Harry Potter and the Lady of Chocolate

Follow the chocolate. That’s it. There’s my contribution. I just couldn’t let the last day of Potter-liminality go by without saying something, and it looks like you lot have covered everything else.

You see, two people are reported missing at the beginning of HBP, wand-maker Ollivander and ice-cream-dude Fortescue. Most bloggers have been concentrating on Ollivander, who is presumed to be making a new wand for Voldemort (one that will work against Harry's) or maybe doing something else, but maybe it is Fortescue the ice cream guy we should be more concerned about. And maybe it is the redemptive power of sweets and ice cream that will ultimately save the world from the forces of evil.

Consider the importance of sweets in the books:

1. Dumbledore's password (rotten security, by the way)

2. Chocolates cure lingering effects of dementor attacks

3. Everyone is preoccupied with sweets (OK, maybe this is normal)

and

4. Surely it cannot be a coincidence that Hogwarts, isolated from the greater world by walls, gates, countless enchantments, and a forbidden forest, is connected by tunnel to a candy store--Honeydukes, the sweetshop. It took a lot of trouble to make those tunnels, even with magic. Each one must be where it is for a very good reason.