<p>I assume Rose and Hugh are Hermione’s parents’ names; don’t they sound muggle-ish? As someone else mentioned earlier on, James’ middle name is probably Sirius. And I assume George’s son would be named Fred.</p>
<p>JKR won the “Hugo” award for Goblet of Fire in 2001:
<a href=“http://www.locusmag.com/2001/News/News09a.html[/url]”>http://www.locusmag.com/2001/News/News09a.html</a></p>
<ol>
<li><p>When they were at Grimmauld Place, they weren’t living rough, and were getting regular news about the world. They would have known about the taboo if it had been on then. Several months elapsed between their leaving Grimmauld Place and Ron’s departure then return – plenty of time to put a new taboo in place (and bounty hunters, too).</p></li>
<li><p>I thought “Rose” was another nod to Lord of the Rings, and I assumed that if I looked hard enough at Kid Lit (Brit) I would find a Hugo or two. (In E. Nesbit somewhere? Surely she deserved some props from Rowling.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In most of the HP websites, in anticipation of the books, had a number of “what we know” elements that should have appeared in the final book. One such element was that someone would exhibit magic late in life… but this didn’t appear to happen, at least during my initial read (still haven’t gotten around to the reread). Does anyone know who, if anyone, displayed a magical ability for the first time late in life?</p>
<p>I reread Book 1. Interestng, when Harry opens his Xmas gifts, and the Invisibility cloak is there, Ron immediately recognizes it. So now, having read bk 7, it is clear that this cloak is unique. Ron should not have known what it was.</p>
<p>Chedva - I was beginning to think that I was the ony one! I loved that song and have the soundtrack. The song has been running through my mind since I read that scene.</p>
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</p>
<p>Wasn’t he one of the original Order of the Phoenix? He also saved Snapes life and helped make Remus’ life bearable (Sirius’ too, though for different reasons).</p>
<p>What ever happened with the veil in book 5? I still don’t get it. It was never explained, at least as far as I’ve seen. Can anyone shed some light on this?</p>
<p>Ron may have heard about the Invisibility Cloak from his father, who was also in the Order and may have heard discussions about it. So that didn’t bother me.</p>
<p>What did bother me, though, is that Ravenclaw’s tiara didn’t have magical protections around it. Voldemort hid the locket behind multiple spells, Hufflepuff’s cup was in Gringott’s and everything in the vault was protected, the ring had magical charms that Dumbledore had to defeat, and yet just locating the tiara was sufficient? The only thing we could think of is that the protection for the tiara was that it couldn’t be removed from the Room of Requirement, and the fire defeated that charm, but that’s pure speculation. No defenses were mentioned.</p>
<p>And why wasn’t Draco in Azkaban, or some other prison? He was certainly a full-fledged Death Eater.</p>
<p>chedva, there was also a mention of the fact that V thought he was one of the few who even knew the Room of Requirement existed. So to a certain extent the tiara was protected from a lot of people by being in that room</p>
<p>Yeah, hayden, I knew that, too, but no one knew about the cave hidden behind the lake where the locket was, and yet there was the inner lake, the enchanted boat, the Inferi and the poisonous potion to protect it if someone got that far. So why would he be so cavalier about the Room of Requirement? Just wasn’t satisfying to me.</p>
<p>I think by the time the extent of Draco’s involvement was known, the Death Eaters were embedded at the Ministry and Hogwarts.</p>
<p>Was the tiara one of the early Horcruxes? V didn’t seem to protect or value them as much. And JK used the tiara-not-protecting-because-no-one-but-V-could-be-clever-enough-to-find-the-room-thing to show up V.'s arrogance and how his character flaws would eventually defeat him.</p>
<p>Oh, I meant Draco in jail in the future - why wasn’t he in prison 19 years later? And if his sentence was over, it would have to have been over in time for him to father an 11 year old. Not much time.</p>
<p>In response to the room of requirement question, there were a number of things protecting the horcrux: 1. no one knew what the horcrux was, 2. once they were to find out that it was in fact the tiara, they would be put off by the fact that it had been lost for centuries–many would then assume that it could not be the horcrux because it had been lost for so long, 3. it was hidden in a room that many people could not access, 4. the room of requirements changes to whatever the student wants it to become–they would have to actively seek the correct place for the room to turn into to gain access in the first place, 5. it was hidden in plain view (which, sometimes is the best hiding place); it was sitting on top of a bust on top of the vanishing cabinet in one aisle between a number of shelves filled with items hidden by students over the years (a pretty random place to stick a horcrux). While it wasn’t necessarily protected by intricate spells as the others were, it was still in a place of great value to V and was, in my opinion, well hidden. It just so happened that Harry had been in there once before and has a superb photographic memory, otherwise it would have gone unnoticed.</p>
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</p>
<p>D’oh. That’s a good question. My guess is that they decided to treat him more like a foot soldier than a war criminal.</p>
<p>“He also saved Snapes life…”</p>
<p>Eh, debatable. It was a cruel joke of his friends that got Snape into danger in the first place. It’s not as though he were acting particularly noble, he just didn’t want Snape’s death on his and his friends’ hands. </p>
<p>I don’t think James had many redeeming traits - he was a bit of a prick, eh? I suppose he was very loyal to his friends, and intelligent, and brave.</p>
<p>“1. When they were at Grimmauld Place, they weren’t living rough, and were getting regular news about the world. They would have known about the taboo if it had been on then. Several months elapsed between their leaving Grimmauld Place and Ron’s departure then return – plenty of time to put a new taboo in place (and bounty hunters, too).”</p>
<p>However, it was already taboo when they left the wedding - that’s how the death eaters found them.</p>
<p>In Grimmauld place, they only started getting regular news when people came to visit (such as Lupin) or when they apparated out and stole a Daily Prophet (which was not very often). So, that is why they didn’t know about the Taboo.</p>
<p>One more question - can anyone explain the flyleaf art to me? Is it supposed to be in the courtroom where Umbridge is trying the Muggle-born witches & wizards?</p>
<p>One thing I really didn’t like about the book - </p>
<p>When Percy came storming into Hogwarts exclaiming that he was sorry for being such a fool et al, and Mrs. Weasley was so happy she pushed Fred aside to hug Percy…rereading that scene was just too heartbreaking, knowing what happened next. Poor Mrs. Weasley. Poor Fred.</p>