Chapter 20 - The First Task

[Jim Flanagan]

No: HPFGUIDX 5990

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Sarah Rettger <ara_kel at y...> wrote:
> Chapter 20 – The First Task
<snip>

> 3. How well chaperoned are Hogwarts students?  Are
> they just left alone in their towers each night with
> the assumption that they will stay in their beds all
> night?  Harry and Hermione practice the Summoning
> Charm in an empty classroom until midnight, and then
> in their common room until two o'clock, and they are
> never seen by an adult.  Thoughts?

There are lots of examples of this problem: 
Percy and Penelope spending time in disused 
classrooms (with those nice horizontal benches); 
Snape finding several couples in the 
bushes on "prom" night; the Weasleys coming 
home at 4 in the morning when they were students.
Even the otherwise admirable Prof. McGonnagal fails 
to give any sort of personal guidance or supervision 
to the charges in her House.

Either Madame Pomfrey's cupboards are well stocked with
contraceptives or there are things (in addition to
apparating) that can't happen at Hogwarts.  Someone 
should ask JKR about it some time.

Along the same line: what's with the elaborate
Prefect's bath (book 2)?  Do female prefects
have a separate bath? Is it co-ed? Maybe we'll
find out when Hermione is made a prefect in 
book 5.


> 4. The Triwizard Tournament is supposed to foster
> international magical cooperation, yet Moody tells
> Harry that cheating has been an integral part of the
> tournament since its inception.  Don't these two
> aspects seem to be counterproductive? 

Consider the source. Can't you just see Moody/Crouch jr 
whispering opportune information seductively into Harry's 
ear, like a disfigured Mephistopheles? Besides, what he 
said is certainly true with regard to the current Tournament, 
courtesy of Ludo Bagman, Madame Maxime, and Herr Karkaroff. 
Is it likely that past Tournaments have been any more honest?

-Jim Flanagan