Harry the Seer (was: Does Ron the Seer need glasses?)

[blpurdom]

No: HPFGUIDX 37374

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "dicentra63" <dicentra at x> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., Susanne <siskiou at e...> wrote:
> > 
> > I can't remember any seers besides Trelawney playing a big
> > role in the HP universe (but I am not extremely observant
> > and have only read all the books twice, so far).
> > 
> What about Harry?  When he and Ron are making up disasters for 
> their homework, Harry's first prediction is that he will be in 
> danger of being burned, and the second is that he'll lose 
> something valuable. Those are the first two tasks to a T, and this 
> is before the Goblet coughed up Harry's name.  

You make an excellent point.  The burn is the dragon and when he 
loses something valuable, it's Ron.  (The thing he'll miss the most.)
Personally, I think Harry has proven to be far more prescient than 
Ron, in the first two books as well as after they started taking 
Divination.  (Perhaps part of Trelawney's hostility to him stems 
from her sensing that he has real talent?  And she's resentful that 
he doesn't appreciate or recognize his own gift but looks down on 
Divination?  Future canon will tell...) Harry also has had prescient 
dreams.

> As for predicting the third task, it's hard to say because Harry 
> first wants to say he'll come out the worse in a fight, Ron says 
> he wanted to do that one, and so Harry says he'll lose a bet. I 
> suppose deciding to grab the trophy at the same time as Cedric was 
> a kind of bet, but that's a rather broad interpretation, if you 
> ask me.  

No, he DOES lose a bet, but it's nothing to do with Cedric.  He 
loses a bet--but for someone else!  He loses a bet for Ludo Bagman!  
I'm so glad you pointed out that Harry predicted all this...I'd 
never noticed before!

Regardless of whether we want to speculate on either boy being 
a "seer," the fact that Harry and Ron continued to suspect Snape of 
being evil for a long time is completely understandable, IMO.  They 
knew Dumbledore trusted him, Hermione insisted early on in the first 
book that Snape would never hurt Harry (she later changes her mind 
when she thinks Snape is jinxing him) and even Hagrid defends Snape, 
saying he would never hurt a student.  But in spite of all this, 
Snape was horrid to them on a daily basis and at the beginning of 
the second book, looked extremely gleeful at the idea that Harry and 
Ron might be expelled.  Even if Snape had been awarded the Nobel 
Peace Prize in front of them (or the wizarding equivalent) I doubt 
they would have changed their opinion any sooner than the end of 
book four (and I got the impression they were still a little iffy 
about him).  It's very hard to get past how someone actually treats 
you and see them objectively.

--Barb

The Last Temptation of Harry Potter is complete!
Coming soon...the third part of the Psychic Serpent Trilogy...
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