Invisibility (was Re: OMG!)

[Judy]

Phyllis wrote:
>>> I've always been more intrigued by how Dumbledore was able to 
become invisible without a cloak (which has never been adequately 
answered, has it?) than as to why James left it with him in the first 
place.  I just assumed James knew he and his family were being 
targeted by Voldemort, so he left the cloak with Dumbledore for 
safekeeping (since presumably he didn't need it, given that he was 
being protected -or so he thought - by the Fidelius Charm).  Although 
I suppose once Pettigrew betrayed the Potters, they could have hidden 
under the cloak when Voldemort approached their home.  Hmmm. <<<

First, about Harry's Invisibility Cloak, and why Dumbledore had it.  
When I read in Book 1 that Dumbledore had given Harry the 
Invisibility Cloak, I figured that Dumbledore had possession of the 
cloak for the best possible reason -- namely, the fabled "Plot 
Device" Charm, which allows the author to avoid all sorts of 
difficulties (such as, if Harry had had the cloak all along, he would 
have been able to use it to hide from Dudley) while throwing in some 
good suspense (as in, "Just who gave Harry the cloak???") 

I hadn't thought there was any significance to Dumbledore having the 
cloak until now, when JKR said so on her site.  JKR now says 
there "IS a significant - even crucial - answer" to the question of 
why Dumbledore had the cloak.  See 
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=23 

So, what could this reason be?  I don't think it's simply that 
Invisibility Cloak are rare, making it a problem if Voldemort got his 
hands on one. After all, there are other Invisibility Cloaks around.  
Moody had one of his own, I believe, and then "inherited" a second 
one when Barty Crouch Jr. got soul-sucked.  So, if Voldemort really 
wanted one, he would have just gotten one from someplace.  

So, I see two other possibilities for why Dumbledore had the cloak.  
One possibility is that Dumbledore had some special use for James' 
Cloak, although I'm not sure what, exactly.  To protect Harry?  But, 
presumably leaving the cloak with James would work best for that. 
Also, Hagrid doesn't have Harry in the cloak when he shows up with 
Harry at the Dursleys' home.  And, even if Hagrid used the cloak to 
hide baby Harry at some point when when he transporting him, Hagrid 
himself was too big to hide under the cloak, so presumably it would 
still be noticeable that he was carrying something. So, it doesn't 
look like the Cloak was used to hide infant Harry after his parents 
were killed. 

The second possibility I see is that maybe there was something 
special about James' Invisibility Cloak, which made it essential that 
it not fall into Voldemort's hands.  Could it have belonged to one of 
the founders?  Dumbledore says that "the only known relic of 
Gryffindor remains safe," and points at Gryffindor's Sword.  Perhaps 
by "known relic," Dumbledore meant publicly known, or known to 
Vodlemort.  In that case, the cloak could be Gryffindor's, but if no 
one but Dumbledore knew it, then the cloak wouldn't count as a 
*known* relic. Or perhaps the cloak belonged to someone else 
important, or had some other sort of important "provenance" that 
would have intrigued Voldemort? I wouldn't expect the cloak to be 
Ravenclaw's -- I really believe Ravenclaw's relic will be a wand.   

I've long found it odd that Dumbledore doesn't count the Sorting Hat 
as a "known relic of Gryffindor," since it was Gryffindor's hat. I 
also recall that ages ago, JKR said the Sorting Hat would have a 
larger role in the future.  Maybe something special happens if you 
wear both Gryffindor's hat and cloak. (Add in his boots, and you have 
the whole set!)  I really want the Sorting Hat to somehow 
unexpectedly help Harry, as it did in Book 2, although I suppose when 
JKR said the Hat would have a larger role, she might just have meant 
the Hat's warning song in Book 5.  

Ok, now, about Dumbledore using invisibility in Book 1. When I read 
Book 1, I wondered how Dumbledore was able to become invisible, and 
whether it would ever be explained.  Since then, I've started to 
think that maybe being invisible isn't that big of a challenge. 

In one of the books, Harry is in the library, and is described 
as "hidden in the invisibility section."  JKR presumably intended 
that to be a bit of irony, but it does imply that there are enough 
books on invisibility to fill a whole section of the Hogwarts' 
library.  Of course, this isn't *proof* that any of the books have 
useful information -- the many books on divination are presumably 
useless -- but it does make it *probable* that there are many working 
invisibility spells. It should be much easier to tell if a 
invisibility spell works than to tell if a divination method does, so 
if few of the invisibility spells worked, I'd expect people to stop 
writing books on them.

Invisibility pops up again with the Disillusionment Charm, which we 
first see in Book 5.  Moody performs it to protect Harry as 
the "Advance Guard" escorts Harry to Orders HQ.  Of course, Moody is 
quite an accomplished wizard, so my thought at the time was perhaps 
that the Disillusionment Charm was quite difficult.  (Especially 
since Tonks or someone congratulates Moody on doing such a good job 
with it.) But then, the self-defense pamphlet that the Ministry 
issues at the beginning of Book 6 says that to make sure that "all 
family members are aware of emergency measures such as Shield and 
Disillusionment Charms." This makes it sound as if anyone can do a 
Disillusionment Charm, kind of as if the Disillusionment Charm is 
the "plastic sheeting and duct tape" equivalent of the magical world. 

On the other hand, we see in Book 5 that many of the students Harry 
teaches in the DA can't even do a Disarming Charm, let alone the 
Shield Charm.  So, maybe young wizards can't do the Disillusionment 
Charm either, and JKR intends the MoM's self-defense pamphlet to be 
ridiculous (as these pamphlets usually are), advising the populace to 
do all sorts of things that many of them simply aren't capable of 
doing. 

You would also think that, if invisibility charms were easy, students 
at Hogwarts would be forever going around invisible.  So, maybe 
invisibility isn't easy, or maybe Hogwarts has some sort of charm on 
it that prevents most forms of invisibility (but not invisibility 
cloaks) from working.   This wouldn't prevent Dumbledore from being 
invisible in Book 1: as Headmaster, Dumbledore would have the 
authority to lift Hogwarts' anti-invisibility spell, just as he 
lifted the anti-apparition spell so that 6th year students could take 
apparition lessons in the Great Hall.  Also, I'd expect Dumbledore to 
be able to get around many of Hogwarts' defenses even if he *weren't* 
Headmaster, given his skills. 

-- Judy, still wondering why Dumbledore had the Cloak, but not too 
concerned about his invisibility in Book 1