PoA Chapter Four

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Since Diagon Alley is full of the most fascinating wizarding shops in the world, Harry has no desire to venture into Muggle London. He’s got a robe shop, broom shop and an ice cream parlor.

Harry likes eating breakfast in the Cauldron and watching the other customers. Almost as if he’s a curious boy with interest in the world around him. I’m thinking Dumbledore must have slipped him something to kill this once he got to school.

One of the people Harry sees is someone who looked “suspiciously like a hag” ordering from behind a baklava. Perhaps Marietta looked suspiciously like a hag in her baklava too.

Btw, are hags yet another creature that aren’t fit for polite society from birth?

Harry also gets free sundaes every half an hour. Wow. Does he look a little more like Dudley by the end of the week or what?

Harry’s tempted to buy himself a set of solid gold gobstones. Luckily just in time he remembers that he doesn’t actually play gobstones.

Harry’s metabolism is no doubt as far-seeing as his financial sense. He won’t be getting fat no matter how many sundaes he eats.

Gobstones squirt nasty-smelling liquid into the other player’s faces when they lose a point. Honestly, for all the claims of how great it is, the wizarding world mostly tastes and smells terrible all the time.

Harry also gets his first look at the best broom ever. What do you think the chances are he’ll get one of these Firebolt things by the end of the book like last time?

Not that this great broom will in any way give Harry an unearned advantage over any other Seeker, of course. Our brooms, like our choices, simply show who we are.

LOL! There’s something wonderful about Harry reminding himself that it’s not like he’s ever lost a Quidditch match on his Nimbus 2000. He might as well have reminded himself that he never seems to lose at anything, really. To be fair, he hasn’t yet entered the TWT.

The bookstore manager has already been bitten several times in one morning by Hagrid’s stupid book. Nice to know Hagrid’s powers of irritation are just that powerful.

Harry’s eye falls on a book about death omens that has a picture of a black dog on the cover, thus neatly making his vision of Sirius look like an omen. Well done there.

Other kids pop up at Diagon Alley, like Dean and Seamus. Harry also sees Neville, but doesn’t stop to chat. Shock.

Arthur has of course heard all about what happened to Aunt Marge. He was probably disappointed he didn’t get a chance to cover that up for Harry himself.

Hermione says Harry’s blowing up his aunt isn’t funny. After all, she’s amazed he wasn’t expelled. Nice foreshadowing of Hermione’s take on the Sectumsempra issue.

The Weasleys are randomly staying at the Cauldron this year because Harry is. (Maybe they’re afraid he’ll get adopted by some other family if they leave him alone another minute.)

Let me guess, will Hermione be staying too? Why yes, she is! Her parents obediently dropped her off by herself at a hotel. Maybe she just lied and told them she had to be there early.

Hermione is taking Muggle studies because she thinks it will be fascinating to see them from the wizard pov. If by “fascinating” you mean infuriating and condescending, I guess.

Hermione’s got extra money because it’s her birthday in September. I know that note’s for us but it almost makes it sound like it’s new information for Ron and Harry. Or at least Harry, whose birthday is the only important one until Ron almost gets killed on his. (Though after that one the Weasleys probably started celebrating it as the anniversary of the time Harry saved Ron rather than Ron’s birthday.)

Hermione says she wants an owl, which gives Ron a reason to pull Scabbers out of his pocket and note he’s looking droopy. He thinks because Egypt didn’t agree with him, but of course really it’s because he’s scared of Sirius!

It also gives us a reason to go to a pet shop: Animals are Important in this Book!

They go to the pet shop, which is also foul-smelling. The clerk makes a point of helping someone else so they have time to look around and give us a nice long descriptive paragraph.

Like nearly everything Ron owns, Scabbers is second-hand. Hey, he finally got a new wand, didn’t he? It’s not even pre-owned!

The witch asks what powers Scabbers has. So are all magical familiars supposed to have powers? I guess Hedwig’s ability to care whether or not Harry has a happy birthday doesn’t count?

The witch says an ordinary garden rat can’t be expected to live more than three or four years. Well, obviously, there’s his power!

So Hermione chooses to buy the cat that attacks Ron’s rat on sight. Yup, that neatly fits their pattern all right. Not exactly optimistic symbolism for that marriage.

