I was trying to think of a reason for a rebounding Killing Curse to make Voldemort’s body disappear (no luck so far) when I thought of an entirely different question: with no body and no witnesses (other than Harry, who probably didn’t know more than a few words), why was the wizarding public so quick to believe Voldemort had been defeated?( Read more... )

...and when he knew it.

I was reading through the comments to one of Terri’s old fics, and got sucked back into the probably-irresolvable tangle of questions about what Lucius was really planning during Chamber of Secrets. Piecing together some of the comments and one or two of my old speculations, we might at least be able to come up with a ( Read more... )

I was looking over the timeline of October 31/November 1, 1981, and ran into something I don't think we've discussed. Here's the sequence of events:

• Voldemort attacks the Potters in the evening, early enough that trick-or-treaters are still out
  
• Sirius discovers Peter missing and flies to Godric's Hollow to check on the Potters (this may have ( Read more... )

Since Valentine's Day is close by, I thought this topic would be fitting to bring up and ramble about until I get it off my chest.Here comes a few (potentially) silly questions I have about love as a reoccurring and major theme in the HP books: is love a redemptive and saving force? Is it a reflection of our inner nature and morals? Does it make us ( Read more... )

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

I promise I'm still chipping away at Indestructible - I'm just in the middle of a frantic effort to complete my dissertation draft before the end of the semester. I should have another Indestructible piece up over the holidays though. Thanks for being patient ( Read more... )

Might as well continue this sequence.

( Read Chapter 35 )

Since Chapter 27 is so short, I decided to also post Chapter 28.

( Time for Dumbledore's backstory! Bum bum buuuuuuum! )

So, I'm pulling together the concluding pieces of my "Indestructible" series, in order to lay out my two readings of Severus' arc in HBP and DH. And I'm not sure which one to finish up and post next - some of them are a bit like independent cards that can go in any order, though others need to stay together ( Read more... )

I'm working on a couple more essays for my "Indestructible" series, and a separate essay on Harry's moral education. But I thought I'd toss out here a couple of questions that have been nagging me on a mostly-unrelated topic ( Read more... )