It turns out that there is one sentence in American version of the book, which cannot be found in British edition. It's sentence said by Dumbledore. :: ""I can help you, Draco." "No, you can't," said Malfoy, his wand shaking very badly indeed. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'd kill me. I've got no choice." "He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine."" (HBP-british: p. 552/553 ; american [probably] 591). What does it mean??

Are you reading the American or British version, because it IS in the british version!! Cant remember what page as im at work! ()

But I assure you it is in the british version - i can remember reading it

Well, I've just checked my book (british) and for sure it is not in that place. Perhaps somewhere else (but I doubt it).

MOD EDIT: Hey there, and welcome to the forums! Double-posting is not allowed at VTM (you can use the edit button to change your previous post instead), but here's what your second post said....

But why is it missing? Mr. Haber thinks he knows.

"J.K. Rowling is playing a big game with us, and us with her. She buries clues in her books that we need to find to solve the mystery of the climax of that particular book, but there are also clues that pertain the story overall, what we call the 'Harry Potter Septology'. It really looks to me like it's possible that J.K. wrote this sentence, and then realized it went too far and gave too much away, and removed it from the book. However, somehow, by accident, it found its way into the American edition anyway."

DO you think that Malfoy might be a vampire or a werewolf?

Because I recognized how often J.K. has written how pale and bad Draco looks with red eyes and black rings under his eyes!
Of course he was feeling bad because he was supposed to kill DD, or was he also changing into something that draws him closer to the dark side? Like greyback said: I like them young!

At least if he would be a vampire it would be the explanation why DD says you are already dead!

No. i don't think its about Draco being a vampire. I suppose that dumbledore would find a way to fake Draco's death and funeral so that Voldemort really believed that Malfoy was dead. And (I don't want to get too far, but there are many comments on that) that in that case Dumbledore used his plan on himself.

I have a Bloomsbury edition and I don't have this sentence in it.

He can't kill you if you're already dead. It may mean that whatever happens, if Draco kills DD or not, Voldemort will kill Draco. Or maybe Draco is like dead if he belongs to Death Eaters?

No. I don't believe that Draco Malfoy is a vampire. I believe that the recurring images of him being pale with dark circles under his eyes is just to be able to visualize that he's under tremdous stress and most likely losing a lot of sleep. He's been given the command to kill Dumbledore, which he's realized after two distasterous failed attempts that nearly killed Katie and Ron, that he cannot do it. This is proven from the bathroom scene when he is crying and confiding to Moaning Murtle. Back to the main topic, however, Dumbledore stated that he cannot be killed if he is already dead, it just means that Dumbledore is offering his protection, as well as for his family. If he goes into hiding, then Voldemort cannot find him, and therefore cannot kill him or his parents. Voldemort can also be eluded or tricked into believing that Draco has been killed.

No, the way it reads in the US version, it definitely is a statement that DD would pretend to kill Draco when he attempted to kill DD. No one expected Draco to be able to kill DD, and it was almost seen as a punishment to his father for not completing his mission, to send Draco on one that he could not complete, and would probably die trying to do. It wouldn't be a big surprise if he "died" and then was hidden by the Order.

Is the rest of this in the British edition????? DD also said that they could send the Order to "kill" Narcissa and bring her into hiding too. He said that it was something that the DE's would do, kill the family of someone who did not complete their mission for Voldemort, so they'd never question the Order doing it, too. He said that Lucius would be safe in Azkaban for now.

I can't see any of that making sense without the initial statement.

In British version it goes like that:: ""I can help you, Draco." "No, you can't," said Malfoy, his wand shaking very badly indeed. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice." "Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban ... when the time comes we can protect him too ... come over to the right side, Draco ... you are not a killer..."". So, are there any other differences??

hello everyone, i just wanted to know what the difference between the UK and the US versions were. Is it some of the vocabulary that is used? Or is it actually written differently?

What I think Dumbledore meant... and this took ages for me to figure out... is that Draco and Narcissa could 'play dead.' Make it look like they had been killed by the Order, and then have them hide somewhere.
In response to the post preceding mine, there's a bit after Dumbledore mentions sending the Order for Nacrissa, 'Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me- forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother- it is what they would do themselves, after all.' <- I don't know if you just omitted that part from your quote above, but that's what's in our US version.

Really?
I don't have this sentence about not surprised Death eaters... (Bloomsbury, British version). It means there must be the way to hide from Voldemort! It's a very important sentence! What about The Draught of the Living Dead?

It's getting more and more interesting. In my opinion there are three possible explanations for that:
1. Those sentences were there from the beginning, but then Jo decided that they aren't useful (or on the contrary, they're saying too much) and wanted them to be crossed out. The publishers managed to do it in London, but it was too late to change anything in the USA...
2. The publishers were given two options of the conversation and they made the choice by themselves...
3. JKR wanted those versions to differ. She knew, that at some point, we would discover it. She gave us something to think about.