Black’s not going to be caught by a 13-year-old wizard, Arthur says, a line that sounds incredibly silly given that you’d think a world war wouldn’t be fought and won by a 17-year-old wizard and his idiot friends, and yet it will.

Ginny goes red and mutters hello to Harry without looking at him. It’s amazing the way that if you look back at past books, Peter’s true personality is actually clear in Scabbers and Barty Crouch’s true personality is clear in Fake!Moody…yet the fantastical Ginny of OotP and HBP remains completely hidden. I mean, it’s not even like Harry walks in on something that looks like Ginny being clumsy but on re-read is clearly Ginny having just beaten all her brothers into submission or something.

If only Colin Creevey had been tongue-tied instead of babbling he might have been given a new, awesome personality too.

Percy greets Harry as if they’ve never met, which makes Harry almost laugh instead of get angry and judgmental. Weird, isn’t it?

Percy, of course, can’t hide his personality. He’s already been smug and pompous and he’s just appeared on the page.

Fred and George jump in to elaborately make fun of Percy for Harry.

George is revolted at the idea of being a Prefect, because it would take all the fun out of life, and Ginny giggles. I guess there’s our Big Clue to the firecracker within.

The twins also tried to shut Percy in a pyramid in Egypt. They’re so funny and awesome.

Everyone eats their way through 5 courses at dinner. I’m so glad we’re away from the fat people so we can get down to enjoying all this good food!

Percy curiously asks why the Ministry’s sending cars for their family and George says it’s because of Percy, and they’ll have little flags that say HB for…wait for it…Humongous Bighead! Fred adds that! That’s hilarious! Are these boys really only 15?

So the car for Arthur is “doing him a favor” because he doesn’t have a car anymore. That would be because his car was illegal and his kid lost it. If there’s one thing that says poor, it’s fleets of government cars taking your kids to school, yeah?

Still, it’s nice of the Ministry to do something to make up for Arthur losing his totally illegal car that specifically went against his own area of law enforcement. I doubt anybody in the Muggle world would be that thoughtful.

Arthur feels it makes no sense not to tell Harry he’s in grave danger. Naturally he won’t be winning this argument. Nobody ever tells Harry anything he should obviously know. Though to be fair, Harry never actually seems to want to know anything he should obviously know.

Since Arthur’s not going to tell Harry anything, he resorts to having a loud, angry “As you know, Bob” conversation with Molly while Harry’s listening.

So to bring us up to date: Sirius muttered “He’s at Hogwarts” in his sleep, which everyone assumes refers to Harry because honestly, who the hell cares about any other single person at Hogwarts even if you’re not in jail for killing Harry’s parents?

Molly says Dumbledore would never let anything hurt Harry at Hogwarts, even though Harry’s already almost died at Hogwarts twice in the two years he’s been there.

It turns out Fred and George actually stole Percy’s badge to change it to read “Bighead Boy.” Just as Harry is protected from the harsh reality that everyone thinks Sirius is after him, apparently the twins are kept from the harsh reality that they are pretty much lacking in wit.

Like, remember that scene in Annie Hall where little Alvy has to deal with “Joey Nickles” and his allegedly hilarious jokes? And even though he’s a small child he just wanders away saying, “What an asshole?” I see a lot of that in the Twins’ future.

Harry thinks maybe Sirius should be afraid of Dumbledore since Voldemort was. Nope, one of Sirius’ most appealing qualities was that he wasn’t afraid of Dumbledore. Which is also pretty much why he spent his life in prison and then died young, really.

Worst of everything, of course, is that Harry can’t go to Hogsmeade. Um, yeah. That’s definitely the worst thing about finding out a mass murderer is gunning for you. No unchaperoned trips to the bug, grass and vomit-flavored candy store!

Harry vows not to be murdered. And I have to appreciate Harry coming up with even that vague of a plan. Nobody can accuse him of not fulfilling at least that goal.

Things done twice:

Harry sees a second incredible broom he’ll soon own.

Hermione is attracted to a cat that attacks people, thus becoming another pet owner like Marge and Hagrid.

Harry’s kept out of the loop on a big secret about himself throughout a whole book, much like OotP.

