Give JKR some credit (Re: Change in Hagrid's Disposition of Sirius' Motorbike)

[prefectmarcus]

No: HPFGUIDX 43754

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Barb P <psychic_serpent at y...> wrote:
> 
> I have my UK PS in front of me, and this passage reads thusly:
>  
> ----------------------------------------
> 'No problems, were there?'
>  
> -------------------------------------------------------
>  
> Dumbledore does not look up sharply at all.  His question about 
problems seems not only rather casual, but he is evidently referring 
to Muggles, not to Sirius Black.
>  
> I think Dumbledore expected that Black was looking in on his 
friends and happened to be there just after the attack.  Nothing 
about his reaction screams that he wants to know where Sirius is 
right now because if the Potters are dead it must be Sirius' fault.  
> --Barb

By the same logic, she only thought of Scabbers' true nature in PoA 
because nothing in his behavior before that "screams" of him being 
anything but a normal rat.

Something tragic has just happened.  Dumbledore might well suspect 
Black of duplicity, but he is not one to go off half-cocked and 
possibly ruin an innocent man's reputation.  Hence the deceptively 
mild query, "No problems?"

Marcus