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Diane, You are Amazing! I've been watching the progress of this mural from the start. I am looking forward to seeing the real thing soon! Beverly Johnson

Thanks for the encouragement Beverly! It's been a lot of fun, but I'm looking forward to wrapping it up and seeing it all done. Soon...

Is this the same little boy that was stood at the top of the hill in your other picture?

Hi Trish - it might be! Seems I have a thing about boys and hills!

-On the train to Hogwarts, Draco offers to be friends with Harry. Harry refuses. What do you think would have different if Harry had accepted Draco’s friendship?

Would have dissolved pretty quickly as Draco’s sense of wizard entitlement clashed with Harry’s underdog values.


-Why do you think Harry was sorted into Gryffindor? Which Gryffindor characteristics do you think Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville possess?

Well, examine the characteristics that were favored by each of the founders – GG preferred those brave of heart (though not necessarily strong of mind, which would explain Neville and Ron’s academic performance); RR preferred the finest minds, which made Hermione’s placement in Gryffindor a little curious; SS wanted those who craved power above all else – though it seemed another requisite for being in House Slytherin was to be a towering prat. Probably why the Hat shifted Harry over to Gryffindor. One might also note that the requisite is the *desire* for power, not the ability to *be* powerful (see Crabbe and Goyle). I thought there was something about being pureblood, too, but then neither Voldemort nor Snape would have qualified to be in Slytherin. Still find it somewhat dubious that with the exception of Horace Slughorn (and the posthumously redeemed Snape) that it appears NO Slytherin ever has any positive qualities. Would have enjoyed seeing an otherwise pleasant student in that house, who wasn’t constantly sneering at others, attempting to cheat, or get Hagrid fired. Not much to say about Hufflepuff, except to say that she was fine to get the castoffs of everyone else. Frankly, I never saw Ron as being terribly heroic, and would have been perfectly appropriate to have been in Hufflepuff, considering he spent most of the series complaining about/fleeing from spiders, snakes, dark wizards, et al. Then again, there's that whole legacy thing with families staying in the same house, and one isn't (see Sirius), its a remarkable thing. Side note -- what house was Pettigrew in? I can't imagine it would have been Gryffindor, would it?

-If Draco Malfoy had been sorted into Gryffindor, do you think he would have eventually become friends with Harry?

Malfoy didn’t possess the strength of heart to be sorted into Gryffindor. Moot question. He was a bigot and a coward.


-Which house would you like to be in?

Frankly, probably Hufflepuff. They’re the only house who doesn’t seem to be carrying around some kind of chip on their shoulders.


-What kinds of food are described in this book? Which ones would you most like to try?

Was curious throughout about butterbeer. Was it inebriating, or more like root/birch beer? I thought at one point or another in the series, I had reason to believe both. Don’t think I’d be that interested in most of the sweets described.


-What classes does Harry take? Which ones would you like to take?

Probably the practical/immediate application ones. Charms, Transformation, definitely. DADA. Those which don’t require components. Potions (aside from being taught by a sneering bully) wouldn’t help that much, unless you had regular access to a wizarding lab. Same to be said about Herbology, unless you had regular access to a magic nursery. Divination from a more “scientific” (magictific?) viewpoint might be interesting, but JKR made the subject so laughable under Trelawny that it holds little appeal. History? Meh. Astronomy? Meh. I can get those at muggle schools. Might be interesting to have learned more about Numerology.


-How do you play Quidditch? What parts of the game do you like? Would you change any aspects of the game?

Can’t say I am a fan. Never particularly liked the chapters describing the games, and felt the Cup match in the beginning of GoF should have been cut to make the book more streamlined. Have to admit the only thing that made Quiddich appealing for me was the movies with Sean Biggerstaff’s depiction of Oliver Wood.

-How did the Mirror of Erised get its name? What would you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised?

Get its name? This a trick question, or did I actually catch something before Susan the Great? Erised = desirE … What would I see? What’s my greatest desire? Probably not printable in a blog that’s aimed at children’s lit. ;)


-Should Harry, Ron and Hermione have snuck out of their dorm to rescue the Sorcerer’s Stone? Why did Neville try to stop them?

From a literary standpoint, sure. It sets the frame for the next several books. Harry thinks he knows more than his teachers, refuses to communicate, get advice, or use some common sense/caution (hello, Gryffindor?) and goes out to do what he thinks is right. Neville wanted to stop them because he had a handle on sanity.


-How did Harry get the Sorcerer’s Stone out of the Mirror of Erised? Do you think Dumbledore expected Harry to rescue the Sorcerer’s Stone?

Wasn’t it designed to go to Harry (or someone like him) by Nicholas Flamel? And yes, it pretty well seems Dumbledore was playing Harry through the whole series like a marionette.

-Dumbledore says “There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” What examples are there of this in the book/During the final banquet, why does Dumbledore award the last ten points to Neville instead of to Ron, Harry or Hermione?

Combined these, cause they’re pretty clearly linked. Dumbledore gave Neville the points, cause as an otherwise fairly meek kid, it took a lot of guts to stand up to HH&R when they wanted to go off and do something stupid and dangerous.


-When this book was published in England, the original title was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Which one do you like better; the American title or the British title?

Would have been nice to have kept the original English version to get a better taste for british culture and vernacular. Kind of sad that the speculation was that if American kids saw the word “Philosopher” they’d stay away like it was infected with the plague.

