[Oop Spoiler!] Intriguing creatures: Mystery or Discrepancy?

[medeacallous]

No: HPFGUIDX 61973

Regarding Harry being able to see the Thestrals:  I don't have any 
explanation for why he isn't described as seeing them at the end of 
his fourth year, but re: Lily dying, maybe it's not just the act of 
witnessing a death, it's the *experience* of *knowing* that someone 
is dying right before your eyes, or in the same room with you, or 
whatever.  Since few babies, or even toddlers, have a true concept 
of death, perhaps that is the reason Lily's death doesn't count.

Harry can look back and add value judgements to his memories of his 
mother's death, and those value judgements can cause him to suffer 
over her death, but perhaps because he could not have actually 
realised what was happening as a sixteen-month-old, that 
death 'doesn't count', so to speak.

MC