Timelines Re: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG)

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 151326

> > Alla:
<SNIP of the quote, go upthread to read it" - CoS, paperback, p.22.
> >
> > One bowl of soup in THREE days is starving in my book and THAT is
> > also canon.
> >
> >
> > "....after last summer Harry had not forgotten what it felt like 
to
> > be continuously hungry" - GoF, p.348.
> 
> kchuplis:
> 
> Yeah, I think they were pretty much starving him but to me that  
> passage does not say that was the first time in three days they 
had  
> shoved food through the flap. To me it is ambiguous how often 
that  
> had happened other than he wasn't getting enough food. Just needed 
to  
> point that out.
<SNIP>
> Lots of these things can be read more than one way. Maybe Harry 
got  
> one or two cans of soup a day....he'd still be starving (I mean,  
> that's like maybe 300 calories.) but it doesn't mean that was the  
> first food in three days.


Alla:

You know, I accept your correction in a sense that it could be read 
both ways and maybe it was not the first boul of soup, but maybe it 
was since in the part I snipped ( the quote) Harry tells Hedwig that 
this is all food they have ( paraphrase).

 In any event, what is the most important to me is that IMO it is 
clear from this quote that Harry was feeling very hungry, so hungry 
that he was afraid to die ( even if it is a mataphor on his behalf, 
I read it as starving).

So, yes, I agree with you in a sense that timelines are often 
ambiguous, but I think we agree that this quote shows that Harry was 
starved whether it was first or second boul of soup in three days.

JMO,

Alla