Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (novel)/Headscratchers

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Where'd the Hogwarts Song Go?

 * After the sorting and the feast on the first night, everyone sings the Hogwarts school song. After this book the song is never mentioned again. After making it seem tradition to sing the school song every year, why would it never show up again? Kinda pointless, but it just bugs me.
 * It is stated that Dumbledore only sings the song when he's in a good mood. It's not very hard to imagine that Dumbledore has a lot on his plate since Harry's encounter with Voldemort.
 * For what it's worth, the song showed up in the Goblet of Fire movie with Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid singing it just before Harry finds Crouch Sr.'s body.
 * Also, Harry, and thus the POV, wasn't present for the whole opening feast in his second year. They could easily have sung it then, as well.
 * Conservation of Detail. Unlike the sorting itself (which introduces new characters), the song does nothing now that we have heard it already. Just assume that they sung it the rest of the years, but it wasn't worth mentioning.
 * Exactly. We don't see the Gringotts inscription every time they go to the bank.
 * But it doesn't have to be written out in full or anything. It takes five words: "They sang the school song..." and then move on to some other important business.

Who'd Ever Want to Be King?

 * In the chess game, why don't the protagonists take the place of more important pieces, including the king? That way, they'd be much less likely to be sacrificed.
 * The goal is to get to the other side, and that's kind of unlikely if you're playing the king...
 * So why don't they just take two Rooks and a Queen?
 * In the book, this was Ron's choice; the pieces walked off after Ron decided. (Adaptation Decay occurred in the movie, in which they took the place of three pieces that were missing when they got there (or, in the knight's case, the rider was missing)).
 * Actually, according to the book, the only way across was to *win* the match. So replacing the King wasn't a bad idea at all.
 * If I recall, they had to win in the movie, as well. Harry announcing "Checkmate!" was what finally let him through.
 * Hmm, wonder why he didn't try that trick sooner? (JK.)
 * Also, it's mentioned that the first capture is rook takes bishop. Any actual chess player knows that this is an extremely unlikely first capture.
 * It's queen takes knight. Don't know how likely that one is, myself.
 * Not very. Usually, a likely first capture is "Something takes Pawn" or "Knight takes something".
 * The first few moves aren't mentioned at all. It's mentioned as a shock when the queen takes the knight, but there's no indication as to when this takes place in the game. Then the castle bishop move happens, which could be possible if the game is in an advanced state of play.
 * At least in the movie, the first capture is pawn takes pawn, and it occurs on White's move 2.
 * It's really not that inconceivable that a magical chessboard designed to keep people away from one of the most valuable treasures in the world and Ron Weasley, king of chess, would have made it to the middle game without losing any pieces.
 * In high level competition, assuming the players choose to start with one of the Closed openings, it is not infrequent that you can get to well past move 20 without any captures taking place.
 * Actually, since the knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces, and the Trio are the black pieces, you can lose the knight to the queen in just five moves.
 * The King cannot be taken in the game at all. A game ends with checkmate, where the king is in danger of being taken with no moves out of it. At no point does the king get defeated. Considering they needed to win the game, taking the place of the king would actually be the safest place, as it's an all-or-nothing game.
 * Yeah, Ron made a foolish choice there. At least one character (presumably himself, since he plays The Strategist for the duration of the match) should have been the King and avoided unnecessary danger. The plot wouldn't need to be affected; just choose Harry or Hermione as King instead and Ron still gets to sacrifice himself.
 * Well, look at it from JK Rowling's perspective. Ron had to sacrifice himself for character development, and Harry had to win the game because he's "The Hero", so the only person who could be the King would be Hermione, but that would seem sexist, like saying just because she's a girl she has to wait in the wings while the men do all the dangerous things. In-universe, there's not really an excuse, though.
 * In the movie, Hermione was the queen-side castle, and that, actually, is arguably the piece that most commonly takes the longest to get developed into the action, and, aside from the Kings, the most likely piece to last all the way to the late endgame. When this troper and chess player saw the movie, he immediately assumed that Ron was being subconsciously protective of Hermione when he assigned her to the queen-side castle.
 * None of them would have willingly put themselves into safety if their friends were facing potential harm. Even if Ron did think of it, it would have just led to an argument.
 * So it was a case of Honor Before Reason?
 * That is a trope well-loved by Gryffindor. Just look a couple chapters back when Neville tried to stop the Power Trio from leaving Gryffindor Tower.
 * He didn't know that people would be hurt by the chess pieces at this point, did he?
 * Seeing as how he grew up with wizarding chess, which is essentially Battle Chess on a real chessboard, I'd say that if he didn't know, he should have guessed it.
 * In the movie, he didn't know, hence he sacrificed a pawn to test if it was just like a real Wizard's Chess game. In the book, I forget if this was the case, since it has been years since I've last read it.
 * It's only in the movie that the pieces destroy each other at all. In the book, Wizard's Chess just means that they move on their own. In that particular game, the opposing side liked to make captures by viciously punching out the defeated opponents. They had no way to know that until they saw them do it.
 * Actually, the chessmen in the books are also violent and physical. Perhaps not so much as the white chessmen, but they still enjoy beating up the competition a bit.
 * On a not entirely related note, but still about the chess match, when Ron is taken by the white queen, it says he takes one step forward. Forgive me if I'm wrong, as I do not claim to be an expert on chess, but can't knights only move in L-shapes? How could Ron move forward only one step?
 * Maybe he took a really big step in a diagonal direction and/or the squares were relatively small.
 * I always assumed step = move, as in he made one L-shaped move forward.

Hey Vernon, It's (almost) Halloween!

 * Okay, so, this just bugs me. In the first chapter, Uncle Vernon is on his merry way to work, and sees a bunch of people standing around dressed in cloaks. This takes place on November 1st, the day after Halloween. So why are his thoughts "what are these people doing dressed like that" and not "Halloween was yesterday, you freaks"?
 * Uncle Vernon doesn't have a sense of humor, as noted by Harry a few times. Chances are that Vernon wouldn't be clever enough to make such an observation anyways.
 * Well, Halloween isn't really celebrated as much in England. At least, they don't dress up and make a big deal like Americans do.
 * We do now. Blame Eagleland Osmosis.
 * But did they do it in 1981?
 * It'd be surprising if Vernon even knew what Halloween was, to be honest. An out-of-universe explanation may be that Rowling hadn't set the date of Voldemort's defeat yet.
 * Um, Hagrid says Harry's parents were killed on Halloween later in the same book. And the news guy which Vernon listens to says that Bonfire Night, which is celebrated in early November, is "next week".
 * What always bothered me is that the story starts on 'a dull, gray Tuesday' which also happens to be November 1st, which would make Bonfire Night, the 5th, on Saturday, which is not next week, but the same week.
 * Wait... Voldemort is defeated for the first time on All Hallow's Eve? Deathly Hallows? Mind = blown.
 * Vernon Dursley probably tries as hard as he can not to ever think about Halloween, given its association with the occult. He can't even bring himself to use the word "wizard" in his internal monologues that same day.

