“I don’t know, sir,” said Harry.
Snape’s lips curled into a
sneer.
“Tut, tut — fame clearly isn’t everything.”
He
ignored Hermione’s hand.
“Let’s try again. Potter, where would
you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”
Hermione
stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her
leaving her seat, but Harry didn’t have the faintest idea what a
bezoar was. He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who
were shaking with laughter.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?”
Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He
had looked through his books at the Dursleys’, but did Snape expect
him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?
(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)It seems ‘would’ mean Potter’s will to read, not for the future possibility. Is this right?
Answer
It’s equivalent to “You thought you wouldn’t bother to read any books before coming” (i.e. – …thought you wouldn’t/didn’t need to…).
Snape is gloating over the fact that HP doesn’t know what a bezoar is, and taunting him for having been so overconfident that he (HP) thought he didn’t need to read/revise before this meeting.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Listenever , Answer Author : FumbleFingers
