Some Discrepancies

[Susan Miller]

No: HPFGUIDX 86378

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
greatlit2003 wrote:

In the first book, when Harry looks into the Mirror of Erised and 
sees his family, he sees his parents and other ancestors, 
including "other pairs of green eyes" like his own. 
 
Then I (Constance Vigilance) wrote:

It is important to remember that the Mirror represents only the 
viewers "heart's desires". There is no verification that anything 
that appears in the mirror is true

Justcarol167 disagreed: 

The faces of his father and mother were their real
faces. Probably the other faces were real as well, and indicate that
Harry does have a family history even if he doesn't have much of a
family. His desire was to be back with his family, but he had in mind
only his parents. The mirror showed him his extended family (possibly
members of his father's family as well), expanding on his desire with
a reflection of the family he would have had if they weren't all 
dead. 

<snip>

I very much doubt that the mirror made those things up out of thin air
or Harry's imagination, which has not been focusing on earlier
generations. They are based on real people whose lives will somehow
intersect with Harry's even though they're dead.

Constance (me) again:

You are correct that Lily and James' faces were apparently accurate. 
But I still say that the mirror claims only to show the heart's 
desire. And we have canon proof that what it shows does not have to 
be true - it showed Quirrel giving the stone to his master. Of all 
the mirror's images (Harry's family, Ron's Head Boy, Dumbledore's 
socks), this is the only one whose time has come, and it proved to be 
a lie. It would be nice if Harry's heart's desire turned out to be 
true, but based on the evidence in the mirror, we can not come to 
that conclusion.

If those in the mirror are magical, then the mirror seems to be 
claiming that Lily's family is magical. But there is plenty of 
canonical evidence ("Muggle-born Lily") to the contrary. If the 
mirror is simply showing Lily's family, then where is Petunia? I 
think it is showing Harry's idealized idea of what his family would 
look like. Lily's and James' relatives, minus Petunia who he hates, 
show up smiling at him. I just don't see how we can apply this as 
hard proof to conclude that these people ever existed. The mirror 
lies.

Constance Vigilance