Deathly Hallows, Chapter 29: The Lost Diadem

[oneandthetruth]

Neville hugs the Trio and rather high-handedly tells Aberforth reinforcements are coming, and they should be sent along through the portrait hole, too. It’s no wonder Aberforth’s quarters look so shabby, with all those people running through them day and night.

As Neville and the Trio walk through the tunnel into Hogwarts, they update each other on

Comments

[maidofkent]

Re wizards and their bodily functions, I think the bathroom problem is a UK thing. 'Bathroom' is usually used to mean 'a room containing a bath'. Yes, it's not uncommon for the bathroom to also contain a toilet, but it's also pretty common for the toilet to be separate. Very few Brits say 'I'm going to the bathroom', unless they're actually going to have a bath or shower, and even then it would probably be 'I'm going to have a bath'. If it's something else, it's going to the toilet, loo or whatever name they use, regardless of whether that appliance is in the bathroom or not. So, I think that probably there were toilet facilities, and the actual bathing facilities were added when those girly girls came along and wanted to be clean. (I'm a woman, you know what we're like).

You're right that it seems pretty hypocritical to joke about Snape running away from shampoo, when the male Hogwarts students seem so uninterested in cleaniness. (Perhaps the Slytherins, being under the female influence of water, are namby-pamby types who do bathe regularly and Severus was indeed sorted too soon :))

I'm not even sure this lack of interest in cleaniness is old-fashioned. Public school tradition favoured the cold shower, partly to damp down untoward feelings, but also as part of the healthy mind in healthy body ideal. The general slovenliness of Ron, Harry etc, doesn't follow this pattern.

[annoni_no]

Re wizards and their bodily functions, I think the bathroom problem is a UK thing. 'Bathroom' is usually used to mean 'a room containing a bath'.

Yes. Using 'bathroom' as a synonym or euphemism for lavatory is primarily a US/Canadian quirk of language.

Personally, I'm amused by the thought that the boys were so enamored with the idea of being La Resistance -The danger! The excitement! The noble sacrifice of personal comfort in the pursuit of Justice! - that it took the girls coming in with a figurative slap upside the head and an incredulous "Do you have magic or not?!" to bring them back to Earth.

Not that I think the boys were just rebelling for personal gratification or glory. I believe they were genuinely concerned about their fellow students and were doing they best they could under difficult circumstances. It's just common for kids of that age to romanticize the causes they take up and take their cues for how to proceed from the (likewise romanticized) stories they're familiar with.

There's no excuse for Harry and Ron though. I wonder if Harry's refusal to clean e.g. his trunk is a subconscious form of rebellion against Petunia's exacting house cleaning standards and the unfair distribution of chores between himself and Dudley.

*Also, would wizards/witches, even pureblooded ones, really be expected to know personal cleaning charms as a matter of course? Hogwarts has designated bathing facilities and lavatories, as does the Burrow IIRC. We have Scourgify from canon, but I don't think we were ever told that it was safe to use on humans. A lot of common household cleaners aren't. Which would, of course, make the Marauders using it to waterboard Severus even worse.