Just where *IS* Sirius' motorbike then?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 115994


I (Carol) wrote:
> "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."
> 
> DuffyPoo responded:
> 
> In my Canadian paperback edition (same as British) published in
2000, Hagrid says:
> 
> "I'd best get this bike away." instead of "I'll be takin' Sirius his
bike back." in the Canadian Hardback edition published in also in 2000
(part of a box set, probably a new printing from the original in 1997).
> 
> 
Carol responds:
Thank you! I was beginning to think that I'd imagined that alteration! 

If I understand you correctly, "I'd best get this bike away" is the
later reading (2000) and "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back" is the
original reading (1997), retained in the American edition. (That's the
opposite of what I originally thought, back in the old thread, when my
concern was with the wording: To my ears, "I'll be takin' Sirius his
bike back" sounds more like Hagrid's voice than the other reading and
I thought then that it must be the revised reading because it sounded
so much more authentic. Needless to say, I was wrong.)

But the date, not the writing style, is what's important here: Yours
is a later printing and seems to indicate an attempt by JKR to
eliminate the discrepancy between Hagrid's two versions of the story,
i.e., she's trying to make the British edition of PS agree with PoA.
Unfortunately, she seems to have left in the line, "young Sirius Black
lent it me," which makes the change to "I'd best get this bike away"
rather pointless--a nice Hagridian line referencing a character we'll
meet later is changed to a feeble and forgettable one without removing
the idea the the motorbike was merely lent. Or did she also change the
"lent it me" line in your edition, DuffyPoo?

Carol, who just deleted another post on this topic because she wrote
it before reading this one