Thread response post #3

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

A LOT of interesting storylines have been running lately. Anyone who has a second, link to a thread or two of interest, and a comment about it, and I'll copy it into the post.

Here are mine:
-Whoever guessed the Mirror of Erised would be in Buckingham Palace was correct. We still need to figure out what Harry saw, though.

-The kids wonder how Muggles ever got along without wizard favors. That's like taking the wands away from wizards and then wondering how they ever got from place to place without cars.

-I cheered at Tonks breaking free of the Crouches.

-The sympathy between Pansy and Sirius is great. "Hello, dangerous criminal." "Hullo, rabble-rouser." I hope they get a chance to meet in person someday. Also, Remus and Sirius's interactions are so sad.

-Amycus's evil Christmas message made me laugh.

-At 11, shouldn't Harry be too old for "let's be friends because our parents are friends"? It struck me as another example of how he is oddly childish sometimes, which I suspect is due to an upbringing where he was rarely encouraged to think for himself or take care of himself.

From travelintheways:
-I found Draco's Christmas post very interesting: "Mostly, I wish that things and people would just let Harry alone! He's never done a bad thing to anyone and he's a much pleasanter person than me, so, I wish that... they would just let him be." For the most part, Draco's been staying in his canon character, and I found this outburst of genuine empathy touching and intriguing. He must mean all the, ah, attention Harry's receiving after bumping into the Mirror.

Comments

[travelintheways.livejournal.com]

Posted just after you did, I found Draco's Christmas post (http://alt-draco.livejournal.com/4017.html) very interesting: "Mostly, I wish that things and people would just let Harry alone! He's never done a bad thing to anyone and he's a much pleasanter person than me, so, I wish that... they would just let him be." For the most part, Draco's been staying in his canon character, and I found this outburst of genuine empathy touching and intriguing. He must mean all the, ah, attention Harry's receiving after bumping into the Mirror.

Draco's been in a foul mood too lately. I'm wondering (and I may not be recalling the thread quite correctly): did Draco see something in the Mirror too? Now that's something I'd LOVE to know about.

With Harry thinking about how hard the LP's younger life was (the sympathetic soul that he is), and how he used to think the LP didn't love him, I'd wager a Chocolate Frog that his desire had something to do with family/parents who loved him - not much different from canon Harry's desire, really.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I bet Draco did look in the mirror. I'm extremely curious to know what he saw there as well. But now that he knows what the inscription means, and therefore what it would reveal about himself, I doubt he'll ever tell anybody but Harry. I'm definitely keeping an eye out for hints, though.

I thought Lucius's response to what Harry saw in the mirror was very interesting, especially the last part, which I'll bold: "that artifact may be curious, but it is not something with which you ought to concern yourself. Strictly speaking, you ought not to have been in that part of the palace at all, but it's understandable that thoughts of Christmas presents sent you prying. As to its lies, remember that the key to seeing through an illusion is to call to mind clearly that which you know to be true. Discard the rest so that you may separate what is real from what is false."

He could be talking about the fact that the mirror shows what you want rather than what is true, and you shouldn't be sucked into the fantasy too deeply, like Dumbledore said... but it would also make sense for him to respond that way if what Harry saw in the mirror was his real parents, and Lucius was trying to do damage control. He might tell Harry that the mirror was evil and trying to corrupt him or turn him against his Father, and that Harry had to be strong to resist the lies it showed him. Of course, this would be before Harry and Draco figured out what the inscription on the mirror meant.

But then why would Harry's response to the mirror be: "Anyway I spent a lot of time thinking about Father. He must have had a really hard time when I was younger. I used to think that he sent me to be with Mr and Mrs Malfoy so much because he didnt love me very much but now I know that's not true. He was just so very busy with important things."

I guess maybe if he saw himself with a loving family in the mirror, it made him feel guilty for being disloyal by not already considering his Father to be a loving family, so he is telling himself these things publicly to try to convince himself and alleviate his guilt about his private thoughts about his Father.

Or maybe what he saw in the mirror was himself with a loving Voldemort, rather than with the Potters? But then it would be hard to make that fit with Lucius's post. Hmm.