The sword and the hat (Re: LV's bigger plan )

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 166374

SSSusan:
> > I wonder if that's because I'm such a literalist?  You know, I 
> > figured if the sword had been in the Sorting Hat all along, it would 
> > have been bonking all those first years on the head every time it 
> > sorted one of them!
 
> Pippin:
> It could be the same sort of magic Dumbledore used to conceal
> the Stone in the mirror. It was there all along, but could only be
> retrieved under certain conditions, in this case, that a true
> Gryffindor had need of it.

Jen:  I had the same image of bonking. :)  I didn't think of the Mirror,
but that's essentially how I imagined the event taking place:  when
Godric left Hogwarts, he magically concealed the sword in the hat
rather than passing it down to a blood relative.  And it wouldn't have
been there only for the person entering the COS; legend said the
other founders didn't know about the chamber.

Carol:
> Fawkes, who arrived because of Harry's loyalty to
> Dumbledore and for no other reason, could have blinded
> the Basilisk and healed the wound, but he surely would
>  not have brought the Sorting Hat with him had he not been
> instructed to do so--by Dumbledore.

> Carol, who still thinks that DD put the sword in the hat
> himself--after all, it's a relic of Godric Gryffindor and seems to
> belong to DD, just as Fawkes does.

Jen:  The Sorting Hat might have been Dumbledore's idea, 
deciding the Founders could help Harry more than anyone else
in the castle at the moment, or the idea could have come from the
Sorting Hat itself.  Dumbledore's explanation to Harry for why he
pulled the sword out doesn't work very well if Dumbledore himself 
placed it there.  Then Harry didn't pull it out of the hat because he was
determined a 'true' Gryffindor by the Sorting Hat, but because
Dumbledore told the hat what to do.  That's not my impression of how
the hat works, that Dumbledore or anyone can tell it to follow orders.
It's supposed to be the brains of the founders.  

The Sorting Hat, and specifically the brain of Godric, would be the one
to determine the true Gryffindor capable of calling forth the sword.

I do agree the sword is Dumbledore's *now*, the last known relic of
Godric Gryffindor finally making its way to one of the last two heirs
of Gryffindor <g>.

Jen R.