Another question.

[potioncat]

Potioncat:
Also agreeing with the slightly differing opinions of previous posters. But I think the construction of the sentence is intended to show Harry's state of mind. It's sort of choppy and disjointed. So your uncertainty at its translation is appropriate.

Carol: 
> I doubt that the Sorting Hat reminded Harry of a Muggle magician's top hat, but his idea of "magic" at this point is probably limited to pulling rabbits out of hats, card tricks, sawing people in half, and making your assistant disappear inside a cabinet. 

Potioncat:
Earlier in the book--if any of us remembered it by this point--Dudley was complaining about missing his favorite show, Humbert the Magician. (or something similar). So Harry's idea of magic, as Carol says, would lean toward that sort of trick.

Carol, did you write that particular list with certain events in mind? It gave me an A-Ha! moment. All these years of discussing HP and I never, ever put Vanishing Cabinet with a RW magician making a lovely assistant disapper and reappear. I kept wondering what a Vanishing Cabinet would be in the RW--(dishwasher? trash compacter?) and never made that connection. Boy, do I feel dim!

The rest of the items make me think of young wizards turning a hat into a rabbit, Fred and George's card tricks, and splenching.