Couple of questions after CoS reread

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 125533


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Hannah" <hannahmarder at y...> 
wrote:

Hannah:  Yes, my argument does fall down a bit there.  Maybe 
> McGonagall is wrong in her assumption that the 'monster' would have 
> waited around to finish off Colin.  But they definitely do *think* 
> there is a risk that someone might try to kill those petrified;
> 
> 'We're taking no more chances... no, I'm sorry, there's every 
chance 
> the attacker might come back to finish these people off.'  Madam 
> Pomfrey, p197 Cos paperback UK ed.
> 
> The timescale for Hermione's attack is hard to judge, as Harry 
hears 
> the basilisk quite some time before the attack (given that Hermione 
> has to get to the library, find the book she wants, find the 
> relevant part, do her bit of minor book-vandalism, and head off to 
> tell someone, before she gets petrified).  The same goes for 
> Justin's.  Perhaps in both cases they were lucky enough to be 
> discovered very quickly, but as you say, it would only take a 
second 
> for the basilisk to bite them.  So I guess that McG's comment 
refers 
> to an unfounded fear.  At that stage, Colin was the first human to 
> be attacked, so McG wouldn't really have known what to expect (she 
> was only a student/ maybe not even at the school when the chamber 
> was first opened).

Geoff:
You have a very valid point here. We are, I suppose, looking at the 
events in hindsight and know who the attacker was.

To Madam Pomfrey and Minerva McGonagall, it would be similar to a 
terrorist attack out of the blue. They did not know who the attacker 
was or what the aims of the attack were and might well be expecting a 
repeat.

We know that, if the basilisk had been still around after the attack 
on Colin, Dumbledore might well have come down to find a petrified 
student and a dead professor. And, in the climate of fear which was 
pervading Hogwarts, people might well have expected worse than this.