Draco and Harry initial meeting WAS : Re: JKR's lesson on prejudice

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 180535


> > Alla:
> > 
> > Well, again Draco is not in Slytherin yet, isn't he? I am only 
> > talking about their initial meetings before they were sorted. 
> 
> Geoff:
> Ah, but.....
> '"Know what house you'll be in yet?"
> "No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.
> "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, 
> but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -"'
> 
> ( PS, "Diagon Alley", p.60 UK edition)
> 
> Enough to trigger Harry's alarm bells, I suspect.
>


Alla:

Ah, but......

Actually no, let me say that much - that COULD have been exactly the 
statement that I was looking for to show that Harry's dislike of 
Draco at least partially based on prejudice, IF.....

when Draco said this Harry knew anything bad about Slytherin.

Hagrid says his Slytherin is no good thing approximately four pages 
after exchange that you quoted occurred.


So, I am afraid not enough to trigger Harry's alarm bells, since at 
this point Harry has no alarm bells to be triggerred.

I am quoting the exchange right since you started till Hagrid saying 
his thing. And narrator tells us that Harry disliked the boy ONLY 
after he starts making jabs on Hagrid.

Those are roughly pages 77-79 of PS/SS amer.paperback and no, I did 
not type them all up right now - it was much earlier.


""No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.
"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know 
I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been—imagine being in 
Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" "Mmm," said Harry, 
wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.
"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the 
front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and 
pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.
"That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy 
didn't.
"He works at Hogwarts."
"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, 
isn't he?"
"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking the boy less and 
less every second.
"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage—lives in a hut on the 
school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do 
magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."
"I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.
"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? 
Where are your parents?"
"They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going 
into the matter with this boy.
"Oh, sorry," said the other,. not sounding sorry at all. "But they 
were our kind, weren't they?"
"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."
"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? 
They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our 
ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get 
the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old 
wizarding families.  What's your surname, anyway?"
But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, 
my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the 
boy, hopped down from the footstool.
"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.
Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him 
(chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).
"What's up?" said Hagrid.
"Nothing," Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. 
Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed 
color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, 
what's Quidditch?"
"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know—not knowin' 
about Quidditch!"
"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the 
pate boy in Madam Malkin's.
"—and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed 
in."
"Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were—he's grown 
up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what 
everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, 
what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the 
only ones with magic in `em in a long line 0' Muggles—look at yer 
mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"
"So what is Quidditch?"
"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like—like soccer in the Muggle 
world—everyone follows Quidditch—played up in the air on broomsticks 
and there's four balls—sorta hard ter explain the rules." "And what 
are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"
"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o'
duffers, but—"
"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff" said Harry gloomily.
"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not 
a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin.  You-
Know-Who was one.""