Accio-proof Items (WAS:Re: House points and Dumbledore)

[Grey Wolf <greywolf1@jazzfree.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51412

Annemehr wrote:
> Hmm... maybe.  Perhaps it would have required a general 
> "spell-repelling charm" to force the champions to take the egg with 
> their own hands, if such a thing is possible.

The question that springs to mind is "why?". After all, it *is* a 
wizard competition. Allowing them to use magic but then preventing them 
from using the spells is strange, don't you think? That's the reson I 
think there was no spell in the egg, just problems for using the accio 
while the dragon was around.
 
> > Because the dragon was sitting on the eggs, so there is no place 
> > for the egg to leave.
> 
> Well, GoF, "The First Task" says, "And there was the Horntail, at the 
> other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs,..."
> which I always read as being closely *over* them but not actually
> *on* them.

Not, not "on" them because that would break them, but since it's a 
mother dragon, I've always assumed that she was close enough to keep 
the heat (since we know that they breath fire on them too, it seems 
that heat is essential). Since the egg was quite big, my point was (and 
still is) that there wouldn't be space between the dragon and the other 
eggs for the golden egg to pass through (and of course, as soon as the 
dragon felt an egg moving, she would lie down to stop it, I would 
think, and that would finish off the accio).

>  2) Visual contact or familiarity seems to ba a 
> > must for the spell
> 
> Familiarity?  How do we know Harry couldn't have just pictured a 
> golden egg in his mind and that that would not have been enough to go 
> on?  

We do not - point accepted. But first he'd probably have to have seen 
where it is clearly. But I accept that, once he had seen it, an accio 
would've worked on the egg. My main problem with the idea is getting 
the accio to the egg, though, and then the egg out of there, without 
the dragon interfering the spell.

> But then, GoF says, just after Harry had taken off on his 
> Firebolt, "He looked down at the clutch of eggs and spotted the gold 
> one, gleaming against its cement-colored fellows, residing safely 
> between the dragon's fromt legs."  So, there has been no suggestion 
> that the dragon has moved, the eggs are between her front legs, and I 
> think Harry could certainly have used Accio on it now (unless 
> magically prevented).

I wouldn't attempt aiming an accio while flying around in a broom and 
having a fire-breathingdragon trying for all purposes to turn me into 
cooked wolf - but Harry might be better aim than I am, especially on a 
broom. I don't know why he didn't attempt it - apart from the fact, as 
I've said, that if the spell touches the dragon, it will be absorbed, 
and stopping to cast could've been the second to last thing Harry did 
in his life ( the last being turning into a charred cookie :-) ).
 
> Annemehr
> <aside to Grey:  have you seen my new room in the Safe House yet?  
> I'm part of the MD cheerleading squad now, but still uncomfortably 
> straddling three fences between the "straightforward" reading of PoA, 
> the MD theory, and an Evil!Snape theory.  But -- I've promised to 
> come down for one of them by the time OoP comes out...I'll dig out 
> relevent TBAY post numbers if wanted...>

It might be best, thanks, Ann (mind if I call you Ann? I'm not very 
good at names). Mail them privately to me - this is enough OT for the 
main list.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf