Harry Potter (novel)/Fridge


 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

General Part 1

 * The page of wand wood lore just adds a whole slew of this. For instance, Holly wands often choose wizards engaged in dangerous or spiritual quests.
 * Beware, lots of unmarked horcrux spoilers to follow: The inconsistency of Harry's scar always bugged me. He's glimpsing Voldemort's plans from a distance in book four when the only thing that happens in book one is some pain? Not to mention book seven, where it steadily gets harder for even Voldemort to block the connection, to the point where Harry only has to close his eyes during the final battle to view what Voldemort's doing, as opposed to book five where it only happened when Harry was asleep. Then I realized that the strength of the connection corresponds with the destruction of the horcruxes! Think about it:
 * Book One: Harry only feels minor pain when in close proximity to Voldemort.
 * Book Two: Tom Riddle's diary is destroyed, strengthening the connection.
 * Book Four/Five: Harry can now glimpse Voldemort's thoughts and actions while asleep. Voldemort can send false messages, and at the end, he can completely block himself off.
 * Book Six: Another horcrux is destroyed.
 * Book Seven: Voldemort can't block his mind out anymore. Harry now glimpses Voldemort's and even memories while awake, though only when Voldemort's feeling strong emotions. The locket and the cup are destroyed, and during the final battle all Harry has to do to activate Voldy-vision is basically just close his eyes. Voldemort is completely unaware of this, and has no control over it. This suggests that as the horcruxes are destroyed, Harry's control over the connection gets stronger and Voldemort's gets weaker.
 * It's not just their control that's changing: previously Voldemort has been the more powerful wizard, but not only is he literally losing fragments of his soul, his reliance on the Horcruxes that still exist is growing AND he's doing more damage to the Elder Wand with every spell he casts, making his magic increasingly erratic. Harry, on the other hand, has been undergoing some pretty awesome Character Development to become a cool-headed, mature wizard who chooses to open the connection, rather than having it forced on him.
 * In the first book, it's stated that Draco reminds Harry of Dudley. The comparison makes sense - both kids are heartless, spoiled-brat bullies with lackeys who verbally and physically abuse everyone and get away with it. But as the series commences, the parallels end up going further than that. Both get just barely redeemed and turn out to not be all bad. Both have mothers who turn out to truly care about them and not be all bad themselves (each of them has issues with her sister). Neither Draco nor Dudley's fathers get redeemed at all. The difference? The Dursleys (mostly Vernon) are intent on remaining a hundred-percent muggle, not acknowledging the magical world in the slightest, and they hate all wizards and regard them as freaks. The Malfoys (mostly Lucius) want to kill off all the Mudbloods, whom they regard as utterly worthless, and place wizards in control. The families are perfect mirror images of one another, but on opposing sides.
 * Adding to this, we can infer that both Lucius and Vernon are more similar than either would care to admit. After all, they are both shown (Vernon with the gun, as mentioned above, and Lucius throughout Book 7) to have the same single redeeming quality: their love for their families.
 * It used to really bother me how awful the "Dursley" sections of each book were, compared to the chapters in-between. The Dursleys seemed to me to be underdeveloped, derivative, irritating, and ridiculously lacking in redeeming qualities. I wondered why J.K. couldn't have made them slightly more sympathetic—or at least cranked their villainy up into so that they'd be delicious, fascinating, shudder-worthy "love-to-hate" types. But then I realized: these are people who have spent their whole lives struggling to be boring. And it's working very well. Harry feels just the same way we do.
 * Along the same line, the painfulness of those chapters make you ache for Harry's return to Hogwarts just as much as Harry himself is surely feeling.
 * Neville spent the best part of six years being told that he wasn't brave enough to belong in Gryffindor, and we know it hit home. We also know that Godric Gryffindor's sword presents itself to any member of its House it views as worthy of receiving it, going with Dumbledore's statement that "help will always be given at Hogwarts to those that need/deserve it". During the first part of Book Seven Neville becomes the leader of an underground resistance against the Death Eaters, taking several level in badass as he goes: this basically involves him standing up to Snape - the man whose form his Boggart used to take (i.e. his greatest fear). He then proceeds to talk down VOLDEMORT HIMSELF and fight half of the Battle of Hogwarts armed with only a sword. To reiterate - he pretty much brought a knife to a gunfight, albeit a magical one. The Fridge Brilliance comes in when you remember him standing up to the Trio back in Book One, and realise that Neville has been so brave, and so deserving of the Sword, all along.
 * "It's the quote from Dumbledore that it "shows great courage to stand up to our friends and not just our enemies" that is also evidence to him always being brave. Not to mention that that's exactly what Dumbledore felt he hadn't been able to do in regards to Grindelwald.
 * Hermione's parents are dentists. They fix people's teeth, fixing a part of their faces. In book 1, Hermione fixes Harry's glasses, and in book 7, she disguises him by disfiguring his face with a Stinging Jinx. Her cat Crookshanks has a squashed looking face. Also, remember it's Hermione who masterminded the effort to make the polyjuice potion in book 2, which changes how people's faces look, as well as the rest of them.
 * In the Muggle world, witches and wizards are constantly remarking upon things that are completely commonplace to us Muggles but useless in the wizarding world. So, of course, not being accustomed to things like matches, pureblood wizards are completely baffled by everyday Muggle objects. Think of how Molly is so confused by the regular postal service that she covers the letter with stamps or how Arthur is completely flummoxed by Muggle money.
 * As a sub-bit of brilliance, people have said its illogical for Arthur to be perplexed by Muggle money when it uses a base ten system, as opposed to their nonsensical denominations. As anyone who's ever tried to explain metric to an American can tell you, this is nowhere near the case.
 * I would suggest this is not so much 'fridge brilliance' but 'one of the main overarching themes of the series.'
 * Headscratchers has an entry asking why Dumbledore never gave Snape an attitude adjustment, despite the fact that he very obviously needed one. JKR said it's because Dumbledore believes "that people in authority aren't always good" is a lesson the students have to learn. That's not the brilliant part; the brilliance comes in when you realize that every single book has featured at least one person at Hogwarts far, far worse than Severus Snape. First year, there was Quirrel, who has Second year, we have Lockhart, an arrogant buffoon who can't teach at all (say whatever you want about Snape, he is at least more competent than Lockheart). Third year, we get introduced to the man who actually sold the Potters to Voldemort,, a true coward and murderer. Year four has Karkaroff (coward) and  Moody, plus Cornelius Fudge, who refused to believe that Voldemort was back. Year Five: Umbridge's period of misrule, 'nuff said. Year six, Draco Malfoy joined the Death Eaters and cooked up at least two Russian Roulette-esque plans to kill Dumbledore, which nearly resulted in the deaths of Katie Bell and Ron Weasley. Oh, and he let other Death Eaters, like Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback, into the castle, too. Draco, ya little shit! And in Year Seven, the Carrows become the Muggle Studies and Dark Arts teachers, while Snape is made Headmaster , and at the end of the book, Lord Voldemort himself enters Hogwarts. I bow to the brilliance.
 * Resident Slytherin Alpha Bitch Pansy Parkinson is always described as being "pug-faced" by Harry in the books. Pugs are a kind of dog. In other words, Pansy Parkinson has a bitchy face!
 * Possibly unintentional but Pansy Parkinson is also a pure-blood and British pugs are so inbred that the 10,000 in the UK have the gene pool of only 50 indiviuals.
 * It always seemed like some what weak writing that Harry never showed any curiosity about his family or the wider wizarding world, requiring Hermione to explain everything to him (and us) at every turn. I just accepted that Harry wasn't too bright until I remembered that the Dursleys spent a decade beating any curiosity out of him and never answered his questions honestly. He's not dumb, he just still hasn't gotten over that part of his horrible childhood, poor kid.
 * Also, the Dursleys were very authoritarian, and Hermione is pretty authoritative.
 * Voldemort's NAME, for heaven's sake. In French, "vol-" means "escape," "-de-" means "from" and "-mort" means "death." His entire name is a mashup of the phrase "escape from death."
 * In Latin, "vol" means "wish", "de" means "of", and "mort" means "death". So in Latin, Voldemort with "death wisher" or "one who wishes death". Tie that in with the French translation meaning "escape from death", and J.K. Rowling is a genius on so many levels.
 * "Vol" can also mean "flight." This troper always thought the name meant "flight of death" and was just a really Badass sounding name. But this is just so much cooler!
 * "Vol" can be thief, or theft, too; both stealing from death, and stealing death itself. You can really tell J.K. Rowling was a languages scholar
 * In every book, at least one person mentions that Harry looks incredibly like his father, but has his mother's eyes. Dumbledore comments that while looking like his father, he is more like his mother in his heart. I realized that this proved true the old saying: The eyes are windows to the soul.
