deathtocapslock | Deathly Hallows, chapter 10

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Deathly Hallows, chapter 10

Kreacher's Tale

* "The gried that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death..." What is this? Grief? From Harry?

* Oh, Harry, of course you were just a tool to Dumbledore. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to realise.

* Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts. Does this mean that, however many portraits of a person there are, only one of them can house the actual person? Does this also apply to things like Chocolate Frog cards?

* Sirius has pictures of sanctily clad women on his bedroom walls. He isn't gay. Definitely not. Being gay is only reserved to old, asexual headmasters.

* In the picture of the Marauders, Pettigrew is plump and watery-eyed. How could the Potters not have realised that Pettigrew was evil with all the evidence of his appearance?

* Lupin looks shabby even as a teenager. Is the guy constitutionally incapable of looking neat?

* Lupin also has "the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included". "The same air"? When else has he had that air? I don't like this, making Lupin look so pathetic. But I guess it's on par with the rest of the book.

* Sirius has used the Permanent Sticking Charm to keep his posters and the photograph on the walls. I would have thought he'd have wanted to take his things with him once he left his home, but I guess a teenaged rebel like him just had to leave them all there to annoy his parents.

* Aww, wee Harry on a toy broomstick. *is ded from cute*

* "Wormy." *sporfle*

* From Lily's letter, it looks like the Potters were already under the Fidelius Charm when Harry turned one, yet Pettigrew didn't betray them until Halloween. What's up with that? Or am I supposed to believe Voldemort waited three months to attack them on Halloween? Perhaps it was a magically auspicious time.

* Ooh, all these tantalising hints about Dumbledore, making it all since like some grand mystery.

* Lily writes her g's the same way as Harry. I didn't realise handwriting was hereditary.

* BTW, why did Dumbledore take James's Invisibility Cloak? Didn't he trust James to stay put if he had it? That was probably wise.

* Snape really is obsessed with Lily, to go to the trouble of ransacking Sirius's room to get her signature and a picture of her. Pathetic.

* So all of Moody's anti-Snape enchantments were for nothing. Snape managed to get into the house anyway.

* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?

* Harry wants to know the truth about Dumbledore. Tell me, Harry, how exactly does that help you defeat Voldemort? You know, the main task you have?

* OMG, why is Rowling so determined to make Harry emote? It seems to me that Rowling is really bad at writing intense emotions convinvingly. That's why she has to resort to things like chest monsters.

* And R.A.B. is found. Harry only needed to be beaten upside the head with anvils to realise who it was. If Hermione had known Regulus was a DE who got cold feet, she would have guessed R.A.B.'s identity right away. I guess we can't expect higher brain function from Harry.

* Sirius and Regulus both seem to have been rebels. Sirius rebelled against his family; Regulus rebelled against Sirius.

* Regulus tried so hard to be everything Sirius wasn't, I wouldn't be surprised if he joined the Death Eaters just to spite Sirius.

* Regulus was rather less handsome than Sirius was. And Harry would notice this why, exactly?

* Ahahahaa, now your "cleaning" of the house comes to bite you in your arse.

* Kreacher is "the house-elf Harry had so reluctantly inherited from Sirius". Don't worry, Harry. Before long you'll come to appreciate the benefits of having your own slave.

* Sometimes I wonder what Mundungus Fletcher did in the Order. I understand why the Order would have him, but what was in it for him, apart from the Black family treasures?

* Ron is knowledgeable about elf magic. I love it when Ron comes across as the pureblood that he is. It reminds me that there is this wide cultural gulf between Ron, and Harry and Hermione. They quite literally aren't from the same world. I know this aspect isn't usually emphasised, but there's bound to be all kinds of cultural clashes in marriages between the purebloods and the Muggle-born.

* Harry wonders how Voldemort could have made the mistake of forgetting that house-elves have different magic from humans. Hermione provides her view: "Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice, just like all the pure-bloods who treat them like animals." Now you're just being stupid, Hermione. Ron just demonstrated that it's the pure-bloods who know about house-elf magic, not Muggle-borns. And Voldemort was practically a Muggle-born.

* I wonder, did Regulus really change his mind about everything Voldemort represented? The turning point for him seems to have been the way Voldemort treated Kreacher. First he was all about what an honour it would be to serve the Dark Lord, and he eve volunteered Kreacher for the work. But then it was only a little while after the business with Kreacher that he decided to go against Voldemort. Was he already disillusioned when he volunteered Kreacher, doing that merely to garner more information on what Voldemort was doing? Or did he really decide to die just because Voldemort left Kreacher to die?

