1

". . . my dear, it has been apparent that you do not have what the noble art of Divination requires. Indeed, I don't remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly mundane."

. . .

"Fine!" . . . "I give up! I'm leaving!" And to the whole class's amazement, Hermione strode over to the trapdoor, kicked it open, and climbed down the ladder out of sight.

. . .

"Oooo, Professor Trelawney, I've just remembered! You saw her leaving, didn't you? 'Around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever!' You said it ages ago, Professor!"

Professor Trelawney gave her a dewy smile. "Yes, my dear, I did indeed know that Miss Granger would be leaving us. One hopes, however, that one might have mistaken the Signs. . . The Inner Eye can be a burden, you know . . ."

. . .

"Some day Hermione's having, eh?" Ron muttered to Harry, looking awed.

Harry potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

What does the sentence marked in bold, especially "have" mean?

1
  • 1
    "Some (kind of a) day (that) Hermione's having, right?" He's reflecting on some notable occurrences during that day.
    – user3169
    Jan 25, 2018 at 7:11

2 Answers 2

2

This might be one of the few instances on this site where there might be too much context, but I did enjoy reading it.

As @user3169 says, the question omits a few words:

Some (kind of a) day (that) Hermione is having, right?

In this case, having refers to a secondary meaning of have: to experience or undergo. Ron is asking Harry to confirm that Hermione is experiencing an extraordinary day. It is somewhat a rhetorical question, because it's pretty obvious that Harry is as shocked as Ron is.

2
  • Oh i just didn't know how much context is enough for people to answer this so I wrote as much as can... and this was an inverted sentence, right? I didn't catch that either. I thought this sentence is missing an object (after having.. haha) So this is originally "Hermione's having some kind of a day", which is like "it's been quite a day for Hermione"?
    – dbwlsld
    Jan 25, 2018 at 8:09
  • 1
    A more common usage of this is "Have a nice day," as in to experience a nice day.
    – Neil
    Jan 25, 2018 at 8:34
1

Actually, what might be difficult to understand in this sentence is not the meaning of “have”, but the meaning of “some”. Note that it is written “some day” and not “someday”. “Some” before nouns can be used to show disapproval or good quality of the noun. E.g: That was some party! (Good quality) or She didn’t help at all, some friend she is! (Disapproval).

In this part of the book Hermione had a difficult day and many things had happened, so Ron said “Some day Hermione’s having, eh?” To express that her day was full of happenings and probably stressful.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .