Snape may have been aware that Dumbledore was headed that direction; does it specifically say why Dd came out of his office when he did? In any case, some fans like to blame Crouch's death on Snape's stalling Harry here, which conveniently ignores two points. First, Harry was running *away* from Dumbledore's office, having given up on getting in, when Snape catches him and holds him in place (however rudely or un/deliberately)until Dumbledore comes and finds them. Second, though you didn't say anything about this point, Crouch was already dead by the time this conversation takes place. In the great Veritaserum Exposition scene, Crouch Jr says that he killed, transfigured, and buried his father, *then* looked at the map and saw Harry talking to Snape, which then gave him his idea for how to arrive conveniently onto the scene.
Someone (can't remember who) did a brilliant analysis on elf speech and determined that each of our three major elf characters has different speech patterns, but each is entirely consistent with him or herself. I think Kreacher was determined to speak with perfect grammar, other than never using first person.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised at Molly's reaction, since she certainly does seem to go for the very conservative viewpoints. It's still pretty horrifying, though. First, that she would believe nasty things about a girl she knows pretty well and that were printed by a source she knows to be completely untrustworthy, and also that she would express it in so obvious and cruel a way as to send comparable presents to each of three young teens, but have one gift be significantly smaller and of less worth than the others. Really, given the relationship they all have, she could have sent Hermione no gift at all and her own feelings would have been far less obvious, both to Hermione and to the guys.
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Date: 2006-01-19 08:12 am (UTC)Someone (can't remember who) did a brilliant analysis on elf speech and determined that each of our three major elf characters has different speech patterns, but each is entirely consistent with him or herself. I think Kreacher was determined to speak with perfect grammar, other than never using first person.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised at Molly's reaction, since she certainly does seem to go for the very conservative viewpoints. It's still pretty horrifying, though. First, that she would believe nasty things about a girl she knows pretty well and that were printed by a source she knows to be completely untrustworthy, and also that she would express it in so obvious and cruel a way as to send comparable presents to each of three young teens, but have one gift be significantly smaller and of less worth than the others. Really, given the relationship they all have, she could have sent Hermione no gift at all and her own feelings would have been far less obvious, both to Hermione and to the guys.