What really happened on the tower.

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 155830

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, career advisor <aceworker at ...>
wrote:
>
>               
>  > Carol notes:
>  > You may be thinking of the first Petrificus Totalus, which Harry
casts
>  > from behind at the "brutal-faced Death Eater" (Yaxley?). But the
>  > second Petrificus Totalus, the one that saves Harry from Fenrir
>  > Greyback, is cast by an unidentified person who can't be Harry
because
>  > Harry is pinned down and can't move:
>  > 
>  > "As Harry plunged after them, one of the fighters detached themselves
>  > from the fray and flew at him. It was the werewolf, Fenrir. He was on
>  > top of Harry before Harry could raise his wand: Harry fell backward,
>  > with filthy matted hair in his face, the stench of sweat and blood
>  > filling his nose and, hot greedy breath at his throat--
>  > 
>  > "'Petrificus Totalus!'
>  > 
>  > "Harry felt Fenrir collapse against him; with a stupendous effort he
>  > pushed the werewolf off and onto the floor. . . ." (HBP Am. ed. 598).
>  
wynnleaf

 If this piece of text is actually a bit of misdirection by the
narrator, where we're expected to think the petrificus totalus is by
Harry, but really it's someone else -- then there will have to be some
time in Book 7 when the "truth comes out."

While I can envision many scenarios for other suspected misdirections
in which the "truth comes out" in Book 7, I find it hard to come up
with a reason for why the reader would ever learn that someone else
performed that particular PT.  It seems to me that Harry would have
to, for some reason I can't yet conceive, decide to review those
events in a pensieve.  Why would he do that?  I can't see why he'd
start to wonder about events in order to want to re-evaluate them. 
And the rest of the witnesses were all DE's, or Snape.  The only
reason to do a misdirection here would be if the person that performed
the PT needed to be kept secret from the reader.  But the secret has
to be divulged eventually, and this incident seems unlikely to be the
kind to be addressed again.

It wouldn't be an unreliable narrator piece of misdirection if we're
never going to find out the truth.  But I can't think of any reason
why we *would* find out more about this incident.  While JKR could
probably come up with something, I can't quite imagine a scenario.

Any ideas?


wynnleaf