The first-years conspiracy

[lucianam73]

No: HPFGUIDX 141962

I was wondering about Felix Felicis. Didn't Harry trust it just a 
little too much? 

It was just a potion_ okay, it was supposed to make you extremely 
lucky_ but still, just a potion. Which means, exactly, a certain 
amount of liquid inside a bottle (more specifically a bottle Harry 
kept inside a sock, in the bottom of his trunk).

If the liquid inside the bottle inside the sock inside the trunk did 
contain Felix Felicis, still it could be over its 'expiration date', 
for example (Slughorn giving away valuable potions? Dodgy!).

But what if the liquid was not Felix Felicis? 

When Ron thought he had taken the lucky potion, he believed himself 
lucky and felt different, just like he had been dosed. So it's fair 
to assume it would have been the same case with Harry_ he'd feel 
exactly as Ron 'remembered': "...a great feeling...Like you can't do 
anything wrong."

In fact, we have reason to suspect someone MIGHT have stolen Harry's 
bottle of FF. The first years!

Take a look at the facts in chronological order:

- Harry pretends to drop FF in Ron's drink before a Quidditch match. 
He does so during breakfast, and he's not particularly careful about 
it because he wants his friends to notice what he has done, leading 
them to think Ron's been dosed. 
- Ron gives a grand performance during the Quidditch match in 
question.
- Some time after this, Appariton classes begin and Ron has trouble 
learning to Apparate. The date for the Apparition test is posted on 
the common room noticeboard (April 27th); Ron "panicks" on reading 
this notice. Later on he takes practice lessons in Hogsmeade with 
the rest of the sixth-years who were going to take the test (during 
this, Harry attempts to enter the Room of Requirement). 
- Aragog's burial day arrives. It is April 27th, and Ron and 
Hermione are taking their Apparition tests that afternoon.
- Ron fails his test.

What I see in these events, from Ron's POV, is his initially 
achieving sucess in a difficult "test" (Q. match) and then his 
failing another difficult "test" (this time, a literal one). In the 
first "test" he was aided by Harry; in the second he was on his own. 
Is there anything significant here? Would anyone want Ron to fail?

Here enter the first-years. It's the Kreacher parallel: one of the 
things I hated the most in OotP was hearing Dumbledore say if Sirius 
had treated Kreacher more kindly, things would have been different. 
I hate that because it reads as if Sirius deserved to die because he 
was "mean" to poor little Kreacher ( *beheads Kreacher in her mind* 
_ sorry about that, I love Sirius). Well, if JKR could do that to 
Sirius, why not to Ron? We might as well be in for a line as this:
"Oh, if Ron had treated those first-years more kindly they wouldn't 
have stolen Harry's bottle of Felix Felicis just to stop him from 
giving his best friend a little helping hand, and the whole Sluggish 
memory thing wouldn't have been ruined."

That's exactly what I think has happened. Ron was an ass to the 
first-years all through HBP. We, the readers, like Ron because we 
have Harry's POV_ and have had for 6 years. But to the first years, 
he's not nice at all, and they'd have been outraged if they thought 
great Harry Potter _ legend, celebrity and Quidditch team Captain _ 
gave his bosom buddy a few drops of lucky potion just before a match 
so his friend would look good.
I don't think it is far-fetched to suspect these pissed-off kids to 
come up with a plan against bullying-cheating-Prefect Weasley. 
Perhaps they thought of this plan when the sign announcing the 
Apparition test was posted and Ron was distressed about it. Clearly, 
this would be another opportunity for dishonest, unfair help from 
best friend Harry Potter and his potion. 

I propose the first-years stole Harry's Felix Felicis with the 
intention of preventing him from cheatingly helping out Ron "again", 
replacing the contents of the bottle with a similar-looking potion.
Probably they had the help of an older student for this 
(McLaggen ::cough:: McLaggen), because it wouldn't be easy to find 
such a potion.

Of course this raises The Big Question: did Harry get the right 
memory? Ahem there's actually a second question: if he did get he 
right memory, what went wrong during/after Aragog's burial that 
Felix Felicis could have prevented (had Harry drunk it)?

Dumbledore said the Sluggish memory was the most important of ALL. 
He told Harry there was nothing as important as retrieving it. So I 
guess Harry taking a fake unknown potion just before he asked 
Slughorn for that vital memory is a Huge Thing.

By the way I thing the real Sluggish memory is not the one Harry 
got, but I'll leave this for another post.


Lucianam