I just noticed that Rowling made a boo boo

People seem shocked when I tell them that I am constantly in the process of reading a Harry Potter novel -- that there is not a day that goes by when I am not somewhere at the start, in the middle or nearing the end of one of the seven novels by J.K. Rowling.

I've lost count of how many times I've read them (though conservative estimates place the number at 25).

So how is that I missed this?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the chapter entitled "Veritaserum". Page 594 of the Canadian first edition, published in 2000. Eighth line from the bottom.

Barty Crouch Jr. has already transformed back into himself after being stunned by Dumbledore and deprived of his next dose of Polyjuice Potion. The real Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody has been discovered in the bottom of his own magical chest and Barty Crouch Jr., under the influence of three drops of Veritaserum, is explaining everything to Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Harry and Winky, the house elf.

Crouch's transformation back into himself is complete and Rowling has been referring to him as "Crouch" for almost an entire page. Then Dumbledore asks him:

'How did your father subdue you?'

And, in the eighth last line of page 594, Rowling writes the response:

'The Imperius curse,' Moody said. 'I was under my father's control....'

"Moody said" is the tag. Not "Crouch said". "Moody said". Even though Crouch has fully transformed back into himself and Rowling has been referring to him as "Crouch" for more than a page, somehow "Moody" sneaks back in when it is clearly Crouch who is speaking.

How did I miss that error in all my 24 previous readings of the book? How did Rowling miss it in her original writing of the scene, in her numerous reviews and revisions? How did her editors miss it?

To be frank, I missed it because I am always, even after more than 20 readings, so caught up in the action at this point that I speed read the entire chapter. This is the first time I've been able to slow myself down enough to notice things... including continuity errors.

Wow. I'm sure a million other Harry Potter fans have spotted this error in the past but it's the first time I've seen it. It's like Harry Potter is new to me again... after 24 readings.

Lost in Translation: on horses, hares and hairs

Hey, remember that scene in The Goblet of Fire where Madame Maxime, having just arrived at Hogwarts with her students, tells Dumbledore she wants to make sure her horses are okay and Dumbledore assures her that her hair is coiffed to perfection?  Remember how funny that was?

No?

You don't remember that scene at all?

Well, maybe that's because it never happened. Not in the original novel. Not in the film made of that novel.

Unless you read Harry Potter in the French translation.

Then it happens.

The French words for "horses" and "hair" are very similar: "chevaux" and "cheveux", I believe. And, in an attempt to capture the fact that Madame Maxime speaks English with a heavy accent in the original novel, the French translator, Jean-Francois Menard, has her speak French with a thick accent in the French translation of the novel.

That accent involves the addition of a number of Es and Us to many of her words, which means, when she wants to refer to the massive horses that pulled the Beauxbatons carriage to Hogwarts, she uses the word "cheveux" rather than "chevaux".

Hence, Dumbledore's confusion.

It's only the second time, as I read the Potter novels in Menard's wonderful translations, that a section has jumped out at me as being quite clearly new, not in the original. And that's because the cheveux/chevaux pun could only exist in the French translation: "horse" and "hair" don't sound similar in English (though it raises the interesting prospect of the Beauxbatons carriage being drawn by massive hares, which may have led Rowling to introduce Dumbledore's confusion in the original English novel but would, ironically, not have permitted Menard to use it in the French).

Two things pop out at me, however, as a result of Madame Maxime's thick accent in French in general and the cheveux/chevaux pun in particular:

1. Since I am reading these books, which I know so well in English, in the French translation to help me improve my French comprehension, the introduction of Madame Maxime's accent is NOT HELPING! I am already having to look up numerous terms in the French dictionary as it is, and I am already struggling to recognise when a word is a made up magic word and won't actually appear in any dictionary, so it doesn't help me one bit when the only significant character in the book who ACTUALLY SPEAKS FRENCH speaks it poorly. Arghhhhh!!!!
2. I wonder how often Mr Menard indulges himself in this way, adding his own little jokes and comments into the French translation. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Menard had added some dialogue among the Beauxbatons students in the darkened wood at the Quidditch World Cup -- now he's adding little jokes of his own later in the same book. Hmmm.... If I am a French-speaking Harry Potter fan, who reads the books solely (or primarily) in French, would these little additions of Menard's be considered canonical? Also, does this mean I have to read the books in all the other languages into which it has been translated, just to make sure I have read all of Potter? What does J.K. Rowling think of these kinds of translationary indulgences?

On a final note, I have to admit, this situation I find myself in where English speaking characters speak French in the French translation of the novel and French speaking characters speak French in the French translation of the book and yet they don't understand each other and then some French speaking characters speak French with a strong accent such that they are difficult to understand....

Wait a minute. Characters who speak English in the original speak French in the translation. Characters who speak French in the original speak French in the translation. Yet the first set of characters cannot understand the second set of characters and vice versa. At times, however, the second set of characters actually speak accented English in the original, which, in the translation, becomes accented French such that the first set of characters understand them better than when they are speaking normal French but not perfectly.

I am beginning to think that French readers of Harry Potter must be a heck of a lot smarter than I am in order to figure all this out.

All of that being said, Menard does a wonderful job on this translation. I found the "Unforgivable Curses" ("des Sortileges Impardonnables") scene with Moody and the fourth year class even more gripping in translation than I did in the original... and that's saying something.

A film's disdain for subtlety and beauty

Every time I watch the films that were made out of The Deathly Hallows, I feel a little sick.

Sometimes, I want to take a bath, to wash away the gross and icky feeling the movies leave me with.

Other times, I want to sit down and read J.K.'s original novel from cover to cover immediately, just to remind myself of how great her book is, to remove the disgusting taste that horrible film adaptation left in my mouth.

Even as I watch them, feeling more and more sick, disappointed, resentful, I can recognize that there are actually some pretty good scenes in the films. Some brief moments where David Yates and Stephen Kloves actually got it right and did credit to Rowling's original.

For example, I quite like how the Part 1 opens, with brief shots of Harry at Privet Drive watching the Dursley's pack up and go, of Hermione at her home obliviating her parents and their photos to remove any trace of herself, of Ron, standing pensively with the Burrow in the background, looking out over the fields, thinking of what is to come.

I think they do some of the bigger action scenes quite well: the assault on the Ministry, for example, and the escape from Hogwarts.

Emma Watson has some nice moments, as I've written here before, such as her smirk when the freshly returned Ron "votes" to go to see Mr. Lovegood or when she tosses Harry the sword in the Estrange vault.

I quite love the artful way they render the story of the Three Brothers. It's creative and lovely.

But then I am smacked in the face again with the bigger problems of interpretation that plague these movies, with Kloves' and Yates' apparent disdain for the subtlety and beauty of Rowling's deep psychological and emotional tale.

This disdain comes out in many different ways, in numerous decisions they made as to how to present the story, both large and small.

Among the small ones: did you notice that Harry does not liberate Mad-Eye's magical eye from Umbridge's office door at the Ministry? did it bother you that Harry, Hermione and Ron don't spare a moment's feeling for Mr. Lovegood's fate after he summons the Death Eaters? did it phase you that Harry does not mend his own wand before dealing with the Elder Wand nor make the last visit to Dumbledore's portrait in the headmaster's office nor explain why he chooses to dispose of each of the Deathly Hallows in the way he does?

Does it bother you that, in the film version at least, NO ONE except the small group of fighters within Hogwarts joins the battle against Voldemort and the Death Eaters, not the parents of the students, not the people of Hogsmeade, not the Centaurs, the House Elves nor even Grawp?

Does it not drive you absolutely crazy that, while the Hogwart's fighters die simple human deaths, both Bellatrix and Voldemort evaporate into the ether when they die?

