On lying and cheating

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 165431

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

> Harry *did* intend to use that academic credit for something. He
>  wanted  to be an Auror, and Aurors are required to have
> a NEWT in potions. Harry thought at first that becoming
> an Auror would help him against Voldemort. By the end of the
> book he had realized that probably wasn't true.

Geoff:
Mike touched on this in a way when he quoted from HBP: 
"He felt just one tiny twinge of regret.... This was the end of his
ambition to become an Auror." 
(HBP "An Excess of Phlegm" p.102 UK edition)

...and then posed the question "How important is becoming an 
Auror to Harry? "

I believe that this twinge merely underlined and confirmed 
something which had  become evident to him previously:

"Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt 
isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore. An invisible 
barrier separated him from the rest of the world. He was - he had 
always been - a marked man. It was just that he had never really 
understood what that meant ...

...It was sunny and the grounds around him were full of laughing 
people and even though he felt as distant from them as though he 
belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as he 
sat here that his life must include, or end in, murder..."
(OOTP "The Second War Begins" p.754 UK edition)

My feeling is that Harry's attitude towards school and work is 
completely - and possibly subconsciously - coloured by this and 
by his feelings about Sirius. Other events - his concerns about Draco 
and his peregrinations with Dumbledore - are making demands on 
his time and I join with others who sense that his heart is not fully 
in his classes although he may still be seeking a little one upmanship 
over Hermione and also enjoying the lack of confrontation in Potions. 
But seeking academic credit to be an Auror? 

I have my doubts. I think the episode by the lake marked the beginning 
of a sea-change in his view of his life.