* Oh, poor Regulus. What a horrible way to die. I wonder why he chose to die there, when he didn't have to. Was he so convinced that Voldemort would get him that he chose this way as the lesser of two evils?

* Wasn't there a body of a man in the water when Harry and Dumbledore went to the cave? Or do I remember incorrectly?

* I love how Kreacher tries to bow to Hermione but can't quite manage it.

Box Picture:
Kreacher is The Sacrifice. Voldemort is The Evil Dark Lord. (He has red eyes, by the way.)

Informed Attributes:
The anti-Snape enchantments work. Really.

Light Bulb Moment:
R.A.B.! I know who he is!

McGuffin:
I must know the truth about Albus McGuffin Dumbledore!

Selling Wood:
Harry emotes. (This seems to become a permanent feature.)

Final score: 5.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How difficult would it have been for Wormtail to be thin and cute? Or even plump and cute? Then ended up a mess due to 12 years as a rat. Bad people being unattractive and the reverse for good people is unbelievably clichéd. Lily is slim and lovely, while Petunia is thin and scrawny. It’s like the film makers who felt that the films had to become drab and grey, as they became ‘darker‘. Suddenly it’s dirty smocks for Dumbledore. As if a man can't wear magnificent velvet and still be a manipulative s.o.b. Thieves don’t actually wear stripy t-shirts, masks and carry sacks marked ‘Swag’ (apologies to non-Brits). If everybody’s looks reflected their characters, the world would be an easier place to live in.

Lupin is a subset of the above - attractive = good, unattractive = bad, and shabby = dangerous creature? Maybe he was proud, but he had two wealthy friends - couldn’t they fork out for a new set of robes to put over his tatty everything else?

I don’t understand anything about the whole Potters in hiding, AT ALL. On top of what you’ve pointed out, why didn’t Snape predict that ‘his’ perfect Lily was too maternal to watch her child die and just ask Voldemort to STUN her. It’d save Voldie the hassle of arguing with her, Snape would still have Lily around to refuse to come near him, and we’d have had Harry dead. Result! Also, why didn’t James become his own secret keeper, as Bill apparently was in DH? He’s such a brilliant and *popular* Wizard, why did it not occur to him? You’d think that that rule was only invented for DH! Also, how did Dumbledore, and the rest of the Wizarding World know that Harry was ‘The Boy who lived’? For all he knew, Voldemort killed James and Lily, then was called away urgently. Harry, unattended, then fell out of his cot and cut his forehead open. Nobody was there, nobody *knew* for sure - Dumbles must have just guessed. Funny if he was wrong. I expected something key to have happened at Godric’s Hollow, I thought there‘d be a big reveal. Sigh.

I cringed over Snape in DH. He had a complete character makeover ( him and a cast of thousands), and it was a mistake. Or maybe he just hid his inner idiot from us for 6 books. From a cool, snarky bully to yet another two dimensional plot device. Well done JKR.

I said before that it should have been possible to have a 2nd secret keeper in waiting, who’d automatically take over on the death of the current Secret Keeper. JKR had so many things happen to move along the plot, such as it was, and 90% of them made no sense at all. Surely it made more sense to maintain this neutral place to meet up (though there wasn’t much in the way of Order meetings in DH, that we saw anyway.)

I presume Moody put the enchantments up within hours of Dumbles plunging from the Astronomy Tower - constant vigilance! Maybe Snape managed to get into the house later, because Moody was DEAD and any spells he created therefore null and void - or they should have been. Don’t ask me why they still seemed to be working. Though as to why the Order didn’t go in there the day after Moody’s death and secure the place - I’ve got nothing.

Harry remains a self indulgent, whiny little punk. With the blessed absence of the Ginny Monster for 95% of this book, I was able to re-connect with my Harry Hate once more. Everything’s always about him, how it makes *him* feel bad. Ron gets upset because he fears he isn’t good enough. It never occurs to Harry that he isn’t good enough, that he achieves nothing on his own. The only thing he does in this book is die - and as Sirius points out, that’s like falling off a log. I bet if Harry tried that, he’d miss.

I said before that it should have been possible to have a 2nd secret keeper in waiting, who’d automatically take over on the death of the current Secret Keeper.

