Chapdisc Cos 12

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

No: HPFGUIDX 189068

Jeanine discussed CoS Chapter 12 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189061>:

<< [Hermione] also produces the two drugged cakes to put Crabbe and Goyle out of action >>

This is a prime example that Hermione would be a very good Slytherin: she will use any means to achieve her ends, and she makes effective schemes. I like this reply because all my other replies were already posted by some other listie before me.

<< Why does Harry not confide in Dumbledore? >>

Life with the Dursleys has given him an excessively strong inability to trust any person. I wonder if Dumbledore recognizes his own secretiveness in Harry?

<< Would Harry have got anywhere in his attempt to hoodwink Malfoy without Hermione's help, knowledge and hard work? >>

Well, he certainly wouldn't have had (or even known of) Polyjuice Potion without her. It's just possible he could have come up with some other scheme, probably something that involved challenging Draco to a dare.

<< Why do you think Hogwarts students of any one house are apparently not allowed to know the password to the other houses' common rooms? >>

What would be the point of having a password if there was no one from whom it was secret? I've encountered fanfics in which students sneak into another House's common room to vandalize it and strew their own House color about. Somewhat like the traditions of UCLA students to paint the Tommy Trojan statue blue and of USC students to paint the grizzly bear statue red.

<< How likely did you think it was that Madam Pomfrey would not ask "too many questions" when a student turns up having been transformed into an animal? >>

I'm inclined to believe it. Part of a Hogwarts education is breaking the rules and using magic on one's own, sometimes experimentally, sometimes to curse a student from another House (only curses that can be cured). The authorities would want the students to seek professional repairs when they break themselves, therefore not fear that the medi-witch would rat on them.

<< Would she not at least have approached Minerva McGonagall who was the expert in transformation? The only other way we're told of, to transform someone, is Polyjuice Potion. >>

Presumably she would have sought Minerva's help if she couldn't fix the problem on  her own.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189063>:

<< (Of course, Harry's reluctance to confide in anyone, sometimes even including Ron and Hermione, is a personality trait that works nicely as a motif or plot device--if only Harry had confided such and such, matters would have turned out differently (but then again, the plot would have been ruined). >>

In this case, Dumbledore got all the information by Legilimency, so it doesn't make any difference that Harry didn't confide in him. I imagine he also got all the information he needed from Riddle's mind, altho' perhaps Riddle was already a great Occlumens and blocked him.

<< Theoretically, a student could probably invite a student from another House into his or her common room, which would involve saying the password (or, in the case of the Ravenclaws, answering a riddle). >>

I feel sure that letting a student from a different House into one's House's common room is against the rule (and so is entering a different House's common room), but then again, Hogwarts rules (all wizarding rules!) are for breaking.

<< who could transform themselves into animals (e.g., Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail in an earlier generation) would not have informed her or needed her help. >>

Maybe even the Marauders needed her help, with things that went wrong while they were still learning Animagic. In some previous scene, we went along a corridor past a Transfiguration classroom where some student 'had turned his friend into a badger'. Professor McGonagall fixed it then, but if it happened while the students were practising (studying), probably they would go to Madam Pomfrey.