GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181780

Magpie:
> > I don't understand this here. The narrator isn't giving any reason
for Narcissa's expression. S/he is describing Narcissa as walking 
around looking like there's a bad smell under her nose, s/he's not
actually thinking there is a bad smell under her nose.
 
> Alla:
> 
> But whether narrator is describing Narcissa as walking around
looking as if there's a bad smell under her nose or whether narrator
is actually thinking that there is a bad smell under her nose, those
are narrator's descriptions, no?
<snip>

> I am saying that the comparison itself could be wrong and has
nothing to do with Narcissa, like if I am happy because I got a
promotion, somebody would describe me looking as if I ate some yummy
chocolate or something.

Carol responds:
IMO, the description is along the same lines as the one in another
book (CoS?) that describes Snape as looking as if Christmas had been
cancelled. Obviously, neither a bad smell nor cancelled Christmas is
the true cause of the expression--it's just a way of describing the
expression in terms that Harry might use if he rather than the
narrator were describing it. But in Narcissa's case, I thought that
she was reacting with distaste to the presence of a Muggle-born, *as
if* Muggle-borns really did smell. Draco suggests something of the
sort in "Draco's Detour" in HBP: "If you wonder what that smell is,
Mother, a Mud-Blood just walked in" (quoted from memory).

At any rate, I don't think this is an instance of the unreliable
narrator so much as the narrator attempting to convey what the
expression looks like: Narcissa's attractiveness is marred by her
expression of distaste or contempt, similar to the expression a person
who smelled a foul odor would wear. However, I think she's also
conveying a message of contempt to Hermione and those who would
associate with her similar to Mrs. Black's screeches of "Filth!" in
relation to "Mud-Bloods" and "blood traitors."

Carol, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just adding her own thoughts