Wouldn't it have been a hoot if Dumbledore had made Snape the new SK before he died and didn't tell anyone? Imagine the reveal when everyone found out.

It’s like the film makers who felt that the films had to become drab and grey, as they became ‘darker‘. Suddenly it’s dirty smocks for Dumbledore
Thank you. I never understood how the PoA tristesse was supposed to be "mature". The whole point of Harry's love for Hogwarts IS that it was some sort of fairy-tale come true for him and even if you want to take into account his disillusionment with the ww as he grows older, in PoA he had definitly not yet reached that point.

As for the wards against Snape - there are no words. Any elementary school kid would have laughed them off - and they were meant to somehow get to Snape, hard-core death-eater?

how did Dumbledore, and the rest of the Wizarding World know that Harry was ‘The Boy who lived’? For all he knew, Voldemort killed James and Lily, then was called away urgently. Harry, unattended, then fell out of his cot and cut his forehead open. Nobody was there, nobody *knew* for sure - Dumbles must have just guessed. Funny if he was wrong. I expected something key to have happened at Godric’s Hollow, I thought there‘d be a big reveal. Sigh

I'm truly sorry about this. Its just how it played out in my mind... Voldemort and Lily at Godric's Hollow...

V: Look, for the last time - Get. Out. Of. The. Way. One of my underdog's has a crush on you and I don't want to see him in a bad mood
L: *is blazing and defiant*
V: *Hates blazing and defiant people by nature. This is because it is only his eyes which can become red. Kind of like a rat*, and yes, we've covered this sign of evil too children. Gives in and kills Lily. Her blazing red hair swirls around her as she falls, mingling with the green...*
V: ...oh crap - I left the gas on. Even if the house hasn't blown up the bill will be astronomical. Shit. ...I hear Albania's nice this time of year... *dissaperates hurriedly*
H: *is a retard who falls out of his own cot onto shattered glass from the window*

Suddenly the outcome of the last battle loses all suspense.

Also, why didn’t James become his own secret keeper, as Bill apparently was in DH?

That's what I've never understood. It'd make sense that the secret keeper would be someone who'd be protected by the Fidelius Charm. I used to think that there was some kind of rule that the secret keeper can't be one of those who are protected by the charm, but then there's Bill, like you said, which blows that theory to smithereens.

Sorry - ranting at length, as always!

JKR should have finished the note in the locket off with a small crest, not initials. That way, the Trio’s confusion over the writer’s identity would be justified, not make them look like a bunch of idiots. Then when Harry was in Regulus’ room, he could see it and realise it was RAB’s personal crest - problem solved. The way JKR did it, how many fans (at least the ones who go online) didn’t know full well who RAB was? She gave away far too much at the end of Book 6, with this and the excess of Horcrux details and there were no genuine surprises in Book 7. Apart from when she butchered her own canon.

Regulus - the less attractive brother because he’s not as noble - yawn. You'd have to be bad to be less noble than Sirius. In his own way I think Regulus was at *least* as worthy. Also, how did Regulus find out what the Horcrux was? Did Voldemort tell Kreacher? Why didn’t he send Kreacher away to a safe place, then try to blame the theft on him?

Ron, knowledgeable about his own world - as it should be. Hermione talking loudly even when she doesn’t fully understand - tiresome. Harry - happy to forget that this elf was as responsible for Sirius’ death as Harry himself - wtf? I wish Kreacher had handed over the locket, then betrayed them and they had to flee Grimauld Place because of that, not Hermione/Yaxley. Then we could have skipped Narrow Escape number 3 (of 800), the bloody Ministry nonsense.

IMHO, the most natural way for them to discover the identity of RAB and some other things was to realize that the only place with a decent library available to them was the Black House. Then they could have looked at all pureblood families starting with "B" and presto, sooner or later came across Regulus. Honestly, it was easy, really easy to avoid all that heavy-handedness. But oh, no, they'd have to do actual research!

Sirius's room - one would have thought that if his parents wanted they could have just painted the walls or covered them with paneling.

Lily's letter shouldn't have been there as Sirius didn't live at home at the time. Moreover it reveals what a useless farce all that supposed resistance was and what idiots they all were. Lily's character was irrevocably destroyed for me here, since her strongest redeeming feature seemed to be her being a hero of resistance, who saved lots of lives from Voldy and the DEs. Ditto the Marauders. Silly me. They were obviously just playing some pretend.

