Little Questions

[Kitty279]

LOL, in other words, everyone is important, but the fangirls want to see Harry as more important

[physicssquid]

Sounds about right.

Though, in the books, JK did make it sound like the Seeker was the most important player on a team, presumably in part, because she had Harry as the Gryffindor Seeker, and he was the main focus of the books. It was particularly obvious when she first introduced the game in the first book, and in the last chapter, when Gryffindor lost, without Harry.

The fourth book was the one that showed that the Seeker wasn't the most important player on the team. The World Cup match, won by Ireland purely because of the goals scored by the Chasers, proves it. Krum may have caught the Snitch, but the points it's worth, weren't enough for Bulgaria to win. The Irish Chasers were just too good, which proves that while the Seeker is the only one who can end a match, the number of goals a team scores, is what makes the difference.

[Kitty279]

Correct. After all, what use is a team sport when only one player on the team is really relevant? Otherwise they could just hold seeker competitions instead of Qudditch games.

[Kitty279]

Oh, by the way ... at the beginning of OotP, Harry listens to the news from the garden, and when he hears Dung apparating away, he bangs his head on the open window. Do windows in GB open to the outside? Because hereabouts they open to the inside, so Harry could not hit his head that way. During my holidays in GB and Ireland, I haven't seen normal windows open to the outside, either, only some that could only be stuck out a little bit, and through these Vernon couldn't have strangled Harry.

[Miss Wings]

Depending on the style then they do open outwards rather than inwards.

[Kitty279]

Really? Strange. So you don't just drive on the wrong side of the road, your windows open to the wrong side, too

[stelladelnordxd]

Oh Kitty. Windows all over the world either open inwards or outwards. For example, the old house I lived in had them open inwards, but the new house has them open outwards. It really just depends on the style.

[physicssquid]

Many houses also have sash windows, which open upwards, or even downwards.

[Kitty279]

Ok, ok, lol, I believe you. It's just that hereabouts all windows I know open to the inside, save maybe some very old houses. It's more of an age question, actually, and Privet Drive doesn't sound that old to me. That left me wondering how it was elsewhere.

[RandomPasserby]

I was re-reading the end of PS and I have a wonder.

Does Harry believe he killed Quirrell?

Dumbledore says he pulled Quirrell off of Harry and that Voldemort left Quirrell to die. The gap there is how Quirrell actually died. Last we see of Quirrell, large parts of him are burned, though how deeply we don't know.

So really there are three scenarios
1. The burns inflicted by Harry's protection did in fact kill Quirrell and Voldemort fled a dying body
2. The burns were largely superficial, Dumbledore killed Quirrell and Voldemort fled body before or immediately after
3. Voldemort fled Quirrell's body because Dumbledore showed up and that killed Quirrell

But you would think that the first thing a man who wanted to preserve Harry's innocence would say was 'you didn't kill Quirrell'. Not 'I pulled him off you' and 'Voldemort left him'.

Anyway, given what Harry's actually told, do you think he believes he killed Quirrell (regardless of whether he did or not)?

I'm also struck by the 'I'll tell you when you're older' and how monumentally stupid it is. Voldemort has proved himself willing to kill a 15 month old baby and an eleven year old boy. He isn't going to wait for Harry to get older so why not warn him that 'hey Harry, Voldemort is probably going to keep trying to kill you so stay safe kid'.

[Kitty279]

It's hard to say what exactly happened with Quirrell, but I admit, my own impression was always that he died because Voldemort couldn't bear Harry's touch and had to flee, and Dumbledore only pulled a dying Quirrell off of Harry. In the hospital Dumbledore says:

‘No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share ... not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies.[]/quote
and

‘Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realise that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection for ever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.’

To me, that certainly implies that Harry's touch killed Quirrell, or would have very soon, and Voldemort left to save his own neck, possibly hastening his demise. And if you were very mean, you could say that Harry tortured Quirrell, even if he didn't understand it... Amazing Dumbledore didn't rub that in, too ...

Well, the old meddler doesn't have a good track record of reassuring Harry, does he? He knew who the heir of Slytherin was in CoS and didn't do anything about the behaviour of the school, either. In GoF they talked in the antechamber about the question if Harry had entered himself and that someone was out to get him, but did he do anything to stop the whole school turning against him? No, oh no, why would he, nothing wrong with a few hundred people turning against his pawn, right? After seeing Cedric die, being tortured and just barely escaping from the graveyard, he took his godfather away and sent him, torn with guilt feelings about Cedric, back to the Dursleys, where he isolated him. And then, after the DoM debacle, with Harry upset and under shock because he lost his only father figure, he dropped the bombshell of the prophecy on him. The absolute worst moment I could imagine. It's really surprising that Harry neither broke under the strain nor turned into another Voldemort.

