Saving Ginny

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 143270

Geoff:
I thought I would try to pull together one or two of the lines of
thought which have been expressed in this thread. So here goes...

In message 143243, Betsy wrote:

>That's why the teachers' air of helplessness worked for me. Harry
> had an in. He spoke the language and heard the monster creeping
> about the school. None of the staff had even that level of
> knowledge to go with, so they didn't have much of a place to start,
> IMO.

Geoff:
I think the staff had not really taken on board the fact that Harry
was a Parselmouth and the implications of that. There were
suggestions that, because of this, he was the heir of Slytherin. I am
surprised that, as I said before, someone like Professor McGonagall
hadn't connected the dots and thought it worthwhile talking to Harry.

Message 143423 again:
> >>Geoff:
> > I think wringing their hands and crying "Woe, alas" at this point
> > is a bit early in the game.

<snip>

Betsy Hp:
> You're being a bit harsh, don't you think? McGonagall is getting
> the rest of the student body out of the school, a task in and of
> itself. Also, we really don't know what sort of efforts the staff
> went through while Harry and Ron were hanging in the Gryffindor
> common room putting pieces of the puzzle together (pieces they'd
> only recently acquired). For all we know they were pooling what
> knowledge they had, desperately checking their resources for
> further information. The Chamber *was* incredibly well hidden.

Geoff:
I think that, on their emergency agenda, they were dealing with Items
2 and 3. They were whistling gently and looking the other way in the
hope that Item 1 would go away
..

And this, remember, was before Ron and Harry spent most of the day
sitting in the common room chewing their finger nails in frustration.

Betsy:
>Personally, I think the biggest leap JKR asked of the readers was
> that Harry and Ron never shared their information while in the
> staff room, and then chose to go to Lockhart rather than
> McGonagall once they decided to speak up. It was an OOC moment for
> both Harry and Ron, though minor enough to slide by, IMO.

Geoff:
But who to share their information with? Hermione is out of the
picture and they don't know where Dumbledore is. McGonagall is
probably in one of those dismissive moods which she showed in PS when
the trio wanted to speak to Dumbledore about the Philosopher's Stone
and she packs them off into the sunshine...

In message 143250 Roxanne wrote:

> After having read the rest of the series I'd say they were waiting
> for Dumbledore to come in and save the day. One of the things that
> really hit me after reading book 6was how much they all relied on
> him. It's one thing for Harry to rely so heavily on Dumbledore, but
> I do grow tired of how the adults seem to expect him to solve every
> problem.

Geoff:
The problem is that Dumbledore was in hiding but where? It has been
suggested that Minerva McGonagall might have had some way of
contacting him because, when the group re-emerged from the Chamber
and went to her office she was there with him and the Weasleys. But I
assume that, by the time that was accomplished, "Operation Basilisk"
was well under way.