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Harry's Christening, Dudley, Snape & Blaise Zabini -
from fan reports from the book festival Summary:
More info on Snape, thestrals, portraits, Dudley, Tom Riddle, Draco and Blaise Zabini.
Article: Info on Harry's Christening, Dudley and Snape
Following the Edinburgh Book Festival today, where J.K.Rowling read from Order of the Phoenix, signed copies of it and asnwered questions, fan reports have popped up courtesy of some of the few lucky people who were lucky enough to be there.
The first is from Emily, who writes:
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Lizo from CBBC Newsround was there and I saw him taking down everything that was said. It was by far the best experience of my life. JK was very pleasant and she thanked everybody for being there. She walked in the very front door while we were out queing and everybody there was so dumbfounded that we all went quiet and just looked at her walk in, we didn't even say hello!!
The second is from a girl called Kirsty. It can be found in whole, at her
Live Journal.
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It was mostly children asking the questions, so there were a lot of 'did you always want to be an author' and 'what's the first character you thought up' questions, but there were a few good ones too. Most tantalizingly - for me at least, if for no one else - someone started to ask whether we'll be seeing more of Blaise Zabini, and just as she started to answer with 'Blaise, yes...', the person asking the question interrupted with '... and will we see more of Snape?' I think it was just a badly phrased question, because of course we're going to see more of Snape, but Jo ran with this instead, not saying very much of anything new, leaving me open mouthed at having this precious information dangled in front of my face, only to be snatched away again.
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She started on the Slytherin fans again, ascribing support for them to the Bad Boy Syndrome and Tom Felton's dubious appeal (not to disrespect his fans - I just don't see it, myself), and, this time, Alan Rickman too. One girl asking a question even prefaced it with 'I love Snape, he's such a complex character', and she still went on about the Alan Rickman thing, which I found to be a little insulting.
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Someone asked whether Tom Riddle or Voldemort ever loved anybody. She said no; he would never have become what he did if he had, and we'll learn more about it in the future.
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When asked if Snape can see Thestrals, and she answered yes, he's seen some nasty stuff with the Death Eaters, but most of the adults in the Wizarding World can probably see Thestrals.
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She reiterated that there is no trace of the Half Blood Prince storyline in CoS anymore.
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On portraits - they're not as 'fully realised' as ghosts. They're like faint imprints, an aura. They're likely to repeat catchphrases like Sirius's mother.
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Harry's christening was a fairly private affair because by this point they knew they would have to go into hiding. Harry does not have a Godmother.
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She said she is a MUGGLE, but implied there is more to Petunia. She didn't put a lot of emphasis on it, but there was definitely something she didn't want to reveal.
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Someone asked if there was more to Dudley than meets the eye, and she replied with a flat out 'no'. I thought this was surprising, considering the effect the Dementors had on Dudley in OotP, but she basically said that with Dudley, what you see is what you get, again mentioning the Dursley's smaller role in Book 6, and that they would reappear for longer in book 7.
Thanks to Emily, Kirsty and
The Leaky Cauldron for these lovely reports.
I think Blaise is a guy. I think it said so on the previous page? A lot of people have been wondering too. I'm pretty sure JK Rowling confirmed it. :flowersmile: 
