CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 9: Grim Defeat

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 189696


> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1. A school-wide sleep-over, mixed gender (Hermione sleeps close to Ron and
> Harry), and with 11 to 17 year olds ? Can you imagine this happening at your
> school – both when you were young and/or for your kids nowadays - whichever
> applies ? Especially with little to no adult supervision – only Percy seems to
> be on patrol.

Pippin:
Well, it's not really a sleepover, more of an emergency shelter. 

Besides,much as we might like to know, the book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, not Coming of Age in the WW.  Harry's adventures haven't got much to do with sex or romance at the moment, so the story doesn't deal with them. But the prefects are standing guard at the entrances (looking inward, since the doors are closed and locked)  and the hall is being patrolled by ghosts, so the students are not  unchaperoned. And I expect ghosts can see in the dark, so once the candles are out, they have the advantage. Of course sleeping bags conjured by the Elder Wand might have other properties than just being soft and squishy :)

As we know, students do find plenty of ways to slip off together in private.

The students aren't segregated in the hospital wing either. And nobody bats an eye at Hermione going off with Ron and Harry all hours of the day and night. It dawns on me that JKR is using the same technique on her audience that the Ministry uses when it has a issue it would rather avoid. Make few highly visible and largely symbolic gestures towards addressing the problem and unless they have reason to know better, people will be satisfied that Everything is Under Control. Whether it actually is or not is left to the interested reader to decide -- Harry is so oblivious that half the sixth years could be dropping out to have babies and he wouldn't notice unless it was one of his friends.

> 
> 2. And speaking of Percy – where's the Head Girl and the Prefects ? Can you
> imagine that Harry (through whom we `see' this magical world) would pay no
> attention to them at all ?

Pippin:
 I think we see so little of the Head Girl because JKR knew all along that Hermione wasn't going to be one, and didn't want to create  expectations for it.

> 
> 3. Teacher Talk: When the Headmaster approaches, Harry quickly pretends to
> be asleep. Do you think Professor Dumbledore knew he was listening in on the
> conversation ? Was that the reason he cuts off Snape's insinuation that Lupin
> helped Black get inside the castle or was it solely because he truly believes
> Lupin didn't help ?
> 

Pippin:
Whether Harry is listening in or not, Percy is, and he's not supposed to know about Lupin either. If Snape had found new any evidence to support his theory, he'd  mention it. But he's just speculating, and Dumbledore has heard it before.

> 4. Snape taking over Lupin's class: What did you make of this and did it
> give you a clue as to what was to come out ?
Pippin:
I missed the all the hints pointing to the werewolf and was just as surprised as Harry when it all came out.

> 
> 5. It wasn't till I was writing a version of book 6 myself that "teachers
> taking over classes for others" became a problem to me – what do you make of the
> class schedule for Hogwarts' students ?

Pippin:
JKR decided that she needed twelve subjects, seven years,  and 40 students in Harry's year in order to tell her tale, and didn't try to make it work logistically. 

> 
> 6. Quidditch: what did you make of the fact that several of the experienced
> and older quidditch players didn't think of protecting Harry's glasses in the
> storm and that Hermione comes up with the solution ? Or is this a detail that I
> notice as a bespectacled citizen ?

Pippin:
None of them wear glasses, AFAIK, so they didn't think of it.

> 
Potioncat's question:
Snape knows DD trusts him in spite of his dark history. What do you think about
Snape's dismissal of DD's trust of Lupin?

Pippin:
Snape confessed his dark history to Dumbledore. Lupin, however, has never admitted that he did anything unworthy of Dumbledore's trust, and Snape does not believe it. Snape is always accusing someone of being Sirius's accomplice. It's as if he doesn't want to accept that Sirius (or James) could best him acting alone.

 We can see from Spinner's End that Snape considers himself  as clever as any two purebloods put together. 

Pippin