A Stone in Flamel's Hand is Worth None in the Mirror

 * How does Flamel get the stone out? It's established that he'll die without the elixir, so he logically must take the stone out from time to time. Yet, the spell prevents anybody who actually wants to use it from getting it (which is a stupid method of security btw), and if Quirrell was unable to get it (as he planned to give it to his master), then Flamel shouldn't be able to obtain it by sending somebody to get it for him either.
 * Dumbledore probably knows the counterspell. Not to mention that he didn't want to live forever, anyway.
 * It was his masterpiece, so Flamel himself could probably retrieve it from the Mirror by longing to hold and admire his prize creation again.
 * The stone was only put into the mirror by Dumbledore at the beginning of the school year. Before that, it was in a vault at Gringotts, so it would have been easily accessed by Flamel. As for Flamel needing it after it was put in the mirror, I'm guessing that either 1) Dumbledore knew a counterspell (as stated above) or 2) Dumbledore, in his very near omniscience, guessed what would happen with Harry and thus knew that Flamel wouldn't need the stone again.
 * I think Flamel wanted to die. He was six hundred and fifty eight years old!
 * It was said that Flamel and his wife had some put aside; who's to say they didn't have enough for the school year stocked up? After the end of the term, the castle would be essentially empty, and they could safely retrieve more for the next year.
 * The answer to your question is right there in the book. The Stone had been in a Gringotts vault. Once it went to Hogwarts, Flamel and his wife were living off Elixir they'd set by. Harry got the Stone out of the Mirror & it ended up in his pocket. When Dumbledore rescued Harry, he presumably took custody of the Stone. The Stone was then destroyed (somehow) before Harry woke up in the hospital wing. Flamel and his wife still have enough elixir remaining to "set their affairs in order" and then they will die. And they're okay with that.
 * Uh, what? You're implying that Dumbledore destroyed the stone himself. It's a bit more sensible to assume that it got destroyed during the fight between Harry and Voldemort-Quirrell.
 * Um, Dumbledore outright states that the stone survived the battle between Harry and Quirrell and that Flamel elected to destroy it so that it wouldn't fall into evil hands.
 * The rule was that someone who wanted to find the stone but not use it could get it out of the mirror. Presumably Dumbledore could have retrieved it for Flamel if he decided he needed it, since Dumbledore himself wouldn't have wanted to use it.
 * Have to make a correction here.. the stone WAS NOT in the mirror before Chirstmas..since remember Harry sees the mirror on Christmas night? Since if the stone HAD been in the mirror before Chirstmas..what would have been the point of Fluffy, Devil Snare, the key-birds, Chess, the troll and the Potions protection.
 * Hey, makes for a good distraction. If you were looking for an important magical artifact, where would you look; at the back of a closely guarded gauntlet or in a side room in some corner of the castle?

There's Only Power, And Those Too Weak To Seek It... Oh Yeah, and There's Me...

 * If "there is only power and those too weak to seek it", then where do people who DO grasp it fit in? Do they become power?
 * You're trying to make sense of the words of a man who willing allowed a face to magically appear on the back of his head?
 * It's a mantra/slogan. It's not meant to be taken literally, but to embody the idea of his philosophy in an short, elegant, and forceful way. You know how poets get poetic license to make their poems sound better? Same thing here.
 * "I am power incarnate" does sound like the sort of thing a Death Eater would say.
 * Especially the sort of thing that the founder and leader of the Death Eaters would say.
 * Just don't think of it. Trying to make sense of the thoughts of the insane will only drive you into insanity.
 * Those who "grasp it" and shed all the annoying fetters of "good" and "evil" in the process become powerful. From his point of view, power is an end -- the ultimate end -- in and of itself; things like morals, empathy, and remorse only get in the way, and are fittingly only held by the weak. (This kind of thing becomes a lot easier when you write off people who don't think like you as beneath notice.)

Stone-Cold Voldemort

 * How was the Philosopher's Stone supposed to help Voldemort regain his body? He's neither alive nor dead and has no body to age or die, so what exactly is the Elixir of Life going to do for him?
 * The stone has other properties, such as being able to make gold. Maybe one of its properties would allow him to regain his body (or, rather, grow a new one) somehow?
 * Maybe he was going to make himself a body out of pure gold. Well, This Troper would have, at any rate.
 * A body of pure gold would be ineffective, inefficient, Easy to destroy, very conspicuous (If his plan was always to hide in the shadows and slowly take over), and immobile, at that.
 * Goldemort, anyone?
 * He could use the elixir to reanimate a corpse and inhabit it, perhaps?
 * Actually, there already is a way to do that in-universe: inferi. And Voldemort already made a lot of those. Presumably Voldy wanted something better than an animated corpse.
 * This Troper always imagined that the elixir would become part of a regeneration potion, much like what Voldy eventually cooks up in GoF.
 * In real life alchemy, the transmutation of lesser metals into gold symbolizes the soul of the alchemist reaching perfection and purity. The Stone would strengthen Voldemort's soul enough to allow him to completely take control of Quirrell's body.

