Why is everyone surprised at Harry's Patronus?

[Pruneau]

No: HPFGUIDX 77259

Jonathan wrote:
> > For example..  OoP 16/342 (US) it sounds like a big secret that 
> > Harry can cast a Patronus.
> > 
> > But, in PoA 13/262, Harry casts a Patronus *in the middle of a 
> > Quidditch match*.  You'd think a few Hogwarts students might 
have 
> > noticed then.


and bboy_mn replied:
>   I don't think it's fair to say that no one knows what Harry 
Patronus
> looks like, but I think it's fair to say that few understood it, 
and
> those few didn't really spread the word around.

now me (Pruneau):
I don't think Harry's Patronus was corporeal at the Quidditch match.

First, in chapter 21 (Hermione's secret) of PoA, he performs what I 
think is his first *real* Patronus:
'And out af the end of his wand burst, not a shapeless cloud of 
mist, but a blinding, dazzling, silver animal.' (p.300 Bloomsbury 
paperback) I understood it was the first time he succeeded in doing 
a Patronus.
And second, in OotP, Lupin asks Harry what form his Patronus takes 
to check he really *is* Harry. If Harry's Patronus at the Quidditch 
match had been corporeal, Lupin would have known, and he would also 
have known that dozens, if not hundreds, of students, might have 
seen this Patronus. Maybe Theodore Nott could have seen it, and told 
his father, just in case it could be useful. But Lupin did ask that 
question to Harry, as a question only Harry could answer. 
Of course, he might have asked the first question he thought of, 
just to reassure Moody, but I doubt it. If Lupin had been aware that 
there was a chance that a DE could know that Harry's Patronus was a 
stag, he would have asked another question (such as "What form does 
a Boggart take in front of you?" - only Harry and Lupin could answer 
that one) 
But he chose the Patronus, so I assume that very few people  (only 
Lupin, Hermione, and maybe Snape, Ron and Sirius) knew it was a 
stag. So IMHO, the Quidditch Patronus was just a (large) silvery 
wisp of vapour.

Pruneau