 * It bugged me (and it bugs a lot of Tropers) that Slytherin House is painted as almost unequivocally evil, but then it hit me: That's not bad writing, that's BRILLIANT writing! See, we're explicitly told that Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw are the "good" houses, so we just expect that anyone from those houses will do the right thing. Slytherin, on the other hand, has a reputation for churning out Dark witches and wizards like a machine, so we just expect anyone from that house to be evil. So when a Slytherin does something noble (i.e., stealing one of Voldemort's Horcruxes to try and destroy it) and a Gryffindor/Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff does something horrible (i.e.,  turning James and Lily over to Voldemort), it's that much more of a shock. It's proof of Dumbledore's statement: "It is not our abilities, but our choices, that determine who we really are."
 * I think it's more because we're reading the books from Harry's point of view. Gryffindor and Slytherin are rivals - Harry never takes the time to get to know any of the Slytherins, whereas he meets both nice (Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood, Ernie MacMillan) and not-so-nice (Marietta Edgecomb, Michael Corner) people from both of the other houses.
 * Also, once Slytherin got a reputation for being evil, anyone with other options stayed out of it, making it a vicious cycle- only those who are evil or wouldn't mind evil get in. -clcnova
 * This made Harry's words of comfort to Albus Severus (who is worried about being put in Slytherin) even more powerful. He's not just acknowledging that Snape is a brilliant man, but is showing that he has finally grown up and no longer sees good and evil as black and white (i.e. Gryffindor = Good, Slytherin = Bad).
 * IMO, this more generally comes from the Houses of Hogwarts and the traits they represent: Gryffindor = Courage, Hufflepuff = Loyalty, Ravenclaw = Intellect, Slyhterin = Ambition Is Evil. It occurred to me later that while all of these traits can be taken to extremes, the extremes most dangerous to other people are those of Slytherin (well, ambition, duh), with Hufflepuff (in terms of blind loyalty to the wrong people; yep, another oblique WWII reference) in second place. Excessive intellectualism is mostly just the ivory tower syndrome (detaching one from other people and the real world), while excessive courage is most dangerous to one's self (though of course other people can also get hurt that way). Perhaps that's why the Founder Slytherin left the school first, and why so many Slytherins became Death Eaters.
 * Exactly. It's not that they go bad because they're in Slytherin. It's that they're in Slytherin because of their personality - a personality that makes them more likely than average to go bad.
 * It's worth noting, however, that the particularly Gryffindor sense of justice, when misplaced, can be dangerously righteous and inflexible. -magesa
 * And hold your horses there, people. Ambition isn't Slytherin's primary quality. If we are going by the Sorting Hat's first year song, the word he specifically uses to describe Slytherin is "cunning" and not ambition. So Gryffindors are supposed to be brave and chivalrous, Hufflepuffs are supposed to be loyal and just, Ravenclaws intelligent and witty and Slytherins cunning and ambitious.
 * In a Fridge Brilliance moment triggered by previous Fridge Brilliance moments, Slytherins are kids with personalities that makes them more likely to go bad, and they grow up surrounded by other kids with personalities that make them likely to go bad. They probably influence each other that way
 * I never thought that the whole Statue Of Secrecy-thing made sense. If Muggles can't use magic, it surely wouldn't hurt anyone if they tried? Then I remembered the interview where Jo said that Muggles couldn't use magic, but if they happened to pick up a recently used wand, it could suddenly "explode" with magic. I realized: A Muggle who had heard about magic would probably try to use it - I know I would. If a Muggle picked up a recently used wand, they could damage themselves and people around them.
 * After I received the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook for Christmas, a friend of mine pointed out that a lot of the food they eat is pretty bad for you, and why aren't all the Hogwarts kids fat, anyway? And I jokingly said that maybe magic in the Potterverse is like magic in Slayers and burns a prodigious amount of calories. And then I realized that actually, there might be something to that. Those characters who are described as being a bit on the larger side (Hagrid, Goyle, Neville in the earlier books) are also shown to be rather bad at magic, and the two LEAST magical characters in the whole series are... Vernon and Dudley. Neville is also said to have slimmed down corresponding with his taking a level in badass. Since I don't think JK is intentionally a fat-basher, given what she's said on the subject, the only logical conclusion is Slayers-style magical calorie burning.
 * I don't think that Vernon and Dudley really count, since it's implied that magic is something genetic (Muggle-borns are either a mutation or have a recessive gene coming to the fore). Also, it's never said that Hagrid is bad at magic - he actually seems quite good at it, considering how he's able to make pumpkins swell to an incredible size, but as his wand is snapped and kept in an umbrella, it's not the most reliable tool. But that's actually quite an interesting theory - it would explain to some extent why wizards seem rather tired after doing a lot of magic. Not that it's actually ever stated; only possible to infer from the text. However, I must point out that Molly does a whole lot of magic around the house, practically everything she does right down to cooking utilises magic, and she's described as 'plump'.
 * I also have to disagree with this particular bit of logic, considering that Horace Slughorn, despite being introduced as an exceptionally powerful and talented wizard, is morbidly obese in the books and was even fat in his younger years. More appropriately, one could argue that the House Elves in Hogwarts doctor their food to be unnaturally healthy instead of arguing that only bad wizards are fat. After all, as Hagrid is half-giant, you have to exclude him, which leaves us only with Slughorn, Longbottom, Crabbe, and Goyle to look at. Slughorn became progressively huge after retiring from his first stint at Hogwarts (ergo no House Elf food), Longbottom is only moderately pudgy in his youth and can be seen more as shapeless than fat (which age and exercise would help overcome), and Crabbe/Goyle are total gluttons, thereby negating any positive benefit of House Elf food through sheer overeating. In shorter words, I believe it's the food itself that is healthy: not the competence of wizards that makes it so on an individual basis.
 * Re above—Slughorn spends more of his time lolling on stuffed armchairs, eating candied pineapple and boasting about the shouldhers he rubs than doing a whole lot of magic. And he's the Potions teacher, which requires mixing ingredients, not magic, so the theory can still apply.
 * I always thought that the hundred and forty-two staircases that the students climbed daily helped work off most of those calories. That being said, it's kind of a wonder how people like Goyle and early Neville manage to maintain their heavyset frames for so many years...
 * Slightly related, but my friend once mentioned that JKR really gets into describing food in the books. During much of her time writing the first book, she was considerably poorer than she is now. Could the excessive descriptions of rich food have been wishful thinking?
 * The food mentioned in the book, as served at Hogwarts, can be seen as comfort food. Given that Harry was probably deprived of really nice food whilst living with the Dursleys (Dudley ate it all!), when he first arrives at Hogwarts, one of the first things he sees is a table laden with food. It shows how different his life is going to be. He's living in a very comfortable castle, sleeping in a four poster bed, and is able to eat really yummy food. So there may be some wishful thinking on the part of JKR. And remember, she wrote much of the first novel in a cafe. She was surrounded by food! No wonder it plays such a large part in the books.
 * Harry so seldom got to eat anything remotely fattening when he was growing up, it's also likely that he just notices whatever high-calorie foods are available more than any low-cal alternatives. If there's some wheat bread or apples on the table beside the cinnamon rolls and cherry pie, which ones are an undernourished kid more inclined to fixate upon?
 * A couple posters on a message board I frequent have mentioned the contemptible treatment of Muggles even by the best of the wizarding world. At best, Muggles are seen as sort of amusing children or even intelligent pets, but almost never are they seen as equals, or even remotely intelligent. (Another smaller Fridge Brilliance: The Muggle Prime Minister actually remarks on this in the sixth book, heavily disliking Fudge's condescending attitude each time he appears in the PM's office, despite the fact that he, Fudge, is not exactly competent himself.) I think those posters are presenting this attitude as a flaw in the writing, but if they are, I have to say I disagree. I think it's brilliant. It's a great cultural tidbit because it's so imperialistic. I think that the real-life Europe—and by extension Muggle Europe in HP—probably had this very same attitude towards the indigenous populations of the countries they colonized. So in that sense, one could argue that this plot device shows that Muggle culture and wizarding culture have that much more in common with each other—and neither group even realizes it. JK herself even said that Harry leaves the Muggle world and finds that the exact same problems exist in the wizarding world. It definitely shows that whatever wizards might think about Muggles, they're more connected to them than they know.

General Part 2

 * It took me a while to figure out why you'd name a torture curse "Cruciatus." Then I realized that the root of the word is "Crucifixion," which is the most brutal form of torture ever invented (and here's the kicker—while normally used as a method of execution, you could use crucifixion as a non-lethal form of torture by simply taking the victim down from the cross every night and not beating him up or breaking his legs).
 * It's also the root for the word "Excruciating"—an appropriate adjective for the curse's effects.
 * It's just a straight up Latin translation; Cruciatus translates to 'torture' or 'pain', which is rather apt.
 * If you think crucifixion is the most brutal form of torture ever invented, you're really naive.
 * Crucifixion was never designed to be torture. While it is definately a horrible experience to be put through, it isn't torture, which is defined as: the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something. Crucifixion is not that, although it was designed to be the most humiliating (by Roman standards) form of execution possible. 'Crucifixion' probably derives from 'Cruciatus' for that reason.
 * I thought 'Crucifixion' derives from 'Crux', which is the Latin of 'Cross'. But then again, it might be based on both words.
 * Why do the Wizards live in castles, and write, eat, and dress as if they were living in the middle ages? Because they always had magic, so their world never needed to evolve technologically like ours did.
 * Doesn't explain why fashion didn't change, though. Technology is not the only factor that affects the evolution of fashion.
 * Only it did change. There is at least one instance where someone(namely, Ron) was forced to wear dress robes that were "centuries" out of style. I had never thought about the evolution of fashion before this, but that does demonstrate that fashion did change. Robes never went out of style, but the adornments of them changed often.
 * Which is of course just like in the Muggle world. While the fashions and designs of clothes may have changed greatly over the years, effectively we're all still wearing exactly the same 'trousers, shirt, shoes' combinations that our paleolithic ancestors wore. No matter how often the fashion world claims to have something 'entirely new' it's either never worn by anyone off the catwalk (except Lady Gaga), or is based on the same designs we've had for millennia.
 * Every single character trait exhibited by Harry can be linked back to his time at the Dursleys: He's a good seeker because he was malnourished enough to be small and fast, and had gained excellent reflexes from constantly dodging their swings at him. He wants to protect and help others, because no-one helped him. He hates bullies, like Malfoy, because he was bullied. He doesn't try at school, because he was never encouraged at home, and in fact, was probably punished if he did better than Dudley. And so on.
 * Fridge logic and frige horror on this one; Okay, so Voldemort's madness was because his parents were only together due to a love potion. What does that say about every wizarding child by rape, arranged marriage or one-night-stand? Marrying for love is a pretty new concept, and that aside there must be a reason love potions were invented. Holy shit . ..
 * Actually he became evil because 1) he was convinced he's special, and better than anyone else and 2) he was convinced that it's only natural for an exceptional person like him to overcome death.
 * JKR said that he is incapable of love because he was conceived via a love potion.
 * Not because, it's symbolic of. HP is all about choices.
 * Although there is a case for part of his sociopathy stemming from genetics. While it's outright stated in the books that most of the pureblood families were intermarried, it's implied that the most extremist of these families - the House of Gaunt in particular - had no qualms about really keeping things in the family. (This is added Fridge Horror when you realize what Merope could have been forced to do if she hadn't run off with Tom Riddle Jr.)
 * Why is Professor Snape so immediately and profoundly averse to Harry Potter? Along with the more obvious reasons given in the text,.
 * Look at the cover of Philosopher/Sorcerer's Stone. Look at the cover of Deathly Hallows. Stone has a sunset in the background. DH has a sunrise in the background. Symbolically, you'd think it should be the other way around, until you realize every end is a beginning and vice-versa. The end of the Marauders is the beginning of Harry Potter. The end of his story is a new beginning for the wizarding world.
 * "I open at the close"
 * Also pertaining to the covers, they were all done by the same artist, Mary GrandPré. Still, she uses a more mature style as the series progresses.
 * When first thinking about Mad Eye turning Malfoy into a ferret, at first I thought it was funny. But then I realized, Malfoy's a daddy's boy, Moody is actually Barty Crouch Jr, who hates the Death Eaters who abandoned Voldemort, Lucius being one of them. When Draco mentions his father, he gets even more angry, because Lucius has made so much money out of not being loyal to Voldemort.
 * In Deathly Hallows, Xenophilius tells the story of the three brothers. One died for power (elder wand), one died for love (resurrection stone), and one greeted death like an old friend. In the final battle for Hogwarts, three very important characters die: Voldemort for power, Snape for love, and Harry greets death like an old friend.
 * The connection between Snape and the Resurrection Stone is flimsy at best. The alternative is Dumbledore himself, who tried to use the Resurrection Stone to see his dead little sister, Ariana, and activated the withering curse Voldemort placed on the Gaunt Ring Horcrux. Essentially, Dumbledore died for love, though it was a family instead of a romantic love.
 * While that is a valid point, it's still possible to go with the Snape interpretation in more of a thematic sense. After all, Snape died sharing with Harry his memories of love, in a sense, "resurrecting" his old feelings for Lily and giving them to Harry. Just seems to fit more thematically that way than Dumbledore dying while greeting an old friend...
 * This makes sense, if you consider Harry's description of himself, Voldemort, and Snape as "the abandoned boys." All are half-blood. Is it too much of a stretch to think that Snape might be related to the third Perrell brother (Harry's related to the youngest, Voldemort's related to one, and Snape the third)? It's not stated in the text, but it's possible, since Snape's mother, Eileen Prince, was pure-blood.
 * I thought the Deathday Party in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was basically a Wacky Wayside Tribe to get Harry relatively isolated while he's looking completely off his rocker. Then I read it again after the fifth book, and realized holy shit, this is their shallow imitation of the afterlife. -- Doma Doma
 * I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the spring before the first film came out. I thought Draco Malfoy was a funny character, but really didn't think any more of him. Until two or three years later, when I realized that Draco Malfoy seemed to be crafted into a classic Threshold Guardian, as every decision Harry made in book one that defined him as a hero for most of the school year happened in response to Draco being a douche. When I figured out what Jo had done, I nearly died laughing. That brilliant beast! -- Laota
 * Although I've always loved Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, no matter how many times I read it in the months after it came out, I never understood all the convoluted, complicated explanations of Harry's and Voldemort's connection—why Voldemort had to kill him for Dumbledore's plan to work, how Harry survived his "death" in the forest, could only Harry kill Voldemort only because of the prophecy, and was it entirely a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy... after nearly frying my brain trying to understand, I decided to give up, accept "Harry came Back from the Dead and A Wizard Did It" without letting it detract from my enjoyment of the rest of the series. Upon reading Book 7 for the first time in a few years, I understood it all with no effort! What had changed in the interim? I had watched Gargoyles! I read Dumbledore's explanation of how Voldemort using Harry's blood to resurrect himself linked Harry to him in such a way so that Harry would live because Voldemort lived as if for the first time, only this time, I thought, "Just like Demona and MacBeth!" Furthermore, I could now see that Harry's "death" was just like all the times Demona or MacBeth had been "killed temporarily." Someone only able to die if killed by a certain person? Nothing weird about that anymore. It's enough to make me wonder if J. K. Rowling ever watched that show... -Lale
 * Harry couldn't have lost a part of his soul, because only the most destructive and evil of acts (killing another person) splits your soul in half. When did Harry find time to kill someone? He didn't, so therefore his soul was still intact. The blood wasn't a symbol of Harry's soul, it was the power in the blood itself the ol' Voldy was after (Lily's protection).
 * So I suppose Quirrel doesn't count, then? I know Harry didn't plan to kill him, but burning the dude alive by touching him does seem to be pretty brutal for a kid to do.
 * I've realized that Ginny is the most logical person for Harry to marry. A somewhat important subplot in the books is Harry's relationship with the Weasleys, to the point where they might as while be his family. If Harry had married somebody else, he wouldn't be part of the Weasley family anymore, and that connection would be lost.
 * The books are - with a few brief exceptions - written in a limited third-person point of view from Harry's perspective. It makes sense that she wasn't developed as a romantic interest until Harry began to notice her. She's hardly discussed in the first four books, because he hardly notices her until befriending her in the fifth.
 * You have to admire Rowling's strategy when it comes to explaining Harry's rebirth - she pulls it off by creating a situation that probably had never, ever happened before in the history of wizardkind. Nobody could possibly know what would happen when one human being first made five Horcruxes (which no one had ever done before) and THEN made another human being a human Horcrux (which had never happened before) and THEN tried and failed to kill that human Horcrux (with a curse that had never failed to be fatal before) and THEN used that human Horcrux's blood in a resurrection spell, and THEN tried to kill that human Horcrux again with that same spell, and failed again, and THEN joined with that human Horcrux through a paired-wand bond, and THEN tried to kill that human Horcrux a third time, with the same spell, while that human Horcrux was in possession (theoretically at least) of all three of the Deathly Hallows. I mean, you couldn't do a spell like that on purpose if you tried. It had to be a wholly unique event.
 * You got your order wrong, and there are more things. The order would be first making 5 Horcruxes, THEN offering a woman to spare her if she allowed him to kill his child (which he had never done before), THEN killing that woman (placing Harry under the blood protection), THEN trying to kill that child with a curse that had never failed before, THEN having his soul spontaneously split when the spell rebounded, THEN the part of the soul that split away taking refuge into the nearest living being (Harry), THEN the still free soul possessing other man and fighting with the living vessel and being defeated, THEN using the human Horcrux's blood in a resurrection ritual, THEN trying to kill the human Horcrux again with the same spell that failed before, THEN joined with that human Horcrux through a paired-wand bond in which he was determined to be the weaker one, THEN trying to kill that human Horcrux a third time, THEN possessing him, THEN using other person's wand to try to avoid the paired-wand bond and failing as the other person's wand breaks, THEN trying to kill that human Horcrux as he attempts to do a Heroic Sacrifice to save his friends, THEN having that human Horcrux survive AGAIN and finally trying to kill him AGAIN by using a wand that has been said many times to being unable to fight against his owner. All in all, a VERY long chain of events that are very unlikely to be repeated in the same form ever again
 * To spare everyone another even longer paragraph, I'll add in that Voldy didn't only take the blood of a horcrux and someone destined to be his equal: he took in Lily's protection. Word of God says that Lily's goodness was in Voldy's veins, and that's how he could've repented.
