Some points from earlier chapters that remain unclear to me: any insights would be appreciated?
1) Why did Neville’s remembrall go off so vividly in Harry’s hands? Also, how are there now two remembralls?
2) Do we have any more information/guesses about Trelawney’s prophecy that Dumbledore cut off? What starts with ‘S’?
3) Who told Harry to look for Hermione on the train? The writing is ambiguous, and it’s not really clear why McGonagall
would’ve wanted them to meet. I guess other theories are worse, though.
4) What’s up with Harry’s father’s rock? Just a way for Dumbledore to encourage Harry to practice transfiguration?
5) Why are we so sure Dumbledore burned a chicken (or transfigured something)? His explanation makes total sense, and Harry’s confusion at the time is well-explained by his lack of familiarity with phoenixes. It seems more reasonable to assume almost-burned-out phoenixes look like chickens than...whatever the alternative is.
6) Who is saying “I’m not serious” in Azkaban?
7) Is the “terrible secret” of Lily’s potion book really that Snape and Lily fought about it? That just seems like a bizarre reason for a friendship to end. Were Dumbledore’s suggestions incorporated into the potion Petunia took?
8) Why did Quirrell leave a polyjuice potion in Bellatrix’s cell? (especially since the crime was meant to go unnoticed)
(8) is because he knew that the moment Dumbledore learned of the potion, he would conclude that Harry Potter was not the mastermind of the escape. “to fathom a strange plot, one technique was to look at what ended up happening, assume it was the intended result, and ask who benefited.”
1) Harry is a horcrux who forgot his entire previous life.
2) Not sure.
3) I like the theory that it was Quirrell but I would only put it at about 20% likely.
6) Peter Pettigrew.
7) The terrible secret is that Dumbledore intentionally sabotaged Snape and Lily’s relationship by writing bad advice into her textbooks in Snape’s handwriting. It would indeed be bad if Snape discovered this.
8) I’m pretty curious about this one. I think that if it were discovered, say, a year later that Bellatrix was gone, and the potion was found, the authorities would assume that Bellatrix had used the potion to become an animagus and escape.
If memory serves, Dumbledore was pretty specific that really grave things would happen if the secret got out. If people found out that Dumbledore was sneaking into the girls’ dorm … it probably wouldn’t matter; everybody thinks he’s insane anyway, and some scribblings in a notebook are not evidence of anything in particular anyway.
However, if Snape in particular found out that Dumbledore had turned Lily against him on purpose because Dumbledore, based on his bizarre worldview, did not think the prim Gryffindor should be with the greasy Slytherin, then it could undermine Snape’s secret allegiance to Dumbledore and his secret desire to protect Harry Potter on behalf of his beloved. This would be relatively disastrous.
This is probably already happening, now that Snape has started to see Lily as a human being.
8) I thought the idea was that if it were discovered a year later, people were going to assume Bellatrix had died in her cell. This requires the death doll to decay, which might be implausible.
Harry being a Horcrux explains the origin of his mysterious dark side. He’s also a Horcrux in canon; the murder that created him was the murder of Harry’s parents, which still happened.
6) Evidence/Reasoning?
Chapter 29, Chapter 42. Harry learns that Scabbers was an ordinary rat in this continuity and Bill Weasley went crazy after believing otherwise. That means Pettigrew is not hiding out with the Weasleys. Lupin reveals that Sirius and Pettigrew were former lovers who had some kind of quarrel. That gives Sirius a motive to do something terrible to Pettigrew. And if “I’m not serious” is supposed to be read as “I’m not Sirius,” then it starts to seem more plausible that Sirius somehow got everybody to convict and incarcerate Pettigrew in his place (Imperius + repeated doses of Polyjuice?).
7) The terrible secret is that Dumbledore intentionally sabotaged Snape and Lily’s relationship by writing bad advice into her textbooks in Snape’s handwriting. It would indeed be bad if Snape discovered this.
Doesn’t Dumbledore also simultaneously provide Lily with the recipe of the potion she eventually gives to Petunia, which leads to Harry being raised by a scientist? It’s unclear to me whether this was intentional though.
He’s also a Horcrux in canon; the murder that created him was the murder of Harry’s parents, which still happened.
It wasn’t the murder of Harry’s parents, it was
when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsed building.
(Deathly Hallows, Ch 33)
The Killing-Curse-reflecting Love Shield doesn’t exist in HPMoR, so if Harry is a Horcrux it’s not because things happened the same as in canon.
Sirius somehow got everybody to convict and incarcerate Pettigrew in his place (Imperius + repeated doses of Polyjuice?).
He wasn’t even convicted, just tossed straight into Azkaban. And another piece of evidence is the Quibbler article claiming Pettigrew and Sirius are the same person.
As his hand touched the back door’s handle, he heard a last whisper from behind him.
“Hermione Granger.”
“What?” Harry said, his hand still on the door.
“Look for a first-year girl named Hermione Granger on the train to Hogwarts.”
“Who is she?”
There was no answer, and when Harry turned around, Professor McGonagall was gone.
Seems clear to me that the whisper came from McGonagall—Harry was talking to her, Harry turned his back and heard a whisper from “her” that sounded like her. Harry thinks so to—in chapter 8 we have;
The boy’s mouth was hanging open. “Were you told to wait for Harry Potter on the train to Hogwarts, or something like that?”
(Long-time lurker; first post)
Some points from earlier chapters that remain unclear to me: any insights would be appreciated?
1) Why did Neville’s remembrall go off so vividly in Harry’s hands? Also, how are there now two remembralls?
2) Do we have any more information/guesses about Trelawney’s prophecy that Dumbledore cut off? What starts with ‘S’?
3) Who told Harry to look for Hermione on the train? The writing is ambiguous, and it’s not really clear why McGonagall would’ve wanted them to meet. I guess other theories are worse, though.
4) What’s up with Harry’s father’s rock? Just a way for Dumbledore to encourage Harry to practice transfiguration?
5) Why are we so sure Dumbledore burned a chicken (or transfigured something)? His explanation makes total sense, and Harry’s confusion at the time is well-explained by his lack of familiarity with phoenixes. It seems more reasonable to assume almost-burned-out phoenixes look like chickens than...whatever the alternative is.
6) Who is saying “I’m not serious” in Azkaban?
7) Is the “terrible secret” of Lily’s potion book really that Snape and Lily fought about it? That just seems like a bizarre reason for a friendship to end. Were Dumbledore’s suggestions incorporated into the potion Petunia took?
8) Why did Quirrell leave a polyjuice potion in Bellatrix’s cell? (especially since the crime was meant to go unnoticed)
(8) is because he knew that the moment Dumbledore learned of the potion, he would conclude that Harry Potter was not the mastermind of the escape. “to fathom a strange plot, one technique was to look at what ended up happening, assume it was the intended result, and ask who benefited.”
1) Harry is a horcrux who forgot his entire previous life.
2) Not sure.
3) I like the theory that it was Quirrell but I would only put it at about 20% likely.
6) Peter Pettigrew.
7) The terrible secret is that Dumbledore intentionally sabotaged Snape and Lily’s relationship by writing bad advice into her textbooks in Snape’s handwriting. It would indeed be bad if Snape discovered this.
8) I’m pretty curious about this one. I think that if it were discovered, say, a year later that Bellatrix was gone, and the potion was found, the authorities would assume that Bellatrix had used the potion to become an animagus and escape.
I thought the terrible secret was that Dumbledore was sneaking into the girls’ dorms turned invisible.
If memory serves, Dumbledore was pretty specific that really grave things would happen if the secret got out. If people found out that Dumbledore was sneaking into the girls’ dorm … it probably wouldn’t matter; everybody thinks he’s insane anyway, and some scribblings in a notebook are not evidence of anything in particular anyway.
However, if Snape in particular found out that Dumbledore had turned Lily against him on purpose because Dumbledore, based on his bizarre worldview, did not think the prim Gryffindor should be with the greasy Slytherin, then it could undermine Snape’s secret allegiance to Dumbledore and his secret desire to protect Harry Potter on behalf of his beloved. This would be relatively disastrous.
This is probably already happening, now that Snape has started to see Lily as a human being.
1) Evidence/Reasoning?
6) Evidence/Reasoning?
8) I thought the idea was that if it were discovered a year later, people were going to assume Bellatrix had died in her cell. This requires the death doll to decay, which might be implausible.
Harry being a Horcrux explains the origin of his mysterious dark side. He’s also a Horcrux in canon; the murder that created him was the murder of Harry’s parents, which still happened.
Chapter 29, Chapter 42. Harry learns that Scabbers was an ordinary rat in this continuity and Bill Weasley went crazy after believing otherwise. That means Pettigrew is not hiding out with the Weasleys. Lupin reveals that Sirius and Pettigrew were former lovers who had some kind of quarrel. That gives Sirius a motive to do something terrible to Pettigrew. And if “I’m not serious” is supposed to be read as “I’m not Sirius,” then it starts to seem more plausible that Sirius somehow got everybody to convict and incarcerate Pettigrew in his place (Imperius + repeated doses of Polyjuice?).
Doesn’t Dumbledore also simultaneously provide Lily with the recipe of the potion she eventually gives to Petunia, which leads to Harry being raised by a scientist? It’s unclear to me whether this was intentional though.
It wasn’t the murder of Harry’s parents, it was
(Deathly Hallows, Ch 33)
The Killing-Curse-reflecting Love Shield doesn’t exist in HPMoR, so if Harry is a Horcrux it’s not because things happened the same as in canon.
He wasn’t even convicted, just tossed straight into Azkaban. And another piece of evidence is the Quibbler article claiming Pettigrew and Sirius are the same person.
on 3; From chapter 6
Seems clear to me that the whisper came from McGonagall—Harry was talking to her, Harry turned his back and heard a whisper from “her” that sounded like her. Harry thinks so to—in chapter 8 we have;