Fred and George fix Percy’s badge to say something different. The badge technology in GoF does NOT come out of nowhere!

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!

Firebolt
Status: Fired, just in the way you’d expect.

Arthur says the Ministry is no nearer catching Black than inventing self-spelling wands
Status: Fired, and we didn’t even know it was a gun!
Hey, Arthur, Harry’s already got one of those! It’s just waiting until the seventh book to randomly reveal itself!





Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
If Molly didn’t follow this credo her husband would have no reason to exposit information he’s already told her for Harry’s benefit.

Hero’s Death Battle Exemption
Harry reminds all those people, in his head, how wonderfully he’s managed to keep himself alive so far. It’s good to have your name in the title!

Idiot World
Arthur says the Ministry’s pulled people them all off their regular jobs to find Sirius. I love that the Ministry is so useless they would look for a fugitive by deputizing a bunch of accountants (without the accountants doing anything useful like checking financial transactions that could lead them to Sirius, of course.)

Spring-Loaded Cat
Hey, an actual spring-loaded cat!

Jabootu Score: 4

Comments

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Especially because looking at that girl if somebody asked how she'd act when she was freaked out over a boy she liked I'd probably guess she'd be too loud and aggressive.

And making all the wrong moves where the guy's concerned - like Romilda Vane. I was really toying with hopping on the Ginny Used A Love Potion bandwagon after HBP. It could swing either way with the hints and blinds that were thrown in, or that we thought were thrown in, from PoA I think it was, where Molly, Ginny and Hermione are laughing about love potions at the Leaky Cauldron, to the scene at WWW in HBP. The Ginny we saw as she emerged from her shell would, I think, sneak a potion to whoever she liked at the time, without thinking about the consequences; the family she came from would never discourage such impulsive actions, though I couldn't see Molly wanting her baby to do that.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I never bought into the love-potion theories after HBP came out, I think because I'd found that book to just be so bad, and also because Rowling's "Interview o' Doom" showed that she honestly and sincerely thought that H/G was a match made in heaven.

But I gather there were a whole *host* of love potion references in the sixth book. Things I never noticed, like Celestina Warbeck singing 'hot cauldron of love' over the wireless at Christmas. As well as all the other more blatant cases - Slughorns Amortentia (sorry if I muffed the spelling), Romilda, the WWW products.

Although Rowling's self-indulgent self-praise stopped me from considering the love potion possibility I do see how such might have transpired in the series. Pureblood!Ginny could have easily done just what you suggested. And Harry's monster seemed to be a disjoint part of him (myself, I've always gone with the theory that it was Riddle's soul fragment in Harry that lusted for Ginny; with the 'monster' now gone Harry should likewise be free of that attraction :-)).

Do you know of any decent love potion fanfics that do a good job on this sort of thing?

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

But I gather there were a whole *host* of love potion references in the sixth book. Things I never noticed, like Celestina Warbeck singing 'hot cauldron of love' over the wireless at Christmas.

I wonder if that's just where JKR's mind went when it came to love? I mean, that it was foreshadowing, or creating an atmosphere for, everyone falling in love with their various soul mates? Didn't JKR say that the infamous "love room" at the DoM had a cauldron of that love potion? (I seem to recall raising an eyebrow at that little tidbit.)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Didn't JKR say that the infamous "love room" at the DoM had a cauldron of that love potion?

I dimly recall that being the case.

Meh. I can see now that Rowling's treatment of 'love' in the sixth book was much like her writing of the Hallows and brand new wand lore in the seventh - throwing everything she could think of into the mix without any great regard for what it all meant or how it would stick together. It might have been 'creating an atmosphere' but it also created a big mess as well. :-)

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

Not thought out, no. ;)

But... I don't know, some of her answers to her interviews (probably the worst way to judge someone's actual opinion, but what the hell *g*) leave me thinking JKR has some odd views on what love is. Or maybe an odd way of articulating her views. Either way, I'm not surprised that I tend to be drawn to relationships I think she didn't mean to draw me towards. (Example: I find the Malfoy family a lot more loving towards each other than the Weasley family.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh god, yes. Because it said so much about what "love" was supposed to be, given all that stuff about Harry's power of love. This is what's going on in the secret room where they're studying the most powerful force? They're taking love potions (which produce sexual obsession) and jumping each other. Wow.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of thing that convinces me that in Rowling we've got a walking, talking illustration of burnout.

