Miscellaneous HP Stuff
(1) An HP Dream (no, not the MLK Jr. kind of dream-- the real, literal kind)
Amusingly enough, about a month after JKR reported having dreamed about Book 7, so did I, a week or so ago. (This is odd, as I really haven't spent all that much time thinking about HP in the last year-and-a-few-months.)
In my dream, Book 7 had come out, and I was reading it. The dream sort of shifted back and forth, though-- sometimes I was reading the book, and sometimes I was in the story (though I'm pretty sure I was always just an observer, like in a Pensieve-- I don't think I ever actually was Harry in the dream, and I certainly wasn't anybody else).
However, as dreams go, this was a pretty ill-informed one. The Book 7 in the dream took no noticeable account of the events of Book 6; Dumbledore was still alive (not "back from the dead," but "still alive"), Snape was still just a mysteriously unpleasant teacher, and the central focus of the plot had nothing to do with Horcruxes. Rather, it involved Dumbledore organizing a secret mission for ten of his people (including himself; Harry was also one, and so was Snape, and possibly Ron). I had read on the back cover that something was going to go wrong, and eight of the ten were going to die in some tragic event. I was trying to work out who the two that survived were going to be: Harry and Snape? Harry and Ron? Harry and Ginny? (Although I don't think Ginny was really one of the group of ten.)
The other odd thing was that JKR seemed to have organized the narration so as to try to define more explicitly the relation of the story to the Christian faith-- as if the story were deliberately trying to avoid contradicting Christianity while operating in a different realm. (This bit in the dream probably came from Tom Shippey's books on LotR, in which he describes Tolkien as doing more or less that sort of thing.)
What was really weird was that I woke up briefly-- something about the heat or cold in my condo, I think-- and thought, "But no, of course it had to be a dream-- Book 7 won't be anything like that," before going back to sleep and falling back into the same dream.
One of the weirder dreams I've had, I think.
(2) Judas Riddle?
Also, a week ago Sunday, one of my students at church dropped an odd HP reference into the class discussion. We were covering the last few chapters of the Gospel According to Luke, and had gotten to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot. One of the girls in the class, for some reason, piped up:
"I think of Judas as looking like that guy from Harry Potter."
"Oh, you mean Professor Snape?" one of the boys asked.
"No, that-- that guy that turned out to be Lord Voldemort," she clarified.
"You don't mean Tom Riddle?" I asked.
"Yeah! Him!"
It was actually a pretty good observation. The greasy-haired Potions master is the natural association to make, of course. But the gospels declare clearly enough that it wasn't obvious to the other disciples beforehand that Judas was going to be the betrayer ("Lord, it is I?"). So the young-Riddle-type image of the decent-looking guy who turns out to be evil, actually makes more sense in context.
(Note: Yes, I'm aware that JKR has made reference to the tradition of Judas being a redhead. From what I've read, this is one of several possibilities of what "Iscariot" might mean, but far from a certainty; a more likely one may be "Judas of Kerioth," where "Kerioth" is the name of a couple of different villages in first-century Palestine. In any case, I think there are much better reasons to think he looked like a fine, upstanding citizen than to think he looked unusual in a way that would have made people wonder if he was normal-- recall, of course, that redheaded Middle Easterners are not a common occurrence.)
(3) The Amusing Prophecies of Ronald Weasley
Speaking of redheaded guys....
A few days ago I was flipping through PoA, and noticed the bit where the Trio meets Sir Cadogan, and the scene ends up with Ron saying, "Yeah, we'll call you if we ever need someone mental."
But then, it could be argued a that few weeks later, after the Flight of the Fat Lady, Gryffindor House really did need someone mental; and so on whom did they call but that very same Sir Cadogan?
(Apologies if somebody else has already pointed that out!)
(4) And finally: Anyone up for a quiz?
Also in flipping through PoA, I noticed that an awful lot of the chapters (including several in a row during the school-year section) seem to end with stunning turning points. And so it occurred to me to offer the following quiz.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to match each chapter with its ending (example: "1a 2b 3c...," etc.)... WITHOUT looking in the book. (My hope is that it will be challenging enough to be interesting, but not so impossible as to be pointless to try at. We'll see. If nothing else, it should at least give you an excuse to relive a lot of great moments from a terrific story.)
