GoF Sphinx's riddle: Did Harry get it wrong?

[heather the buzzard]

No: HPFGUIDX 130427

Amanda:

>I think looking at this that this couplet is refering to the letter 
>'d'.

>Now.. singly I wouldn't put much credence in the 'd' being
>significant, but they all reinforce one another and that seems a
>Rowlingesque Riddle to me.

>Though... having reasoned out that the couplet is referring to the
>letter dee I am stuck for ideas of what significance this holds.


No 'significance', just part of the riddle.  Spy+D+er = spider.  I guess 
it's 'significant' because it's the part Harry didn't actually figure out.

And it's not even really a "Rowlingesque" riddle, really.  Rowling's 
riddles follow classic riddle techniques.  This one uses the trickery of 
making you think about the meaning of the words, when in fact the answer 
lies within the actual words themselves.  This is typical of cryptic 
crosswords, for instance, where the actual literal meaning of the clues 
is usually totally irrelevant; it's the letters in the words themselves 
that are important. 

heather the buzzard