In the conversation with Hermione at the chapter’s end, is Harry breaking his promise to Quirrell to “speak...in exactly the fashion you would speak if you knew nothing”?
“What’s been going on?” she said. “There’s all sorts of rumors. There were people saying you’d run off to fight Bellatrix Black, there were people saying you’d run off to join Bellatrix Black—” and those rumors had said that Hermione had just made up the thing about the phoenix, and she’d yelled that the whole Ravenclaw common room had seen it, so then the next rumor had claimed she’d made up that part too, which was stupidity of such an inconceivable level that it left her completely flabbergasted.
“I can’t talk about it,” Harry said in a bare whisper. “Can’t talk about a lot of it. I wish I could tell you everything,” his voice wavered, “but I can’t… I guess, if it helps or anything, I’m not going to lunch with Professor Quirrell any more...”
Yes, he is. A promise to lie can be broken or kept with equal loss of honor.
Harry has already been forbidden from leaving the Hogwarts wards without sufficient cause and escort by this time; lunch with Quirrell was explicitly included in this ban. That’s not far from what he’d say as an innocent.
Nothing about the break-in. He can talk about other matters, presumably including Quirrel’s answer to his “Why am I not like other children”, which did make him trust Quirrel less and is a plausible topic of conversation either way.
63:
In the conversation with Hermione at the chapter’s end, is Harry breaking his promise to Quirrell to “speak...in exactly the fashion you would speak if you knew nothing”?
Yes, he is. A promise to lie can be broken or kept with equal loss of honor.
Only if one assumes that the loss of honor from lying is independent of the lie(s) told.
Harry has already been forbidden from leaving the Hogwarts wards without sufficient cause and escort by this time; lunch with Quirrell was explicitly included in this ban. That’s not far from what he’d say as an innocent.
Very quotable.
Nothing about the break-in. He can talk about other matters, presumably including Quirrel’s answer to his “Why am I not like other children”, which did make him trust Quirrel less and is a plausible topic of conversation either way.