution (that is, an execution without a trial). What makes this worse is that only a year the dementors had attacked two Hogwarts students, Harry and Hermione along with their target of Sirius Black and would have kissed them if Harry hadn't managed to drive them off with a successful Patronus Charm which led to Fudge removing them from the school, mentioning how he didn't expect them to attack an innocent boy and that they were out of control. Yet 1 year later, he decides to bring a dementor back to the school even though their past actions have shown that their tendency to go whomever they feel like. Why couldnt the guy have brought an auror detail instead of a soul-sucking monstrosity?
683** Fudge has a much higher opinion of dementors than the others. He may not be aware of the full details of the dementors nearly getting Harry, or view it as the kid's fault for being near their territory in the first place. He's confident by the fact that he can command them, since the dementor isn't turning on him the moment they're alone.
684** ...didn't Fudge brought the dementor into the school specifically ''to'' silence Barty Jr., so he wouldn't have to admit to everyone that Voldemort was back?
685*** No, he didn't, that's just fanon. The Dementor did it because Barty had escaped from the Dementors, and they ''despise'' that.
686** Or because dementors are scary as heck. If you had Cerberus for your personal attack dog, wouldn't you bring him along?
687[[/folder]]
688
689[[folder: Moody before Hogwarts]]
690* Minor point, but why was Moody at home the night before students take the train to Hogwarts? In ''Prisoner of Azkaban'', Lupin was on the Hogwarts Express with the students, but there's the impression that he was a last-minute hire. Moody had been arranged for weeks, so why wasn't he already up at the school, preparing lessons and collaborating with the other teachers for the tri-wizard challenges?
691** Wasn't Lupin...homeless, or something? Or at least in poverty due to being a werewolf? He may not have been hanging out at home because he didn't have a home to hang out at, or maybe Moody had things at his home that he was taking care of last-minutes, things someone like Lupin wouldn't have to worry about.
692** Lupin actually had a home. A pretty small and shabby one but yes, he had a home. And he was on the Hogwarts Express because Dumbledore asked him to do that to counter the Dementors who were about to search the train. There were no Dementors on the Hogwarts Express in the 4th book.
693*** The news article on some alleged attack on Moody's house is the time when Crouch Jr. attacked and overpowered the real Moody. One could assume the delay on "Moody" arriving was because Crouch Jr. needed to prepare the Polyjuice Potion, visit with Voldemort about the plan, and get the disguise down pat.
694[[/folder]]
695
696[[folder: Torture for information]]
697* Apologies if there's missing something on this - some are certainly not the ''biggest'' Harry Potter fans...But something others don't understand: after Voldemort died/disappeared, the Death Eaters try to find information as to his whereabouts and what happened to him. So they use the Cruciatus Curse on Neville's parents, of all people, to try and get it? Why did they think the Longbottoms would know where Voldemort was? Why would they think ''any'' members of the Order would know any better where Voldemort was than a group of his own followers?
698** If Voldemort disappeared without a trace or a body, the most logical conclusion is that he is imprisoned by the Order or the Ministry. As for why Longbottoms in particular, remember that Neville fit the conditions of the Prophecy just as Harry did. Perhaps Voldemort was going after them after he'd dealt with the Potters. Death Eaters apparently knew that and concluded that whatever Voldemort faced at the Potters, the Longbottoms would be involved in as well, so they're the obvious first choice to search for answers.
699** It may not have even been something of logic. Maybe the Lestranges and Crouch came across Order members (who may even be looking specifically for them), and get the upper hand. They figure "Hey, maybe these Order members know where our boss went, and a little torture might get them to spill. And if they don't know? Well, we can still have a little fun." Not exactly out of character for Bellatrix, at least.
700[[/folder]]
701
702[[folder: "Get back to the Cup!"]]
703* Why didn't Cedric Accio the cup back over to him when Harry told him this? Harry's clearly in serious pain - why or how did Cedric think confronting the shadowy man that was traipsing toward them would help matters, as opposed to using the Portkey to get Harry back to Hogwarts as quickly as possible?
704** Cedric is a Hufflepuff, a house full of people who are dedicated, hardworking, friendly, and '''loyal'''. Harry helped him with the dragon, Cedric returned the favor with the egg, and they helped each other in the maze. It's fair to say they became friends. Cedric is '''not''' going to leave a friend lying there in pain just to escape.
705** That's not what it meant. Instead of confronting Peter, why didn't Cedric just Accio the cup back to him and Harry?
706** Cedric didn't confront Wormtail in anyway. Wormtail just walked up and killed him in five seconds flat. Cedric's body is even described as looking surprised.
707** In the film, he did. Instead of summoning the cup, he points his wand at Peter and demands to know what he wants with them. It's only then that Voldemort orders him to be killed.
708** Film version then. His curiosity and bravery got the best of him. Between flight or fight he chose fight and was killed. Alternatively, Cedric's not good enough at accio to summon something he can't see and was wary about turning his back on a stranger in that situation. His own self preservation was not completely overridden by a desire to help Harry, though he ended up dead anyway.
709[[/folder]]
710
711[[folder: More Map Mistakes]]
712* Since the "Bartemius Crouch" that Harry saw in Snape's office on the Marauders' Map was actually Barty Crouch Jr., disguised as Mad-Eye Moody, stealing supplies to make more Polyjuice potion so he could keep up the ruse, but if one's correct on this, shouldn't the map have identified him specifically as "Bartemius Crouch, ''Jr.''"? correctively, but the "Jr." is a legal part of his name, isn't it?
713** By law, the "Jr." isn't part of anyone's name, so there is no reason to assume the map would make any distinction between Crouch Sr. and Crouch Jr.
714** Indeed, that. Though one ''could'' make the "Jr." part official in at least some parts of the world, in most cases where it's used the person actually has the exact same name as their parent and "Jr." is added unofficially to help people who could interact with both with distinguishing between them.
715** It's possible that if both Crouches had been in the building, the Map might have added the suffixes to distinguish them. Perhaps it did since it was thanks to the map (and being tipped off by that eagle owl that Voldemort sent ahead to warn him) that Crouch Jr. was able to track down and murder his father.
716[[/folder]]
717
718[[folder: The murder of Frank Bryce]]
719* Shouldn't Frank Bryce's murder at the old Riddle house have triggered something within the Ministry of Magic, something that would've alerted them to forbidden magic being used and to investigate the occurrence?
720** The tracing spell is put specifically around houses of muggle-born wizards. The area had no wizard living around so they just didn't bother.
721** Is it really? And there *was* a wizard living nearby: the Gaunts, or at the very least Morfin Gaunt. Honestly, we do know that someone came to investigate and Morfin admitted to doing it so they didn't care much about the trace recording something because the trace only records that there's magic used in the vicinity of an underage wizard. Now, we do not know if the trace was as advanced back then as it was during Harry's time, so they truly might not have been able to detect as much as you'd think they should.
722** No, Morfin was only alive back when the ''Riddles'' were killed. Frank was murdered 50 years after that.
723** The Trace is only applied to underage witches and wizards so the Ministry can tell when magic is done around them. There is no reason to believe the Ministry would have had any reason to put a trace-like spell around the Riddle house since they're all Muggles (except Tommy boy, obviously). And as far as they knew, everyone from the Gaunt family was dead or in prison.
724[[/folder]]
725
726
727[[folder: Petigrew's alias]]
728* Why does everyone call Pettigrew "Wormtail" in this book? Yes, it was his nickname in school, but a large number of characters don't know that, and even if they did, it still doesn't mean they should be calling him it now that he's switched sides. (It's even worse in the movie, maybe, since they neglected to explain in the third one who the Marauders were, so everyone referring to him as Wormtail doesn't make much sense...)
729** None of the Death Eaters respect Pettigrew. He defected out of fear rather than true belief and loyalty. They call him "Wormtail" because it's both disrespectful to not call him by his given name and to remind him that he is a traitorous coward.
730[[/folder]]
731
732[[folder: Would Cedric's sacrifice have protected Harry?]]
733* Let's see...Harry and Cedric get Portkeyed to the Little Hangleton graveyard. Harry sees Pettigrew approaching carrying Voldemort and urges Cedric to get back to the cup. Instead of saving himself by doing this, Cedric stands his ground, brandishing his wand against Pettigrew and subsequently getting killed by him. It seems as though this fulfills all the same criteria as Lily's sacrifice did when Harry was a baby...Would it have worked to bestow the love protection on Harry again?
734** It doesn't fill all the same criteria, as Cedric, having his wand out, clearly had some intent to defend himself and/or Harry. In Lily's case, she chose to die without resisting, rather than give up her son to Voldemort.
735** ...Not sure how much sense that makes... "Lily chose to die without resisting...in order to resist Voldemort trying to kill her son." There's the thought about the criteria for the protection was that you had to have the chance to walk away free and unharmed, but then forfeit that chance and give your life in place of someone else's. Voldemort offered Lily the chance to move aside and live while he took Harry's life. She instead chose to stand between them. Cedric had the chance to get back to the Portkey and escape unharmed, with or without Harry, but he instead chose to stand up to Peter and Voldemort. (Did the choice specifically have to be presented to him by the killer, or would it have worked regardless? Voldemort even referred to Cedric as "the spare", meaning the one who didn't have to be killed.)
736*** Yes, the choice has to explicitly be given by the other person. In Lily's case, she'd gotten mercy from Tom and was free to walk away safe from him, and then she'd traded the mercy for her for mercy for her son, a deal that Tom struck by killing her and then immediately broke by trying to kill Harry. In Cedric's case, neither Tom nor Wormtail planned on letting him go free and unharmed in the first place (for hell's sake, him being "the spare" does not mean that he'd be allowed to walk free, i.e. spared, if he did not interfere—how the heck did you get to such a conclusion anyway—but rather that he was not necessary for their ritual and thus could be killed immediately), so nothing he might have chosen to do could have resulted in the same thing.
737[[/folder]]
738
739[[folder: Dumbledore's behavior in the end]]
740* How does DD's explanation about how he exposed Crouch Jr. make any sense? "Real Moody would've never taken you away from me." Uhm, what? First, the very fact that DD has (again) overlooked a spy within his staff, failed to properly protect the Goblet against tempering and allowed a student to be kidnapped from an event with numerous witnesses TWICE kinda invalidates his claim of having the situation under control, so there's no reason why the real Moody would trust him. Second, even disregarding First, how is it a good idea to keep a traumatized kid amidst all the commotion, especially when there's a spy at large nearby, and this would be a perfect opportunity for them to quietly kill Harry.
741** Your claim about "overlooking" the spy in his staff implies that he knew the spy was there and who he was, which he clear didn't until Barty exposed himself that night. And if the real Moody had been there, there wouldn't have been any issue of the spy. As for the second part, Dumbledore would've allowed for Harry to be escorted back up to the castle in time - Moody simply intervened without Dumbledore's consent, completely alone, and while the commotion was still forming. That's something Dumbledore knew the real Alastor Moody wouldn't have done.
742* Speaking of which, what in the world possessed DD to let Harry out of his sight amidst all the commotion, especially when there's a spy at large nearby, and this would be a perfect opportunity for them to quietly kill Harry?! The kid ''only'' survived, because Barty felt the need for a JustBetweenYouAndMe chat, and waited for it before they reached his room instead of using the first quiet corner like any real criminal would've done.
743** You said it yourself -- there's a huge commotion. Dumbledore probably fell behind a bit since he didn't know how Harry had gone, but once he figured out who he was with, there'd be reckoning he'd have been on Moody's trail in a heartbeat.
744** Dumbledore has known all year there is a spy--''someone'' had to have slipped Harry's name into the Goblet. He just never guessed that it might be Moody.
745[[/folder]]
746
747[[folder: Who sent the Dementor?]]
748* So who was it that instructed the Dementor to perform its kiss on Crouch? Did Fudge stop to have a short conversation with it before they went in? ("Alright, Mr. Dementor, now when we go into this room, you'll see a really grubby, shabby-looking, blonde-haired guy in a huge longcoat in a chair in a corner. Yes, only him. The first thing I want you to do is fly right over to him, don't let him say a word, and just give him a big, wet kiss for me, alright?") If so, it seems like kind of a brash move to make, silencing the man before even bothering to listen to what he has to say, even if you don't think him to be credible. And to suggest it was Voldemort, well, why would Voldemort treat his most loyal subject that way? (And how would he know? And how would he arrange for it?)
749** Fudge brought the Dementor for protection. Crouch Jr. was a former Death Eater who had broken out of Azkaban after all. The Dementor wasn't ordered to perform the Kiss, it just did it because it's an evil creature and it could. Crouch was an escaped prisoner so Fudge didn't care much, especially since he didn't want to hear any evidence to support Voldemort's return.
750** And why exactly could it "could"? It was there on guard/escort duty only. One could be honestly flummoxed that Fudge's career even survived that night, after he'd either brought a murderous uncontrollable monster ''into a school'' for no good reason, or he assassinated a suspect and a valuable witness to several murders! All under an equally laughable excuse of "He was crazy so no big loss! What's that? He might've had accomplices or other hostages? He might be complicit to other crimes? The entire "serve Voldemort" story could've been planted into his mind to cover his real motives and REAL masterminds, who, by the way, would be very interested in silencing him? Oh, don't be absurd, that only happens in stories for grown ups!" And if that wasn't enough, Fudge was too stupid to even put up the classic "killed during an escape attempt" charade! He was practically begging to be gutted alive, and yet DD just bends over and lets this jellyfish-brain chase him out of the Ministery!
751** "And to suggest it was Voldemort" - actually, it's a good version. Crouch Jr. was loyal, of course, but ultimately just as expendable as the rest of the bunch. As for how and why, remember that Dementors were Voldemort's "natural allies". It stands to reason that after his return he would meet with them somehow or send Lucius to them and request that should Crouch be recaptured, he must be silenced. Alternatively, it was that Dementor's own initiative. It realised that Crouch could be a threat to Voldemort and acted accordingly.
752** Another easy explanation that the books themselves even suggest is that the Dementor attacked Crouch Jr. because it felt ''insulted'' that it had managed to allow a prisoner to escape under its watch. It's unclear how sapient Dementors actually are, but they clearly despise learning their chosen prey has outwitted them in some manner.
