[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry the author

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 175439

> guru wrote:
>
> I've been wondering why Severus hadn't already written that book or
> its equivalent.  In PS/SS he introduces the class to the wonders of
> potions, and you can tell he is passionate about the subject. One
> would think that having figured out how to improve the art, he would
> have, at least, been teaching the class out of his annotated version
> of the text, if not having written his own.
>
> Of course, that would have left little mystery in who the HBP really
> was, and leaves a lot of blank pages in the 5th book.
>
>
> Snape's Witch:
>
> If he hadn't actually published a potion text, he *was* teaching his
> innovations, writing the recipes on the blackboard . . . rarely, if
> ever, referring to a textbook.  That's the reason Hermione's class
> work in N.E.W.Ts potions was suddenly so much worse than Harry's
> because she was following Borage's text and Harry was using the HBP's
> improvements. In all her previous potions classes she *had* been
> taught the HBP's version and getting superior results.
>
> guru:
>
> I would think that if Snape had been teaching his versions of the
> recipes, that Harry would have recognized them when he saw the
> notations in the book.


Guru, I think I agree with you. We see nothing in cannon that directly 
supports that Snape was putting his "extra special recipes" on the board all 
along. If they had differed from the textbook that they were all required to 
use, then you think someone would have noticed by now that the two differed- 
especially the Twins, who were keen to all those details. Thus the 
difference we see later between Hermione and Harry's work is not that 
Hermione (and the rest of the class, by extension!) was now using a poor 
recipe, it's that Harry alone is using a superior recipe. The problem with 
saying that Snape was using his own recipes on the board all along is that 
the ENTIRE class, if they followed those recipes, would have been getting 
superior results, not just Hermione. We see Harry screwing up by missing 
ingredients, but I can hardly believe that nobody in the entire class but 
Hermione could correctly read along and follow directions.

Shelley