Philosopher's Stone Chapter Eight

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

                                               

Harry meets Snape for the first time.

The Potions Master

*Ron is anonymous as far as anyone at Hogwarts is concerned.  He is just the kid standing next to Harry Potter.  Generous of Harry to confer that distinction on him.  Ron will come to appreciate it...

 

*Hogwarts, the building sounds like a real nightmare.  JKR over reached herself in the UK edition by stating there were 142 staircases there... leading to where I wonder?  How many classes does Hogwarts offer?  I thought it was only 12.  But then the number of students at Hogwarts is really inconsistent from moment to moment as well... oh dear maths.

 

*The ridiculous moving staircases give an impression of prevailing insanity.  If the place is magical why can’t there be teleporters to class rooms and common rooms?  But the “magic” is arranged to make everything harder.  I really would never have got by at Hogwarts, I still don’t have any sense of direction.

 

*And Harry ought, as a Gryffindor, to appreciate Peeves, Hogwarts' resident hazard.  He should love Fluffy even more.

 

*Filch gives little Harry some trouble... well Harry will eventually get his own back on the old squib by hexing him while his backs turned.  IOIAGDI!!

 

*Harry has worked out that the Weasley twins might just have the best knowledge of the building.  He doesn’t know about the Marauders Map yet of course.  In Order of the Phoenix he still hasn’t worked out that anyone who has the map definitely has a far better knowledge of Hogwarts than Filch does.  He still thinks that Filch has the best knowledge of Hogwarts “second only” to that of the Weasley Twins... Oh dear, maths continuity show a little sense Harry!

 

*We never actually see an astronomy lesson.

 

*JKR probably wasn’t a very apt pupil since history is such a boring subject in her view.  With Professor Binns’ methods it looks like we are getting a feel for how she remembers it - and it went right over her head.

 

*Professor Flitwick is a real Harry Potter fanatic.  Really all designated good characters should swoon with pleasure when they see Harry.

 

*McGonagall threatens to chuck out anyone messing around... there is a lot of talk of chucking people out of classes or out of Hogwarts in the very beginning but *comparatively* much less of it as the series goes on.  I suppose the Hogwarts rule must be that being new is no excuse for not already being used to the haphazard rules which relax once the kids are used to the place. 

 

*Please use the needle to gouge out Hermione’s eye someone...

 

*Zombies are zombies at the moment rather than Inferi.  Once again oh dear maths continuity

 

*The turban cannot possibly be a gift AND stuffed full of garlic :p oh dear maths continuity logic. 

 

*It’s interesting that for Harry’s year, those from magical households don’t have a significant head start.  Didn’t Snape know more curses when he started than half the kids in the seventh year?  I think Sirius would have definitely been right about that.

 

*A message from Hagrid.  Despite his celebrity, Hagrid is the only friend Harry has apart from Ron... sad really.  Where would Harry be with no glamour?

 

*The dungeons are colder than the main castle.  The Slytherin complex must be really uncomfortable unless the Malfoys, Lestranges etc. have paid for extra magical heating...

 

*Hagrid has warmth?  Ermm... get to know him better before jumping to conclusions Harry.

 

*I quite liked Snape’s little speech about Potions being both a science and an art - until the exposition is ruined by the bathos of the word “dunderheads.”

 

*Hermione’s suffering from the jerks.  Must be a grim spectacle.

 

*Harry did open a book before coming Snape!  And it’ll be the last time he ever does...

 

*Does Seamus want to be Harry’s friend here?  I suppose Harry’s insularity put the rest of the year group off him quite quickly, but it hasn’t had full effect yet.

 

*A potion for curing ordinary (not Hermione disease) boils indicates that Hogwarts follows a “sabretooth curriculum.”

 

*It is difficult to fathom Snape’s relationship to Malfoy now the series is over...

 

*Silly Neville :p  When I was 11 my chemistry teacher would probably have said sarcastically, “well you’ve been successful haven’t you?”

 

*Snape is the only teacher who has ever, as far as we see, deducted points in denominations of one point... but speculations on this are pointless given JKR’s level of numeracy.

 

*I recall another member of DTCL posted that Professor Kettleburn might be like the Hagrid X-Treme.  I wonder if Ron would have wanted to visit Kettleburn in his leaf pile ;)

 

*Fang is a big dog with the personality of a puppy.  Hagrid is a monstrous man who often exhibits the mind of a little boy.  That’s how they’re similar.  Also Hagrid is like Dumblesnore’s dog.

