It is in an occlumency lesson aswell. Dont have an (english) book here but Harry cries out, right after Snape pulled the memory up. The connection breaks, Snape asks him what all this is about and Harry tells him, he had dreamed many times. Snape than asks wether he had any more dreams about the dark lord.

Chapter: Okklumentik. Seite 631 "[...]aber Mr. Weasley führte ihn nach links, eine steinerne Treppe hinunter... "JETZT WEISS ICH'S! JETZT WEISS ICH'S!" Wieder war er auf allen vieren am Boden von Snapes Büro[...]

 

Random question: Can anyone recall Harry having a shared class with the Ravenclaws at any time before 6th year? The more I'm thinking of it, the stranger it gets. Like, I always thought that electives and NEWT level classes were all houses, and everything else was 2 houses per class. But I legit cannot think of a time where the Gryffindors has a shared Defense class with any house. And I think the same goes for Transfiguration. Yet, I am fairly sure that Herbology and Potions are both shared. Hogwarts schedule makes so little sense...

 

Do we know approximately when Sirius broke out of Azkaban?

 

For his birthday, Harry receives the clipping with the picture of Wormtail that gets Sirius to escape. The article says the Weasley will be spending a month in Egypt, and they come back around the last week of summer.
On his birthday again, Sirius' evasion is mentionned on TV, presumably for the first time seing Vernon's reaction.
So I think it's safe to assume he escaped during the last week of July, probably the 29th or 30th, depending on the time Fudge took before telling the PM.

 

We have a pretty good idea. It's right around Harry's Birthday. We get the following clues:

Ron's family wins a trip to Egypt. It's the picture of his family in Egypt with Wormtail on Ron's shoulders that is the catalyst for everything. It's said in the article that the Weasley's will be in Egypt for a month.

Now, in Ron's letter to Harry, he says that they will be back a week before Hogwarts starts, and Harry's birthday is one month before Hogwarts starts, meaning that they left for Egypt about a week before Harry's birthday.

Hermione letter on Harry's birthday says that the picture in the article was from a week ago

Next, we first hear of Sirius's escape on the muggle news on Harry's birthday. He actually gets all the letters at like 1 am and wakes up later in the day to hear of it. One thing of note, is that that doesn't necessarily mean that that is the first playing of the news, but Vernon's reaction makes it sound like it's the first he heard of it, and he mentions it to Marge

Marge arrives of Harry's birthday, and stays for about a week. At the end of the week, is when Harry runs away and sees Sirius in his animagus form for the first time.

There next clue is that Sirius didn't break out immediately upon seeing the picture with Wormtail in it. It's said that the Azkaban guards mentioned that Sirius has been saying "He's at Hogwarts" in his sleep "for awhile now."

There is some ambiguity. Like, what does "for awhile now" actually mean? It's also said that Fudge gave Sirius the paper with the photo to begin with, but it's also said that Sirius escaped the night after Fudge was there. So it's kind of contradictory, unless one of them is just wrong, since they've given by different sources. In this case, Sirius's story is likely to be the truth, so he waited a couple of nights before escaping. So then the next ambiguity is how long did it actually take for it to get reported through muggle means. Then there's all the rounding errors. Like, when someone says a month, do they mean exactly one month? 31 days? 30 days? what about a week, 6 days? 7 days? 8 days?

Given all the factors, my best guess is that he escaped somewhere between July 28th and July 30th

 

It occurred to me recently that I cannot recall if 'the Hogwarts wards' have ever been mentioned in the canon.
That gave way to even bigger head scratcher, are wards as a concept fanon or canon?
I remember there being enchantments and curses, but not wards as are described in the fanfics usually.

 

Wards are fanon, as are 'notice-me-not' charms.

 

The name 'ward' given to magic that applies to an area is fanon, magic like that exists but it is given no special name(Muggle-Repelling Charm for example).

 

This. So much this.

Protective magic and enchantments certainly exist, and magic to hide a location is plentiful, but 'wards' are an entirely fanon concept. The last movie didn't help much here. Iirc it had some sort of magical dome covering the entirety of Hogwarts?

The sort of dome-like magic ward covering a structure or location that gives various protections is entirely fanon. It's the 'simple' explanation, much like why magical cores are such a popular fanon concept. Much what wards can accomplish in fanon is likely possible with canon spells, but in a different way. Spell the stone and wood of structures to be resistant. Spell the ground or garden to repel magical pests. Some sort of warning device to detect intruders with malicious intent. Various defensive spells are possible, just not in a straightforward 'ward' way that's so common in fanfiction.

Hogwarts has many protective spells and enchantments. But there is certainly no master ward keyed to the headmaster powered by a wardstone that lets the headmaster spy on every student.

 

In canon, Ancient Runes is a language class yes? Essentially Hogwarts Spanish class with not all that much magical utility?

 

Pretty much. From my understanding they just learn how to read ancient magical texts. Dumbledore left Hermione The Tales of Beedle the written in runes, which was a children's storybook, not anything with particularly magical properties.

 

Yep. I went through the books a whie ago and pulled out every mention of Anchent Runes I could find. The result was clear: it is a class about learning to translate Ancient Runes (and possibly some other anchent lanauages).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QSMQe66Y6pKum8sMn1C5ixsT8CpWfiCuOEBFD2GYMC8/edit

 

One other thing about Ancient Runes which is worth mentioning is that the Tales of Beedle the Bard were originally written in Ancient Runes. The publication date for Beedle's Tales is unknown, but we know (from Dumbledore's introduction to the book) that Beedle the Bard lived in the 1400s. For runes to remain in common use in magical Britain in the 1400s represents a significant divergence from the Muggle world, where the transition from runes to the Latin alphabet was well underway by the time Hogwarts was founded, and runes were pretty much eliminated by the 1100s.

This would suggest that Runes had a similar role for wizards as Latin did in the Muggle world, which leads to all sorts of interesting questions that go beyond the remit of this thread.

 

What year is Penelope Clearwater ?

My COS says she was 5th year et that time, but wiki says it's been modified on later editions to put her on Percy and Wood's class. Can anyone confirm or infirm that ?
As far as I can tell, her year is never mentioned again and she doesn't appear anyway post PoA.

 

I'm pretty sure that she was the head girl in PoA whigh would make her in Percys year. However, that may well be a retcon on the second book like you said. Either way I'd go with the change in this case.

 

I actually came across this a few weeks ago when I was researching who could be head girl during my story (faithless by default). I came across all the same information already mentioned, including the fact that she was retconned to be in Percy's year. My own pdf must be a pre-2004 rip, since it still says she's a 5th year in it.

Honestly, there's not really that much evidence to support it either way. I'm not exactly sure if there's some plothole that needed to be covered up. However, there is the lack of evidence which some people may say support it. Penelope is literally never mentioned in book 4, which if she had been a 5th year in book 2, she would have been a 7th year. You'd think she'd get mentioned even once as a contender to put their name in the Goblet. On the other hand, however, she's never mentioned as being the head girl either, though I think theres more explanations as to why not for that than for not being mentioned at all in book 4. For me, I think it just makes the most sense for them to be in the same year, though she doesn't necessarily have to be head girl.

-edit- I did find some evidence that the retcon actually happened with some further digging. I didn't download a bunch of random pdfs to find it, but I found an article where a guy was reading the series for the first time and actually quoted parts of the chapter, including the part where it says "Madam Pomfrey was bending over a sixth-year girl with long, curly hair."

 

Is it possible, that goblins don’t know who robbed them during Deathly Hallows?

I haven’t read post-hogwarts story for a while, but many of them include the idea that goblins confiscate some/all of Harry’s money, because of his involvement in the breakin.

Is it possible to spin canon (e.g. dead Griphook), so goblins have no idea who broke in, or were the trio seen?

Thanks

 

Pretty sure the goblins knew, the fact that the three came out of the bank's roof was reported in the paper, so even if the goblins didn't recognise them, they would have found out afterwards anyway. The break-in wasn't exactly a secret.