Regulus - the less attractive brother because he’s not as noble - yawn.
Ah, he died too soon. Without a doubt, he would have blossomed into a real beauty within several days after the cave incident. And anyway, he was sorted too soon!

And anyway, he was sorted too soon!

Ah, yes. Definitely a Gryffindor, with all that bravery before death. *gags*

Then we could have skipped Narrow Escape number 3 (of 800)

Seems like I'm not the only one who hated all the Narrow Escapes. :-) The Trio so clearly survived only because of luck, not through their skills or good planning or anything like that. Blegh.

* "The gried that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death..." What is this? Grief? From Harry?

* Oh, Harry, of course you were just a tool to Dumbledore. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to realise.

I guess the second answers the first - Harry thought he was really special to the old Machiavelli.

* In the picture of the Marauders, Pettigrew is plump and watery-eyed. How could the Potters not have realised that Pettigrew was evil with all the evidence of his appearance?

Gryffindor's fault - not wanting to believe the worst about anyone... see Dumbledore...

Never mind...

* Harry wants to know the truth about Dumbledore. Tell me, Harry, how exactly does that help you defeat Voldemort? You know, the main task you have?

It started with biographies assigned in Harry's second-class Muggle school that didn't seem to notice his mistreatment by the Dursleys, then moved on to reading Woodward and Bernstein's book about Watergate when he was ten, then Dumbledore, Muggle-lover that he is (as long as the Muggles remember their place) continued the practice with Reality!Riddle Pensieve. He's hooked. Downright hooked. Someone get him a twelve-step.

* Sometimes I wonder what Mundungus Fletcher did in the Order. I understand why the Order would have him, but what was in it for him, apart from the Black family treasures?

He knows when people are not home and so their stuff is alone and unguarded. And, all being Order members hail and well met, they've of course told him just how to get through their defenses so,in case they're laid up at St. Mungo's, he can bring them that book they were reading.

Ron just demonstrated that it's the pure-bloods who know about house-elf magic, not Muggle-borns. And Voldemort was practically a Muggle-born.

Yes. Too bad Rowling forgot to point that out.

Was he [Regulus] already disillusioned when he volunteered Kreacher, doing that merely to garner more information on what Voldemort was doing? Or did he really decide to die just because Voldemort left Kreacher to die?

It's because sometimes, they Sort too early. *blech*

* I love how Kreacher tries to bow to Hermione but can't quite manage it.

Probably arthritis or sciatica or an allergic reaction to perfect swots.

I guess the second answers the first - Harry thought he was really special to the old Machiavelli.

As the Single Tear demonstrated. *gags*

Yes. Too bad Rowling forgot to point that out.

Wouldn't it be fun if all of Voldemort's major mistakes were because he was a Muggle-born? So he forgot the power of sacrifice of love in Godric's Hollow, as well as the power of Phoenix tears to heal in CoS.

It's because sometimes, they Sort too early. *blech*

Oh yeah. How could I forget.

Wouldn't it be fun if all of Voldemort's major mistakes were because he was a Muggle-born? So he forgot the power of sacrifice of love in Godric's Hollow, as well as the power of Phoenix tears to heal in CoS.

Yes! It doesn't have to be presented as biased against Muggle-borns, either. Just not knowing, mistaking what is shown (and the WW shows a lot of intolerances being tolerated), making the mistake of not knowing the world before setting foot on the megalomaniacal path - ambitions (the worst kind, the sort that would lay a Slytherin low instead of help in networking) before knowledge...

Sort-of like Hermione. She could have been the light side's mirror of Voldy. When she vilely marked Marietta, she could have been brought up short by someone like McGonagall and explained that she'd read about magically binding contracts, etc., etc., only to have McG explain (severely, just before assigning a whopping detention) that in a magical contract, each party must know the provisions and penalties before the contract is signed, otherwise the person asking the contract has broken some magical law (which will, of course, bite Hermione and her friends in the ass later on when Marietta turns out to be the key to the Hufflepuff horcrux).

I guess the second answers the first - Harry thought he was really special to the old Machiavelli.

lol. He's like a battered wife - "He loves me deep down, I know he does, he just can't show it!"

