prophecy/Firenze

[Potterfanme]

No: HPFGUIDX 79137

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachna" <rachnastar at y...> 
wrote:
> I was just reading OP again and something caught my attention. 
> 
> (Harry, on Firenze's Divination Lesson, Ch 27, The Centaur and the 
> Sneak, p.532 Canadian edition)
> "It was the most unusual lesson Harry had ever attended.  They did 
> indeed burn sage and mallowsweet there on the classroom floor, and 
> Firenze told them to look for certain shapes and symbols in the 
> pungent fumes, but he seemed perfectly unconcerned that not one of 
> them could see any of the signs he described, telling them that 
> humans were hardly ever good at this, that it took centaurs years 
> and years to become competent, and finished by telling them that it 
> was foolish to put too much faith in such things anyway because 
even 
> centaurs sometimes read them wrongly.  He was nothing like any 
human 
> teacher Harry had ever had.  His priority did not seem to be to 
> teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that 
> nothing, not even centaurs' knowledge, was foolproof."
> 
> The thing that really got me thinking was that a centaur 
(supposedly 
> one of the wisest beings) tried to teach Harry that "nothing was 
> foolproof" and that it was "foolish to put too much faith in 
> [divination/fortune telling/etc]" in the same book that Harry finds 
> out about the prophecy.
> 
> If the prophecy was first in the book and then I read Firenze's 
> warning, I would have questioned it.  Since, she has written it so 
> that it ends with the prophecy, you don't really question it.
> 
> Anyway, the point of my long-winded ramble was that maybe the 
> prophecy turns out to not be true and Rowling is just stringing us 
> along.
> 
> Rachna (who still doesn't completely believe her theory)

You do have something to think about!  I don't know if you also 
picked up on the bit of Mars being bright both during the first class 
that Firenze did and also in SS/PS when Harry is saved by Firenze.  
When Hagrid was talking to Bane and Ronan right before Firenze came 
to Harry's rescue, all they would tell Hagrid was that Mars was 
bright tonight.  Hmmmm.
Susan