At last, a great crunching noise announced Hagrid’s return. Malfoy,
Neville, and Fang were with him. Hagrid was fuming. Malfoy,
it seemed, had sneaked up behind Neville and grabbed him as a
joke. Neville had panicked and sent up the sparks.Someone who has read Harry Potter I , explain the bold phrase according to the context.
Answer
Malfoy thought that it would be funny to scare Neville. Put another way, he thought that scaring him would be a good joke. (See definition 1.1 on the Oxford Dictionaries online link provided.)
To pull off this “joke” Malfoy approached Neville quietly and from behind and and grabbed him.
That caused Neville to send up a signal of sparks.
Malfoy, of course, has a sense of “humour” that not everyone shares.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Paladin , Answer Author : Alan K
