Harry's bias again, answering several posts

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 141028

Pippin wrote:
> You're assuming that Harry would have known the answers to Snape's
> questions if he'd been raised in the WW. But Ron was as stumped as he
> was, not surprising since  draught of living death and  the bezoar
> are NEWT level. It's only Harry's assumption that everyone who's
> been raised in the WW knows lots of magic already. But in fact 
> they aren't supposed to, though Harry doesn't realize this until
> the end of his first year. 
> 
> As for knowing that  aconite, monkshood and wolfsbane 
> are the same plant,   Harry needn't have studied One 
> Thousand and One Magical Herbs and Fungi. They are names for
> a real plant just as Nicholas Flamel is the name of a real person.
> 
> Snape was picking on Harry, but he wasn't taking advantage of Harry's
> ignorance of the wizarding world, just his ignorance in general.


Carol responds:
I'm not sure that we can judge the extent of Harry's ignorance based
on Ron's response, considering that Ron never cracks a book unless he
has to. Nor do I think that the two names of one plant and the nature
of a bezoar were NEWT-level questions. In fact, Snape answers all
three questions with simple sentences. Hermione, a Muggle-born, knew
the answers. Quite likely they were in the books assigned to
first-years. (Harry did read his books; he just didn't have as much
time to complete them as Hermione did given his late birthday; also,
he doesn't have her retentive memory.)

We don't have the reactions of any students except the ones Harry
knows to Snape's questions. I think it quite likely that the
Slytherins (Theo, Blaise, and Pansy as well as Draco) knew what a
bezoar was. It would be practical information for anyone in the WW
(Ron should have known, too), and might even come up in dinner-table
conversations in the Malfoy manor. (That's the response Drco laughs
at; I'm guessing he knows the answer.)

Also, though I'm just speculating here, it's quite possible that the
Slytherins knew better than to raise their hand with an answer when
Snape was quizzing someone else. And if they didn't, his ignoring
Hermione would give them the hint.

I think it's important to note that Snape criticized *all* the
students for not writing the information down (clearly he thought it
was important), and he criticized "almost everyone except Malfoy" when
he looked at their potions (SS Am. ed. 139)--Slytherins as well as
Gryffindors. He may well like Draco Malfoy, but Malfoy also knows how
to stew a slug. From Snape's standpoint, he isn't a "dunderhead." (And
he isn't a "know-it-all," either--meaning that he knows when to keep
his mouth shut.)

I still think that Snape is asking Harry the questions to determine
how much, if anything, he knows about magic (questions unrelated to
Potions would have been inappropriate) and to sound out his attitude.
(Does he have Lily's knack for Potions? Does he have James's arrogant
attitude? Is he, just possibly, the Dark Lord in the making that
Lucius Malfoy and friends suspected?) Without question, he uses the
opportunity to poke a hole in the balloon of Harry's celebrity status,
but he may have had good reason for doing so. He may not want the
future destroyer of Voldemort running around taking James Potter-style
risks for the fun of it or hexing people "just because he can." Best
to keep him humble--and alive. And quite possibly he's deliberately
trying to make Harry look mediocre in front of the Slytherins, some of
them children of DEs, so that they won't realize the threat Harry
poses. He's still using the same strategy with Bellatrix in "Spinner's
end."

BTW, someone in another thread expressed the idea that expelling a
student necessarily results in having the student's wand broken. Do we
know that for a fact? Hagrid's wand is broken because he has
supposedly released a monster into the school, resulting in the death
of one student and danger to all the others. Harry's trial by the
Wizengamot for using magic in front of a Muggle is clearly not
standard procedure--Fudge, probably influenced by Umbridge, is making
a misdemeanor into a felony. Under normal circumstances, expulsion
would be handled by the Headmaster and the Head of House. The MoM
would not be involved. (Even if Draco had been expelled for
endangering fellow students and trying to kill the Headmaster, I don't
think that Dumbledore would have broken his wand. But if he's tried by
the MoM for attempted murder, reckless endangerment, and casting an
Imperius Curse, I'm pretty sure *they'll* break his wand before
sending him to join his father in Azkaban.) I doubt very much that if
Harry and Ron had been expelled for arriving in the Flying Ford Anglia
(as Snape surely knew they would not be) that their wands would have
been broken. (Well, Ron's was broken, anyway, but I mean broken as
part of a ban on performing magic.) They would simply have been denied
the status of fully qualified wizards.

Carol, hoping she hasn't muddied the waters by mixing up too many
topics in one post