Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1.  I am truly in awe of how well-planned this series is.  So many characters were mentioned by name in the opening chapters of SS who only later come to be extremely important.  In chapter one, when Dumbledore asks wehre Hagrid obtained a flying motorcycle, Hagrid responds that he borrowed it from "Young Sirius Black."  Mrs. Figg is introduced as Harry's babysitter in chapter two.  And it's not just characters.  Major plot points are introduced incredibly early in the series-- we just don't realize they're major until later.  Of course there's Harry speaking to the snake in the zoo, but also more minor things; for example, McGonagall asks Dumbledore if he can "do something" about Harry's scar when Dumbledore drops Harry off on the Dursley's front stoop; Dumbledore responds, "Even if I could, I wouldn't.  Scars can come in handy."  How true does that turn out to be throughout the whole series?  The examples are really endless and I'm sort of kicking myself for not having a highlter in hand while I was re-reading (of course that might make me the biggest dork ever, and more importantly, these aren't my copies of the books).  Basically, rereading SS has made it utterly clear to me what an incredibly genius JKR is.

 

2.  I know we talk about it frequently, but SS reinforced for me just how much we don't know about Dumbledore and his past, and I really hope those questions are answered in Book 7.  A few specific examples that struck me:

- Dumbledore's biography on the chocolate frog cards reads, "Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.  Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling."  Two things about Dumbledore's biography interest me.  First, we have yet to hear anything of the dark wizard Grindelwald or Dumbledore's defeat of him, for which it seems he is most famous.  Second, what are the twelve uses of dragon's blood?  They are mentioned-- though not stated-- exactly three times in book one, and (if I recall properly) never again.  I have to believe that every aspect mentioned of Dumbledore's past is important.  Will dragon's blood come to be important in Book 7?

- When Dumbledore finds Harry looking in to the Mirror of Erised, Harry asks Dumbledore what he sees when he looks in the mirror.  Dumbledore responds, "I?  I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks . . . one can never have enough socks . . . Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair."  The chapter closes with the following: "It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful.  But then, he thought, as he shoved Scabbers off his pillow, it had been quite a personal question."  What does Dumbledore really see in the Mirror?  Is he lying here?  The question interests me because we've debated for a long time now about what Dumbledore sees when he drinks the potion in HBP.  And if he really sees socks, is that just a quirky detail or does it have deeper meaning?  It may seem silly, but socks are pretty meaningful in the Harry Potter world-- I mean, just think, without a sock, Dobby would never have been freed!

 

3.  I continue to fail to understand Dumbledore's actions in SS.  After reading it cover to cover, it really does seem like he knows what's happening all along and lets it happen.  I mean, he knew Voldemort would try to get the stone.  He took precautionary measures to make sure that didn't happen . . . but why the big show?  Why not just destroy the stone in the beginning if he knew the damage it would cause?  When Dumbledore visits Harry in the infirmary at the end of the novel and Harry asks if Dumbledore received Hermione's owl, he responds, "We must have crossed in midair.  No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left."  If he knows what's going on, why would he have left in the first place?  When Harry questions Dumbledore about whether Voldemort is gone for good, Dumbledore responds, "While you may only have delayed his return to power, it will mrerely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems like a losing battle next time-- and if he is delayed again and again, why, he may never return to power."  But this doesn't make sense.  Dumbledore already knows the prophecy at this point (Although, I must say the next few paragraphs-- in which Harry asks Dumbledore for "the truth" about why Voldemort came to kill him on that night and Dumbledore responds, "The truth . . . it is a beautiful and terribly thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution . . . Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you.  Not today.  Not now.  You will know, one day . . . when you are older . . . when you are ready" -- ties in SO nicely with his explanation of the prophecy in HBP).  Anway, back to my point.  Dumbledore knows about the prophecy.  So how can he say that maybe if one person and then the next and then the next can keep Voldemort at bay then maybe he'll never come back?  When Harry, Ron and Hermione discuss the events that led them the the stone, Hermione says she was dashing up the the owlery to contact Dumbledore "when we met him in the entrance hall" (meaning Hermione never sent an owl, which draws into question his earlier statement that the two "must have crossed in midair), and Dumbledore says, "Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?"  Ron then asks, "D'you think he meant you to do it?  Sending you your father's cloak and everything?"  Harry surmises, "I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance.  I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know.  I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help.  I don't think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked."  I've got to say . . . they make some convincing points.  It really does seem like Dumbledore knew what they were up to all along . . . so why in the world would he let them go through with it?  Why would he let any of this play out in the first place?

