Sorcerer's Stone: Harry Potter's Flood Of Letters From Hogwarts

[TB]

Early in Sorcerer's Stone: A Hogwarts letter arrives addressed to Harry Potter in the Cupboard, but Uncle Vernon confiscates it. Harry Potter is moved to the Smallest Bedroom.

The next day, another letter arrives, addressed to Harry Potter in the Smallest Bedroom upstairs (how does Hogwarts know where Harry SLEEPS?). The day after that, 3 letters for Potter arrive before 7 am, right into Uncle Vernon's lap.

Vernon boards up the mail slot, but on Friday, 12 letters arrive for Potter, pushed under the door, slotted along the sides of the door, and pushed though the downstairs bathroom window.

Vernon boards up the cracks in the doors, but DOESN'T board up the windows. On Saturday, 24 letters are hidden inside eggs and handed through the living room window by a confused milkman.

On Sunday, 30-40 letters come down the chimney! At that point, Vernon packs up the entire family and drives them to the Railview Hotel in Cokeworth. 100 letters are waiting for harry the next morning, so the Dursleys and Potter drive and boat to the Hut On The Rock on The Sea. At midnight that night (Tuesday, July 31, 1991) hagrid arrives to gove Harry his Hogwarts letter.

At any time between Harry Potter being moved to the Smallest Bedroom and that Sunday when the Dursleys started their field trip, why doesn't Dumbledore just have an owl with a Hogwarts letter just fly up to Potter's bedroom window at night and tap until Harry opens it, then let Harry remove the letter and read it? (I assume that owls had dropped the letters into the chimney that Sunday).

[Joe Bernstein]

On Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 12:12:58 PM UTC-7, TB wrote:

> At any time between Harry Potter being moved to the Smallest Bedroom
> and that Sunday when the Dursleys started their field trip, why
> doesn't Dumbledore just have an owl with a Hogwarts letter just fly
> up to Potter's bedroom window at night and tap until Harry opens it,
> then let Harry remove the letter and read it?

Y'know, I'd meant to resist replying to any more of your myriad
objections to the plot of seven out of the thousands of books this
newsgroup deals with, but then you had to go and give us an easy one.

Because Dumbledore's goal isn't just to get Harry the letter, but to
establish that the Dursleys can't indefinitely prevent, with respect
to Harry, anything the magical establishment really wants. Getting
the letter to Harry by subterfuge wouldn't accomplish that.

(Also, isn't the smallest bedroom under the stairs? I don't remember
it as having a window, but I'm *definitely* resisting letting you
prod me into actual re-reading.)

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer and tax preparer <j...@sfbooks.com>

[Moriarty]

Don't let TB turn you off a re-read. I'm currently doing just that and they hold up very well.

-Moriarty

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <aac3bc8e-01dc-4660...@googlegroups.com>,

Anyone have any opinions on Cursed Child yet? The Telegraph gave the stage
presentation rave reviews, but I'm not sure I want to read a script.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[TB]

The smallest bedroom is upstairs, and it has a window. You are thinking of the cupboard where Harry was housed until the Hogwarts letters started to arrive.

[David Johnston]

Because Potter had no bedroom and no window.

[TB]

After the first letter, Harry Potter was moved from the cupboard to an upstairs, window equipped bedroom. Hogwarts somehow learned of the move, and of the fact that Harry hadn't received his letter, and the next day, sent another letter under the new address!

How is Hogwarts spying on Harry Potter?

[Cryptoengineer]

TB <tsbr...@dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in
news:18e69b0b-89c3-4046...@googlegroups.com:

"A Wizard Did It"

Which is also the solution for most of the HP questions you've
raised recently.

pt

[David Johnston]

They have big balls. Made out of crystal.

[TB]

HP's crystal balls haven't struck me as being very reliable!

[Joe Bernstein]

> Don't let TB turn you off a re-read. I'm currently doing just that
> and they hold up very well.

Oh, I'm not at all opposed to re-reading, sooner or later. It's just
that sooner is problematic in a whole bunch of ways, which include
library due dates and such. Access is also, believe it or not, an
issue; I'm pretty sure several volumes of the series were among the
books I lost five months ago today, and whatever volumes I do still
own are buried deep in my storage unit.

Of course, it's also possible that he's sworn an oath to post ten
new objections to the books' plot every day for the next five years,
in which case not re-reading until he stops becomes a less plausible
strategy.

-- JLB

[Robert Carnegie]

Especially about the future.

(Quote Investigator <http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/>)

However, I think in _The Wizard of Oz_, the Wicked Witch's
crystal ball only worked like television. To view at a
distance.

What's going on in that part of the story is that the
wizard world is saying to the Dursleys: You can stop
Harry from getting our letter, but you can't stop us
/sending/ the letter. And you can't stop us knowing
where Harry is. Then the climax is when Hagrid
turns up.

In-story, it's a situation where wizard laws about
limiting contact with Muggles applies. It also has
a whimsicality about it which to me suggests
house-elves. I'm imagining Dumbledore telling
a Hogwarts elf, "See to it that the letter is
delivered and Harry receives it", with some
additional advice about how Muggles address letters
to a particular location. (I don't remember,
but you seem to indicate that with wizard post,
you just tell the person's name to an owl.)
And so, what happens, happens.

[TB]

So Dumbledore is just lording it over the poor Muggles!

>
> In-story, it's a situation where wizard laws about
> limiting contact with Muggles applies. It also has
> a whimsicality about it which to me suggests
> house-elves. I'm imagining Dumbledore telling
> a Hogwarts elf, "See to it that the letter is
> delivered and Harry receives it", with some
> additional advice about how Muggles address letters
> to a particular location.

So a house elf could have just popped right into Harry's new bedroom to deliver the letter! THAT option, I hadn't thought of! Such an option might have proved useful in the later books when the MoM was clamping down on all forms of communications!

(I don't remember,
> but you seem to indicate that with wizard post,
> you just tell the person's name to an owl.)
> And so, what happens, happens.

That is what seems to happen. Just tell the person's name to the owl, and the owl can track him down, even if the person is in a house protected by the Fidelius Charm!

[TB]

On Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 11:22:36 PM UTC-7, Robert Carnegie wrote:

Yet in book 2, the MoM can't tell the difference between magic performed by Harry Potter, and magic performed by a house elf!

[Robert Carnegie]

House elves are discreet. They work without being seen.

And I think Dumbledore very much enjoyed messing with
the Dursleys. He's only (super)-human. And they weren't
kind to Harry.

[TB]

Wouldn't it have been better for Dumbledore to say "I'll treat you with respect if you treat Harry with respect!"?

[TB]

Wat that attitude leftover from the two months he spent plotting with Grindelwald to take over the world?

[Robert Carnegie]

It could be. With hindsight, we see Dumbledore went on making
some serious mistakes throughout his life.

[TB]

Why couldn't Dumbledore make the Dursleys treat Harry like a member of the family?

[Robert Carnegie]

Oh, sure! Imperius Curse. No.

Do you remember if an actual love potion appears?
Other than Veela scent.

[TB]

Ron injested some love potion in book 6.

I was figuring on Dumbledore sending the Dursleys some Howlers, as he did in Book 5. Or he could come in person while Harry and Dudley are at school.