[HPforGrownups] Re: Foe Glass

[Porphyria]

No: HPFGUIDX 35764

jktaylor wrote:

> A newbie thought on Snape and the Foe Glass:
>
> When I first read it, I thought that Snape saw himself in the glass,
> because he is his own (worst?!?) enemy.

That's actually is a nice idea, I agree he can be his own worst enemy, 
but I'm afraid the Foe Glass doesn't work that way.

Katze suggested:

> The only thing I can think of it is that the Foe glass shows the enemies
> of the owner. I would guess that the glass belonged to Crouch.

This must be it; I *don't* think it's supposed to work like the Mirror 
of Erised. Several minutes later into this same scene, after Snape has 
returned with the veritaserum and Crouch Jr. has resumed his normal 
physical form, Dumbledore goes to give him the serum and the text reads:

"Dumbledore got up, bent over the man on the floor, and pulled him into 
a sitting position against the wall beneath the Foe-Glass, in which the 
reflections of Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall were still glaring down 
upon them all."

"Still glaring." At this point Crouch Jr. has been stunned out cold for 
a while, and there's no indication that the reflections in the glass 
have changed *at all* since they first appeared. Katze must be right in 
that the Foe Glass somehow knows who its owner is. Maybe when you buy a 
Foe Glass, you have to cast some kind of ownership spell on it to let it 
know who you are.

I never assumed that at the point when Snape is noticing his own 
reflection that his is the *only* one visible; he's just looking at his 
in particular.

I still like my own interpretation of this scene better. ;-)

~~Porphyria


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]