"Harry, I am your *Uncle*" (+ Dreams)

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 18552

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Deeblite <deeblite at h...> wrote:

> Remember,though- when Harry looked into the Mirror of Erised, he
> saw all of his relatives- and he didn't see Snape amongst them

Except for James and Lily, I am not convinced that the people whom 
Harry saw in the Mirror were real people who ever existed. The Mirror 
figures out what the viewer's heart's desire is, and then comes 
up with an image that the viewer will recognize as hiser heart's 
desire. It has to be recognizable, not it has to be true. Harry's 
deepest desire was family (extended family, blood kin). 

So the Mirror showed him people he would recognize as family. 

He (perhaps unconsciously) remembered what his parents looked like 
(he had seen them quite often in his first 1.5 years) so the Mirror 
picked up accurate pictures of them from his mind. 

For the rest, I think the Mirror simply generated pictures of people 
of various ages who resembled Harry. "There he was, reflected in it, 
white and scared-looking, and there, reflected behind him, were at 
least ten others. (snip) Harry looked into the faces of the other 
people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, 
other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he 
had Harry's knobbly knees -- Harry was looking at his family, for the 
first time in his life. The Potters smiled and waved at Harry." Harry 
got his green eyes from his mother, so it would be quite a 
co-incidence if some of his Potter ancestors had those same green 
eyes. 

The Mirror generating pictures based on little scraps of 
information in the mind would be working the same way that the mind 
generates dreams. Here is the dream Harry has before the big G-S 
Quidditch match:

"Harry slept badly. First he dreamed that he had overslept, and that 
Wood was yelling, "Where were you? We had to use Neville instead!" 
Then he dreamed that Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team 
arrived for the match riding dragons. He was flying at breakneck 
speed, trying to avoid a spurt of flames from Malfoy's steed's mouth, 
when he realized he had forgotten his Firebolt. He fell through the 
air and woke with a start."

"It was a few seconds before Harry remembered that the match hadn't 
taken place yet, that he was safe in bed, and that the Slytherin 
team definitely wouldn't be allowed to play on dragons. He was 
feeling very thirsty. Quietly as he could, he got out of his 
four-poster and went to pour himself some water from the silver jug 
beneath the window."

I don't think the above was a prophetic dream, just a sign of a 
worried mind, and I assumed that the Quirrell's turban dream and the 
following something silvery dream were also just normal dreams about 
what the waking mind is worrying about.