And if Harry Potter taught us anything, it's that the answer is often in a book—Ron, describing Hermione's skill at discovering key plot points through research, sums up her strategy as "When in doubt, go to the library" Chamber of Secrets.
She sprang directly from my childhood fear of scary librarians. The kind who hate kids. Login to LibApps. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Search this Blog. May Apps of the Month. Subscribe Email address Enter your e-mail address to receive notifications of new posts by e-mail. Return to Blog This post is closed for further discussion.
Powered by Springshare. Harry wanders over to the Restricted Section. What they needed was a nice long search without Madam Pince breathing down their necks. A memorable introduction, one complete with a feather duster and a not-so-subtle reference to Madam Pince as a kind of dragon-lady librarian.
They dropped their voices as they entered the muffled stillness of the library. Madam Pince, the librarian, was a thin, irritable woman who looked like an underfed vulture. Madam Pince held the note up to the light, as though determined to detect a forgery, but it passed the test. She stalked away between the lofty shelves and returned several minutes later carrying a large and moldy-looking book. He [Harry] turned on his heel and stormed out of the library, earning himself a reproving glare from Madam Pince , who was polishing the gilded cover of a large spellbook.
This is my personal favorite of the series. But not because of the perpetually unflattering portrait of Madam Pince, who shows up again on p. So Harry, thinking that he would soon have had enough of the library to last him a lifetime, buried himself once more among the dusty volumes, looking for any spell that might enable a human to survive without oxygen.
However, though he, Ron, and Hermione searched through their lunchtimes, evenings, and whole weekends — though Harry asked Professor McGonagall for a note of permission to use the Restricted Section, and even asked the irritable, vulture-like librarian, Madam Pince, for help — they found nothing whatsoever that would enable Harry to spend an hour underwater and live to tell the tale.
Indeed, the students are pretty much on their own. Staggering under the weight of as many books as he could carry, Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room, pulled a table into a corner, and continued to search. About one-third through the fifth book, on p. Other students, nearly all of them fifth years, sat at lamp-lit tables nearby, noses close to books, quills scratching feverishly, while the sky outside the mullioned windows grew steadily blacker.
Later, on p. Madam Pince was swooping down upon them, her shriveled face contorted with rage. About a third of the way through this penultimate volume, on p. Hermione refused to sit in the common room while Ron was there, so Harry generally joined her in the library, which meant that their conversations were held in whispers. As they continue their conversation, a couple of pages later, they hear a sound behind them, and we get the longest scene featuring Madam Pince in the entire series:.
If they'd had a good librarian, that would have been that problem solved. Many have wondered if Snape asked Dumbledore to protect his mother from Voldemort after he returned to the good side.
If so, what happened to her? She is missing from Spinner's End, and unfortunately Snape's memories in the Pensieve tell us nothing more about her. Well, the theory goes that Eileen Prince was transformed into Madam Irma Pince, the Librarian at Hogwarts, since it would be easier to protect her there without drawing much attention.
What are the clues? For one thing, "Irma Pince" is an anagram for "I'm a Prince. In Philosopher's Stone, Snape took the same book away from Harry, telling him he wasn't allowed to have library books outside the school, which Harry thought was a made-up rule PS While it's true that Snape probably didn't want Harry to read up on Quidditch before a match with Slytherin, he also sounded very much like a librarian himself.
And it would make sense that he got his bookish ways from his mother, since their house in Spinner's End had wall-to-wall books HBP1. Finally, one interesting visual clue comes from the Chamber of Secrets movie.
For some unknown reason Snape was seated next to Irma for a colorful publicity shots, and there is certainly an interesting resemblance.
This never happened in the books, and some might say because they look too much alike and Hermione might have put two and two together if it's true, that is.
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