Swimming

[profuloth]

No: HPFGUIDX 136758

> Lucy and Stephen Dawson:
> > Silly question, but when did Harry learn to swim well enough to follow
> > Dumbledore on a swim fully clothed through an icy sea??
> > 
> > :-)
> 
> Geoff:
> Probably at Little Whinging Junior School. Most UK First or Junior 
> schools have swimming lessons timetabled into their curriculum and he 
> might well have become a strong swimmer.

Problem here is that we know from GoF that Harry doesn't know how to swim very well. We 
learn that the Dursley's gave Dudley swimming lessons, but they didn't get any for Harry 
'probably in hopes that Harry would drown some day' (or words to that affect). This comes 
out when he is trying to figure out how he will survice the second task (in the chapter after 
the Egg and the Eye IIRC).

Maybe his gillyweed experience was all the swimming lessons he would ever need. Lucy is 
right, this is something that doesn't make sense. Perhaps Madam Hooch started teaching 
5th years how to swim...doesn't seem like she has that much to do. She gives flying 
lessons to first years and refs quiditch matches, but what does she do with rest of the 
year. Surely she teaches some other class, but we just don't know what it is.

Jason