[HPforGrownups] Re: CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 12, The Mirror of Erised

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 188547

> 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?


Shelley:
Not for a second, do I believe the sock story. Harry himself pretty much 
doubted the sock story from the beginning, feeling that Dumbledore was just 
holding back the truth from Harry. We pretty much know that Dumbledore is a 
much deeper man than that, not being concerned with clothes the way Dobby 
would have been, or wanting vain trinkets, such as Slughorn did with candied 
pineapple or a good bottle of wine, so that "socks" could have been 
considered a truthful answer. Even an old, original copy of some book might 
have been a more truthful and believable answer for Dumbledore than "socks".

I think Dumbledore felt deeply about his past mistakes, and desired a world 
where his mistakes had not torn apart his family. I think he might have seen 
in the mirror his tiny sister whole and healthy (never abused) and able to 
be the bright young witch free to reach her full potential, his mom still 
alive, his dad still home as a loving father, and himself having a warm 
relationship with Aberforth. I think he might have seen his family as an 
intact unit that was free of the divisions of his real family, a family free 
of regrets and sorrow, a family free of abuse and disability, a family free 
of division and separation, a family free of pain. I think that as he looked 
into that mirror, it would only deepen the pain in his heart, because just 
as Harry found out that the mirror couldn't ever bring his dead parents back 
to life, the intellectual part of Dumbledore would have known that mirror 
could never restore to him the lost years of his dad in prison, Ariana's 
illness, the deaths of his mom and Ariana, and the disastrous consequences 
of his summer with Gellert. That's why he put it away, so that it wouldn't 
suck him into deeper despair over his past, or be a constant reminder of all 
the regrets he had that things could have turned out differently. I think 
that Dumbledore knew that if Harry continued to stare at that mirror, he too 
would just be sucked into a place of more pain, for it isn't healthy to live 
in a fantasy world where the bad things in your past never happened. A 
heathy person finds a way to deal with that hurt and pain, to move on, and 
he wanted Harry to grow up not contantly thinking of badly of himself for 
being an orphan, or tied to that thinking of "only if my parents had still 
been alive, then I could..."

It was brilliant of Dumbledore to put the Mirror of Erised as a trap for 
Voldemort, for Voldemort being greedy would only see his desires for eternal 
life, for the Stone, and not be wise enough to realize that it was trick of 
something that could never be.