I´m in chock !!

I really dont belive it´s possible she would make TOW different books, mabye by mistake but not on purpose....

I love to hear more teories on what the "He can´t kill you if you already dead" can mean......


/Camilla - still in chock.

In another thread, called "Missing Sentence" it was mentioned that when DD is talking with Draco at the end on the tower, in the US version, he says

Could anyone who has got the american version quote some bigger part of that conversation??

Yes please - that would be great.

MOD NOTE: HI there, I realise you are just answering a question, but one liners are really not allowed. Could you please stretch it out a bit in future. Thanks.

maybe it means that dumbledore could hide draco and he could not be found if dumbledore is the secret keeper of the place where draco and his mother would have been kept

of course. And not only would they hide them, but also pretend that they had killed them [draco and narcissia]. So, will anybody quote that conversation, please


***

Ok, don't bother. With help of "nadzieja" I've got that fragment. And it goes like that ::
"... I can help you, Draco."
"No, you can't," said Malfoy, his wand shaking very badly indeed.
Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'd kill me. I've got no choice."
"He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me- forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother- it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban... when the time comes we can protect him too... come over to the right side, Draco... you are not a killer... "

The difference between the books are basically vocabulary. British people use different words than American people do.

It is sometimes written differently so that the sentence sounds right.

well i dont exactly know but why should it be written any differently the setting, after all is in london well hogwarts but still. The U.S version still uses phrase and words such as bloody hell and git and thing along that line.

I have merged the Missing Sentence topic with the differences between UK and US books, as they are very much under the same heading.

So, what do you think about the other missing sentences? Are they important?? In my opinion they're very important. They give us a proof that there is a way to hide from Voldemort and to fake death. What are your thoughts??

Hello. Good job tomziu and everyone. Well, I think as well that those sentences are important. Maybe DD used that way of faking death to pretend to be murdered by snape. Though I don't want DD to be alive in book 7 . It would be too happy and everything...

now there's one more question: are those the only missing sentences?? Perhaps there's more. We'll just have to wait till somebody finds them. I just can't wait :-) And the previous question: is it a mistake that they're in the American version or was it made on purpose?? It can be a really big thing...

Yeah, I posted the 'missing' bits about hiding Draco & Narcissa, etc, in an earlier post. But I read somewhere that Jo may not have intended the 'he cannot kill you if you are already dead' to be in HBP at all- in fact, it's been speculated that she wanted that edited out of the book, but that it was printed in our US version by mistake. Very odd, indeed. The source from which I found the information seemed to believe Dumbledore's statement to Draco may have "revealed too much" in Jo's opinion. Well, have at it, folks- what do you think?

Wow... that was some serious double posting. I mean that in the best sense. Well anywho...

I get the whole "he cannot kill you if you are already dead" thing, but what about Snape and Narcissa's Unbreakable Vow? That was done in the presence of Bellatrix. So if, let's say Draco did decide to let DD "kill" Draco and his mother? Wouldn't Bellatrix notice if Snape didn't die? Snape vowed to protect Draco at any cost. When Draco "failed", that would mean that Snape did not fulfill his end of the Vow. Then Bellatrix would of course tell Voldemort and they would be hunted down.

I don't know. Did that have anything to do with the topic?

I think the sentence that is under question may be a form of foreshadowing that JKR put in/or took out because of what it revealed. It may be that DD is trying to tell Draco that he is going to fake his death, when Snape comes up to "kill" him. The proof against and for this theory is significant, so it is very difficult to say what will really happen. Though, this is very interesting to ponder

Hey. You know what I'd like? I'd like JKR to admit that everything was on purpose, that she had planned everything to make us get deeper into the book. But IMHO she could say something about that. What exactly happened that in one edition the sentences are there and in other they aren't there...

I began to suspect Draco was changing into a vampire/werewolf because he was constantly ill, looked haggard and absent from meals. The vampire description makes more sense and this would explain why he would be able to detect Snape's attempts at mind reading and be capable of reading his mind. Also, Snape says something along the lines of "I see Bellatrix has taught you Occulemency, which makes me wonder if she is a vampire and is changing Draco. I'm not sure, but I don't recall Bellatrix drinking the wine or mead Snape served them. We also know that Bellatrix is very dedicated and in some way obsessively admires/loves Voldemort and would be willing to risk everything, even her own nephew's life. Then the line in the American version would fit in nicely and would prove Dumbledore's keen powers of detection. The other explanation is that Dumbledore staged his death somehow and then again there is that mysterious portrait still in his office.

