Harry's detention - all those old records to go through, and she just glossed over it?! At the very least Harry should have uncovered some help from the Marauders, and at best connected some evil doings blamed on others during Riddle's time, where a missing artifact was involved.

I wonder if this will be important in the last book, if Snape showed it to Harry for a good reason, or if it will be tossed to the wind like so many other questions we had from OotP?

I was thinking of all the stories to tell from the detention files as well, Accio. However, it seems to me that her intent in this book was for DD to waste a lot of our time (:wink:) by giving Harry such a thorough background on Tom Riddle/Voldemort's background that Harry could find a way to use all of it in the future as a possible weapon against Voldy.

It's obvious a lot of long time fans are screaming bloody murder this weekend...*sighs*

I know! I was just waiting for another Marauders fling to pop up again. Although I enjoyed the other background we got on Voldemort and such the lack of the Marauders (mainly Sirius) in this book was really rather depressing. Maybe it wasn't as important as the things we saw about Riddle, but I definitely agree with you when I thought that assignment in detention meant something. I thought many of the things in the book meant something more, but were also kind of shoved asside.

I'm still searching for a word to describe how I feel about the book, but it's leaning somewhere toward frustrated or weak.

I kept thinking that Harry would find something in there too. I don't know... maybe he will remember it in the next book... something he read there in detention??

Just not sure........ questions questions!

Here's a thought (it just came to me) its a silly, but its an idea.

Perhaps Snape giving Harry all of these detentions provided Snape with something to do? If he's all bad then he's keeping Harry right where he can see him, and ditto if he's really secretly good.

Or does Snape need an excuse to be somewhere on a Saturday morning towards the end of term, ie to avoid having to be somewhere else.

Just random thoughts and musings...

I think he combines his loathing for Harry with his subtle Order duties. He deliberately kept Harry from playing Quidditch to be mean. (Unless I missed something there)

But it could have been any old detention if Snape wasn't trying to point Harry in the right direction for something. He even told him where to start.

I'm still under the impression Snape has "saved Harry's life" in the past, so I'm going on that a little bit.

Accio, I think that you are right, on all counts.

Yes, he kept Harry from playing Quidditch just to be mean. He could have set his detentions anytime, but chose THAT day, knowing full well how important it was to Harry.

I can't let go of the thought that there was something really important in those files. Yes, especially since he pointed him out to a certain section. Harry thought it was just to show him how misbehaved his father was, but I just think there was so much more than that.

I was also just waiting (and hoping, praying!) that Jo would go into more detail about James and Sirius...not only because I'd love to hear some of their more creative pranks, but also because Harry prolly could have found quite a few useful things in there.

And I also noticed the major lack of Marauders in this book. I would have loved to find out a lot more about them, but they were only mentioned a couple of times in passing.

Although, going off a bit, from what I've seen of James, it seemed to me that Harry was starting to act a lot more like him....

I know what you mean, she does seem to have left a lot unanswered.
But then again, this is part one of a two part story, so we'll get the information we're looking for in book seven.

In an interview on bbc's newsround, JK said:

Quote::

"I think I give very clear pointers as to what Harry will do next," she said. "There is plenty to guess at... at least one thing I think people will probably deduce, there is a mystery left at the end, but I think they might already know the answer if they think about it."

And as the next book won't be out for another two years *cripes!*, i guess we all have plenty of time to re-read and re-read HBP and figure out exactly what those clues are and what they mean.

I was little dissapointed when i finished it, (as well as vindicated. H/G, *does happy dance. "told ya so, told ya so"*, heh-hem! Sorry! !!!)
But as soon as i remembered the 'two part story' thing, i felt much better about it.

I thought the detention thing was going to be more significant as well, another big let down in this story. It would have been a great opportunity to bring up some more of the amusing stuff from the marauders. I really missed them in this book.

I felt there was a lot of stuff we could have done without. I totally agree with Solitaire that there was a ton of wasted time learning about Riddles past. There were several times when I thought “OK move on with the story…” I just don’t see why we needed all that background. But as others have suggested this is supposed to be part one of a two-part story so maybe it will be significant then. I hope.

I thought the HBP was really good but yeah, very depressing too. It was almost as
bad as when sirius died in the order of the phoenix. that made me wanna cry...
Yes...I know I am very sensitive. But when Dumbledore dies in this book i couldnt help
but feel horribly sad for harry becuase all the poeple who cared about him and were like
parental figures for him died. his mom and dad died first and then his guardian and then
them ost powerful wizard in the wizarding world who was thel ast to care for him. sure,
theres still remus but hes got stuff to do and plus (wink wink) got a new girlfriend.
yup yup. so he doesnt have time for harry. its reallly sad. but now harry's got to take revenge
against voldemort. i really hate severus though. bloody traitor. this book was awesome
yet i just cant wait another 2 years too findo ut who dies again...:( im hoping somehow sirius comes
back to life. but dont want to get my hopes up.

There are very few times when I think JKR makes mistakes about characters but I think Harry's treatment of the detention is one. I think he would have been very interested inspite of himself in the adventures he was reading about- maybe not during the Quidditch final but afterwards...

He may remember something he read about later on but it still will not change the fact that his attitude towards this task is not altogether plausible.

JKR has tried FAR too hard to make Snape look as terrible and treacherous as she possible can for him to ACTUALLY be on the bad side. It's like a TV show advertising that "next week a shocking moment someone's going to die!" and then showing a clip of what looks like a character dying... you can automatically rule out that thats not the one who will die. (If that makes any sense, it does in my head.)

ANYways... I agree that there must be alot more to these detentions later, JKR rarely puts something so longwinded and pointless in her book without making them more important later... but honestly I really cant see what purpose old Maruader-mischief filing can serve.
I'm a fan of the idea that Snape was in love with Lily but really hated James... which would explain the mixed signals we all get when we see his interactions with Harry (ie: he saves harry's life in his first quidditch match but makes him miss his last altogether out of spite) and would also put a little light on DD's trust. There's another thread that goes more into detail about that theory though.

I also agree with MissPadfoot where are the Maruaders??? we see Pettigrew for all of fifteen seconds at Spinners end and we only catch Lupin twice or so in very weak roles. I read an interview with Joann some time back and she said that Pettigrew would be playing a much more important role in the sixth book, but he hardly showed up at all, maybe she pushed it back to the seventh book since the interveiw? There are far too many questions I have about dear ole wormtail...

From the moment that it was clear what kind of job Harry had to do in detention, I almost expected him to fall across the record, which showed the incident concerning Snape, Sirius, and the Whomping Willow, because JK had discussed it and said:

Question: "What made Sirius decide to send Snape to the Willow?"
JKR: "Because Sirius loathed Snape (and the feeling was entirely mutual). You'll find out more about this in due course."

But I suppose then this information is up for HP7...

Quote::

I'm still under the impression Snape has "saved Harry's life" in the past, so I'm going on that a little bit.

Ah Accio, you know I was under this idea till HBP but it seems difficult now. I mean maybe he saved Harry's life but he still killed Voldemort. The thing to remember is when Harry wanted to kill Snape after he had murdered DD, Snape just stopped Harry's spells and didn't try other things against him. And he said:

Quote::

Potter is for the Drak Loard, we leave him.

We have discovered Snape is a very powerful wizard, so he would have had no problem killing Harry, tell is maybe, I say maybe some good in him.

Back to the thread...

JKRowling often leaves little things or clues in books and then comes back to them with a whole big thing so maybe the detentions will be important.

We know Harry started with James and Sirius but we don't know what they did or is it me that doesn't remember?