Possession of the Cloak

[terri_testing]

“His passion … was the work he had taken over from Illyan….

No. The work Haroche had taken away from Illyan.

Oh.

… I’m blind, blind, blind! Motive! What’s an elephant got to do around here, to advance and be recognized?” Miles Vorkosigan in Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Comments

[madderbrad]

Wow, I love this observation:

So. Moments after agreeing with Harry that the Cloak couldn’t possibly have helped James or Lily, Albus contradicted this to tell Harry that the Cloak’s “true magic” is that it can be used to shield oneself and others simultaneously. I.e., that Lily maybe could have used it to sneak past Tom with Harry in her arms, had she been bold and cool-headed enough.

Excellent.

Mind you, these days I just like to collect Rowling errors - this makes #4,319 :-) - so I'd say this is another one of these. Because there's no way Rowling would have wanted us to think that Dumbledore deliberately placed the Potters in jeopardy like this, right?

Although - for whatever reason - he *did*. Thanks to your observation. All so Harry could have his nifty Cloak in book #1.

But Albus couldn’t risk Tom getting hold of the thing when he killed the Potters. Getting two of the three. Needing only to defeat the Deathstick’s master (which might be done by treachery or guile or chance; Tom didn’t have to be more powerful or brilliant than Albus in general to win a momentary, wand-stealing victory) to complete the set.

Yes, but moving the Cloak from Potter to Dumbledore does nothing in reducing the probability of Riddle completing the set. Actually, it *increases* the probability - with Dumbledore holding both Hallows then one single defeat of the headmaster will give Tom the set. Whereas by leaving the Cloak with James the number of battles/tasks/risks was doubled.

I suppose if one states that Voldemort was going to kill the Potters anyway then it's two-all. But still, taking the Cloak off James but only to keep it himself would not have made it any more difficult for Riddle to get all three.

[oryx_leucoryx]

OTOH if Harry was somehow going to vanquish Voldemort, were 2 Hallows going to be in the hands of the Potters? Will it become a fight between Albus and James?

2 Hallows in the hands of James?

[terri_testing]

Well, now, you notice that didn't happen. James didn't have his Cloak when Tom came calling. So there was never a chance that James would stand over the enemy his son had vanquished, claim the ring (It is fair to me, though I buy it with great pain), and unite it with the Cloak.

However, it's remotely possible, don't you think, that that might have been Albus's original idea for Harry? The Cloak, after all, is the only one of the Hallows only known to have been transmitted by legitimate inheritance/gift.

i never have been clear what Dumbledore's original scheme was, pre-discovering that Tom had left Harry not a baby Hero, but a baby Horcrux. I always thought, though, that Merlin/Arthur sounded like the flavor Can't you just see Dumbledore thinking of himself as The Second Merlin? Wisest and greatest of wizards, but who acts mostly through guiding his loyal and grateful king?

In which case, the whole dumping Harry on the Dursleys might have been just a slight modification of the original plan.

Which was to mold the boy-hero's upbringing. Have him raised by Wizarding foster parents who teach him what a proper Wizard should know, but leave him ignorant of his destiny. At the proper time, take the boy in hand personally. Allow the Heir of Ignotus to claim the Elder Wand, and then go forth on a quest to steal the Stone from Tom. And then the Master of Death can easily vanquish the Dark Lord, having the "power he knows not."

Might something like that work?

Of course, that plan still depended on Harry being available to be fostered. I wouldn't trust James Potter not to raise another "pampered prince" who wouldn't loyally (blindly) follow his mentor's every order, would you?

Re: 2 Hallows in the hands of James?

[oryx_leucoryx]

We don't know how closely the wizarding version of Merlin's biography follows our Arthurian legend, but Merlin's first act was to arrange for Arthur's conception. Which ties with Hwyla's speculation that the Prophecy was actually made before Harry and Neville were conceived.

Albus with Merlinesque aspirations? He must have seen himself as one step better than the original - being gay and celibate he was safe of the chance of being trapped in a tree by Nimue.

What was the reason given for Arthur's fostering? Because Uther was still alive.

Re: 2 Hallows in the hands of James?

