Need Quote: Help with Sirius's Motorcyle

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 92502

Neri:
<snip> My electronic version of PS (from Bloomsbery, 1997) has in the
end of chapter 1:
"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice. "I'd best get this 
> bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall – Professor Dumbledore, sir."
> 
> 
Shaun Hately:
My Bloomsbury has: "Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled 
voice. "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor
McGonagall – Professor Dumbledore, sir."
Interestingly it doesn't have the year it was printed listed 
anywhere - it must be after 2000 because it has that as a Trademark 
date - but no actualy date of publication besides the First 
Published 1997.
 
Maybe this text was changed from earlier editions.

Neri:
Curiouser and curiouser. This suggests that Hagrid's taking the bike 
back to Sirius is important. Did Hagrid manage to find Sirius before 
Sirius found Peter? Otherwise I don't see how this changes anything.
 

Carol:
I always thought it was just a second reference to "young Sirius
Black" to impress his name on our subconscious minds in preparation
for PoA, but then I have the American edition, so "I'll be giving
Sirius his bike back" is the only reading I was familiar with.

But there's also the conflict between Hagrid's words about returning
the bike, which imply that it was borrowed, and the implication during
the pub conversation in PoA that Sirius *gave* him the bike ("I won't
be needing it again" or something like that). My guess is that Hagrid
tried to return the bike but couldn't because Sirius was already in
Azkaban. Somewhere between that time and the scene in the pub, his
memory became distorted to fit his changed view of Sirius.

But why--or whether--JKR herself would change Hagrid's words is
another question. I don't think she did. "I'll be giving Sirius his
bike back" is a very *English* way of saying "I'll return Sirius's
bike." It's Hagrid's exact idiom and clearly not a change made by the
(American) editor of the Scholastic edition which somewhow
(improbably) made its way into the Bloomsbury edition. Nor would a
change made by the Bloomsbury editor have ended up in the Scholastic
edition AFAIK. Because it appears in both printed editions (*and*
sounds exactly like what Hagrid would say), I'm guessing that it's
JKR's own original wording.

I'm guessing that the editor of the electronic version made the change
to "get this bike away" and JKR changed it back or made sure that the
right version was printed in both the British and American versions--
because, unlike the editor, she knew that Sirius Black would return to
the story. I noticed that there's no reference to Sirius as the
motorbike owner in Steve Kloves's screen play for SS, either. Sirius
Black must not have seemed important to him--or the detail seemed like
too much of a distraction if the movie was intended to be complete in
itself. But for JKR (in my view), it was an important clue that could
not be altered or omitted from the printed books.

Carol, who hopes we'll find out what really happened at Godric's
Hollow but doesn't trust Hagrid's perspective