That Rowling's single most basic point -- in the end, we are all human and we all are born, live and die just like everyone else, no matter who we are and how powerful we are during our brief stay on earth -- is completely lost in the film?

Just what does "a few" mean?

A little thing. A little, tiny, nit-picky little question about a scene in The Goblet of Fire that turns on how we might interpret the word "few".

About three-quarters of the way through the book, in a chapter called "The Egg and the Eye", Harry attempts to return to the Gryffindor Common Room after a late-night visit to the Prefects' Bathroom when he becomes trapped on a staircase, his leg caught in the trick step that often catches Neville. He drops the slippery Tri-Wizard Egg, which promptly tumbles down the stairs and breaks open, its loud wail attracting the attention first of Filch, then of Snape and finally of Crouch/Moody.

Harry is hidden beneath his invisibility cloak but still is in real danger of being caught out of bed.

I've already written some time ago about Harry's surprising failure to use the summoning charm "Accio" to recover the egg as soon as he lost his hold on it. After all, he had so recently learned "Accio" and used it to such great effect in the first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

That aside, there seems to be a little bit of a miscalculation of distances on the part of the author in this scene. A miscalculation the editors missed as well.

Remember the scene: Harry is half-way down the stair case, invisible but trapped. He has dropped the egg, which tumbled down to the corridor below and broken open. He has also dropped the Marauders' Map, still active, and it too has floated down the stairs.

1. Rowling tells us, in fact, that the Map "slid down six stairs" from where Harry stood, trapped.

2. When Filch arrives, he finds the egg and immediately starts to climb the stairs toward the invisible but trapped Harry. Rowling tells us that "Filch stopped a few steps below Harry" when Snape arrived.

3. Despite the fact that Filch is only "a few" steps away from Harry, he does not see the Map, which we know is six stairs below Harry. Apparently, for Rowling, "a few" is more than "six".

I'll stop right there for a second. I don't agree that "a few" means more than "six". When I read the phrase "a few", I think three to five. A few is more than "a couple" which is, by definition, two. But "a few" is also intended to suggest, in my opinion, "not many". You don't use "a few" when you mean "many". And more than six is "many".

4. Snape arrives and he too climbs the stairs, stopping beside Filch and, therefore, "a few" steps from Harry. He does not see the Map either. I think this is significant. Okay, it might be dark on the staircase so the Map could be only "a few" steps above Filch and Snape and they would not see it.

5. When Moody arrives, he remains at the foot of the stairs. Even from there, however, he is able to see the Map lying on the stair. He points it out to Snape and Filch. Snape and Filch turn and see it behind them. Snape has to reach out for it, leaving enough time for Moody to recognize Harry's warning and summon the Map to himself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if the Map is six steps below Harry and neither Filch nor Snape see it before Moody arrives, then Filch and Snape must be at least seven and probably more like 10 to 15 steps away from Harry. That's not, in my opinion, just "a few" steps away.

Just after Moody points out the Map, Rowling writes, "Snape stretched out his hands like a blind man, and began to move up the stairs... Harry leant backwards, trying to avoid Snape's fingertips, but any moment now --"

By my calculations, for Snape to get close enough to Harry to force Harry to lean back to avoid Snape's fingertips, Snape must get to within say three steps of Harry. So he must climb at least four steps and probably between 10 and 12 steps to get within striking distance of the boy before Moody stops him.

I've gotten myself quite confused as I write this but my point is, I think the editors missed something when they reviewed this scene. The use of the term "a few" is misleading and confusing. Rowling uses it to increase tension -- the bad guys are very close to our hero -- but it creates problems for the rest of the scene.

And, yes, this entire entry is proof positive that I have read the Harry Potter books way too many times and have started to focus on details that are, truly, much too trivial to worry about.

Misdirection and manipulation from the fireplace

In my last post, I examined the passage in The Goblet of Fire wherein Barty Crouch, Jr., disguised as Mad-Eye Moody, explains in detail how he, himself, put Harry's name into the Goblet and why.

