After experimenting with lots of cine quiz games and all that fun, my lunchmates and I started to tell the stories of movies that one of us watched and the others did not. So I got to narrate the story of Bama Vijayam, Nee Paathi Naan Paathi, Kan simitum neram etc and got to hear the stories of a few new movies like Bahubali and all that. But we just ran out of interesting stuff to narrate and as I don’t want to hear of Tamil serials and all that stuff, Harry Potter came to the rescue. So I glance at a few chapters each morning in my iPad’s iBooks and we are good to go for a short story-telling session. I don’t give the gist, I tell the entire story along with cats that read maps and round-faced boys with remembralls. But re-reading always means re-analysing and here is the first thing I noticed amiss
Professor McGonagall spends the entire day and a good part of the night outside Privet Drive observing the Dursleys. But when Dumbledore states that Petunia Dursley is going to be entrusted as Harry’s guardian, she seems shocked and taken aback. She is also unsure about whether it is true that Lily and James are really dead. If she is not certain about Lily’s demise and was completely in the dark about Petunia probably going to be the child’s guardian, then why was she spying the Dursleys in the first place?
I will be wondering aloud in this blog about similar stuff for a few months now. So if you are a Potterhead, please join me.
Feminine Tosh 
Harry Potter! (Doing happy dancing, please close your eyes)
Ah so, coming to Prof McGonagall, I thought (I haven’t reread in a while) she was observing the place on Dumbledore’s instructions – part of the Order of the Phoenix thing, I thought, was that you do not always question why you have been asked to do something by Big D – and was not given anymore details. But, she would indeed have heard of the rumours (Patronum communication was after all, always possible) and said the dialog under discussion.
On another note, there was this period in my life when I went through extreme Potter-world fascination (somewhere between 2006 to 2009) and used to visit quite a lot of fan fiction websites. I had written about a dozen or so fan-fiction drabbles and short-stories. I know that Lord of the Rings came before this and is considered a classic of its own stature. But, to me, it can never, ever be as funny, as insightful, as magical or as painful (in a good way) as HP series. I am awed by the world that LotR created, the dedicated research that went into it. Yes, dementors are nothing but Ring-Wraiths in disguise, but HP is still too…uhhmm…human and magical at the same time than LotR. I had this friend, who is a fierce champion of LotR and considers HP slightly lesser than it and the arguments we used to get into! Ah, thankyou, you brought back some great memories!
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Rahini, I think the reason McGonagall was watching the Dursleys had nothing to do with the senior Potters. It was to do with Voldemort, and knowing that he had it in for Harry. If Lily had to come some place, this was probably the place she would come to, and Voldemort would know that. They had to cover all their bases, and she was staking out the place. It is not necessary that she know of things that happen elsewhere, until later.
Her dismay at Petunia being the guardian of the child is because she knows Petunia is a muggle and not sympatico to the magical world. She must have assumed that Sirius or even Dumbledore himself would have been chosen to protect the kid.
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p.s. You make me want to go read them all again. 🙂
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Madhu: I have to admit that that is what I was thinking too. But I realised that the theory doesn’t hold water on rereading. There are bosses who after giving you an impossible deadline that required an entire weekend have the gall to lecture you on how you should have finished your task by Friday afternoon and had fun during the weekend. But we like to think prof d isn’t that boss.
Wouldn’t he have said, “minerva I am sorry I had to give duty on the centuries most important party night ” rather than “why are you here, Prof McG? Should you not be out partying?”
Anu: yes, that does make sense. Thanks.
And yippee I have fellow Potterheads who interact on my blog. You ladies made my day.
🙂
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Hey I don’t know anyone who disliked the Harry Potter series!! I was mostly the same age as Harry when I read each book, and so for a long time I liked to think I’m Hermione. 😀
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Madhu: I am able to see the recent comments in ie8, safari and android. What browser are you using?
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I use Chrome. And, it is working now. Infact, it started working some couple of hourse after I wrote that comment; so, I assumed that you had done something. 🙂
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BTW, I still can’t console myself with the fact that you use IE. Patience, is definitely your virtue! 😀
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Rahini, I looked into the complete website and there seems to be the following problems:
1. The main page, on opening, doesn’t give certain posts in chronological order. For example, ‘Dusky is such a pretty word’, ‘Countering Male privilege’ and the one about slaps in Cinema all come ‘after’ your oldest post. All these posts do not come under any given category. That is, from the home page, I cannot click on a genre / category and go to these posts.
2. The format of these posts (which do not come in chronological order) is not the same as the other posts. The posts in general are in light pink background, but these posts come directly on the dark pink background that borders the usal theme (hope to God that I am making sense).
3. The Recent comments section in the Home page does not work. But, if I go into a post and then try to access the Recent Comments section, then I am able to.
4. I can see the issues in both Chrome and MF.
This is just FYI – would have sent a mail if I had your ID. Instead putting it as a comment, please remove it.
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Madhu: Oh well let it remain a comment. I do understand the points you are making, but it is not occuring in my browsers.
IE is what my client office is working on and the only thing browser I can use. They give me access to blogs so I don’t complain much and be thankful for what they do give.
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When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added Iget several emails with the same comment. Is there any wayyou can remove people from that service? Thanks a lot!
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