Snape Leg / ChapDisc: Erised, Invisibility, Socks / Manipulative / Weddings

[bboyminn]

No: HPFGUIDX 188495



---  "Catlady (Rita Prince" <catlady at ...> wrote:
...
> 
> << 4. Harry sees at least ten members of his family in the mirror. Two are his parents, and we can assume that four are his grandparents. Who do you think the remaining four-plus people are, and what happened to them? How could such a large family all die so young in the wizarding world, leaving Harry alone? >>
> 
> Personally, I believe that the people other than James and Lily (whom the Mirror could have pucked from Harry's buried memories) were fictional people, just painted by the Mirror with features resembling Harry's so he'd think they were relatives. *waves to Potioncat's <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188449>*
> 
> If they were pictures of real people, they could have been people from many generations and centuries back, so it would be no surprise that they were already dead. ...
> 
> Both pairs of Harry's grandparents died so young simply for authorial convenience, but I agree that it is so unlikely that it should have been made part of the plot. Say, that Death Eaters captured Lily's parents and tortured them to death in the name of making them tell the hiding place of Lily and her baby, or as a way to lure Lily out of hiding to take vengeance. If Petunia knew that wizards had murdered her parents for Lily's sake, that could have turned her personality from very ordinary to the monster we saw.
>

bboyminn:

I think we were not meant to look into this issue as deeply
as we typically do. Sirius said he stayed at James place until
he turned 16, then got a place of his own. That puts him in or
nearly in his last year at Hogwarts, and James' parents are 
still alive. 

However, probably no more than four years later, the Senior Mr.
and Mrs. Potter are dead, so they can't take Harry in. Kind of
a sudden death.

Now Lily's parents might have just been relatively old. They
did have two grown daughters that we know of. If their 
Daughters were in their 20's, then the parents could have been
in their 60's at the latest, and that's old enough to die of 
natural causes.

But, James grandparents and parents, being magical, would 
have had a much longer lifespan. Though I believe that JKR
said that the Senior Potters had James relatively late in 
life. I think that was necessary for them to be dead for the
convenience of the story. 

Still, if we assume everything about wizards life is twice,
or near twice, that of muggles, that would imply female
fertility up to 70 years or older. And that would make the
Senior Potter about 90 or a little more around the time
James and Lily died. But 90, while not young, is not really
old for a wizard. Still, people die at all ages, and I think,
though I'm not sure, that they may have died from some type
of wizard's disease.  

It is hard to make the numbers actually work out, and we know
JKR is no great shakes when it comes to Math. But the
circumstances are not unfathomable, just unusual. 

The other relatives could have been aunts and uncles, but if
the Potters were prone to having small families, they they
may have had to go back a few generations to find other
relatives like aunts and uncles.

While I certainly can't prove it, I'm not sure I buy the 
whole, 'the mirror made it up' idea. I suppose it could be
true, that Harry didn't actually see his family, only a
representation of his family. Still, I think it was real.

That brings up another thought, It is not possible for the 
Senior Potters to have lived more than 4 years after James
left Hogwarts. That makes me wonder if the Senior Potters
attended the Younger Potters wedding. If so, we would 
assume their pictures would be in the book Hagrid gave Harry.

While Harry may not recognize them, it doesn't seem to be
that hard to figure out who they are from the wedding photos.

So, I'm wondering if it wasn't the death of the Senior Potter
that enticed James and Lily to finally tie the knot. James
had just lost the last of his family, and I think he would
have liked the idea of starting a new family with Lily. So,
that could have been the push that prompted them to finally
get married.

So, if the Senior Potters were dead at the time of the wedding,
then they can't have lived more than 2.5 years after James
left Hogwarts. 

Just so you don't have to look it up, James and Lily were age
21 when they died. The left Hogwarts at 17, they died at 21,
Harry is about 1.5 years at the time of their death. 


...

> 
> << 7. Did you believe Dumbledore when he said he saw himself holding socks in the mirror? What were your theories on what he might have seen? >>
> 
> I always believed that Dumbledore HAD seen himself holding a pair of woolly socks. ..


bboyminn:

This is a tricky bit of word play here. Harry didn't ask what
Dumbledore saw WHEN he look in the mirror. He ask what
Dumbledore WOULD SEE IF he looked in the mirror.

What you see will change with time and experience. I perfectly
content man, as Dumbledore points out, would only see himself
as he is. Yet, to reach that level of contentment, I would
imagine the same person would see a variety of things at 
different time in his life.

Given how the question is phrased, while it seem clear
Dumbledore is not being totally honest, I don't think we can
quite say he was lying either. I know JKR said it, but again,
those interview answers are always the short version. I suspect
the long version is always much more complex.


> 
> Bart wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188448>:
> 
> << Well, the thing is that here were a series of traps designed to thwart even the most skilled of adult wizards, and three first years just happened to have exactly the right set of skills to get past them. ... >>
> 
> I figured that DD planned the traps AFTER he had noticed with whom Harry was friends. And even so, he noticed wrong: he planned for a Quartet, not a Trio. The Devil's Snare was for Neville, who was good at Herbology. ...
> 
> ...I think it has been suggested that the Stone was in the Mirror since summer and the Mirror was not behind those traps until DD was ready for Harry to find the Stone.
> 

bboyminn:

I've never thought the obstacles in the various chambers 
were specifically made to match the skills of the Trio. It
seems more obvious, that they reflect the talents, logic, and
mindset of the creators of the obstacles, as well as the 
mindset of wizards in general. 

Notice, that none of them were insurmountable. They all were
puzzles that had a solution; the plant, the flying keys,
the chess board, the phials of potions, and the mirror. 

Again, a reasonable and logical person would not have set
riddles with solutions, they would have made insurmountable
roadblocks. But, if we look outside of Harry Potter at 
magical lore in general, this is always how it is done in
old stories of wizards or genies/djinn. It is always a 
solvable puzzle; it is always a riddle. 

Consider the lore of the Sphinx, which is a traditionally a
guardian of tombs and their treasure. All you have to do to 
get past the Sphinx, is answer the Sphinx question. Though
few are logical or smart enough to do this. 

I think more than the obstacles being made for the Trio; using
wizard's logic, they were made to be obstacles that could be
passed, if you were smart enough. It is the great flaw in 
wizard logic, also in the logic of evil geniuses, never just
kill the hero or the intruder, always make it a game or puzzle,
that way the hero can escape and take down the evil genius in
the end. Typical. 

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bboyminn