[HPforGrownups] Re: "Get The Golden Egg" Plot Hole!

[Amanda]

No: HPFGUIDX 37954

Anglinsbees said

> Ah- but he <did> summon it into his hand in the cemetary- in order
> to portkey back with Cedrics body.  My problem with this scene is
> that in this instnce, the portkey seems to work differently than the
> way portkeys did previously.  If a portkey takes you back whre it
> came from the second time you touch it, it would create all sorts of
> handling problems at the World cup- and they handled the used
> portkeys vary casually, tossing them in a box.

Prior to the Triwizard Cup turning out to be a portkey, our sample of
portkey behavior is n=1. The Triwizard Cup brings us up to n=2. So it's
difficult to generalize from this, but here's what I had worked out.

I had speculated before that the portkey spell involves two things: the
enchantment for the actual transport, plus the caster's specifying a
"trigger" which activates it. The portkeys which were made for the World Cup
were set so their trigger was a certain time, allowing the sequencing of
arrivals. The portkey spell which Moody/Crouch cast on the Triwizard cup had
a different trigger, namely touch.

I don't know if the World Cup portkeys were re-usable, the way the Triwizard
Cup was--that may be an augmentation to the main spell. I'm betting they
were "one-way" portkeys that were then re-enchanted for the scheduling of
return trips. The Triwizard Cup, though, had clearly been set to work both
ways, going and returning, and the trigger was touch rather than time.

--Amanda