753[[/folder]]
754
755[[folder: It just bugs me...]]
756* Is Rita Skeeter still an Animagus in the film's universe, if it's to be viewed as separate from the book's? Realizing the plot thread where they found out she was an Animagus wasn't thoroughly important to the overall story of the film, but just a little reference or two would've been nice.
757[[/folder]]
758
759[[folder: Hermione and Mrs. Weasley]]
760* On remembering correctly, something that's behoovoing when reading the book was when Mrs. Weasley came to Hogwarts to support Harry during the third task - she starts off by acting very coldly and aloofly towards Hermione, and Harry figures this is because she read Rita Skeeter's articles about her, so he's quick to tell Mrs. Weasley that they're not true, and her temperament seems to improve from there. But it was confusing - why did Mrs. Weasley particularly care about what the articles said about Hermione? Hasn't she known her long enough to not let them cloud her judgement like that?
761** Considering she believed the wangsty story Skeeter, who she should know is a glorified tabloid reporter, wrote about Harry, who has roomed with her son for three years, and stayed at her home during two summers, you'd say she is too prone to fall for gossip.
762** Well if you look at some of Ron's mannerisms in the series, it does hint at Mrs Weasley being a little prone to gossip and old wives' tales. Check in with any WWE fans - who easily fall for news 'reported' on websites called dirt sheets that many in the industry have said just make things up - and you'll see how easily some people will believe anything that gets reported as news.
763** Mrs. Weasley was also a big ol' Gilderoy Lockhart fan, so her occasional susceptibility to charlatans and tabloid nonsense is pretty well-established.
764[[/folder]]
765
766[[folder: "I'll have the death in a white wine sauce, with roast death, and death ice cream to follow."]]
767* Why did Voldemort call his followers Death Eaters? What does it actually mean? Did he just think it sounded spooky?
768** Probably it pertains to Voldemort's attempts to utterly conquer death, while the "Eater" part is just meant to make it sound simpler and cooler.
769** After Voldermart kills people, he feeds their corpses to his snakes. That's what it refers to.
770[[/folder]]
771
772[[folder: Voldemort's wand II]]
773* Realizing this was already asked above, but with the recent release of ''Cursed Child'', the issue of Pettigrew possessing Voldemort's wand needs to be brought up again. It's clear that Voldemort's rebounding Killing Curse in Godric's Hollow had significantly more power than a standard Killing Curse, seeing as it supposedly demolished the roof. No mention of Voldemort's body being found at the scene was ever made. Yet the only proof of Harry being "The Boy Who Lived" was if they had concrete proof that Voldemort had been there and tried to kill him. So if Voldemort's body hadn't been there, the only possible proof would be his wand - without it there, there's no proof at all that Voldemort could even conceivably be dead, and no reason for the wizarding world to be celebrating so merrily. So when did Peter get the wand back?
774** Apparently some identifiable remains did remain, and it just never came out in any conversation between the characters. Why would it?
775** Even so, it still leaves unanswered when Peter got the wand. In ''Cursed Child'', Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Draco, Albus and Scorpius witness Voldemort's killing of Lily and James. Then they wait until Hagrid comes along to bring baby Harry to the Dursleys, with no mention of Peter appearing to get the wand before his arrival. Hagrid mentions in ''Sorcerer's Stone'' that he was able to get Harry out just as Muggles had started to swarm the house, and it can't be long after that before the Ministry took action, came to the scene, gathered the evidence (which should've included the wand, if it was there), cast the necessary enchantments...basically making it impossible for Peter to get his hands on the wand anytime afterward. Then comes ''Goblet of Fire'' later on, where he suddenly has it and is able to present it to Voldemort.
776[[/folder]]
777
778[[folder:"Rita Skeeter would like to make the following corrections."]]
779* So why didn't Hermione's blackmailing of Rita Skeeter include, as one of the conditions for keeping her status as an unregistered animagus secret, that she had to issue public corrections for everything she had misrepresented or lied about, or at least everything she misrepresented or lied about over the last year that happened at Hogwarts, [[ConsummateLiar since otherwise it'd take way too long]]? She had Rita by the metaphorical balls and all she did with it was stop her from doing more damage rather than forcing her to fix the damage she had already done. Surely fixing Hagrid and Harry's reputations, as well as her own, should have been high on Hermione's priority list? Especially once it became clear that ''Cornelius Fudge'' was taking her stories seriously? Surely it wouldn't even take somebody with her brains to figure out that correcting the record would have been ''extremely'' important?
780** Refuting that much would've probably wrecked Rita's career far worse than her deal with Hermie did, making in a not much better alternative to being exposed. When using blackmail you don't want to push your victim too far (or so one heard).
781** It could be that Rita would have preferred time in Azkaban to retracting her stories, for those reasons. Also Hermione, for all her brains, is a fourteen year old girl. She caught Rita on the windowsill in the hospital wing a mere weeks before school lets out. She couldn't have foreseen that Fudge would be stupid and desperate enough to trust ''Umbridge'' over Harry Potter, or that Umbridge would be the type to send Dementors after Harry and oppress them at school.
782** Maybe Hermione didn't think having Rita write retractions was that important - since a lot of the damage done by her articles had blown over. The main thing was Hagrid being exposed as a half-giant, but he had returned to work and not suffered any ill effects (in fact with several former students getting their claws out to defend him if he got dismissed). She and Harry didn't seem to be getting hate mail anymore either.
783
784** Even Magical Newspapers have editors, people in charge of reviewing and approving what gets written in an article. Presumably they wouldn't allow a scandal that large to be published, especially as it puts the entire paper under scrutiny over false information.
785
786[[/folder]]
787
788[[folder: What happened to the gardener?]]
789* Upon realizing the books are under no obligation to go into detail on this, but considering Voldemort's MO, it's best to be going to go out on a limb and assume he just fed the corpse of Frank Bryce to Nagini after he killed him. What would the Muggle authorities think about this sudden disappearance? Frank is a crotchety old war veteran with a bad leg who has spent the last half-century diligently tending to the grounds of the Riddle house. One could see him turning up dead in his bed one morning, but he's not exactly the type to just up and vanish without warning.
790** The most reasonable conclusion would be that V forewent his MO for the occasion and indeed had Wormtail drag Frank back to his house and make it look like he died in his sleep.
791** Frank has also been suspected of the Riddles' murder, even though there was no evidence, and he mentions another possible suspect. Dot at the Hanged Man would hypothesize that Frank went away after the guilt plagued him, and perhaps "did himself him" out of shame. Dumbledore mentions that the Muggle newspapers have reported on Frank's disappearance, but they don't have any leads.
792[[/folder]]
793
794[[folder: Did Canon Ever Say if Crouch Jr. Was Involved with Actually Torturing the Longbottoms?]]
795* It's theorized that Barty Crouch Jr. probably was involved and was lying at his trial, when he begged not to be sent to the Dementors, but when he's confessing to Dumbledore, he doesn't sound like a seasoned Death Eater. He sounds like a recently converted newbie, as Galadriel Waters has pointed out, which could have easily happened in Azkaban with the Lestranges nearby and the Dementors' influence. Spending about thirteen years under the Imperius Curse also can't do well for one's sanity, since only a few months of Crouch Sr. being Imperiused turns him into a rambling wreck. It's been discussed on this page that he may have been groomed to be the perfect spy, hence how his denials were ExactWords at his trial, hence why the Lestranges didn't denounce him. On the other hand, if his fear was real, it could have easily been NotWhatISignedUpFor and the Lestranges recruited him in the hopes of taking down Crouch Sr. after the Dark Lord vanished, by destroying Crouch Sr.'s reputation and chances of becoming Minister of Magic. There is also that according to Crouch Sr.'s rambles to Harry and Krum that his son was a brilliant student, who had done him proud while the first War was going on and all; this makes his involvement with torturing the Longbottoms more suspect. Also, Sirius mentions that given that Crouch Sr. fired Winky for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, it's possible Crouch Jr. might have been in a similar situation. Even Dumbledore admits that Crouch Jr. may not have been involved? Dumbledore doesn't understandably ask Crouch Jr. after giving the latter Veritaserum, since his bigger concern is how Crouch Jr. escaped Azkaban, faked his death and impersonated Moody. Is there any evidence one way or the other? On Pottermore maybe?
796** The books never confirm it, but he was definitely there when it happened.
797** He was definitely involved and not a new recruit.
798*** 1) It's pretty clear from both Fudge's description in "Prisoner of Azkaban" and Sirius's recounts, that Azkaban prisoners are kept in solitary cells. In fact, Jr is confirmed to have been kept in one, because otherwise his mother couldn't have switched places with him using Polyjuice. So there's no way, he was recruited, and especially noway that he was taught to cast the Dark Mark in Azkaban.
799*** 2) No matter how desperate he was, Voldemort wouldn't have trusted a new recruit he didn't personally know from before his fall, to pull of his plan. In fact, when he summons the Death Eaters to the cemetery, and they form up, they leave Crouch Jr's place in the circle empty, along with the places of those who're in prison, dead or defected. So he was an established member, that the others knew about.
800[[/folder]]
801
802[[folder: The Movie in general]]
803* Can we take just a moment to talk about the plot holes the movie created, and how nobody ever talks about them because they're not obvious if you read the book since your brain fills in the blanks? What purpose did Rita serve in the movie? She stopped appearing after the First Task. What was the point of the Hagrid/Maxime relationship if she was going to be cut from future movies? Why the hell was the article about Hermione playing Krum and Harry moved to a point when she had no established ties to Krum? Why did Harry never tell Dumbledore about finding Crouch Sr? Why was Fudge at the school when Harry goes to tell Dumbledore about him even though, in the book, Fudge was there BECAUSE Crouch disappeared? How did Crouch Jr survive the whole "dying in Azkaban" thing and why was it never brought up that Crouch Jr should have been dead? Did Crouch Jr lose his soul in the movie? If not, why wasn't he with the other Death Eaters in later movies? Why did Crouch Jr even join the Death Eaters if his father wasn't as big of a jerkass in the movie? Was there a point to Harry and Ron not speaking for a month in the movie? The time between was so short in the film you never really saw how isolated Harry had become and Rita wasn't there to make things worse in the movie- it was pointless drama in the movie. Why did Dumbledore absolutely flip his lid with Harry post-Gobletspew? Speaking of spew, why was SPEW cut considering how much Kloves loves to give Hermione screentime? You're probably not looking to have things explained to this according to the books- assuming one has read them. There's a query on why the movie was written to make no sense. Rita's article about the LoveTriangle is the most bizarre change- for whatever reason, it comes immediately after the First Task.
804** A great deal of these - like Rita Skeeter and Madame Maxime - were cut out simply because they could be or because they didn't know which characters and events would become important in later installments. Considering they didn't mention the backstory where Crouch Sr. smuggled Crouch Jr. out of Azkaban by swapping him with his dying wife, it's more likely that in the film's continuity, Jr. managed to escape on his own, and Crouch Sr. didn't find out until he recognized one of his weird facial twitches as Moody. (This still doesn't make as much sense, considering the last installment dealt with Sirius's escape that received mass coverage immediately afterward.) Harry and Ron's falling out being kept in adds a bit to Ron's character and the friendship between them, SPEW would've been hard to kickstart due to the absence of the Crouchs' house-elf Winky, and one would've never really minded Dumbledore being so intense after Harry's name was drawn from the Goblet. He's just been entered into a dangerous competition that he's obviously not prepared to survive - why ''wouldn't'' anyone be upset about that?
805** And if you want to think about the behind the scenes stuff, ''Goblet of Fire'' was always going to be the hardest book to adapt. It's significantly longer than the previous three, and it was a new director once again. They even considered splitting it into two films because of how hard it was to compress to a two hour run time. Madam Maxime would be hard to cut entirely because Beauxbatons needs a principal of some kind, and it was simply easier to have her but cut down her and Hagrid's stuff to mere comic relief. Rita was probably included because she's simply a fun character that fans would expect to see - and give them an opportunity to get a name actress in the film (the first choice was Rosamund Pike) - but again her subplot could be cut down easily to mere comic relief (since she gets her comeuppance when the dragon tail hits her). Filmmaking in general is an extremely stressful and hectic process - especially when there's a fast turnaround expected, and this kind of franchise filmmaking had not really been done before - so a lot of these changes may have just been motivated from "yeah, that'll work" with deadlines to meet. If you notice that the David Yates directed final four films have much better pacing and are generally more solid in terms of direction, largely because the team had finally got a handle on the process and didn't have to worry about new directors at the helm.
806[[/folder]]
807
808[[folder: The random rainstorm in the Great Hall]]
809* In the movie, once Crouch Jr. enters the great hall, a thunderstorm appears under the ceiling that Crouch Jr. stops with a spell. One question: Whaaaat? How did this happen and why did Crouch Jr. bother to destroy it?
810** Maybe Dumbledore made it happen to give "Moody" a reason to show off to the students how cool he is.
811
812* There's a few hints throughout the books that Hogwarts Castle has some level of intelligence, enough to lend some influence to events inside itself. The room of requirement, for instance, or the moving staircases that always guide towards the plot. Perhaps it sensed that Moody wasn't who he said he was, and the rainstorm was some kind of attempt at warning.
813** This is probably the case, as after Crouch Jr calmed the storm (there was still a storm that the ceiling was showing, it just tried to amplify it when Crouch Jr entered), and Dumbledore greeted him, some of his first words were "Fix your ceiling". So it definitely wasn't done deliberately by either of the two, but was the castle's own will, which Crouch Jr played off as the ceiling 'glitching', in a sense.
814
815[[/folder]]
816
817[[folder:A Sucker Bet?]]
818* Fred and George hardly seem like the type to throw away their life savings on an unsure thing. But how would they have figured out the results to what happened? The outcome is so imprecise it approaches GambitRoulette without help, and even with help, things seem very tricky to pull off.
819** They're sixteen, and the prospect of winning even more money looks promising to them.
820** The Fridge Brilliance page mentions that Ireland's entire team is equipped with Firebolts but Krum is a better Seeker. The twins also would have known from previous matches that the Irish chasers are fantastic (even Harry notices), and how skilled Krum is. Ireland is very likely to get a massive lead, and Krum is very likely to catch the snitch. So the twins were simply betting on timing: that Ireland would get that huge lead ''before'' Krum gets the snitch. Which is exactly what happens.
821[[/folder]]
822
823[[folder:Side-Along Apparition]]
824* Is it just that Rowling hadn't "invented" Side-Along Apparition yet, or why couldn't Bill, Charlie, Percy, and Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Weasley have Side-Alonged Fred, George, Ginny, Harry and Hermione and then Mrs. Weasley came home instead of them having to take a Portkey? Or for that matter, Amos and Cedric. A lot less work than setting up Portkeys and hoping no Muggle picks it up. And much easier to leave after the events of the World Cup than waiting for a Portkey.
825** It may be that if you're trying to Apparate somewhere in particular, you can only go to places you've already been. When the three of them are running around the country in Book 7, they don't really aim anywhere, if that makes sense.
826** Didn't the book state that the wizards didn't like the idea of so many people Aparrating into a specific area at once?
827** There's the impression it was harder than normal apparition. The other kids at Hogwarts are impressed when Harry tells them that Dumbledore took him even though most of the kids' parents can probably apparate.
828** Even regular Appartion is difficult enought that a wand is needed and can be dangerous due to the risk of splinching. Side-Along Apparition is likely even harder and thus more dangerous, especially for a large group.
829** In [=OoTP=], Harry hears a sound like a car backfiring, and jumps up thinking that someone apparated (which we learn later was Mundungus). So, apparating makes a loud sound (not unlike a gunshot). Imagine the din created by hundreds of thousands of witches/wizards apparating back to back for nearly a week. That's gonna be taxing for the Ministry to cover up.
830[[/folder]]
831
832[[folder: Why So Sneaky Karkaroff?]]
833* So in the fourth film, after the Goblet of Fire is revealed, we cut to later that night. Karkaroff is seen entering the Great Hall looking decidedly sneaky... And nothing ever comes of it. Literally the scene just exists to make him look suspect. But nothing is ever made of it, rendering it pointless.
834** Figured he was putting Krum's name into the Goblet a bunch of times, or doing something to hex the Goblet so it would be sure to pick him.
835*** Correction: "Karkaroff" is actually Barty Crouch Jr. in this scene, disguised via Polyjuice Potion, sneakily entering the Great Hall so he can put Harry's name into the Goblet.
836[[/folder]]
837
838
839[[folder: Harry in the Prefect Bath]]
840
841* Why, oh why, is Harry naked during this scene? (Not sure if it was specified if he was naked in the book, but he definitely was in the movie.) There's no reason for it. He could've stayed in his underwear and not worry about Moaning Myrtle peeping his privates. Heck, he could've stayed fully clothed if he wanted to. Knowing that Harry was alone, but he was also in a bathroom he wasn't supposed to be in that anyone could've come into at any time. People do wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee. It just makes no sense.
842** Remember, he didn't know Moaning Myrtle was going to be there. Also, sure, people do wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee, but let's face it. Who decides to wander around a castle in Scotland '''at midnight in the middle of winter?''' Any of the prefects who can't hold it would run to the nearest bathroom, not the fancy-shmancy one.
843** Well he's naked because he was told to take a bath, and that's generally what one does to bathe (he also might not have trunks on him if he were ultra modest). The reason he actually goes in the middle of the night is to avoid people walking in on him; since it's the Prefects' bathroom, it's outside the common rooms and therefore would mean going out after hours to visit (also, Scotland gets ''very'' cold in the middle of the night). So anyone who needed a pee that night would presumably do so in a bathroom within the common room area. It can also only be opened via password, meaning it's narrowed down to the two prefects from each year, head boy and girl and any of the four Quidditch captains (it's down to three this year because Quidditch is off and Angelina doesn't get appointed until next year). And since prefects tend to be rule followers, they're not likely to be wandering the castle after dark.
844[[/folder]]
845
846[[folder: Forgotten Skill]]
847* So Fudge brings in the Dementor to the interrogation. There are three people in the room: Snape, [=McGonagall=] and Barty. Snape and [=McGonagall=] are teachers, which requires them to possess certain knowledge. Barty is extremely competent, having passed twelve difficult exams at school, and probably had a certain amount of knowledge in his belt as well. [=McGonagall=] and Snape were ordered to watch over him by Dumbledore himself. And yet between the three of them, they never thought about casting a Patronus to protect their charge/themselves? All three of them let the Dementor do what it wanted without interference? It's baffling.
848** Maybe they were caught by surprise? [=McGonagall=] says that the Dementor swooped in as soon as it entered, so they may have been caught off-guard and not had time to cast a Patronus. Plus, in Barty's case, when was the last time he was actually, truly happy? He may not have been able to in any case.
849** It's been mentioned somewhere that Death Eaters are incapable of conjuring a Patronus, so Barty wouldn't have been able to defend himself. As for Snape and [=McGonagall=], did the book say whether they expected the dementor to be there at all? If they weren't expecting Fudge to bring one, it's definitely possible that its happiness-draining power had them out of the running before they could even think of defending Crouch.
850** And even if Death Eaters were capable of casting a Patronus, why would Barty have been allowed to keep a wand on him at that point?
851[[/folder]]
852
853[[folder: HARRY! DIJOOPUTCHERNAMEINNAGOBLTOVFYAH?!]]
854* So a lot of people compare this line in the film to the calm manner in which Dumbledore spoke it in the book. But what what many people always wondered is, between the two of them, wouldn’t the more urgent and serious reading of the line be more appropriate for the situation? Especially when it’s being said by someone’s who’s supposed a father figure toward Harry? Maybe the delivery of the words could’ve been improved, but if one had just been entered into a life-or-death situation that one is plainly not prepared to survive through, it would perhaps appreciate the severity of the issue being acknowledged by the utmost authority figure in anyone's life, whereas reading book!Dumbledore’s reaction makes it easier to buy into the notion that he doesn’t ''really'' care about what happens to Harry if he’s able to speak so candidly about it.
855** Consider that we're talking about a man who's known for his impeccable manners even towards his mortal enemies. It's simply not his style to talk like that, whatever the situation.
856** Also, "calm" and "uncaring" are not the same things. Because Dumbledore ''calmly'' asked Harry about putting his name into the goblet doesn't mean he didn't care or was taking the issue lightly. It just meant he wasn't panicking or overreacting, which Dumbledore in the movies could be said to have been doing. There wasn't any reason for him to growl the line as he charged at Harry and grabbed him furiously by the shoulders -- viewers probably wouldn't have made as much of a stink about it if he'd maintained some level of control.
