Gryffindor Tower #10: Gryffindor Tower – By the Fans

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I know that I promised you all a review of chapters one to ten this week, but as one of my friends now has my copy of OotP, I cannot do that. I must also tell you that I will be on vacation for the next two weekends, but rest assured, Emerson will have each of my next two columns before I go, and they will be up on each Sunday while I am away.

I thought awhile about how I would do this column, since I don’t have my copy of OotP. Since I needed to put something up (mostly in fear of being bombarded with roughly four hundred and seventy two thousand emails on Monday morning), I came to the conclusion that this week, Gryffindor Tower would not be MY column, it would be YOUR column. So here are the three best predictions I’ve gotten from GT fans, and I will offer my own insight to each one. The first one is from Charles Russett.

Having re-read chapter 16 i feel that the bar man of the Hog’s Head is probably Aberforth Dumbledore. This !is backed up by the following: 1:Harry thinks the old grey bearded man looks familiar. He recentley saw Aberforth in the picture shown to him by Moody of the original Order of the Pheonix. 2:It would be useful to have someone in the Hog’s Head to glean news from people of a dodgy background. 3: Goats, In book 4 we here how that Aberforth was prosecuted for practising illegal charms on a goat. The hogs head smells strangely of something that could be goats. 4:His grumpy mannerisms suggest he doesnt really want to be running a bar, but could be there under orders. 5:He wipes glasses with a dirty cloth. Clearly his first priority is to listen to the customers’ conversations 6: Dumbledore seems to know alot of what happened in the Hog’s Head, perhaps Aberforth told him.

Well, I must say, this does make sense. We never learn exactly where Aberforth is, and as we have seen, Rowling never puts anything into the books that doesn’t mean something. I would really like !to see where this one goes.

The next one is from Sana, and it’s about Sirius.

I wonder if it is a coincidence that J.K.R. used a black dog as the symbol of death. She calls it “The Grim.” We know that Sirius was the dog and furthur that he was what Harry thought to be the death omen. Is it a coincidence then, that Sirius’ ancestral home is called “The Grim-mauld Place?” Should we have known that he (Sirius) would obviously be the one to die if we had seen the signs? Death was written all over the poor guy.

First, his home isn’t called Grimmauld Place, but it is located at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. However, after that technicality, I guess that it does make sense. Again, we’ve learned that most things don’t show up in the HP books without a reason…

Ok, I should tell you all that when I read this, I was in shock. This idea could go so many ways, but there has to be something about it. It’s just WAY too much to be coincidental. This !one is from Adam Davidson.

As I reread the chapter of OotP when Harry enters Snape’s pensieve, I noticed that while he was inside Snape’s memory at Hogwarts, no one addressed Snape as either “Severus” or “Snape.” Members of James’s gang called him “Snivellus” or “Snivelly” every time. We didn’t even see Snape’s name on the top of his O.W.L. test. I also noticed that James called Lily “Evans,” and did so many times. I began to wonder whether or not Snape was called Snape back when he was at Hogwarts. I remembered how Tom Marvolo Riddle used an anagram for his name when he sold out to the Dark Side, and I thought Snape, the former Death Eater, might have done the same. Imagine my shock and horror when I realized that the same letters used to spell “Severus Snape” can be used to spell “Perseus Evans.” Now, Snape did call Lily a Mudblood, so they are probably not siblings…but perhaps half siblings, or cousins? I did some further research into the name Perseus and f!ound that there is a constellation named Perseus, and also that Perseus was a figure in Greek mythology most famous for the slaughter of Medusa (Bellatrix Lestrange??). I believe that this is much too coincidental not to have some merit, and we could possibly find out a whole lot more about Snape and his background in subsequent volumes of this series. I hope you’ve enjoyed my theory.

I definitely think it means something. I also did some research on Perseus, and I came up with a few other things. First, there was a prophecy surrounding him that he would kill his grandfather, which he did fulfill years later, albeit on accident (conflicting sources say it was either in a discus or javelin competition). Perseus was sent on a suicide mission by some dude named Polydectes, who was in love with Perseus’s mom. The mission was to get the head of Medusa. Apparently the gods really liked Perseus, because they helped him alot, and he did defeat Medusa. He then mar!ried a girl named…get this…Andromeda. Now I’m almost positive that that name is in OotP. Again, I don’t have my copy, but I seem to remember that it may be the name of Tonks’ mom. Connection? Who knows? He killed Polydectes and his followers too (Voldemort? Dumbledore? Seems like both Albus and Voldemort have sent Snape on what seems to be “suicide missions”). He also killed Atlas, but I don’t know what that could mean. Anyone at all who may have some insight onto this topic, email me here.

I wanted to touch on one more thing quickly. I will be discussing the veil in detail later on, but for now, as I have gotten loads of emails on it, here is what I think the veil is. The veil and the arch are a gateway between the living world and the nonliving world. Anyone who goes through it will die. So, you ask, why is it in the middle of the Department of Mysteries? Well, as Nearly Headle!ss Nick told us, because the Ministry of Magic and, more specifically, the Department of Mysteries’ Unspeakables, are studying death. Why? Well, that I don’t know, but I’m sure it will play some part later on.

I will also be recommending one independent fan site every week from now on, so that you can all help out fellow HP fans who don’t exactly have the kind of numbers that MuggleNet, IHP, TLC, and the rest get. This week’s is Twelve Grimmauld Place, which is kind of an interactive Hogwarts. Anyhoo, y’all take care of yourselves. I will try my best to answer emails after I’m gone (I’m leaving next Saturday morning), but I don’t know how often I’ll be able to get on a computer. Peace out, and see ya next Sunday!