Harry's B-day Re: Riddle and Grindelwald in 1945

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 109337

RMM
"It can make a great deal of difference.  If the cutting was from 
today's paper -- which would bear a September or October date on it, 
then the relevance of "on 31 July" would indicate absolutely that the 
break-in occurred "on 31 July".  However, the cutting, laying under a 
tea cozy, tells us that it is old and is only there because of the 
relevance to when Hagrid and Harry were at the bank.  As it is old 
then, "on 31 July" can indicate that the investigation was continuing 
"on 31 July"."


DuffyPoo:

Wait a second.  Hagrid could have cut it out of the paper that morning and placed it on the table, to put away later (I do it all the time).  Hagrid had invited Harry for tea, "I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three?".  He, at least I, take the tea cozy off the tea pot before I make tea, because I run hot water into the pot first, to warm it. Also, my current tea cozy, the pot sits down into it and the cosy pulls up around the pot and fastens at the top, but every tea cozy I had before that slipped down over the pot.  You would have to take the tea cozy off to take off the pot's lid to put in tea leaves/bags and boiling water.  He could quite easily have just dropped the tea cozy onto the freshly-cut-out-of-the-paper news article on the table.

And, just to muddy the waters further.  I've thought this was an old article.  Probably from the Daily Prophet of a day or two after the break-in.  Ron and Harry were talking about the break-in on the Hogwarts Express on Sept 1, "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles -- someone tried to rob a high security vault."    'All over the Daily Prophet,' here, looks, to me, like the story was in several issues of the Daily Prophet, the first being the day after the incident, then most likely a few after that with updates, one of which Hagrid cut out, as that article says that the break-in is "widely believed to be the work of Dark witches or wizards unknown."  If this was the original article from the day of/after the incident, only those involved in the investigation might believe it was the work of Dark wizards, but once the break-in was reported to the public, it would be "widely believed," as Ron says, "My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts.....'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."

All that said, I still believe the article in question is saying that the break-in occurred on July 31st.

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