[HPforGrownups] Re: Slytherins

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 2081

Sister Mary Lunatic wrote:

> What's amazing is that neither Harry nor Hermione has ever shown any
> indication of investigating James and Lily's school or life history.  I know
> Harry has had curiosity drummed out of him by the Dursleys, but you'd think
> that four years in a nurturing environment like Hogwarts would lead to a
> LITTLE curiosity about his parents' lives.

They may have, like so many of us, simply assumed they knew. Or one or both may,
in fact, know, and the information has not yet been passed on to us, the
readers. A bombshell isn't always a bombshell to the characters involved, but it
always is to the readers.

I always get the feeling that Harry holds his mental construct of his parents
delicately, like a piece of jewelry one treasures and doesn't wear so it won't
get hurt. And he's still adjusting to the parts he *does* know. He still has
only known the truth about them for four years, and it's been a pretty busy four
years, and the only time he's not busy is when he's at the Dursleys', when
investigation is pretty much out of the question. Nor has he had a lot of
quality time with the best source for most of this sort of intimate information,
Sirius. I'm betting this kind of thing will be a lot more developed in the later
books.

--Amanda