The Potters: A History (was How dim is Harry?)

[Susan]

No: HPFGUIDX 98473

Kneasy quoted:
>"I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books
> for background reading, and you're in "Modern Magical
> History" and "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts" and
> "Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."
> "Am I?" said Harry, feeling dazed.
> "Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything
> I could if it was me," said Hermione.

Now Eustace_Scrubb:
>let's go one more step...what would he have learned exactly?
Historians, alas, don't always tell the truth; they don't always do
good research; their work may be co-opted to reflect official 
opinions and negate those not accepted by the hierarchy. Sometimes 
historians fill in the gaps of evidence with imaginative inferences--
sometimes they get them right, sometimes wrong. They rarely get the 
whole picture. (I'm a historian myself, so I'm not saying this 
without some careful thought and knowledge of the field).

IMHO, Eustace asked the right question.  What exactly would Harry 
have learned?  Look at the books Hermione mentions.  It seems to me 
that these books would tell little more than what we (now) already 
know: that Harry was somehow able to defeat the Dark Lord even though 
LV was THE Dark Lord and Harry was a baby.  The two people who are 
most involved in LV's defeat, Harry and LV, don't know squat about 
how it happened.  Seems to me that's the main reason LV's gunning for 
Harry in the first place.  He wants to know how some little runt of a 
kid defeated the most powerful Dark wizard of his time. 

Further, wouldn't Harry want to know more personal things, like about 
his parents' friends (the Marauders), the fact that Lily didn't even 
like James until they were in their 7th year, the fact that his dad 
and mates were ornery pranksters, etc.?  I mean, I would.  If I never 
knew my parents, I'd be more interested in learning what they were 
like as people rather than reading various accounts of their horrible 
demise.  And where else can he get this info but from people like 
Sirius and Remus?  I'd really like to see Harry talk to Remus more 
about this kind of thing.  "So, what was my dad like when he wasn't 
being a jerk?  Did he Choose to be a stag?  If so, then why?" etc.

Plus, there are questions that only the people involved can answer 
anyways.  Since Sirius was convicted without a trial and everyone 
assumed he was guilty, which was entirely false, neither these books 
nor obviously their authors can really answer anything with any 
degree of certainty.  Why, if Sirius, Remus and James were so close, 
did Sirius and Remus not trust each other?  Why didn't Sirius trust 
himself to be the secret keeper?  Why pick Peter over Remus?  IMO, 
Remus needs to come clean about whatever he knows about that night 
and explain it in the context of the four of them all being close 
friends and members of the Order.  

Eustace is right.  Historians cannot get the entire picture in the 
first place, and plus, everything anyone's ever going to say can only 
ever be their subjective view.

Susan (who Siriusly wants some answers herself!)