Reflections On That Mirror

[B Arrowsmith]

No: HPFGUIDX 85318

I've been reading, or rather re-reading PS again and having further 
thoughts about the Mirror - the Erised job. I'm beginning to suspect 
that everything is not quite as advertised by Dumbledore.

Yes, I know. I can hear the collective sigh from here - "He's at it 
again, stirring things up. Can't he leave us in peace?"  Er, no.

At the end of PS / SS DD is doing what is now accepted as the 
traditional final explication; filling in the gaps, dotting the 'i's 
and crossing the 't's.

"I'm glad you asked me that. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and 
between you and  me, that's saying something. You see, only one who 
wanted to *find* the Stone - find it, but not use it - would be able to 
get it, otherwise they'd just see themselves making gold  or drinking 
Elixir of Life.
But no more questions."

Ah, excuse me, but wasn't that what Quirrell was up to? Finding the 
Stone? He had no intention of using it - "I see the Stone...I'm 
presenting it to my master...but where is it?"

Go further back. The Mirror is supposed to show your desires, not 
knowledge or truth. So says DD.

Ron stood in front of the Mirror and sees himself as Head  Boy, Head of 
Quidditch and holding the Quidditch Cup.

Oh, how we laughed!

Ron is now a Prefect and a Quidditch hero, with still  two years to go 
at school. Hello? Anyone getting a strange feeling about this?

Harry sees family - at  least ten others besides himself. He sees his 
parents, he sees other pairs of green eyes, he sees noses like his and 
a little old man who might have his knobbly knees.

Noses? Knobbly knees? Has Harry's nose ever been described? If it has I 
can't find it. But apparently it's distinctive enough to be recognised. 
The only nose I  can remember is Snape's. Great beaked thing. You don't 
think...? Surely not.
Knobbly knees - how about those? Not really. Closest is a scrawny boy 
on a bucking broomstick in one of Snape's memories and another scrawny 
newcomer that gets a mention. Not close enough.

Ron looked in the Mirror with future desires foremost. He saw what he 
wanted to happen. The Mirror guarantees nothing, but there is no reason 
why wishes shouldn't come true despite that.

Harry looks and desires the past. He sees his family; maternal mudblood 
and paternal pureblood. Would the Mirror show people that had never 
existed? Unlikely. No point. So James did (does) have a family. Who and 
where? And since purebloods are such a tight, small, intermarried group 
why didn't Sirius point out a few of the Potters among all the 
generations on the Black tapestry?
Maybe a few were there. But as I've posted before, Potter is such an 
odd name for a pureblood; almost unreal.

But the Mirror. Can't help feeling Harry missed a trick there. Wouldn't 
it be natural for him to ask DD who all those people were?
Once again we are relying on DD for the facts. His most significant 
utterance was probably
"But no more questions."

Pity. I've got lots.

Kneasy