To kill or not to kill and resolutions of the storylineWAS :Re: Disarming spell

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 185523

> Magpie:
> > After thousands of pages of this series I have every reason as a
> reader to not read friends of family of the students left at Hogwarts
> (who are from all the houses except that house) as including Slytherins. 
> 
> Carol:
> 
> But the narrator doesn't say that they're the students "left at
> Hogwarts." Quite the contrary. They're the students who *left Hogwarts
> and returned* with what Harry *assumes* to be their friends and
> families. Who could they be except the Slytherins and a few
> miscellaneous students from other Houses?
> 
> Carol, who understands why Magpie reads the scene as she does but
> reads it differently

Montavilla47:
Wow.  I finally understand that sentence now.  I was going to write
a scathing remark about how we're still parsing that stupid passage, but
I get it now.

Yes, those *returning* students could very well be Slytherins.  They
could also be from Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.  (Half of one of those Houses
leaves--I forget which, but my guess would be Ravenclaw.)

I was confused because the sentence mentions Slughorn *and* Charlie
 as returning--when of course, Charlie isn't returning at all.  He's 
coming for the first time.  So, I missed the second "returning" which refers
to the students.

I think I'll take JKR at her word when she says that the Slytherins were 
returning.  But I'm still going to express my irritation at the ambiguity of 
it.  No one realized that the Slytherins were included in that sentence 
until JKR told us in an interview that they had.  Anyone reading the story 
five years from now would miss it completely.

I like the idea that the Slytherins would be smart enough to get 
reinforcements before fighting (and JKR seemed to like that, too).  This
might be one of those times when the editing let her down--because
someone should have flagged that sentence as too ambiguous to 
qualify as the "Slytherins doing their part."

Especially since Harry only notices the neutral (in terms of fighting)
Malfoys at the end--without mentioning, for example, Millicent Bullstrode
or "a tall weedy Slytherin with a sour face."