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I've been wrong before, but I honestly don't think those girlie posters were a hit at slashers. I think as usual JKR just reached for the first cliché that came to mind -- Quick, how would a rebellious pureblood teenager go about annoying his parents? With Muggle porn! She probably assumes that she already sank Remus/Sirius in canon by introducing the ever so romantic and believable Remus/Tonks. (For me, it was DH that finally convinced me that Remus and Sirius and Snape were gayer than a three-dollar monkey, or a treeful of bills on nitrous oxide.)

RAB was a Death Eater, sporting wood over the master wizard race. So why take pity on a creature such as Kreacher, and sacrifice your life for them?

I'm gonna fanwank this part because I liked some of it. Even if Regulus only thought of Kreacher as the family pet, he'd be understandably angry that Voldemort mistreated him. But it doesn't follow that that was his only motive for turning against Voldemort. After Kreacher's return, some time passed before Regulus asked to see the cave. He seemed "disturbed in his mind". We don't know what happened in the interim, but I'd guess he'd been doing belated in-depth research on his Lord and finding out some very unsavory things. Whether or not he'd been prepared for genocide, Horcruxes are apparently worse. A Black scion would know about Horcruxes if anyone would, though admittedly that's not the same as figuring out that Voldemort had made one. I was going to suggest that maybe his deformed face would clue in those in the know, but the heck with it, it's a plothole. And I can't make any sense of Regulus' insanely optimistic notion that Kreacher would be able to destroy the Horcrux.

-L

What if he found out somehow that Voldemort was a Half-Blood? That'd be a good reason to hate him and want to bring about his downfall.

Maybe he didn't dare reveal this to the other DEs for fear Voldemort would get to him first. Maybe because he worried that some of them knew but were riding his coat tails to power and would get rid of him for rocking the boat. They're Slytherins after all! Crappy reasons, but then really I have no idea why Dumbles kept this knowledge to himself, so maybe the reasons why Regulus doesn't spill the beans can remain undiscussed as well....

If he'd told Kreacher to go to Dumbledore, that'd make sense, but Kreacher, er, didn't because of things and stuff. Sorry, I'm a fan-wanker of some renown, but some holes are too big even for my pathetic excuse making mind.

* Sirius has pictures of sanctily clad women on his bedroom walls. He isn't gay.

Take that you Lupin-Sirius shippers, cries JKR!

That's pretty much how I read it, yeah. So lame.

Of course, JK never really sank that ship, since she doesn't seem to acknowledge (and therefore didn't cover) bisexuals or people getting over the death of their partner and remarrying, or people NOT ending up with the person they were shagging in school...

Oh yes, Regulus coat-turning just doesn't make sense. It seems like Rowling is incapable of writing convincingly about Death Eaters who have a change of heart. Snape has to be "saved" by his ~~obsession~~ love for Saint Lily, Draco turns out to be just a coward, and Regulus supposedly gives his life for a house-elf.

* Sirius has pictures of sanctily clad women on his bedroom walls. He isn't gay.

Little does Harry realise that those women are Cher and Madonna... fab-u-lous!

Of course they are. Why didn't I realize it myself? ;-)

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Dumbles is quite the scary character. (really, Voldemort is a pussy compared with Albus 'The Master' Dumbledore)

...now I want crossover fanfic with Dumbles as a Fobwatched!Master... thanks a lot!

I think you're right. Dumbledore has to know something damaging about Mundungus.

He... *collects* people...

Like a spider spinning his web. Er, sorry, that was Slughorn. But really, Dumbledore's way of collecting people is far scarier than Slughorn's. Slughorn's version is just a version of networking, where there are benefits for both Slughorn (makes him feel important) and the person collected (useful contacts). With Dumbledore it's more like blackmail.

Why hadn't Dumbledore told him? Why hadn't he explained? (about the stuff in his will)
Very good questions, Harry. You might add: Why didn't you ask him how to destroy Horcruxes?

Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts. Does this mean that, however many portraits of a person there are, only one of them can house the actual person? Does this also apply to things like Chocolate Frog cards?
I think so. In PS, Ron tells Harry, dumbles can’t be expected to hand around his card all day long.

Lupin looks shabby even as a teenager. Is the guy constitutionally incapable of looking neat?
No – his shabbyness is part of his character and Rowling would never stand for inconsistency in that department.

* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?
It can only be supposed they couldn’t keep up with the ever changing rules, either.

