Bem

"It's like trying to catch smoke... it's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands."

- Unidentified student on trying to catch Sirius Black

This unidentified student was present during the first Third year Divination class at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1993.

Biography
This student presumably attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, from 1991 to 1998, as he was present during a Third year Divination class. In 1995, this student attended several meetings of Dumbledore's Army.

Behind the scenes

 * Various websites have listed this characters name as Bem. However, since no official source names this character (the credits for Prisoner of Azkaban list him as Boy 1, while he is not credited for his role in Order of the Phoenix), the name cannot be considered canon.
 * Like the character Nigel, he is not mentioned in the books but has various speaking roles in the films.
 * There is some confusion over the House of the student. In Prisoner, he clearly wears a Gryffindor robe and tie.  However, in his appearance in Phoenix, he is clearly seen wearing a tie with the Ravenclaw colours.  He cannot be a canonical Gryffindor, since he would then share the dormitory with Harry Potter - which is impossible since the dormitory has only five beds and we know all the occupants; the other beds belong to Ronald Weasley, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas and Neville Longbottom.
 * The role of this student in the film is arguably an example of racism written into the film adaptation that was not present in the book. He has two important lines in the film, both of which serve to explain forces of evil, darkness, or death. He first appears in Professor Trelawney’s divination class, where he explains to the confused class about “The Grim” that Trelawney sees in Harry’s tea leaves.  Reading from a textbook, the student explains that “taking the form of a giant spectral dog, it is among the darkest omens in our world. It is an omen…of death.”  It is no coincidence that the character with the darkest skin is connected with the “darkest omens in our world.” The play of dark against light is a recurring theme in the film and in the Harry Potter series in general, and the name Sirius Black itself shows this binary: “Sirius” is the brightest star in the sky, in the constellation Canis Major (“big dog”), while “Black” signifies darkness and the complete absence of light.   When Harry and his friends discover that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban, this unidentified student says “Black could be anywhere. It's like trying to catch smoke. Like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands.”  In both his speaking lines, he has the role of explaining forces of evil—the deadly omen, the nefarious criminal—and thus the viewer begins to associate Bem with evil and danger as well.  The blackness of the character’s skin parallels the darkness of the topics he brings up in the movie, and his discussion of Sirius Black reinforces the film’s connection between blackness and danger.  The only other black character with a speaking part in this film is also an overt example of racism not present in the book: a disembodied, stereotypically Rastafarian shrunken head with a Jamaican accent hanging from the rearview mirror of the Knight Bus. It is unclear whether the stereotypical depiction of blacks was written into the film consciously or not, but the fact that many viewers do not pick up on the racist portrayal of this unidentified student shows that this phenomenon is nothing new.  We often unconsciously associate blackness with fear, danger, darkness, and incomprehensibility, and this film merely draws on the racism already rooted in our collective unconscious.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)