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Post by Kitty279 on Nov 17, 2014 11:41:05 GMT -5
Yep, some at least had enough sense to do that, but amazingly few did. When you read just with the Order, it's all right to use the address(es), but in Hogwarts with so many around?
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Post by RandomPasserby on Nov 18, 2014 4:33:40 GMT -5
Although we have no indication in the books that Harry's address is in any way safeguarded.
Hell, Arthur Weasley had the Floo office connect the fireplace to the Floo Network (which we know can be monitored) in GoF. Which means there was a record of a temporary Floo connection to Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, Whatever-the-postcode-is.
Also we know that wizards had found Harry in the ten years prior to his Hogwarts letter although we have no idea how close to No. 4 they saw him but if they saw him in Little Whinging then it's possible that any number of witches and wizards knew roughly where Harry Potter lived.
We don't even know how wizards find the addresses of other wizards. I mean, the sort of pureblood wizards who wouldn't think to use road maps.
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Post by Kitty279 on Nov 18, 2014 6:32:31 GMT -5
Which brings once again my main problem up - did the so-called blood protection even work, and if so, how?
Maybe you can apparate to a place if you concentrate on a specific address?
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Post by RandomPasserby on Nov 18, 2014 9:35:51 GMT -5
Yeah. I mean could you stand outside them and throw a molotov cocktail or Fiendfyre at the house? Could you do that until they broke if the wards resisted more than one attempt? Did they just not let people with bad intentions towards Harry through (in which case how did Marge Dursley or Piers Polkiss get through)?
Although in what world does 'grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly' taking something make for strong protections? I mean they might have been strong when the charm was initially cast but magic weakens. It also depends on what 'call home' means. Harry outright says in POA 'I don't ever want to go back to Privet Drive', he jumps on living with Sirius having known the man for all of maybe an hour.
To be honest, what was the point of the blood wards. From age 4 (because you bet Harry would have started Reception in the 1984/5 school year despite being barely four) Harry spent five days a week, six hours a day outside the house. That's not counting any other trips out. Would the blood protection have stopped a Death Eater kidnapping or killing him while at school? Or was this Dumbledore's age + pureblood heritage tripping him up - because we don't hear about any magical primary schools (understandable since there's all of about 17 purebloods in Harry's year and that's country-wide) so it's reasonable to assume pureblood students (and possibly some of the half-bloods) are homeschooled. Would he have known that Harry would be spending so much time outside the blood protections? Schools in 1880's/90's were hugely different to ones 100 years later.
As for apparating to a specific place - I wonder if that takes into account things like roads and railways (and also the curvature of the earth or height above sea level). If you apparated to No. 4 Privet Drive, where would you appear?
Also, it strikes me that that would be a good disposal method for Death Eaters. Create a Portkey to the middle of the M25 (England's busiest motorway), slap it on a downed Death Eater. If they survive, they survive. If not, well leave that to the police to figure out how somebody with no paperwork or passport exists.
Regarding the whole 'reading the addresses out in an RtB fic' - don't most of those have the character's losing their memories of reading the books once the fic is finished? So isn't it a moot point.
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Post by Kitty279 on Nov 18, 2014 14:33:12 GMT -5
Or could you just put an unsuspecting Muggle under Imperius and send him to drag Harry out? In case of Marge and Piers, it might have to do with the fact they are Muggles. Maybe the wards work only on magicals? Wasn't it somewhere put as 'considering Privet Drive his home', or was that just an often used phrase in fan fiction? Because he most definitely saw Hogwarts as his home. Besides, these protection was supposed to be based on Lily's love for Harry, right? So, if it is based on love, how does it work when it is fed by hate for years? Oh, in Dumbledore's youth school was different, no doubt. Wasn't he himself a halfblood? His mother was a muggleborn, as far as I remember. Did she never talk about school? But okay, back then it was still different. But he was a teacher who went to invite Muggleborn to Hogwarts, that much we know from his first encounter with Riddle. Wouldn't he in the process have learned about Muggle schools? Or Minerva should have told him; she must have learned something of that, I believe. So, was it complete ignorance of what he knew, or idiocy? Even if you assumed he really didn't even have the faintest idea that muggles and muggleborn children go to school before Hogwarts - did he ever consider that the Dursleys might take Harry out of the house, too? For a normally raised child, clothes or grocery shopping, outings to the zoo, playground and many other places would be normal. So, if Dumbledore expected the Dursleys to treat him normally, then why did he not consider that? Or was it really that he knew from the beginning how Harry would be treated and expected him to be locked up in the house until he gets his Hogwarts letter? Sooo ... either the protection only worked on the house, then it did a very poor job of protecting him, and Dumbledore was an idiot who expected a child to stay at home for ten years. Or Harry was supposed to be protected outside as well, then it didn't work, either. Any Death Eater could just have grabbed him or cursed him or something along that line during one of these accidental meetings, I suspect. And again, it doesn't consider the Muggles. Places like Diagon Alley have probably special apparition points, but I have been wondering about the logistics, too. Remember what the books said about Charlie's apparition test? He landed on some poor old lady. How do you avoid that if you don't apparate into the Sahara or somewhere else lonely and empty? Nah. You forgot that it would be a huge shock for the drivers who accidentally killed them. I think a solution like Ed Stargazer used here would be better - send them per portkey at a height where no air is. Or somewhere at the ground of the ocean, or the middle of an active volcano. They would die instantly, without muggles having to feel guilty. Yeah, there were a few of that sort, but I usually stopped reading when it became clear that they weren't going to change the future. What is the point in learning all that if they can't even remember afterwards? |
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Post by physicssquid on Nov 18, 2014 20:23:55 GMT -5
About the school situation. Dumbledore could have stopped going out to introduce the muggle-born/raised students when he became headmaster, which was, according to many sites I've seen, would have been in the mid-fifties. The school system in Britain has changed a lot over the decades, so going by what was the norm in the mid-fifties, would not be useful. I know, from the many times my parents talked about their experiences, and the few memories from my grandparents' time, things really did change drastically. My parents and grandparents were at school when the GCSEs were still called O-Levels, and the eleven-plus was the entrance exams to secondary school.
And here's something else that annoys me, particularly in RtBs. People have characters get angry at Harry's assumption that he's about to be caned after chasing down Neville's remembrall, but hardly anyone seems to remember that caning was still an acceptable punishment in many schools in the UK, even in the eighties.
From the Wikipedia page about school corporal punishment:-
While I doubt that Harry was allowed to attend a private school, I wouldn't be surprised if the school he did go to, continued to use corporal punishment after it was outlawed. And there is also the fact that Hogwarts, and the entire wizarding world, is still stuck in a previous era, so for Harry to wonder whether a caning was likely, shouldn't be that much of a surprise.
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Post by Kitty279 on Nov 19, 2014 1:22:13 GMT -5
True, but Minerva still does it, and she should have then heard many times that the kids were already at some school, right? And you'd think she'd share that surprising discovery with her boss.
Here in Germany slaps in the face or with a ruler over the hands and the like were still used when my mother went to school, that much I know. So, yes, corporeal punishment wasn't unusual even a few decades ago, though in my time, they had stopped it - and I started school in 1971.
Whould a school still use corporeal punishment that allows Duddykins to run roughshot over everyone he pleases and never gives him a good trashing? Personally, I suspect it's more that Harry was so used to being punished by the Dursleys for what Dudley did. We don't see much in the way of that, sure, but we know he wasn't even fazed by Petunia aiming a frying pan at his head - as if he was used to it.
Another thing annoying me in these RtBs is the girls permanently slapping the boys about everything, even Harry after finding out he was abused, and Harry just takes it and never reacts to it. He should just move elsewhere, IMO. And the way they berate Harry about his manners when he meets Hagrid. They just had read that he grew up with a family that has no manners whatsoever, and still they expect him to be overly well-mannered when under shock?
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Post by melodypottersnape on Dec 1, 2014 9:36:52 GMT -5
That always ticks me off. Harry gets berated for being rude to Hagrid but they don't say a word about Hagrids own actions. A big strange man who just knocked down my door gives me food. What am I supposed to do? I don't say thank you and frankly I wouldn't even take it or have they not heard of Stranger Danger. They don't say a word about how Hagrid doesn't introduce himself just about how Harry asks who he is.