Sirius and Regulus both seem to have been rebels. Sirius rebelled against his family; Regulus rebelled against Sirius.
The weird thing is, she really SEEMS to have written it this way. The respective teenage bedroom décor screams “that will show you” in both cases. But when all is said and done, Slytherin still seems to be the house of the bad somehow, although we have plenty of evidence all through the books that the kids decide on their house based on personal sympathies and grudges instead of any moral choices.

Sometimes I wonder what Mundungus Fletcher did in the Order.
I think that is pretty clear: getting protection from Dumbledore against magical law enforcement. Every little crook needs a Godfather to wangle the things with the local cops…

Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts. Does this mean that, however many portraits of a person there are, only one of them can house the actual person? Does this also apply to things like Chocolate Frog cards?
I think so. In PS, Ron tells Harry, dumbles can’t be expected to hand around his card all day long.

OMG. I just figured it out. I kept thinking that Dumbledore must have had a bunch of magical nanny-cams in order to know what happened at Godric's Hollow... of course he did. Remember how he said he didn't care about being booted out of the Wizamgamot as long as they didn't take him off the chocolate frog cards?????!

He uses his portrait on the cards to spy all over the country! Every wizard kid who collects chocolate frog cards is subject to his spying, including (from his first day at Hogwarts) Harry. Of course, with Harry, the joke was on Dumbledore, since his card was probably stuffed into an old pair of socks for safekeeping.

LOL! And Aberforth and Dumbledore held secret meetings betwen frog card and sliver - surronded by beetles' eyes, all within Harry's trunk!

Hee! Damn, they're good! *laughing*

Very good questions, Harry. You might add: Why didn't you ask him how to destroy Horcruxes?

The answer, of course, being that it'd have shortened DH to the same length as PS/SS, and we can't have that. Sitting in a tent is so much more interesting.

No – his shabbyness is part of his character and Rowling would never stand for inconsistency in that department.

I wonder what character trait his shabbiness is supposed to represent. Good people are pretty and bad people are ugly, but what are shabby people? Basically good but incapable of standing against their friends? Pathetically grateful for being friended? What?

But when all is said and done, Slytherin still seems to be the house of the bad somehow,

Oh yeah, with the "sometimes we Sort too early" stuff, and Dumbledore pretty much confirming Harry's prejudices against Slytherin house in CoS.

I wonder what character trait his shabbiness is supposed to represent.
Noble poverty -- as opposed to the ungrateful and bitchy rich.

Er, sorry, but where do Snape and (ghod help us) Merope fit in?

I wonder what character trait his shabbiness is supposed to represent
To me, Lupin always gave off some sort of subvitality vibes. Weak, sleeping a lot, still seeming tired and exhausted, prematurely lined and greying, etc. In the earlier books (IIRC), this was linked more to his illness than his economic difficulties and I accepted it as such. Then, when Fenrir was introduced, I was puzzled, because he must be older than Lupin (having turned him as a child) and most probably without the benefit of Snape's wolfsbane potion - and Fenrir has a veritable animalistic vigour. This led me to speculate about the metaphorical implications of repressing one's aggression because you necessarily repress your life force together with it. Fenrir seemed like the one to ruthlessly act them out with no regard to other beings whereas Lupin repressed himself ruthlessly to the point of self-suffocation (note how suave he normally is - in everyday life, his aggressions (e.g. towards Snape) take on a rather passive-aggressive colour). I found the idea interesting that the powerful wolf should have been the meekest of the marauders, always shying away from acting upon that "psychological drive" and hoped there was going to be some kind of solution or compromise, but alas. (In part, I owe inspiration for this line of thought to Fabula rasa and her fic about Snape being a Vampire. He oscillates between giving in to his bloodthirst (the Fenrir side of him) and repressing it with potions to the point of making himself ill by malnutrition; Sirius helps him find a compromise in the end).

* "The gried that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death..." What is this? Grief? From Harry?

LOL! We need to amp up the grief so that we'll believe it matters whether Dumbledore loved Harry before Harry's parents were born.

* Phineas Nigellus' portrait is empty because he's spending the night at Hogwarts.

Ah, another one of those magical ideas that makes less sense the more you think about it.

* Sirius has pictures of sanctily clad women on his bedroom walls. He isn't gay. Definitely not. Being gay is only reserved to old, asexual headmasters.

