Hogwarts Herald

Yes the read along is back on. To my faithful reader, whomever you might be, I am sorry for the delay. My persistent absences are inexcusable. And now, on with the story.

Chapter 5 begins with poor Harry thinking that all of last night was a dream. At insitant tapping, though, he awakes to find himself in the hut still. Never has a sight done his heart more good. He lets a small owl into the room who drops off a newspaper of some kind and begins rummaging through Hagrid’s coat. He tries to dissuade the owl, but gets a nip in the finger instead. Finally Hagrid wakens enough to let him know the owl wants to be paid for the newspaper. In this world there are no paperboys, the owls bring you the daily news. And the WILL be paid, or your eyeballs will be plucked out it seems.

After rummaging through Hagrids coat for a time, Harry finds some strange looking coins. It seems that the wizards don’t use “muggle money” and instead they have their own form of currency. There are Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons. Knuts are bronze, and have the least value. Sickles are silver and are worth more than Knuts, but it takes 17 of them to make one Gold Galleon. After paying the owl with several of the little bronze coins, Harry speaks to Hagrid about something that was disturbing him. Harry has no money. He has no Muggle Money at all to trade in, and he definately doesn’t have any of this strange wizard money. Or so he thinks.

Hagrid is shocked that Harry would think that his parents didn’t leave him anything. Why he’s shocked still I’m not sure. It’s pretty obvious by this point that the Dursley’s didn’t think to tell Harry anything that was really valid or true about his life before he came to live with them or about his parents at all. Hagrid informs Harry that he has more than enough money, and that will be their first stop for the day. They will be going to the Wizards Bank Gringotts. It’s run by Goblins. It is the safest place anyone could think to put anything, and there are even rumors of the highest security vaults being guarded by dragons. Of which Hagrid would love to have one. A dragon that is, not a high security vault.

Harry and Hagrid traversed the streets of London, heading out to get his school supplies, and his money. Once they have finally negotiated their way off the underground, and walked a bit, they find themselves at the Leaky Cauldron. Harry realizes, while standing outside of it, that nobody else seems to notice it at all. As a matter of fact, Hagrid had to point it out to Harry, otherwise he too would have just passed it by. Upon entering the Leaky Cauldron, Harry is recognized. This is his first real introduction to how famous he really is. People come up to him, shaking his hand, greeting him with enthusiasm and honor. Dedalus Diggle is thrilled when Harry points out that he remembers him. Here Harry also meets Professor Quirrel. A strange and nervous fellow who is going to be Harry’s Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. He is nice enough, although he is very shaky and stuttery and wears a strange turban on his head.

Eventually Hagrid is able to get Harry out of the Leaky Cauldron and they go into an alley behind it, where Hagrid taps the wall with his umbrella and the entire thing opens up. Beyond it is a world apart. An entire avenue of shops and people, all selling and buying strange magical things with the strange wizard money. There are places selling everything that is on his list and then some. Cauldrons, and wands and owls, oh my!!! Harry and Hagrid make their way to a large white building that is Gringotts. In it there are all sorts of wonders. After finding Harry’s key they jump into a trolley on some very precarious tracks with a goblin named Griphook. After what seems like miles of twisty turns at breakneck speeds they arrive at a vault. Griphook opens it up and inside are piles and piles of gold, silver and bronze. Harry is rich. Wealthier than he ever thought he would be. His parents did leave him something after all. They climb back in the trolley and make one more stop before heading out. That stop is at a very high security vault that requires the finger of the goblin to open the door. Inside is one small grubby package. Hagrid was sent to pick it up by Dumbledore himself. It’s top secret and very important.

Once they have left Gringotts, they do all of Harry’s school shopping. With two major stops to get a wand and a robe. At Madame Malkins, Harry runs into a blonde haired boy who seems extremely ill tempered and snobby. Much to Harry’s relief he leaves quickly. Afterwords, Hagrid decides to get Harry a birthday present. They go to Eeylops Owl Emporium and come out with a beautiful snowy owl, whom Harry decides to name Hedwig. And then they go to Olivanders. At Olivanders Harry tries out dozens of wands, not knowing what he’s really trying for. Then suddenly, he finds out. A spray of colored sparks shoot out of the end of his wand. The most curious thing about his wand being that the phoenix whose tail feather is in the wand is also the core of the wand that gave him his scar. The wand that killed his parents. The wand of Voldemort.

