Philosopher's Reflection (was: Re: Mirror of Erised)

[persephone_kore]

No: HPFGUIDX 58838


> I Innermurk want to add:
> 
> DD told us and Harry that the mirror will give neither knowledge nor 
> truth. 

Actually, that's an intriguing point for another reason.

People have repeatedly raised the issue, regarding the end of the
first book and Harry's complicity/unfounded guilt/general involvement
in Voldemort "almost" getting the stone, of whether Quirrel/Voldemort
could have eventually gotten it out given time to work -- and if not,
how perhaps Harry's presence actually pointless at best and nearly
disastrous at worst.

My interpretation of the Stone in the Mirror has always, until this
point, been that Dumbledore (as he said) did perform some elaborate
magic to hide the Stone there and allow it to be retrieved afterwards.
But... did he ever say exactly /when/ it was destroyed? Is it possible
that the Mirror which gives neither knowledge nor truth actually
emitted a facsimile Philosopher's Stone? 

I'd be somewhat surprised if /this/ specifically is the case, as I'm
not sure it's something JKR would know or want to draw on, but chiral
molecules could be applicable here. "Chiral" essentially describes an
object whose mirror image can't be superimposed on the original image
-- think of your hands: the reflection of a left hand is a right hand,
and those cannot be superimposed on each other exactly. 

The mirror image of a molecule that serves a biological function --
food, drug, enzyme, building material, whatever -- is very often
useless or actually toxic. One of the most dramatic examples is
thalidomide -- it's difficult to separate the two mirror images, and
it turns out that it seems one of them has the desired results... and
the other causes the horrible side effects. 

So... returning to fictional examples... if the Mirror of Erised spat
out a false, reflected stone, could that have been the actual
destruction? 

PK