Ah-ha! Thank you!

Here is my magic trick for finding them. I typed +ravenclaw +badge into Google. Eh la!

Here is my magic trick for finding them. I typed +ravenclaw +badge into Google. Eh la!

Yeah, yeah. While that website doesn't have badges (just patches), they DO have a patch for Durmstrang. Ooooh, I am so tempted by that.

Of course, Slytherin and Gryffindor have the most merchandise. Bah.

I typed +ravenclaw +badge into Google.

Ya don't need the plus signs, you know. Google defaults to and.

beathen, thanks for the link. The evidence is pretty overwhelming. I especially like the parallel between the language used to describe Harry's feeding Dumbledore the potion and Snape's face before killing Dumbledore.

I like Snape because he's good but a jackass. This entire series is about how people's prejudices are wrong.

Which cave are people referring to in reference to Tom Riddle and the children? I don't think I remember that. Not the Horcrux cave, right?

It is the same cave, PC -- that's how they found it. It's one of the incidents of his child cruelty sketched to Dumbledore when he finds him at the orphanage.

Ah, okay. Must have skimmed over that detail.

Well, DD thought that the cave was used to store the Horcrux because that's where he had done some unmentioned things to a few fellow residents of the orphanage before DD gave him his Hogwarts letter. Creepy kid.

Knut, I never thought for a moment that you intended to offend anyone, and I could see that it was intended to be a light-hearted comment. I'm sorry if you felt attacked, and I genuinely did try to respond as calmly and courteously as possible.

Forgive me - I don't mean to belabour the point, but I'm still not 100% sure I've understood you (which seems to be a two-way thing!). Am I right to understand that you read the book believing that Snape was betraying the Order? And that you believed this because of his behaviour in Chapter 2? And that your present stance is that maybe, conceivably the argument for Snape-as-loyal-to-the-Order might be correct, but it seems to be highly unlikely and rather clutching at straws?

When I'm referring to a mislead, I mean the business of Snape convincing Bellatrix (and perhaps the reader) that he has always been loyal to Voldemort. I don't see any conflict here, because the Deatheaters aren't idiots and Snape would naturally be regarded with extreme suspicion, which he would have to allay by persuading them that he was playing Dumbledore. It has to be convincing. But Dumbledore has always trusted Snape, despite the opinions of others, and Dumbledore is not a gullible fool. He does believe that people have the capacity to be good, and to change, but he wasn't fooled by Tom Riddle for a moment. I don't think he's been fooled by Snape. (And, okay, yes, I'm very fond of the Snape-having-been-in-love-with-Lily theory, because Snape goes on and on and on about James, and has been vile to an 11 year old orphan on the basis of his [justifiable] hatred of James - so it's not like Snape's exactly an emotionally mature adult who's moved on and forgotten the passions of his school days. But regardless of whether this will turn out to be his motivation, I think that Dumbledore must have a tangible reason to trust him, because I just don't think Dumbledore is gullible.) So even though Bellatrix buys Snape's argument, I definitely don't. I think JKR is misleading the reader in the same way that she did in previous books over Snape, Quirrel, Moody, Sirius etc. I think it's quite skillfully and successfully done, because a (to me) astonishing number of people do seem to think Snape is a villain.

ita said "I think Harry certainly has legit reasons to hate Snape -- it's the ungrounded leap from hating someone to feeling they're evil that may be the lesson here." And that's very much my reading.

*...damn, how ridiculous do I sound to use a phrase like 'academic integrity' within the context of this discussion about frigging Harry Potter?

I wonder if J.K. will write a series of prequel books about Tom Riddle as a kid.

Though I don't see him as the kind of kid to say, "Yippee!"

damn, how ridiculous do I sound to use a phrase like 'academic integrity' within the context of this discussion about frigging Harry Potter?

Huggably ridiculous. {{Fay}}

I wonder if J.K. will write a series of prequel books about Tom Riddle as a kid.

In an interview, she said she might consider writing a book about Dumbledore. I wouldn't mind seeing a book about the fight against Grindelwald (or whatever his name is) set against the background of WWII.