The Invisible Hand in the CoS - long

[n_longbottom01]

No: HPFGUIDX 144817



Recently, a few details from Harry's adventure in the Chamber of 
Secrets jumped out at me as possible Book 7 clues as a result of some 
posts I read on HP for Grownups.  Here is the passage that struck me—
Harry is being attacked by the now-blinded Basilisk: 

"The snake's tail whipped across the floor again.  Harry ducked.  
Something soft hit his face.
"The basilisk had swept the Sorting Hat into Harry's arms.  Harry 
seized it.  It was all he had left, is only chance—he rammed it onto 
his head and threw himself flat onto the floor as the basilisk's tail 
swung over him again.
"Help me—help me— Harry thought, his eyes screwed tight under the 
hat.  Please help me—
"There was no answering voice.  Instead, the hat contracted, as 
though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly."—CoS p. 319 

As I read this passage, it occurred to me that Harry doesn't actually 
see the basilisk sweep the sorting hat into his arms.  Fawkes has 
already blinded the basilisk at this point, so Harry can safely have 
his eyes open, but he doesn't see the hat flying towards him.  He 
feels it (something soft hitting his face) and then realizes what it 
is and concludes that the basilisk had swept it into his arms.  But 
was the basilisk really responsible for the hat being thrown to Harry?

I was already pondering that one when the next little detail jumped 
up at me, and really got my suspicions roused
 "as though  an 
invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly."  I've always read this 
as just a figure of speech describing the sorting hat contracting on 
its own, in the process of making the sword appear.  But I've seen 
the same figure of speech used elsewhere in the series
 describing 
Winky in the forest, just before the Dark Mark appears:

"A rustling noise nearby made all three of them jump.  Winky the 
house elf was fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby.  She 
was moving in a most peculiar fashion, apparently with great 
difficulty; it was as though someone invisible were trying to hold 
her back."—GoF p.124

We are lead to believe that Winky may just be struggling to move 
because she is not obeying her master's orders.  But we eventually 
learn that Winky, who looks as though someone invisible were trying 
to hold her back, does in fact have an invisible someone (Barty Jr.) 
trying to hold her back.  Is it also possible that the invisible hand 
that squeezed the Sorting Hat and made the sword appear in the 
Chamber of Secrets, was actually a real invisible hand?

Whose invisible hand was it?  Here's my guess: Maybe it takes more 
than a jab with a basilisk fang to entirely destroy a horcrux.  We 
have only seen Harry (apparently) destroy one horcrux—the Riddle 
Diary.  Dumbledore destroyed the ring, but we don't know how he did 
it, and he was injured in the process.  When Harry learns how to 
destroy a horcrux, he may realize that what he did in the Chamber 
wasn't sufficient to destroy that part of Voldemort's soul.  Harry 
then decides to time travel back to the time of the battle, to make 
sure that the Diary soul piece is entirely destroyed.  He hides under 
his invisibility cloak waiting for the diary to be stabbed so that he 
can do what he needs to do.  But suddenly, as he did by the lake in 
the PoA, he finds that he can't just stand there and watch.  He flips 
the hat into the arms of his younger self, and then squeezes it to 
make the sword appear.  The things that Time Traveling Harry does 
while in the Chamber of Secrets are subtly mentioned in the passage 
from CoS that I quoted above.

Is there any further evidence of time travel during CoS?  Well... 
this isn't evidence of time travel, but in the same scene, Diary 
Riddle speaks as if he is a time traveler himself: 

"To business, Harry," said Riddle, still smiling broadly.  "Twice—in 
your past, in my future—we have met.  And twice I failed to kill 
you."—CoS p. 316

This isn't evidence that Time-Traveling Harry is there in the 
chamber
 but maybe it is evidence that JKR had time travel on her 
mind as she wrote the scene.  If Harry returns to the chamber it will 
be "Twice" that Harry and Diary Riddle have "met".  The first time 
Harry "failed to kill" Diary Riddle completely, but he doesn't fail 
the second time (hopefully).

And one last indicator that maybe Harry time travels back to the 
Chamber of Secrets, brought to you by Fred and George:

"Don't bother with the one behind the mirror on the fourth floor.  We 
used it until last winter, but it's caved in—completely blocked."—PoA 
p. 193 

If I remember right, this collapsed secret passage has been mentioned 
more than once.  Fred and George use it up through the winter of 
Harry's CoS year
 they don't specify exactly when they discover that 
it was collapsed
 they only say when they used it last.  Maybe we get 
to see it collapse on the night that Harry and Time Traveler Harry 
enter the chamber of secrets.

Is it likely that we will see Harry time travel to the Chamber of 
Secrets battle in Book 7?  I'm not sure
 there is already a lot that 
needs to happen in Book 7
 maybe too much to allow for this side trip 
to the Chamber.  But I definitely think JKR left herself a good 
opening if she wants to take Harry back there. 

If you can remember way back at the beginning of this LONG post, I 
said that some posts here at HP for Grownups caused this stuff to 
jump out at me when I read through the scene.  I wish I could track 
the post down
 I've searched for it and can't find it.  The post 
examined the Battle at the Ministry of Magic, and concluded there was 
some evidence of time travel hidden in the details there.  If someone 
knows where those posts are located, I'd appreciate some help finding 
them.

Thanks,

n_longbottom01