Today, I'd like to look at another brilliant conceived passage from the fourth book as an example of Rowling's skill, her cunning, as a writer.

I am talking about the scene where Harry consults with Sirius Black through the magic of fire-place communications. It's a beautifully written scene and it offers a great deal of information but, as usual, with a Rowling twist.

Sirius first tells Harry to be careful of Professor Karkaroff, the Durmstrang headmaster. He was, apparently, a Death Eater who then sold out many of his former mates in order to gain release from Azkaban. Without actually saying it, Sirius suggests to Harry that it must have been Karkaroff who put Harry's name in the Goblet.

It's a brilliant ruse, dropped in at this point to confuse us. Rowling trots out the perfect antagonist, one she has very carefully developed in our minds as being untrustworthy and rather nasty. It comes from a character we have come to trust and it points the finger of blame on a person we are absolutely ready to hate.

Next, Sirius tells Harry that he shouldn't simply accept that the attack on Mad-Eye Moody that took place the night before he came to Hogwarts, the attack to which Mr. Weasley had to respond, was a false attack, a creation of Moody's paranoia.

"I think someone tried stop him from getting to Hogwarts," Sirius tells Harry. "I think someone knew their jobs would be a lot more difficult with him around."

Another brilliant strategic move on the part of the author. Why? Because Sirius is absolutely right. The attack on Moody was real. The goal of the attack was to remove Moody from the picture entirely and make it easier for the perpetrator, Barty Crouch Jr., to get at Harry.

And yet, in one important detail, Sirius misses the mark. He assumes that the attack, while real, failed. We believe him, because we have been trained to believe him, because we have been manipulated to want to believe him. We believe that the attack was real but a failure.

So we emerge from this encounter with Sirius believing, as Harry does, that Moody is a good guy and that someone else, probably Karkaroff, is after Harry.

Rowling is a master of this kind of misdirection, of manipulation. She gives us so much information in such a subtle way that we don't see it for what it really is but for what she has carefully designed it to seem.

Brilliant. Wonderful. Wicked.

Moody, Crouch and the impact of the truth

"Maybe someone's hoping Potter is going to die for it... It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the boy's name in that Goblet... they hoodwinked a very powerful magical object. It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that Goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the Tournament... I'm guessing they submitted Potter's name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category..."

These are the words of a person who is held out to be Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody in the wake of the Goblet of Fire's dramatic declaration that there would be, in fact, four students competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament in Book Four.

And these words demonstrate, in my humble opinion, just how great a writer J.K. Rowling really is.

Just think about the first time you read that passage. What did you think? You thought, of course, that Moody was on the side of angels, that he was, as he later declares, trained to think as dark wizards do, and that he is probably absolutely right about how Harry's name ended up in the Goblet in the first place.

And now, when you read it again, knowing what you know about this particular version of Moody -- that he is, in fact, Barty Crouch Jr., impersonating the ex-Auror using the Polyjuice Potion and neck deep in implementing Lord Voldemort's intricate plot to transport Harry via portkey to the graveyard in Little Hangleton at the end of the Tournament -- what do you think of the passage?

Is there one false note in it?

It's brilliant. Crouch, as Moody, stands in front of all the people who might wish to stop him from succeeding in implementing Voldemort's evil plan, and tells them, point for point, exactly how he managed to get Harry's name into the Goblet and why he did it.

He behaves exactly as Moody would and should had he been there. He exposes his own plot.

And no one calls him on it. No one even remotely suspects him. Because he is, in fact, an ex-Auror with a reputation for paranoia, they in fact dismiss his explanation entirely. Absolutely brilliant.

Wondering about the Durmstrang Headmaster

Whatever happened to Karkaroff? You remember him, the head of Durmstrang in The Goblet of Fire? What ever happened to him after that book?