 

4.  OK, bear with me.  There was this article a while ago on how McGonagall may be evil.  Well, frankly I found the idea so unreasonable that I didn't even read the article, so I don't really know what points it made.  And it would still take a lot to convince me that McGonagall is the evil one, but after rereading book one . . . I can see where they get that idea.  I'm probably just nitpicking, but consider the following points.

- McGonagall showed up in Privet Lane the day of the Potter's murder of her own accord-- not under Dumbledore's orders-- and her reactions do seem a bit questionable.  When Dumbledore first seems the cat on Privet Lane, he says, "Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall," indicating that he's surprised to find her there.  She responds, "How did you know it was me?", which indicates that she is surprised to be recognized by Dumbledore (especially curious seeing as we later learn that animagi are required by law to be registered-- shouldn't her cat form have been known?).  McGonagall then goes on a fishing expedition in which she questions Dumbledore to find out if Voldemort is really gone, if the Potters are really dead, and if/why Harry survived.  Among the more interesting things she says: she admits that Voldemort "had powers I [Dumbledore] will never have" but says, "Only because you're too-- well-- noble to use them."  I find the "well" interesting.  It's like she was searching for the right word.  McGonagall becomes especially interested when it comes to what stopped Voldemort: "'You know what everyone is saying?  Abotu why he's disappeared?  About what finally stopped him?' It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point seh was most anxious to discuss, the real reason the had been waiting on a cold, hard all all day, for niether as cat nor woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now."  When they get to the subject of Harry, she says, "It's-- it's true? . . . After all he's done . . . all the people he's killed . . . he couldn't kill a little boy?  It's just astounding . . . of all the things to stop him . . . but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"  She does seem awfully astounded that just a boy could beat Voldemort and even more curious as to why.  One of McGonagall's first questions to Dumbledore upon seeing Harry is, "Couldn't you do something about it [the scar]?"  Dumbledore immediately responds that he wouldn't if he could because scars can come in handy.  McGonagall's not an idiot.  Wouldn't she have known that?  Why is she so quick to try to get rid of the scar?

- The first attempt on Harry's life is Quirrel's attempt to jinx him in to falling off his broom.  But it's McGonagall who put him in that position in the first place.  Even after he'd ignored a teacher's direct order and flown on his broom (even though Madame Hooch threatened expulsion to anyone who did so), McGonagall doesn't punish him-- instead, she puts him on the Quidditch team and arranges to bend the rules so he can have a broom as a first year.  I understand she wants her house to win the cup, but this is SO out of character for her.  At other times in the novel she doesn't shy away from taking fifty points from her own house for breaking lesser rules.

- It's McGonagall who halts the trio's progress toward the stone.  When they go to her demanding to see Dumbledore and insistent that someone will steal the stone, she is, of course, shocked that they know about the stone, but she "eyed him with a mixture of shock and suspicion" and says, "Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow . . . I don't know how you found out about the Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it's too well protected."  I get that she doesn't believe these first year's tale about Snape wanting to steal the stone, but given that they know about the stone in the first place-- where it's located, how it's gaurded-- isn't it a little odd that she doesn't even check on it?  And isn't it strange that the stone was stolen under her watch?  She is, after all, deputy headmistress, and like I said before, she's not an idiot.

- Despite everything else I've just said, this is the one that really gets me.  Each teacher was responsible for a portion of the mystical obstacle course that led to the Stone.  When Harry, Ron and Hermione make their way past each obstacle, there is evidence of someone else's recent passing.  Hagrid's trap is "Fluffy;" there is a harp at it's feet indicating that someone has already passed by.  The flying key needed to open the door is battered, indicating that it has already been used.  Quirrell's troll is "out cold with a bloody lump on its head."  The potion Harry needs to drink to walk through the fire is already partially gone-- Harry says, "There's only enough for one of us . . . that's hardly one swallow."  My point in all this is that the course doesn't "reset" itself for each passerby.  In each room, there is evidence that someone has already walked through . . . each room except the chessboard.  It's made clear twice in SS that McGonagall's trap is the chessboard.  When Hermione is reasoning out the obstacle course, she says, "McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive," and when Dumbledore awards Ron fifty points for "the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years," Percy screams out, "My brother, you know!  My youngest brother!  Got past McGonagall's giant chess set!"  It's also clear that playing the game causes massive destruction: "Their first real shock came when their other knight was taken.  The white queen smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, facedown . . . Every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed no mercy.  Soon there was a huddle of limp black players slumped along the wall."  So why is the board set up for play when Hermione, Ron and Harry walk in as though Quirrell never played?