If you want to communicate, communicate. If you want to make unexplained pronouncements, go away. If asking is pointless then you posting is pointless.

What's the big scary secret?

I could benefit from using the hiatus time to reread MOR and make notes of anything that seems significant in light of 85 chapters' worth of perspective. This would be even more productive if some number of us read and analyzed together, I believe. Anyone care to join in such an endeavour?

Just noticed this lovely little tidbit at the very end of Chapter 84:

"[Hermione] thought she heard, as she was within the doorway, a distant cawing cry. But it wasn't meant for her, she knew[.]"

What on Earth is that supposed to mean? Who or what is cawing in Hogwarts or on the grounds, and how does she know something about it that we don't? Or am I missing some terribly obvious connection here?

Am I losing my mind, or was there a change made to Chap 16? I recall this section:

" No, there is exactly one monster which can threaten you once you are fully grown. The single most dangerous monster in all the world, so dangerous that nothing else comes close. The adult wizard. That is the only thing that will still be able to threaten you."

However now it reads:

" No, there is exactly one monster which can threaten you once you are fully grown. The single most dangerous monster in all the world, so dangerous that nothing else comes close. The Dark Wizard. That is the only thing that will still be able to threaten you."

If it was changed... why the change? The original was better, and (perhaps more to the point) more in keeping with Quirrell's character. He wouldn't distinguish between adult and Dark wizards when it comes to threat-to-his-students assessment.

I have no idea how to interpret the first clue. Are Voldemort's eyes Remembralls?

How many instances can y'all remember where Eliezer has repeated himself in an oddly specific way?

• Chapter 17, when Harry picks up Neville's Remembrall: "The Remembrall was glowing bright red in his hand, blazing like a miniature sun that cast shadows on the ground in broad daylight."

• Chapter 43, when Harry has a Dementor-induced flashback of the night... something happened in Godric's Hollow: "And the boy in the crib saw it, the eyes, those two crimson eyes, seeming to glow bright red, to blaze like miniature suns, filling Harry's whole vision as they locked to his own -"

That really sets off my deliberate-hint senses - so much is repeated that it's got to be intentional. (My apologies if this was already discussed to death in the considerable time since #43 was posted.)

Likewise the basilisk, which I know was discussed at some point:

• Chapter 35, H&C speaking: "Salazar Slytherin would have keyed his monster into the ancient wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself."

• Chapter 49, the Defense Professor speaking: "or by some entity which Salazar Slytherin keyed into his wards at a higher level than the Headmaster himself."

I'm sure I could find more if I put my mind to it, but that's all I've got for now.

Related to the discussion about the Defense Professor's talk with Hermione, but more generalized:

We've had Word of God (can't find the specific comment quickly) to the effect that parts of the text that are "too obvious" to readers are in fact meant to be that obvious, not meant as red herrings. Have we had any pronouncement about the truthfulness of things that the characters find "too obvious"? (As, for example, Hermione's realisation that Quirrell was apparently trying to get her to leave.)

He knows Hermione is suspicious of him. Why did he not let Harry - whom IIRC we previously saw saying that Hermione ought to be sent to Beauxbatons - beg Hermione to leave, or failing that, order her? Why did he make the blatantly manipulative hard-sell tactic of 'buy now, this is a limited-time offer only!' to someone whom he knows distrusts him, has read literature on manipulative tactics, and without giving a convincing Inside View explanation for why it's genuine and not what the Outside View says it is (manipulation)? Is this all reverse-psychology?

How likely is it that the outcome of the Defense Professor's talk with Hermione was genuinely not what he wanted? Surely he has to have realized by now that Hermione is the sort of person who'd act like that, however incomprehensible it may be to him. I am reminded of the passage in the LotR omake that reads:

"If the Enemy thought that all his foes were moved by desire for power alone - he would guess wrongly, over and over, and the Maker of this Ring would see that, he would know that somewhere he had made a mistake!"

Maybe he truly doesn't understand her psychology, especially if he doesn't have H&C's, erm, experimentation to draw on. (I rather think he is H&C, but that's another issue entirely.) But working from the supposition that he wanted Hermione to react as she did, what does he gain from that?

• She's within easy striking distance if he wants to use her in some future action.

• She's acquired extra suspicion of the Defense Professor, which she will communicate to Harry, and which the Defense Professor may duly disprove to Harry, strengthening the latter's trust.

• She may, if she stays near Harry, do something unpredictably Good (c.f. SPHEW) of her own free will (inasmuch as that exists anymore) that would be useful for enacting various lessons.

• Something else that I haven't thought of yet.