CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chapter 28, Snape's worst memory

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 116446


khinterberg wrote:
<snip>

>> Sorry for me to beat a dead horse (or cockroaches), but I went
back and reread this portion of the book. I was struck by this quote
at the very end of the chapter:
>
> "What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being
> shouted at or *having jars thrown at him*--it was that he knew how
it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers..." 
(p
> 650, OotP US paperback)

Alla responded:
> > <snip> I love that quote. <snip> I think it is possible that jar
exploded due to wandless magic, but Snape throwing it still seems 
more likely
>
Potioncat added:
<snip>
> I really like the wandless, uncontrolled magic idea, but I think
> that last quote killed it. <snip>

Carol notes:
Except, of course, for the possibility that Snape throwing the jar is
Harry's perception rather than what actually happened. Harry has no
experience of anyone other than himself performing accidental magic 
as the result of inadequately suppressed fury. At any rate, that 
quote occurs at the end of the chapter, as hindsight, not during the
incident itself. I really can't see Snape, no matter how angry he is,
deliberately smashing a jar of cockroaches in his own office. After
all, he's the one who has to catch them and put them back. I can,
however, visualize him being so angry that he *wants* to throw
something and the force of his anger exploding some object that he'd
really rather had stayed intact.

Carol

Now Dungrollin:

Funny how we all imagine things differently, isn't it?  I never 
assumed the cockroaches in the exploding jar were alive, along with 
all the other slimy things in jars in Snape's office.  

It's actually not very wise to keep live cockroaches in *jars*, 
anyway; they need a bit more air.  - If they're too humid they
start to smell a bit (and suffer from entomophagous fungi) –
particularly if you feed them on go-cat and banana.   

No, I'd always imagined them in alcohol or formaldehyde, or
steeped in oil, or vinegar, or something else rather more exotic.  
Or simply dried au naturel...

Dungrollin,
- off for a fresh crack at disassembling a Landrover's turbo unit.