CHAPDISC: DH25, Shell Cottage

[Beatrice23]

No: HPFGUIDX 184016

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> Carol earlier:
> > > Griphook himself is certainly no "fluffy bunny." He's tricky and
> treacherous, and his view that Goblinmade works, paid for by Wizards,
> belong to the Goblin who made them is preposterous. If I paint your
> portrait (pretending that I can do so) and you pay me for it, you own
> the portrait. I *might* own the reproduction rights, depending on what
> society I live in, but not the portrait itself. 
> > 
> Montavilla47:
> > I think this would depend on the original contract.  I mean, I can
> buy a car or I can lease it (or rent) it.  If I buy it, it's mine.  If
> I rent or lease, it remains the property of the owner, but I have the
>  rights to it for certain amount of time.  Maybe it was only for life
> that Godric Gryffindor leased the sword.  We don't really know, do we?
> 
> Carol again:
> True. We don't. However, we don't see any leases in the HP books and
> we do see items bought and sold. We also have Bill's pointed remark to
> Griphook when Griphook says that the tiara was made by Goblins: "And
> paid for by Wizards." Since the sword of Gryffindor was clearly made
> for him to his specifications, it's a safe bet that he didn't steal
> it. Since the possibility of his having leased the sword for life
> isn't raised, even by Griphook, who wants his claim as a goblin to be
> accepted, I'd say that leasing is almost as unlikely as stealing.
> 
> Also, of course, who is Griphook to claim it for the Goblins in
> general? He doesn't claim to be a descendant of the original maker.
> Why does he think that *he* has any more right to it than any other
> Goblin (or whichever Wizard owns the sword)? We don't see Gyrffindor's
> will. If he was childless, he probably willed it to the school, for
> the use of Gryffindors in peril. (Was the Sorting Hat arrangement his
> or Dumbledore's? we're never told.)
 

Beatrice: I just wanted to make a quick point.  I think that the
connection between the sorting hat and the sword is one that
Griffindor devised.  We are told in the GoF page 177 (the Sorting
Hat's song) that the Sorting Hat also belonged to Griffindor - I am
parphrasing but essentially that Griffindor whipped the hat off his
own head and bewitched it to sort students according to the traits
each founder prized the most.  Although it is not explicitly stated,
it would seem to me that the link between the two objects both owned
by the same wizard would be one that was devised by Griffindor himself.  

My theory is that the sword resides in the headmasters office unless a
Griffindor needs it.  It can come to them in two ways:  First, the
Sorting Hat can transport it to them (of course this is a bit
convoluted as it means that the Griffindor must have the hat on
his/her head at the moment of extreme need-although we do see two
situations in which this occurs).  As a side note here, I suspect that
the only hand Dumbledore has in at least the first incident is leaving
Falkes behind knowing that a student can summon him through an act of
supreme loyalty and that Falkes knows enough to bring that student the
sorting hat - sure it is involved and really contrived but a lot of
JKR's plot points are. Or second, a person can happen upon the sword
and earn the right to wield it if they take it "under conditions of
need and valor" (DH 689).  The conditions parallel Griffindor's
personal values.