Sirius has re-entered relationships. Until this moment, he had nobody but himself, so what did it matter if he killed Peter now or five minutes from now? Now Lupin is saying, "I don't know the story. These children don't, and James's kid doesn't know." Suddenly, Sirius has relationships that he's responsible to, and that brings life; that brings more reason to live. Scabbers is squealing; he's listening, too. This chapter is set up so that we can go back and reread it from every character's perspective; every character has something different going on.

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'Don't kill. Get the full story. You might think what you want is revenge or anger or hatred or murder, but what you really want -- what's really going to satisfy you -- is knowing the full story.' Expelliarmus, disarmament, enables the story to be told. Oh, Sirius... His voice is all rough because he hasn't had anyone to listen to him for so long.

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In this series that is overtly skeptical about a lot of new age or mystical things, we see something that is obviously meant to be genuine divination. It's powerful and it's undeniable, so do we suspend our belief or not? This series has simultaneously disbelieved and believed. It's fun, and the fact that Trelawney doesn't know about it somehow makes it more authoritative.
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JC: For Harry, this is one thing that he has that is really his own. I think about the students I've worked with. How important it is for a kid to have a thing that they are good at and that they know they're good at. To have an identity as, "I am a person who is capable of something."

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LK: To me, this chapter is a masterpiece. People have secret agendas, everything is working on at least three layers at once, and everybody in this chapter is right and wrong about everything.

JC: It's a common refrain online for people who really dislike the author, for extremely legitimate reasons, who will often say, "Oh, the books are mediocre." This is the kind of chapter where I want to go, "How do you read this and call it mediocre?" As much as I dislike the author personally, I've got to admit this is just damn good.

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JC: “How cool would it have been to be one of the teachers in that school, to be sitting in that game and to watch Harry Potter shoot off a fully formed Patronus? Everybody else knows what Harry's Patronus looks like now, except for Harry. Lupin knows. Lupin is the only person in that space who knows what that stag means.”
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You can't tell Harry Potter, "Don't continue to integrate your memories. Don't continue to uncover who you are and to be yourself." These are his memories; they belong to him. These are his parents that were taken from him, but he can't remember them without this agony. Okay, Lupin is here to try to give whatever advice Lupin can about how to strengthen yourself so that you can go in and be reunited with what's yours.

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Why is there this broom? Why is it so suspicious, even though it turns out to be fine? What passions have all come together in this wildly ostentatious, inappropriate, mysterious, dangerous gift replacing a gift that was already in itself inappropriate and ostentatious from two years ago? This child of destiny with the only two people in the world he can trust, and now one of them has just turned in his broom.

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