Forgive me readers, for I have cyber-sinned. It’s been 14 days since I last blogged. No excuses, just a quick “I suck” before moving on to the actual subject of this post. well, several subjects actually…

First of all, it has been released that Deathly Hallows will indeed be released in two films. They will be released approximately six months apart with part one being released November 2010, and part 2 opening May of 2011. That sounds SO FAR AWAY!!! And it is, with Half Blood Prince coming at us quickly and releasing November 21st in both regular format and IMAX, it will be two years before the release of the first half of Deathly Hallows. Producer David Heyman claims that this is not being done for financial reasons. I think that with the opening weekends that the Potter films never fail to produce, that extra cash can’t really hurt. Rather, he said, the decision was made purely from an artistic point on view. While certain subplots could be removed from the prior films, the same cannot be said of ANY aspect of Deathly Hallows. Well at least he has that right. Although, I am still “peeved” at the removal of Peeves the Poltergeist from the movies as a whole. I think that as a character he added much to the series, a bit of fun that perhaps lightens up some otherwise very serious moments.

In other news, Dame Maggie Smith, otherwise known to you as Professor Minerva McGonagall, is battling breast cancer like the strong woman she is known to be. Sources state that she has had a tumor removed and has had one round of chemo as a preventative measure. She is still in the process of filming the movies and my best wishes go out to her and her family. Blessings on you Dame Maggie, may you recover quickly and with as little pain as possible.

That’s it for now readers, although I will be resuming my read-along this week. Life happened and I was unable to for a little while, but I promise, chapter 5 is coming up!!!

I am a big fan of the various Harry Potter fansites all over the web. Most of them that I have found are very well executed, and have astonishingly good graphics and information. Almost all of them have chats, forums, games, articles, activities of some type. And then there’s JK Rowling’s website. It is whimsical, informative, fun. It has things you can find and games of sorts in finding the “easter eggs” on the different pages. It is a fantastic page, very much in the Harry Potter theme while still being very clearly Jo’s page.

Because of these wonderful sites, with obvious thought and caring poured into them, I expected the same from the parent company of the films. Going to Warner Bros. sad attempt at a website, though, is subjecting yourself to what amounts to a large commercial for the DVD’s. There is no information on the next film, Half-Blood Prince, which is already in production. There are no articles, no games, nothing but a few downloads of backgrounds and mediocre avatars. One screensaver, and then a gallery with about 40 photos from the film. There is not even a synopsis of the movie. It amazes me that this is probably one of their largest projects. Seven films that a guaranteed to be blockbusters, and they did not even put in the effort to make the site remotely interactive. It is ridiculous that there is not one single game, one lousy word search, anything that might make the site a place people would want to visit the site more than once. Bad form WB, put a little effort into it, will ya?

That someone, who is knocking at the door, of the shack, on a rock, in the middle of the sea, is Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. He has come to wish Harry a happy birthday, and hand deliver his letter. Upon entering the shack, he is greeted by Vernon Dursley’s rifle. He is a giant of a man, and strong enough to knock the door completely off of this shack, but Uncle Vernon thinks his rifle will have some sort of effect on him. Hagrid laughs and promptly ties the gun into a knot. He sets up a roaring fire in the small grate and cooks up some sausages that he is keeping in his moleskin coat, along with several live animals, a teapot, tea, booze, and any number of other random things.

His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

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Again, there are no new characters introduced in the Letters to No One, but a lot of important events. In this chapter Harry is mentioned leaving the house all day sometimes to hide from Dudley & his gang. In future chapters and the subsequent books we see him sparring most often with Draco who is a villian in the exact opposite way of Dudley. While he is still a bully, he uses his brain and the brawn of his flunkies to do the bullying. Dudley is not smart enough for that, and I think if he had had magic in him he would have ended up being a hanger on, similar to Crabbe and Goyle, except scorned even by them for his Muggle parentage.

We are also introduced to Uncle Vernon’s fear of the wizarding world. Not because of his running and hiding from the letters, although that is one of the symptoms. No, what I’m really referencing is his immediate move to put Harry in an actual bedroom. As soon as he realized that the people from this school know that Harry has been sleeping in the Cupboard under the stairs he moved him. His fear runs so deeply that he makes changes in his own household, giving the child that he dislikes so much, a room of his own. Throughout the series this fear, which mirrors his hatred of that same said world, increases exponentially. When Dudley is given the tail of a pig in the next chapter, Aunt Marge is blown up like a balloon, and he sees Harry, whom he has taken joy in abusing his entire life, become stronger every year, Uncle Vernon becomes more afraid. Yet in the end, in the very end, he allows his life, and that of his family, to be put into their hands. Because even though he fears them, I believe that he knows that they are mostly good people, perhaps better people than he is, and that they aren’t out to harm him…

The Letters from No One is by far one of my favorite chapters in this book. It opens with Harry finishing up his punishment for the escape of the boa constrictor. The summer holidays have already started and Harry is doing his best to avoid Dudley and his gang. He is excited about only one thing. He will finally not be going to the same school as Dudley. It seems the little beast has been accepted at his fathers old school, Smeltings. Harry, of course, is not that special and is going to be attending the local public school. All is going as usual, until one day when Harry is sent to check the mail…

“Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets.”

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ABC Family is having a Harry Potter weekend this week. They showed Sorcerer’s Stone yesterday, and then repeated it today followed by Chamber of Secrets. Tomorrow They will be showing PoA, complete with a clip of the new film, Dr Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who.

Watching SS yesterday, I was struck by one thing. It has been ages since I watched it. I don’t think I’ve watched Sorcerers Stone since the release of Chamber of Secrets. The thing that got me most was how darn young the kids are. I know they are only 11, but they look like babies now that we have seen them grow up. They had already gotten so muc bigger between SS and Cos, but it is hard to believe how much older than that they look now. I knwo that they were the proper age for SS, each of them being about 10 or 11, the eldest of the trio being almost 12 (I think) when they started filming. The movies have been released one a year, although it took about a year and a half between CoS and PoA. People make fun, saying they are too old to be playing the parts anymore, but I disagree. And here’s why…

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In the Vanishing Glass, there is no real introduction of any new characters. We do encounter Dudley’s best friend Piers Polkiss, but he never really becomes a major player in the series as a whole. There is, however, a portion of this chapter that becomes very important later on in the series. Let us look then, in depth, into Harry being a Parselmouth.

In this, the second chapter of the first book, we are introduced to a phenomenon that we are lead to believe is the same as any of the strange things that have happened to Harry. Just as his hair grows back overnight, and he lands on the roof of the school kitchens, we think that it’s just a fluke of his nature that he is able to speak to this snake. Come Chamber of Secrets we learn how big of a deal this really is. However it is not until Deathly Hallows that we find out why he is able to speak it. Harry has this ability due to the part of Voldemort’s soul that resides in him.

Jo took the term Parselmouth from “an old word for a person who has a problem with the mouth, like a hare lip” according to Wikipedia.

Strangely, Parselmouth is a language he never really learned, and uses without thinking. Without even knowing that he is doing it at all. In SS it seems as though he is merely speaking English, and it is the snake who is somehow able to understand him. In CoS, while in the middle of a duel, Harry blurts out in Parseltongue, and everyone is shocked. It turns out that it is very rare. Only Salazar Slytherin and his descendants and Voldemort himself are mentioned to have had this talent, and while I’m sure there are more, it is obvious that it is rare and commonly associated with Dark Magic. Dumbledore is able to understand it, although no mention is made of his speaking it.

It becomes a handy tool that Harry uses to get into the Chamber, and is mentioned in each of the books for one reason or another, but it is not until DH that we see something completely new. Ron, imitating what he sees Harry say to the Locket, is able to open the Chamber. As far as I know of, this is the first time a wizard that is not a born Parselmouth is able to speak Parseltongue. Good for you Ron!!!

This is the first of my In Depth Chapter Blogs. These will be done in a slightly different style than the New Readers blogs. I alread have done a full chapter review in the NR blogs, so these will really be a listing of the clues that Jo has left for us in these chapters, and how they relate to the other books. Also a look of each of the characters that we are meeting (or hearing about) for the first time. From time to time we will in In Depth Character Analysis of the major players in the Harry Potter Saga. Because the first chapter did not have these things listed, this blog will cover the first chapter of Sorcerers Stone. I will post another covering The Vanishing Glass, in depth.

Characters:
In order of introduction

Vernon Dursley: Harry’s Uncle Vernon. He is the brother-in-law of Lily Potter. Big, burly, and generally a very negative person. Uncle Vernon seems to take joy in being angry and mean. Throughout the entirety of the seven books, I hold the high hopes that Uncle Vernon will change. That somehow he will see that Harry is a good boy who is trying his hardest to please the only father figure he had for the first ten years of his life. Unfortunately, early on in the first book, Uncle Vernon seems to lose his mind completely, and I don’t believe he ever gets it back. As far as these first two chapters go, Vernon Dursley is a father who wants nothing more in the world than to be normal. This may seem, at first glance, to be a noble cause for a father. But he is questing for normalcy so much as to “not approve of imagination”.

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Having finally borrowed a copy of Sorcerers Stone, (SS) since I can’t find mine, I have re-read chapter one of Book 1. That’s right, way back at the beginning. Since my predecessor on this blog has already written a darn fine synopsis of this first chapter for those who have read all the way to the end of the series, this will be my first chapter directed toward people who have not yet read the books, and maybe not even seen the movies. I know there are still a fair few of you out there, and I have hopes that you will enjoy these books as much as I did!!! I hope to recover the exact same wonder and magic I had reading it the very first time by looking at it through new eyes with you. Ok, on with the show.

“Harry Potter rolled over in his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous…”

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Did you ever imagine yourself walking down the streets of Hogsmeade? Maybe having lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and a nice mug of Butterbeer? Or traversing the halls of Hogwarts itself? It seems that in December 2009 those fantasies can come to life. Universal Studios Orlando is opening a Harry Potter themed park called the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

The park will be located within the Islands of Adventure Theme Park, and is scheduled to include the castle and grounds, Forbidden Forest, and Hogsmeade. One can only hope that sometime in the future Diagon Alley will be incorporated. Each of the areas is supposed to include “immersive rides and interactive attractions” as well as “experiential shops and restaurants” where you can sample the fare of the Wizarding World. I imagine along with any regular dishes, you will probably be able to find pumpkin pasties, butterbeer, and other foods seemingly unique to JK Rowling’s world. I would be so much fun to have lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and maybe dinner (and drinks?) at the Hogs Head in the evening. Maybe even step onto the Hogwarts Express, and take a look around.

In the Castle itself, well my mind is just racing the the possibilities. Sit in on a Charms Class. Ride the circular escalator into Dumbledore’s office and see the moving portraits. Walk through the greenhouses and see the mandrakes. Get to the Chamber of Secrets through Moaning Myrtles Bathroom. So many possibilities!!! Also, rumor has it that the main attraction is going to be a ride in the Flying Ford Anglia! I think that would be awesome. I have been on Universal Studios rides of E.T. and Back to the Future, and both of them were absolutely amazing. The Back to the Future was like any other motion ride, but you were actually in the DeLorean with only 2 or 4 people. I can’t remember, but I think it was 2. I was a bit more fond of the E.T ride where you were sitting on a replica of a bicycle, actually flying through the “air”. I think that this partucular ride is going to have better technology than either of those two, and I, for one can’t wait to ride it.

Here are some artist depictions of the different sections of the park, from the Universal Studios website.

This is what they call the “Owls Eye View” Depicting what the entire park should look like from above.

Above is what the Hogwarts Castle is going to look like, complete with guests wandering through it.