Whew. Anyway. Back to work. Give my best to K&D

Jim-
Wow! You actually answered all my questions! I'm very very very impressed.

I'll post a couple of quick things here, and then I see that I really need to write another post on this topic. =)

You're absolutely right, some of the questions (such as how to play Quidditch, how did the Mirror of Erised get its name, etc.) do have straightforward answers. The reason is that the assignment I wrote the questions for assumed that you were leading a book discussion group with 3rd and 4th graders in a public library. I put a couple of questions with easy answers in there to loosen up the kids and let them feel comfortable talking. Actually, there were a lot more of those questions in my original paper, but I cut out most of them for the blog post.

Hermione was in fact, almost sorted into Ravenclaw (it was mentioned in the 5th book at a DA meeting).

Pettigrew was in Gryffindor (although it's never stated directly). I'm making the assumption because Pettigrew tagged around with the other three Marauders and planned excursions with them, something that would have been very difficult if he wasn't in the same house as them.
I think the Sorting Hat sorts on potential. Pettigrew had the potential to be a better and braver person than he turned out to be.

I asked the question about Draco being sorted into Gryffindor mainly because of Dumbledore's comment in the 7th book about sorting too soon.

Butterbeer seems to definitely be a non-alcoholic drink because it's what all the kids in the drink order when they're in bars and taverns. Harry has mulled mead at the beginning of the sixth book and says he's never tasted anything like it before.

Now I have to go think about which house I'd like to be in, what I'd see in the mirror of Erised and what my favorite foods are in the book. Hmmmm. Come to think of it, these also sound like good poll questions.

Maybe part of my frustration with Rowling's discussion of characters' lives beyond the seventh book is that the things she's said seem, following the set-up she's done in the course of the series, so obvious and right. So why *not* let readers make their own conclusions? Take Neville -- of *course* he was going to go into herbology, and his gentle nature does lend itself to teaching young ones. And Harry's wanted to be an auror since he first learned what one was. Hermione I would totally have seen as an attorney for whatever the wizarding equivalent of the ACLU is. I guess my ideas about Luna depart from Rowling's, in that I would expect Luna not only to travel the world in search of oddities, but to follow in her father's footsteps and *write* about them -- that she'd be a writer more than anything else. I'm less sure about Draco, but I imagine he'd end up wearing a suit doing something corporate with a lot of money involved. What about you?

I want to add... I can't see Luna being much of a journalist, but I think she'd write the most fanciful travel missives from the Amazon jungle. She'd always be a loose, free spirit.

It's funny, but having everyone talking about Harry & co. again just makes me *miss* them, you know? I have no perspective on that series. I was just too close to it. Which is weird.

Celery Soda- Very intriguing theories. I love hearing this kind of stuff.

What do I think? Good question. I started writing a response in the comments section... and went on for so long that I decided to write a post about it. See above.

Adrienne- yes, I miss Harry too. Actually, I think I miss is hearing people talk about it. I have no perspective on the series whatsoever either.

I'm going to answer my own question in the comments section of this post. Even with the spoiler space, it's still easy to see the names if you're scrolling past this post on the way to another one.

I was the most upset by Fred's death.
It was almost impossible to keep reading at that point because I felt like I had just lost a close friend.

Fred's bothered me a lot, too. It was like, hey, everyone made it through that little skirmish! And then NOOOOO! (Kind of like the death of a certain crew member near the end of the movie Serenity, if you've seen it.) And yet, it also seemed inevitable. What's the worst thing you can do to a set of twins? Kill one of them!

I also felt a real pang for Hedwig, possibly because she was an innocent animal. And what was she doing flying in a cage anyway?! She should have been flying with her wings!!

I don't know if there are any deaths I'd call "unnecessary", because I don't think the book would have had the same impact if no one close to our hearts had died (Remus... Tonks...). But that doesn't mean I can't be mad at Rowling just the same! :-)

Lisa- I think the death of a Weasley was inevitable, but it absolutely broke my heart that it was Fred. And it was even worse to imagine George going through life without his best friend.

A lot of people have mentioned how upset they were about Hedwig... that's a good point that she was trapped in a cage- which made it worse. If you want a good laugh, be sure to visit the website hedwigisnotdead.com

I agree that there had to be deaths... Harry couldn't save the world without losing people close to him. And it had to be major charaters. But still... it was hard to read.

LOL... some people have too much time on their hands. :-) Hedwigisnotdead.com gives me faith in the universe.

Hedwigisnotdead.com is a parody site of the former Dumbledoreisnotdead.com website. The Hedwig site is a hoot, isn't it? (pun intended).

I hated the epilogue, but I understand why some people love it.

What I didn't like about it was that I didn't care that Ron and Hermione married and Ginny and Harry married. I wanted to know what HErmione did when she grew up. I wanted someone to totally surprise me.

Kelly,
I agree that I wanted to know more about Hermione in the epilogue- and what her career was. J.K. Rowling did address this in the webchat, by saying that Hermione worked in the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures Department and later in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. But it would have been great if this was in the book.

I, on the other hand, didn't care about their jobs. I wanted to know that they were happy and fulfilled in their personal lives. I was happy to know more in the webchat, but I thought the epilogue was perfect.

Hi Paige,
Good to see a defense of the epilogue! Why did you think it was perfect?
You inspired me to post my own thoughts about why I like the epilogue- see the post above this one.