857[[/folder]]
858
859[[folder: Distribution of the Potter Stinks badges]]
860* After Harry is elected the fourth champion of the Triwizard Tournament, the Slytherins and the Hufflepuffs start wearing badges which say that they support Cedric Diggory and that Harry Potter stinks. The Hufflepluffs stop wearing them after the First Task at Cedric's insistence but the Slytherins continue to wear them for the rest of the year. Why Dumbledore didn't force the Slytherins to stop distributing the badges nor force all students who had those badges to throw them away if they are insulting a Hogwarts student. That can count as bullying and even if Dumbledore is really busy with the tournament's preparations to stop the problem, [=McGonagall=] should have forced both Sprout and Snape to tell their students to not wear them anymore. Right, in Snape's case, he would likely ignore the issue, but even if Professor Sprout suspected that Harry had cheated to enter into the tournament, unlikely she should have approved of her students bullying him...
861** Very probably, the students only wore the badges in the hallways and took them off as soon as they entered Sprout's or [=McGonagall=]'s class, the same way lots of bullying happens. Yes, the Slytherins wore them in Snape's class, but as you say, Snape loathes Harry anyway.Ppretty sure the students made an effort not to wear them anywhere Sprout or [=McGonagall=] might see. If Harry had gone to Dumbledore or [=McGonagall=] and told them, they could've quickly banned the "Potter Stinks" badges, but then he shows a constant (and not entirely unjustified) unwillingness to vent his problems to authority figures throughout the series.
862[[/folder]]
863
864[[folder: Frank Bryce's lost opportunity]]
865* In the film adaptation, why Frank Bryce didn't think on running as fast he could once Voldemort became aware of his presence? To be honest, if one had been on Frank's shoes, they would have started running immediately upon seeing Nagini sliding near their feet towards the room. Even if the murderous guy behind the door isn't a wizard, he could still be a deranged normal serial killer maybe with a gun!!! The film's Frank has even the advantage that he doesn't limp like the book's Frank and Voldemort was still on his baby-like form, so he would not have been able to chase him through Little Hangleton, let aside the fact that neither Wormtail nor Barty Crouch Jr. seemed to have their wands in the scene, as they didn't take them to point Frank with them before Voldemort requested Wormtail to step aside so he could blast the Killing Curse on Frank.
866** Frank doesn't come off as a guy who would turn tail and run away like a coward, especially if he had reason to assume the people in the house had a gun. Plus, even if Voldemort couldn't have caught up with him in his baby-form (which Frank doesn't know about, keep in mind), there are still two people (or one, in the book) in the room who are perfectly fit to overtake a much older man running for his life.
867** Actually, running from a snake is a pretty bad idea, and Frank was demonstrating the correct technique in staying still until Nagini had gone past him (if she had just been a normal snake that is). Frank in the book was hoping he could talk his way out (he makes up a story about having a wife who knows he's up here) so maybe in the film he was hoping something similar.
868[[/folder]]
869
870[[folder:Credit Stolen]]
871* How come people blame Voldemort for killing Cedric instead of Pettigrew, who actually casted the spell?
872** For the same reason Adolf Hitler is considered to be responsible for casualties of the Holocaust even though he didn't personally kill any of the victims, or why RICO statues in the United States were created so mobsters could be convicted for murders that they ordered others to commit. Pettigrew killed Cedric on Voldemort's orders and in pursuit of Voldemort's own goals. That's not to say that Peter himself doesn't hold any blame, but it was ultimately up to Voldemort whether Cedric lived or died.
873** It's this funny thing about Wormtail - nobody seems to take him seriously as a villain in his own right. One would think that Snape would hate his guts for having bullied him AND betrayed Lily, but Peter actually gets away pretty lightly...
874[[/folder]]
875
876[[folder:Everyone stopped caring about Sirius Black?]]
877* Harry finds out the truth, and suddenly nobody in the magical world cares. There isn't a ton of security at the World Cup. There aren't speculations that it was Sirius who cast the Dark Mark. And he isn't thought to be the reason behind the disappearance of Bertha Jorkins or the death of Barty Crouch Sr. or Harry's name being in the cup (like maybe Crouch or Bagman could have thought that?) The only time anybody seems to care about him again is after the fifth book, when the ten Death Eaters escape and they say that it had to do with Sirius, cousin of escapee Bellatrix Lestrange. Not even Mrs. Weasley was particularly concerned. She wasn't worried about Harry going to the cup, or to Hogsmeade. And she clearly doesn't know about Sirius' innocence because she's scared when he transforms in the hospital wing.
878** The Doylist explanation reason is that Rowling isn't a fastidious world-builder and the books generally are written as separate stories rather than some sort of Creator/GeorgeRRMartin epic. And it would bloat the already biggest book of the franchise up to this point, and be a conflict that in the context of ''Goblet of Fire'' doesn't make much sense to write about. But within the world, you can come up with a few good Watsonian reasons:
879*** 1) The Ministry of Magic has a political motivation to get people to forget Sirius as soon as possible. They had him in a cell and he still got away, and if people are aware of this they'll not only panic they'll direct their anger at the Ministry. Keep Sirius out of all media and it's very much an 'out of sight, out of mind' policy they're adopting. Sirius allows himself to be spotted abroad and you can easily imagine the Ministry latching on this - "Although we haven't been able to catch the criminal Sirius Black, your Ministry's excellent Auror Department have forced him to flee the country in fear, and we are continuing to search for him. Rest assured Witches and Wizards, we have him on the run, and he is no danger to you all. On the lighter side of things, did you see Krum's catch in the Quidditch? And did we mention the Triwzard Tournament....?"
880*** 2) Dumbledore isn't without his influence. Entirely possible he was taking steps behind the scenes to ensure that Sirius wasn't continually in the papers. At some point they've got to try and prove his innocence and it doesn't help if there's constant propaganda that smears him.
881** This might be taken with a hint of salt, but wasn't Sirius said to be feigning appearances far to the south or something, just so that the security in the UK (or at least around Hogwarts) would lighten up a bit? Once Kingsley Shacklebolt joined the Order, it's said that he's able to misdirect Ministry workers in the search while Sirius remains safely at Grimmauld Place, but was it not mentioned that Sirius himself was throwing them off before then, as well?
882** Yes, at the end of the third book, Sirius's letter says he's allowing some Muggles to glimpse him further south. But also, no one knows Crouch Sr is dead until Jr confesses to killing him under Veritaserum; he's just known to be missing or, since Harry mistakenly thought he saw him sneaking around the castle on the map, suspiciously in hiding. Maybe Sirius is mentioned in the newspaper articles from time to time, but Harry just ignores them because he doesn't want to read lies about his godfather.
883[[/folder]]
884
885[[folder:Sprout not part of the discussion?]]
886* After Harry's name comes out of the Goblet, why isn't Professor Sprout part of the discussion with the schools' headmasters plus [=McGonagall=] and Snape? Cedric Diggory is from her House, and she is likely at least somewhat upset about Gryffindor upstaging Hufflepuff here. In fact, in general, Professors Sprout and Flitwick are often not included in discussions of great importance throughout the series, whereas Professors [=McGonagall=] and Snape almost always are.
887** Doylist explanation: this is definitely a case of Rowling writing around important characters rather than ones that make sense. Watsonian explanation: [=McGonagall=] is deputy headmistress, so she's second in command at the school and needs to know all the important going-ons in case Dumbledore has to leave (like happened during the basilisk attacks). As for Snape, he'sa spy for Dumbledore, and perhaps Dumbledore wants him to keep an eye on Karkaroff (since Karkaroff is a former Death Eater).