She throws in a comment from her mouthpiece Albus about the "greatest mystery" in all nature as a throwaway line at the conclusion of an adventure. It really isn't a half bad concpt and the fans-who love a mystery grab it and run with it. She, however, simply threw it in because is sounded portentious, so, having done so, she forgot about it. This wasn't something that she's planned. It wasn't something she'd built into the narrative, it was just something tossed in to give it a gloss of "instant depth".

A year later she sits down and starts writing the book with the official Riddle backstory. Now, this I think was planned. Not worked out in detail, but she always did intend to give us the Riddle backstory in Book 6. She just never thought to fully build it into the narrative, since nothing she tells us in it actually connects to anything else in the story, and the trajectory she gives young Riddle doesn't even connect to what everyone has to say about his original rise and VoldWar I.

But in any case, whether this has been something she's intended from the beginning or it's something she's pulled out of her hat once she sat down to write it (my suspicion), she ends up giving us a book in which love potions -- which have been treated as a complete joke heretofore -- are revealed to be downright wicked, borderline Dark, and effectively evil. Moreover, she plays the Efniessin card and implies that this scourge of the ww could *only* have been a monster because he was concieved from the use of a love potion rather than being born of parents who truly *loved* one another.

So she finishes her extended term paper and turns it in and forgets about it, and some years later in an interview (since I'm pretty sure the statement was made post DHs), somebody asks her about the throwaway statement about the great mystery that she wrrote some five years earlier, and she thinks; "er.. something about love, wasn't it?" and pops out with the statement about love potions, since she has no recollection of the context of either theme.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

You know, this might explain the otherwise inexplicable thing: in interviews, Rowling tends to come off like a pupil who's been copying high brow stuff from the top student somehow and when being asked about the same topic is reduced to throwing around random words without the faintest idea as to meaning and implications. Logically, this should be impossible with an author when talking about her own frigging work - but somehow it IS fact. *ponders*

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

You will also notice that this complete randomness mainly affects questions about the back half of the series. She really did think about the first half, and while things that she honestly missed -- like the missing 24 hours -- are still missing in action, she usually gives a coherant answer to a question asked about details from the first three books.

Unless, of course, it's something that she contradicted later. In that case she can't remember which version she needs to endorse to make herself look good.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

There's a real marked dichotomy with the series, isn't there? The first four, maybe five books - well thought out, crafted better, tight writing. The last 2-3, the 'back half' as you say - full of bloat (you can't edit a billionaire author!), gimmicks thrown in without thought as to their ramifications, characters moving through their paces 'just because'.

Rowling really proved herself unable to properly finish what she started. She really hadn't planned out the series to any sufficient detail when she kicked things off with the first few books.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I definitely started to *feel* a bloat in 5. I remember while reading it I was thinking, "My god, they haven't gotten to school yet and this is taking forever." And the Hagrid story was killer. Plus it might have been a problem that I felt like it was a book where I was two steps ahead of the characters most of the time and that made it feel longer too. There were things I liked in the book but it felt really tedious at times--despite the fact that I had been waiting for it for years!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

OotP is actually my favourite book of the series. Not that I'm nuts about it; even before Rowling jumped the shark and proved she couldn't finish what she started with books 6 & 7 I was in the fandom for the fan fiction, which has been a delight.

Still, OotP has a definite 'take charge' element to it, the kids fighting against Umbridge, setting up the DA and such. And I liked that.

I've come to realise, though, that some fans consider it to be the worst book (well, of the first five). Some because of the horribly clumsy way Rowling set things up for the end climax - she needed Harry to be kept ignorant of the prophecy and Voldemort's quest for it, so just had Dumbledore stop speaking to him. Some people couldn't accept that.

Myself, I was quite pleased with the idea of the prophecy itself, which is why I'm particularly bitter about it being just another one of Rowling's one-book wonders ... used to support all 880+ pages of OotP, but then dropped as a farce in HBP and left by the wayside for the rest of the series.

