OOTP "Like a snake" comment by Lucius Malfoy

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 106263

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Danielle Arnt" 
<flyballcairn at b...> wrote:
> I've been rereading OOTP and this comment just zapped out at me.  
This may have been discussed before, but the FAQs are quite a tome.
> 
> In the American version, chapter 9, pg 154, when Harry runs into 
Lucius in the hall outside the courtroom:
> 
> " 'Quite astonishing, the way you continue to wriggle out of very 
tight holes...Snakelike, in fact..."
> 
> I'm not sure if this is a reference to the Daily Prophet 
publishing stories about Harry being a parselmouth, a reference to 
COS, or even a warning (some folks have proposed that Lucius is a 
spy in order to gain power for himself).  Any thoughts?
> 
> Danie


I think that LM is just taunting Harry, refering to the night in the 
graveyard in Order, when Nagini was going to be fed Harry's dead 
body. IIRC, after that Harry says something akin to "Yeah, I've 
gotten very good at *escaping*" (emphasis is, I believe, JKR's) 
which is Harry taunting LM that he blew right past thirty DEs and 
made it out of the graveyard alive, anyway. A little oneupmanship. 
As to what this means, I doubt that LM is anything but the slimy, no 
good (though as Jason Isaacs plays him, kinda hot) DE that we see 
him to be, I can't really see him warning Harry about anything, and 
I don't think the major libel stories have yet been published at 
this point in the story. 
Meri