death to capslock

Why did the Order only threaten the Dursleys after Harry's fifth year?

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 19:28:13 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Many readers have wondered why none of the adults who care about Harry confronted the Dursleys during his first five years at Hogwarts. What suddenly made them take action in 1996 when they hadn’t seen a need before? ( Read more... )

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Peter's flight to Albania

Sat, 05 Nov 2022 01:34:15 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Why did Peter go to Albania and restore Voldemort to power instead of, you know, running away? Why not find a distant corner of the globe where no one would recognize him and where the long arm of Dumbledore didn’t reach and live in relative peace?

Well. Remember what Remus said while literally rolling up his sleeves to murder Peter?

“You should have realized, Peter […] If Voldemort didn’t kill you, we would.”

What would Peter be thinking once he got far enough away to catch his breath?

“Uh-oh, Dumbledore might actually believe Moony and Padfoot and the kids when they tell him I’m still alive and the real traitor. What if he clears Padfoot’s name, or at least helps him escape? Won’t that leave Padfoot at liberty to hunt me down? And it’s almost the summer holiday—Moony will be able to join the hunt in a couple of weeks. And no one’s taught DADA two years in a row in my lifetime, and where else is he going to get a job now? I’m going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for those two. If I’m lucky. They might actually find me! What options does that leave me?”

You’d think that working for Voldemort is such a terrible job that living on the run while fearing every shadow is a big black dog doesn’t sound that bad by comparison. There’s no Cruciatus, as long as he doesn’t get caught. On the other hand, Sirius is the guy who tricked a fellow student he didn’t like into entering a tunnel with a werewolf. And none of the Marauders ever actually confirmed that Remus wasn’t a willing participant in that plan. Why was he rolling up his sleeves in the Shrieking Shack if he was only planning a quick, clean death? Maybe Peter sincerely believed that whatever Sirius and Remus would do to him was so terrible, and living in fear of it so unbearable, that Voldemort didn’t automatically look like the worst choice.

And why didn’t Dumbledore send Sirius after Peter? Um. I’m sure we would all like to think that Sirius, unlike Quirrell, would be protected by plot armor if he ended up in Albania and would never return to Britain with a spiffy new turban. Or a motorcycle helmet and a sudden obsession with traffic safety. But…well, would you want a Voldemort with all of Sirius’s cleverness and skill at nasty curses to draw on? Me neither.

How he convinced Sirius not to hunt Peter is another question. Though did Sirius know Voldemort was in Albania? Maybe Dumbledore, ah, neglected to mention that, and Sirius was grimly hunting tropical islands for rats between replying to Harry’s letter and drinking rum.

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Since he didn't blame the mailer daemon...

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 21:53:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Prisoner of Azkaban does a good impression of being one of the best-constructed books of the series, as long as you are willing to smile and nod at time-travel shenanigans (which you pretty much have to in any book where time travel appears). But these gaping chasms keep opening up every time I poke at it. For example, Sirius and the mail.

He apparently has no trouble using a friendly cat to draw funds from his bank account so he can mail-order an expensive racing broom. Magic Amazon must be great. (Just one tap with your wand! Except it must be even easier, since cats don't carry wands...) Fine, maybe that the goblins facilitated this because helping a wanted criminal was a great opportunity to subvert wizarding desires or something.

But it never occurred to Sirius to send Dumbledore or Remus a letter saying that Peter was the real Secret-Keeper all along, is a rat Animagus, and is now in hiding as the Weasley boy's pet, which Sirius realized when he saw the rat's picture in the Daily Prophet? ( Read more... )

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Let’s You and Him Fight: How Snape and Lupin’s Conflict in PoA Furthers Dumbledore’s War Strategy

Fri, 18 Jan 2019 22:57:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Thanks to torchedsong for bringing up the topic of character complexity (or the destruction thereof). JKR's desperate attempts to force characters that had grown beyond her control back into simpler, Really Good vs. Really Bad boxes in DH always gets me thinking.

Some HP characters I used to love disappointed me so much once I'd processed DH that I lost sympathy for them for a while. JKR excusing some characters’ flaws and not others also makes it tempting to blame her pet characters and dislike them forever more. Now, I prefer a complex cast of characters who might have sympathetic motivations and flaws which inevitably bring them into conflict over what I felt JKR wrote in DH, so I’ve been trying to re-examine the HP books with a view toward finding some sympathy for all the characters, even the really terrible ones. (No luck so far with James. I’m not sure I’ll ever manage that.)

This led me to Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape is responsible for brewing Lupin’s medication and making sure he takes it. Even Dumbledore ought to have noticed that this is a no-good, horrible, very bad idea. Snape will be freshly reminded of the time Lupin nearly killed him at regular intervals. Lupin will be freshly reminded of the time he nearly killed Snape because his good friend Sirius set him up (and possibly react by trying to minimize it all to avoid a debilitating guilt-spiral), plus will face the anxiety that maybe the guy he bullied for years and nearly killed will poison him in revenge. Why on Earth would anyone set them both up for this? Yes, Snape is one of the few people talented enough to brew Wolfsbane… but Dumbledore is supposed to be a genius at everything magical, and he studied alchemy, which surely has skills that translate to potions. Why can’t he brew the Wolfsbane and deliver it with a twinkle? Even if he can’t, why can’t he deliver it instead of Snape? Forcing them to deal with each other directly over such a fraught subject is guaranteed to make them both suffer.

*headdesk* Probably because that’s the point. This is part of Dumbledore’s war strategy. Snape is probably in on it to some degree—not that it makes it any less miserable for him.( Read more... )

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Revisiting the Boggart Lesson

Sun, 20 May 2018 13:36:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

When I was a kid, I didn’t think too hard about Lupin’s boggart lesson. It was a cool creature, a DADA teacher finally taught them something useful, and we got a clue to Lupin’s fears and a segue into Lupin teaching Harry the Patronus Charm. Neat, right?

But now I’ve tried imagining myself as one of the students in that lesson. And as Lupin, for that matter. What the hell was Lupin thinking by making the students face the boggart in front of the entire class?( Read more... )

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Boggart performance art

Mon, 02 Nov 2015 21:53:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

There really is nothing like re-reading these books while looking from the adult characters' perspectives. Harry's first Thursday back at school in PoA is an interesting case.( Nothing suspicious at all here. Move along. )

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Notes for Indestructible - chapters of interest and a patronus tidbit

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 13:46:00 GMT

Posted by: condwiramurs.livejournal.com

I'm working on writing up the other set of misc cards for my "Indestructible" series, and planning out the Severus-centric posts, where the real meat is. In those posts I'll be looking more at the books themselves again and quoting or referencing various chapters. There are sets of parallels and oppositions scattered throughout the books, and I'll be tracing some repeated imagery across them. So, for the sake of clarity and keeping things organized, I thought I'd give you a cheat-sheet of chapters and images to refer back to, if you want, as we go through the rest of the series.

This isn't a final list - I might end up finding further references as I write - but the major pieces are here.

Also, as I was pulling this list together I noticed an interesting bit of foreshadowing between POA and DH that I've pulled out for you at the end, to think about and play with.

( Read more... )

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New Pottermore entries from PoA

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 09:45:00 GMT

Posted by: t0ra-chan.livejournal.com

( Secret Keeper )

( Werewolves )

( Time-Turners )

( Patronus Charm )

( Remus J. Lupin )

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Sirius's Incarceration, A Reconsideration

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:07:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

All these years, I’ve accepted Sirius’s summary incarceration without a whisper of protest, or indeed much thought. After all, indefinitely imprisoning (without even a show trial) enemy combatants, or enemies of the people, is merely what any self-respecting tyrant, or war leader with aspirations to dictatorship, does. Hitler and Stalin had their camps, George Bush his Guantanamo… Heck, even Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War! Desperate times require desperate measures.

But on reflection, I smell… well, not a rat.

We already knew about the rat, and his contribution to the mess.

I smell something worse than that.

( That )

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Pottermore : New material from Prisoner of Azkaban

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:56:00 GMT

Posted by: dracasadiablo.livejournal.com

( Hogwarts Portraits )

( The Marauder's Map )

( Gobstones )

( Dementors and Chocolate )

( The Firebolt )

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Pottermore : New material about Prisoner of Azkaban

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:19:00 GMT

Posted by: dracasadiablo.livejournal.com

( Aunt Marge )

( The Knight Bus )

( Sir Cadogan )

( Kettleburn )

( Boggart )

( Snape in a dress )

Apologies if my grammar, spelling and punctuation are off.
But I just got back from a New Year party and I'm not at my best.

p.s. Happy New Year! ;D

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The Prank: An Utterly Reluctant Reconsideration

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 22:15:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

I really, really hate to be fair-minded. But sometimes I just can’t help it.

Regarding the Prank, I’ve always dismissed Lupin’s claim that James had risked his own life to save Snape’s as a feel-good lie to make James look good to his orphaned son, on the same level as “Severus loathed James because James was talented at Quidditch, not because (heavens, no!) James was a nasty entitled little jerk who was talented at making life a misery for everyone not as rich and Pureblooded as himself.”

And really (going back to the Prank), James would always have had the option of transforming into a stag had Moony actually caught up with the two of them, right? Fierce debates on Snapedom years ago over the Prank, over whether a stag (with or without antlers) could have run or even stood up in that tunnel aside, we ended up agreeing that transformed-James could at least have lain down in it.

And he knew that when transformed, Moony wouldn’t bother him.

I mean, didn't he?

We know that the Prank happened before SWM, which happened at the end of Snape and the Marauders’ fifth year. And we know that sometime during that school year, the Marauders all learned to become Animagi and started letting Moony out to frolic, themselves immune to the danger they were exposing others to.

But someone (I don’t remember who, at this remove) once suggested that Sirius might have sent Snape down that tunnel as a prophylactic measure—to get rid of the sneak BEFORE he could inform on the Marauders’ seriously criminal behavior.

Perhaps, before they had even started engaging in the seriously criminal behavior of letting loose a class XXXXX dangerous creature in an inhabited area?

Perhaps… before they were actually capable of such behavior?

We don’t know for sure when exactly in fifth year James learned to transform, or when he verified that his stag-form wasn’t viewed as prey by the werewolf.

If Sirius sent Snape down that tunnel before James could reliably transform, or before James knew for sure that the werewolf would leave the stag alone, then James WAS risking his life in going after Severus.

Even though he still would have been motivated more by CYA (or C. Your Friends’ A.) rather than by any concern for Snape’s well-being, which to my mind would rather let Severus off the hook for a “life debt.”

Still, maybe I’ve been failing to give James his due for taking real risks to save his friends, at least.

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Lupin’s Resignation: A Doubletake

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:05:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

In Chapter 22 of POA, Lupin tells Harry:
Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives. That was the final straw for Severus.

Wait. What?

Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge of WHAT?

Severus believed in the Shrieking Shack that what he’d witnessed was “the proof” that Remus had been “helping your old friend Black into the castle.” That’s what he must have told Fudge, at a minimum. What might “Professor Snape’s version of events,” which was, per Albus, “far more convincing than” Harry’s, have been? Here’s a sample narrative:

( I had )

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Lupin's "Resignation"

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:15:00 GMT

Posted by: danajsparks.livejournal.com

In Chapter 22 of POA, Lupin tells Harry:

Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives. That was the final straw for Severus. I think the loss of the Order of Merlin hit him hard. So he – er – accidentally let slip that I am a werewolf this morning at breakfast.

So let me get this straght... The only reason that Lupin had to resign is because Snape told the students about his lycanthropy? It had nothing to do with the fact that he had failed to take his Wolfsbane potion and had endagered the lives of three students and a teacher... and the Minister of Magic, of all people, knew this had happened? Would Lupin seriously have been able to keep his job, despite what he'd done, if only Snape had kept his mouth shut?

And yes, it's very likely that Fudge knew what had transpired, for it appears that he was present when Snape gave his account of the evening's events. Harry overhears Snape saying:

Consider, Minister: against all school rules – after all the precautions put in place for [Harry's] protection – out of bounds, at night, consorting with a werewolf and a murderer....---POA21

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Draco’s Deception: The Buckbeak Scam

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:26:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

Summary: Draco succeeded in pulling the wool over people’s eyes regarding his injury from Buckbeak.

( ”Harry" )

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 22

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:34:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

[Harry and Hermione run back to the Hospital Wing at once, so they won’t get in trouble for being out of bed. Shortly after Dumbledore lets them back in, Snape appears with Fudge.]

( Read Chapter 22 )

END OF BOOK 3

*I can’t believe how much capslock there is in this book alone! Seriously, that is an AMATEUR FANFIC mistake!

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 21

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:19:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

[Harry wakes up in the Hospital Wing, where the Minister of Magic is speaking to Snape.]

( Read Chapter 21 )

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 20

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:51:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

This is a really short chapter, so this abridged chapter may be quite short as well.

( Read Chapter 20 )

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 19

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:22:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

Harry: But... but... how did you ever figure out we were here?!

( Read Chapter 19 )

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 18

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:01:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

Harry: Alright, alright- Peter Pettigrew’s supposed to be dead. How in the world can he be Scabbers?

( Read Chapter 18 )

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Programming Harry for Violence

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 06:50:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

Someone in the Mary-j-59 thread on prejudice against Muggles made me realize something. S/he pointed out that Harry never attacked the Dursleys in his childish magical outbreaks.

And I realized that this was true.

( Potter )

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 18

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:52:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

So, since these two chapters are so short, I thought I’d post them one right after the other

( Read Chapter 18 )

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Harry Potter Abridged! POA Chapter 17

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:36:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

[Harry, Ron, and Hermione are standing as if in shock.]

( Read Chapter 17 )

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Harry Potter Abridged!: POA Chapter 16

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:02:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

Since I have a little more time on my hands now that classes are drawing to a close, I thought I’d do another abridged chapter!

( Read Chapter 16 )

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Boggart Inconsistency

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:11:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

If I understand PoA correctly, Harry's Dementor-boggart both affects Harry and reacts the way a real Dementor would (magically speaking).
( That )

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