888** It could be assumed that Sprout and Flitwick as the other Heads of House are keeping charge of the other students while Dumbledore and [=McGonagall=] are away. Sprout would certainly be trying to console Cedric.
889[[/folder]]
890
891[[folder: Diversity in the schools?]]
892* In the films, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang seem to be exclusively populated with only Girls and Boys respectively, so is it a case that if you are a girl in Europe outside of the UK you go to Beauxbatons and if you are a boy you go to Durmstrang?
893** In the books, there are several references to Beauxbatons boys and Durmstrang girls, so both schools are co-ed like Hogwarts (hell, the first head teacher of Durmstrang was a woman). When it comes to the films, we still can't exactly say Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are solely one-gender schools, as it's only a delegation of students sent to Hogwarts for the Tournament, so Karkaroff and Maxime probably selected the students they thought were best suited for the Tournament, and it just so happened they were all one gender.
894** Obviously in the books, the schools are mixed. But in the films' continuity, maybe it's a rule for the tournament; one participant has to be male, one female and then the host school gets to have either?
895[[/folder]]
896
897[[folder:How famous is Harry?]]
898* Harry's entry into the tournament, and everything to do with Rita Skeeter, makes it wonder, is Harry often mentioned in the ''Daily Prophet'' prior to this book? We know that he is famous, but are people outside of the school following his school career? The fact that he defeated Voldemort twice in the past three years? Is it widely known that Harry went to go and live with Muggles?
899** It's mentioned every now and again that Fudge likes to lean on the Prophet to keep things quiet, but perhaps it's kind of a mark of Rowling being a bit of an inexperienced writer during the first couple of books as to how much the Wizarding World actually knows about Harry's fights against Voldemort in the first two books.\
900We do get a bit of a hint, when Harry starts facing off against Umbridge in ''Order of the Phoenix'', because he talks about how Voldemort was sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head, and while Umbridge was looking for any excuse to give him detention if he mentioned Voldemort or fighting the Dark Arts again, you'd think that if the wider Wizarding World actually had any idea that Voldemort was mere inches/moments away from returning ''twice'', that they'd be more properly freaked out about it and put more pressure on Fudge. Arguably, this might be Dumbledore's biggest mistake rearing its head again, that he slides right back into his habit of keeping secrets at the literal exact time he in no way should be keeping any secrets. Shit, in the fifth book, he should be screaming at the top of his voice, "HARRY HAS FACED VOLDEMORT TWICE, LUCIUS MALFOY NEARLY HELPED HIM RETURN AND HELPED OPEN THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, NEARLY KILLED HALF A DOZEN PEOPLE, AND HARRY STILL SOMEHOW SURVIVED."
901** Quoting Dumbledore at the end of the first book, "what happened between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret...so naturally the whole school knows". That might be the kind of event that's hard for the ''Daily Prophet'' to write about, since they'd have to reach out to the teachers for comment or permission to interview Harry, Ron or Hermione (since they're underage). And since Hogwarts is a magic school, exciting things happening there would be expected and not considered as big news? Maybe there were rumors and talks about what was happening at Hogwarts, and that's the reason Rita shows up in the fourth book - to be able to get exclusives on these exciting things happening to a famous figure, using the tournament as a good excuse to get inside.
902** And the Chamber of Secrets incident is the sort of thing that doesn't make for good regular news. Attacks happen far too infrequently - and the first one was merely a cat, so that might not have been deemed worth reporting on. Maybe the article did show up further down the line after the fact, and once the victims were cured? It wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility for Dumbledore to have gotten requests from reporters to get statements or interviews, and he turned them down to protect the students' privacy. This is set in the 90s, and widespread invasiveness from the paparazzi became more of a problem in the 2000s.
903[[/folder]]
904
905[[folder:Blocking the Killing Curse]]
906* Crouch says that the Killing Curse is "unblockable." In Deathly Hallows, the Golden Trio hide behind various surfaces whilst fighting and the surfaces explode upon contact with the curse(and others). They're fine. The rebounded Killing Curse destroyed the roof of the Potters' house, but it stopped upon destroying it. By that logic, you could toss a brick in the path of an oncoming Killing Curse, and destroy the brick while keeping your life.
907** It's unblockable in the sense that you can't use a Shield Charm or other forms of protective magic to stop it. The curse still works like most other 'projectile' spells - once it hits a target, it's done. Tossing a brick, or anything for that matter, in the path of a Killing Curse is a lot harder than it sounds, though; that requires the time to aim, throw, and hit the curse - time that could instead be used to dodge it, rather than risk missing and ending up dead.
908** That raises another question - Could a physical shield protect you from AK? Not necessarily that you created a medieval shield with a spell (as it might still count as a magic and thus be inefective against AK), but a real muggle created shield. Or a modern police riot/bulletproof shield for that matter. Yes, it might be damaged or destroyed by AK, but it would be a worthy exchange for your life. More to that, would a skilled wizard be able to wingardium leviosa any solid object in front of him, to be shielded by it? Not even something small, like a cupboard or a door... but a huge rock, that could withstand several hundreds of AK, before breaking apart?
909** Probably, yeah, a physical shield could block it, and I doubt AK would damage it, but again, you'd need to know the AK is coming and have the shield ready and in place before the spell hits.
910** This also ties into the MugglesDoItBetter theme of the overall series. Wizards are insanely behind the times when it comes to any kind of non-magic practicality. They don't even know what guns are, and they've been around for centuries. The idea of carrying around a non-magic shield for emergencies, besides the standard logistics of transporting something so bulky, would likely never occur to most wizards.
911[[/folder]]
912
913[[folder:Would Crouch have made a competent Minister of Magic?]]
914* Crouch Sr. was Fudge's only and strongest challenger in the race for the Minister of Magic post after Millicent Bagnold's retirement, but in the end, his son's membership with the Death Eaters and the tragedy of the Longbottoms influenced Fudge's election as Minister. But if Crouch Sr had been the winner in that race, how would he have impacted on the events of the saga? Would he have done better than Fudge's lamentable role? Perhaps less worse than him? Or would he still have been a disaster in his possible handling of Voldemort's return?
915** Regarding the efforts to take down Voldemort, Crouch would definitely have been better than Scrimgeour, nevermind Fudge. He was ruthless when it came to Death Eaters and would have fought fire with fire. He would have believed Dumbledore and Harry straight away and made catching Voldemort his obsession. He also would never have let former Death Eaters be employed in the Ministry at the time of Voldemort's return and would've forced them to renounce their affiliation and take an Unbreakable Vow (maybe making them sign with a Blood Quill). Crouch would have also authorized Aurors to kill Voldemort on sight and without doubt would have taken a few Death Eaters with him if Voldemort and the Death Eaters tried to storm his ministry.