What's funny is I agree with the anon that this is just supposed to be generic rebellion. Unfortunately het boy-lust is so weirdly compartmentalized in this series it's hard to understand. She's gone out of her way to explain that Sirius had no girlfriends because he was "too busy" being rebellious, so the idea that it occurred to him to be rebellious by having girlfriends is hard to buy. You wind up with the idea of Sirius putting up all these pictures for show without actually being interested in women. DH remains the most R/S book in the series for me. (And they were Muggle pictures, weren't they? That's even grosser since presumably the rebellion is that he might have sex with Muggles, who are like animals.)

* Lupin looks shabby even as a teenager. Is the guy constitutionally incapable of looking neat?

Isn't the whole idea supposed to be that he's shabby because he can't get a job to support himself because he's a werewolf? His parents didn't have that problem.

* Lupin also has "the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included". "The same air"? When else has he had that air?

Since we need to have Lupin being bizarre in this book to fill up pages when we aren't camping. Suddenly every time Lupin walks in the room all Harry can see is his big ole' fear of love.

* Sirius has used the Permanent Sticking Charm to keep his posters and the photograph on the walls.

Just like his mother.

* From Lily's letter, it looks like the Potters were already under the Fidelius Charm when Harry turned one, yet Pettigrew didn't betray them until Halloween.

I know there's some whole question about the timeline there, but as usual I can't follow it. Like how Lily is writing to Sirius to thank him for a gift he would have sent months ago or something?

* BTW, why did Dumbledore take James's Invisibility Cloak? Didn't he trust James to stay put if he had it? That was probably wise.

I think he just took it because he's all overcome with Hallows-lust. It's his fatal flaw, you know. (It's a metaphor for gayness.)

* Snape really is obsessed with Lily, to go to the trouble of ransacking Sirius's room to get her signature and a picture of her. Pathetic.

So. So. Pathetic.

* So all of Moody's anti-Snape enchantments were for nothing. Snape managed to get into the house anyway.

Yes, that Snape must be pretty damned powerful to get past that security!

* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?

You shouldn't wonder that, though. That way lies madness!

* Harry wants to know the truth about Dumbledore. Tell me, Harry, how exactly does that help you defeat Voldemort? You know, the main task you have?

If his main task is making it seem like something is going on in the book and filling up hundreds of pages before June it helps a lot!

Now you're just being stupid, Hermione. Ron just demonstrated that it's the pure-bloods who know about house-elf magic, not Muggle-borns. And Voldemort was practically a Muggle-born.

Thank you, yes!

* I wonder, did Regulus really change his mind about everything Voldemort represented? The turning point for him seems to have been the way Voldemort treated Kreacher.

It seems like he just like the other Slytherins. They suck and are fundamentally drawn to Voldemort, but they can be saved by loving somebody. For some reason this is some saving grace. Snape has Lily, Regulus had Kreacher, the Malfoys have each other.

>>* I wonder, why didn't the Order take the Fidelius Charm off and do it again with someone else as the Secret Keeper?

You shouldn't wonder that, though. That way lies madness!<<

The madness is that Rowling changed the rules so often that there is no no way to remove a Secret from keeping. It just keeps being shared by more and more people. Unless you tell it to Voldemort directly, That's a deal-breaker. He's special. Almost as special as Harry.

LOL! We need to amp up the grief so that we'll believe it matters whether Dumbledore loved Harry before Harry's parents were born.

But not in a gay way, definitely not.

(And they were Muggle pictures, weren't they? That's even grosser since presumably the rebellion is that he might have sex with Muggles, who are like animals.)

Ooh, good catch. Ingrained attitudes are difficult to change, even if you are a Gryffindor.

* Sirius has used the Permanent Sticking Charm to keep his posters and the photograph on the walls.

Just like his mother.

I'm sure Sirius wouldn't have liked this comparison, but he really is a lot like his mother. They are engaged in mutual tantrum-throwing.

* From Lily's letter, it looks like the Potters were already under the Fidelius Charm when Harry turned one, yet Pettigrew didn't betray them until Halloween. What's up with that? Or am I supposed to believe Voldemort waited three months to attack them on Halloween? Perhaps it was a magically auspicious time.

Oh the solstice, definitely. Vold was probably waiting for the event while catching up on some last minute tenting he had to do.

Sometimes ya just gotta camp! Ah Wilderness!

Too bad Rowling didn't manage to include that in the books. There's not enough camping in the HP books.

Yeah, Hitler killed himself on April 30th, Walpurgisnacht, the anti-Hallowe'en, which probably wasn't a coincidence.

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Deathly Hallows, chapter 10

Part One

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