Hand of Glory

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183893

Carol earlier: 
> > Moreover, a Hand of Glory is a Dark object. If he tried to show it
> to his friends outside the Slytherin common room, Mrs. Norris would
> have been onto it instantly and reported to Filch. 
> 
> Pippin:
> Why do you think it's a Dark object? It was offered openly without
so much as a warning label. <snip>
> 
> It's an aid to thieves and plunderers, but so are the Invisibility
Cloak and the Marauder's Map. It's  macabre,  but considering there
are skulls in the Slytherin Common Room, House Elf heads on the walls
at GP, a troll's leg in the front hall, slimy things floating in
Snape's jars, and bits of dead dragon in quite a few wands, I don't
see why preserved tissue should set off any alarm bells.

Carol responds:
"Sold openly" by borgine and Burke, dealers in Dark artifacts. I doubt
that it would be sold openly in Diagon Alley.

The skulls that we're supposed to believe decorate the Slytherin
common room (they weren't there in CoS), probably also come from
Borgin and Burkes, where they are mentioned among the merchandise in
CoS, IIRC. Crabbe's(?) shrunken head, another Dark artifact of the
type sold by B and B, was confiscated by Filch, who found it with his
Dark detector. Just what properties a shrunken head may have in the
WW, I don't know (maybe it's used in voodoo <g>), but it's canonically
a Dark object. And a Hand of Glory is clearly a human hand, perhaps
that of a thief, cut from the living or dead body of its owner and
given rather sinister magical properties. I don't know about Snape's
dead slimy things, which seem to be related to ongoing Potions
research (why else would he have them?), but the House-Elf heads and
even the Troll's leg umbrella stand immediately caused Harry to think
(rightly) that he was in the home of Dark wizards.

At any rate, it Filch's Dark detector didn't detect the Hand of Glory,
it failed in its purpose, which was to keep the students from bringing
dangerous or sinister objects into the school. If it detected a
shrunken head, more grisly than dangerouse AFAIK, it would surely have
detected a Hand of Glory.

As for what constitutes a Dark object, I'm the first to state that HKR
hasn't given us a clear definition. But take a look around Borgin and
Burkes, or 12 GP during housecleaning, and you'll get a pretty clear
idea of the kinds of objects that the Dark detector would detect.

(An Invisibility Cloak, of course, has other purposes other than the
dark (small "d") purpose of thieving and plundering. As for the
Marauder's Map, it was labeled as an aid to mischief makers, and is at
least slightly dark, on the level of a hex rather than a curse.
Whether Filch's Dark detector was strong enough to detect it, I don't
know. Harry never had it with him when Filch searched him. (Which
leads me to wonder--was it the map rather than the bubble bath that
attracted Mrs. Norris in GoF?)

Pippin: 
> Draco could have tested the hand in ordinary darkness quite easily,
and would have had no reason not to brag about owning it before he
thought of using it as part of his plot to get DE's into the castle.
<snip>

Carol:
He could have tested it for himself, certainly. But since it gives
light only to the holder, no one else would have seen the
demonstration. Even in HBP, I've always thought that the DEs must have
had their hands on each other's shoulders, blindly following Draco
through the Peruvian Darkness Powder, with only Draco being able to see.  

Also, he would have had no reason to *own* it before HBP, having no
plans to disappoint his father by becoming a thief and a plunderer.

Pippin:
> On the letter, it may be we who aren't reading canon carefully
enough. I believe the inference is supposed to be that Sirius used the
letter as a bookmark and subsequently forgot about it, just as Harry
did in PS/SS. 

Carol:
I have no objection to its being a bookmark. What I wonder is what
it's doing in 12 GP when it would not have been sent there. Sirius had
not lived at 12 GP for six years when Lily wrote that letter. It would
have been sent to his other house. If the Ministry confiscated his
belongings, wouldn't they have kept them? If they sent his personal
belongings (even perhaps the wand that had ostensibly killed thirteen
people!) would the Black family have kept the treasured artifacts of
the son who broke his mother's heart? Alternatively, would Lupin or
Dumbledore, who thought that Sirius Black was a murderer, have found
the letter and given it to the Black family? Certainly we can rule out
a certain wizard living as a rat in the sewers.

pippin: 
> In PoA, Sirius says he was planning to go into hiding as part of his
secret-keeper charade. And what do we see Harry and Hermione do as
they're planning to go into hiding? Make arrangements for their
possessions. <snip>

Carol responds:
Interesting suggestion. But surely Sirius, granting him a practical
streak a la Hermione that we've never seen before, would have hidden
his precious possessions somewhere other than the house of the parents
who hated him?

Carol, who didn't even discuss the dating of the letter as we've been
through all that before