"Get The Golden Egg" Plot Hole!

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 37889


Ellen A.K.A. Moriel Malkin delurked to suggest:
> Why didn't Harry just use the summoning charm he had ready to 
> summon  the golden egg to himself?  If He could summon his broom 
> all the way from the castle, on a route that is certainly not 
> direct. (It had to come around the woods, after all.  Then Why not 
> just summon the egg  he wants from the other side of the enclosure.

Amy Z, "lupinesque" wrote:
> This is a really good question, answerable only, I think, by  
> "because dragon eggs are protected by very strong 
> magic and one can't just Summon one out of the nest, even if it's 
> just a golden fake."  JKR doesn't explain this; I'm just 
> speculating.  But it makes a lot of sense given how powerful 
> dragons' magic is, and it's the kind of thing that she might leave 
> out for the sake of compression.  The Triwizard Cup would be 
> unSummonable for the same reason.
>
> Amy Z
> who would really like to learn beekeeping

Allow me to put another theory forward. I've always felt a little 
stranged myself about the accio charm, but the last time we talked 
about it in the list we reached certain conclussions that can be 
used here. To be able to accio an object, you must be able to see it 
or be VERY familiar with it. Most of the time, you also need to say 
it's name, although (as always in Potterverse magic), sometimes the 
thinking of what you want is enough (like a "wingardium leviosa" to 
a troll's club). Thus, the cup idea is unreasonable: they haven't 
seen it yet (and even if they have, they are not familiar enough), 
and they cannot see it from the beggining of the maze (Harry could 
have used it to get it when he and Cedrid face each other at the 
end, but they were both too focused on running to it).

This theory runs over some hard ground on the first task, in which 
they probably could see the golden egg. Then again, maybe the dragon 
was sitting on them, which would make it much more difficult to see 
it or, even if they did see it, to aim with the spell through the 
powerful magical defenses of the dragon (remember, if it hits his 
skin, the spell is lost thanks to the amazing magical properties of 
the dragon itself). IIRC, Harry has to get away his dragon from the 
eggs before he takes a dip for the golden egg, so it's possible that 
the dragon was actually incubating them, although I also remeber 
Harry mentioning the egg at the beggining (no books available at the 
moment). A final reason: the dragon is not stupid. If one of his 
eggs starts to fly away, he would just grab it and put it back in 
its place.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf