The Sword of Gryffindor

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182561

Geoff wrote:
> <snip> I think that I can see that Dumbledore could send Fawkes who
has sensed Harry's loyalty and presumably conveyed this to him and,
either Fawkes or Dumbledore knowing that the Hat possesses special
powers, that gets sent along as well but Dumbledore can hardly know
what problems Harry will face. 
> 
> Dumbledore, at this point, was not fully cogniscent of what or who 
Diary!Tom was. <snip>

Carol responds:

True. But the sorting Hat is not sent to deal with Diary!Tom. It's
sent to deal with Slytherin's monster, which DD must know, based on
its powers of petrification and the necessity for a Parselmouth to
open the Chamber, that the monster is a Basilisk.

The diary's being a Horcrux is irrelevant at this point. In fact, DD
doesn't even know about the diary at all. He only knows that the Heir
of Slytherin, who has to be Riddle!Voldemort in some form, is again
opening the Chamber of Secrets and again releasing the monster, which
is Petrifying Muggle-borns and may kill one (as it killed Myrtle fifty
years before).

So DD sends the "songbird" Fawkes, who can help Harry fight the
Basilisk (and heal Harry with his tears if he's bitten) and the Sword
of Gryffindor, which can come to him via the Sorting Hat in conditions
of need and peril (specifically if he asks or calls for help--"Help
will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it," as DD tells
Harry before he leaves the school, having already set up the necessary
protections, 264. He mentions loyalty to himself, the prerequisite for
calling Fawkes, in the previous sentence.)

So it doesn't really matter whether the sword is magically concealed
in the hat, neither visible nor tangible, or whether the Hat somehow
calls the Sword to appear. (Either way, it's like a Muggle magician
pulling a rabbit out of a hat except that it's not an illusion. Was it
placed in the hat by DD or was it in DD's office waiting to be
summoned? Who knows?) It's the Sword, not the Hat, that's enchanted to
help Gryffindors in need. Even so, DD can hardly ask Fawkes to carry
the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry, so he asks him to carry the Sorting
Hat, which will magically appear out of the hat when the need arises.

Dumbledore is familiar with the magic and plans for Harry's use of it
against Slytherin's monster, which he can hardly fight with a wand
given that he's twelve years old and the most complicated defensive
spell he knows is Expelliarmus.

Again, Diary!Tom has nothing to do with it. The Chamber of Secrets is
known to contain a monster, and, as far as DD knows, the monster
(surely a Basilisk) is what Harry will have to fight.

Carol, who thought there was some reference in FB to Phoenixes in
relation to Basilisks but can't find it, only a reference to "the pure
in heart," obviously meaning Harry, being encouraged by the Phoenix's song