Harry Potter Goes to School: Learning In and Out of Hogwarts

After at least six months of believing that Severus Snape is trying to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone for himself and then adjusting that to believe that he’s trying to steal it for the Dark Lord, the puzzle pieces of Harry’s belief system are dramatically rearranged. In real life, when we’re confronted by evidence that we have been really wrong about something, it’s really hard.

It looks like the only school subject that is useful in the through-the-trap-door adventure is Herbology. If the purpose of the Hogwarts series was to promote the value of academics as taught in schools, we may expect to see a little more of what the kids learn in their classes coming into play in this adventure.

Did you notice that for helping Hagrid in the middle of the night, Harry and Hermione’s punishment is helping Hagrid in the middle of the night? Did you notice that Hagrid didn’t even acknowledge that Harry and Hermione are there in detention for helping him when he got himself into a big mess? He just carries on, as if Harry and Hermione are just random students to him. What’s with that?

Harry, Ron, and Hermione face down two crises in this chapter: Hagrid’s illegal dragon and impending final exams. The chapter begins about ten weeks before the end of the school year, and Hermione begins a concentrated period of preparing for final exams. It’s good to remember that Hogwarts is a parody of school, and the British exam system is a hard-to-miss target for parody. Well, so is the American exam system.

Among many other things, the Hogwarts series is a series of mystery books, so we expect a lot of AHAs when mysteries are solved. The big AHAs come at the end of each book, and the biggest AHAs come at the end of the series. So far, our trio has AHAd that Fluffy is guarding something, probably the grubby little package from Gringotts. The name Nicolas Flamel is a loose end thrown out by Hagrid, and the kids have rightly figured from Hagrid’s nervous responses that Nicolas Flamel is an important clue to their current mystery: What is Fluffy guarding?

How routinely did Albus Dumbledore wander the halls, the classrooms, the common rooms of Hogwarts—invisibly? Could Mrs. Norris see him? How is that different from the way we supervise students in school with cameras, data-gathering instructional apps, even just watching them in the classroom? For better or for worse—students are watched and supervised and even surveilled all-the-time when they’re in school, maybe not by anyone invisible—but we all accept that as normal.

Christmas dinner at Hogwarts is an abundance that draws a sharp contrast to the meagerness of Harry’s life with the Dursleys. Glimpses of the professors in a relaxed, even tipsy state amuse and amaze. Hagrid and Professors Dumbledore, Flitwick, and McGonagall are all there, joking, laughing, drinking, and flirting. Snape, appropriately, seems to be absent. Harry’s afternoon is filled with Christmas contentment: snowball fights, wizard chess, leftovers, and Weasley antics. So far, the best Christmas Harry can remember. And Christmas is about to get even better.

Harry thinks that this will be his best Christmas ever, and it turns out to be a true prediction. Harry received plenty of love and “Baby’s First Christmas” presents when he was almost four months old, but since then, it’s been old socks, broken toys, paper clips, and neglect. The pile of presents on Harry’s bed on Christmas morning (delivered by house elves, no doubt) tells him that, for the first time he can remember, he has friends and family that he can count on. Mrs. Weasley’s hand knitted sweater and large box of homemade fudge welcomes him as an adopted member of the Weasley family. A package of chocolate frogs from Hermione reminds him that he now has friends. A hand-carved wooden flute from Hagrid tells him that someone cares about him enough to spend time making him a gift. A fifty pence piece from the Dursleys reminds him that Hogwarts is definitely a better home than number 4 Privet Drive.

On the evening of the day that Harry oh-so-inconspicuously receives his Nimbus 2000, he gets his first lesson in Quidditch in a private coaching session with team captain Oliver Wood. We get our first lesson in Quidditch at the same time. Harry doesn’t seem to need any flying coaching, but he does need to learn the rules of the game. When I read that passage closely, I realize how important it is to visualize what Oliver says and what the narrator tells us.