 * Um, Quirrell, anybody? While the whole "Harry kills Quirrell" is far more ambiguous in the book than it is in the movie, it is pretty much evident that Quirrell died pretty much directly because of Harry. Voldemort leaving just sealed the deal. While it is usually claimed that such a split only occurs through murder (which Harry's killing/moral wounding of Quirrell is most assuredly not), who is to say that is true? -Turtler.
 * Actually, Dumbledore does explain that Snape killing him won't harm Snape's soul because Snape is actually putting Dumbledore out of his misery by mercy-killing him. So, there is at least one instance where simply killing someone is different from "murdering" them. Though, if the intent is the catalyst, what about when Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange? He certainly intended to torture and possibly kill her, though he lacked the purity (admittedly, pure evil) of mind to do so.
 * It is not just murder, but cold-blooded murder, as in killing someone who either can't defend him/herself from you or who is weaker than you. What Harry was doing was attempting to defend himself from Quirrell, and the book makes it clear that what Harry was doing to Quirrell was just burning his skin. The one who killed Quirrell was Voldemort when he left his body. The example about Dumbledore being mercy-killed by Snape is a good one. And what Harry intended to do to Bellatrix Lestrange was to make suffer like he was suffering, but, as he discovered, righteous anger isn't enough..
 * It also cannot be done for the greater good. For example, someone stabbing evil-child-of-doom-quasi-Voldemort with a knife from behind in Goblet of Fire probably wouldn't have split their soul. It has to be cold, straight-up murder of someone innocent and doing no harm, done by your own choices (e.g. it can't have been somebody Imperiusing you into doing it, blackmailing you into doing it, etc.)
 * It also has to be done in conjunction with the proper spells and preparation, as Slughorn states in Half-Blood Prince. So a wizard could murder someone, even in cold blood, without creating a Horcrux.
 * And a good thing too, else every Death Eater except  would have a bunch of those things.
 * The first chapter of Goblet of Fire seemed kind of like filler. It established a little more about Voldemort's Muggle father, and it showed that Wormtail had found Voldemort and was helping him, but that could have easily been established later. Except it was also the first time we saw Nagini, and in fact her only appearance in the book (she next returns in the aforementioned scene in Order of the Phoenix, when Voldemort is ordering her to attack ). The chapter serves to introduce the character by name, so it makes more sense when we see her in the next book, and also to show us the time at which she became a horcrux, as Voldemort was still one short of his goal when he went to kill the Potters. That's not the brilliant part. --
 * No. The misconception here is that Voldy did not want 7 horcruxes, he wanted to split his soul into 7 pieces. That means 6 horcruxes and the main fragment in his own body. Harry became the sixth horcrux by accident and unknown to Voldly. So he decided, he needed to make that seventh fragment and used Nagini... not realizing that Nagini was the eighth fragment. Which probably nullified any benefits of the magic of seven.
 * That theory seems to be Jossed by Voldemort's reactions in Deathly Hallows, particularly his interrogation of the Gringotts staff.
 * It was certainly demonstrated to be false in Half-Blood Prince (and perhaps even before), because Dumbledore tells Harry that Lucius Malfoy was punished when Voldemort learned that the Diary had been destroyed after he gave it away. And, at the start of that book, Dumbledore has already destroyed Gaunt's Ring. In fact, at no moment does Dumbledore confirm that Voldemort knows when his Horcruxes are destroyed, in fact he says the opposite. I don't remember the exact words, but I think it was something along the lines of "As those pieces of his soul have been separated for so long from the main part of it, he is unable to detect their being destroyed". If Voldemort had been able to detect when one of his Horcruxes was destroyed, when he realized that the Gaunt's ring was destroyed, he would have started to relocate the other Horcruxes.
 * Even if Voldemort couldn't directly detect the destruction of his horcruxes, he still had a connection to Harry's mind while our intrepid boy hero was seeking them out. Up until Harry's death, there's no reason why he couldn't exploit the connection like he did in Order of the Phoenix. Also, if Voldemort were truly thinking about protecting his horcruxes and aware of Harry's search, relocating them would be the last thing he'd want to do. Doing so risks leading Harry directly to them. He already had Nagini with him as a safety net, so leaving the rest alone in their hiding places would be relatively smart. - Ed Wood of Cakes
 * Ever since the end of Order of phoenix, Voldemort cannot inhabit Harry's mind without an intense amount of pain, more so then he has experienced, except for his soul being ripped from his body when he should have died. He would have needed an intensely urgent reason to try and read his thoughts. And as far as Voldemort knew, Harry was just running away - he had no idea he even knew about the Horcruxes.
 * Nagini didn't appear only in the first chapter of Goblet of Fire, she also appeared in the graveyard just before the duel started.
 * The situation is like this: before October 31, 1981 (James and Lily Potter' death and Voldemort's "first death"), Voldemort had 5 Horcruxes (Tom Riddle's Diary, Gaunt's Ring, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup, and Ravenclaw's Diadem, hidden in Lucius Malfoy's mansion, the Gaunt's shack, the cave (and then 12 Grimmauld Place, by Kreacher) and Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts vault), and had intended to make the 6th Horcrux with Harry's death, but the Avada Kedavra backfired and destroyed his body, while his soul was broken once more, and the part that didn't flee became Harry's scar. Voldemort didn't know this had happened because of the pain of his death (and, besides, Voldemort's willingness to kill Harry at every turn, even before he gets resurrected in Goblet of Fire, belies the fact that he actually knew about Harry being a Horcrux, because why would you try to kill a person who is actually keeping you alive?). In May–June 1993, Harry destroys Tom Riddle's Diary. In July 1994 Pettigrew finds Voldemort, and the next month Voldemort creates what he thinks is his 6th Horcrux, using Nagini as a vessel (and he was more or less correct, since it would be the 6th Horcrux at the moment as Tom Riddle's Diary had already been destroyed) but in fact it was his 7th Horcrux.
 * This is only speculation though, but is it possible that in cutting Harry's hand in the Graveyard scene Voldemort was not only trying to draw on the power in Harry's blood but maybe also that of the soul that he put into Harry on accident in order to regenerate? In doing so, the fact that that soul piece and Harry's are so intertwined that part of Harry's may have come with it. I have nothing to back that up with and it's only speculation. But I also just realized that we have no idea what transverse effects that soul piece could have on a living person when the original maker of that horcrux uses it to continue living. We do know based on Harry as a case study that Voldemort's soul piece from the horcrux is heavily intertwined with his.
 * Something occurred to me when I thought back to the first book after reading about the Horcruxes. Supposedly, in order to make a Horcrux you have to kill someone and cast a spell to place a piece of your soul into an object, but we're never specifically told what that spell is. Then it dawned on me... Avada Kedavra... it's been right in front of us all along! How it works is like this: You use the spell to kill someone and then immediately recast the spell at an object to which you will put your soul into. Objects can't die, and the sacrificial death of a human being warms up the curse allowing this transfer to happen. It does seem like a bit of a stretch, but then there's this to consider: we're constantly made aware that the earliest memories Harry has of infancy is Voldemort casting the Killing Curse on him. Number 1) Why would Voldemort want to kill the child he will turn into a Horcrux? Number 2) If that wasn't his intention, why would the killing curse suddenly choose to backfire? Because Voldemort had never applied the Horcrux curse on another human being, not to mention Lily's sacrifice tipping the bar. Number 3) Why did Harry become a Horcrux when the Killing Curse was cast at him? Because that's how a Horcrux is made, only with inanimate objects. The necessary human sacrifice for the curse (Lily) fueled the wand to perform the second function of the curse in the short range of time between Lily's death and Harry being hit with it. That also explains why making a person a Horcrux often results in their death. If you don't do it just right or in just enough time, you end up killing them. Just speculation, but it all seems to fit. -
 * Sorry, completely and totally jossed. Harry was never intended to be a horocrux, this is explicitly clear in the books - Harry was supposed to die, and then THAT would have been the death used to make the final Horocrux. Harry became one purely by freak accident - his soul was so fragile and broken at that point, the blast from the Horocrux was enough to break off a new piece, which naturally went to a living thing.
 * This may seem like an odd question, but if Voldemort intended to make a Horcrux by killing Harry, what (inanimate object) was he going to put it into? And what happened to the object?
