Assorted comments and questions

[darqali]

No: HPFGUIDX 134427

It is clear that the characters of HP are under mistaken impressions 
on several fronts:

For one, they think that Slythern House is the *only* source of Dark 
Wizards [this is mentioned several times].  Enter Peter Pettigrew, 
aka Wormtail, from Gryffindor.

Then there is the notion the Sorting Hat doesn't make mistakes. [It 
may *debate*, such as over putting HP in Slythern vs Gryffindor or 
Herminoe in Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw ...] But the signature trait of 
Gryffindor is courage.  How did Pettigrew get sorted into 
Gryffindor?  His cowardace, self-serving nature, and willingness to 
sell out friends speaks of a Slythern character, not Gryffindor.

[For that matter, how did half-bloods Tom Riddle, and Snape, get 
sorted into Slytherin if they are not Purebloods ??? ... since pure 
blood was a trait house founder S. Slythern demanded; to the point 
this issue became the source of the disagreement over which he left 
the school ....  HP would belong in Slytherin over them, for though 
his mother was Muggle-born *it remains she was a witch*; so Harry's 
parents were a witch and a wizard, as he told Malfoy at their first 
meeting .... making him in one sense more 'purebred' than either Tom 
Riddle or Snape, who each had a true Muggle, non-magic parent.]

I took the scene on the train where Draco discovers and overcomes 
Harry as indication that Draco's task was *not* to kill Harry [which 
I had rather assumed *was* the task when Snape discusses the plot 
with Draco's mother} and think that was why the scene had to be 
included; but didn't like the way it made Harry look; necessary, 
tho', to make us wonder what it was Draco was ordered to do [because 
he could have finished Harry off right there, if *that* had been his 
task].

Questions:  Why does Sybil Trewlawny think students don't know about 
the Room of Requirement?  

She has been hiding her empty cooking sherry bottles there for some 
time.  This is the incarnation of the Room that Draco is hiding the 
damaged Vanishing Cabinet in, when she encounters him there by 
accident; the same incarnation of the room Harry finds when he "needs 
to find a place to hide his book" [The HBP's Potions Book he needs to 
hide from Snape].  When Harry enters this room it is the size of a 
cathedral and heaped with things hidden .... including fanged 
frizbees; who did Sybil T think was hiding all those things, if not 
students?  Could she be *that* near-sighted ???

Another question [perhaps answered in the past, please give me a 
reference if there is a discussion, as I couldn't find it}

Why could Harry not initially see Thestrals? [Winged 'horses' which 
pulled the Hogworts carriages; and visible only to those who have 
seen death ... or murder?] He was present when LV murdered his 
parents, after all!  O.K., he probably didn't see his father die; as 
Lily was trying to escape while James held LV off ... but Lily was 
shielding Harry with her body when she died, so Harry must have seen 
the event.

If one postulates that one must see death when *old enough to 
understand it* then I could understand why Harry couldn't see them at 
first.

But then, after Cedric was killed in Harry's presence, the first time 
the Thestral-drawn carriages enter the story again is when Harry 
leaves Hogworts at the close of that year [ending of GOF; the 
carriages take the students back to Hogsmede train station].  Why 
couldn't Harry see them *then*?  As it is told, he first saw them the 
following fall, when they picked the students from the trains to take 
them to the school .... why the delay?

darqali