In the books are the protections that Dumbledore invokes around Harry and Petunia ever called blood protections or blood magic?

 

I don't have a copy of PoA to hand but I'm wondering when exactly did the events with Aunt marge happen? How long was she with them and did her blowing up happen on the last night of her stay or the first?

Is there a specific date or month it occurred in and/or was it before his birthday?

 

I don't think so. Every mention I can find just calls it a "protective charm," or "his mother's protection," and various things along the same lines.

She arrived on his birthday, and was supposed to stay for a week. And then he blew her up on the final day of her visit.

 

In the French books, is Voldemort translated to another language (say, to Lord Flugestodes), or left as it was in English versions?

 

I saw something about this on reddit. Apparently his name changes in the different languages, and they also change his original name (Tom Marvolo Riddle) to maintain the accuracy of the anagram.

For the French, his name is still Voldemort but his muggle name is "Tom Elvis Jedusor", to spell "Je suis Voldemort". For Slovenia though, his original name is Mark Neelstein and Lord Voldemort is translated as Lord Mrlakenstei.

Some of the stuff they did for translations is pretty interesting - they had trouble with things like the riddle in GoF from the sphinx, and N.E.W.T.s becoming F.U.T.T.s in Sweden.

Source.

Also, Tom Elvis Jedusor is an an awesome name...

Edit: Also I'm pretty sure it was brought up before and I can't remember if there was a conclusive answer provided, but according to that wikipedia page Sinistra is definitely female. J.K Rowling apparently told the Spanish translator this - I presume because of masculine/feminine words or something?

 

As hilarious as the Elvis and other head-scratching re-namings are, I can't help but think that the story loses something, as all stories do, in the translation. What better surname name could Rowling have picked for young Tom than 'Riddle'? After all, Dumbledore and later Harry have to solve the riddle of Tom Riddle to save the world.

And as Rni and others pointed out, "my being here" isn't referring to "being" as a physical body, but "being here" is owned, for lack of the correct terminology. "Being" and "here," "there," etc. are both required to make it work.

Example off the top of my head: "The past wasn't changed when Harry and Hermione used the Time Turner, due to their being there all along." Would probably be better to be worded as, ".. due to their having been there all along." And that ought to settle it, since 'being' can be replaced with 'having been.'

Hopefully I didn't beat a dead horse by skimming the previous posts. I don't know the exact linguistic terms, I just know what sounds correct after reading loads and loads of books and too friggin' many really awful technical reports.

 

In the Hindi versions the main characters remained the some but creature names and those of secondary characters were changed to relate to ideas associated with the characters...

Godric Gryffindor=Gaurav Garurdwar (Gaurav=Pride, Garur=A mythical bird)

Helga Hufflepuff=Maya Mehnatkash (Maya=Illusion, Mehnat=Work/Hardwork)

Rowena Ravelclaw=Chandra Cheelghat (Chandra=Moon, Cheel=Hawk)

Salazar Slytherin=Nagesh Nagshakti (Nagesh=Lord of Serpents, Nagshakti=Power of Snake/Snake power)

 

This has been bugging me for a while, but why exactly did Harry feel compelled to keep his interview with Rita Skeeter a secret from Cho when they met at Puddifoot's in OOTP? It's not like the whole school didn't find out about it before too long, so he could have just told her that he had an interview where he could tell everyone what happened in the graveyard, and that it would help get rid of Umbridge; I can't see Chang giving him a hard time over that, and even if word got out to Umbridge before the interview, it's not like it was illegal, so she couldn't have done anything about it even with advance knowledge.

There might be an easy explanation from this in the book itself, but I lost my copy of OOTP years ago, so I can't look it up. Any ideas?

 

From what I remember, he didn't know it was an interview. Hermione told him to meet up with her at whatsitcalled but I don't think she told him why.

 

Oh, I guess that makes sense. So it's all her fault for being an excessively secretive bitch. Seriously, wasn't she listening to Harry back at Grimmauld Place?
Apparently not.

 

How important was DA for students of Hogwarts ?

It is fair to say that without it, there would be many more failing grades in O.W.L. exams in DADA because of curse on teacher´s position, Umbridge teaching only theory and hints of general incompetency of wizards who actually lived during civil war with DADA spells (Shield Charm, what does it say about level of their children who live during peace and trust Ministry to protect them) ?

