[HPforGrownups] Re: Mirror and Obstacles (why Harry...stone?)

[alicit at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 47574

Melody says:

You know I like the idea.  It works with the assumptions you make, but
(come on, you knew there would be a 'but' there <g>) really what harm
was there in finding the mirror by accident?  Couldn't Dumbledore just
keep it there?  The security was not breeched after all.  

Dangit, I knew there was a dragon-sized hole in that theory.  Now I shall try 
to fill it with a number of wild speculations:

1) The Mirror *was* protected in it's room by a spell which we are not aware 
of.  When my canon gets here (I usually refer to my mother's copy of the 
books, which are currently unaccesable (read: underneath piles of junk)) I 
shall elaborate on this, but there may have been protection in one of the 
outside pictures or suits of armor, but the invisibility cloak went through 
the barrier, so Dumbledore had to find a new protection

2) Mrs. Norris (who I will always believe is a witch who is stuck in cat 
form) was watching the mirror's room.  Every time someone sees the mirror, 
she tells Dumbledore (or filch, if he is in on it) and he moves the mirror to 
a different location that only he knows about.  Maybe Quirrelmort got in on 
this, so Dumbledore decided to move it into the puzzle.

3) Maybe the room was enchanted with the same sort of not-there spell as 
hogwarts or the quidditch world cup, but harry and ron entering it with their 
invisibility cloak wrecked it 

4) The mirror may have been enchanted the same way the stone was.  So someone 
looking for the way to the stone would not have been able to find it, but 
someone who did not know where they were going or was just looking for the 
mirror would be able to see it.  this seems like a one time spell, so Harry 
and Ron may have broken it...

5) (I actually subscribe to this one, unlike the others) After Harry found 
it, and told Ron, Dumbledore may have been worried that Quirrelmort (or 
whoever Dumbledore suspected) would hear it through the grapevine. 

 "what happened between you and professor Quirrel is a complete secret, so 
naturally the whole school knows"   

Melody also asks:

Why have the
> 
> mirror at the end of the obstacles at all if all you wanted to do was
> trap them?

I think that the mirror was put there as a contingency plan, after it was set 
up as a trap.  Dumbledore realized that the mirror was no longer safe where 
he had it before, so he moved it to the safest place he had!


> 
> 

I said

> >Which brings me to a Flint-like inconsistency... if there was only
> >enough potion for one person, how come Quirrel and Harry had enough
> >to drink?  Unless Quirrel planned ahead and knew what potion he'd
> >need...
> 

Melody said:

> That is not a Flint.  Harry said there was only enough for either
> Hermione or himself.  This is after Quirrell is already in the next
> room, so it stands to reason that there was enough for two people in
> that rounded bottle.  Now I ask you why is that so convenient?  :)

yes, but, if there was originally two doses of the potion in the bottle, 
wouldn't Hermione or Harry notice that there was less in that one bottle? 
meaning that someone had already drunk it?

-Scheherazade, knows that there is *something* wrong with that potions 
sequence, but can't quite put her finger on it



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