The Most Muddled Halloween Ever

 * The timeline of the first chapter of the first book bugs me. Voldemort is first destroyed on the evening of Halloween 1981 (Book 7 shows that the murder wasn't that late, as there were still children trick or treating around). The book begins on the next day, November 1st, and follows Vernon's day. From the morning, wizards everywhere are aware of what's happened, and that Harry survived the killing curse. Not only that, but McGonagall learns from Hagrid that Harry is to be moved to Privet Drive and makes her way there in cat form before Vernon goes to work. Hagrid only arrives with Harry in his arms after midnight on November 2nd, over 24 hours (and probably close to 30) after the attack. Hagrid says he came straight from the Potter house, where he snatched Harry before the Muggles could gather around the partially destroyed house (meaning he got Harry sometime during Halloween night). What the fuck took him so long to deliver Harry to Privet Drive? Over 24 hours? On a flying motorcycle? Even a normal one wouldn't have taken that long! Why wouldn't Dumbledore send members of the Order who could apparate to get Potter and deliver him? Or in a pinch, ask McGonagall; she clearly had nothing else planned for the day, as she spent it sitting next to the Dursleys' house.
 * How would Muggles even see the Potters' house anyway? They can't see it in book 7, and it still is under the Fidelius charm, as Peter is still alive.
 * This one Just Bugged the Harry Potter Lexicon too.
 * Perhaps the Secret wasn't where the Potters' house was, but the fact that these were the wizarding Potters. If James and Lily wanted to buy food, take baby Harry to a hospital if he gets sick, and so on, it could've been more convenient to pass themselves off as Muggles than to conceal their physical location. Lily was Muggle-born and knew how to live safely among her parents' kind, so they used Peter as a Secret-Keeper for the fact that they weren't just another British family with the "Potter" surname. A hundred Death Eaters could've passed by the house and noticed its "Potter" mailbox, yet seen only an uninteresting Muggle family when they peered in the windows to check.
 * Who, being Death Eaters, they would have murdered for shits and giggles anyways. Why do you assume that the Death Eaters would be leaving random Muggles alone at the height of Voldemort's power? I mean, Voldemort blew up some innocent Muggles just because he stopped by their house by accident while looking for the guy he was trying to kill at one point in Deathly Hollows!
 * Or looked in the phone book under "Potter", since we typically don't put names on our letterboxes here.
 * Deatheaters, being mostly arrogant purebloods, probably wouldn't know a phone book if they saw one, let alone try and look up a name in it.
 * About the wizards knowing what happened as fast as it did, remember a few things. Wizards have near instantaneous communication thanks to apparitions and the floo network. Owls have been flying to and fro during the day, presumably informing a lot more people. The wizarding community in the UK seems to be both small and tight-knit (notice that EVERY adult wizard and witch in the books seems to know each other, unless they happen to be foreign). Finally, news of something this huge would spread like wildfire. Given all of those factors, I wouldn't be surprised if news traveled across UK wizards as fast as it did on the Internet, and 24 hours is plenty of time around here to find out pretty much anything major that's out in the open.
 * I'm fine with Wizards hearing the news that fast. Heck, Muggles would have had news travel as fast, if not faster. I'm bugged by what happens to Harry during those 24 hours...
 * Sirius probably took him to watch the horse races while the Order tried to figure out what to do with Harry. Then he realized "oh shi- it was Pettigrew", and handed his godson and motorcycle off to Hagrid.
 * Except Hagrid's own account of the meeting in book 3 says the meeting was short, with Sirius giving Hagrid his bike. Also, Sirius already knew that Wormtail was the traitor, as he came to the Potters' house after realizing Peter wasn't home.
 * It's possible that Dumbledore told Hagrid to hide somewhere safe and meet him the next night at the Dursleys', while Dumbledore spent that day putting up the protective charms around their house and getting other various things in place (possibly getting Ms. Figg moved into the neighborhood?) so that everything was set so that Harry was fully protected the instant the Dursleys took him in.
 * Also, there seems to be a little confusion relating to Dudley's age (or Harry's). It's stated in the book that Harry is only a month younger than Dudley, yet Dudley is described as being old enough to walk and talk relatively well (Quote: "...kicking his mother all the way up the street, demanding sweets"- not baby steps and the occasional "mama"). On the exact same day, Harry is a tiny baby swarthed in blankets, despite being a year old.
 * I always assumed the "kicking his mother all the way up the street" was far from literal (although now I see that it probably meant kicking her shins as they went up the street), and that Dudley's repertoire could easily have been as small as "mama", "da", "wanna!", and "swee'!" (since he wouldn't necessarily have needed any grammar beyond shouting until he got candy or whatever he was pointing at). I've seen a one-year-two-month-old capable of all that, and Dudley would actually have been a year and four months if I'm correct in the knowledge that V-V Day was at the end of October. On Harry's side, Hagrid was carrying a sleeping Harry, which combined would make him seem much smaller and less aware (and therefore younger) than he really was, and Dudley got his size from Vernon (certainly not from Petunia unless it was a bunch of recessive things, and we see from Marge that being large runs in that family) while Harry's parents were not noted to be of unusual size.
 * This troper began crawling when she was eight months old, did that for about a week, and then started walking. By her first Halloween, she was running, and she was born in Decemeber (ten months old). So, it's totally possible for a fourteen-month-old.
 * Also, as is shown in the photograph in Deathly Hallows, Harry was developed enough to be riding around on a toy broomstick before his parents' death.
 * Considering how he had just survived an unsurvivable curse, baby Harry was probably being checked over by a wizarding pediatrician in the interim, to make sure he was all right and to tend to that nasty wound on his forehead.
 * Considering that at that time, only Voldemort died, and as news traveled fast in the wizarding community, it's very possible that the Death Eaters all knew of their Dark Lord's death, especially when they have that dark mark on their wrists practically giving this detail away. It'd be common sense that the more loyal Death Eaters probably would have gone to find the person who killed Voldemort to enact revenge. At that time, Dumbledore probably had Harry kept in a safehouse of some sorts, until he felt it was safe enough to allow Hagrid to take Harry to the Dursleys. Also, they probably had to set up a number of false leads to prevent any Death Eater from trying to follow Harry's trail, or at least deceive them long enough until an Auror could capture them and send them to Azkaban.
 * Or Hagrid went to Godric's Hollow, got Harry, and started going to Privet Drive all on foot, and Sirius intercepted him en route.
 * This seems the most likely, since Hagrid isn't a fully-qualified wizard and we never see him Apparate during the series. (When he flew out to the Hut on the Rock later, he probably meant "flew on a Thestral".) Then again, why would he try to walk from Godric's Hollow (in the West Country) to Surrey (near London)?
 * Maybe he was planning to take a bus.
 * Night Bus, anyone?
 * Is it that much of a stretch to say that Hagrid might have just gotten lost, and it took him a day to find the Potter house? Sure, he said he came straight there, but he could've been covering for himself.

Lily Potter - First Loving Mother Ever?

 * Could it really have been unusual that a person threw him/herself in front of another to save their life? I know it's a brave thing, but to an extent, any mother might have done that. Are we meant to believe that there are no other cases of this happening?
 * Maternal instinct. Mammalian species that lack it are very likely to wind up extinct. Seriously...
 * This has been covered before on the other Just Bugs Me areas. Voldemort had, prior to attacking the Potters', agreed that he wasn't going to kill Lily and would spare her if possible. Thus, why he tells her to step away from Harry. The fact that she voluntarily sacrifices herself in exchange for Harry, rather than being targeted from the start, is what saves Harry. If Voldemort had been out for her from the beginning, it's highly possible we wouldn't have a story.
 * I still don't know if that does it. I mean, c'mon, wizarding history is thousands of years old, and in all that time, even something that marginally more specific has never happened?? So, just to name one kind of example, in all those countless wizarding wars, no one ever suddenly voluntarily jumped onto the proverbial grenade for someone else?! And so on.
 * It's entirely possible it has happened before, but there were vastly different circumstances. For one, the caster of the killing curse probably didn't use a Horcrux, meaning that the caster just died. It's probably not a famous case because it happened to no one important, or in the worst case scenario, the person saved died because no one found them in time, plus no witnesses to what exactly happened. Walking in on the scene, you'd see three dead bodies: two killed by the killing curse and one dead from starvation. You wouldn't think someone sacrificed themselves for the child and a rare magical rule took the life of the murderer, but rather a murder-suicide over a child's forgotten body.
 * Good point. Even replaying the sequence of events from the killer's wand would only reveal that the murderer's own wand had finished both curse-victims off.
 * Living Memory!Riddle in Chamber is pleased when Harry tells him that it was Lily's love that saved him - it validates Voldemort's belief in Harry having no special ability against him, in and of himself. If Riddle knew about The Power of Love vis-a-vis magical protection, it's safe to say that this kind of thing has happened before, albeit rarely. Hell, the Department of Mysteries had the Love room - it's probably just uncommon enough that this exact type of situation would occur.
 * For that matter, if it hadn't happened before, Dumbledore himself probably wouldn't have been certain as to why Harry had survived.

Dumbledore's Gone? Everyone Panic!

 * In HBP, a big to-do is made when Harry needs to talk to Dumbledore, and he's off traveling (really collecting memories). In the very beginning, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid are all delivering baby Harry to the Dursleys. Did nobody notice that RIGHT AFTER THE FALL OF VOLDEMORT, when the Death Eaters were still pretty strong (the ones who weren't hiding or trying to convince everyone that they were under the Imperius Curse), the two highest-ranking school officials and the fairly Badass groundskeeper are all gone? What if a student has an emergency- McGonagall was Head of House back then, wasn't she? Later books imply that she's pretty much always able to come to the rescue, whether it's Harry having nightmares/visions or Ron nearly getting attacked by a convicted murderer with a foot-long knife.
 * Special circumstances. At the height of Voldemort's power, there wouldn't be weak defenses protecting the castle, even if Dumbledore was absent from the school. Most Death Eaters were confused and probably very disorganized during the first 24 hours in which their leader was defeated, and wouldn't be willing to strike anywhere without gathering the truth on what happened to Voldemort (which is why the attack on the Longbottoms is inferred to be a few weeks or even months later, with loyal Death Eaters looking for information on Voldemort). Most people underestimate the other teachers (especially the heads of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff) who no doubt would have been able to pick up the slack if there was an emergency, and Dumbledore would definitely made arrangements for such an event.
 * It probably didn't take the teachers too long to get there and back, what with Floo Powder or Apparation.
 * McGonagall was there in front of the Dursley house for an entire day before Dumbledore arrived.
 * Yeah, but she could have gone back to Hogwarts if the need arose. Which it didn't.
 * It seems likely that, with Voldemort down, the DE weren't organized because there WAS no 'deputy' in place to fall back upon. Voldemort's quest for immortality obviously made him think he was already invincible, so the DE were probably in confusion at this point. I agree that it seems silly that the adult protection of the school just up and left at this time... particularly since it seems likely that the Longbottoms were being tortured to insanity while they were chillaxing around the Dursleys, since Bellatrix & co. went after them right after Voldemort fell to torture answers out of them.
 * Keep in mind, they are at war against the most powerful and evil wizard in history. Most likely, Hogwarts was protected by a ton of magic defenses and probably even a few Aurors. Any kind of attack could have been fended off long enough for a quick Apparation to get Mc Gonagall and Dumbledore. Saying that the three not being there meaning that Hogwarts is undefended is like that the President is helpless because his two best Secret Service agents and his gardener are off for the day.
 * This, and Dumbledore probably didn't tell anyone he was leaving Hogwarts in any case. They didn't want Harry's location to be generally known any sooner than necessary, in case the remaining DEs found some way to circumvent the protections he'd had at the Dursleys'.

