Just where *IS* Sirius' motorbike then?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 115672


Sue wrote:
> 
> Ah, but there's an inconsistency within the text. In POA, Hagrid
says that Sirius told him he could keep it and that he thought this
strange, etc., but if you go back to Chapter 1 of PS, Hagrid tells DD
and MM that he'd better get going *because he has to return the bike!*
Both are canon, then. Now,you could suggest that he got back, thought
Sirius had betrayed the Potters and ... did whatever he did with the
bike. But my bet is that the original was simply a mistake on the
author's and editor's part, too late to change. :-)
> 
> But yes, it quite probably IS somewhere in the Forbidden Forest if
we ignore the glitch.

Carol responds:
We had a thread about this discrepancy awhile back. It turns out that
the American edition of SS has Hagrid saying, "I'll be takin' Sirius
his bike back" (16) but the British edition has a different reading.
Can anyone provide that other reading and might it be a correction
made to later printings while JKR was writing PoA? But then he also
says, "Young Sirius Black lent it me" (14), which I think is the same
in both editions.

Carol, who notes that we can't blame the editor for not knowing the
plot of future books