Portkey mystery? - incomplete lexicon information

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 59088

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Linda" <linlou43 at y...> wrote:
> Brief Chronicals wrote:
> 
> > << ... Harry's Portkey at the end of GoF was a generic Portkey,
that just allowed for travel back and forth 
> from one place to another at any old time. And the QWC Portkey was 
> designed to open only at *specific* times,... edited...>>

> 
>  Linda:
> .... It makes a lot of sense. 
> ... attempting to prevent muggles from using the QWC portkey 
> accidentally, ... to keep wizards from accidentally activating 
> it as well. 
> First, ...portkeys for the QWC led to the same destination point.
> Imagine the chaos if there was no time schedule...edited... 
>
>  Second, .... I would think that whenever there is an event that 
> calls for a group of people to use the same  portkey, it would be 
> necessary for there to be a set time of activation. ..edited..
> 
>   -Linda-just my two nuts

Er... Linda? ...is the two NUTS (a peanut and a cashew) or is the two
KNUTS (worth about 3 US-Cents). ;)

Seriously, now I'm bad to my concept of sorting out what is possible
and what is likely. I think you, Linda, and Brief Chronicals have
explained Portkeys in the most likely way. As I've said before, I
personally seen no contradiction between various methods of working
Portkeys.

At the Quidditch World Cup, they are trying to cordinate the arrival
of 100,000 people. Simple logic say that operation would scheduled in
the same manner as buses, trains, and planes. As Linda pointed out,
the way the QWC Portkey worked was the only logical way under those
circumstances. You have to schedule the arrive of a small group of
people so logically ...well, you have to schedule it, and with equal
logic, you can't have it touch activated or you'll never get the whole
group transported, only the first person to touch it. 

Let's look at possible and what I consider likely ways in which a
Portkey could be activated.

Let's look at touch activated first. How and why would I want to do
that? Personally, I look at it as akin to one of those automatic
coffee pots that has you coffee ready when you get up in the morning.
Before I go to bed, I set the Portkey on the kitchen counter, activate
it, and go to bed. When I get up in the morning, I drink my coffee,
eat my toast, then touch the Portkey and I'm on my way to work. Touch
activation seems a very reasonable way to use a Portkey in everyday life.

No need to go into time activation because the QWC is the perfect
example of how and way you would use time-of-day scheduled Portkey
activation. 

There is another method of time activation though, and that is not
time-of-day, but time delay. Everybody touch the Portkey, and I will
activate it with a 10 second delay. Ten seconds later, me and my
family are on our way to Diagon Alley for ice cream.

But I suspect the most common form of activation is immediate
activation. Everyone grabs the Portkey, then I cast the enchantment to
activate it, and my family and I are instantly on our way to
Fortesque's for ice cream. 

- - - - -

Now to one of my own pet theories.

If Portkey are so flexible and convinient, why isn't everybody using
them all the time? If what I say is true, the do seem very flexible.
There aren't any problems with being underage or being to unskilled as
with Apparating. Portkeys while still a wild ride, seem much safer,
more stable, and certainly cleaner than Floo Power. Plus, they are
convinient, you don't need a fire or fireplace, you can use them anywhere.

So back to my original question, if Portkeys are so great why don't
people use them all the time?

Again, I can't tell you what is true, but as I apply my logic to what
is LIKELY in my efforts to expand the wizard world beyond the
boundaries defined in the book, I think it is very likely that the
reason is that creating a Portkey is such a long difficult process
that is becomes impractical for the average person to do it on a
regular basis. 

Since we do not see Portkey is routine and frequent us in the wizard
world, there has to be a reason why, and 'difficulty' seems the most
likely reason. So, now I must speculate on what makes it so difficult. 

My conclusion is that it is a two stage process. The first stage is
taking an object and making it capable of being a Portkey. This
involves complex spells and potions, and a significant amount of time.
The second stage is actually in two parts. The first part is
programming the Portkey-ready object with it's destination(s). The
second part is the activation of the Portkey, which as I pointed out
can be time-of-day, time delay, or immediate.

Programming would probably somewhat complex, but not as complex and
time consuming as the first stage. 

Also, I suspect that the standard Portkey enchantment is not
permanent. If the Weasley's and Diggory's had chosen not to go to the
Quidditch match, after a period of time, the Portkey would have
reverted back to nothing more than a boot. This is obvious in this
example, because when the activation time of day passed, it would be
unusable. What I am referring to though, is that after a period of
time, the object would loss it's ability to be a Portkey. In theory,
the MoM could recover that Portkey and reprogram it, if they did it
soon enough. But if they delayed too long, it would lose it's
enchantment, and they would have to start the Portkey creation process
all over again. I'm guessing it takes close to a month to create, and
last for about a week.

Again, there is no way that I can say that this is true, but it seems
a likely explaination of why Portkeys aren't used more often. It puts
enough limitations on the process to make it difficult to use on a
daily basis, but still leaves it sufficiently effective to be valuable
in a situation like the World Cup. 

These same limitations also make the Portkey unsatisfactory for
commerial development. It's too expensive to create what is
essentially a 'throw away' product. That's why you don't see any
Portkey stores anywhere. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

bboy_mn