My theory on why Apparition is not used to take Harry from the Dursleys’ is in fact due to how closely Harry is being watched. He is already currently in trouble for using a Patronus in front of his cousin, and potentially, magic done around Harry could be detected as well (remember CoS when Dobby dropped Aunt Petunia’s dessert). This issue is addressed again in DH when Lily’s protection is about to be removed due to Harry’s coming-of-age.

The Ministry is VERY interested in Harry in Book 5, since Harry is essentially a pariah claiming that the biggest threat the Wizarding world has ever seen has returned, but the Ministry backs off of Harry in terms of under-age magic use in Book 6 when they realize the truth. The Ministry in Book 7, now under Voldemort’s influence, is once again watching Harry closely to capture him for Voldemort’s ultimate victory.

ANYWAY, I wanted to say that I would assume that most people in the wizarding world would know what James and Lily Potter looked like because there would have been a ton of information, pictures, memorials, what have you after they died and Harry lived and Voldemort was gone. Their picture would have been on the front page of the Daily Prophet at least the next morning, if not more often. Possibly their pictures would be in whatever book Hermione read that told her about Harry Potter (she knew about him on the first Hogwarts Express trip, right?), but Harry, oddly, was never one to seek out information about his parents as much as you’d think he might, so we’ll never know.

I do, however, agree with some of you that the discussion about so called “strong women” in literature is somewhat strange. It has become such a loaded subject that you can barely touch it without it blowing up in your face. It seems like, in order for a female character to be regarded as “strong”, she will need to show no weaknesses.
I think this is rubbish, and I think that the characters in HP are more or less equal between the genders, and more so than in many other books. They show human sides, without them they would simply be flat and boring characters. I have read far too many books where the author puts so much effort into making the main female character strong, that it simply becomes laughable and the girl in question is a boring stereotype without any humanity whatsoever that you can relate to as a reader.

True, I did notice Fleur was ridicolously behind the males in the Triwizard Tournament and, true, all the girls tend to become quite stereotypical once they have fallen in love. But I do think most of them can still be regarded as equal to the males; Molly Weasley is very strong and cool in my opinion, and we all knew from the start that her family is her weakest spot. Ginny, Hermione, Fleur (not to mention Luna!) are all displaying sides that can be regarded as “strong female sides”, as well as sides that can be regarded as “weak”.
But we have to remeber, showing weakness is not the same thing as being weak.

also, everyone has their own definition of what strong and weak is, but what is it? nobody is perfect, especially during war, thats what i will add

I wanted to mention something completely off-topic: Mad-Eye’s “Come here, boy. I need to disillusion you,” which I think is one of the funniest lines in the books!

And a thought about Fleur in the Tri-Wizard Tournament: The task where she did significantly worse than the others was the second, where she was derailed by grindylows. Grindylows are native to Scotland and not to France or Bulgaria, so Harry and Cedric had an advantage there. Krum prepared better than anyone for the second task – we saw him swimming in the lake in January, and he probably became familiar with the creatures that lived in the lake while he was swimming there. Fleur failed in the second task not because she was weak or not as good at magic, but because she didn’t do the research that Krum did and that Cedric and Harry didn’t need to do.

Your point did make me realize, though, that we do have a direct male counterpart to Tonks: Snape. In both cases, once they fell in love, they thought of virtually nothing else until the day they died, and while it drove both to do good things, it remained a debilitating weakness for the rest of their lives. So there is that!

“Dumbledore, who was the great defender of Love, and who sincerely believed that Love was the greatest, most powerful, force in the universe, was himself made a fool of by Love…. In his youth, he was – he became infatuated with a man who was almost his dark twin.”
–J.K. Rowling (December 2007)