OotP is the only book I've read fully twice, but yeah, I can see how it can be tedious in places.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

The first time I read OotP, I disliked it, mainly because Harry had been taken over by a self-centered jerk. Also. Sirius died and before he died, he turned into a self-centered alcoholic jerk.

And, that promise of the series kicking into epic mode (with the call for emissaries to the giants and the centaurs and all that) went nowhere.

But on rereads, I got to like it better. I decided Harry was going through a phase. And, as you say, at least Harry was doing something with the D.A. And I liked a lot of what Ginny was. In that, I liked that she had stopped being Harry's fangirl and was dating someone else. I liked that she had been sneaking into the broomshed and practicing Quidditch (and figured it was to avoid what was happening to Ron--constant teasing from the Twins).

And I liked the awkwardness of Harry and Cho.

Also, Umbridge was the most effective villain we'd had yet.

Now, the things that kind of bothered me bother me greatly--because I know where it's all headed.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I say that the rot set in with book 4. That whole episode was based on a faulty premise, and she admitted later falling into a plot hole in that one -- to the point of having to rewrite close to a third of the book. I just don't believe that the hole she admits to was really what gave her all the trouble.

But at that point she still had a lot of ideas that she had actually *thought* about, so she was able to cobble something together that got her to the end of that particular volume. However, that volume is where the bloat set in. Not that GoF was obviously padded, because it wasn't. But she was suddenly moving beyond a place where she had established the groundwork and suddenly found herself having to add all kinds of new stuff in. And she hadn't allowed for how much of it there was, nor how much work it was going to be to fit it in.

In retrospect, although GoF really was not padded, it also was not especially relevant, since by the time we got to the end of it we were heading off into terra incognita, and pretty much nothing that she was pointing at when that sequence finished was anything that ever actually went anywhere.

OotP *was* padded. She still had some of her original ideas when she started that one, but they only got her part way through it, and from that point on she was flailing. The whole series effectively ran out of gas by the time Harry rode Nagini into the DoM and watched Arthur get bitten. The post script to that sequence was checking off the list items of; "get to DoM", "kill Sirius", and "tell Prophecy". Everything else in the whole back half of that book was an effectless distraction designed to stretch the action out to the end of the year.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I know you dislike the plot-holes that remained in GOF, but I think most of them can be worked around, including the Polyjuice business. What I like most about GOF is that it is possible to reread it from different POVs - Dumbledore's, Severus' - each acting on different partial information and with different assumptions (Albus believing Harry, Severus believing Harry was lying when he said he did not put his name in the Goblet) and work out what each of them was thinking. (BTW my conclusions are different from the ones you arrive at in 'Hostage to Misfortune', but then I'm working with ruthless DH Dumbles, yet giving him the benefit of doubt in some ways.)

[sunnyskywalker]

GoF is where I start noticing the plotholes that could have been fixed with minor tweaks, for the most part. Just have someone relevant mention that the resurrection takes 10 months to brew, or the ceremony must occur at the summer solstice, and at least we've got that timing cleared up. Have the maze be viewable to the audience so they can see Harry disappear when he touches the cup so they can panic, since Voldemort supposedly likes to cause mass panic. Then there would be an actual reason to put Harry in the tournament. We could still poke holes in that reason, but at least it's something. It also could wreck the whole "no one believes Voldemort's back" part of OotP, unless she worked out a way to have Voldemort cover by making it look like Harry rigged the cup and killed Cedric, or got Cedric accidentally killed via some dangerous whatsit they encountered on the other side, which Dumbledore could get Harry out of at trial. Or something. Anything.

After that, the plot holes got too big to fill pretty quickly.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, I always thought that planting the maze in the Quidditch Pitch was so people couldsee doen into it from the stands. Much like I expected that what was going on underwater in the lake was being magically shown on the surface for the spectatoprs. But Rowling never tells us that the spectators ever did anything but sit there where they could see nothing whatsoever of interest. Which is where the flawed premise of the whole Tournament comes in.

