Plot Oversight in PS/SS?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 138878

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Derek Hiemforth" <derek at r...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister"
> <gbannister10 at t...> wrote:
> > Because, in my own view at least, I don't see the Mirror as being 
> > part of the protections around the Philsopher's Stone. You don't
> > have to get past the Mirror in order to reach the dungeon.
> 
> Derek:
> So prior to the Mirror's relocation to the dungeon, what were all
> the elaborate protections guarding?  Nothing?

Geoff:
But we are not told where the Stone is. There seems to be an 
implication from Dumbledore that the Stone /was/ in the Mirror in his 
reply to Harry when Harry asks "How did I get the Stone out of the 
Mirror?" (I must apologise that I didn't quote this in full in message 
138861). Or was the Mirror simply a link to the Stone?

Derek:
> In other words, if Quirrell had somehow managed to use his troll
> diversion successfully at Halloween, and had gotten past the
> protections then instead of later in the school year, the Stone
> just wouldn't have been there?

Geoff:
This passage, on re-reading, raises a number of questions. First, for 
whom were the protections set up? Was Dumbledore expecting the Trio to 
get through them on their own? Their individual and combined talents 
got them through in the end but was this the result he wanted or 
expected?

The other thought which came to me was, if Quirrell had got to the 
dungeon through the various obstacles, why were some of them still 
apparently intact? The troll was knocked out and the key had been used 
but the chess game and the potion bottles seemed to be intact. Was the 
chess game magically "programmed" to reset itself? If Quirrell had 
solved the logic problem, how is it that there was still some of the 
liquid in the little bottle which we are told that Harry drained at one 
gulp?

This event is proving rather interesting in hindsight.