protective enchantments

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Lee Storm \(God Is The Healing Force\)" <n2fgc at ...> wrote:
>
> [Carol]:
> | For now, I'm just going to chalk it up to JKR's inability to 
> | remember what she's had her character do or say from one book 
> | to another, an inconsistency like Lily's letter to Sirius or 
> | Draco's Hand of Glory, which Ron should not have known about 
> | and Lucius refused to buy.
> 
> [Lee]:
> Where's the inconsistency with the letter to Sirius?  I'm missing something.
> 
> As far as the Hand Of Glory, that's easy.  Harry probably mentioned it to
> Ron since he had seen it; Draco probably went back to B&B when he had some
> extra galleons and bought it for himself.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Lee :-)
>
Carol responds:

It's written right after Harry's first birthday (July 31), so the letter is probably written around August 1. At that point, according to the letter, the Potters are already in hiding and apparently under the Fidelius Charm, which according to PoA was placed a week before they died. (Since they were killed on October 31, the charm must have been placed on them around October 25, nearly three months after the letter was written.) DD already has James's Invisibility Cloak, which DD says in "King's Cross" that he had for only a week before James died. (He must have obtained it at the same time that he offered to become Secret Keeper and was refused; he can't have done so afterward because he would not have known the Secret once Peter became Secret Keeper.) And "Wormy" is acting troubled, as if he's already about to betray them, which he can't do yet because he's not the Secret Keeper (and they certainly wouldn't have made him Secret Keeper if he'd been acting strangely). Sirius is already in hiding separate from the Potters or he wouldn't be writing to them, and yet it's only about August 1. It's as if JKR somehow has Harry's birthday, July 31, confused with the Potters' death date, October 31.

Carol, who thinks that JKR is too young to have such "senior moments"!