Nah. The vampire/werewolf theory is just too farfetched. Draco was incredibly stressed. If he were a werewolf, DD would have noticed long ago; after all, Malfoy would have been biting everyone he could. Even Voldemort wouldn't be able to hide the whole of Slytherin being a bunch of werewolves. As to being a vampire, Malfoy wouldn't have been able to attend classes, now, would he? After all, they are during the day.
As to the different versions, we have no idea if it was on purpose or otherwise. Until JKR gives us some hints later on, we'll never know

BTW-In an interview with the creator of mugglenet, when JKR was asked concerning DD faking death, she answered something along the lines of "I won't answer that; I wouldn't want to crush those people's hopes." I'm too lazy to go find the transcript of that interview on Mugglenet (You try finding a specific thing on that site!), but if someone could go find that quote I'd appreciate it.

And about the portrait: that is there simply because he died and was a headmaster of hogwarts. There must be an enchantment on the room to automatically place a portrait of a dead headmaster on the wall.

I'm still wondering what's the way to fake sb's death. Clearly Dumbledore knows (...rather knew...) it. Isn't that interesting, did he mean only PRETENDING that draco and narcissia are dead(you know, only saying and hiding them) or is there some magical way to "kill" somebody and keep them living... Any ideas???

I doubt that Draco is a vampire.

I think he was so scared about what he had to do, that he spent a lot of time crying (with Myrtle) in the bathroom.

When he wasn't doing that, he was trying to repair the cabinet, which was also frustrating him.

Between all of the stress and frustration, he looked terrible, probably felt tired and looked bad. Things like eating in the Great Hall would have seemed trivial to him, when his and his family's lives hung on his ability to complete these tasks.

Not only would eating in the great hall with the rest of the school probably seem trivial to an overstressed Draco, he was probably taking any time he could get to try to get his plan to work, and if it meant skipping meals, so be it. As to the missing lines, it was probably just a publishing error, but I'm really suprised that there is that much discrepency between the different editions... Someone asked earlier why there have to be different editions for the UK and US, and it's not because of different slang (slang is kept in British English even in the American version), but rather there are random bits of vocab crucial to understanding sentences that are just not used in American English, because languages evolve differently on different continents. There are probably similar changed made for the Australian edition as well.

Fascinating tidbit about the american edition having a couple of, apparently, illuminating sentences which are not found in the British (or Canadian, for that matter) edition...

Certainly a most revealing tidbit, if it wasn't simply an editorial oversight...

I also quite like the idea of Dumbledore being an animagus phoenix... Have to re-read the funeral ending and see if there's any indications of his rising from his ashes, figuratively or otherwise.

Cheers!

I wrote yesterday to Bloomsbury with the question about those sentences. Now i'm waiting for their reply. I wonder how long is it going to take?(if ever)

I think the the missing line is VERY important.

The way DD says it, which such confidence, suggests that he is sure Voldemort would have no idea he was still alive.

For me, it raises questions such as..

Are Lily and James really dead?
Is Sirius really dead?
Is Regulus really dead?
Is Dumbledore really dead?

Now that we know Dumbledore is able to make Voldemort think people are dead when they really aren't, it opens the door for many twists in the 7th book.

I was also shocked!

Maybe Jo took the part out, because she didn't want us to have any doubt about DD's death. Well, if that was her purpose, she failed!

Until now I was sure DD was gone for good, dead. Well, I still think the same, but I understand better the "DD is still alive-Theories".

I feel EXTREMELY cheated that I didn't get have those missing sentences. Now I'm going to have to buy the American series to get them all.

As for Lily and James still being alive, if they are, I hope they die long, drawn out, painful deaths, for abandoning their son like that. And how do you explain the protection that Harry has? I do believe there's something very important in Godric's Hollow, though. Harry "feeling" to do there, and it's a signifigant place, and he wants to see his parent's graves-- maybe there's some kind of twist...

Hi everybody.
I also have the Bloomsbury edition, and I read of that missing sentence today, thanks to a good friend of mine.
Hm.... That sentence is pretty important I think.
My theory is that Malfoy is in fact dead. Yes really. He is already dead and just acts "alive" because he's under the Imperius Curse and/or he's an Inferius. Both could be true.
If Malfoy is really already dead, then he could be the ultimate weapon, which would kill Dumbledore successfully. Malfoys mother had made a real big deal of something that Malfoy should do for "the-one-who-shall-not-be-named" and if that thing Malfoy had to do for "him" is to die so Malfoy would kill Dumbledor, that would explain why Malfoys mom freaks out of this idea and would also explain why Malfoy always looks so pale and seems to behave in an odd way.
My theory is that Malfoy is already dead, as I said. And that he's an Inferius under the Imperius Curse.
I also had that odd and also very crazy idea that Malfoy might be a "Horcrux". I know it sounds freaky, but just imagine how difficult it would be to find out that a person in fact is a Horcrux and if that person already were dead it would almost be impossible to destroy that Horcrux.
This theory is rather vague and I am really not sure if it could be or not. But I think my ideas are not so wrong.
I don't know what you think folks, but that whole thing with this sentence freaks me out. I wanna know what the meaning of it is.
Blessed be,
Uthiel