HBP chapters 21-23 post DH look

[zanooda2]

No: HPFGUIDX 184404

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:

> Harry has certainly tried to obtain information from
> various people--Dumbledore, for example--but I don't recall 
> his using wheedling as a strategy.


zanooda:

The Trio rarely, but do use flattery to reach their goals. I must say
though that it is usually Hermione who does the flattering, not Harry.
I already mentioned Hagrid, whom HRH usually just trick into telling
things, but I remember once Hermione flattered him to get information
about the Stone's defense. "'... you might not want to tell us, but
you do know, you know everything that goes on round here,' said
Hermione in a warm, flattering voice." After some more of very obvious
flattering "Hagrid's chest swelled" and he spilled the beans :-).

Hermione also resorts to flattery to get Lockhart (who is definitely
susceptible :-)) to sign the permission to use the Restricted Section
in CoS. But, as you say, this is not for information, and it's not
actually Harry who is doing the wheedling, although he is in on it
:-). Harry is not sneaky enough for this kind of thing, IMO. The
closest thing that I remember is Harry and Ron pretending to agree
with Lockhart about the security measures in the castle being
unnecessary, when they needed to get away from him and try to go and
talk to Moaning Myrtle.



> Carol wrote:

> Carol, whose reaction to the quoted line was identical to Alla's


zanooda:

So was mine :-). But maybe I don't understand the word "wheedling"
well :-). Does it necessarily include flattery? According to
dictionaries, it does :-).