He's an interesting character. We find out from Sirius that he was a big Death Eater but that, once imprisoned in Azkaban, he sold out other Voldemort's supporters in exchange for his release from prison. One of those he sold out was... Barty Crouch Jr.

But, unless I'm mistaken, after he disappears at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, Karkaroff never appears in the Harry Potter books again.

Is that right? Karkaroff simply disappears? Or am I missing something?

It's a great story line from Rowling but it makes you wonder how Crouch Jr., in Hogwarts in the guise of Mad-Eye Moody, doesn't succumb to the temptation to do exact vengeance on the man who sent him to Azkaban in the first place.

In all my readings of the Rowling books, I have never paid much attention to Karkaroff and his fate. I will have to be more attentive in the future. I have a feeling Rowling does drop a line into a later book that says what happens to the sinister Durmstrang headmaster but I cannot remember it now.

In The Goblet, Karkaroff serves many purposes, including giving J.K. a ready-made villain to throw at us as an easy explanation for the peril in which Harry finds himself. Who put my name in the Goblet, Harry wonders. Karkaroff, Sirius tells him. Who is trying to kill me? Karkaroff. Who is the biggest threat to me here? Karkaroff.

It's just like Rowling to use this kind of misdirection, to keep our attention on one possible threat while the real villain does a tap-dance right in front of us.

Interesting too that, other than coming to the conclusion that Karkaroff is the enemy rather than Mad-Eye Crouch Jr., Sirius has got most of the Voldemort's recent activities just about right. Sirius has connected Bertha Jorkin's disappearance in Albania with the Death-Eater activities at the World Cup with the other recent developments and come up, quite correctly, with Voldemort.

Again, it's just like J.K. to tell us exactly what's going on in such a way that we almost refuse to believe it.

Rowling spills a Goblet full of beans... and we miss it

As anyone who reads this blog at all will know, I am impressed with J.K. Rowling's skill as a writer. In particular, I am impressed with her ability to provide clues in her books so subtly that even a very careful reader will miss them.

I don't know how many times I've re-read one of the Harry Potter books and suddenly recognized that she has told us what will eventually happen, or given us clear indications of the true loyalties of a character, very early in the book and that I had missed it.

One of the best examples occurs in The Goblet of Fire. Right after Harry's name comes out of the Goblet, J.K. has her villain stand in front of us (and a whole host of characters in the book) and tell us not only what he had done but how and why he had done it.

And we were so caught up in Rowling's misdirections that we miss it completely.

In the course of the very fraught argument that follows the selection of the four Triwizard Tournament champions by the Goblet of Fire, "Mad-Eye Moody" tells everyone:

1. That he used an "exceptionally strong Confudus Charm to bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the Tournament";
2. That he "submitted Potter's name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category";
3. That he did so "hoping Potter is going to die"; and
4. That he knew Potter would have to compete if his name came out of the Goblet because it represents a binding magical contract.

I won't go into the legalities of how it's not possible for Harry to be bound to a contract to which he never agreed but...

We find out later that "Moody" is, in fact, Barty Crouch, Jr., and that he is working on behalf of Voldemort to make sure that Harry is entered into the Tournament, that he wins the Tournament, and that he is transported via Portkey to the graveyard in Little Hangleton where Voldemort waits for him, first to use him to complete his regeneration potion and then to kill him.

We find out later that J.K. told us exactly what had happened and what was going to happen as early as one-third of the way through the novel. And we completely missed it.

That's a brilliant writer at work!

Making sense of the Goblet's plot

A small thought. Voldemort required the blood of an enemy to be brought back to life. He desperately wanted that enemy to be Harry. So he needed Harry's blood.

If that's all he needed, why did he go to such ridiculous (and risky) lengths to have Barty Crouch Jr. shepherd Harry into and through the entire Tri=wizard Tournament just to get him to the graveyard in Little Hangleton at the end of The Goblet of Fire?

Why not just have Crouch siphon off some blood and be done with it?

