Digest Number 4283 - Portkeys Again.

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 91748

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "entropymail" <entropymail at y...>
wrote:

> 
> Now Entropy:
> 
> Jumping into this thread late, so I hope I'm not being redundant:
> 
> (COS, ch6)"...we use Portkeys. They're objects that are used to
> transport wizards from one spot to another *at a prearranged time*..." 
> 
> Then, later, " '...must be nearly time,' said Mr. Weasly, pulling out
> his watch again...'three...," muttered Mr. Weasley, one eye still on
> his watch, "two...one..."
> 
> So, portkeys are like trains, buses, planes, etc. Hop onto one and
> leave at a prearranged time.
> 
> So, why would JKR do all this explanation and demonstration of how a
> portkey worked (she named the whole chapter after one!), and then have
> the Triwizard Cup transport Harry/Cedric when they *touched* it? I
> don't have an answer for this; just being rhetorical.
> 
> :: Entropy ::

bboy_mn:

Indeed this seeming anomaly has been addressed in the thread that
spawned this thread as well as many other threads.

If we look at Portkeys from a practical perspective, then we must see
that the absolute time of day method is very limiting. 

Others have used airplane as an analogy to suggest how Portkey are
likely to be versatile in their application-

Exact time of day activation - similar to booking a commercial flight,
it leaves at a specific time of day. If you're not there at that time,
you lose the option to fly.

Exact time, but within your control - you charter a private plane to
take you somewhere, you schedule it to leave at a certain time, but
that departure time is controlled by and can be ammended by you, the
person who is paying for the use of the plane.

Available as needed - you own your own airplane and can fly when ever
you want.

>From a practical stand point, if I were inventing the Portkey Charm, I
would want similar flexibility. 

For the World Cup where many many travel arrangements had to be made
days, if not weeks, in advance, the safest most effective way to
program the Portkeys is to have them leave at a very specific time of
day. That way, before and after that precise time, the Portkey object
is secure. If it is found by a muggle, it's a safe and generally
useless uninteresting object.

In the latest book (OoP), Dumbledore used more immediate Portkeys
because that is the method of Portkey programming that serves his
immediate need. He doesn't need Harry to transport back to Hogwarts at
7 o'clock on Thursday, he doesn't need the Weasley family to transport
to 12 Grimmauld Place next week. In these cases, he needs to transpost
people now. That is a completely different need than the Quidditch
World Cup, and logically, he uses a completely different method. 

So, are Dumbledore's Portkeys controlled by time activation or not?
Answer is yes, they are, except that the time is NOW, not next Tuesday
at 3:00pm. Whether Dumbledore activates on a count of three, as in 1,
2, 3, NOW, or whether he simply says 'NOW', that is still time
activated. The time is NOW.

The only exception we have is touch activated, and that seems to me to
be a reasonable variation of how we would logically want a Portkey to
work. You really can't have a touch activated Portkey in the middle of
a crowd or typically expect more than one person to use it. It's
simply not a secure device, too easy for someone to accidently touch
it, and too difficult to time the simultaneus touches of more that one
person.

But for a single person in a secure environment like you at home, or
Harry in the Tri-Wizard's maze, those drawbacks aren't typically a
problem. So, you charm and activate the portkey in advance, when you
get up in the morning to go to work, you have your coffee then touch
your Portkey, and you are off to work. That's a perfectly reasonable
application of and a perfectly reasonable variation of a Portkey Charm.

In a manner of speaking, although it is a stretch, this is still time
activated, but the time it activates is as soon as there is someone to
transport, in other words, WHEN is when you touch it, until then there
is nothing to transport, and the Time, once again, is NOW. So, again
by a stretch of the imagination, touch activated is just a variation
of time activate.

So, the various applications and various activation methods of the
Portkey we see in the book, are nothing more than that, common,
reasonable, and logical variations on a theme.

As far as Mr. Weasley's description of the portkey to Harry as the
walk up the Stoatshead Hill, Arthur is simplifying a complicated
explanation to fit the circumstances. Instead of going into the
complete detailed long extended lecture on the nature and application
of Portkeys, he simply explains how their Portkey will work. All other
methods are, in a sense, just variations of that method.

I see no inconsistency, just variations on a theme. Certainly, if I
were inventing the Portkey Charm, these are reasonable and logical
variation I would want to build in.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn