[HPforGrownups] Secrets of Harry's past WASRe: On the Issue of "Boys will be Boys" Chapt 14 Disc

[Margaret Fenney]

No: HPFGUIDX 190100

> > Margie:
> >
> > On page 304 of Sorcerer's Stone (US paperback), Hagrid gives Harry a
> photo
> > book and says "Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends,
> askin'
> > fer photos...knew yeh didn' have any...d'yeh like it?" I don't see how it
> > could have been given to him much earlier in the series given that owls
> > needed to be sent, pictures need to be found and sent back from multiple
> > people, etc.
>
> >Alla:
> >
> >Maybe owls could have been sent out couple years before? And after
> Dumbledore's multiple lies and many people (including Hagrid) omitting
> things, to be honest I am not sure that this is exactly how it >occurred.
> Although since it is pretty much uncontradicted canon I guess I have to
> believe it, but again, way too many times Harry had been deceived, so I do
> not know.


Margie:

The part before what I quoted says ""Nah. Dumbledore gave me the day off
yesterday ter fix it.  'Course, he shoulda sacked me instead -- anyway, got
yeh this..."  It seemed to be a handsome, leather-covered book.  Harry
opened it curiously.  It was full of wizard photographs.  Smiling and waving
at him from every page were his mother and father."  If you don't want to
believe this, it is your choice, but I am taking it directly from the book.

Hagrid sent out the owls and prepared the book during Harry's first year at
Hogwarts after getting Harry from the Dursleys, during which he learned that
Harry had not been told he was a wizard but had been told his parents died
in an accident.  I can't imagine what would prompt Hagrid or anyone else to
prepare a photo album for Harry before he reentered the wizarding world.



> >Margie:
>
> > Also, one thing that I think people are missing here is that the
> characters
> > don't know everything that we know. Dumbledore does not know from the
> > beginning that Harry was told that his parents were killed in an accident
> > and that he was not to talk about them at the Dursleys. None of these
> > characters know what Harry has been or has not been told by the Dursleys
> or
> > by anyone else. The typical assumption is that the Dursleys, being
> family,
> > probably told Harry a lot about his parents and most adults don't get a
> > clear view of the Dursleys until late in the series.
>
> >Alla:
>
> >Actually in OOP Dumbledore also tells Harry that I had been watching you
> more closely than you could have imagined, so there is a view to which I
> personally subscribe for quite some time now that >Dumbledore knew pretty
> well what was happening in Dursleys household pretty much in very great
> detail. Of course the reader who holds such view (me) would not like
> Dumbledore much because that >would mean that he is responsible for a great
> deal of cruelty in Harry's life, but I had been feeling this way for quite
> some time now.
> >So, yes I think he knew what Dursleys did to Harry, told Harry or not told
> Harry because he was watching him by unspecified magical tools and since he
> says it in OOP, I do not think he refers to >Arabella either.


Margie:

Yes, Dumbledore does say that and he knew that Harry was not treated as
family, not well-fed, etc. but it is a matter of opinion as to what
Dumbledore knew about what the Dursleys said or didn't say about Harry's
parents.  You could "check things out" and any number of points and find
that Harry is in the cupboard and not well-fed but to know what the Dursleys
told him about his parents, you would have to be monitoring the situation at
that specific point in time.  Unless Dumbledore had 24/7 coverage, I don't
see how he could know.

I believe that what I said about the characters not knowing is true about
all the other adults, even if Dumbledore did know.  With respect to the
other characters, in Ch 9 of OOP, Moody shows Harry a picture of the
original members of the Order, including his parents, thinking that Harry
will be quite interested but Harry is instead deeply disturbed and angered
because he also sees Wormtail in the photo.   When it comes to talking about
such things, that is the kind of sensitivity that you deal with and it can
be extremely difficult to know how someone will respond.

Personally, I believe that Dumbledore did all that he could to protect
Harry, that he had good reasons for most of his actions, and that he
struggled mightily to do the right thing in literally hundreds of complex
decisions.   Powerful wizard or not, he has human faults as we all do but I
believe he was wise, caring and usually unselfish.

JMO also,

Margie