Harry's importance and threats of expulsion

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 57208



Dan Delaney writes:
>So, if Harry is so important, all these threats about being 
>expelled from Hogwarts are just blowing smoke up 
>his...ahem...er...uh. There is NO WAY that they would expel him--
>for ANY reason. If he's that important, they want to make sure that 
>he gets fully trained the way THEY want him to be trained. It 
>wouldn't do any good to expel him and have him end up being a below-
>average wizard due to lack of proper training. They want to make  
>sure he becomes the best wizard he canpossibly be in order to do 
>whatever it is that he was destined to do.

>Sooner or later Harry will figure that out and stop being so  
>afraid of being expelled just for the littlerule breaking he does.  
>(Okay, so maybe some of it was not so little. But the fact that he 
>hasn't gotten expelled for some of the big things should be his    
> first clue!)

Pip!Squeak:
Harry can be very dim in some ways. ;-)

The big clue that *nobody* wants Harry (or any of his close friends) 
expelled is in PoA, Ch. 21.

Snape, in this scene, has the Trio bang to rights. They *attacked* a 
teacher. We are *definitely* in expulsion territory here.

And the first few paragraphs give away a very interesting point.

Snape never mentioned it. Fudge is the one who brings up the point 
of the 'very nasty cut'. Snape tells the truth about how he got it, 
but his *first* comment about the Trio is 'Black had bewitched 
them, I saw it immediately... they weren't responsible for their 
actions.' [PoA Ch. 21, UK paperback]

He does then start wandering into 'maybe we could consider expelling 
Harry territory', but only after trying to avoid the subject 
entirely. After he's given Fudge the idea that the kids weren't 
*really* to blame for an attack which left a teacher unconscious for 
nearly an hour. While he's standing outside a doorway where Harry 
might be able to hear him talking.

How would Harry behave if he knew he could never get expelled, 
*ever*, no matter what he did?

How might Snape believe he would behave? Given that Harry is the son 
of a man who (at 16) thought a good time was playing around with a 
werewolf, in the streets of Hogsmeade and the grounds of Hogwarts. 
Who apparently thought that the occasional near miss (i.e. nearly 
killing innocent people) was *funny* [PoA, Ch. 18 ...there were near 
misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards.]

Hatred or no hatred of James, I'd be extremely worried about Harry 
Potter, pint sized celebrity who is above all the rules (for reasons 
he's currently too young to understand).

This is in keeping with McGonagall's actions in PS/SS, btw. The 
first evidence of Harry rule - breaking, and she comes down on him 
and his friends like a ton of bricks. [Fifty points *each*? For 
being out of bed at night?]

So, yeah. The threats are meaningless. The important thing is simply 
that Harry believes them, believes that rule-breaking *can* have 
serious consequences. Until he's old enough to start making 
his own, correct judgements about why rules are necessary and when 
you should break them.

Incidentally, the Hogsmeade incidents in PoA show that Harry is 
*not* then old enough to make that judgement. His teacher's worries 
are justified.

Will rulebreaking and expulsion be as important in OoP? Possibly 
not, if JKR is following the British system of many kids leaving at 
16.

[As someone pointed out, there's no evidence in canon for this. Why 
should there be? Harry isn't interested in things that don't 
actually affect him (see Hogsmeade, and the point that we never 
learnt about weekend visits until Harry was old enough to go) ].

If JKR is following the British school system, entry into higher 
level courses  *is dependent on your exam results*. Harry won't have 
to worry about being expelled during year five.

He'll have to worry about failing his exams and not being allowed to 
continue at Hogwarts.

Variety's the spice of life, after all. ;-)


Pip!Squeak