As for preserving his innocence, that's hyporcisy. During the above mentioned conversation in OotP, he admitted that he knew he was sending Harry to an abusive "home", so how does that fit in with giving him a childhood and preserving his innocence a bit longer?

Dumbledore has that lovely habit of thinking that only he himself is allowed to know anything, because only he can do the right thing. (The cynic in me says that telling anyone else could mess up his schemes). As a consequence, he always tells people stuff only after the fact - too little too late.

They left Harry alone with the connection to Voldemort, with other teenagers as only comfort - how stupid is it that Ginny was the one to reassure him? Why couldn't one of the adults take care of him? Molly is always babying the kids, but when it comes to reassuring them after a traumatic experience, she's completely useless and thinks not telling them anything would help to understand what happened. And using Snape for the Occlumency lessons, the one teacher who is the worst bully in the school when it comes to Harry, was just stupid. Dumbledore is either senile or an idiot to think that would work. And why on earth couldn't they say to Harry: "There's knowledge Voldemort wants and we can't tell you for that reason, though it concerns you, you first need to learn Occlumency to make sure he can't find out over the connection. Another reason to learn is that not only can you get these visions and dreams thorugh your connection, but he can send you false visions as well." ?? That way Harry would have been much more motivated to learn and understood why things happened.

Honestly, the man was a teacher for decades, but his psychological skill is absolutely zero.

[Kitty279]

A question for the Brits out there - I noticed that in most fanfictions, people keep knocking at entrance doors when visiting someone. But where I live, we don't knock, we do ring the doorbell. So I wonder, what is really common in GB?

[RandomPasserby]

Knocking, certainly.

This is entirely anecdotal but everywhere I've lived has either had no doorbell, a broken doorbell or people have ignored the doorbell to knock.

I'm not sure why or if there are any statistics on it.

[Kitty279]

Ah, thank you! I've been wondering for a while now. It's really interesting how different these little details can be from country to country.

[RandomPasserby]

How many deaths of sheep and goats is Hogwarts responsible for per year?

Now I'm not talking food, I'm talking the obsession with parchment. Which everyone seems to forget is actually animal skin (and for some reason the wizarding world stores it in rolls?).

In some cases I can understand this, parchment is actually really sturdy. I've seen charters from the 10th century and you can still handle them easily (and without gloves on, so long as you wash your hands). But I can only imagine how expensive the parchment habit is.

[Kitty279]

Now you gave me a thought - why not put Hermione on the case? Someone sbould point out to her how overproportionally much waste of parchment - and with that, death of animals - she causes with her overlong essays. Maybe then she'd go on a saving animal rampage and gave SPEW up, which was well meant, but badly done? ;P

[Miss Wings]

Fidelius Charm, surely it has it's flaws? You can't say 12 Grimmauld Place but what about- I grew up there, it's on my birth certificate, looks at the Hogwarts Registers etc?

[Kitty279]

I really don't know. Would the text from birth certificates, address registers and the like vanish save for people who know the secret? In theory, it's a good idea, but in practice, I can see a number of problems with it, even without going into all the canon plotholes. As a friend tells me, you can't use logic on the magical world. Though I keep doing it, too, of course.

[Miss Wings]

Alright how about the ROR, in DH it allowed the tunnel to be built. Is that not going passed the normal boundaries of a building or did it allow Neville to do it as a possible founder's heir?

[Kitty279]

No idea, the Hogs Head is in Hogsmeade, after all, so, yes, way beyond the boundaries of Hogwarts. One explanation I could think of would be that Hogsmeade is on Hogwarts lands, but even so it stretches my ability for suspension of disbelief. And Founders Heir or not, that doesn't change the fact how far this tunnel went. It's not as if the Hogs Head is just a few meters from Hogwarts, after all.

[RandomPasserby]

I think I have a solution. Vanishing cabinets. We know that one can be used from somewhere outside Hogwarts into Hogwarts, completely bypassing any wards. Is it not possible therefore that the 'tunnel' was actually a pseudo Vanishing Cabinet with a specific destination. So as soon as you hit the end of the Room's reach, you're transported to the place you need.

Which of course begs the, not so little, question of how far the Room's abilities go. Could Harry have gone into the room and gone 'I need a room with a map to all of Voldemort's horcruxes in it' and had a map presented to him?  Could he have asked for Voldemort's head on a plate?