[HPforGrownups] Re: Nagini: If she's not a Horcrux, what the heck is she?

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 172026

> <k12listmomma at ...> wrote:
>> SS, Chapter 4
>> "... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his 
>> revenge,
>> without even realizing that he was doing it? He had set a boa constrictor 
>> on
>> him."
>>
>> Word for word, it was Harry's thoughts, not my interpretation of  it. 
>> Even
>> though the snake didn't go after anyone, it's Harry's recollection of the
>> event later that I am going by.
> ==========================
>
> Lisa:
>
> However, we were witness to the actual incident, and that's not how
> he saw it happen:
>
> SS, p. 28-29:
>
> ... What came next happened so fast o one saw how it happened -- one
> second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass,
> the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.
>     Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa
> constrictor's tank had vanished.  The great snake was uncoiling
> itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor.  People throughout the
> reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.
>     As the snake slid swiftly past thim, Harry could have sworn a
> low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come .... Thanksss, amigo."
>     The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
>     "But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"
>     The zoo director himself made Aunt Petuia a cup of strong, sweet
> tea while he apologized over and over again.  Piers and Dudley could
> only gibber.  As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done
> anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed ... "
>
> So there was no malicious intent on Harry's part ... no "intent" at
> all, truth be told, no matter how Harry categorized it later.  He
> didn't "set" the boa constictor on him anymore than he "made" his
> hair grow back after haircuts.



Shelley:
You are saying "that's not how it happened" only because you are distorting 
what it is that Harry says he did- he says he "set the snake on Dudley", and 
so he did! He made that glass disappear, knowing the snake would come out to 
go seek his freedom, and knowing that stupid Dudley would just assume it was 
after him.

Look, you are defining "set" to mean malicious intent, but frankly, I don't 
think at all that is how it is used in the book. That's a grave distortion 
you can't pull from cannon- Harry doesn't show any malicious intent to harm 
anyone at this stage.  I think it simply means to "manipulate the 
circumstances to appear as if the snake is "approaching" Dudley", so that 
Dudley would be scared out of his pants. Harry pulls a prank on Dudley- a 
perfectly harmless one at that. Dudley would have no way of knowing, as 
Harry fully did from talking to it, that this snake was a perfectly gentle 
creature who had no harm at all intended for any person, and that this large 
snake merely desired to go off and have his freedom. Thus, Harry could "set" 
the snake on Dudley with no malicious intent because he knew ahead of time 
there is no harm coming whatsoever, much like I used to love to "set" 
harmless grasshoppers on my sister who was a real treat to watch whenever 
she got an insect near her. I knew she would "spaz", and so could Harry 
predict Dudley's reaction. Both were terribly funny to watch, and the victim 
never was in any harm at all, no matter how energetic their reactions were.

Still, I am not quibbling Harry's memory at all- as apparently you are- he 
remembers "setting the snake on Dudley", and as I have ever read it in my 
multiple readings of that first book, that's fully accurate. No harm was 
ever intended- it was a benign prank- merely fright at the unknown on 
Dudley's part, much like watching a person jump after having a spring jump 
out of a trick canister in a prank. Harry's merely acknowledges his part in 
"making" it happen- thinking back, he had indeed used magic to make that 
glass disappear to allow this snake his freedom at a time when he wanted to 
get back at Dudley for the punch.

Shelley