"Incalculable power"

[justcarol67]

zanooda wrote:
> 
> Thanks :-). How about this one then: in "Bathilda's Secret", when Harry sees Godric's Hollow events through LV's eyes, there is a sentence: "The child had not cried all this time: he could stand, clutching the bars of his cot, and he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest..." (p.344-345 and p.281). 
> 
> I don't understand what "could stand" means here. Does it mean that he could stand in general (like "he was old enough to be able to stand") or that he "managed to stand up" in this particular case. Thanks again to everybody :-).
>
Carol responds:
Since he's fifteen months old and most babies are walking by that age, I'm sure it means he was old enough to stand. Remember, Harry had been riding a toy broom shortly before that, so he could definitely walk (and therefore stand). "Could" usually means "was able to." If Voldemort meant "managed to stand," I think that JKR/the narrator would have said so (or used "only just stood up" or some similar expression to indicate that he barely accomplished the feat.

Carol, who thinks that this one is pretty straightforward