And here, the quaint village of Hogsmeade, complete with snow on the rooftops. Take notice of the Hogwarts Express steaming away in the corner!!!

OOOOH, I’m so darn excited, I just can’t wait!!!!

Hello everybody. I wanted to tell you a little about me, and where I’m going to take this blog. I have been reading here, since I discovered the page, and have commented pretty regularly. I love comments. I love to make them, and I love to read and respond to them. If you leave a comment, or send me a message, I will do my best to respond within 24 hours.

I first discovered the Harry Potter books around the release of Book 4. I remember I was watching the Today show one morning and they had a little girl on the air. She couldn’t have been more than 8 years old. She was holding a copy of Goblet of Fire, which had been given to her illegally since it wasn’t due to be released for another 48 hours. That is how she made it onto Today, interviewing with Katie and Matt. I thought to myself, what kind of childrens book gets this much attention for an early copy sneaking out? I think I had been living under a rock until then as this was the first I had ever heard about these books. That very day, when I went to work, I found that no fewer than 5 of my co-workers were reading one of the first three books. Seeing this many grown adults, bill collectors no less, reading this supposed chidrens book… Well it piqued my interest. So that evening, I went to Wally-World, and bought the first book. I had finished it within 48 hours, and immediately bought the second. that too was finished in two or three days. By now, of course, GoF had already been released and I couldn’t find a copy of PoA or GoF anywhere. I finally begged my friend to loan me her copies, and she did, with the stipulation that I couldn’t take them home. I spent the next 6 work days on the phone, saying the same thing I said hundreds of times per day, reading. Since I didn’t have to think to do my job, it was relatively easy.

Suffice it to say, I was addicted from the first chapter. It helps, that I am a practicing Wiccan. Not that the books really relate to Wicca at all, it’s just nice to see books that are magically based, where the witches are not necessarily the bad guys. Plus I’m a big ol’ geek. We dress up for the movie premieres, and for the last book release party. There is not one of the movies that I have seen any later than 12:02am on the release date with my Hubby, and generally I go see them the next afternoon with my mom.

That being said, I am planning on continuing the read along that the previous writer started. I am doing something different though. For each chapter I will post two blogs, one of them will be an analysis of the chapter as it pertains to the series as a whole. It will contain spoilers, and it will remind us how things connect to one another. For those of us who have read the books more than once it will be a joy to delve deeper into the mind of J.K. Rowling, and the little nuggets of info that she planted to flower one, two, or even six books later.

The second blog will be for those that are reading for the first time. It will be the chapter through new(ish) eyes. I will blog it with no spoilers, no clues as to how the chapter pertains to the future of the series. I know that there are not a lot of you left, but there are some people out there who haven’t read the series. Three just where I currently work. I want those people to be able to read a blog about the series without having all those surprises ruined. I want you to have the same joy in figuring things out as I did, and the same discussions of “What do you think is going to happen?” that all of the rest of us did.

After each book, I will do a review of the movie in the same way, for those that have read the books, and for those that have only read up to that point in the books. Those will not only be reviews of the movies themselves, but things that were impotrtant to the book itself as well as the series as a whole, that were missed or messed up.

From time to time I also plan on doing updates for upcoming movies and events, and every now and then I might do a book review of something that is not a Harry Potter book, but something that I think HP fans will enjoy and what about the book, in comparison to the HP series will make you want to read it.

One last thing. If you have fanfic (family friendly please) that you would like to be read and reviewed, I am thinking about doing a regular segment on that as well. As you can see I have big plans for this blog. I hope that you are as excited as I am!!!

p.s. I also write another blog about the food network, come check it out!!!

It begins. Here we meet the Dursleys, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid. What struck me about this chapter, the very first chapter in all the Harry Potter books - the beginning of it all, is just how much extra information the reader is given. Information that won’t mean anything at all for many years to come.

