Two questions on the invisibility cloak
psychic_serpent
psychic_serpent at yahoo.com
Thu May 22 18:38:12 UTC 2003
No: HPFGUIDX 58448
"Ersatz Harry" <ersatzharry at y...> writes:
Second question: When Ron first sees the cloak, he notes that it is
both "really rare" and "really valuable". Offhand, the only other
person I can think of who has one is young Barty Crouch. Does the
rareness of the cloak have some larger significance?
Melanie L Ellis <emeleel at j...> wrote:
I don't think so. I think that Invisibility Cloaks are probably just
rare and valuable because the magic that has to go into them is
really hard and not many people can do it and make the Cloaks. Kind
of like animagic - can you imagine how "rare and valuable" an
Animagic Cloak would be? I think it's the same for invisibility.
Me:
Apropos of this subject, after reading the above, it occurred to me
that something wasn't spelled out explicitly when Barty, Jr. was
telling his tale to Dumbledore et al under the influence of Snape's
Veritaserum. One might wonder how an Auror like Moody could have
been surprised by Crouch, when he was so paranoid that his very dust
bins were part of his defense. The answer is, of course, that Moody
WASN'T surprised; he knew very well that someone was trying to
attack him, and might even have recognized his attacker, although
recognizing young Crouch might have made him doubt his sanity, since
everyone thought he was dead.
The reason why the real Moody knew that someone was trying to break
into his house, in addition to his dark detectors going off, was
that he could see through Invisibility Cloaks! Young Barty would
have no way of knowing this, of course, and probably thought that
when he went to Moody's house to execute the switch, wearing the
Cloak, that he would be able to sneak up on Moody without a
problem.
So, Moody puts up a fight, being able to see his attacker without
any problem, but Crouch still prevails and is able, in the guise of
Moody, to greet Arthur Weasley and the other Ministry folks when
they show up to investigate the ruckus. One slightly hard to
believe element in this scenario is that I find it a bit implausible
that Crouch knew about the magical trunk ahead of time, which
provides a VERY convenient method for him to both hide Moody's body
and have it nearby all during his time at Hogwarts, so that he can
continue to make the Polyjuice Potion, but I suppose I can overlook
that. (It's also unlikely that he went to Moody's house ahead of
time to investigate, since Moody could see through Crouch's cloak
and had the hair-trigger dark detectors.)
This little event also gives Crouch another advantage: he knows that
with Moody's magical eye at his disposal, he can see through any
other Invisibility Cloaks that might be about, which just happens to
be how Harry moves about the school at night! As Crouch has to be
even MORE paranoid than Moody to avoid detection, this means that it
is less likely that he can be ambushed by anyone. I believe that is
really the purpose of both Crouch and Harry having Invisibility
Cloaks, and it is another neat way of JKR giving her hero and
villain similar attributes (and taking away one of Harry's
advantages--invisibility).
Of course, if Crouch, Sr. hadn't released his son from prison, none
of this might have happened, and if Arthur Weasley and the other
folks from the Ministry hadn't been so blase when they showed up at
Moody's, Crouch never would have been able to pull off a ten-month
impersonation of a former Auror without anyone being the wiser until
Dumbledore finally notices something a bit off about him after the
Third Task. Frankly, when he arrived at the house, Arthur probably
should have started quizzing Crouch to test him and make sure he was
who he seemed to be. (Although if he had, there would have been no
fourth book. <g>) In books 5, 6 and 7, I wouldn't be surprised if
Ministry officials became far more suspicious of everyone, which
could start to make the books feel ripped from the headlines. (When
JKR planned her story arc, I doubt that she could have foreseen the
twisted future path of world politics.) Of course, the Ministry
would probably first have to acknowledge that Voldemort is back
before we start reading about extreme security precautions in the
wizarding world. I'll be interested to find out about that on June
21.
--Barb
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Barb
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