US Cover: Picky Pensieve Details....

[inkling108]

No: HPFGUIDX 125825


...which may possibly turn out to be significant, so here goes:

The more I looked at the pensieve (?) on the US cover, the more I 
thought it looked different from the way Ms. Grand Pre has 
illustrated Dumbledore's pensieve.  I checked the Chapter 
illustrations for Snape's Worst Memory in OotP and The Pensieve in 
GoF and sure enough, the bowl on the cover of the US edition of HBP 
looks wider, more shallow, and has a more pronounced rim.  It is 
also cracked in two places. This may be partly due to viewing it 
from a different angle (from below rather than above), but even so, 
it looks like a different bowl, and what about those cracks?

Some speculations:

It is not a pensieve but some other device, possibly to do with 
time, as some have suggested.

It is a pensieve but it is not Dumbledore's pensieve.  Whose is it?

Possibly some ancient wizard, the HBP or one of his ancestors, or 
Godric Griffindor.  It is cracked because it is very old.

Or maybe it belonged to Harry's parents, and it was cracked during 
the explosion at Godric's Hollow the night they were killed.  
Dumbledore may have been keeping it safe for Harry in the same way 
he kept the invisibility cloak.  

In any case, the emotions (concern and apprehension on Dumbledore's 
part, alertness and wonder on Harry's) depicted on the cover point 
to something crucial from the past being revealed, something 
Dumbledore has heretofore been reluctant to show Harry. A pensieve 
would be one vehicle for this, but perhaps not the only one?  

Inkling