James' Two-Way Mirror after GH & the I-Cloak

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 121294


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "charme" <dontask2much at y...> wrote:
> 
> >
>  >> Jen Reese wrote:
> >>
> >> Jen: That's an interesting thought. How did Sirius get that
> >> second two-way mirror back? Like you said, he and James were 
> >> probably keeping tabs that way and it should have been destroyed 
> >> at GH like everything else. ...


> > Jill:
> > I am guessing that the situation with James' mirror is similar to
> > that of the invisibility cloak, i.e., "Your father left this in my
> > possession..."  I think James distributed these items to those he
> > trusted the most before he went into hiding.  ...


> charme:
> 
> I sort of agree with Jill, I think. I've often also thought someone
> (maybe Hagrid?) went back to the house and picked through things so 
> the "pleesemen"  didn't find them.  I wonder if the mirrors worked 
> by first name (James, Sirius) or by Marauder name (Prongs, Padfoot.)
> Maybe this is how we see  Sirius again?
> 
> Speculation only....
 


bboyminn:

Two thoughts. 

First, perhaps the mirrors were remnants of their 'childhood' days,
something that, in their minds, was only good for making mischief at
school. I therefore suspect that the mirrors had been put away and
forgotten. If perhaps it was Sirius who created them, then perhaps
James gave his mirror back to Sirius, and the whole lot just got
stored away with all their old school books.

Second point, I'm sure many will speculate that something as valuable
as the two-way communication mirrors would be equally invaluable to
the adult Sirius and James, and to the Order. However, if the
2w-mirrors were that great and special, wouldn't everybody be using
them? Wouldn't they be the Wizard World equivalent of the Cell/Mobile
Phone? Wouldn't Dumbledore have enchanted dozens of them? Seems very
likely to me.

So, I conclude the the mirrors to adult wizards and to the Order were
not the ultra-cool wiz-bang gadgets that we the reader see them as. I
suspect that the Order has a great many more effective ways to
communicated, and that the mirrors ended up in an old drawer somewhere. 

Note that somewhere JKR commented to a question regarding Harry
forgetting about the enchanted mirror, that it wouldn't have been as
useful as we might think. In addition, she commented to another
question that the Order has very effective ways of communicating.

As to James' Invisibility Cloak, I don't see that as such a great
mystery. I-Cloaks don't seem to be that common; for one thing they are
suppost to be very expensive. So given a very limited availability of
I-Cloaks, it seems reasonable that James lent his to the Order (ie:
Dumbledore) so that many Order members could make use of it, just as
in OotP, many Order members made use of Moody's I-Cloaks. 

I'm pretty confident of my position on the I-Cloaks, and think my
position on the Mirrors is a fair speculation. 

Then again... it's just a thought.

Steve/bboyminn (was bboy_mn)