Question:
When Harry was 'dead' in the white Kings Cross station, what was the deal with the moaning fetus thing under the chair?

I thought maybe that was Voldie, I don't know, I wondered myself and hoped this would become clear when I re-read it.

Or was it a half-dead mandrake?

I think it was the bit of soul of Voldie that ended up in Harry.

I'm not saying (I think) that I felt nothing, just that I didn't feel as much as I thought I would. Maybe because I knew ahead of time who was going to die, that affected how I felt when I read it. It could have also been because I read the book so fast, I didn't give myself time to absorb everything.

The things that did pull at my heart strings were Harry buriing Moody's eye, and his burying of Dobby. I cheered when Kreacher showed up with the other House Elves.

OK - I have a question...

Mr. Swanie is about 200 pages into Deathly Hallows and he is convinced that Mad-Eye is still alive since he is one of the people that placed the enchantments on Grimmauld Place and that his Tongue-Tying Curse would have "expired" upon his death. Since Mad-Eye's Snape thingy comes up every time someone enters the house, he's convinced that he couldn't have really died. I know he'll figure out that he's really dead by the time the gang gets into the Ministry of Magic so I don't want to spoil his speculation at this point.

My question is was it ever made clear which charms/spells/curses/enchantments/hexes/etc. live on when a wizard dies? As I said, I didn't want to ruin his "what if?" thinking at this point, but I did point out that the photo and wall hangings in Sirius' room and his mom's portrait still hang in the house after their deaths even though they have attempted to take them down. But, one can argue that the magic dies with the wizard as did the spell that Dumbledore cast on Harry in the tower when Snape killed him. Is it that magic can remain on inanimate objects and not on living things? Or is it the fact that it was a "curse" on the house and it boils down to the specific kind of magic that is used?

I was not surprised at all that Ginny was relegated to Fair Princess status. Rowling handled their "romance" so poorly in other books that it was true to form. I think she falls into the Tolkein trap of being rather bad at dealing with that subject. Ginny being underage and too young for battle was rather convenient - I could almost hear Rowling's sigh of relief.

(Yeah, that's where I really start stabbing her as a writer...I found their relationship disappointing all around.)

Actually, it's more like this...
J.K. Rowling's
Wizarding World Sequence
Harry Potter and the Last Crusade in Search of the Holy Grail
(Author not mentioned on cover, found on verso only, buried in the cataloging info.)

Hmm, now I can't decide between your idea, BTD, and my brother's. He thought that when Harry was there talking to Dumbledore, Voldie was there too, experiencing the awful torment of being that nasty thing. I guess they could both be right.

What spell? I don't remember that. (I'm no memorizer.)

It's my impression that spells always stick, even after the caster dies, and that they must be undone by other wizards to be removed.

Wait wait wait. When did Tom Clancy books start being written by a ghost writer?

Dumbledore told Harry to go and get Snape, so he put on his Invisibility Cloak and started for the door. Just as Draco was bursting into the room, Dumbledore placed a freezing charm on Harry, so he couldn't move. That's how Harry watched the scene unfold...frozen in place and unable to move until Snape killed Dumbledore.

That's what I don't get. Is it just the matter of it being a charm vs. a curse, or an inanimate vs. animate object?

I think it's a matter of it not being consistent, or well thought-out by the author, and certainly not well explained by the author.


Much as I enjoy the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling is often a hack. Her stories are completely pedestrian, for the most part. The "rules" of the wizarding world are inconsistent at best, and not well conceived for dramatic purposes. It's her characters and the general world created that are her strong points.



*****


Ooooh, I love the mandrake-infant thing in King's Cross Limbo being the bit of Voldemort's soul now cast off from Harry. That makes much more sense and resonates far nicer than it simply being Volemort.

Although now I have to wonder what happened to Voldie while he, too, was unconsious. Did he go to a different Limbo? (A redder, hotter one?) Or was he simply blacked out?


I'm not expecting answers ... unless J.K. starts posting here. But I love the questions this brings up. Thanks, BTD, for the Voldie-Soul Cast-Off theory!