 

*Hagrid has a real contempt for Filch and all squibs.  I suspect this must be Dumbledore’s opinion of squibs and Hagrid is parroting it.  We all know what a hypocrite Dumbledore really is.  Hagrid does view Dumbledore as a mixture of an all powerful adoptive grandfather and dog owner.  He would be unlikely to blurt out views that Dumbledore did not approve of.

 

*Hagrid liked Charlie a lot.  I wonder how much trouble he was able to get Charlie into?

 

*So the Prophet reckons it would take a dark wizard or dark witch to get into Gringotts?  Doesn’t seem likely.  Really, a little kid could have broken into the emptied vault.  Griphook later tells us that it had minimal protection even by Gringotts standards, after it was emptied.

 

*Harry has three thoughts from visiting Hagrid (and none from his lessons).  Well the rule of three is always advised by professionals who tell you how to make a presentation :) Perhaps only being able to deal with three thoughts at once is really a common syndrome and not something that is an indictment against Harry.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Maybe Dippet was the last to allow it, but I'm not clear on exactly when Arthur and Molly went to school. Maybe Dumbledore forgot to get rid of the practice right away.

Based on the fact that they eloped early in the 1st war they probably attended school in the late 60s. Whether Twinkly became headmaster in December 1956 when Minerva came to teach or later is a matter of fan speculation. TMK Rowling never clarified if he went directly from Transfiguration teacher to headmaster or if he spent some time teaching some other subject (such as DADA).

Also, there are those who think Pringle punished Arthur Umbridge-style, without Dumbles' knowledge.

[sunnyskywalker]

*imagines Arthur's hand reading, "I will not sneak out to snog my girlfriend after curfew"*

Hard to imagine Pringle slicing up students right and left, though - and that they remember it fondly does imply that they saw it as a normal thing, not some secret and unusually harsh punishment - without any of the staff noticing, so it seems at least implicitly tolerated even if not officially allowed. Plus, he probably didn't have the Ministry behind him and the power to get any teacher fired, so if they did notice, they could do a bit more to stop him. Maybe it took a while for the institutional culture to change enough that they cared? But then the staff roster might not have changed much - Slughorn was there from the forties or earlier until about 1980, McGonagall was there from the mid-fifties on, Binns has been there forever (not that he'd notice anything, granted), Hagrid was on staff since the early forties as apprentice gamekeeper (Ogg retired sometime after Molly and Arthur's days, and who knows his views), Dumbledore was a teacher and then headmaster since the forties or earlier. I don't think we know when Flitwick, Sprout, Vector, Sinistra, Kettleburn, Hooch, Pomfrey, Pince, or Burbage started, but we never heard about them being newer than Snape and Trelawney, I don't think, so they're probably not off the hook, especially since some are noted as not-young, and wizards don't seem to switch jobs that often. Did they slowly decide that hey, maybe if students come in limping or wincing after detention we should review our disciplinary protocol?

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't think we know when Flitwick, Sprout, Vector, Sinistra, Kettleburn, Hooch, Pomfrey, Pince, or Burbage started, but we never heard about them being newer than Snape and Trelawney, I don't think, so they're probably not off the hook, especially since some are noted as not-young, and wizards don't seem to switch jobs that often.

Kettleburn was already teaching when Albus was a young Transfiguration teacher, according to Beedle the Bard. If Quirrell was the former Muggle Studies teacher (interview) then Burbage only started when he left on his fateful Sabbatical. Pomfrey and Flitwick were around in the Marauders' days, but if they were very new then they could have missed Pringle's times.

Dumbledore's tenure as headmaster

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

It's necessary to be cautious about any matter that involves JKR's ability to add and subtract. She might have mapped out Dumblesnore having taken the post of headmaster in the 'fifties and have Molly and Arthur be fortysomethings who attended Hogwarts in the 19th century :o

Re: Dumbledore's tenure as headmaster

[oryx_leucoryx]

She might have mapped out Dumblesnore having taken the post of headmaster in the 'fifties and have Molly and Arthur be fortysomethings who attended Hogwarts in the 19th century :o

You are more right than I initially noticed. It is Molly who tells Harry in HBP chapter 5 that Slughorn started teaching around the same time as Dumbledore. How does she know?

Re: Dumbledore's tenure as headmaster

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. She has calculated that Molly and Arthur were at Hogwarts when Dumblesnore and Slughorn started there as Transfiguration master and (presumably) Potions master... Really, when it comes to JKR and numeracy, nothing should be surprising.

Re: Dumbledore's tenure as headmaster

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Well, she *could* know without having been there when they both started teaching. She might have heard things like, for instance, "Dumbledore sure has been at Hogwarts a long time, hasn't he? Started at the same time as old Slughorn, and Slughorn retired a few years back."