Some Discrepancies

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 86426

> Serena wrote:
> > All the mirror shows is Harry's greatest desire--to have a real 
> > family.   The Evanses would be part of the family, so it's very 
> > likely they would show up with the Potters.  However, it might be 
> a 
> > bit more likely that Harry has seen pictures of the the other 
> Evans 
> > side having grown up with Petunia--surely she has photos of people 
> > besides "Duddikins" around--say like her parents.   So it's 
> possible 
> > that the Evans are depicted acurately.
> 
> Diana replies:
> I always got the impression that the mirror showed only the loving 
> extended family Harry desparately wished he still had.  He already 
> had Petunia 24/7 up until he left for Hogwarts, so his heart's 
> desire wouldn't be for family he already has, would it?  
> Dumbledore has said:
<quotes snipped>
> By these statements, we know that Harry has no other living blood 
> relatives on his mother's side.  Unless Dumbledore was lying to 
> Harry and concealing distant blood relatives on his mother's side 
> (which I highly doubt, given Harry's emotional state in AD's office 
> at the end of OoP), all of the Evans, except for Petunia, Harry and 
> Dudley, are deceased.

Carol:
I think we can still allow for the possibility of distant relatives
--Mark Evans and his Muggle father, whose existence Dumbledore either
didn't know about because Mark wasn't born yet and his future father
was a Muggle with no known connection to Harry. Mark and his father,
not being Harry's ancestors, wouldn't show up in the mirror, but his
grandparents on both sides and some great aunts and uncles probably
would. Maybe Mark holds the key for his learning about them.

Diana:  
> Petunia's rant in the Hut on Rock in the first book suggested to me 
> that Petunia was not close to, nor fond of, her parents because of 
> Petunia's obvious, intense jealousy of Lily and her parents' 
> acceptance and pride of Lily's 'abnormality'.  So I highly doubt 
> whether Petunia would have a single photograph of her parents or 
> extended relatives on display in her home.

Carol:
I agree with you here. And even if we didn't know about Petunia's
resentment of her sister, Uncle Vernon would never allow them. He even
makes Harry call his sister "Aunt Marge." He suppresses all discussion
of Petunia's family, of whom he is deeply ashamed, and certainly
wouldn't allow their photographs to be displayed. 

Diana:
<snip>   
> At this point in the story, Harry has never seen his parents and has 
> no (conscious) idea of what they looked like.  He sees his parents 
> in the mirror and then at the end of the first book he sees his 
> parents in actual wizard photographs in the photo album Hagrid gives 
> him.  Nowhere does it state, or even suggest, that Harry's vision of 
> his parents differs even slightly from the vision of his parents in 
> the Mirror of Erised.

Carol:
Exactly. His vision of his parents' faces is *not* based on the
photographs in the album he receives at the end of SS/PS. The Mirror
of Erised is his first encounter with them, but he knows his parents
immediately, partly through instinct, partly through their reaction to
him, and partly through their resemblance to him. James is
unmistakeable, and he's been told over and over again that he has his
mother's eyes. It's her fact that he's drawn to, her that he wants to
touch. He doesn't give much thought to the other figures except to
note the eyes and other details that mark them as his relatives. If
the parents he can't remember appear in the mirror exactly as they do
in the photographs he sees later, there's no reason to believe that
the other people in the mirror are not also exactly as they were just
before they died--and became permanently inaccessible to Harry.


Diana:
<snip>  If 
> his parents' appearances were correct and not based on the deeply 
> repressed memories of a one-year-old, then it would indicate that 
> the other Evanses and Potters in the mirror were also accurate 
> representations of his extended family.  Besides, I can't see Lily 
> and James getting married and not a single relative on Lily's side 
> coming to the wedding.  There's just got to be additional Evanses 
> and Potters in those photos in Harry's photo album. 

Carol:
Probably. But I think we agree that those photos can't be the basis of
the reflections in the mirror because he hadn't seen them yet, nor
does it make them mere phantoms of his desire. I have a feeling that
Sirius's death will prompt him to reexplore the photo album and maybe
he'll make the connection himself. Oh, yes! These are the people I saw
in the Mirror of Erised. He may ask someone to explain who they are,
but if they're Muggles, even Dumbledore may not know the answer.
(Which brings us again to Mark Evans as a possible key. . . .)
> 
> While the mirror does 'lie', the truth of what the person 
> desparately desires is absolute.  For example, if Ron's vision had 
> shown him accepting the Quidditch cup in a blue and purple uniform 
> while wearing robes with Snarfblatt badges, Ron would have known the 
> mirror was a lie and wouldn't have gotten excited about what he 
> saw.  He would have thought it a stupid joke. <snip> I get the
impression that for the 
> Mirror of Erised to work, the visions must be accurate in detail, 
> even if the events/actions shown are never going to come to pass.
> 
> So, whether the mirror reads the viewers subconscious mind and 
> memories or magically knows all the important details(!), I would 
> say that the appearances of Harry's relatives were all spot on.  

Carol:
I think its a combination of a Legilmency spell that enables the
Mirror, like the Sorting Hat, to read subconscious desires and some
other sort of ability to as you say, "magically know all the important
details." And I agree that we'll find the descriptions to be "spot on."

Carol, who also agrees with Diana's SNUFF theory but, like Snape with
Hermione's homework, will remain silent because she can't find
anything to criticize (um, disagree with) :-)