Hogwarts Sure is Roomy...

 * Assuming roughly ten students per house, if Gryffindor is average, that's forty new kids a year. Which is about two hundred and eighty students total, in a castle with hundreds, if not thousands, of rooms. How much wasted space is that?
 * For probably not the last time, Rowling admitted that she couldn't do the math, and that it was supposed to be more like some 750 students. And you are most likely severely overestimating the size of the castle, since the second-tallest tower was only seven stories at the top level. Even if the first three to five floors had the same sort of room density as the dungeon areas shown on the Maurauder's Map paper that came with the sixth movie 2-disc DVD set, which I highly doubt, it would still only be in the lower hundreds. The wizarding world had just been through two wars, and the post-war birthrate increase from the end of the Time of Death Eaters (if there was one) would only have just started affecting the population of Hogwarts around Harry's third and fourth year. Finally, there are explicitly and canonically a lot of empty rooms, and it's hinted to be Bigger on the Inside (and canonically has Chaos Architecture).
 * Actually, the 'highest tower' (if you mean Gryffindor Tower) was taller than 7 floors, because the Fat Lady's Portrait, at the entrance to the Common Room, was on the 7th floor. There were then stairs leading upwards to the dormitories.
 * The murder of Harry's parents ended one of the bloodiest wars in wizard history. Considering that they were in a state of war, there was probably a significantly reduced birthrate as couples avoided having children or were killed. So Harry's class is likely much smaller than the average incoming group of 1st years.
 * Rowling invented only ten specific characters per house, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other red shirts in the background, as the text repeatedly indicates. The actual number of students is never given in the text, and Rowling has repeatedly given numerous contradictory answers in interviews. It is probably best left unanswered.
 * This troper believes people frequently underestimate not only the student body of Hogwarts but the size of the pureblood community in Wizard England as well. JKR really liked to highlight the pureblood wizard families that have died out at least through paternal lines or are down to a few, if any, heirs. She possibly did this to explain why so many pureblood families support Voldemort and the racist fervor running so strong in the Wizard World. Not to mention there is something of a 'hidden' middle class in the Wizarding world of descendants of muggleborn wizards. AKA those from a family of wizards but not yet considered a 'pure' family. JKR did not even really touch on that population at all.
 * I choose to explain it as a result of the Chaos Architecture. The castle is like a fungus; living but not sentient, just moving, rearranging, and, most importantly here, growing.

Best Friends on a Last-Name Basis

 * More for the whole series, but why do Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy refer to each other by surname all the way through? Even in Britain, that's not usually done amongst peers.
 * It's probably pureblood culture to refer to others by family name.
 * This seems likely, as most purebloods come from old wizarding families with recognizable names. Calling each other by their last names reaffirms their pureblood status. Conversely, they probably consider calling muggle-borns by their last names to be a form of contempt (to them, "Granger" is an insult in and of itself because it's not a wizarding name, "Weasley" is an insult because everyone knows the Weasleys are Muggle-lovers, etc).
 * Actually, when I was in school (around the time the books were written, incidentally,) there were some kids who thought it was fashionable to call each other by their last names. I never understood it myself (my guess was they were mimicking football players or something), but yeah, it's probably based more on blood status then anything else.
 * I was at secondary school during the same timeframe that the books take place in. I went to a grammar school - they only took the top 30% of pupils, had a long and proud history, and pupils were in houses (based on where they lived rather than aptitude/preference). The only real differences between my school and Hogwarts was that my school was an all-boys school, and wasn't a boarding school (and didn't teach magic). At my school, teachers addressed pupils by surname from day one, and that's also how most pupils addressed each other for the first few years.
 * It could be symbolic of their relationships - Malfoy treats Crabbe and Goyle as minions, rather than friends, and refers to them as such. This is compared to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who treat and regard each other as equals and real friends.
 * For what it's worth, I distinctly remember Pansy Parkinson referring to Blaise Zabini by his first name, not his surname, in HBP (she was goading him for finding Ginny attractive). Extra evidence that it was really just a personal foible for Malfoy to call Crabbe and Goyle by their surnames despite their closeness, not a Slytherin thing.
 * They were also at a boarding school. It can be quite common for people to refer to each other by surnames there.
 * Exactly -- a lot of boarding-school novels follow this pattern. (Tom Brown's School Days comes to mind.) I'm sure it's less common today, but Hogwarts also still uses carriages, so in that sense it's probably a deliberate anachronism.
 * It's just how they talk. They seem to call everyone by their surname, including Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
 * This troper went to an all-girls non-boarding school and called quite a few of her friends by their surnames. Some of them were to prevent confusion- between two Katherines, Taylors, or Emilys, for example-, but plenty of people whose surnames were used were the only one in the nakama/general area with that name.
 * This troper went to a British mixed comprehensive and addressed several of his friends and acquaintances by their last name. It's not massively uncommon.
 * Besides, can you really imagine them calling each other anything but their last names? "Hey, Greg, can I see that book of poisons?" "Of course, Vincent. Here you are." I just can't see it.
 * I can't see Goyle asking Crabbe for a book, but that's beside the point.
 * Some people are just like that. I know several people who are referred to only by their last names, including by their spouses.

Hermione Granger, World's Fastest Learner

 * How come Hermione is so knowledgeable at the beginning of term? Her parents are Muggles: it all seems to imply that she did not know magic and wizards exist until a little more than a month before.
 * A theory is that she got her Hogwarts letter when she turned 11 around the middle of September the year before she went to Hogwarts (the cutoff date for acceptance seems to be for birthdays on August 31st). Because of which, she had access to a lot of magical books for almost a year before she started Hogwarts. It's also possible she's just a really smart person and reads very well for her age group. She does mention that Harry was in three separate books, so it's pretty much handwaved when you first meet her that she's a person that reads a lot.
 * That's pretty much Hermione's defining character trait: She reads a lot. Once she learned she was a witch, she dove headfirst into a pile of books and didn't come out until the term started.
 * She says before the Sorting that she learned all her subjects by heart before the term began.
 * And who can blame her? Seriously, I'd do the same. Sure, I already was a geek in school, but still. Would you really ignore the books that can teach you how to levitate things, change into an animal (which of course wasn't in the first year's books, but I'm being hypothetical), and other amazing things? In fact, I think that Muggle-borns, while maybe not very familiar with the magical world, are more ambitious in terms of their magical education than people who grew up in the wizarding world. For wizards, while going to Hogwarts surely is exciting, it might be more similar to finally going to highschool for us. However, for a Muggle-born, it's like entering a completely new world with endless possibilities.
 * Well, mind you, Hogwarts students don't usually get their letters on their birthdays. Remember, the only reason Hagrid came on Harry's birthday is because all prior letters had been unopened and destroyed. There's most likely a fixed date they're sent out, and Hermione is just wicked smart.
 * It's very likely that she is just a superior student who reads a lot; A Running Gag throughout the series is that she'll know something that even Ron, who was born and raised a wizard, doesn't know, and she'll say "Honestly, have you ever read 'Hogwarts, a History?" or "History of Magic" or a similar book.
 * Hermione is a year older than her peers. After receiving the letter, she waited for a year, presumably only reading and learning books about magic.