916** Crouch Sr. was a horrible person and his family life was living nightmare. However, that doesn't mean he wouldn't have been a highly effective politican. Sad that these things are separate, but true. From his tenure as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, it's safe to say he would have been far more effective in fighting Voldemort on his second return then Fudge and might have prevented the Ministry coup. And he would have believed Dumbledore and Harry in an instant. After all nothing better for a war-time politican than a war.\
917In general he is a stickler for rules, so there is hope he would have been far less corrupt than Fudge. Now that didn't translate to "respect for due process," as seen with Sirius, but that is an attitude he and Fudge have in common. From his treatment of Winky and his general behaviour, it is clear he is absolutely not progressive, which especially in the wizarding society is horrifying. After all they are a slave state and massively discriminate against non-humans, and muggleborns also have a rough deal.\
918So if Crouch had become Minister, the Ministry would still have same backwards attitude it had under Fudge, however it would have been more authoritarian and effective against Voldemort. So the coup probably won't happen and Voldemort might have been prevented from finding a firm footing again.
919** His term would have been shorter, for starters. Fudge was always relying on Dumbledore for advice and after the Triwizard tournament, he relied on Lucius Malfoy for guidance and assurances of his position. Crouch wouldn’t have done either and since he wouldn’t bend like Fudge, the Death Eaters who worked their way into the Ministry would have made moves to instill a vote of no confidence in his leadership and have him replaced, especially when he's likely to have them all incarcerated.
920** Or he would've just been Imperiused. Either way, yeah, the Death Eaters would've gotten rid of him.
921[[/folder]]
922
923[[folder:Dumbeldore's hypocrisy]]
924Dumbeldore is upset when Harry's name comes out of the Goblet of fire, which at first makes sense due to Harry's young age and how dangerous the games are. But it stops making sense when you remember that Harry has delibratly put his life in danger several times in the previous books, yet dumbeldore doesn't mind. In fact, he ''rewards'' Harry the first time by giving his house extra points and gives him no lecture about how young children shouldn't go into dangerous situations without an adult.
925
926** The difference is that in the first and second books, Harry made the conscious, deliberate choice to go into danger to save others (and it's debatable how much danger he was ever in during Book 1, but that's a whole other thread). Here, he's being forced against his will to risk his life for fame, money, and glory. Furthermore, Dumbledore knows that Harry would never willingly enter his own name, and Harry's shocked reaction further proves that he didn't know about it. It's not a huge leap of logic from there to guess that Voldemort is somehow behind it, meaning Voldemort's infiltrated the school. Why wouldn't he be worried?
927
928[[/folder]]
929
930[[folder: Fetch Winky]]
931* So Crouch Jr completely fooled Dumbledore throughout the novel. It was only at the very end did he realize Moody wasn't Moody because Crouch Jr took Harry away. That's cool, Dumbledore as an ephiphiny and everything slides, into place. Moody is a death eater in disguise. But how in the world did he know the imposter was Crouch Jr (and he did know as he asked Snape to get Winky before the polyjuice potion wore off). It could have been any Death Eater disguised as Moody. Dumbledore didnt even know crouch Jr was still alive. I know Dumbledore is brilliant and all but that he would know the specific identity of the man when the man in question is meant to be dead begs belief.
932** Best guess, Dumbledore had one of his "shrewd ideas/guesses", since he knew Crouch Sr. had been killed/kidnapped after trying to reach him and ranting about something being "all his fault", there had been much strangeness with the tournament, Crouch had been "ill" for a long time ''before'' his strange appearance and then disappearance at the school, and Dumbledore likely knew about the strange events involving the Dark Mark at the Cup, and that Winky was involved with that in some way. All that in mind, he made an educated guess that it ''must've'' been a Death Eater who had connections to the Crouch family, and that Winky would have some reason to be connected specifically to that Death Eater and the events surrounding them. The only one who would fit the bill, at least that Dumbledore could be sure of the existence of, would be Crouch Jr. A second reason is, that Winky would know the story of what was going on, as her involvement in the casting of the Dark Mark was either an extremely freak coincidence, or more likely she was a part of what had happened, so having Snape bring her would both confirm whether she really ''did'' have something to do with it if Dumbledore wasn't sure, and if she ''was'' involved, her reaction and testimony would confirm it.
933** Dumbledore, Mcgonagall and Snape had been eavesdropping for a few seconds, before bursting into the office, since their faces appeared in the Foe-Glass. During that time Crouch Jr was ranting about how similar he is to Voldemort, including the fact, they both had to wear the name of their useless fathers. That should've been enough for Dumbledore to figure out his true identity, especially since the Pensive-flashbacks that Harry witnessed in the book, implies that he's been suspecting Crouch Jr for a while. He just didn't know how and where Crouch Jr fitt into the picture.
934[[/folder]]
935
936[[folder: We outnumber them a thousand to one, let's all panic and run away!]]
937* To anyone who has either military or law enforcement experience, this scene is perplexing. At the Quidditch World Cup, there are ''thousands'' of wizards as spectators. ''Thousands''. A handful of Death Eaters show up and start making trouble, and ''everyone'' runs for the hills. No security? Even if there wasn't a team of wizards organized and tasked with handling security, surely there must have been more than a few Aurors in the crowd who would have happy to give the Death Eaters a fight. It doesn't even have to be Aurors, there must have been plenty of competent and aggressive wizards in the crowd who could have banded together and told the Death Eaters "you want to go? Let's go!". Even if there was no organization and everyone acted independently, again there would have been plenty of people in the crowd willing to put up a fight. Hell, the first thing Arthur Weasley did was order Ron, George, and Fred to protect Ginny, then take out his wand and arrow straight for the fight. Arthur is well-liked and respected, he would have easily picked up more than a few allies on the way. But from what we see, no one even bothers to send a Expelliarmus Curse in the Death Eater's direction.
938** Maybe some people came in to fight them offscreen?
939** They, meaning most of the Ministry Wizards, including Arthur and Bill I believe, all ''do'' try to confront the Death Eaters, but the problem is, they have the Roberts family as hostages, suspended in mid-air and in danger of a nasty fall if anyone does anything hasty. In the book at least.
940** The Death Eaters were in fact subdued fairly quickly. Bill outright states that they were about to unmask them, when the Dark Mark appeared, and frigthened everyone (including the Death Eater's) enough, that they could escape. The real problem was mass panic. In "Half-Blood Prince" George claims, that even in among the Ministry workers, most people can't even cast a simple Shield spell, so it's understandable that being attacked in the middle of the night, most people's first reaction would be to flight, not fight. And all those people fleeing in a panic, made it difficult for security to approach the attackers.
941[[/folder]]
942
943[[folder: Hermione's braces?]]
944* Hermione states, when she's telling Harry and Ron about shrinking her teeth, that her parents wanted her to 'continue with her brace' implying that she's been wearing braces for some time at least. That not being mentioned prior is forgiveable due to Harry's limited observance, however when her teeth were shrunk and straightened, does that imply that her braces were changed too, or did she have them removed magically? If so, Harry and Ron ''definitely'' would have noticed, because although a change in someone's teeth might not be obvious, it is extremely obvious when someone suddenly isn't wearing braces anymore.
945** Pretty sure Hermione says she "''won't have to get'' braces," meaning her parents wanted her to but she didn't have them ''yet''. The actual problem is that tooth ''size'' doesn't really have anything to do with needing braces, but I guess we can assume that she got Madam Pomfrey to magically alter their position as well, or... something.

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