It looks like there isn't a trade edition of Howl's Moving Castle in the US or in the UK.

I still don't understand Snape calling Lily a "mudblood" when he is one himself!

Well, I think if I were hanging upside down in the air, hoist by my own spell, with my old grey knickers exposed to the elements and the iminent possibility of said knickers vanishing, then Captain Logic would have well and truly left my tugboat. I think he's just lashing out, and it's the first insult to hand. And it sounds like he's got plenty of reason to dislike Muggles, if his father was a git AND a Muggle.

Speaking as someone who was bullied at school, Wee!Snape totally has my sympathy in that scene. His reactions bespeak someone who's been getting this shit from these people a LOT.

His reactions bespeak someone who's been getting this shit from these people a LOT

And now he has to be all supportive of the son of one of his chief tormentors, said son showing every sign of following in Dad's footsteps. It's a wonder Snape didn't poison Harry in Potions Class Day 1. "My word, Headmaster, I have no idea how he got hold of the monkshood-bubotuber pus elixer. Stupid boy."

said son showing every sign of following in Dad's footsteps.

How so? I'm curious because I've never seen that much of James in Harry, aside from looks and what Snape infers.

I don't think Kate visits Bitches, and I'm a-scared of Natter, so congratulations, Kate!!

Hey, thanks! And good call; I'm hardly around either Natter or Bitches these days, and Literary seems a pretty appropriate place for this.

Fay, when Snape is giving Harry the Occulemency (sp?) lessons, he takes memories out of his own head and stores them in the Pensieve. Then Snape gets called away and Harry looks in the Pensieve, and sees a wee Snape cringing in a corner while his father abuses his mother. (I think the abuse was implied, and the scene was the father yelling and the mother cringing).

That is actually not in the Pensieve memory - it was a memory that Harry picked up from Snape when he (for the only time) fought back during an Occlumency lesson. The Pensieve memory was all one continuous memory.

One point I've stumbled across in my re-reading - In Goblet of Fire, it was stated that Snape became a spy for Dumbeldore before Voldemort's downfall. So theories that Snape's "change of heart" is due to his (unrequited) love for Lily and his regret for causing her death rests on shakier ground.

I'm curious because I've never seen that much of James in Harry, aside from looks and what Snape infers.

General snottiness and as much as Harry can get away with towards a professor without being summarily expelled.

General snottiness and as much as Harry can get away with towards a professor without being summarily expelled.

I see the genereal snottiness - most teenage boys have it in spades. But the only professor I really see him pushing the envelope with sometimes is Snape, who, well, kind of started it. He's pushed McGonagall a couple of times, but not in a classroom situation, that I remember.

My favorite thing about these books - how differently people that read the books and are fans see each character so differently.