[HPforGrownups] Re: Dark Book

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 177110

Jen: The book doesn't say wands were pointed at Pansy or all Slytherin
students or in any direction. The text says, "Then the Hufflepuffs
stood, and almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with
their backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead, and
Harry, awestruck and overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled
from beneath cloaks and from under sleeves." (DH, chap. 31, p. 610, Am.
ed.)

The students are 'looking toward Pansy' and wands are starting to
emerge. It seems like a very big deal to leave out if the wands were
pointing directly at Pansy or Slytherin house because that changes the
scene from what it's meant to be imo, the symbolic moment when the
students of Hogwarts declared their intention to oppose Voldemort
rather than hand over Harry in an attempt to save themselves. (I
speculate that after the year they'd spent under DEs, most students
realized it was folly to put their faith and safety in the hands of
Voldemort and his followers.)

Debbie:
I reread this scene last night and came to the same conclusion you did.  It
also occurred to me that Pansy was a prefect back in OOP and that as a 7th
year prefect (or, more likely, Head Girl considering that Voldemort was in
control of Hogwarts) was a leader and authority figure in her House.  We
also don't know what Pansy's behavior was like throughout the year, but
based on what we've seen of her in the past I'd bet she would have rather
relished dishing out punishment, too, or at the very least watching it being
dished out.  If that's the case, I couldn't imagine any Slytherin taking the
risk of overtly dissenting from her attempt to capitulate to Voldemort, and
certainly supporting Harry in that moment would have endangered them.  As a
result, requiring all of the Slytherins to evacuate was for their own
safety.

By the same token, given Slytherin's status as the favorite house under the
Voldemort regime, and the evident enthusiasm of some members of Slytherin
for Dark punishment, would you trust them enough to let them fight?  I don't
care for McGonagall's reaction to Harry's Crucio, but I think as a wartime
decision, asking all the Slytherins to leave was a reasonable one.

Debbie
whose computer has lately been eating her drafts before she could post them


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