[HPforGrownups] Re: PS/SS vs. CoS: It's A Tie!

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 57569

Ladi_Lyndi
>
> The duelling scene between Malfoy and Harry
> seemed so contrived to me, just to bring out that
> Harry spoke Parseltongue.  I mean really, why
> would Snape tell Malfoy to send a snake?  Harry
> was supposed to block a spell, not a snake.  Yea,
> I know people have said Snape did it to show
> Harry was a coward but that's pretty lame to me
> as well.  In addition, why were people mad at
> Harry?  Draco was the one who summoned the snake,
> Lockhart was the one who set the snake off and
> the snake was about to strike before Harry said
> something, it went docile after.
>
I've always found this scene fascinating.  As you pointed out, Snape told
Draco to cast that particular spell.  Unlike everyone else in the room,
Snape did not appear to be shocked, horrified, or even really surprised when
Harry spoke Parseltongue.  Instead, he looks at Harry in a shrewd,
calculating way.  I've always interpreted this scene as Snape suspecting for
some reason that Harry might have this ability and then having his
suspicions confirmed.  I actually think Snape knows quite a bit when it
comes to Harry and his ultimate destiny (could even have had something to do
with his defection), and now that this portion has been confirmed, he is
thinking about what should happen next, how it can be beneficial to his
plans, who knows what else?  I truly think there is much more to Snape's
behavior in this particular scene than has been revealed to date, and I
can't wait to see exactly how this will come into play.
>
> Yep, Binn's explanation bothered me as well.
> Then again, for someone who can't even be
> bothered to learn his students names properly, it
> may not be surprising that he doesn't want to be
> bothered by anything he doesn't feel is
> important.  We don't know how long he had been at
> the school.  It is conceivable that he wasn't
> there when the Chamber had been opened but then
> how would he know it had been searched for over
> and over?  Nope, just doesn't make sense to me.
> He was too quick to dismiss the whole thing.
>
Something when it comes to the description of Binns's death has made me
wonder if he might have been one of Voldemort's earliest victims, and I
don't mean by the basilisk.  He got up the next morning and went to teach,
leaving his body behind.  It's always made it sound like he just died of old
age in his sleep in the staffroom.  But why would he be a ghost if his death
was that peaceful?  I speculate that he may have perhaps been AK'ed while
sleeping, being Riddle's guinea pig in trying out the Killing Curse.

I agree that CoS is the book that holds my attention the least, but I can
see where so many little things that still don't seem that important to us
in that book may become extremely important later.  It's for these tiny
things that I keep rereading CoS.

Kelly Grosskreutz
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova