Another Flint? - GoF Carriages

[Caius Marcius]

I haven't been following the threads in HP4GU very closely of late 
(the old had-I-but-world-enough-and-time sorta thing), so this has 
likely been pointed out ere now: but there has been some discussion 
about whether Harry's ability to see Thestrals should've been 
activated by his parents' death.

well, here we are, the final chapter of GoF, Cedric dead for about a 
month or so, and yet.....

"You'd better hurry up!"  Ron called loudly after her.  "The 
carriages'll be here in a minute!"

He let Harry keep a watch for the carriages, however, and spent the 
next few minutes craning his neck over the crowd to try and see what 
Krum and Hermione might be up to.  They returned quite soon.  Ron 
stared at Hermione, but her face was quite impassive.

"I liked Diggory," said Krum abruptly to Harry.  "He vos alvays 
polite to me.  Alvays. Even though I vos from Durmstrang - with 
Karkaroff," he added, scowling.

"Have you got a new headmaster yet?"  said Harry

Krum shrugged.  He held out his hand as Fleur had done, shook Harry's 
hand, and then Ron's. Ron looked as though he was suffering some sort 
of painful internal struggle.  Krum had already started walking away 
when Ron burst out, "Can I have your autograph?"

Hermione turned away, smiling at the horseless carriages that were 
now trundling toward them up the drive, as Krum, looking surprised 
but gratified, signed a fragment of parchment for Ron.


END QUOTE

So Harry still can't see Thestrals, though it's been at least a month 
since the Kill the Spare sequence. Admittedly, it would have been a 
clumsy piece of narrative to have Harry fisrt see these inexplicable 
critters at the end of a book, sans explanation, but then JKR should 
have invented some narrative device allowing Harry to bypass the 
carriages at the end of Book Four. 

It doesn't seem as if JKR can count on her current publishers to de-
Flint her narrative. She ought to rely on her fan-base: I'm sure that 
a half-dozen or so trustworthy individuals from HP4GU could be found 
who know Canon inside out, and who would do a much better job of 
spotting narrative inconsistencies, while preserving confidentiality.

  - CMC

HARRY POTTER FILKS
http://home.att.net/~coriolan/hpfilks.htm 
(updated 8/2/03 with 66 new filks)