CHAPTERS: (listed in book order)
1. Owl Post
2. Aunt Marge's Big Mistake
3. The Knight Bus
4. The Leaky Cauldron
5. The Dementor
6. Talons and Tea Leaves
7. The Boggart in the Wardrobe
8. Flight of the Fat Lady
9. Grim Defeat
10. The Marauder's Map
11. The Firebolt
12. The Patronus
13. Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw
14. Snape's Grudge
15. The Quidditch Final
16. Professor Trelawney's Prediction
17. Cat, Rat, and Dog
18. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
19. The Servant of Lord Voldemort
20. The Dementor's Kiss
21. Hermione's Secret
22. Owl Post Again
CHAPTER ENDINGS: (listed in random order)
a. Crookshanks leapt lightly off the bed and led the way out of the room, his bottle-brush tail held jauntily high.
b. "That's the spirit, dear," said his mirror sleepily.
c. They reached their familiar, circular dormitory with its five four-poster beds and Harry, looking around, felt he was home at last.
d. If only their had been a Dementor around… As a sobbing Wood passed Harry the Cup, as he lifted it into the air, Harry felt he could have produced the world's best Patronus.
e. "It's been a very weird night, Hedwig," he yawned. And without even removing his glasses, he slumped back onto his pillows and fell asleep.
f. And grinning broadly at the look of horror on Uncle Vernon's face, Harry set off towards the station exit, Hedwig rattling along in front of him, for what looked like a much better summer than the last.
g. Ron threw something down onto Hermione's Rune translation. Hermione and Harry leant forward. Lying on top of the weird, spiky shapes were several long, ginger cat hairs.
h. "Because I thought - and Professor McGonagall agrees with me - that that broom was probably sent to Harry by Sirius Black!"
i. Slowly, she reached down for a bag at her feet, turned it upside-down and tipped a dozen bits of splintered wood and twig onto the bed, the only remains of Harry's faithful, finally beaten broomstick.
j. "An Animagus," said Black, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."
k. "What would it have been for you?" said Ron, sniggering. "A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten?"
l. Harry and Hermione jumped back as the enormous wings rose once more… the Hippogriff took off into the air… he and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them… then a cloud drifted across the moon… they were gone.
m. "No," said Hermione. She was holding a letter in her hands and her lip was trembling. "I just thought you ought to know… Hagrid lost his case. Buckbeak is going to be executed."
n. Hermione swayed on the spot. "They did it!" she whispered to Harry. "I d-don't believe it - they did it!"
o. There was utter silence, broken by the smallest of terrified squeaks. Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to fluffy-slippered toes, raised his hand slowly into the air.
p. "I'm takin' yer all back up ter school, an' don' let me catch yet walkin' down ter see me after dark again. I'm not worth that!"
q. Ron and Hermione's faces appeared under the table. They were both staring at him, lost for words.
r. Severus Snape was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointing directly at Lupin.
s. Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else: glad, for the first time, that it was his birthday.
t. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."
u. And next moment, he was out in the dark, quiet street, heaving his heavy trunk behind him, Hedwig's cage under his arm.
v. Harry didn't understand. He couldn't think any more. He felt the last of his strength leave him, and his head hit the ground as he fainted.
Amusingly enough, about a month after JKR reported having dreamed about Book 7, so did I, a week or so ago. (This is odd, as I really haven't spent all that much time thinking about HP in the last year-and-a-few-months.)
In my dream, Book 7 had come out, and I was reading it. The dream sort of shifted back and forth, though-- sometimes I was reading the book, and sometimes I was in the story (though I'm pretty sure I was always just an observer, like in a Pensieve-- I don't think I ever actually was Harry in the dream, and I certainly wasn't anybody else).
However, as dreams go, this was a pretty ill-informed one. The Book 7 in the dream took no noticeable account of the events of Book 6; Dumbledore was still alive (not "back from the dead," but "still alive"), Snape was still just a mysteriously unpleasant teacher, and the central focus of the plot had nothing to do with Horcruxes. Rather, it involved Dumbledore organizing a secret mission for ten of his people (including himself; Harry was also one, and so was Snape, and possibly Ron). I had read on the back cover that something was going to go wrong, and eight of the ten were going to die in some tragic event. I was trying to work out who the two that survived were going to be: Harry and Snape? Harry and Ron? Harry and Ginny? (Although I don't think Ginny was really one of the group of ten.)
The other odd thing was that JKR seemed to have organized the narration so as to try to define more explicitly the relation of the story to the Christian faith-- as if the story were deliberately trying to avoid contradicting Christianity while operating in a different realm. (This bit in the dream probably came from Tom Shippey's books on LotR, in which he describes Tolkien as doing more or less that sort of thing.)
What was really weird was that I woke up briefly-- something about the heat or cold in my condo, I think-- and thought, "But no, of course it had to be a dream-- Book 7 won't be anything like that," before going back to sleep and falling back into the same dream.
One of the weirder dreams I've had, I think.
(2) Judas Riddle?
Also, a week ago Sunday, one of my students at church dropped an odd HP reference into the class discussion. We were covering the last few chapters of the Gospel According to Luke, and had gotten to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot. One of the girls in the class, for some reason, piped up:
"I think of Judas as looking like that guy from Harry Potter."
"Oh, you mean Professor Snape?" one of the boys asked.
"No, that-- that guy that turned out to be Lord Voldemort," she clarified.
"You don't mean Tom Riddle?" I asked.
"Yeah! Him!"