 * I just got the rest of the symbolism of the wands. Thinking about the thestral tail hair in . I got that Voldemort's wand was made of Yew, the whole "death tree symbolism", but   I hadn't realized that it was so intricately connected like that until just now. -
 * Going into that a little more, this troper realized the significance between
 * Rowling definitely did her research when it came to wands: Lily Potter's wand was made of willow, which is traditionally associated with healing, protection and love. Her last act on Earth was to give her son the protection of her love. Also Elder (sometimes known as witchwood) is linked magically to protection, often against lightning strike, but bad luck will fall on anyone who uses it without permission. In other words, Voldemort's use of a wand that wasn't strictly his brought about his death via a certain young man with a lightning scar...
 * And just to top it off, the Elder Wand's core is of thestral hair. Thestrals can only be seen by those who have both witnessed and accepted the reality of death. Voldemort has never accepted death as anything but a disgrace or something to be defied, so has never accepted its reality despite having murdered hundreds of people. Harry, though he's only seventeen, has witnessed many, many deaths, accepted it can't be undone or defied, and walked uncomplainingly to his own death. Guess which one of them understands the Elder Wand's inner nature, and is worthy to receive it?
 * I recently realized something about Half-Blood Prince. The scene involving was nasty enough to begin with, but it becomes much worse when you realize what that potion actually does, as hinted by the flashbacks in Deathly Hallows:
 * Made the connection before of 'worst memories' but seeing it here surrounded by other HP stuff just made me realize... The other major things in HP that make one relive horrible memories are Dementors! So possibly that potion uses... I don't know, liquid Dementor's breath or something? And it's said that Voldy can get Dementors to sort-of obey him. Maybe he has a deal where he somehow managed to get a couple to sign up for experiments and following orders and in return they get freer reign than normal? Getting into WMG, but yeah.

General Part 3

 * I didn't care much for Nymphadora Tonks, but then I realized she was Rowling's answer to Mary Sues! Think about it! Her hair and eye color literally changes according to her mood, she ends up with one of the most wanted characters in the series and in the end she !
 * Ironically, she's often accused of being a Mary Sue largely because she intruded on one of the biggest Slashfic ships in the series (Lupin/Sirius). -
 * I have just figured out that people's predictions aren't as far-fetched as they seem. Dynamic Dragon
 * Sure, it was easy enough to accept that Snape hated Neville because he was a Gryffindor, he was incompetent, and he was available, but it wasn't until some time after reading Deathly Hallows that I figured out that his particular hatred for Neville was due to
 * After reading the seventh book, I understood Snape's hatred for Harry in a different light. Not only did Harry have his mother's eyes and look like his father (reinforcing the bond they had and the fact that Snape would never see Lily again), but he also might have been Snape's son in a different world. Hard to be friends with a kid like that. --Serene Shadow
 * The fact that Harry looks so much like James, and so little like Lily, probably made him a disappointment to Snape right from the start. Imagine how Snape must've felt, to see Harry across the dining hall in book 1 -- too far away to see his eyes, which were hidden behind cheap glasses to boot—and not see any trace of the woman he'd loved there. He'd probably been hoping for ten years that Lily's child, at least, might preserve something of her that his mistake hadn't destroyed, yet all he could see sitting there was the spitting image of his old school enemy.
 * If you read "The Prince's Tale" with the mindset of "Snape views Dumbledore as a father figure" (which, considering Snape's real father, is not that far-fetched of an assumption), it adds a whole new dimension to Snape's resentment of Harry: Snape is very much the "Well Done, Son" Guy, constantly putting his life on the line for Dumbledore and doing everything he asks, which condemns him to a life of being hated by the entire Wizarding World when he kills Dumbledore, while Harry (in Snape's mind) will do much of the same and be worshipped by the Wizarding World, because everyone wants to see Voldemort killed. (Unfortunately, this makes Dumbledore seem pretty cold and even more manipulative than he already is, because it reads as though he deliberately took advantage of Snape's desperation for approval by a father-figure and tormented him with it.)
 * I realized how well-done the Harry Potter series was on the seventh or eighth time I read the first book. On the first trip on the Hogwart's Express, Ron has a smudge on his nose that won't come off. If you pay close attention to the conversation on the platform, it seems to be implied that the twins put the smudge on as a practical joke. - Comic Book Goddess
 * "Another Troper mentioned this on another page." Well, fine, but I'll mention it here and Fridge it correctly at the same time. In Prisoner of Azkaban, when Snape confronts Sirius, he says: "Give me a reason. Give me a reason to do it and I swear I will." Pretty harsh, but remember, this is the guy that almost got Snape eaten by a werewolf. Then in Goblet of Fire and Order of The Phoenix, they're a bit more civil to each other, but still obviously carrying grudges. Fast forward to Deathly Hallows . And the realization hits with a big KA-BOOM. Like the entire rest of the magical world, Snape had thought that Sirius betrayed the Potters and was responsible for, and only found out the truth after Voldemort's return (when he went to Voldemort two hours after the Triwizard final and would have seen Pettigrew there). Instantly did two things: put a whole new spin on that entire confrontation, and made you realize how far in advance JKR had planned out the whole thing.
 * Also, Snape was in the Shrieking Shack while Sirius and Lupin were explaining the whole thing. I was re-reading it, and I heard the creak and thought "Oh my gosh, that's Snape!" He was late to the party, however, and only heard about his childhood days at Hogwarts: nothing about the Secret Keeper. He still thought Black was the one who betrayed the Potter's and that he was deluding Harry, Hermione, and Ron. - mermaidgirl45
 * Chew on this. After reading Deathly Hallows, I could not understand why, if Snape cared so much about keeping Harry safe, why he tried so hard to get him expelled (he'd be more vulnerable in the regular world), keep his grades low (can't defend himself if he doesn't learn anything), and belittle him constantly. Then I realized that he was trying to minimize or eliminate the threat Harry posed to Voldy, as that would make Voldy more likely to just leave it.
 * One that occurred to me involving Snape is that given that both are muggle-borns and teen geniuses, Snape's nasty treatment of Hermione might not be just because he's a jerkass, but also because she reminds him of Lilly, and he's probably angered by her friendship with Harry (who of course reminds him of James Potter)
 * I thought at first that Voldemort's line "Stand aside, you foolish girl" and offering to spare Lily's life was unimportant. Then Deathly Hallows rolls around, and That is brilliant.
 * Yes, and another thing:  - Anon IP
 * On this very website, there seems to be a whole lot of people not understanding why Snape is obsessed with Lily, why he didn't just "move on" after she told him she wanted nothing more to do with him. If I may, I shall take this opportunity to present the "Snape moved on" sequence of events: Snape learns that Voldemort is going after the Potters. Snape does nothing. Since he doesn't love Lily anymore, he doesn't beg Voldemort for her life, meaning that Lily doesn't get the opportunity to "stand aside". This, in turn, renders her sacrifice worthless; after all, her fate is sealed. So, RIP Harry Potter: July 31, 1980 - October 31, 1981. Without Snape's creepy obsession with Lily, there is no story. So, Tropers... Still think Snape should have just "moved on"? - tenderlumpling
 * It's true that if Snape hadn't loved Lily, the story wouldn't have happened... but that in no way means that seeing his love as obsessive or creepy is a wrong or invalid view. - ILikeCrows
 * Yes, except he moves on to Alice Future-Longbottom!
 * ^ If Snape had done "nothing", Voldemort wouldn't have learned about the prophecy in the first place.
 * ....and would have kept right on enacting his magical holocaust, with absolutely no-one to stand in his way.
 * It's not "creepy" to still have feelings for someone after a few years, especially when you're a teenager and harbouring the guilt from knowing you alone are the reason they don't give you the time of day anymore. Not to mention he's not just missing the girl he had a crush on, he's missing his best and only friend. That also translates into the grander scheme of Snape's life - he's now harbouring the guilt of knowing he caused her death. I'm not arguing with the "obsessive" bit. Mind you, being assigned to guard her son and be forcibly reminded of the fact that she's not around anymore can't have helped him find closure.
 * I had a moment of fridge brilliance while reading the Crowning Moments of Awesome page about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was basically around the part where I realized how the entire school basically rallied against Umbridge...then I realized, by rallying against Umbridge, they were rallying against the Ministry. If Umbridge hadn't been the DADA teacher, there would have been no reason for Dumbledore's Army to form. Dumbledore's Army was kind of its own family, and Umbridge helped form an allegiance between the entire student body and the teachers, as well as the ghosts. Without the family of DA or the entire schoolwide allegiance already established, nobody besides a few teachers would have been so willing to take up arms against Voldemort, both at the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, or the Second Wizarding War. Harry's support system would have been severely diminished, especially at the end of the seventh book. Harry would probably have not so eagerly led a group in rebellion, if it hadn't been for Dumbledore's Army. Basically, the whole reason anything in the sixth or seventh book worked at all, not to mention with as relatively few casualties there were, was because of Umbridge, and her Ripple Effect over the entire school in the fifth book. Jo, you are one clever bastard. katzgoboo
 * Remember how Trelawney in Prisoner of Azkaban makes a big fuss of there being thirteen people at the dinner table, because the first to rise will die? It was pointed out to me that in Order of the Phoenix there are thirteen people at dinner in Grimmauld Place: and  rises first. Also J K Rowling is oft quoted on fan rumour pages as saying that a huge fan of Harry's was going to die. People took this to mean Colin Creevey or Ginny, but as she says in Order of the Phoenix Harry is the person  most cares about.
