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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 188497


Bboy: 
> 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. 

Pippin:
But Dumbledore is reasonably and logically trying to stop an enemy who can't die, and who is able to break through the most powerful protective spells that Dumbledore knows. 

The obstacles do display advanced and powerful magic -- IMO the Trio wouldn't have been able to set them up even as 7th years --  they just don't take powerful or advanced magic to defeat. 

Thus, the theory that they must have been designed so that our first years could get past them. And so they were -- by JKR. But Dumbledore has a different motive.  Dumbledore believes that Voldemort's knowledge and command of magic is greater than his,  so why  play to the enemy's strengths? OTOH, Voldemort is weak on logic, fears the unknown, and tends  to fix on one or another of his goals, to the detriment of the others. As Harry intuits,  "Snape" won't want to go after the Stone until he's discovered in advance how to get past all the obstacles guarding it, and we don't know whether Voldemort ever succeeded in this. Perhaps not.

We do know that Voldemort discovered how to get past Fluffy months before he worked himself up to go after the Stone. We know it caused him a lot of mental effort to make himself do it, which Harry sensed as pain in his scar. Perhaps Voldemort knew that Quirrell was weakening and wouldn't be useful for much longer, so it was now or never.  

We  might also remember that Harry did not quite clear the course. It might not have been as easy to find his way out with the Stone as it was for Ron and Hermione to leave without it.

Pippin