CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 4, The Keeper of the Keys

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 187858


Carol:
I've read everyone's responses this time and will try not to duplicate. I won't however, be able to remember who said what!

> 1. "Suppose the mystery is why You-Know-Who never tried to get "em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with dark side" -p.55. Is this quote a case of Hagrid not being well informed or a case of JKR have not deciding that Voldemort tried to recruit Lily and James just yet?

Carol responds:
Regardless of what JKR said off the top of her head in an interview, I can't imagine Voldemort or the DEs in general attempting to recruit Lily. Not only is she Muggle-born, she's adamantly opposed to Dark magic and DEs. Look at Voldemort's dismissive treatment of her, calling her "silly girl" even as he's attempting to keep his promise to Snape to spare her life. (Later, after she's dead, he disparagingly refers to her as "[Harry's] Muggle mother" and equates her with his own Muggle father. 

Hagrid doesn't know that Voldemort targeted the Potters because of Harry (and he certainly doesn't know that Lily didn't have to die); he thinks that he killed them for opposing him--"*probably* never tried to recruit them before"? Voldie wasn't recruiting them at all; he was conveniently killing off blood-traitor Order member James and offering the "silly girl" a chance to live in exchange for her son. "*Probably* knew they didn't want anything ter do with the Dark side." Probably? he knew, thanks to Wormtail, that they were both members of the Order. (Merely joining the Order may constitute defying him once.)

Hagrid, never the best-informed character in the series, is speculating, giving reasons for the attack on the Potters that make sense to him, but "probably" clearly indicates that he doesn't know the real reasons (as the reader finds out in more detail later).

Misinformation yet again, but this time from a character who's neither lying nor spreading deliberate half truths and cover stories. 
> 

> 2. As the way to convince Harry that he is truly a wizard, Hagrid reminds him about the things that had been happening around him when he is angry or upset.  We know that what Dursleys did upset Harry a great deal. Why haven't his accidental magic kicked in and harmed the Dursleys at least a little bit?

Carol responds:
I have a theory or hypothesis that I'm sure someone else will find a hole in. It seems to me that anger is not Harry's natural response to danger; instead, his accidental magic pre-Hogwarts seems mostly defensive or only mildly retaliatory (the teacher's blue hair). Contrast his fierce anger in PoA, where the accidental magic reflects real fury. Maybe--only maybe--the soul bit in the scar is at work here. Before SS/PS, LV is possessing animals in Albania, barely alive. He does not possess Quirrell until after Harry meets Quirrell in the Leaky Cauldron, right before Quirrell tries and fails to steal the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone. (We see Harry feeling pain in his scar when Quirrell!mort looks at him at the opening banquet; maybe the soul bit wakes up at that point and becomes stronger along with LV, causing Harry to feel angrier and angrier (wanting to kill Sirius Black in PoA; angry with himself and everyone else all through OoP). 

To return to the question--why hasn't Harry's accidental magic harmed the Dursleys pre-OoP? Because the soul bit hasn't stirred up the anger in him yet, and he's merely instinctively preserving himself from harm. (Of course, feeling small and helpless and not knowing that he's a wizard may have something to do with it. He's not Tom Riddle, instinctively noticing his own powers, sensing that he's "special," and consciously developing them to hurt and control others.)
> 
> 3. In the beginning of this chapter Hagrid introduces himself as Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. At the end of the chapter he tells Harry that Dumbledore let him stay in Hogwarts as **gamekeeper**.  Is it a typo? Is it supposed to be **gatekeeper**?
> If it is not a typo, could somebody explain to me how *keeper of the keys and grounds* is the same thing as *gamekeeper*? Thanks.

Carol:
I agree with others that it's not a typo. As "keeper of the keys and grounds" he would be the gatekeeper (though that word may reflect Harry's perception of Hagrid's job rather than the job itself). "Keeper of the keys" is nicely alliterative, but (IIRC) the only key Hagrid has in his possession is the key to Harry's vault entrusted to him by Dumbledore (best not to ask how it came into DD's possession).

JKR, let's face it, has a creative mind, not a logical or organized mind. She can't even remember when Hagrid became gamekeeper (Ogg, the gamekeeper before Hagrid, anyone?), so I'm not surprised that she refers to his job title inconsistently. Isn't Filch sometimes referred to as the caretaker and sometimes as the groundskeeper?

At any rate, it's possible that JKR's conception of Hagrid's job changed as she wrote the books and he shifted from groundskeeper to gamekeeper at about the same time that he became the new CoMC teacher. (Possibly, Professor Kettleburn was the previous gamekeeper, losing limbs in the process. Hagrid would have been the self-appointed keeper of the Acromantulas and possibly of the Thestrals before that.
> 
> 4. In this chapter Hagrid tells Harry "real" version of his parents' death and Harry's encounter with Voldemort. In light of DH we of course know that this version at best can be called incomplete. Do you think that this "reader's digest" version that Hagrid delivers is what the majority of WW population knew about that night? Do you think this version is delivered only for Harry's benefit and Hagrid (and maybe some other people, I am not talking here about Dumbledore) knew at least some more details?

Carol:
I think it's a combination of what the WW "knew" and Hagrid's own speculations. (See above.) However, as someone else mentioned, the knowledge that LV had been defeated by a little boy, which the WW was already celebrating as McGonagall waited in cat form on the wall, had to come from somewhere, and I doubt that Hagrid provided it to the WW. It must have been DD's official version, passed on to the MoM and the Daily Prophet during the Missing Twenty-Four Hours. Hagrid would know only that LV had tried to kill the Potters, tried and failed to kill Harry, blown up part of the house, and left Harry with an open cut shaped like a lightning bolt. Anything else that he "knew" either came from the Daily Prophet or rumor or his own (inaccurate) speculations.
> 
> 5. Do you believe Hagrid when he acts angry about Dursleys not telling Harry what was in that letter?

Carol:
As others have said, Hagrid is not an actor. He reacts emotionally and viscerally, not intellectually, and when he attempts to lie or hide information, he gives himself away by looking shifty and guilty. So his anger that the Dursleys would conceal what Hagrid considers to be common knowledge (that Harry is a wizard and entitled to go to Hogwarts), along with the truth about his parents' death, makes him genuinely angry, just as he's genuinely angry when Vernon insults Dumbledore.
> 
> 6. Harry's invitation letter says that Hogwarts expects his owl no later than July 31. Do you think it was possible for Harry to refuse the invitation if he so desired?
>
Carol:
Under normal circumstances, I think that Harry would have had the choice not to attend (not that he would have made that decision). But there's no question that DD wants Harry at Hogwarts and has taken extraordinary measures to make sure that he receives his letter. It's possible (no way of proving it) that one of DD's (minor) motives in placing Harry with the Dursleys in ignorance of his history and magical abilities was to make him want to enter the exciting magical world of the WW. At any rate, sending a "giant" with a magical umbrella to recruit an eleven-year-old boy whose life up to that point had been worse than mundane could not fail to spark his interest, especially if he was anything like his adventure-loving father.

Carol, thanking Alla for the interesting questions