The Sorting Hat...Why was Lockhart hired....Lynn's random thoughts

[Melanie L Ellis]

No: HPFGUIDX 57143

The Sorting Hat 

Jim wrote:

<snip first piece of fic>
>"Not exactly," Dumbledore answered her. "At least, not always. What does
the Hat say? 'Try me on and I >will tell you where you ought to be'.
Ought to be, Miss Granger. Have you ever considered that the Hat
>might take into account a larger purpose than the student under it?"  
<snip>
>"Even I do not know the limits of what the Sorting Hat knows, or how it
knows it. Or what the Hat sees. >But the Hat does know, just as it knew
you. 

That's a very good point! We do know that the Hat is at least somewhat
sentient - it was able to carry on a conversation with Harry in DD's
office in CoS. It also talked with him at the Sorting Ceremony, but if
that was the only canon about it, we could just assume it only comes
"alive" for Sorting. But the conversation in DD's office precludes that
idea. Who knows just how "alive" the thing is, and how much it really
does see and know? And being 1000 years old (approx.), it will have seen
lots of things, taken in lots of information over the years. (Assuming it
stays on that shelf behind the desk, where it can see.)

********

Why was Lockhart hired?

Several ideas have been posted in the last few days; basically they boil
down to either A) DD was fooled by Lockhart's claims of DADA experience
or B) He hired him knowing full well he was a fraud, in order to
passively teach the kids that fame isn't all it's cracked up to be. 

However, while looking up something else, I came across this in CoS. It's
during the conversation in Hagrid's cabin while Ron is upchucking slugs:

"He was the *on'y* man for the job," said Hagrid, offering them a plate
of treacle fudge, while Ron coughed squelchily into his basin. "An' I
mean the *on'y* one. Gettin' very difficult ter find anyone few the Dark
Arts job. People aren't too keen ter take it on, see. They're startin' to
think it's jinxed. No one's lasted long few a while now."

(Makes me wonder how many DADA teachers there were before Quirell, and
how long THEY lasted!)

So apparently, Lockhart was the only person who was...brave?...stupid?...
enough to try and take the job. DD probably had Lockhart's number the
instant he walked onto the grounds, but he was the only one they could
get, so DD figured he'd just let him try and hope for the best.

************

Lynn's random thoughts:

> 7.  Why did Hermione lie about going after the
> troll?  Was she supposed to have a pass to go to
> the toilet, didn't have one and thought that was
> worse?

She was protecting Ron and Harry. Hermione's pretty quick on the uptake;
I think she figured out that Ron and Harry hadn't bothered with telling
anyone about her being in the bathroom, had just taken off by themselves.
This would have gotten them into big trouble. So she takes the blame,
instead, out of gratitude for them saving her life. (Of course, she
wouldn't have been IN the predicament in the first place if A) Ron hadn't
insulted her, sending her into a crying jag and B) if the boys had
checked before they locked the troll into the bathroom with her!)

> 9.  Why didn't Harry just tell Quirrell what he
> had previously seen in the Mirror of Erised, his
> parents, instead of making something else up?

I think telling this, even just to say he saw his parents, would have
been telling too much of something that was private and painful to him.
When he first sees the mirror, he's very excited, dragging Ron to see it,
but after DD explains to him that the mirror reflects one's deepest
desire, it would be something very personal to him. After 10 years of
living with the Dursley's, I'm sure he's very vulnerable and keeps things
to himself. He wouldn't want to tell someone - especially not a person
who's treating him the way Quirell is at the moment - what he is seeing
in the mirror. It would open him up to all sorts of nasty possibilities.

> 12.  How were Crouch, Jr. and Wormtail able to
> get past Moody's foe detectors so easily that
> they were able to get into his house and
> overpower him, granted, after a struggle?

Well, there was a lot of trouble with the dustbins outside. I'd always
assumed they lured him outside somehow, and attacked him out there.
Perhaps they stayed far enough away from the house not to be detected as
threats, moved the dustbins or something else around with spells, and the
noises drew him outside, and then they attacked.

> 13.  Why didn't anyone do the Priori Incantatem
> spell on Sirius's wand to find out if he was the
> one who had cast the spell that blew up the
> street?  Why didn't he suggest that when he was
> arrested?

Well, we know he didn't get a trial - they just took the eyewitness
accounts they had, took them at their word, did no investigating, then
Fudge chucked Sirius into Azkaban. The MoM was probably too furious to
think about doing the PI spell, and Sirius was probably in too much
emotional pain to think of it himself.


Melanie Ellis
Alabama Homeschool Message Board
http://pub77.ezboard.com/balabamahomeschoolmessageboard

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