All Bad Wizards Are Slytherins! Except for Him... and Him... and Him...
I'm not complaining that Hagrid disliked Slytherins or that his statement was proven wrong when Pettigrew turned out to be bad. I'm complaining that Hagrid's belief as presented would only have made sense if Sirius had been a Slytherin. (And I think the story would have benefited from this nuance.)
 * Hagrid tells Harry, basically, that not all Slytherins are bad, but all bad wizards are Slytherins. Obviously, this isn't true, as Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor. His allegiance wasn't common knowledge at the time, but was he really the only non-Slytherin in Great Britain ever to go bad? But what bugs me more is Sirius, who, because of this statement, I assumed to have been Slytherin until it was revealed otherwise. If Hagrid believes in Sirius's guilt, why not mention the exception? It wouldn't be appropriate to tell the whole story to an eleven-year-old, especially since it involves his own parents' murders, but that's never stopped Hagrid from accidentally letting things slip. Alternatively, if Hagrid knows or even suspects that Sirius was falsely accused (as could be construed from the fact that he borrowed Sirius's motorcycle, among other things), why not share his doubts with Harry at the relevant time, instead of letting the kid think that the traitor who killed his family and ruined his life was coming to get him, boogidy boogidy?
 * I imagine that Hagrid is generalizing and that there are good wizards from Slytherin and there are bad wizards from the other houses. However, since the number of bad wizards mostly came from Slytherin, they are seen as the black sheep of Hogwarts, so to speak.
 * I don't really have an answer, but I did want to make one correction: Hagrid borrows Sirius's bike on the day of the Potters' death, but Sirius doesn't attack Pettigrew until after that. So it's not clear that Hagrid believed he was innocent at that point.
 * In the third book, Hagrid recounts meeting Sirius at Godric's Hollow. He makes it quite clear that he didn't know at the time that Sirius "had" done it and says that "I musta bin the last ter see him before he killed all them people!"
 * It should also be pointed out, after the wizarding world at large "KNEW" that Sirius killed Peter, that no one was to tell Harry that Sirius was his godfather, to protect Harry from trying to fall in with a maniac/possibly break him out of prison for whatever reason. Also, Hagrid tells Harry about 'bad wizards' before Rowling found out that she had a hit on her hands, and she hadn't planned that particular detail yet?
 * The reason that everyone later suspected that Sirius had betrayed the Potters to Voldemort was because he was supposed to be their Secret Keeper. At the time of their deaths however, Hagrid, given his penchant for leaking secrets, likely wouldn't have been told that it was specifically a Fidelius charm protecting their house, and therefore wouldn't have had any reason to suspect Sirius was the one who betrayed them, as it could have been anyone in the Order.
 * WMG, but: It may just be Hagrid's little way of showing that he's prejudiced against Slytherins?
 * Yeah, that's always how I took it... I'm surprised people are confused by it. Many heroic characters through the series show they're at least slightly prejudiced against Slytherins - it seems to be the main reason that James and Sirius (initially) targeted Snape for their bullying. The Slytherins don't make it easier on themselves, of course, acting like huge doucheweasels most of the time, but even so. Additionally, this isn't the only time Hagrid shows a mild prejudice. He also shows some clear ethnocentrism in the 4th book when he chews Harry out for being alone with Krum, because 'you can't trust foreigners'. He's pissed off at Madame Maxime, of course, but the fact that he has no qualms with using his feelings about her to label ALL foreigners would never happen in someone who actually thought that kind of prejudice was wrong. Let's remember, kids: being a victim of bigotry doesn't make you incapable of having prejudices of your own. Nor do those biases make you pure evil. Unlike the true villains of the world, Hagrid's prejudices are generally mild, don't become the focus of his life, and don't push him to kill others. It's alright for Hagrid to have his own vices.
 * It may make sense for the character to hold that prejudice, but it does not make sense for Rowling to write it that way. It isn't just Hagrid giving information to Harry, it's Rowling giving information to us. "You can't trust foreigners" is a belief that is unfortunately widely held, so Harry Potter is not likely to be the first place a reader encounters such a statement. "There's never been a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin" is not only the first value judgment we're given about Slytherin House, it's the first time new readers have even heard of it. Everyone understands the concept of "foreigners," and can use personal experience to contextualize a character's statements about them as potentially prejudiced. We can't do that with Slytherins; we can only rely on what the author tells us, and for an author like Rowling whose throwaway lines tended to be packed with meaning to set up this group with a statement that is wrong according to both the objective narrative and the character's subjective experience just doesn't work.
 * Um, for any writer (any good writer, that is) you become the character in that moment. You do not meta-write. If a character has a prejudice, the author writes that character as having a prejudice. The author does not suddenly turn off the character to relay information in it's true unbiased form. For Hagrid to explain the 'bad wizards' without sounding prejudiced against them (remember, Tom Riddle, AKA Voldemort is the one that blamed the first Chamber of Secrets incident on him, and got him his first stay in Azkaban, and for any reader that suddenly went dumb, Voldemort is from Slytherin) is out character for him. Remember, Harry is our proxy, we learn things as he learns things, for us to be presented with information Harry doesn't know (such as other houses went bad) makes the experience of reading the books different, and Rowling probably wanted us to read with the same prejudice. Don't assume the author writes for you. A famous quote said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Write for an audience, and they will hate it. Write for yourself, and the audience will love it."
 * Wait. You mean to tell me that a baseless assumed stereotype turned out to not actually be true!? Shocking.

Lily and James, Middle-Aged Twentysomethings?

 * Why do Lily and James look like they're in their forties in the Mirror Erised, and just about every other time that we see them as adults in any of the films? They were both murdered when they were in their early twenties. I mean, sure, they were "parents," but parents of a one-year-old, not a teenager!
 * You have to keep in mind that Harry desires not just his family, but for his family to never have died. Fridge Brilliance says what he's seeing in the mirror is his parents alive and with at him at that moment.
 * Dawson Casting anyone?
 * The movies don't have to follow the same timeline as the books. Afterall the Millennium Bridge is shown getting destroyed when the book is set in the 1990s.
 * Also note that if the movies followed the same timeline as the books, then Snape, Sirius, Remus and Wormtail (all contemporaries of James and Lily at school) would be in their early-to-mid-thirties. Instead, all appear to be in their mid-forties or even older -- which is consistent with the pictures of James and Lily.

Hermione Not Smart Enough for Ravenclaw?

