the potions textbook
Jim Ferer
jferer at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 28 00:47:58 UTC 2005
No: HPFGUIDX 135311
Jim Ferer (me): "If Snape had been a better man and teacher, all the
NEWT students might have had a copy of _Advanced Potions, Second
Edition_, by Borage & Snape. If Snape wasn't sharing his tricks of the
trade then that doesn't speak well of him as a teacher."
Potioncat: "But we don't know what Snape's NEWT students had for a
text book. Or if they used a text. This is Slughorn's choice of texts,
and he's using the same one that he used for all those many years!"
Potioncat: "Potioncat: I don't think this greatly improved text book
was gathering dust in the potions lab all these years. I think it had
been stolen.(Another reason he didn't write his own book; the notes
were gone.)"
Sorry, Potioncat, but I can't let you get away with that one. It take
serious imagination to come up with a stolen textbook and lost
recollections of Potions tricks that Snape can't remember any more.
Here's the scene:
« Ah, yes, Professor McGonagall did mention . . . not to worry, my
dear boy, not to worry at all. You can use ingredients from the store
cupboard today, and I'm sure we can lend you some scales, and we've
got a small stock of old books here, they'll do until you can write to
Flourish and Blotts. . . .Slughorn strode over to a corner cupboard
and, after a moment's foraging, emerged with two very battered-looking
copies of Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage, which he gave to
Harry and Ron along with two sets of tarnished scales. »
This sounds like something I've seen repeated in a zillion classrooms
over my school years.
And, by luck, Harry gets Snape's old book. Maybe Snape didn't even
remember it was there, but the dusty book rummaged out of a cupboard
in the classroom gave Harry his leg up.
Does it speak well for a person when his defenders have to explain
away *absolutely everything* he does, including betraying people to
their deaths? ***Twice?***
Jim Ferer
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