It was actually a pretty good observation. The greasy-haired Potions master is the natural association to make, of course. But the gospels declare clearly enough that it wasn't obvious to the other disciples beforehand that Judas was going to be the betrayer ("Lord, it is I?"). So the young-Riddle-type image of the decent-looking guy who turns out to be evil, actually makes more sense in context.
(Note: Yes, I'm aware that JKR has made reference to the tradition of Judas being a redhead. From what I've read, this is one of several possibilities of what "Iscariot" might mean, but far from a certainty; a more likely one may be "Judas of Kerioth," where "Kerioth" is the name of a couple of different villages in first-century Palestine. In any case, I think there are much better reasons to think he looked like a fine, upstanding citizen than to think he looked unusual in a way that would have made people wonder if he was normal-- recall, of course, that redheaded Middle Easterners are not a common occurrence.)
(3) The Amusing Prophecies of Ronald Weasley
Speaking of redheaded guys....
A few days ago I was flipping through PoA, and noticed the bit where the Trio meets Sir Cadogan, and the scene ends up with Ron saying, "Yeah, we'll call you if we ever need someone mental."
But then, it could be argued a that few weeks later, after the Flight of the Fat Lady, Gryffindor House really did need someone mental; and so on whom did they call but that very same Sir Cadogan?
(Apologies if somebody else has already pointed that out!)
(4) And finally: Anyone up for a quiz?
Also in flipping through PoA, I noticed that an awful lot of the chapters (including several in a row during the school-year section) seem to end with stunning turning points. And so it occurred to me to offer the following quiz.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to match each chapter with its ending (example: "1a 2b 3c...," etc.)... WITHOUT looking in the book. (My hope is that it will be challenging enough to be interesting, but not so impossible as to be pointless to try at. We'll see. If nothing else, it should at least give you an excuse to relive a lot of great moments from a terrific story.)
CHAPTERS: (listed in book order)
1. Owl Post
2. Aunt Marge's Big Mistake
3. The Knight Bus
4. The Leaky Cauldron
5. The Dementor
6. Talons and Tea Leaves
7. The Boggart in the Wardrobe
8. Flight of the Fat Lady
9. Grim Defeat
10. The Marauder's Map
11. The Firebolt
12. The Patronus
13. Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw
14. Snape's Grudge
15. The Quidditch Final
16. Professor Trelawney's Prediction
17. Cat, Rat, and Dog
18. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
19. The Servant of Lord Voldemort
20. The Dementor's Kiss
21. Hermione's Secret
22. Owl Post Again
CHAPTER ENDINGS: (listed in random order)
a. Crookshanks leapt lightly off the bed and led the way out of the room, his bottle-brush tail held jauntily high.
b. "That's the spirit, dear," said his mirror sleepily.
c. They reached their familiar, circular dormitory with its five four-poster beds and Harry, looking around, felt he was home at last.
d. If only their had been a Dementor around… As a sobbing Wood passed Harry the Cup, as he lifted it into the air, Harry felt he could have produced the world's best Patronus.
e. "It's been a very weird night, Hedwig," he yawned. And without even removing his glasses, he slumped back onto his pillows and fell asleep.
f. And grinning broadly at the look of horror on Uncle Vernon's face, Harry set off towards the station exit, Hedwig rattling along in front of him, for what looked like a much better summer than the last.
g. Ron threw something down onto Hermione's Rune translation. Hermione and Harry leant forward. Lying on top of the weird, spiky shapes were several long, ginger cat hairs.
h. "Because I thought - and Professor McGonagall agrees with me - that that broom was probably sent to Harry by Sirius Black!"
i. Slowly, she reached down for a bag at her feet, turned it upside-down and tipped a dozen bits of splintered wood and twig onto the bed, the only remains of Harry's faithful, finally beaten broomstick.
j. "An Animagus," said Black, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."
k. "What would it have been for you?" said Ron, sniggering. "A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten?"
l. Harry and Hermione jumped back as the enormous wings rose once more… the Hippogriff took off into the air… he and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them… then a cloud drifted across the moon… they were gone.
m. "No," said Hermione. She was holding a letter in her hands and her lip was trembling. "I just thought you ought to know… Hagrid lost his case. Buckbeak is going to be executed."
n. Hermione swayed on the spot. "They did it!" she whispered to Harry. "I d-don't believe it - they did it!"
o. There was utter silence, broken by the smallest of terrified squeaks. Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to fluffy-slippered toes, raised his hand slowly into the air.
p. "I'm takin' yer all back up ter school, an' don' let me catch yet walkin' down ter see me after dark again. I'm not worth that!"
q. Ron and Hermione's faces appeared under the table. They were both staring at him, lost for words.
r. Severus Snape was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointing directly at Lupin.
s. Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else: glad, for the first time, that it was his birthday.
t. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."
u. And next moment, he was out in the dark, quiet street, heaving his heavy trunk behind him, Hedwig's cage under his arm.
v. Harry didn't understand. He couldn't think any more. He felt the last of his strength leave him, and his head hit the ground as he fainted.