rereading harry

whenmugglesattack asked: I'm re-reading Deathly Hallows and reading your posts in between chapters and I miss seeing these on my dash everyday. You brought up so many points that I never would have thought of otherwise. Don't ever delete this blog! :) Hope all is well!

Aww, thank you! It makes me so happy that folks are still getting some mileage out of this blog and my posts. :D I have absolutely no plans of ever deleting, so no worries there. Thanks so much for the message!

Anonymous asked: What is some of the foreshadowing for the Deathly Hallows? Jo does a lot of foreshadowing and I'm curious to see what hints and clues she left about the three hallows in previous books.

This is a good question! I can’t think of much foreshadowing for the individual Hallows, but here’s what I can recall, and, curiously, it all leads back to Dumbledore, which I suppose makes sense, all things considered: I do think that it’s always been sort of hinted, in a very subtle and easy-to-miss and kind of glossed-over way, that there was something more to the Invisibility Cloak than meets the eye (ha). The fact that Dumbledore had to be the one to give it to Harry because it was “in [his] possession” at the time of James’ death was always pretty odd, especially coupled with the knowledge that Dumbledore doesn’t need an Invisibility Cloak to become invisible, so I feel like that was always leading up to something else, which in this case was Dumbledore studying the Invisibility Cloak to determine if it was, indeed, a Hallow, something that had once been his obsession. That also leads to the Resurrection Stone, which we know was in the ring that Voldemort made into a Horcrux. Although certainly never brought up until the sixth book, I always found it perplexing that Dumbledore put on the ring when he found it and I think Harry wondered about that as well. Dumbledore knew the ring was a Horcrux and still, he placed a ring containing a portion of Voldemort’s soul on his finger. It never made any sense to me until we discover that the stone in the ring was the Resurrection Stone, and obviously, even if Dumbledore hadn’t had a youthful obsession with the Deathly Hallows, there are many people in his life that he would want to see returned to the land of the living. The yearning to see his mother and sister again was so strong that he, more or less, forgot himself. I don’t think there was any foreshadowing for the Elder Wand, though. At least, none that I can remember off the top of my head.

For all of you fanfic-minded readers:

If you like Marauders era and/or Remus/Sirius fic and/or Shoebox Project, I thought you should know (if you don’t already) that the lovely people over at Fuck Yeah SBP is having a Shoebox Project Reread (or just Read, if this would be your first time reading it) this month! It actually began a couple of days ago, but it’s only two chapters to catch up on if you start now. They’re hosting a chat room for folks to pop in and talk about it as they read. More info can be found in this post, which also provides links to the master post/reading schedule and chat room. If you’ve never read SBP before, I highly, highly recommend it if you have any affection whatsoever for the Marauders.

I hope you’re all doing wonderfully!

Anonymous asked: You are my idol. Marry me pls.

As long as you’re willing to let my pug sleep in the bed!

itwasyourheart asked: I LOVE your blog. Please never deactivate; I'm going to go through all of it during my study breaks as little rewards xD <3 If you do, please issue a warning, at least! :)

I have no plans at all of deactivating, at least for the foreseeable future, so no worries there. It’s wonderful to know that people are still enjoying it. Thank you very much for the message! :)

Anonymous asked: Hi - i have something i have always wondered about. It has plagues me all through my HP life. How come Harry can't see the thestrals when he first comes to Hogwarts? By seing his mothers murder, shouldn't he have been able to see them from the very beginning and not just after Cedrics death?

Jo has said that thestrals are only visible to those who have witnessed death and have been able to process it. Harry was only an infant when he saw his mother die and therefore couldn’t mentally process what he was witnessing. Only when he was a fourteen-year-old witnessing the murder of a fellow student right in front of him could he fully process the concept of death and what was happening before him, allowing him to see thestrals pulling the carriages when he returned to school the following September.

whenmugglesattack asked: To help answer the Anon question about the Love Room: I heard in an interview that Jo gave on PotterCast back in 2007 that the Love Room had a fountain or well full of Amortentia at its center, and that the Unspeakables in charge of the Love Room would take the potion and study its effects. Hope this helps!

Oh, this is interesting and I’d never heard this before. Thank you!

Anonymous asked: I just discovered this blog like last week, so I know I'm late to this rereading Harry party, but I have a couple of questions for you. Maybe you have some ideas about these things.

In "Prisoner of Azkaban," Harry finds out that the general population believes that Sirius betrayed James & Lily, therefore causing their deaths. Harry's reaction is something like "I hatehatehate this man & if I ever meet him then I'm gonna kill him! Kill him dead! And it can't happen too soon!" Now, to the best of my knowledge, the first time Harry really learns about a killing spell is in Moody's class in "Goblet of Fire," which happens a whole year after Harry's declaration to kill Sirius. So how exactly did Harry plan on killing Sirius? I have wondered this for years now.

Also, at the end of "Order of the Phoenix," Dumbledore tells Harry:
“There is a room in the Department of Mysteries, that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.”

So there is a locked room full of love? How did they manage that? How is love a physical object that can be locked up in a room? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN, I WANT TO KNOW. Seriously, JK, sometimes you write the most confusing things.

PS: I just read your posts on "Order of the Phoenix," and my goodness. Reading about the death of Sirius is honestly like the second time in my life I cried during a book. The first time was "Where the Red Fern Grows." I had never been so attached to a character before. I also cried when Dumbledore, Hedwig, & Fred died. Seriously attached to these characters.

I’m sure Harry had no idea how he planned to kill Sirius Black. I’ve always assumed it was just one of his rage episodes, to be honest. He’s a teenage boy with incalculable anger issues. He probably didn’t know how he was going to exact his revenge but I’m sure it would have involved lots of physical violence, or as McGonagall calls it, “Muggle dueling.”

Yes, there is a locked room of love. The greatest thing about it is that it doesn’t need an explanation at all - it’s the Department of Mysteries! They managed to turn the concept of time into clocks and time turners and that thing that made that one Death Eaters head turn into that of a crying baby; they got the concept of thought by studying brains; undoubtedly they’ve lost a few Unspeakables attempting to study death by way of the veil. I’m not sure how they managed to keep love locked up inside a room, but the fact that it can’t even be studied because the door can’t even be opened, it’s such a powerful force, says more than anything that a physical manifestation of love ever possibly could.

Thanks for the questions! :)

Anonymous asked: Hm, Okay, this may have been asked before, but it's been irking me- If boggarts have no shape/form until they see someone and transform, then how did Moody know it was a boggart banging around in that cupboard in Sirius's house? Obviously Moody could have seen it, but how could it have seen Moody, since the door was still closed, and how would it have known what to transform into?

I’ve done a bit of research on this so I could give you a better answer than, “I don’t know,” but unfortunately no one else seems to know either. It isn’t that boggarts have no form, though, it’s that no one knows what their original form is because they’re shapeshifters. I read a theory a few times that a boggart’s original form is that of the essence of fear, whatever that may look like, and that Moody’s magical eye could see that and he just figured out that it was a boggart. Personally, I always just thought that the boggart could sense it was being seen and who was looking at it so it shifted into Moody’s worst fear. But there aren’t any firm answers on it that I’ve found so far. Maybe we’ll learn more about it as Pottermore progresses!

Links for Easier Backreading

I’ve gone through all of the chapter recaps/reviews and linked their respective posts to the chapter titles on the rereading schedule post. Now, if you’re looking for just a specific chapter recap, or if you want to read from the beginning or just from a certain book, you can just go to the schedule post and click through to whichever chapter you want to read. :)