Possession of the Cloak

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

“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

A word in a prepositional phrase can sometimes make all the difference in the world.

Why was Albus in possession of the Cloak at the time of the Potters’ deaths?



Marionros wrote in answer to my post positing that Albus hadn’t originally suspected Tom of creating Horcruxes because Albus assumed instead that Tom (who’d apparently come into possession of the Resurrection Stone) was hunting Hallows:

This might be the reason why Albus so desperately wanted James (and thusly James' minions) in his Order straight out of school, and why Albus let the Marauders run wild while still at school. James was the descendant of the Peverells and the owner of the Cloak. Heaven forbid that James ever, ever threw in his dice with Tom's lot.

Well. If Albus had had his eye on the Peverall/Potter cloak for years….

*

We listened to Albus confirm all Harry’s guesses on the matter at King’s Cross:

“You have guessed, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously…. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look…. and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!”

His tone was unbearably bitter.

“The Cloak wouldn’t have helped them survive, though,” Harry said quickly. “Voldemort knew where my mum and dad were. The Cloak couldn’t have made them curse-proof.”

“True,” sighed Dumbledore. “True.”

“…somehow, we never discussed the Cloak much, Harry. Both of us could conceal ourselves well enough [truer words!] without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner.” (DH 35)

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.

And had she in fact possessed the Cloak.

Which Dumbledore took before Harry’s birthday, not in late October as he told Harry. And which he kept. For months.

Despite knowing that the Cloak’s rightful owner, and his family, were being hunted. In mortal peril. In need of a way to hide.

Lily’s letter to Sirius, written in early August: “James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell—also, Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions.” (DH 10)

Still.

Meaning, Sirius had already been told that Dumbledore had taken the Cloak. However, it’s news to be imparted that Peter visited “last weekend” and shared the news about the McKinnons. So as of Harry’s birthday it had been a week, at least (most likely—not likely much less, and quite possibly much more, depending on how often Lily sees or writes Sirius) since Dumbledore had “borrowed” it.

And it’s news to be imparted that Dumbledore still has it.

Meaning, Sirius might reasonably have expected the item to have been returned by now.

That “still,” and the mention of James’s frustration at being denied his little excursions, carries a very faint whiff of implication that maybe James hadn’t expected the loan to go on for quite so long. “May I borrow it for just a few days, to examine it more closely?”

A few days which somehow, inexplicably, dragged out for three months. To the end of James’s life.

*

That Cloak, which “can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner,” was not kept from its rightful owner’s possession despite Albus’s concerns that Lord Voldemort might be catching up to the Potters. Albus kept it because of those concerns.

*

Albus was willing, while he thought there was no immediate chance of wresting the Stone from Tom, to leave the Cloak in the custody of his loyal supporter, knowing full well that he could “borrow” it whenever he chose.

If there was no imminent prospect of uniting all three, having indirect access was quite sufficient.

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.

So once Albus decided Tom might be closing in on James and Lily, he took the Cloak.

Decreasing their chances of surviving the coming encounter, of course, but for the very best of causes.

For the Greater Good, really. “To save others from it.” To protect it.

We should applaud his selflessness.

Clap.

Clap?

Comments

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

"(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?

Re: Room's Requirements

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

"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..."

Again, why should we assume such sweeping powers? We may not have anything to rule out such carte blanche authority, but we have nothing supporting it either. Isn't it just as likely that the room can be blocked to others even when the initial 'architect' is away for only a limited time? Personally, my theory is that Draco spend a good portion of his initial time in the room not just trying to fix the cabinet, but experimenting with the limits of the room itself. To keep out anyone but those invited, he'd have a potion brewing the corner - one that took days, if not weeks or months to complete. Then he could give the room specific instructions to retain his surroundings exactly as he had left them, allowing no one else into the room but him (especially not that B*rk Potter and his cronies)until the potion was complete. Wash, rinse, repeat until the cabinet was fixed. This gives him complete authority over one manifestation of the room, but it's not so open-ended and all encompassing that he rules it for all eternity. If he hadn't returned before the potion was complete and had instead just left it there, I suspect the room would have just tucked the full cauldron away in general storage after whatever safety margin of time Draco had given himself had passed without his arrival.

If a mere student, even a prefect, *did* try to impose an eternal command on the room to keep something hidden, or particular people out, or what have you, then I think the Room would try to fulfill that order for as long as possible, maybe even for years (or until that student's graduation), but eventually it would revert back to its basic storage function. The only people I'd be comfortable claiming had such completely authority over the room would be the Headmaster and duly authorized teachers in the school (and then I suspect there would be limits as to what the room was capable of doing).

The Room's enough of a game breaker as it is without assigning it even more power.