Let's hear it for good old Snapey!

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 87899

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Suzanne Chiles" 
<suzchiles at m...> wrote:

 
Kneasy:
> > The implication is that between buying his books and getting to
> > Hogwarts Harry showed insufficient interest or enthusiasm to open
> > books which would have given him insight into a whole new world.
> > Could you have left them unread?
> 

Suzanne:
> I'm not sure what HP and the SS/PS you read, but in the edition I 
read (UK
> Adult paperback, p. 102) is this paragraph:
> 
>     Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold 
eyes. He
> *had* looked through his books at the Dursleys', but did Snape     
expect
> him to remember everything in *One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?
*
> 
> You seem to be a victim of binary thinking, dividing the class into
> "dummies" and "smart arses". In life actually, there's a huge 
middle group,
> neither dummy nor smart arse, who are wonderfully diverse, average 
people.

Geoff:
I wonder whether friend Kneasy was concentrating too much on the 
approach of the New Year to be fair here.... His milk of human 
kindness jug definitely seems a bit in need of a refill.

I went through a number of occasions when I would have to obtain 
books prior to a course or something similar. Unless you are given a 
specific chunk to study, you can only leaf through the book, look at 
bits which catch your attention, browse....

Please note, Harry found "his school books were very interesting. He 
lay on his bed reading late into the night." (PS "The Journey from 
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters" UK edition p.67).

In that time, he should obviously have been very careful to find out 
about powdered root of asphodel and its effect in combination with an 
infusion of wormwood; he should be fully aware of the properties of a 
bezoar; he really ought to know the difference between  monkshood and 
wolfsbane, oughtn't he? After all, he is the new - celebrity.

HNY to everyone.

Geoff