 * I think you may be over thinking that one. I don't know the exact context of that particular quote but I would think the obvious answer is in the final battle. Sorry, I think in this case the spade is really just an old gardening tool.
 * That quote was specifically about the death in Order of the Phoenix, but so many people are "special fans" of Harry (for a given value of specialness) that the quote basically amounts to a sophisticated Shrug of God. --User:Doma Doma
 * Actually, Molly rises first to get rhubarb crumble - just as Harry or possibly Ron rises first at a banquet of thirteen where  is seated. Some divinatory methods really are a hoax.
 * Actually, it wasn't a hoax. If you re-read the page, it stated that Dumbledore spoke to Trelawny in a "slightly raised voice". The prediction came true- Dumbledore died first, because he raised his voice, not because he rose from the chair!
 * I have no idea how you noticed that but it was truly brilliant. Also, when Harry walked into Grimmauld Place for the first time (and I remember someone else pointing it out somewhere else on TV Tropes) he said it felt like "walking into the house of a dead man." Huh.
 * This one occurred to me after re-reading the seventh book. Take a good look at the prophecy lines "marked as his equal" and "has power he knows not". First, consider that Secondly, due to Voldemort's obsessive belief that Harry was the chosen one, it meant that he disregarded most everyone else's abilities as irrelevant. Now look at Neville, who 1) would be free to defeat Voldemort, and 2) clearly not deemed as important to Voldemort, would possess abilities which Voldemort did not know what they were. In short, up until the very end, it was still up in the air exactly whom the prophecy applied to. - Totemic Hero
 * Except Harry's scar, the attack by Voldemort, is what marked Harry as his equal. Also, Harry survived the killing curse
 * Point of fact:
 * I Just realized the Brilliance in making the character Tonks so clumsy. Being a Metamorphmagus her center of gravity must be constantly changing as she changes shapes thus leaving her continuously unable to find her balance.
 * It suddenly occurred to me why the Dementor's Kiss was used as punishment instead of death: People can just come back as ghosts if their soul isn't harmed.
 * It suddenly occurred to me why the Dementor's Kiss was used as punishment instead of death: People can just come back as ghosts if their soul isn't harmed.

General Part 4

 * I realized that there was more to Harry's angst in Order of the Phoenix than just being a broody teenager. In Deathly Hallows, while taking turns wearing the locket Horcrux, whoever is wearing it feels miserable, and their situation seems even worse than it is (and it's pretty bad to begin with). Near the end of Deathly Hallows, we learn that  This also opens up more Fridge Brilliance about why Harry was more upset over Cedric's death than Sirius's. Because of Harry's connection with Voldemort, it made Cedric's death more tragic to him than to anyone else, except probably Cho. Harry was very upset after Sirius died at the end of Order of the Phoenix, but didn't seem to be afterwards. Voldemort started using Occlumency against Harry sometime between the fifth and sixth books. When Harry took off the locket in Deathly Hallows, he immediately felt much less miserable. After being directly connected   for an entire year, having Voldemort blocking himself from it was enough of a relief that he was able to get over Sirius's death faster than he could have with Cedric's.
 * Interesting, and completely believable. I hadn't even thought of the soul shard having a similar effect to the locket, and even Tom Riddle's diary (which I now believe was working on Ginny's emotions in a mystical way, and not just manipulating her via the conversations). Another reason that I just realized was that he dealt with the deaths differently. For Cedric's death, he locked down and got sad. For Sirius' death, he lashed out at others and actually segued his anger into his whole "why do I have to save the whole stupid freaking world!?" complex. In a way, his mourning of Sirius lasts through nearly the entire rest of the series, and not just the scenes where he focuses on it (mostly with the mirror). -
 * This would explain why Harry had trouble producing a patronus when he was attacked by dementors in Order of the Phoenix - it takes him three tries, and for a moment he thinks that he can't do the spell anymore. In Deathly Hallows, Hermione discovers that it's much harder to make a patronus while
 * Speaking of the locket's effects, anyone else notice that Kreacher's Heel Face Turn only happened after he stopped sleeping in the same cupboard with that damn thing?
 * This came to me a while back: JKR is known for her placement of Chekhov's Guns throughout the novels, like the locket and the diary, which are given an importance later on (though in the case of the diary, it was more of an explanation for why it could do what it did). And the reason Harry was able to get glimpses of Voldemort's plans...  -
 * Nearly everything Jo says that isn't immediately important becomes important later. Chekhov would've been proud - she's a master of the economy of detail. She didn't limit it to items at all - characters, dialogue, descriptions, everything. The best are the ones where we think they've become important, but haven't. The book slipped into Ginny's cauldron becomes important when it's revealed as the cause of the Chamber opening, but later becomes MORE important when it turns out to be a Horcrux. The talk about breaking into Gringotts in the first book seems to have been leading up to the day's break-in and then goes away until the seventh book, where Harry breaks into Gringotts and runs into a dragon guarding a vault. -Redseven
 * Also note that there were a couple of throwaway lines between Harry and Hagrid about dragons possibly being used to guard the more important vaults. This aspect didn't even get mentioned in the break-in report.
 * When Petunia reveals that she knows what Dementors are (in the 5th book), she blushes and says "I heard that...awful boy telling her years ago" and Harry angrily says "If you mean my dad, just say his name". But after you read the 7th book, you discover that she didn't mean James at all. She was referring to Snape. It's a brilliant reference that frames the relationship between Lily, Snape, and Petunia, seeming like a useless remark from both characters until you read the last book.
 * When Dumbledore comes to get Harry in the beginning of The Halfblood Prince, he says to Petunia: "We have corresponded, of course." Harry thinks it mentions the time Dumbledore sent her a Howler to remind her of her promise to save Harry. In fact, he refers to the time she sent him a letter asking to let her come to Hogwarts, to which he politely answered she didn't have the required talents.
 * The entire "Snape's Worst Memory" sequence was set up to be much more meaningful in hindsight. At first, it appears that it is his worst memory simply because it shows him being bullied by James and his friends and ostracized at school. His encounter with Lily is just an afterthought as Harry is pulled out of the memory. Harry angsts about his father not being the hero he had pictured, and we move on. However, we later find out that this was his worst memory because, in an angry attempt to save face, he called Lily, his best friend who he had loved for years, a "filthy Mudblood", ruining their friendship (since he had already been hanging out with anti-Muggle, future-Death-Eater students who Lily hated, this was the last straw) and destroying his chances at being with her.
 * In Deathly Hallows, did anyone else catch the subtlety of the exact moment  - Spitfire71
 * Hermione can't get the House-Elves to unionize, but she can get humans to stop being dicks to them. You can't impose human ethics on a species that isn't human if they don't want them, but you can impose those ethics on humans. There's also a message about assuming house-elves think the same way humans do.
 * It seemed at first that Voldemort cursed the position of the DADA teacher purely out of spite (if I can't have it, nobody can). Then, after the evidences of abysmal ineptitude of the general wizarding population were presented (like the Ministry of Magic having to buy hats imbued with a Shield Charm from a prank shop), I suddenly comprehended the strategic magnificence of V's move. He ensured that the DADA classes would become a total mess, no consistent teaching routine would be possible and before long the school would run out of decent DADA teachers completely, thus dealing a crushing blow to the opposition. - Gess
 * When reading Prisoner of Azkaban, I thought Sirus' nickname Padfoot was just a sort of pun like the rest of them because dogs have padded feet. Now, after looking into some of the British Isles mythology, the black dog is a death avatar that goes by many different names. One of them happens to be Padfoot. Now Trelawney's prediction makes a lot more sense. Sirus also is a death avatar; his friends from school all die rather violent deaths, so does Harry, and his cousin Tonks. - ashilles
 * Another one: Ron mentioned in Deathly Hallows that Voldemort had made his own name taboo—that is, if anyone said it, it would automatically dispatch the Snatchers, who would then rough them up (or, if it turned out to be Harry, turn his ass in). I thought it was brilliant from the get-go, but it took me a bit more time to unravel just HOW brilliant it was. He not only finds a way to separate Harry from everyone else (because he knows Harry's one of the few who has the balls to say the name), he also mocks Harry's (and by extension Dumbledore's) bravery. He wants to keep the wizarding world in a constant state of fear, and creating such an intense fear of his name alone is, in my opinion, sheer, terrifying genius. We're often told that Voldemort is super intelligent and super evil, but details like this really show it.