 * Ravenclaw house is known for its intellect and wisdom. Why wasn't Hermione sorted into it?
 * It's explained in the fifth book. She was in a similar situation to Harry being suited for both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor and asked the Hat for Gryffindor.
 * Because Rowling wanted Harry to have a smart friend in his trio. No matter what handwave she gives, it really makes no sense for her to be in Gryffindor as opposed to Ravenclaw.
 * Now that's exaggerating. You're saying no eleven year old would want to be in the popular house as apposed to the intelligent house? She mentions before the sorting that she heard that Dumbledore was in Gryffindor, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to guess that she wanted to be in that house because of its reputation.
 * Somebody like Harry or Ron - certainly, but an education-freak uber-nerd like Hermi? Besides, it kind of negates the importance of the Sorting Hat, if this supposedly powerful artifact capable of looking into one's very soul and perceiving their true penchants can be overruled on a child's whim. Let's drop the pretense: it'd be plain plot-inconvinient if the Trio members belonged to different Houses.
 * Considering that the magic that enables the sorting hat to work could be powerful, perhaps the method of action can cross over into precognition and the hat, even if it was subtle, was trying to maneuver them into Gryffindor to be together as its saw a powerful draw of fate there.
 * There's a fan theory which actually explains a fair bit, and (perhaps) makes the system seem less dumb overall. All that stuff about the hat examining your personality for House-appropriate traits? It's lying about that, at least by omission. The hat's only real criteria are the student's wishes, with possible tweaking to keep the four populations equal. (This would mean the various House traits are really more like self-perpetuating stereotypes.) On the train, Hermione says "I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad." This is why the hat considers R but settles on G. In Harry's case, it was split between G and S; Harry liked G from what litle he'd heard, but the hat was wildly thrown off by the desires of his inner Horcrux, and only Harry's explicit wish against it tipped the balance.
 * No, I'd say the "Draw of Fate" theory makes more sense.
 * The Fridge Logic sets in when you wonder why Hermione, who (at least in the beginning) values intelligence and book smarts would ever choose to be Gryffindor. Also, how many students go into Hogwarts thinking "Wow, hope I get Hufflepuff."
 * This Troper could imagine. You're 11 years old, you come in this great hall with hundreds of students and teachers (and Dumbledore!) and the Sorting Hat asks you where you want to be. Maybe you're shy or don't know it yet. Or perhaps you who don't want to be marked "brave", "smart" or "evil" yet. To be fair, if this Troper went to Hogwarts, he'd probably be sorted into Hufflepuff (or Ravenclaw).
 * Isn't that Word of God, or do I read too much fanfiction?
 * It's more than Word of God, it's directly stated in the second book. Or has Mr./Ms. "It's a plot point for them to be together" honestly forgotten: "It's our choices, Harry, and not our abilities, that determine who we are". Just because you're smart or ambitious does not mean you can't be brave. Remember, in the last book, Dumbledore also says "Sometimes, I think we sort too soon".
 * Because the hat makes the decision based not only on the student's prevailing personality traits, but also on their values and beliefs. Hermione is brilliant, yes, but her brilliance is always directed by her righteousness and courage. She uses her skills to make forbidden potions and sneak into the Ministry, because she knows that it is the right thing to do.
 * Also, after a long and grueling study of the Houses that I did in my free time (NERD ALERT!!), I realized that Gryffindors, as opposed to Ravenclaws, want recognition for what they do. They like being recognized and given credit. Ravenclaws don't care. They're the ultimate individualists, they want knowledge for knowledge's sake and don't care what people think of them. Hermione is, admittedly, a bit of a show-off. She likes knowledge, yes, but not completely for its own sake. She cares what people think of her. That's why Luna was in Ravenclaw - she's insightful, if not completely book-smart, and doesn't give a darn what people think about her.
 * Thank you, above troper. Just... thank you. This topic always bothered me a little, but I think you just explained it perfectly.
 * That's very similar to my thoughts. Hermione is very intelligent, but the reason she exercises that intelligence is because of her need to be seen as the best at something. (With that kind of ambition, she could even have ended up in Slytherin.) Her encounter with the boggart clearly shows that her greatest fear is of not measuring up, and her jealousy of Harry's unearned potions skill reveals that she has a bit of a nasty streak when she feels she's being overshadowed. Hermione explicitly wants to be a Gryffindor because they are "the best," but she may also have been subconsciously aware that a girl whose defining trait is her intelligence would not have stood out in a house full of similarly intelligent people, and that as a Gryffindor, she would have less competition on that level, cementing her in the eyes of her teachers (the authority figures who matter most to her at that point) as the best (student) of the best (house).
 * Hermione probably is too narrow minded for Ravenclaw. It seems that if asked the question by the eagle, what she'd do is try to look the answer up in a book as opposed to trying to think of it for herself. In fact you could argue she belongs in Hufflepuff since she's incredibly hardworking if you consider she memorised all her school books before she'd even started at Hogwarts and starts revising for exams ten weeks in advance. Then there's the Time Turner stuff.
 * Hermione says in Order of the Phoenix that the Sorting Hat seriously did consider Ravenclaw for her, but ultimately decided on Gryffindor. As previous tropers have pointed out, Hermione really wanted to be a Gryffindor; she directly says on the train that Gryffindor sounds "by far the best," but that she supposes Ravenclaw "wouldn't be too bad." So, since Hermione had qualities that would have qualified her for both Houses, the Hat went with her number one choice.

Charlie's Discount Wands

 * So, Ron got his wand from his older brother Charlie. Since wizards still need wands when they grow up, does that mean Charlie doesn't have a wand? No, that can't be, because he needs one for his job. So did he give Ron the wand that chose him and get another one when Ron went to Hogwarts? Since he obviously has enough money to buy a wand, why didn't he buy Ron a wand that worked for him (Ron) and keep the old one that he (Charlie) used?
 * There are two theories I hear about this one. One that Charlie got a bargin wand or a cheaper one than Ollivander's and could just afford one from Ollivander with his signing bonus for working with the Dragon Reservation. In this idea, the Weasleys were always poor and couldn't afford an Ollivander wand, so they got another wand maker to get one for Charlie that wasn't matched as well to him. Rather than throwing away a wand when he got a new one, he gave it to Ron. The other idea is that as people grow and change personality-wise, sometimes the wand isn't as compatible as it used to be requiring new wands to be purchased (if you think about it, that makes sense; otherwise, if people were careful, there'd be one wand purchased for a lifetime).
 * It could also be that Charlie's first wand was something like a standardized wand that performs good enough for most people. Kind of like a universal remote control can work fine for most tvs.
 * I honestly thought that Charlie had recieved his as a handmedown from a grandparent or uncle or something, and he passed it on to Ron once he was able to afford one that chose him.
 * The real question is why the Weasleys didn't just get Ron a new wand. It seems like it's a necessity for a wizard to get a properly functioning wand in the wizarding world, one attuned to the wizard precisely. It doesn't seem like one of those things one can exactly skimp on, even for the Weasleys.
 * It doesn't seem like a necessity for a first year student to have a perfect wand, as long as he has one that's vaguely responsive. Since the Weasley's are so similar, and pure blood families are known to be a bit inbred, that old wand worked okay for both Ron and Charlie, and, probably, for any of their brothers or their sister.
 * Off of that point, you don't buy a first grader the same kind of calculator you buy someone going to MIT. Ron just needs something that responds enough to get through the first year or so, and then the Weasleys could save up and get him a better wand.
 * Another theory I've heard is that Molly bought Charlie a wand of his own as a reward for becoming a prefect (much as Percy got an owl and Ron a second-hand broom).

Psychic Dumbledore and Flamel?

 * How did Dumbledore and Flamel find out the Stone was in danger before the break-in at Gringotts? As far as I can tell, that was the first indication that someone was after it.
 * We're never told much about this, but my educated guess would be it's either an amazing coincidence or rumors Dumbledore heard about Voldemort's movement from where his spirit was known to be. It's been a while since I read the canon books, but I think he mentioned something about having people keep an eye on Voldemort's movements and noticed a drastic change in location and ordered the change of location just to be safe. Again, this is assuming that's the real stone and not a decoy to attract Voldemort's attention.
 * The above could be very well true but here is my theory: This is the year that Harry Potter is rejoining the wizarding world. Dumbledore would reason that this might stir Voldemort to action and thus he took measures to protect the most obvious route back to full bodied existance.

