Deathly Hallows’ Tenth Anniversary (1)

July 24, 2017 by 4 Comments

Where was I ten years ago — July 2007 — when Deathly Hallows was published?

I was living in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, just outside Allentown, in a farmhouse adjacent to the Glasbern Inn farm and property. Six of the seven Granger children were still with us, then aged six to seventeen, the oldest daughter having just left to start college at the Virginia Military Institute.

My plan was to be in London, England, on the day of publication. I’d been invited to speak at a big deal conference as a Featured Speaker with air fare and a room at the Savoy. I had been giving interviews to The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. I did a gig on MSNBC, the A&E channel was playing The Secrets of Harry Potter that eventually became a part of the Phoenix DVD extras and I was featured, and two of my books, Unlocking Harry Potter and Looking for God in Harry Potter (now How Harry Cast His Spell), and one that I edited, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?, were in the Amazon Top 100. HogwartsProfessor.com had become the weblog you know today in late December, 2016, and was hitting unprecedented and ten-times-normal traffic levels as media sources linked to the several-times-daily posts I was putting up.

I was pretty excited and wearing full Gilderoy plumage. I spoke to my daughter Hannah one weekend, the first phone call home she was allowed as a ‘Rat’ in VMI’s spartan immersion in cadre discipline. I told her my plans for London and my secret wish to meet The Presence Herself. Isn’t it possible that JKR will stop by the biggest fan conference in the same city as the book release?

My oldest daughter, a champion athlete and as deft rhetorically, decided that sarcasm was the pin she needed to burst my balloon.

“That’s great, Dad. You can read the book to your younger children the next time the seventh book in the series comes out.”

What she was talking about was my break with a family tradition. I guess to her, as an Orthodox Christian being initiated into the military caste culture, my desertion of post for individual advantage contra convention and expectation was about as low as I could go. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Deathly Hallows Discussion Points, Hog Pro Notes, Unlocking Harry Potter, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?

Potter-porri: Potter Reading to Close the Interlibrum

July 10, 2007 by 8 Comments

While I am scrambling to put together my talk for Enlightening 2007 this weekend and write the Tale of Two Cities post that has been haunting me since March (the answer to what happens to Harry in Deathly Hallows?), I keep stumbling upon and reading works of brilliance from friends and friends-I-have-yet-to-meet in the blog-o-live-journal-sphere. I assume that everyone here has quit their job or taking a leave of absence from their senses until 21 July (August?), so here is enough challenging reading to last you until P-Day.

Let’s start out with my heavy hitting co-horts from Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Unlocking Harry Potter, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?

Professor Mom’s Unified Theory of Everything

April 24, 2007 by 9 Comments

I am totally swamped in end-of-school dealings and fear I will be until June. The good news is that the older man my wife has been cooking for has succeeded in lowering his Prostate Specific Antigen numbers from 86 to 11 in a month and down to .42 in another month. Now that he is feeling better, I hope when school is out to be able to post at HogPro almost daily. As it is, I’ll be here on the weekends, work and family allowing.

Until the weekend, though, when I will share my thoughts on the theory that Severus Snape is the Green Lion or Alchemical Vitriol (the catalyst of the Great Work?), I do have something to keep you thinking along challenging lines. Professor Mum (sometimes ‘Mom’), whose essay on the House of Black in Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? is the talk of Fandom and driving the sales of that book, is attempting a grand synthesis of Red Hen, Swythyv, Alchemy, and her own cogent musings, to create her own Unified Theory of Everything. Chapter One is up and it’s a WOW.

See you this weekend!

John, loving the idea of a Slytherin/Gryffindor androgyn being the “Green Lion”

Filed Under: Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?

The Red Hen’s Latest: What Happened at Godric’s Hollow

February 7, 2007 by 19 Comments

The Red Hen, aka Joyce Odell, designed and made the most significant contribution to Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? (Zossima Press, 2007). We keep in touch, if I think she talks and writes more often to the other writers in WKAD? than with me. Pout.

Tonight, though, Joyce wrote to say she had been trying to post something below in response to my question about “What Dumbledore knew and when?” and the Word Press blog wasn’t letting her put it up. It certainly deserves its own thread; The Red Hen, once again, has, with the help of Swythyv from WKAD? she reports, figured out something that seemed hopelessly mysterious. As she predicted the Astronomy Tower scene from Half-Blood Prince in remarkable detail in 2003 on Harry Potter for Grown-ups, this shouldn’t be that surprising.

The Red Hen suggests, in brief, that what killed Lily Potter was not an Avadra Kedavra curse but the second part of the Horcrux-creation spell. It makes remarkable reading and I urge you to grab a cuppa before sitting to enjoy it. I expect it will turn your thinking upside-down as it has mine, if pet theories I know are attached to us all with Permanent Sticking Charms. This is yoga-like stretching for everyone’s speculative tissue and the workout is engaging and challenging.

Thank you, Joyce, for your permission to post this here at HogPro.

John, Red Hen fan forever [Read more…]

Filed Under: Plot Points, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?