I know, I know. That would kind of kill the whole plot of the book. If all the Dark Lord required was Harry's blood and it was so easy to obtain, he didn't need to attack Mad-Eye Moody, he didn't need to interfere with the entire Tournament, he didn't need Crouch to sneak Harry's name into the Cup, etc. etc. etc.

Not much of a book, sure, but at least it would have made sense.

Butterbeer, Firewhisky and age of majority at Hogwarts

Let's talk Butterbeer and the approach to alcohol consumption in J.K. Rowling's magical world. I'm not saying I have a real problem with it; I'm just saying I find it interesting.

As we all know, the children who attend Hogwarts drink Butterbeer almost from the day they first arrive at the school. Butterbeer is a staple at all student celebrations described in the novels, be it a Quidditch victory, a Triwizard tournament success or whatever.

When students go to Hogsmeade, they all seem to make a beeline for Madame Rosmerta's establishment for a cold one.

As a result, I guess I just assumed that Butterbeer, like the root beer enjoyed by Muggles, did not contain alcohol.

How wrong I was. My colleague and I are both reading The Order of the Phoenix again and she pointed out the passage in that novel where the hero trio visit Dobby in the Hogwarts kitchens and encounter a drunk Winky. She's gotten hammered on Butterbeer, we're told.

Maybe, I thought, House Elves were susceptible to some other ingredient in Butterbeer. But then there's Ron, telling me that, even though Butterbeer isn't very strong, it does contain alcohol.

Stopped me in my tracks. Kids from age 11 are drinking alcohol at Hogwarts. No, they're not drinking Firewhisky or any of the other stronger alcoholic beverages we see the adults consuming but they are drinking Butterbeer.

Interesting. Also interesting is the fact that Rowling takes pains to show us that Harry, Hermione and Ron DO NOT consume the stronger beverages, except in very particular circumstances.

When the hero trio arrives at the Hog's Head for the organising meeting of Dumbledore's Army, for example, Ron announces that he's going to order a Firewhisky, since the disreputable barman would likely serve it to him, despite his age. Hermione has to remind him that he's a Prefect and should be setting a better example.

And, in The Deathly Hallows, Harry has a particularly strong reaction to the Firewhisky he drinks in the group's solemn toast to the recently killed Mad-Eye.

So the rule seems to be: Butterbeer, with its low alcoholic content, is okay for kids but you have to be much older, and under the supervision of adults, to drink anything stronger.

I gave Rowling too little credit (and the filmmakers too much)

Well that solves one mystery. When the filmmakers were trying to figure out a simpler way to give Harry information about Gillyweed for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, where did they get such a good idea from?

From J.K. herself.

In an earlier post, I had attempted to give the movie guys some credit for coming up with an inventive way for providing Harry this life-saving information: by having Neville learn about Gillyweed from a book given to him by Crouch/Moody and then tell Harry about it.

I thought: that's much better than Rowling's answer, which was to have Dobby provide the information at the last minute. Rowling's approach made Crouch/Moody's gift of the book on herbology to Neville appear to be gratuitous kindness, I argued.

I should have had more faith in J.K. And I should have remembered Crouch/Moody's rant to Harry at the end of the book better.

It turns out that Rowling makes it clear, during that rant, that Crouch/Moody did give Neville the book precisely so that he would tell Harry about Gillyweed. Except his plan was foiled because Harry was too proud to ask his friends, outside of Hermione and Ron, for help.

So, in the novel, Crouch/Moody had to come up with another idea.

The filmmakers shortened the whole process by having Harry finally ask Neville how he could survive for an hour under water. Neville then provides the information and Crouch/Moody's plan was effected.

So this is my mea culpa. I gave the filmmakers too much credit and Rowling too little. I won't make that mistake again.

Rowling tells us stuff but doesn't let us register that we know it

I finished my Christmas reading. 13 books in seven weeks. Not bad.