Or am I overestimating practice of spells in DA or underestimating level of drive/talent of Hogwarts students or difficulty of O.W.L. exams ? We know that Malfoy and Parkinson passed even without DA (Crabbe and Goyle did not pass, but I am not sure if even DA would help them as they are portrayed in books...).

 

I have a question that really needs answering. What is the name of the following fanfiction? I thought I saw it on here. It starts at the end of year two when Harry, insteadof destroying the diary, kills ginny, and ends up joining Tom. The basilisk is left alive, Riddle puts a memory charm on harry to protect him from Dumbledore's mind reading. Tim hires thugs who kill harry's aunt uncle and cousen, they meet up in knocturn alley, Harry catches tonks shadowing him, and that's all I remember. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Well, the students in the DA certainly seemed to think it was the difference between them passing and failing. That was the reason most of them joined; they didn't thing they could pass the practical exams otherwise.

Those kind of questions are more for this thread.

 

Is there a rule, when writing, on bending the meaning of a word. For example, you write a sentence and the word you want to use doesn't sound good. You can search for other words with the same meaning but they don't flow well with the sentence either. Can you use a word that has a similar meaning but flows with your sentence. In my case I want to use a word that technically works, but has a different connotation.

 

???

Unless we know the word and the way it's being used - nothing anyone says here is of any help to you, because the answer varies.

OKAY (same general meaning)
Original sentence: "DLP screwed another one of my ideas for a story."
Change to: "DLP blew up another one of my ideas for a story."

NOT OKAY (vastly different meaning)

Original Sentence: Bill Door blew up Portus in the WbA forum last night.
Change to: Bill Door screwed Portus in the WbA forum last night.

Give the sentence and context if you want any help.

 

I'd say that would probably depend on both the word itself and the context that it's in. Can you give us the example?

Unusual example...

 

Yeah, but it's simple... and your name and Portus's are two of the easiest to remember how to spell right for an A.D.D. addled brain.

 

If you're unfamiliar with the nuances of the English language and its slang derivatives, I'd say it's best to avoid using words outside their definition.

 

Harry wasn't aware it was an interview, and there's even a scene where Cho speaks to Harry after the interview came out, saying how brave he had been to do that and she'd have understood had he told her.

Rbechtel, though you'd be better off posting in the thread Bill Door pointed you to in case I'm wrong, I'm fairly sure that you're looking for To Define Treachery, though the story's changed and is/was being rewritten so I'm not sure how much of it will remain the same.

And as for my own question - in the same way that Sirius used the fact of his innocence to help hold onto his sanity in Azkaban, could you use a non-happy emotion such as anger to strengthen yourself whilst facing a dementor, or do they drain ALL emotions except despair and sadness?

 

What is described as the effect is that all your happy thoughts are taken away- Sirius was able to retain some semblance of hope because his knowledge of his own innocence wasn't happy.

Of course, Sirius also changed into Padfoot so that the Dementors would ignore him. This seems a more likely explanation for his retained sanity, up until his discovery of Pettigrew's location from the picture on the Prophet that showed the Weasley family winning the 700 Galleon lottery. Then, his anger and determination took over to sustain him- so yeah, anger works. Anger is a hard thing to hold onto though- it's a very active emotion.

JKR mentioned in interviews that she saw the Dementors as the embodiment of depression and despair that she felt in some of her worst times. 'Like depression, the creatures can be fought off but can never truly be eliminated.'

I take a different view of the Dementors, based upon 'meta-logic' (that special skill that nerds develop to argue the impossible rules of magic, faith and super science found in fiction works) and interpolation of JKR's meaning, as it relates to the function of depression.

Having been depressed, I can attest that you aren't losing the capacity for happy thoughts; your mind is instead locked into recalling a series of related, shameful memories that prevent you from attempting anything bit the most routine actions, unless you are shocked out of the cycle by a stronger emotion- usually fear, because something has gone wrong while you weren't paying attention and now you have to react to that immediate catastrophe.

So, Dementors don't steal happy thoughts- they dredge up the worst memories you have and feed off your recollection of that emotional pain. Which seems worse to you?