I just started reading the new Harry Potter book. I was surprised that the first two scenes take place without HP present. I seem to remember that in the first five books, HP was present in every scene. If the action involved Hermione and Draco, then Hermione would come back and tell Harry and that’s how it appeared in the book. Only possible excepton I can remember would be the first scene in the first book, when Harry is a newborn.
Am I remembering this correctly?
I think you are. The series is developing into more of good vs. evil in the wizarding world, rather than just orphan boy makes good. It’s to give us a broader context outside Hogwarts of what’s going on.
No, there have been other (only 1st chapters, though) chapters in a few previous books that were outside of Harry. GoF jumps to mind, but I don’t think CoS or PoA did.
Chapter 1 of GoF was titled “The Riddle House”, and takes place in the house where Voldy grew up. Only at the end of the chapter does Harry appear, awaking from a nightmare.
Yeah, and while Harry witnesses the present-day events that are taking place in the house in his dream, the chapter also includes some backstory from fifty years past that Harry evidently doesn’t know about.
There are a couple of other PoV blips in the first book: JKR cuts away from Harry’s perspective during a Quidditch game and recaps a conversation in the stands that he can’t possibly have heard, and when Harry has a dream that Quirrell’s turban is talking to him, we’re told that he couldn’t remember the dream in the morning. Later in the series, these things seem to get smoothed out.
In the first book, chapter one involves the Dursleys mostly, and Harry only pops up at the end of the chapter as a baby.
Slightly off topic but…
I am currently rereading GoF and in chapter 10 Harry has lost all the bones in his arm during the Quidditch game and is in the hospital wing. Dobby appears in the middle of the night to Harry, they have a conversation until they hear Dumbledore and McGonagall coming and then Dobby suddenly disapparates.
Pardon me, but as Hermione is so fond of reminding us, no one can disapparate in or out of the grounds of Hogwarts.
What’s the deal?
I believe, as a house elf, Dobby can disapparate at Hogwarts. The house elves do it all the time as part of their duties, don’t they?
I don’t have a cite (too lazy), but I’m sure JKR has mentioned that the house-elves have a different, special kind of magic that allows them to get their work done. So they can apparate and do other things that humans cannot.
OK. Both of those ideas occured to me. In the HBP, it is said that the headmaster has the ability to lift this prohibition and that is the reason the students can learn to apparate in the castle.
This is because Dumbledore allows the house elves to have this power in Hogwarts.
He knows they are trustworthy.
I think in book seven S.P.E.W. or its objectives are going to come into crucial play.
Does Dobby save the day?