[condwiramurs]

Haven't read Aurthurian legend for a while, so this might be off-base, but I believe at the time it was a normal practice to foster one's sons out to neighboring lords, and take theirs as foster children into your house, to be educated there, as a sort of exchange of hostages to prevent bloodshed.

Re: 2 Hallows in the hands of James?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Of course with Harry fortunately being a first-born, Albus was yet another step ahead of Merlin - no Morgan le Fay, no danger of producing Mordred. Now I'm wondering if Albus had anything to do with the sudden appearance of Harry's 'chest monster' in HBP because of the role of women in the downfall of Arthur (and Merlin). I'm not sure how this makes sense, but anything is better than Rolwing's horrible writing of the 'development' of this relationship.

Anyway Terri, these last two threads are such gifts! For years I was thinking of what Albus knew or thought he knew about Tom from a Horcruxes perspective. Rethinking it all from a Hallows perspective is like seeing a Necker Cube shifting.

[madderbrad]

Well, that's a secondary consideration; Terri's observation is that Dumbledore's main goal was to keep the set away from Riddle.

Once Voldemort was dead Dumbledore wouldn't care *who* had the Hallows, of course ... :-)

[sunnyskywalker]

If only there were some hidden room where Dumbledore could just ask, "I need a hiding place from which the person variously known as Tom Riddle or Voldemort can never, ever retrieve any objects I place inside..."

[annoni_no]

The only question I have is whether the room is even CAPABLE of fulfilling such an order. Malfoy was able to keep Harry out under all conditions, but Harry "The Chosen One" Potter is, to be quite, quite honest, more than a bit thick and has proven himself canonically to be generally incompetent in dealing with that room.

Room master Neville, on the other hand, was able to be even more specific and secretive than Malfoy, but according to Seamus, even under his direction there had to be someone in the room *maintaining* their current instructions at all times. Which leads me to believe that while the room *can* be used for hiding things, that's not what it was *designed* for, and is more of a useful glitch or spell hack that came later. The original room is the one Harry found trying to HBP's potion text: a glorified storage closet that continuously updated itself to accommodate the never ending stream of items that needed to be tucked away. Until some clever little humanoid convinced it to only a display a particular subset of its items at once in an easily accessible manner so they didn't have to hunt through miles and miles of junk.

Which is why Tom's horcrux ended up in the middle of a junk heap, regardless of what instructions he gave the room to keep it hidden and safe for all eternity: he wasn't there to maintain the order, so the room filed it away with everything else according to its original operating instructions.

[sunnyskywalker]

That would make sense as the way the room works (it's always bothered me). Hard to say, though. When they create the DA room, are the shelves and books etc. all pulled from the junk room, or does the room create temporary ones every time they open it, or do those actually become permanent objects once created and sent back to the junk room when not in use? (If the latter, then I'd ask the room to create a Tom-proof box. Or I suppose Dumbledore could put Hallows in a mokeskin pouch in the room - since we have a handy magical object which was never useful, someone ought to put it to good use.) Also, since the room can create a tunnel to elsewhere, maybe it could create a tunnel or portal to somewhere that is Tom-proof, if such a place exists. Or pull up a book with instructions for making a Tom-proof hiding place. I really wish JKR had made the room's limits clearer.

Of course it would have been much simpler if Dumbledore had just gotten over his obsession and destroyed the damn things, but we know that wouldn't ever happen.

[dracasadiablo]

It is annoying.
The room limits are never given in the books. We don't even know how it works.

From all we know somebody could have activated the room and said "I need a secure place, with all Voldy's horcruxs safely contained in it, plus books explaining how to destroy them and all tools to do it."
It would have saved us from the ridiculous scavenger hunt and the camping trip from hell.

[annoni_no]

Having the room generate its contents from scratch each time feels like vastly over-complicating, not to mention overpowering, the room. The sheer expanse of *things* that have been accumulated in that room over the centuries is probably enough provide almost anything anyone could possibly need.

