Head Boy an' Girl
May. 19th, 2011 02:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
danajsparks.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockNow, yer mum an’ dad were as good a witch an’ wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an’ girl at Hogwarts in their day!--PS chapt. 4 Many of us have questioned how James (and, to a lesser extent, Lily) could have been head boy, given everything we've been told about his behavior as a teenager. But I'm wondering... are we absolutely certain that he actually was head boy?
It occurred to me this morning that the only mention of James and Lily as having been head boy and girl in the entire series is Hagrid's statement above, which he makes soon after delivering Harry his Hogwarts letter. We are told multiple times in multiple books that Tom, Bill, and Percy were all head boys, but it is never once stated again that James and Lily were head boy and girl, not even when the trio is looking through an old list of head boys in chapter 13 of CoS.
We know that Hagrid is not the most reliable source of information. Just a few hours later, he will tell Harry, "There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin," completely glossing over the fact that man who betrayed Harry's family was a Gryffindor. When he declares that James and Lily were head boy and girl, he is in the midst of countering Petunia's claims that they were strange and abnormal freaks who got themselves blown up. Could he be lying here... or, umm, exaggerating the truth a bit? (They weren't really head boy and girl, but they should've been, given how totally awesome they were).
After all, it is Hagrid's assigned duty to make sure that Harry agrees to go to Hogwarts and follows in his parents' footsteps... including, eventually, the whole getting themselves blown up part.
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Who knows
Date: 2011-05-19 08:50 pm (UTC)Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-19 08:59 pm (UTC)Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-19 09:25 pm (UTC)Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 01:37 am (UTC)Either way, my main point is that James and Lilly most likely were not head boy and girl.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:02 am (UTC)But Hagrid didn't know that at the time.
I'm trusting Hagrid on this one; James was Head Boy. It fits in beautifully with Rowling's whole mind frame, the King and Queen of Gryffindor, Harry then matching up with Ginny (I'll be you a dollar Miss Weasley was officially annointed as Queen of Hogwarts in her last year), then James & Lily being recycled anew through the third generation.
Yeah, nothing was too good for Lily or Harry. James was most definitely Head Boy!
Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:33 am (UTC)I've always believed James and Sirius got away with so much in large part because of bribery. They both came from rich families, and even when Sirius got kicked out by his parents, he still had money from his uncle. I can easily imagine Dumbledore making Floo calls to the Potter and Black parents, asking for another "contribution" to cover up their kids' latest crimes. It's true we have no direct canonical evidence of this, but (1) we have plenty of evidence of such corruption in other parts of the wizarding world; (2) it happens a lot in RL.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:36 am (UTC)But Hagrid didn't know that at the time.
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Oh but he did -- remember everyone thought Sirius Black, a Gryffindor, was the traitor.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:45 am (UTC)Well, maybe Hagrid was as stupid as me and forgot that Sirius was a Gryddindor, then? :-)
Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 03:07 am (UTC)Although, mind you, I can't off the top of my hear recall that Lily was sporting a Prefect badge when she tried to break up the fight in Snape's worst memory, either. She may have been, but i can't remember it.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 03:15 am (UTC)The fabulously Rich!Harry is fanon.
Admittedly, the contents of his vault do make him *look* rich next to the Weasleys who apparently spend whatever they get whenever they get it. Even windfalls don't take up residence for long in *their* vault.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 03:30 am (UTC)Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 03:43 am (UTC)I think it's very possible that until that question was asked she had completely forgotten that Hagrid had said in PS that James was head boy. She doesn't usually admit to her flints, does she?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 04:02 am (UTC)In any case, wizarding galleons certainly don't seem to be worth *anything* like their intrinsic value in gold ought to be, and either they are some alloy with really very little actual gold in it, or the goblins are making out like bandits.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 04:04 am (UTC)Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 04:04 am (UTC)Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 04:13 am (UTC)I suspect it's another assumption we've made from Hagrid's remark that if Lily was head girl she must have been a prefect. She certainly didn't act like a prefect in that scene.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 04:19 am (UTC)Sirius was one supposed Death Eater out of tens or hundreds. Making a mistake and saying that Sirius was (also) a Slytherin is a case of incorrectly attributing the House of one Death Eater out of many. If there were a hundred Death Eaters then Hagrid's error rate, the 'gravity' of his mistake in this case, was something like one percent. A mistake that's easy to make. Almost negligible, we get the idea, practically all the bad guys are Slytherins.
But the James/Lily thing - that's specific. It's a fact that's tailored to those two and no-one else. Impossible to get wrong unless you're really really stupid.
In terms of (a) the probability of making the mistake and (b) the 'incorrectness' of the mistake I think the thing with Sirius is much more condonable, acceptable, understandable and possible than the one about James and Lily being Head students.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 04:39 am (UTC)Hagrid might very well believe that Sirius was mis-sorted and should have been a Slytherin, but he would have to be very very stupid to have truly forgotten that Sirius was a Gryffindor.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 06:30 am (UTC)Sure, but the question wasn't about Sirius; it was a much more general, paint-them-all-with-the-same-brush comment about Slytherins. With a hundred (or 60 :-)) of them around, all in Slytherin, it would be entirely understandable and very easy for Hagrid to make that mistake. "Slytherin? Bad house, that Slytherin". He just forgot about that very rare exception, Sirius Black. He was concentrating on Slytherin House.
But if Hagrid had been asked a different question - had his memory jogged - what do you think of Sirius Black? Why, I'm sure he would have said that Black was a bad 'un (despite being a Gryffindor).
Likewise, when he's focusing specifically on James and Lily, he tells us that they were Head Boy and Girl. No doubt about that. Thanks, Hagrid!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 06:34 am (UTC)So that's why I was careful to say 'if'. IF there were a hundred.
Now that I'm completely exonerated from any "oh, maths!" accusation ... :-) ... what couldn't there be a hundred? Yes, I agree that there's nothing in the canon suggesting such large numbers. But is there anything that precludes it either? Is a large part of your proof dependent on ALL of Riddle's minions Apparating to him after his re-embodiment at the end of GoF? (Couldn't he have gone on a recruiting drive afterwards? In fact - wouldn't he?)
Re: Who knows
Date: 2011-05-20 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 03:03 pm (UTC)Probably because they tend to spend whatever extra money they get on silly things like trips to Egypt.