Life After Harry Potter
Life After H P
Home

Luna Lovegood Luna Lovegood

and the Watch of Doom and the Watch of Doom

Page 25

by

James E. Pettis

Chapter Three

Familiar Preparations

“At least three,” replied Luna.  “I think maybe more.”

“Excellent!” Xenophilius beamed, rubbing his hands together.  “I’ll put a little sleeping spell on them tonight, just long enough for us to raid the nest, and then you can have your choice of eggs.  We can start after night has fallen.”

Please leave a critical comment!
Some of my concerns:
  • Is it clear why they are waiting until nightfall?

They returned to the kitchen and put together a simple lunch.  They quickly became dissatisfied with the lack of preparations into which they could immediately hurl themselves.  In its place, they began discussing how they would continue The Quibbler while Luna was away at school.  Luna’s role in this was not minor:  she had a talent upon which Xenophilius depended.  A few years before, he had discovered that Luna had a remarkable memory of the contents of certain articles.  In fact, she could recite them word-for-word, months after they had appeared.  His inquisitive mind led him to engage his daughter in memory experiments.  Their goal was to discover exactly why she could recall those particular articles so well.  They learned that, after reading an article several times, she could remember every word perfectly.  Further experimentation led to the discovery that this was primarily a visual memory “trick.”  Luna could see the words of the article in her memory, in the exact location that they originally appeared.  They tested every possibility in order to find the most efficient method for her to photograph an article mentally.  The solution was for her literally to read it forward, backward and upside-down.  Xenophilius, in his most ceremonious tones, christened this the Lovegood ForBUD Process.  Luna called it forbudding.7

Please leave a critical comment!
Some of my concerns:
  • Is the second sentence of this paragraph difficult to follow?
  • Does forbudding fit in with Luna’s personality and with the books?
  • Does giving Luna this “super power” jive with the books, and does it make her less likable?
  • Does this “super power” make it easier to understand why Luna is always quoting from The Quibbler, and is it a reasonable excuse for her seeming to almost always have The Quibbler upside-down (while Hermione only has it upside-down once)?
  • Is it clear how the term “ForBUD” is derived?
If you would like a response to your comments or have questions, please e-mail your questions or comments to me at the address email@life-after-harry-potter.com.
Page 25
Valid XHTML 1.1! Valid CSS! Page design by

HARRY POTTER, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros.  Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J. K. Rowling.  All rights reserved.  All uses of material subject to these copyrights on this site are used without permission.  All material presented here is intended solely for the enjoyment of the reader and is not authorized for copy or resale.  To fully enjoy this story, the reader should be in possession of all of the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling, but especially the first two, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Any and all copyright priveleges not belonging to the aforementioned, including the entirety of this web site design and content, are copyright © 2007-2008 by James E. Pettis This page copyright © 2008 by James E. Pettis

About this web site