Unanswered Questions

[angelsound2001 at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39527

I haven't gotten through the latest digest yet, so I
hope I'm not repeating anything.

prefectmarcus asked:

> (1) Why didn't anybody receive a Howler during
> Harry's first year? Harry was unacquainted with them
> until Ron got one the second year. They seem pretty
> common after that.
> 

Grey Wolf wrote:
 
> <<They did. Harry didn't notice. They happened at
> other tables and to older students (i.e. everyone
> except to eleven-year-olds, who are considered to be
> too young to receive howlers). When loud screeming
> occured at the morning table, Harry just disregarded
> it as another unexplained magical thing.>>
> 

Sorry, but there's no way--I have to agree with Amy Z.
that there just weren't any during Harry's first year,
or else they weren't relevant to the story line so we
didn't hear about them. The whole point of the howler
is that it's magically magnified so that *everyone*
present, like it or not, hears every word. It's
supposed to embarrass the heck out of the receiver. If
Harry hadn't known what one was, I can't begin to
believe he wouldn't have said, "Ron, what the
-expletive- *was* that?"

prefectmarcus continued:

<<> (5) If all the copies of "Hogwarts, a History"
were checked out in CoS, why didn't the details
concerning the chamber spread through the grapevine?

and Grey Wolf, again:

<<When I checked out a book from school, I just read
the part I need to do my homework. I've got neither
the time nor the inclination to read the rest of it.
Only Hermione, in fact, would read it for fun.>>

My reading of this has always been that all the copies
are checked out *because* of the sudden desire to find
out about the chamber. After all, Hermione complains
at least twice during the series (no books handy,
sorry) that nobody else seems to have read "Hogwarts:
A History," least of all in its entirety, as she
has--implying that it isn't often checked out.

--Raven, who really doesn't have any answers or cool
theories yet but sure is good at being contrary


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