How did Fred and George know to say...

[FantasticHarryPotter]

I solemnly swear I am up to no good?

I mean it's pretty specific, isn't it?

Any other HP questions you'd like to know the answers too? We can share our theories too.
NB: going through a depressive episode so talking about one of my teenage passions adult passions.

I'm not surprised about Nagini actually - she has very human like mannerisms and descriptions. She was also able to impersonate Bathilda which I don't think she could do without human understanding.

With the Secret Keeper thing I feel it's similar to the Sorting Hat. Once you're in the know you can discuss with others in the know but nobody who isn't.

What I don't get is why the Potters don't chose Dumbledore as Secret Keeper. nobody is more trustworthy.

Thanks for the thoughts I'm getting there slowly.

Dumbledore offered to be the potters secret keeper as he was concerned someone close to the potters was a traitor (he thought Sirius at the time). The potters turned him down.

Ok, so the Secret Keeper thing allows the house to be seen once James and Lily were dead (did no one notice it vanish!?) but that must mean Harry was never covered? Everyone can see him.

I would assume that the secret was about where the Potter family were hiding so they were safe as long as they were in the house and no one had told V. Once he knew he could find them.
Harry was visible because he was no longer in the cottage and the spell was broken.

The secret protects the building and those within it.

I always wondered what happened to James and Lily's parents. Considering they were really young when they had Harry and then died. So what happened to the grandparents that Harry ended up with the Dursleys?

@MrsBartlettforthewin JK Rowling has stated that both sets of grandparents died of natural causes. This is more realistic for James's parents as they had him 'later in life' but Lily's aren't mentioned as being particularly old and she died at 21 so it seems a bit 'convenient' to me!

@teastorm of course it's convenient JK is in charge of the story, being the author
Isn't it so great that she creates such an intricate world that we almost feel we 'own' it too.

Ah I see.

Totally agree kaytee87 this is probably my favourite 'universe' and have re-read many times.

Hello NewYoiker nice to see you on a different thread. Hope you are hanging in there.

I adore HP threads as I always wonder about these things but I'm too last to look much of it up. I love MN people sharing their knowledge.

To the PP who said HP doesn't have issues from his upbringing, I'd say he really does. He rarely turns to adults for help or tells them important information until it is too late. He is arrogant as hell in a subversive way. He over bonds with Hagrid and holds very high standards of what he expects his friends to do for him.

@WingsofNylon oooh I agree with pretty much everything you said there. Harry is arrogant and selfish in some ways while being extraordinarily selfless in others. He's such a flawed character and I just love reading him because of this.

MinecraftHolmes Hogwarts was free to all students.

Oh what a great thread. I don't know the answer to any of these questions but I have one of my own...

In 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' - when Barty Crouch nobbled the real Mad Eye Moody and stuffed him in that trunk... how on earth could that have happened given that MEM was an auror by trade - and also that he had that Foe Glass to show all his enemies?

This has bugged me for some time, not least because Barty Crouch as MEM was a pretty fabulous Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher... he was kind to HP - and bounced Malfoy around as a ferret.

I agree with Wings about Harry Potter being arrogant. I wasn't impressed with him at the start of Order of the Phoenix with the things he said to Dudley Dursley, he just brought himself down to that same level.

Oh yes the madeye thing. I just assumed as BCJ had spent years hiding and listening that he had picked up some inside info on madeye when in his father's house. I also assumed PP helped ( though his help wouldn't have been worth a lot but maybe enough to attack and over power MEM)

Thanks MrsBartlettforthewin, that does sort of make sense. I had to double-back then as I read PP as Previous Poster when you meant Peter Pettigrew. I've obviously been here too long!

I too thought that Harry was indeed a lot like James as he was very arrogant in many ways. He wasn't as mean about it as James but still.

I too wonder about Mad Eye and Crouch Junior. However, it makes sense why he's like that to Malfoy and Karkaroff - as they both abandoned his Master (well Draco's Dad did).

I have another one.

Why doesn't everyone have portraits painted of themselves / their family so they can talk to them after death?

LyinhWitchinthewardrobe 😆

Maybe like current art it costs a bomb to have a magical portrait painted so only the old/ rich families can afford it. In the books the talking portraits very much seem a status symbol.

I'd like to know why Lily all of a sudden liked James, having found him mean and arrogant for many years before.

FantasticHarryPotter I've always wondered that too. Maybe he matured in 6th year like a lot of kids do she. They hit 6th form. Or he was bewitching her with love potions the whole time.

Maybe Lily, like so many of us, likes bad-boys-that-are-no-good-for-us.

I would have liked Lily with Sirius... and McGonnegal with Hagrid... and me with Snape!

I don't like Ginny with Harry, they're not convincing as a couple (in the film), and I don't really know what she was doing in Griffyndor other than the usual school thing of siblings going to the school/being in the same house?

I would like to have seen Neville with a main character, he was excellent and deserved more of the limelight. Rupert Grint was brilliant too as were his two twin brothers and honestly, I think they knocked spots off Daniel Radcliffe in the later films. He should have been ramping up his acting, not sitting back. He must have learned so much but it didn't show.

I put him in the same category as Benedict Cumberbatch; very much hyped but not especially great at his craft.

Every time I see Ruper Grint in HP 1&2 I think how much he looks like Pauline Quirke... the same cute little face.

MrsBartlett, I do agree, Lily married a bully. No other word for it. What he did with Snape, humiliating him in front of a gang was just low.

Lily liked Snape... I wonder what would have become of him had he married Lily?

I think James and Tom Riddle could have become best buds...

Harry Potter, yay!

I often wonder how large scale spells work. Taking the Fidelius, for example, presumably lots of people knew where the Potters lived: did they all forget?
And Obliviate! What if Hermione's parents stumble into someone they know, who ask: "How's Hermione doing?" If they forget, how come the wizards and witched don't?

There’s a theory as to why the map doesn’t show pettigrew.

He was one of the people who created it so it made sense to shadow all 4 of themselves in case it was discovered.

Sirius as another member, could then unshadow it when in his possession