Another question.

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:

zanooda:
> Hi guys, in PS/SS ch.7 there is a sentence I can't fully understand. It's when McGonagall brings in the Sorting hat for the new students to be sorted. Here is the sentence (Harry's thoughts):
> 
> "Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing - noticing that everyone in the Hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it too" (p.117 Am.ed. or p.87-88 Br. ed.). 
> 
> What I don't understand is this part: "that seemed the sort of thing". What does it even mean? Is it about the Hat? Did the Hat seem like a hat magicians usually get rabbits out of, LOL? I don't understand it, and in every translations that I read translators skipped this part of the sentence (even in the French translation) - I guess they don't understand it either :-). Could anyone explain this, please :-)?

Geoff:
I think this refers back to the previous page (UK PS p.86) where there is 
a brief exchange between Harry and Ron....

'Harry swallowed.
"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked Ron.
"Some sort of test, I think..."'

So Harry is worrying about this possibility. If you now move forward
to where Professor McGonagall places the hat on the stool, Harry - 
and the others are presumably trying to imagine a test based on this 
scruffy old hat.

Hence, as you suggest, Harry's thinking is running along the line of a 
stage magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Are they expected to do 
something like that?- that seemed the sort of thing (that he thought 
was likely) - my suggested text.

Does that help?