Leading into Temptation/the Light that Failed

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 47485

Melody gives us a very nice extrapolation of the "Bait" or "Non-Bait" 
theories.

May I add a couple of possible fine-tunings. 

The Gringotts connection is highly sound. I am convinced that the fact that 
the Stone had been sitting in a Gringotts vault had some significance. But 
what we do not have any information on is how long the Stone had been there, 
or whether it had been placed there by Dumbledore or by Flamel.

I suggest that after some 600 years, Nicholas Flamel's worldly needs and his 
financial arrangements are such that he no longer needs the Stone to produce 
gold. 

Further, that even after the Stone has been in custody at Hogwarts for the 
entire school year, the fact that the Flamel's still have enough of the 
Elixer of Life remaining to allow them to put their affairs in order, 
suggests that Flamel hasn't needed to keep the stone in his own possession 
for decades, if not centuries, and that he quite possibly put it into a 
Gringotts vault for safekeeping a century or more ago, only getting it out ev
ery couple of years when he needs to make a new batch of Elixer.

In this case, a secondary possibility presents itself, which offers a 
solution to one of the nagging questions that I have had about the plot, 
which is, namely; "How did Dumbledore know that there was going to be an 
attempt on the Stone THIS year, rather than any other?"

This possibility supposes that Voldemort's probable location has been known 
for some time. Not comfirmed, perhaps, but strongly suspected, largely 
through circumstantal evidence suggested by the behavior of the creatures, 
particularly the snakes, in the subject district. Obviously, in this case the 
area is monitored, and Dumbledore is one of the people who gets reports on 
who and what has been sighted there.

And consequently, he recieved a report, at some time earlier in the year, 
that Quirrell had shown up and investigated the area. He may also have been 
informed that Quirrell seemed bady shaken by whatever he had found there. 

In which case, he, and those of his staff that he let in on the secret, 
already knew that Quirrell had been gotten to, but did not know by what 
method, or whether Quirell was a willing participant. For that matter, they 
were not absolutely certain that what had gotten Quirrell was even Voldemort, 
or whether it might be some other Dark Creature.

They knew when Quirrell returned to England, and Dumbledore sent Hagrid (who 
had NOT been let in on this particuar secret) to collect the Stone as a 
precaution. If there had been no attempt on the Gringotts vault, I imagine 
that the Stone would have been returned to it before the school year started, 
since whatever had gotten hold of Quirrell would probably not be Voldemort, 
and would have no particular intrest in the Stone. 

Well, the attempt on the vault settled that question. Quirrell was under 
Voldemort's control. Now the question becomes whether the elaborate trap that 
Dumbledore set up was intended primarily to capture and somehow contain 
VaporMort (who Dumbledore knew could not be killed while he was in that form) 
or to isolate and somehow attempt to rescue Quirrell. No one knew, after all, 
just how Quirrell was being controlled, and whether there was some safe 
method of extricating him from his situation. All they could count on was 
that Quirrell was unlikely to be able to give them any assistance in either 
matter. And they could not let Quirrell know what they were up to, either. 
But I really do believe that the possibility of an attempt to trap Voldemort 
and rescue Quirrell MUST be added to the equation. Quirrell did not have a 
history of being a Dark Arts *supporter* nor can he be the first Dark Arts 
defender to have gone up against something that was too big for him to 
handle, the defenders of the light had a moral duty to try to rescue him.

In which case the repeated orders for the kids to stay out of it, become even 
more understandable. This was a very delicate situation which needed no 
meddling on the part of 11-year-olds.

The Mirror of Erised sequence during the winter break was the single exceptio
n. Dumbledore clearly had the Mirror removed from its place in the maze and 
placed in the room down the hall from the library and gave Harry his father's 
cloak at exactly that point in time for a reason. I strongly suspect that he 
also alerted Snape and Filtch to be on watch for a disturbance in the 
Library's vicinity, and saw to it that the door to the room was left ajar 
specifically to make sure that Harry would find the Mirror. 

Dumbledore did not know, and cannot see what it is that Harry sees in the 
Mirror. (Ahthough Harry's taking to the images tipped him off.) But he was 
betting that it would draw him back again. When it does, he explains to 
Harry, how the Mirror works. After which he returned the Mirror to its place 
at the heart of the labrynth.

Now what was the purpose of this? I do NOT believe that he intended for Harry 
to meddle with his trap. So long as there was any chance of rescuing 
Quirrell, the labrynth of tests was no place for medlesome children. the 
situation was too precarious. (And the longer Quirrell put off entering the 
labrynth, the less likely it would have seemed that they would be able to 
save him.) 

I think, (and I've mentioned this before) that Dumbledore let Harry in on the 
secret of how the Mirror of Erised worked because he intended for Harry to be 
the one to retrieve the Stone *after* the shouting was over and the danger 
was past. He suspected (by that time possibly knew for certain) that Harry 
had connected the dots between his trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid and the 
attempt on the Gringotts vault. The Daily Prophet article had even been so 
indescrete as to print the vault number. He could not stop the kids from 
trying to find what information was to be found in the Library (in the 
non-restricted areas, anyway) and the information regarding Nicholas Flamel 
and the Philosopher's Stone was certainly there for them to find. He probably 
suspected that between the three of them (and Hagrid's loose lips) they 
probably WOULD work that out by the end of the year. 

And that did not matter so long as they stayed AWAY from the labrynth. But 
after the opperation was over, Dumbledore could see that they were going to 
need to get the Stone out of the Mirror in order to destroy it. And I think 
Dumbledore suspected that he would be unable to see anything in the Mirror by 
that time other than the image of himself destroying the Stone. And suspected 
that the rest of the staff would probably be in much the same situation. A 
child, on the other hand could be set a puzzle and when asked; "Can YOU find 
it?" might actually be able to concentrate on wanting to FIND it. And after 
Quirrell tried to throw him off his broomstick, the boy was owed some 
opportuntiy to be a hero on his own merit. Retrieving the Stone was a safe, 
appropriate adventure for a child to be entrusted with. 

And it all went awry. Voldemort did not take the bait. By the time he had 
Quirrell killing unicorns to survive, Dumbledore knew that it was too late to 
save Quirrell. The task was now to close down the operation with the least 
amount of collateral damage. Dumbledore asked Fudge to send him the summoning 
letter from the Ministry in order to give Quirrell a clear shot at the Stone. 
He antcipated that by the time he made his round trip to and from London, 
QuirrelMort would be stuck at the Mirror and they could go in and collect him 
as carefully as possible.

Instead he gets back to encounter a panicy Granger and Weasly who tell him 
that Harry has followed Quirrell into the labrynth. He reaches the chamber of 
the Mirror in time to save Harry's life, but Quirrell was lost and they did 
not trap Voldemort. On the other hand, Harry did collect the Stone, so that 
may be safely destroyed and without it, there will be nothing to tempt 
Voldemort to return for it, so at least they should not need to worry about 
him for a while.

(Harry and his friends slipped in under Dumbledore's radar this time round. I 
suspect that that is not the only thing that did. I am firmly of the oppinion 
that the plot fo deploy the Riddle diary was intiated about when the first 
unicorn was killed. I do NOT think that this timing was a coincidence. After 
all. If Hogwarts is on the Floo network, all it would have taken would have 
been for QuirrellMort to take off his turban and sit with his back to the 
fire.)

The awarding of House points to rule breakers was a bit tactless, given that 
Slytherin appears to have honestly earned the house Cup that year. However 
snce the rule breakers' achievments were both remarkable and about the only 
thing that the school is left wth to feel reasonably good about after the 
debacle of the Stone, it is at least understandable.

-JOdel