It was meant to be all stark and funny in its starkness--you got it exactly. "Shit, I hear there's this thing Snape calls The Hawthorne Detention." "Is it bad?" "How the bleep should I know? It SOUNDS awful but it could mean you chop hawthorne for an hour and leave!" "If that was all it was, why would they refer to it in capitals with 'The' at the beginning?" "SHUT UP AND GO AWAY."