Now back to Harry Potter. When the gift books started flowing in back in December, I was about 100 pages into The Goblet of Fire, the fourth novel in the series and the first of the really long books. This morning, I plunged back in.

And the first thing that struck me was how skillfully J.K. slips Barty Crouch Jr.'s attack on Mad-Eye Moody, a key plot point, into the novel without the reader realising that something major has happened.

We are first made aware of the incident when Malfoy reads out Rita Skeeter's article describing the attack in the Entrance Hall at Hogwarts. Malfoy uses the article to tease Ron, focusing not on the attack itself and its possible significance to the story but, instead, on the fact that Ron's dad was sent to investigate it.

The passage of the book is even more tricky because Rowling then has Moody himself enter the scene and intervene in the wand duel between Harry and Malfoy that ensues. By burying the revelation that Moody had been attacked deep within a very exciting, action-packed scene (after all, Moody transforms Malfoy into a ferret to punish him, then McGonagall arrives to chastise Moody), Rowling gives us key information but immediately draws our attention away from it.

I remember reading this book for the first time and, when it was revealed that Crouch had actually trapped Moody in his own box and taken on his identity, I felt tricked. How was I supposed to have guessed that?

Then I re-read the book and found out that Rowling had, in fact, played fair with her reader by telling us about the attack early on in the novel. I simply wasn't attentive enough to notice it.

And neither was the hero trio. Instead of asking Moody what happened, they get caught up in the drama that follows and thoughts of the attack itself disappear.

Fab writing. She gives us loads of information that could help us figure out the plot but distracts us from it almost immediately, so that we don't, in fact, catch on.

Nine days and nine minor characters I liked

With nine days to go before the opening of The Deathly Hallows, Part 2, I thought I'd think about some of my favourite minor characters from the novels, characters I would like to have seen given bigger parts in the books:

1. Cho Chang, Harry's love interest in The Order of the Phoenix. I thought she worked well with Harry and I thought her confused feelings after Cedric Diggory was murdered were really interesting;
2. Cedric Diggory, of course, because it was nice to see another truly good, heroic character who wasn't part of Harry's circle;
3. Nymphadora Tonks, who was a cool combination of fun, clumsy and heroic. She was an Auror, after all, and Mad-Eye's protege, so she must have been pretty good;
4. Neville's Grandmother, because the brief glimpses we have of her suggest she's a pretty neat grandma, and tough as nails as well;
5. Professor Sprout, who comes across as a solid citizen but never gets a chance to show off the full range of her character;
6. Penelope Clearwater, the person with one of the best names. If she can put up with Percy, she must be okay;
7. Molly Weasley, the matriarch, who finally gets to strut her magical stuff in the final book;
8. Minerva McGonagall, the tight-wound Assistant Headmaster, who from time to time is allowed to show there's a sparkle underneath all that control; and
9. Luna Lovegood. I mean, who can get enough of Luna Lovegood?

I just love love Gleeson's mutterings

Another line I like from the movies. Mad-Eye Moody in, The Deathly Hallows, Part 1, "Yeah, he's absolutely gorgeous. What's say we get under cover before someone murders him?"

I just love the way Brendan Gleeson growls this line while herding everyone inside the Durlsey's house at the start of the film. And it's not in the book.

In the novel, Mad-Eye says, "Change of plan" and then, "Let's get under cover before we talk you through it." I'm fine with that but I think Gleeson's "What's say we get under cover before someone murder's him" is even better.

The enigma of Mad-Eye Moody

The role of Mad-Eye Moody interests me. We all got to know Mad-Eye pretty well in The Goblet of Fire, only to find out that it wasn't Mad-Eye at all that we were getting to know but, instead, that it was Barty Crouch Jr in disguise.

This created an interesting situation at the beginning of the fifth novel. Harry, Hermione and Ron spent the entire previous year at Hogwarts with a man they believed was the famed ex-Auror. They grew to know "him" fairly well and even to develop something of a relationship with him.

