The first-years conspiracy

[lucianam73]

No: HPFGUIDX 141983

Lucianam73 wrote: 
> 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?

CH3ed:
> Well, Hermione would have recognized if it wasn't Felix, wouldn't
> she? Considering she recognized all the other potions, if anything
> she would have gone and look up the description of Felix potion
> after class out of pure curiosity and recognized it if the liquid
> in the bottle wasn't Felix.
 
Lucianam:
Yes, Hermione recognized the potion Slughorn showed them as FF (was 
it really??? I don't trust Slughorn anyway). But when Harry drinks 
it, it's in a bottle, not in a cauldron 'splashing about merrily' 
with 'large drops' 'leaping above it surface'. If the potion also 
had the color of 'molten gold', why would Hermione suspect it? I go 
further, it needn't be exactly the same color as FF, yellow might 
have sufficed. When Harry drunk it, it was dusk or near dusk, and 
Hermione held the bottle up to the light to check it; how strong was 
that light, was it candlelight, wand light, gas light?? And just 
after that they crack a joke about it, they do not really suspect 
the potion might not be FF.

Lucianam73 wrote:
> 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.

CH3ed again: 
> Harry wanted only Hermione to think he had slipped Ron the potion,
> but nobody else, or they would have turned him in because using
> Felix in a sporting competition is illegal.

Lucianam:
Agreed. But if Hermione saw him, others could have as well. Even if 
Harry only meant her to see it. 
 
About the wrong memory, well, since the first time I read Chapter 
Sluggish Memory I thought the real memory was the blurry one (or 
rather, the foggy one). It fits with R.A.B., too. The boy Slughorn is 
shouting with could be Regulus, for example. It doesn't make sense 
he'd shout with Tom Riddle, because we know from Dumbledore's own 
mouth that Tom was quite the good student at Hogwarts. He was Head 
Boy, very intelligent, teachers sympathised with him. 

I'll just go post it now, since it's a separate matter (not entirely 
separate, but still).

Lucianam