 * Also points out some logical failure from the protagonists. If they REALLY wanted to be as brave as Dumbledore, they'd have called him Tom Riddle, the name he was born with, not the trumped up title he gave himself. -Meiriona
 * New Fridge Brilliance based on that last post! During Harry's final confrontation with Voldemort, he calls him Tom! See, it's symbolism for how Harry no longer fears him, and how Voldemort's name doesn't have any power now, coinciding with his spells not working, meaning Voldemort himself doesn't have any power now! Oh, but it all makes sense, in ways you cannot possibly understand!
 * Calling him "Tom Riddle" is also Harry's attempt to evoke any lingering trace of humanity that might be left in Voldemort, to give him one last chance to feel remorse and save his ruin-of-a-soul from the misery which awaited him after death.
 * I'm surprised no one seems to have picked up on this: throughout the series characters speculate on why Dumbledore never gives Snape the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. Generally, the idea is that Dumbledore doesn't trust him near the subject. Actually, its' because
 * It occurred to me that Lily might have been so good at potions (according to Slughorn) because she was . If that's the case, then Slughorn was right about
 * It took me a while to figure out why you'd name a torture curse "Cruciatus." Then I realized that the root of the word is "Crucifixion," which is the most brutal form of torture ever invented (and here's the kicker- while normally used as a method of execution, you could use crucifixion as a non-lethal form of torture by simply taking the victim down from the cross every night and not beating him up or breaking his legs).
 * It's also the root for the word "Excruciating"—an appropriate adjective for the curse's effects.
 * To drop a quick Latin note, it's actually more literal than both of those. Crucio is a Latin verb – it means "I torment." (And excrucio means "I torment like hell.") The second wave of Fridge Brilliance in the name of the Curse is that cruciatus, "tormented one," describes the person on whom the curse is cast.
 * It also, kind of, in a round-about way, describes the person doing the casting. How tormented do you have to be to want, actually, deeply want, to cause that level of pain to another human being?
 * It just dawned on me that the Marauders are first mentioned in Prisoner of Azkaban in the order "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs". This just happens to be
 * Unmarked Deathly Hallows Spoilers: In the seventh book there comes a time when Voldemort is calling for Harry to be given up, and then no one will get hurt. Pansy steps up to say Harry should be given to Voldemort, and not one of the Slytherins stands against her. Now, some people see this as a DMoS for Jo, and she could have shown that Slytherin's aren't all evil and had some stand up for Harry etc., But- how many of the Slytherins knew where their parents were? Their family members? Their loved ones? How many Slytherin's had people they cared for with Voldemort, and potentially in danger if they helped the 'good guys'? It's actually really sad for them, because they don't necessarily know if it's safe for their families if they decide to step up for Harry, so they don't, whereas the other houses don't have that same stigma attached! End Spoilers
 * One I noticed my first time reading Azkaban all those years ago (and expected to see on here) was this: Harry's dad was the genius behind the three Animagi—an incredibly difficult transfiguration to pull off [no comment on how Rita Skeeter did it] which he pulled off at like thirteen years old. Back in Book one, Ollivander described Daddy Potter's wand as "good for transfiguration." Wand and wizard were more than just good; they were exceptional!
 * We find out in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows that Neville became the herbology professor at Hogwarts. However, Word of God stated that he served briefly as an auror. Although he proved in the books to be adept at both herbology and auror-ing, I thought this was a bit of a strange career change to make. Then I realized it would make perfect sense if he ever found out his wife Hannah was pregnant—Neville was probably worried about being in such a high-risk profession, not out of fear for his own safety, but because he didn't want his kids to grow up without a father the way he had to.
 * I think it's at least as likely that Herbology was Neville's passion - it was the class he cared most about, the subject he read books about for fun, etc.. Neville probably served as an auror while it was necessary to hunt down escaped Death Eaters and while Sprout was still in the Herbology position. When the position opened up, he would have taken it because his job as an auror was less necessary (and thus less compelling for him) and he was always more interested in herbology than fighting.
 * The Beautiful All Along page led me to this thought: Why is Hermione still a buck-toothed geek in her fourth year? Because her Muggle dentist parents want her to stay with braces. Why do they want her to have braces instead of the inordinately faster, cheaper, and more painless shrinking of her front teeth? Because they haven't figured out all the little exploits of magic yet, or don't want to figure it out. - Landis
 * Possibly they could handle magic as an abstract, something that Hermoine does while she's away at school (since she isn't allowed to do magic at home), but something like changing her teeth would make it all too real. Note that her parents only come to Diagon Alley once, before her second year, so they likely have little to no contact with the magical world. -Hyrin
 * Thinking about it from a parental perspective, it's very possible it's neither of those possiblities. This might sound pretty phoned in, but what if they made her keep her braces to actually help her retain humility? Think about it? The wizarding world shows so many conveniences that maybe Hermoine's parents thought going through braces would help shape her up as a person. She'd learn to appreciate the conveniences the wizarding world adorns her, sympathy for other people's facial ailments (see above brilliance about her parents ties to her healing traits) and even remind her that the best things take time. Or, even more likely, what if Hermoine simply keeps the braces as a show of love to her parents and their profession? Any child, even unconsciously, shows small signs of loving their parents and what they do, and Hermoine would do so by going about dentistry the way her parents make a living off it, not the quick convenient magical way. -

General Part 5

 * Harry's ultimate plan for was to put it back where it was, and die a natural death undefeated in order to break its power. On the surface, and given Word of God that he becomes an Auror, this seems like a bad plan. But then it hit me,  ownership passes from one owner to the other upon the first person's defeat or murder. The opponent doesn't even need to know what they'd done, as proven by  doing it by accident. So in the event Harry is ever defeated, possession would go to that person, and if that person were defeated, it would go to whoever beat him, and so on and so on until  power is effectively broken by the simple fact that nobody knows who's supposed to be using the thing.
 * Just a small one from Chamber of Secrets: the flying car plummets out of the sky at the precise moment that it crosses the boundary of the Hogwarts grounds. That is, when it hits the various enchantments and protections, negating its Hovering Charms.
 * Or the fact that technology doesn't work on Hogwarts grounds?
 * In the first book, I overlooked a small detail with Hagrid showing up at the cabin at the sea; namely, the fact that Vernon Dursley had a gun. Being an American reader, I thought nothing about it. It was only then that I realized why this was a big deal: there is a strict gun ban in the UK. It was only then that I really began to understand and appreciate Vernon's predicament, being a man so paranoid that he resorted to criminal acts in order to protect himself.
 * By extension, this made me appreciate how dangerous Sirius Black was perceived to be by Muggle standards, as well; in the US, a news story about someone killing a dozen people would have faded out in a week; in the UK, it would have been talked about for months.
 * Eh, maybe. Gun control in the UK was much looser until 1996, after the Dunblane massacre. It would have been perfectly reasonable, if a little bit morally questionable, for Vernon to get a shotgun at short notice in Britain in 1995. When JK wrote this, and for the year it was published and the year it was set, this isn't really correct.
 * Slytherins are ambitious, but it's not the way one first things when asked to describe someone whose defining trait is ambition. They're grabbing what power they can in any way they can. Crabbe and Goyle didn't subjugate themselves under Malfoy because they're minions, they did so because they were presumably taught from a young age that they would be nothing on their own, and they could only grasp power by being the (non-intellectual) giants on whose shoulders Draco stood while holding onto his bootstraps as he rises to the top. Petty, cruel bullies like Pansy Parkinson and overtly violent bullies like Millicent Bulstrode push everyone else down; they are ambitious in the short-sighted way that bullies in high school, middle school/junior high, and even elementary school are bullies. As long as they're better than any random person, and especially anyone who stands against them (thus challenging their dominance), and can prove it one way or another, that's all they need to be better than everyone. Even Draco in the sixth and seventh books is showing ambition (a steady and sharp decline from his lofty expectations of the first couple or few books), be it in an increasingly desperate way: he's still playing the field as of the end of the sixth book, not necessarily hesitating out of courage or loyalty and certainly not hesitating because he calculated his best odds of survival, and by the time of the seventh book he's doing everything he can to survive under Voldemort's reign (until the Power of Love prompts a change in philosphy). If the houses were more integrated, Slytherin would probably pick off the easiest-to-manipulate First Years from Hufflepuff, but as it is, there are too many aspiring leaders and not enough lackeys so nobody (except Draco, who got Crabbe and Goyle ahead of time thanks to family connections) can build up enough of a power base to get out of the Crab Bucket. -
 * Ron Weasley as a Keeper? Brilliant. At first, it seemed to this troper like an odd position for Ron to take (considering his portrayal, he always seemed like more of a get-up-in-front Chaser type, like Ginny). However, remember the Chess Motifs. Ron, while by no means a genius on par with Slytherin cunning, is shown to have a talent for tactics, and has always stood behind Harry by "having his back". Just like a King would on the chessboard. Ron's position in Quidditch? He's a keeper, which requires him to stay in one spot and guard the goals. If he didn't have his team's back by doing that, the opposing team would simply keep scoring. Just like a King would on the chessboard. What song do the Slytherins sing, later to be modified and made awesome by the Gryffindors?  Weasley is our KING . Mind=Blown.