If it is generating new items each time, how does it keep track of what spell books have been published, or what artifacts, tools, and other sundry equipment has been developed and what their specifications are? And why would anything the room displays ever be described as 'old'? Besides which, the room hasn't actually displayed much in the way of sentient understanding if we trust Dumbledore's story of the room generating multiple chamber pots instead of the one he actually needed. Further, Neville and the others had to constantly finesse the room's output: it didn't actually give them what they *needed* so much as what they were focused on *wanting* at the time, otherwise they would never have had a time where they were desperate for food - the room would have alerted them to its tunneling abilities from the beginning.

Room's Requirements

[terri_testing]

Clearly that the instructions of somebody IN the room overrule those of someone OUTSIDE the room, as long as they trouble to make it so (as Neville and Draco both did and Harry did not).

However, I don't think we can infer from that "fact" the further implication that no one can leave permanent/long-standing instructions for the room.

We already know the Room deals with multiple instructions from would-be users by a two-tiered system. First, it accommodates all requests if possible. "Let us in" is always accomodated unless someone else is firmly instructing "keep them out!" "Make washrooms" from the girls is accommodated as long as the boys don't say "no washrooms, that's for sissies."

If there are conflicting instructions that cannot both be accommodated, those of the people already inside are granted rather than those of would-be entrants. So the Room already is programmed to give absolute priority to requests from a user who is privileged in a specified manner (inside vs. outside).

We don't know what happens if two people, both inside or both outside the room, give mutually incompatible instructions.

But--what we do know doesn't rule out someone making hirself a system administrator. Giving it the instruction, "Give my instructions priority over everyone else's, even after I leave the room." As long as no one else had gotten in first with a competing instruction...

Indeed, that might be the basis of the headmaster/mistress's override I had previously posited (in my Headmaster Snape fiction). And Neville might have unconsciously done something similar--without specifying that his authority continue when he's out of the room--if there had started to be a problem with conflicting instructions once the whole DA started living there.

And yes, in that case, Tom could have theoretically have done the same.

However--in Harry's time, the DA's use of the room demonstrated some clear security flaws. Harry and the DA didn't think to hold the room shut against Unbridge and the IS, or to make tunnels to other parts of the castle so they could escape in secret, or to try to shut the room against their enemies after they left--Pansy was able to get the room to produce the DA roster.

So Draco would have started using the room for his lethal secret mission determined to avoid the DA's security errors. He knows Harry's snooping after him; he knows Harry's snooping about the room. (And he shuts the room specifically against Harry only; Sybil gets in with no problem. Oops.)

In fact, we know that thr room did NOT ever open to show Harry Draco's secrets. Even when Draco was not in there to hold it shut. Hermione's theory was that Harry would have to know what Draco was up to before the Room would grant him entry, but I don't see that "I need to see what Malfoy's doing in here" is at all vague. Or "I need to see the place where Malfoy keeps coming secretly," or "I need you to become the place you become for Draco Malfoy."

So I think Room-master Neville was wrong in that one particular, and that it is possible to give the Room instructions that last past one's own exit.

But--Tom certainly wouldn't have used the room for a Horcrux-hiding place if he thought a lot of other students were in and out of it all the time. I'm with Harry on that (shudders at the company she finds herself keeping), Tom presumably thought that this room, like the Chamber, was his own little secret.

(What if Tom thought the CASTLE were somehow responsible for bringing secret or discarded items there? The Castle's junk-room doesn't seem grand enough to be Tom's Horcrux-depository--but what if this Room were another of Rowena's fabled inventions? The first use of Wizardspace. Plus a spell, according to legend, that identifies and tidies up magical "unclaimed property:" castle artifacts deemed by the head to be superfluous/dangerous, abandoned experiments, lost enchanted items once the rightful owner graduates/dies.... But her spell doesn't Vanish these objects because they all embody magical knowledge, which should never be destroyed.)

So Tom, unlike Draco, wouldn't have been worried about security. If he thought no one else could enter it, what need to command the room to hide his secrets for him?

Re: Room's Requirements

[oryx_leucoryx]

(And he shuts the room specifically against Harry only; Sybil gets in with no problem. Oops.)

Not exactly. Neither Dobby nor Kreacher could get in either. I think Draco shut the room to *everyone* (or anyone not explicitly with him) while he was inside. Sybil got in because at that exact moment Draco was outside the room, at Borgin and Burkes (via the cabinet). He returned to find her there, tossed some Peruvian darkness powder and ejected her from the room (or perhaps the room ejected her when Draco returned and his instructions became valid again).