Not to mention his first actions are to insult Dudley, A CHILD. Everyone always congratulates Hagrid on that but frankly he should have been reprimanded for it. He didn't know how Dudley treated Harry for all he knew Dudley and Harry could have been BFFs. Not to mention all his insults seem to center on Dudley's weight. Then when Vernon angers him he gives Dudley, A CHILD, a tail. He doesn't do anything to Vernon ,no, he decides to attack a child who had done nothing to him. Not to mention that Dudley had to get it surgically removed and just think that his intention was to turn him into an animal. Would Dudley ever had turned back. Would Hagrid had ever mentioned what he had done to someone who could reverse it? I mean when Harry got in trouble for the dragon he didn't take responsibility and tell Minerva that Harry had been with him. Not to mention the fact that Harry had had to take the dragon at all. I mean a man harbors an illegal animal and it's up to three kids to make arrangements for the animal, and they even have to move the animal themselves because apparently the man who illegally had the animal isn't capable of doing it himself. He's too busy being babied to act like an adult and it rankles me that Hagrid is treated like he is mentally disabled to explain away any thing he does wrong, but everyone puts him in a position of authority. sorry rant over. I love Hagrid but he is a very competent adult who knows right from wrong but is never held accountable for his actions.
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Post by physicssquid on Dec 2, 2014 13:56:19 GMT -5
What really annoys me is the fact that Harry gets berated for pretty much everything he does wrong, and Ron gets berated for some of the things he does wrong, while Hermione seems to never get berated. I mean really, whenever I've read an RtB of book three, everyone seems to think she did the right thing with the Firebolt, and yet no one remembers that she didn't even tell Harry what she was going to do, simply going behind his back. Wouldn't at least some people see that as a betrayal? I would have thought that at least one or two people would tell her that while going to a teacher was a good idea, a better idea would have been to tell Harry what she was going to do beforehand, thereby not breaking his trust.
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Post by Kitty279 on Dec 3, 2014 1:49:30 GMT -5
Of course you are right, Melody, that was even more wrong, but RtB stories seem to be some sort of Harry bashing stories to point out every perceived mistake, while others can do whatever they want to. How many take action against Snape, or Malfoy?
Exactly. And instead, Harry gets berated for - rightfully - being angry with Hermione. But I have noticed that many people think Hermione can do no wrong, while the boys are *always* wrong.
Another related pet peeve is how Hermione is slapping and berating even Sirius or Remus and they are cowering before her. That's just laughable, considering that Sirius grew up with that banshee of a mother and still ignored all her demands and beliefs, and I always thought it extremely rude and disrespectful - not to mention that Hermione is usually the authority butt kisser, and treating adults like small children is just plain wrong.
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Post by RandomPasserby on Dec 3, 2014 9:12:30 GMT -5
Why would he have learnt about muggle schools? I mean other than 'can we have this conversation another time, my kid has to go to school' or 'no, my kid isn't here, they're at school' would he have had any interaction with the muggle school system at all? Especially since the visits to Diagon Alley would presumably have to take place at the weekend.
Also why does Norbert have to go to the top of the tower anyway? Wouldn't it be easier for Hagrid to light a fire outside his hut, the dragon keepers to land - make sure Norbert was safe to be transported - and then takeoff from there.
Oh and then, since Hagrid's in charge of the detention, he actually makes them do things. All of the people involved got in trouble because of Hagrid and he decides to put them in more danger as opposed to having a 'detention' where they drink tea and eat cake or something.
But yeah, it's not like Hagrid would have gotten in a whole lot of trouble unless Dumbledore reported him to the Department of Magical Creatures. Which is deeply unlikely. So why doesn't Hagrid take responsiblity.
And, as I've mentioned before, having teachers strip down a top-of-the-line racing broom is like taking a Formula One car to the guy down the road who is always tinkering with his. Deeply stupid and likely to cause an accident.
Hell, Hermione could have written to the Firebolt people saying 'hey, someone sent Harry Potter one of your brooms and we're worried it might be cursed. Could he possibly exchange it for one that is definitely not cursed or could you send people to check it out' rather than reporting it to the teachers.
Yeah. I mean I work with Guides and I started when I was only a couple of years older than them. I don't think I've ever found them at all intimidating (despite the fact that some of them have been taller than me).
As for slapping people. The only people I would slap would be very close friends and that's as a joke without it connecting at all since I know that none of them have an issue with it. Also it's an injoke for me and one other friend, who did actually have to slap me for a play once and we couldn't get it convincingly fake so she had to do it for real and felt so guilty she kept asking me to slap her back.
But yeah, as a teenager I certainly would never have slapped an adult unless the adult was being a threat (and then I probably would have thrown a punch).
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Post by Miss Wings on Dec 4, 2014 6:09:27 GMT -5
I'm finding it curious why no one ever asks just why Sirius Black would give his motorbike to Hagrid on that faithful day.
