OOP:A Hypothesis on the Two-Way Mirror

[norwoodpa]

No: HPFGUIDX 65473

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "theshef2002" <shefali22 at h...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "norwoodpa" <norwoodpa at a...> 
> wrote:
>  
> > How many 15 year olds would take 6 months to unwrap a gift  they 
> had been 
> > given, much less to remember it?!  Add  to that the emotional 
> charge of the 
> > love between recipient and giver and Harry's often desperate need 
> for 
> > someone to guide him, Sirius' house-bound status, their parting, 
> the drama of 
> > the warning "No, don't open it in here!...I doubt Molly would 
> approve-but I want 
> > you to use it if you need me, all right?"  
> 
> BUt remember, Harry didn't WANT to use it. He didn't want to give 
> Sirius any reason to come out of hiding and put himself in danger, so 
> he just hid the package away and forgot about it.
> 
> > But my opinion aside, she's gone to great lengths for Harry to have 
> this mirror. 
> > I don't think its sole function is one destructive expression of 
> grief and 
> > frustration.
> 
> I still want to know wht happens if Harry throws the broken shards of 
> his magic mirror into the curtain, and takes the whole one from 12 
> Grimmauld Place.

That is certainly another very good idea. It will all depend on whether or not 
Sirius had the mirror.  I think we agree that the mirror is important and one 
way or another it will end up functioning.

As to your point above, not wanting to use what was inside certainly does not 
preclude unwrapping it. In fact, it would be foolish not to unwrap it and assess 
whatever risk it posed to Harry, Sirius or OoTP.  As it turns out, Sirius' name 
was on the back of the mirror.  And if another student who didn't know Sirius 
was innocent had found it?  E.g. his roomate Seamus; he could well have 
reverted to distrusting Harry and turned him in to a hostile Ministry!  If he was 
worried about the risk to Sirius, at the very least he should have discovered 
what it was and hidden or destroyed it, not just tossed it in his trunk where 
anyone could have gotten to it for six months.  And since Harry's not dim and 
dull-witted, excuses like "he's a kid" or "he was upset and just wasn't thinking" 
don't cut it as far as I'm concerned. He's a kid who has faced down the Dark 
Lord three times.  He's no amateur.

I also don't believe that anyone curious or foolhardy enough to invade 
Snape's memories when he had temporarily left the room would balk at 
unwrapping a present.

And the idea of it just slipping his mind is, IMHO, codswallop.  NO BODY is 
going to forget a parting like that one because they WILL relive it many times 
in their mind.  

I don't like this whole "forgot the mirror " contrivance because it is not true to 
life, human behavior or logic.  To me it is the weakest part of the book and I 
wonder if this was one of the plot difficulties that delayed publication.