If, as Rowling claims, the book was *supposed* to be the one in which Harry had to come to grips with the fact that he is a celebrity, and people are *not* going to leave him alone to live his life in private, I cannot say that she effectively showed us Harry doing anything of the sort. We saw him being hounded by Rita and Hermione slapping Rita down (without consequences, which is pure wish-fulfillment) nd that was presumably the ed of it. We don't even see Harry gaining any real understanding that this is going to keep on happening, and he has a choice of whether to use it or not -- since she never brings him to the point of ever even considering making deliberate use of it. So we never really even get the message that he suffered any actual "temptation" of fame, or understanding that fame is also a tool. In which case he comes across as a bit of a dork. Fortunately he is still young enough to get away with that in GoF. But as the series goes on, the only thing he seems to have learned from the year is a handful of hexes and what a Pensieve is for.

The book's only real purpose appears, in retrospect, to be to bring Tom back into play, and everything else in it seems either singularly pointless, or was sonething that Rowling felt she had to redo before the series was over, and she didn't do it better.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I know people don't like that Barty waited for the third task to make a Portkey, but IMO it shouldn't be possible at normal times to make Portkeys to and from Hogwarts, except with the headmaster's permission. Because otherwise the whole security measure of inability to Apparate to and from Hogwarts would be pointless. And GOF is the book where Hermione starts reminding people about this bit. So Rowling should have had her mention Portkeys as well. Since the headmaster can alter the Apparation protections he should be able to alter the Portkey protections as well. Indeed all Portkeys we see being used to and from Hogwarts are either approved by Dumbledore (Triwizard Cup) or made by him (twice in OOTP). Also, if Portkeys to Hogwarts were possible without the headmaster's approval Draco's cabinet repair project in HBP would be a bit superfluous.

So Barty's options were: Lure Harry out of the anti-Apparation wards and Portkey/side-along him away; lure him away from his friends while they are all visiting Hogsmeade and Portkey/side-along him from there or use the Triwizard cup, which was intended to be a Portkey all along. But Portkeying him from Barty's office is IMO out.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Even if we assume that Barty can't just hand him something in his office getting Harry alone in Hogsmeade or anywhere is just so obviously more sensible. By making it the Triwizard cup Barty literally spends the year trying to help Harry get around incredible obstacles that he himself put between Harry and the very thing Barty's goal is to have him touch.

In a way, the best thing about Dumbledore's plan in DH is that it kicks Barty's plan out of the top spot in the "plans that shouldn't have a chance in hell of working" spot.

[sunnyskywalker]

We'd have to combine explanations to make it work - the potion takes ten months to brew/must be finished at the solstice AND the tasks are the only time the anti-portkey wards are down. It's getting creaky and ridiculous, but still workable if JKR hadn't gotten so caught up with things that ultimately don't matter, like SPEW.

There musts be some sort of wizarding graduate program for Scholars of Absurdly Convoluted Plots. Barty was all but dissertation, while Dumbledore and Voldemort were engaged in the academic rivalry of the century.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Severus has detailed notes criticizing the course in the margins of a book. Draco took the beginners' curriculum.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

It would make sense to lower the anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey wards for the TWT, at least by the venues. So many people would be coming to watch that shunting them straight to the bleachers would be the best idea and cut down on possible sightings by Muggles of strangely-dressed people heading to an unimportant ruin. Though I'm sure Hogsmeade vendors would like the business, they could probably set up kiosks on the grounds.

Heck, the vendors probably did. Why didn't we see it?

academic rivalry of the century

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Snorts tea onto the keyboard.

So, er, who was ahead on points?

Re: academic rivalry of the century

[oryx_leucoryx]

I'm wondering to what degree Albus was plagiarizing Gellert's notes (and who else's?). He seemed to be at beginners' level well past middle-age.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

YES YES YES YES YES.

I agree with you. :-)

Really, the HP series is a hodge-podge of all sorts of bits and pieces from folklore and such that has been assimilated into Western culture. Rowling just bunged them all into her story - unicorns, centaurs, giants, vampires, love potions, spells, wands ... you name it.

But when she's asked to explain how they work, or their history .... yoiks.

(That's not the case for everything; I haven't read 'Fantastic Beasts', but I gather she made up her own creatures there? And quidditch is another Rowling original.)

It's always amused/saddened me how some fans - who are *incredibly* more learned than Rowling - delved into the ancestry and etymology of many of the aspects of Harry's wizarding world in so much greater detail and depth than Rowling would have ever spent on them, all to try and determine how everything worked.