Curses and non-descriptions (was: DDM!Snape clue)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 148445

> Carol wrote:
> <snip>
> The werewolf falls away, petrified and Harry is free. He cannot have
> cast the spell himself as he's unable to raise his wand. The speaker
> is unidentified. 

Neri:
First, I have to comment that during my first read of HBP I
automatically assumed that it was Harry himself who shouted
"Petrificus Totalus!" and I never even thought it might be somebody
else, until I found that some members in the list think so. When I
read this part again, trying to think back why I assumed it was Harry,
I believe it was because only three paragraphs before that Harry uses
the same curse on Brutal Face, and again it's not explicitly written
that it's Harry who shouts the curse. It's not even written "he raised
his wand" or something of that sort. So theoretically it's even
possible that it was Snape, from the bottom of the tower, who cursed
Brutal Face too, but somehow it's obvious to the reader (or at least
it's obvious to me) that it was Harry. It was also obvious to me that
it was Harry who shouted the Petrificus Totalus that got Greyback,
only because it's written in the same way as the Petrificus Totalus
that got Brutal Face. 

BTW, I never understood the text to say that Harry wasn't able to
raise his wand, only that he didn't have time to do so before Greyback
was on him. But it isn't written that Greyback was pinning his wand
hand or something like that, so I never saw a reason to think it
wasn't Harry.

Of course, since it indeed isn't written that it was Harry who shouted
the curse, it can theoretically be anyone, even Snape, but here I want
to take this opportunity to talk about a more general issue that I was
thinking about for some time. I'll call it a "non-description" because
I don't know if there's a professional literary term for it. 

I'll define a non-description as follows: It's something that the hero
must see or know, yet the narrator chooses not to describe it
explicitly. In our case Harry, at the very least, knows if it's
himself who shouted the curse or somebody else (if it's somebody else
there's still the possibility that Harry identified the source by it's
voice). So this is a classic case of a non-description. I'm not saying
there's anything wrong with a non-description. It would have been an
extremely long and boring book if every detail the hero sees or does
was described explicitly. But I *would* feel that the author is
cheating if she later uses her non-description in order to spring
something unexpected on me.

The most famous example of a non-description in the series is probably
the curse that killed (or not) Sirius in OotP. Harry surely saw at
least what color it was, but the color isn't described. Harry probably
also saw if it was Bellatrix who shot it, or at least he'd know, if he
thinks back about what he saw, whether it could have been somebody
else. So if the author is going to take advantage of this
non-description to tell me later that it was somebody else (like
ESE!Lupin, as Pippin suggested) who shot the curse, I'll feel cheated.
The author doesn't have to describe explicitly *everything* the hero
sees, but I feel as if we have a tacit agreement that she has to
describe anything *relevant* that Harry sees.

So here is my question: can anybody think of even a single
non-description in the series that JKR later used in order to spring
an unexpected solution for a mystery? I can't think of even a single
example. The only case I can think of is when JKR didn't describe
Harry not putting the Felix Felicis in Ron's drink. But I think this
example doesn't really qualify, because it's Harry in this case who
uses the non-description to play the trick on us (and on Ron and
Hermione). But is there a case were JKR uses a non-description to play
a trick on both Harry and us?

Neri