I once read that JK Rowling spent 2 years planning out her books before she wrote a single chapter. It shows. The books are seamless, chapter flowing to chapter, book flowing to book. The books are devoid of the usual stuff you see - a character ‘accidentally’ dying and then, upon the author realising that the character is later needed, the character reappears, claimed missing rather than dead, or magically brought to life. There is no ‘magically brought to life’ in the HP books - when they’re dead, they’re dead. I think the best of us thought that maybe, just maybe, Lily and James might come back. Or that Sirius didn’t really die. And certainly not Dumbledore. It must have all been an elaborate trick, concocted by Dumbledore himself. But no - dead is dead, and it all works perfectly.

I digress. I’m meant to be talking about the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s / Sorcerer’s stone. So, what are the things that are mentioned in the first chapter that we initially skimmed over, having no idea of their importance?

First of all, there’s You-Know-Who. The name sounds funny, and it seems like your typical children’s book bad guy. But we don’t know as yet just why he has this pseudonym. Why no one says his real name - because it’s a lot more than just choosing a funny name to keep the kids interested.

Then there’s Dumbledore’s put-outer - the little clicker that can put lights out. We don’t really discover its importance until partway through book 7.

We find out that McGonagall is a cat and a woman. We don’t think much about it - after all, this is a book about magic, and a book for children. But we won’t find out just how significant animagus are to the story until several books later.

And we hear about Godric’s Hollow - again, it’s importance isn’t revealed until much, much later. In fact if you’d asked me, before I started re-raeding from the very start, if I’d heard of Godric’s Hollow in book 1, chapter 1, I would have said of course not. But there it is. Seamlessly integrated into the very beginning, just a taste, so that it has a tiny bit more meaning and significance when it finally comes to light.

And don’t even get me started on the references to Sirius Black.

To be continued…

On a completely unrelated note - does anyone watch the Simpsons? I know I do… so why not head over to the Simpsons blog and check out the latest news?

Hi everyone,

Fisrt of all I’d like to apologise for my recent unexplained absence (which shall remain unexplained…). Secondly, I’d like to use this short post to pose my ideas for the near future of this blog.

I’d like to invite all of my regular readers (and hopefully some new ones too!) to join me on a

Harry Potter Read-A-Long!

I’m going to start from the beginning (and I mean the beginning - remember how cute little 11-yaer-old Harry was?) and go chapter by chapter. We can chat about anything interesting that comes up - things you didn’t noticed the first (or second, or third) time around, things that were different or similar in the movie versions, and, now that the 7th book is well and truly out, things that foreshadowed things to come.

I do hope you’ll join me, way back at the beginning.

Well, it happened. An online Singapore newspaper has reported what we all thought was going to happen – JK Rowling has caused un uproar by outing Professor Albus Dumbledore.

The article, entitled ‘Potter author hit by hate mail’, begins: ‘Already disliked by conservative Christians for making witches and wizards the backdrop of her wildly popular Harry Potter books, British author JK Rowling has been targeted again by the religious right after she revealed that one of the main characters is gay.’

Apparently Dumbledore being gay ‘encourages homosexuality’.

The president of the Christian Coalition of America said ‘I would never allow my own children or grandchildren to read the books or watch the movies, and other parents should do so too.’

A spokesperson on the Christian Broadcasting Network in the US had this to say:

‘Harry Potter, an orphaned wizard, is one hero who has captured the innocent hearts of many children. When such a hero uses evil as a problem-solving tool, we need to be warned. Over time, the child can become adapted to the dark world of witchcraft and not even know that it is dangerous.’

Though it seems that, while many Christian readers were happy to read the Harry Potter books even though they contained ‘satanic themes’, some have found the homosexual relevation to be the last straw.

The revelation that Dumbledore is gay has also turned many Christian readers into ex-fans. Does it strike anyone else as odd that some levels of evil, devil worship and Satanism can be tolerated, while any degree of homosexuality, even though it was not shown or expressed in any way, is an absolute no-no? We lived with Dumbledore for 6 whole books, and still we didn’t know. (Sure, some people say they guessed all along, but that’s just ducky in hindsight…) One whole book after he died, JK outs him. But that’s still enough to turn many fans away from the books.

I’m finding it hard to understand why.

Comment and explanations are, as always, more than welcome!

Til next time, why not check out what’s happening at Big Brother?