 * The reason Harry and Ginny's relationship doesn't get as fleshed out as some people would like is that those are their moments. Harry's famous (both in-series and out), but it's mentioned that the moments he has with Ginny are just ordinary, sweet, romantic moments, and he feels as if they were stolen from the life of someone without a lightning scar. The author decided to give Harry some privacy. It's not just lazy writing—Harry's relationship with Cho Chang got plenty of development before it crashed and burned.
 * In an old (pre-"Order of the Phoenix") chat interview, someone asked about Riddle's mention (in "Chamber of Secrets") of Hagrid raising werewolf cubs under his bed, and whether they were "the same kind of werewolves" as Lupin. Rowling stated that this never happened: "Riddle was telling lies about Hagrid, just slandering him". Of course, back in "Chamber of Secrets" no one would have batted an eye at a mention of werewolf cubs, but Professor Lupin gets introduced later and we find out that werewolves are really just people with an incurable magical disease. To call their children "cubs" and imply that they can be raised under a bed like dogs is seriously offensive Fantastic Racism, but coming from the young Voldemort, it's no surprise.
 * Lily's patronus is a doe, and she dies to protect her son. As her son grows up, he sees the mysterious horns of the stag that was his father's patronus, but later ends up summoning the patronus himself, essentially taking his father's place. Bambi motifs, anyone?
 * When I first read Prisoner of Azkaban, I thought Snape was just being a jackass because he hated Sirius and Lupin from their school days. But now, now I realize that he believed Black had killed the woman he loved, and Lupin was defending him. It all makes so much more horrible, horrible sense. No wonder he was angry. Anyone would be.
 * In Order of the Phoenix, when Molly Weasley encounters a Boggart in a locked cabinet, we're told what forms it takes - the lifeless bodies of her family: Ron, Bill, Arthur, Fred and George, Percy, and finally Harry. Did you notice that one tiny detail? Fred and George. Not even in Mrs. Weasley's worst nightmares could she imagine the twins being separated. -iheardavoice
 * Dumbledore, Riddle (Voldemort), Snape and Harry are four of the important characters in the series, and shared more than a few similiarities. All four could be considered the best representatives of their respective generations. All four were half-bloods. All four considered Hogwarts their true home.
 * Except Dumbledore is a pureblood.
 * His mother was a muggle.
 * His mother was Muggle-born, not a muggle.
 * Could Harry be called a Half-blood? Both his parents were wizards. He's more like a Quarter-Blood.
 * I think it says somewhere that even if both of your parents are magical, if one of them has Muggle parents then the child (e.g. Harry) is considered a Half-Blood. It's why Bellatrix and Narcissa ostracized Andromeda after she married Ted Tonks; he was a wizard, but his parents weren't. It also caused a bit of confusion when Voldemort called Lily a "filthy Muggle" in one of the books - to him, and the other Pureblood supremacists, there's no difference between a Muggle and a "Mudblood".
 * Petunia and Lily both have flower names. Sure, but there's nothing really brilliant about it - until you think about the flower meanings of both. The petunia can mean anger and resentment, while one of the meanings of the lily is death.
 * While still irresponsible, Fudge's skepticism regarding Harry's assertion that Voldemort was back makes a lot more sense when you consider what had happened (or, as it turns out, Snape convinced him had happened) the previous year: specifically, that Harry had been confunded by Sirius to convince him that the guy was innocent. We don't know a whole lot about the mechanics of the Confundus Charm, but just look at Dawlish's experience with it in Deathly Hallows, where being charmed lets everyone and their grandma (literally, in Neville's case) get the drop on him. Throw in Rita Skeeter's various articles throughout Goblet of Fire, and it's not that surprising that Fudge would see Harry as mentally addled at best, crazy at worst. All the evidence was indicative of just that!
 * It had always annoyed me slightly that Harry was so scorchingly rich. Obviously Lily didn't bring any wizard gold into the family and James, while from an old line, didn't seem to come from that kind of money. And they didn't live long enough to earn that kind of cash. Then I realized that Harry would have been the world's most famous orphan, of course people would have been donating money from all over to help raise the Boy Who Lived.
 * But Word of God says that James was wealthy before he died. So part of the money still came from Harry's parents. Still a good thought, though.
 * Also, didn't Sirius's uncle leave him a crapload of money as well? Sirius probably chipped in - not to mention he never really had to pay rent having spent a huge chunk of his adult life in Azkaban and then the remaining years as the owner-by-default of a house that had been in his family for generations. He probably gave James a bit of his money to help take care of the family once it became clear that they were going to have to go into hiding.
 * Something i never understood was why almost every spell came from greek or latin words except for one, "Riddikulus". but then i started thinking that maybe most spells were developed way back when, when greek and latin were still spoken and developed from those languages but riddikulus was developed as recently as the emergence of the the proper english language. YMMV but the idea that it took that long to find a spell against a boggart is kinda Nightmare Fuely
 * Actually, 'Ridiculous' comes from the latin too; "ridiculus", meaning "laughable", or, well, "ridiculous".
 * Why would Voldemort, who Dumbledore claims is afraid of the idea of death, use Inferi (AKA Dead bodies reanimated by magic)? You would think that the Inferi would remind him that no matter how much magic someone has, they will still die. But it makes sense when you consider that Voldemort uses them to convince himself that he has some sort of control over death.
 * I just realized who Hermione would have become if she hadn't befriended Ron and Harry : Percy Weasley. And that explain why Ron made her cry so easily. He struck right where it hurt immediately and didn't even think about it probably because that's how Percy is treated in his family (notably by the twins). The fact that Hermione realized that those two were ready to risk their lives to save her made her lie to protect them in return and generally gave her the first clue that rules aren't always the most important things which gave her the chance to prove how remarkable she could be under her bossiness. It's sad that Percy never had the chance to show this (does he even have friends in the book ?). I'm kind of curious as to whom Ron could have become if he hadn't met Harry and Hermione to cool his temper sometimes or whom Harry would have become if he had make another friend first like Neville for example.
 * The dormitories for Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are above ground in towers, while those for Hufflepuff and Slytherin are in the cellars. This arrangement corresponds to each House's animal mascot: lions like to stand atop tall rocks to survey their territory and eagles perch on clifftops or trees, whereas badgers and many species of snakes retreat underground to sleep.

Fridge Horror

 * From cracked.com, [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19397_the-5-most-depraved-sex-scenes-implied-by-harry-potter.html?
 * The very concept of the Wizarding World is Fridge Horror. Think about it. A bunch of people, who at best either know nothing about us at all or regard us in an extremely condescending way, secretly Mind Rape us into not realizing they exist. And then they say we deserve not to know based on the logical fallacy that we wouldn't "believe" in magic sufficiently enough anyway, whatever that's supposed to mean.
 * and wizards have completely forgone science and technology in favor of magic. So all those world dooming problems (i.e. global warming/climate change, energy crisis, economic decline, etc.) that muggles caused and know about, wizards have almost no knowledge of. So wizards aren't going to be able to fix anything before we all start to die.
 * You know how "Avada Kedavra" sounds a lot like "Abra Kedabra"? The obvious implication is that someone heard the phrase, didn't know it's implications but knew it sounded/meant something awesome, and it got passed onto fake magicians as a catch phrase. The horror comes from the fact that it's now a common catch phrase and analogous to the sound of a magic gun going off. In book 7, dark wizards could accidentally return fire on muggle kids who scream it too loudly. Inquisitors are bound to shackle up street performers who use it in gambling alleyways (remember that inquisitors live long and leave their atticks clean of pop-culture, Holmes style). AND NOW HAPPY-GO-LUCKY TRICK MAGICIANS AROUND THE WORLD ARE CONSTANTLY SAYING "PLEASE #$%^ THIS SAWED WOMAN TO DEATH".
 * Consider the following: Voldemort had an army. In order for someone to have an army - and to even spend some time with power in their hands - there has to be at least some measurable degree of support. In the real world, even the most horrid regimes are supported, if not by a majority, by a loud and not-too-small minority of the people in it - or they would simply fall apart in a few days rather than in a few years. It must, in short, be politically viable. So, Voldemort might be a very powerful wizard, yes, but he only gathered an army and managed to actually control things for a while because his ideology is politically viable in that particular environment. Meaning that, unless there was a purge of sorts (and these aren't exactly foolproof, nor necessarily much of a way to keep the moral high ground) or something, his ideas are still shared by quite a lot of people, some of whom have money and/or political/magical power (the Malfoys being the most iconic example, and they clearly lived). Said people might, in that setting, try and get into power by hook or by crook in the future.