Quirrell Power To the Max or Quirrell Incompetence?

 * During their final battle, Quirrell conjures ropes to ensnare Harry by snapping his fingers, releases him by clapping his hands, and then prepares to cast the killing curse by "raising his hand". And then, when Harry attempts to escape, he... grabs him by the hand and then wrestles him dowm. Huh. I am confused: is Quirrell the most awesome wizard in the world and the sole exception from the general rule that strictly equates "wandless" with "powerless", or is he a total idiot?
 * I always thought it was weird, but then I assumed that was probably a side-effect of Voldemort possessing him. Perhaps with that much magic in one body, it makes wandless abilities much more reasonable. That, or Voldemort uses his body as a magical focus/wand to make spell casting easier.
 * Well, the main problem is, why would he suddenly go all physical instead of snapping his fingers again?
 * He also beat a troll unconscious with a club. Perhaps he just likes getting physical.
 * He still hardly held it with his hands, but rather used Levitation.
 * He probably just had his wand in his other hand and snapped his fingers for effect. It's proven in OotP that you don't have to hold a wand to use it, just be near it. Also, Quirrell physically grabbing Harry was likely instinct.
 * Have you ever tried clapping your hands while holding something? I don't think so. As for instinct, you'd think that for wizards, who use their wands for pretty much everything, using it would've been an instinct, which is actually true for every other wizard every other time in every other book. Harry himself develops an instinctive lightning-fast wand-draw by the fifth book, let alone more experienced wizards, like Snape. Hell, in the movie at least, Qirrel did (gasp) the smart thing and blocked the exit with a fire wall. Scarhead had nowhere to run, so why grab him?
 * Yes, I have. You don't have to grip the wand with your whole hand.
 * Why wouldn't you? It's a magic wand, not a writing pen - you need a good grip to make all the gestures. Anyway, I doubt Quirell would bother clapping just for drammatic effect, specially with a wand in his hand.
 * Quirrellmort's wand isn't mentionned. Perhaps during one of the obstacles it broke but he/they are capable enough to perform magic without it. This is Voldemort after all and he is capapble of extraordinary magic.
 * Yes, that's kind of the point of this Headscratcher. If he was THAT awesome, why the hell grab Harry by hand?
 * Uh 1) Reflex 2) Grown man versus boy... who's likely to be stronger?
 * Again. For us - sure. Wizards use magic all the time - it should be reflectory for them.
 * I also wonder why didn't he just put Imperius on Harry and make him give away the stone, but I guess Rowling didn't think of that curse by that time. If she did, though...
 * If he had, the curse would have bounced right back: the protection doesn't just cover physical contact, it stops Quirrelmort from harming Harry.
 * Huh, I guess tying somebody up doesn't count as "harming" then. Go figure.
 * What the hell was with the We Can Rule Together moment? The guy is literally destined to kill you unless you kill him, so why in Khorne's name would you offer him a place beside you? The same applies to Neville in Deathly Hallows.
 * Voldemort probably saw the potential in making Harry trust him only either to betray and kill him when he let his guard down, or have Harry turned against Dumbledore and actually help him. Keep in mind that Voldemort doesn't know the whole prophecy; what he does know is that Harry or Neville has the power to defeat him, not that they have to defeat him. Perhaps he thought/hoped the rest of the prophecy summarized to "unless they work together, in which case they'll be unstoppable."
 * I guarantee that Rowling had not got as far as writing the prohecy when this book was done, so at this point there was no "destined to kill..." it was merely a bad guy trying to tempt the good guy moment.
 * He claimed they can rule together. What makes you think he planned on following through?
 * It just struck me that Quirrell's attempted murder of Harry during the Quidditch match probably wouldn't have worked: He jinxes Harry's broom and tries to fling him off, but in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry does fall off his broom, but Dumbledore just uses magic to slow his fall and save him. Now, I know Dumbledore wasn't present at that particular match, but surely there must be some safety measures taken against falling in a game like Quidditch?
 * It's been proven time and again in the books that Wizards are generally hardier than Muggles. Neville falls from a not inconsiderable height from a broom and only sprains his wrist, and Lucius Malfoy gets thrown down a flight of stairs without apparent injury, to list but two examples. The general rule regarding Quidditch seems to be "We'll patch you up, but it's your own damn fault if you get injured." Plus, there's no reason to think that Quirrell's plan in bewitching the broomstick was to simply buck him off; he might have intended on making it fly up so high that the fall would kill even a wizard, or sending it flying into the Whomping Willow, or something similar. The only reason it was flailing like that was because of Snape's countercurse.
 * Alternatively, he never expected it to actually kill Harry. But if not for Snape's countercurse, he'd have carried out an attack on Harry Potter undetected, leaving the Hogwarts staff running around trying to protect Harry while he goes for the stone. Or Voldemort just wanted to hurt Harry and give him a fear of flying because he's a dick.

Nicholas Flamel: Stupidest Genius Ever?

 * Why did Flamel even let Dumbledore protect his Stone? Flamel is roughly three times Dumbldore's age, so I would assume that Flamel would know some awe inspiring magics, or something. 600 years is a very long time. If he only mastered alchemy in that time, it would probably be more efficient than Dumbledore's system.
 * Perhaps Dumbledore is just better at that sort of thing. Who would you rather protect you from robbery, a 90-year-old chemist who discovered the cure for cancer, or a 30-year-old security contractor? Granted, Dumbledore seemed to do a pretty bad job of it (Why in the world would the logic puzzle point to the correct potion? Why would the correct potion even be there? At least make it so you have to mix several in a precise order), but Flamel didn't know he would, and it's possible Flamel would do worse.
 * Not the best analogy, since Flamel is still (artificially) in the prime of his life and has had about four centuries of protecting his stone before Dumbledore was even born. It's more like a 30-year-old backpacker who's traveled through questionable countries vs. a 10-year-old who managed to protect his toys from the school bully.
 * Flamel has gone four centuries with his stone being protected. By the end, it was by Gringotts. It's quite likely that this was the whole time. Of course, goblins live as long as he did, and they definitely have the relative experience, which means that every reason both of us gave would apply to that he should never have transferred it from Gringotts to Hogwarts. In addition, moving it meant passing it through several people, each of whom had a very good reason to steal it (each of them was mortal, and what's worse, slowly dying of old age).
 * Why not simply create a fake Stone that has the same traps as the items in Bellatrix's vault and leave that in Gringotts to be stolen, while the real one is under a Fidelius Charm in your sock drawer? Goodness, something as simple as a triggered anti-apparition/portkey jinx linked to a Caterwauling Charm would do the job for you, as all you need to do is keep the thief from leaving while at the same time telling Gringotts security 'Hey, come kill this guy'.
 * He can't keep it in his sock drawer because he doesn't have one. Nobody ever gets DD socks for Christmas.
 * Having a fake stone at Hogwarts/Gringotts the whole time just makes much more sense anyways. Its powers are never actually used in the story, so for all we know, Flamel just gave Dumbledore a replica. It doesn't contradict canon, at least.
 * To counter the OP's question. Why not? The stone was perfectly safe in D's possession, and it was already discussed to death above that all the "traps" on the way to the stone were designed for the Trio.
 * In fact, the stone could have been fake. It was not needed for Dumbledore's plans for Harry's first year. It was mostly a bait to lure Voldemort, I think.

Why Trust Hagrid?