The room Draco was using was the general storage version. When Harry entered to hide the HBP's book he was able to see the cabinet. But he didn't know that was what Draco was working on there.

Do we know the other times he tried to enter the room Draco wasn't there?

but what if this Room were another of Rowena's fabled inventions?

Which makes it the most suitable and natural place to keep her Horcruxified diadem.

Sybil's entrance

[terri_testing]

Ooh, that's ingenious. It requires deus ex machina-level tight timing, and that the working cabinet transmit sound--and do so TO one location while AT the other location. (Neither of which was true when Montague was trapped; he couldn't make himself heard at all, anywhere, and he heard sound EITHER from the shop OR from Hogwarts, not ever both simultaneously. Whereas your theory requires Professor Trelawney, in Hogwarts, to hear Draco whooping in triumph while he's physically at Borgin & Burke's.)

I like your idea that the room itself might have pushed Trelawney out in response to Draco's return to mastery of the room. However, that it's Draco's return ITSELF automatically reinstating his standing instructions is contradicted by the fact that the room first went pitch-black. So the room did not hurl Trelawney out immediately upon Draco's return. Either Draco did, as you posit, have time to throw Peruvian Darkness Powder, or the room was obeying Draco's current mental orders, "Hide Me! And get rid of her?" in that order.

In either case, we do clearly have here the situation I earlier thought to be missing: a case of two people, both physically within the room, with directly conflicting requirements: "who's there?" versus "don't reveal me/get rid of her!"

And Draco wins hands down on both.

System administrator access, I tell you!

Chapter 21 of HBP has Harry try for a solid hour to get in while he knows Draco is elsewhere. Later in the chapter Harry tries repeatedly to gain entrance while Draco IS in the room. Both attempts fail equally.

BTW, my theory still works despite the elves if Draoo's instructions had been "keep Harry Potter and any of his followers from seeing what I am doing!" Though one would think it would be more natural to bar everyone....

Re: Room's Requirements

[annoni_no]

"(What if Tom thought the CASTLE were somehow responsible for bringing secret or discarded items there? The Castle's junk-room doesn't seem grand enough to be Tom's Horcrux-depository--but what if this Room were another of Rowena's fabled inventions? The first use of Wizardspace. Plus a spell, according to legend, that identifies and tidies up magical "unclaimed property:" castle artifacts deemed by the head to be superfluous/dangerous, abandoned experiments, lost enchanted items once the rightful owner graduates/dies.... But her spell doesn't Vanish these objects because they all embody magical knowledge, which should never be destroyed.)"

But where in canon is there any evidence for such a legend? Shouldn't it have come up in conjunction with the minor theorizing we do get about the Room, considering this would it put on par with Salazar's Chamber of Secrets in terms of grandiosity, besides being several thousand times more useful? How is this more plausible than the idea that Tom was pacing back and forth in a lightly trafficked corridor (possibly before he'd found the Chamber) trying to think of a place he could use as a private retreat for planning/experiments/holding illegal contraband/etc (whatever Tommy *needed* at the time) that was grand enough to satisfy his bloated ego?

If he was still searching for the Chamber, or had recently found it, he might even have been experimenting with spells he'd crafted that were designed to seek out and reveal concealed chambers. All he'd have to do to find the RoR would be pace back and forth before the door several times focused on what he wanted (a grand secret chamber forgotten by everyone but him). If his spell was just sensitive enough to tell him there was *something* unique about that corridor during his initial pass, he could have easily been convinced that he had a legitimate discovery on his hands. Further, there probably wouldn't be any description on record matching the interior the Room displayed for him, so he'd probably be ridiculously pleased with himself. And why wouldn't he think his horcrux was safe there if no one else, even the in the known historical records, knew where the room was or even that it existed in the first place? Beyond that even, if he just wanted a secret room connected to the glory of the Founders, why didn't he actually hide a horcrux inside the CoS, which is also a chamber (he thought) he alone knew the entrance to and where he would have a basilisk acting as guard dog?