The real Mad-Eye, meanwhile, was stuck in a box for that entire year. He doesn't know these kids. He barely even meets them at the end of the book.

Then begins The Order of the Phoenix. Mad-Eye is a part of the Order and so interacts with the many characters at Grimmauld Place, including Harry, Hermione and Ron. I would have expected there to be some kind of strangeness, some awkwardness between the real Auror and our dynamic trio when they meet up again in this fifth book.

After all, the young people must feel they know Mad-Eye pretty well; he, on the other hand, has never really met them. It would be a very strange situation for all of them.

Yet J.K. doesn't address the strangeness at all. In fact, she continues to write the real Mad-Eye exactly as she wrote the fake Mad-Eye, and she appears to let the relationship between Harry and the Auror pick up exactly where it left off the year before.

I think J.K. slipped a bit here. I think she worked so hard to develop both the character of Mad-Eye and his relationship with Harry in The Goblet of Fire that, in writing the following novels, she forgot that it wasn't the real Mad-Eye at all in the fourth book. It never occurred to her that she should have them "start over" as strangers in The Order of the Phoenix.

She wrote their relationship so well in the fourth novel that she fooled herself into thinking that they actually knew each other.

Ron's favourite phrase

I remember the first time I read The Deathly Hallows and I got to the scene where the doe patronus leads Harry to the forest pool and the sword of Gryffindor. The way J.K. wrote this scene, the reader knows that someone has been forced to rescue Harry from drowning in the pool but she never gives us any clue as to who it is.

We're as ignorant of the identity of his rescuer as Harry is.

When the mystery hero blurts out, "Are you mental?", once they're both safe, however, I needed to read no further to know that it was Ron, come back to save the day.

It's brilliant writing. J.K. had carefully trained us to recognise each character's patterns of speech and favourite expressions: anyone who had read all the books to that point would have known immediately who had come along and rescued Harry.

"Mental" had always been one of Ron's favourite terms. He calls Dumbledore mental in the first book and I believe he also uses that word to describe Mad-Eye Moody early in The Goblet of Fire.

Rowling does a nice job of keeping us in the dark as to who is saving Harry from the pool and then divulges his identity with a single, well-designed statement.

The Deathly Hallows Hits Hard Early

Hedwig is dead. Mad-Eye's been killed. Harry's gone nose to nose with the Minister for Magic and the wedding is about to be crashed by Death Eaters.

Wow, the first 150 pages of The Deathly Hallows are intense. I remember reading the book for the first time and thinking, when Rowling killed off Harry's snowy owl so casually in the early going, "She's not pulling any punches in this book; it's going to be a bumpy ride".

It was like the death of Hedwig acted as an early warning that the book would be dark and violent. I'm trying to force myself to read slowly this time, to savour every word, rather than getting caught up in the plot and tearing through the book.

I can't guarantee that's going to last. Rowling really rolls in this novel.

The Weasley Homestead

I'm trying to figure out what screen-writer Steven Kloves and director David Yates have against the Weasley homestead, commonly known as "The Burrow".

First, in a completely invented scene in the film version of The Half-Blood Prince, they have Bellatrix and her pals burn the place down. If that's not bad enough, in the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, they have several characters (like Mad-Eye Moody) call the place "The Burrows", plural.

In an interesting contradiction, some characters call it by its singular name and others by its new plural name, both in the film and in the special features that come with the Blu-Ray version of the movie.

Strange. J.K. refers to it, consistently and without exception, as "The Burrow" across all six books in which it is mentioned (I don't find any mention of the Weasley home, at least not be name, in The Philosopher's Stone). Why change it in the film?

Oh, which reminds me, from what I understand, the first novel in the series is called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in just about every English-speaking country in the world except the United States: so why do the British producers refer to it constantly as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the American title) in the Blu-Ray extras?

By the way, I recently picked up the French version of the first novel and I think the direct translation of the French title is Harry Potter at the School for Magic. Neat.