Cat, Rat and Dog

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 27150

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., devika261 at a... wrote:
Cindy wrote:> 
> > At the beginning of the Shrieking Shack scene, Black disarms 
Harry 
> > and Hermione and then says the following:
> > 
> > "I thought you'd come and help your friend."   <snip>  "Your 
father 
> > would have done the same for me.  Brave of you, not to run for a 
> > teacher.  I'm grateful . . . it will make everything much easier."
> > 
> > What does Black mean by "it will make everything much easier"?  

Devika wrote:> 
> I think you partly answered this question yourself.  Sirius wants 
to kill Peter Pettigrew and get it over with, and Harry's not going 
to get a teacher makes the situation less complicated.  There are 
less people to interfere.  I realize that it's already complicated 
since Harry is there at all, but I'll get to that next.

Ah, geez.  <blushes bright red>  It is their failure to bring a 
teacher that makes things easier, not their presence.  This just blew 
right past me.  Sorry.

Luke wrote:

Obviously, the main reason for this sentence was so that we would 
> still think Sirius was after Harry.  But this is not an example of 
> JKR's misdirection at its very best, IMO, because the real 
explanation 
> is so, I don't know, contrived solely to make the false explanation 
> sound right.  It seems to me that the alleged real reason for 
Sirius 
> making this comment is the fact that their not running for help 
will 
> make things easier, not so much their presence there.  > 

Maybe I can blame my confusion on the awkwardness you identified, 
Luke.  You see, Black has plenty of time to transform and kill 
Pettigrew if Hermione and Harry have to run all the way back to the 
castle, find a teacher and run back.  So I completely dismissed the 
idea that Black is worried that the presence of a teacher will 
complicate matters.  If anything, the presence of the right teacher 
would make things easier because Black would have someone to help him 
drag Pettigrew's corpse back to the castle and help ward off any 
dementors they might meet along the way.  

Devika wrote:

>Harry and Hermione also might have been afraid that any spell they 
>used against Sirius would hit Ron instead.

Good point!  That, too, never occurred to me.

> 
Devika wrote:  

> Sirius's first priority here is to kill Pettigrew by any means 
necessary.  However, I'd say his next priority is to make sure that 
Harry understands the truth.  <snip>  I would bet that if Sirius had 
succeeded in getting Ron into the Shrieking Shack alone, and if he 
had killed Pettigrew right then and there, he would have come out 
afterwards, gone straight to Harry, and attempted to explain to him 
what had happened.  

I viewed Sirius' priorities a bit differently, or at least, I think 
what I'm about to say is different.  I figure Sirius' first primal 
urge is to blast Pettigrew to tiny bits.  His second more rational 
need is to kill (or at least disable or stun) Pettigrew to preserve 
the evidence to clear his name.  A distant third is appealing to 
Harry.  Once Sirius' name is cleared, Harry will understand.  That 
said, I feel safe saying Sirius' thinking was quite muddled due to 
his volatile emotions and time in Azkaban.  

> > 
> > Cindy (thinking that Mobiliarbus spell Hermione used to move the 
> > Christmas Tree in Hogsmeade might have worked pretty well on the 
> > Whomping Willow)
> > 
Devika wrote:

> Hmmm...I don't know about that one.  That Willow is a rather large 
tree.  Not to mention that it must be somewhat magical itself.
> 
> 
I guess another small quibble I have with this scene is that I expect 
wizards to try to work spells we've been told they know how to 
perform, even if the spell ultimately fails for some reason.  Yes, 
people sometimes panic or forget, particularly if they are young, 
inexperienced wizards, and we've seen Harry do this.  But the scene 
would have worked equally well had Harry proposed "rushing" the 
willow, but Hermione had attempted her charm to no effect.  I think 
it would have actually built the tension up a bit more.  Then 
Crookshanks could save the day by pressing the knot on the tree.  I 
wonder if JKR just forgot she had established Hermione's ability to 
use the Mobiliarbus charm.