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Post by physicssquid on Dec 4, 2014 14:33:42 GMT -5
I vaguely remember reading one RtB where that topic was talked about. I can't remember, for the life of me, which of the many stories it was, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been deleted in one of the purges on ffnet, but in it someone did ask why Sirius would give Hagrid his bike, if he really was a traitor. I think it might been in a story set before the end of OotP, with Amelia Bones or another Auror involved, who asked, but I really can't remember.
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Post by Kitty279 on Dec 4, 2014 15:07:10 GMT -5
But that's what I mean - even that little would have firmly banged Dumbledore's crooked nose onto the fact that Muggleborn children go to school even before they are old enough to start Hogwarts. So he should have realised Harry would, too. I don't expect him to learn how the muggle school system works, but he should know it exists and that his protection for Harry needed to extend to that. The tower certainly never made much sense. JKR must have written it that way so they could get caught easily - but didn't think about how little sense it makes. The cynic in me says Dumbledore suggested that little outing into the forest so he could throw Harry at Moldyshorts. Seeing what the old meddler knew, he might have already guessed what was behind the attacks on the unicorns. But I am pretty biased in that regard  Hagrid should not only have taken them to such a fake detention instead (though maybe not cake - you know what his cake does to the teeth, do you?), he should have gone to McGonagall and owned up to the real reason for this whole mess. But McGonagall was an authority figure, the broom company was not. And we know she would run to authority. Besides, she probably thought Harry would not listen or wait for the answer, but use the broom anyway, so she needed to have it confiscated at once. It still wasn't right how she handled that. Exactly. And Hermione would do it even less. I think physicssquid is right, I've seen that brought up once or twice, but I can't remember which stories, either. Too many RtBs and too much time since I did read them the last time. |
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Post by stelladelnordxd on Dec 5, 2014 23:15:36 GMT -5
I vaguely remember reading one RtB where that topic was talked about. I can't remember, for the life of me, which of the many stories it was, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been deleted in one of the purges on ffnet, but in it someone did ask why Sirius would give Hagrid his bike, if he really was a traitor. I think it might been in a story set before the end of OotP, with Amelia Bones or another Auror involved, who asked, but I really can't remember. I wish I read a fanfiction like this. Shit, I love this conversation xD |
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Post by Kitty279 on Dec 6, 2014 1:21:01 GMT -5
If I ever have time again, I will probably re-read some of the RtB stories I saved, maybe I stumble over one of the few which pointed this out. The sole purpose of the thread is for us to complain about a wide range of issues all throughout fan fiction, so of course there are many conversations to like |
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Post by RandomPasserby on Dec 9, 2014 13:52:32 GMT -5
I'm finding it curious why no one ever asks just why Sirius Black would give his motorbike to Hagrid on that faithful day. If you're talking about canon in general at that point in time Sirius probably didn't have a plan beyond 'find Pettigrew' since he had no idea that Pettigrew has willingly betrayed them rather than being tortured. We don't have an exact record of the conversation but my guess is that Hagrid mentioned something about Dumbledore and Sirius thought Hagrid was taking Harry back to Hogwarts or an Order safehouse - somewhere safe with medical treatment, strong wards and where Sirius could go and pick his godson up from. So the motorbike was likely faster, less trackable and safer than any other means of magical transportation that Hagrid could access. If you're talking about RtB's specifically then all Hagrid says in PS is 'young Sirius Black lent it me', he never says when or that he met Sirius that night. We don't find out about that until PoA. One thing I've always wondered about RtB's (since I don't actually read them, despite my participation here) is why is Harry (if he's present) alright with people reading books about him without knowing what they contain? I mean obviously it's his life but he doesn't know what's actually in the books. I mean if a set of books about my life turned up I think my reaction to 'let's read them aloud in front of your new friends and peers' would be a very loud and emphatic 'fuck off' at very least until I'd read them and quite possibly never. |
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Post by physicssquid on Dec 9, 2014 18:51:09 GMT -5
I think, in at least some RtBs, the choice of whether to read them or not, is taken out of his hands, either due to who has the books, or when they're being read. Particularly if it's Umbridge who has the books and decides to read them. In those circumstances, if he did tell her to 'ruck off', then she would see that as a good reason to have him in detention, or expelled, and read them anyway.
Of course, there are others, not set during OotP, or during a book with Umbridge involved, but, in those, while Harry isn't keen on the idea, Hermione and Ron generally tend to point out the good reasons to read them. i.e. Sirius' innocence; the truth about Voldemort; etc.
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Post by Miss Wings on Dec 13, 2014 11:57:21 GMT -5
Just realized something. I'm watching HP & POA on tv and there's something odd on it- a projector. If Hogwarts, heck the magical world had no electricity then why on earth is there a projector?
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Post by physicssquid on Dec 13, 2014 20:03:50 GMT -5
Just realized something. I'm watching HP & POA on tv and there's something odd on it- a projector. If Hogwarts, heck the magical world had no electricity then why on earth is there a projector? Projectors don't necessarily need to be electrical. All you really need is a mirror, a lens, a light source, and a way to make what you want to project, transparent enough to be projected. Heck, someone in the magical world may have seen what Aristotle and Euclid wrote on naturally occurring pinhole cameras, and got the idea from that. Having a projector in a classroom at Hogwarts isn't all that odd. From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProjectorFor all we know, a muggleborn or half-blood raised in the muggle world, knew about those sketches and figured out a way for the magical world to have projectors. Maybe as the technology of the muggle world advanced, some muggleborns found ways to improve on that first idea, so the most modern magical projectors would not look too different from muggle ones. |
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Post by Miss Wings on Dec 16, 2014 9:09:59 GMT -5
Eugh, just read a new fic called Disbelief and it's amazing how childish they've turned Harry considering he's a teen. Really is rather odd, I guess it explains why there's no reviews yet. www.fanfiction.net/s/10876787/1/Disbelief |
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Post by physicssquid on Dec 16, 2014 18:48:46 GMT -5
Yeah, that story is a bit ridiculous, I got to chapter two, but really wish I hadn't.
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Post by Kitty279 on Dec 29, 2014 14:40:47 GMT -5
I'm finding it curious why no one ever asks just why Sirius Black would give his motorbike to Hagrid on that faithful day. Was just re-reading the RtB by Johanni93, and she *did* have someone ask the question. Knew I had seen it a time or two! (Of course, it's one of the deleted ones). |
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Post by stelladelnordxd on Dec 29, 2014 20:01:19 GMT -5
Was just re-reading the RtB by Johanni93, and she *did* have someone ask the question. Knew I had seen it a time or two! (Of course, it's one of the deleted ones). And now you have me wanting to re-read that...despite it being six chapters long -sniffles- |
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Post by Kitty279 on Dec 30, 2014 0:30:43 GMT -5
Is there a better way to spend the holiday season than to read and re-read beloved stories?  Besides, what are six chapters? Usually I was re-reading my beloved "Elf Academy" as a way of dealing with "I am so fed up with winter" syndrome, but the initial 20 chapters have by now grown into 230, and there's no end in sight. Not that I am complaining, on the contrary, but re-reading that is turning into a challenge! |
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Post by RandomPasserby on Jan 9, 2015 1:38:20 GMT -5
Not really a specific peeve but more a general ugh. I wish AO3 had a way of filtering out crossovers/ficlet series/anything with more than one fandom. Freaking everything seems to be some sort of crossover and finding any decent HP fanfic on there is kind of a nightmare since.
Which leads me to my second ugh. Which is more of an ick.
Sexualising the characters (especially female ones) very early on (ie 1st-3rd year). OK so AO3 at least has an Underage warning but when you're pretty much writing child porn YKINMK does not apply. I will judge the ever loving hell out of you.
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Post by Miss Wings on Jan 9, 2015 9:42:08 GMT -5
My latest 1 seems to be adverts coming through on FF.NET, how on earth do we get rid of them?!
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Post by physicssquid on Jan 9, 2015 12:55:25 GMT -5
My latest 1 seems to be adverts coming through on FF.NET, how on earth do we get rid of them?! I don't know how one deals with that sort of thing on IE or other browsers, but on Firefox, there is an add-on that works really well. It's called Adblock Plus, and while it doesn't block all adverts, it does stop the really annoying ones. |
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Post by Miss Wings on Jan 9, 2015 13:13:23 GMT -5
Every time I click on certain stories I get re-routed to a different website, something to do with dieting or doctors.
Really starting to peeve me off now.
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Post by physicssquid on Jan 9, 2015 21:04:03 GMT -5
I don't know, but that sounds like a virus or something seriously wrong with your computer. I'd suggest trying a virus scan, or checking your firewall. If that doesn't work, then I really don't know what to suggest.
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