Harry's remark about Kreacher/Should JKR shut up?

[va32h]

No: HPFGUIDX 178594

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" <zgirnius at ...> wrote:

> zgirnius:
> No, it says his bed *is* waiting for him, and he is *wondering* about 
> a sandwich. A certainty (the bed), and a wondering (the sandwich).
> 
> This does not seem convoluted at all to me, as it is a straight 
> recounting of what I thought when I read the book. The meaning of the 
> line as far as I see it that Harry is exhausted and starving. In my 
> own experience, when I am in this condition, exhausted wins, hands 
> down, and it seems Harry is the same. I am not willing to exert 
> myself to get food. Likewise, Harry settles for his nice bed upstairs 
> in Gryffindor Tower (the one that we are told is definitely there and 
> lying waiting for him) and then it vaguely occurs to him that it is 
> possible, if he is lucky, that food will find him anyway through the 
> agency of Kreacher (the sandwich that he wonders about whether it 
> might appear).
> 
> He is going upstairs to sleep, as the passage indicates. If Harry 
> plans to summon Kreacher and order the sandwich, why does Harry 
> *wonder* whether Kreacher *might* do something? He knows quite well 
> that if he orders Kreacher to bring him a freshly baked steak-and-
> kidney pie, butterbeer, and treacle tart, these items *will* appear.

va32h:

Because that's the way JK Rowling talks.  If a person says "I wonder
if I might trouble you to hand me that pot of mustard" they aren't
literally contemplating the notion of whether they may or may not ask
you to hand them the mustard. They are asking you to hand over the
mustard and using a lot of extra words to do it (and I'm thinking this
is a British sort of thing to do, but British listies can correct me). 

Harry is tired and thinking of his bed and then it occurs to him that
he has the means to get a sandwich *in* bed, via Kreacher. 

va32h