 * This one applies to the whole series. Hagrid is unfailingly loyal and would never knowingly betray Harry, Dumbledore, or the rest; however, he is consistently portrayed as not very bright and prone to spilling information, especially when he has a couple drinks in him. So why does he keep getting entrusted with top-secret missions and information?
 * Because spilling information in carefully measured doses is his mission.
 * While it's true that some of the information he spills doesn't actively hurt our heroes, it's still a minor miracle that he didn't screw up anything serious. When you add all of the OP's arguments to the fact that he also is a mediocre spellcaster at best, it seems foolish to trust him with anything at all, especially such tasks as retrieving the stone from Gringotts and ferrying Harry around. Indeed, it seems Fridge Brilliance that in Deathly Hallows, the Order sends real!Harry with Hagrid -- The Death Eaters would assume he was with one of the more powerful wizards like Mad-Eye or Kingsley, not the perpetual screw up.
 * In a post-Voldemort world, no-one could use Avada Kedavra in a crowded street in broad daylight without being mobbed by about 50 wizards and witches at once. OotP has a bit where Hagrid manages to shrug off several casts of Stupefy - which instantly fell McGonagall, a full and powerful witch - when avoiding capture by the Ministry, before he runs off into the Forbidden Forest. That's why Dumbledore trusted him to retrieve the stone from Gringotts, at least.
 * Nah, it only means that the Ministery agents were (big surprise) incredibly inept, incoherent, incompetent and inimaginative imbeciles who forgot that other fighting techniques exist, besides Stupefy-spam: summoning things like chains or ropes, levitating things and turning them into projectiles, transfiguring or vanishing ground beneath the enemy's feet and so on - Hagrid's resistance should've by all means meant nothing against a half-decent opponent. No, the only sensible reason to send Hagrid after the stone was exactly the same as have him doing everything else - he's conspicous and seemingly dim. It was like semaphoring "We're moving the Stone to Hogwarts" (how else would V know that it was there and not, say, in the Department of Mysteries?), which was exactly what DD needed - to lure V into the school for his little game.
 * Hagrid does shrug off several curses fired at him by Death Eaters at the end of Half-Blood Prince. It seems unlikely they were pulling their punches.
 * Of course not, but it seems likely that they were just as stupid as the ministery morons.
 * Maybe they chose Hagrid to escort Harry because, being only a groundskeeper, Hagrid isn't exactly vital to the school in the way that, say, Mc Gonagall is. It's no big deal if he's not at Hogwarts for a couple of days, and they don't need a huge security detail for Harry at this point in the story.

Stone Cold On The Floor

 * The Mirror of the Erised was in an empty Classroom until Christmas, so when was the stone put "in" it? Was the stone just sitting on the floor after the last trap? In the third floor hall?
 * It was obviously only put in that classroom for a couple of nights so that Harry could be introduced to it and inconspicuously given an explanation as to how it works (otherwise, why would D keep watch there?)

The Happiest Man Alive

 * When Harry and Dumbledore are discussing the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore says that the happiest man on earth would look in the mirror and see himself exactly as he was. Um... we're assuming that the happiest man on earth has no desires at all? Everybody wants something, and even if it wasn't anything deeper than, say, a ham sandwich, he would still see something.
 * It was an analogy, let it go.
 * The happiest man alive has no unfulfilled desires. The happiest man alive is so happy precisely because he has no desires to chase after and become sad over their lack of fulfillment. Since the happiest man already has everything he desires, he will see himself as he is, with every single one of his desires fulfilled.
 * Also, whatever desires the happiest man on earth has, his desire for his life to stay the same might outweigh them all. He might want a ham sandwich, but he wants his life to stay the same as it is now even more.

Cats are better than Death?

 * How is it that Mrs. Norris could see Harry through the Invisibility Cloak, when the cloak could even hide someone from Death? I guess if cats are superior to Death, this might explain the Nine Lives thing.
 * Dementors can see through them too and the whole thing with Death is just a legend anyway. Dumbledore says the Peverell brothers were probably just great wizards who invented the Hallows on their own.
 * Mrs. Norris can smell him and Dementors can sense his soul.
 * Remember, every time anyone uses the Cloak, their legs aren't covered by it. That means if Harry covered his whole body with it, even Dementors wouldn't be able to sense him. Or Marauders' Map.
 * The legs ARE covered, actually. Harry even mentions in later books that, due to him and his friends getting taller, they have to bend over a bit just to get the cloak to cover their legs and feet, and they didn't have to do that to cover themselves entirely when they were younger. In DH, during the battle at Hogwarts, it's mentioned that H/Hr/R stand and walk completely erect under the cloak and only their feet show.
 * Which by the way is a Headscratcher of its own. Presented by Death or simply crafted by Peverell, shouldn't it be designed for an adult and as such cover even adolescents completely?
 * Yes but it was designed for one person, not three.
 * Was it? DD mused at one point that the defining quality of the Cloak was the ability to cover other people besides the owner.
 * Moody's eye can see through it as well. Does that mean Moody's eye trumps Death?
 * The Cloak of Invisibility is greater than most invisibility cloaks, but it's still not flawless. And Dumbledore believes that the Peverells were powerful enough wizards that they actually created the Hallows themselves, rather than received them from Death.
 * "Invisible" is not necessarily the same as "undetectable" -- you don't always need to see something to know it's there. Cats have very sharp senses, and even if Mrs. Norris couldn't see Harry, she could probably hear/smell him. As for Dementors, they're distinctly mentioned to be blind, so Invisibility Cloaks would mean nothing to them in the first place. Moody's eye is a little harder to explain, but we don't really know how it works; it's possible it can detect things differently -- or, possibly, the fake Moody was lying, and he didn't actually see Harry but detected him in another way -- Mad-Eye Moody was paranoid to the max, so it's not too inconceivable that he carried around several small devices or spells to let him automatically know if someone's around who's trying to stay hidden.
 * It's also possible to go in a completely different direction and say the Cloak is more powerful than even the legends give it credit for. The trio's feet are never actually seen, they just worry they will be, the Dementors' aura reaching through the Cloak could easily be a nocebo effect, Harry was imagining mrs. Norris seeing him. As for Moody and DD seeing Harry, it's possible the cloak is actually protecting Harry by letting him be seen by people it knows will protect Harry. It all depends on whether you believe in the Cloak being made by Death: whether the cloak is super-powerful, or merely very good.
 * Well, if you'll accept an answer with crossover tendencies: According to the story, the cloak is supposedly Death's own Invisibility Cloak, the one he uses himself to avoid being seen. As we know from Discworld, Death loves cats, which is why he grants them special privileges such as nine lives, and it's repeatedly mentioned that cats can see Death. (Discworld wizards and witches can too, but they are a different breed than HP wizards and witches and are trained in noticing things that others don't.) So, basically, when Death made the cloak, he made it so that cats could see through it. He didn't think to make it so he himself would be able to see through it, because he was going to be the one wearing it.

The most secure place in the world?

 * The greatest teachers of magic and Dumbledore himself combine forces to protect the stone. None but the greatest of wizards can break the spells they set... Unless they happen to be first year students. Literally any defense would be better than what they created considering how easily the trio break through them all.
 * Unless the obstacles were really a test for the Trio and thus were intentionally attuned to their skills. The real protection was the Mirror, which worked fine (if the stone was genuine at all). That is, untill a certain kid went and removed the stone from it.
 * What's really sad is that Quirrellmort needed all year to figure out how to get past a Cerberus. I mean, what, did Tom flunk Care of Magical Creatures?
 * He probably didn't choose that as a third-year elective. He was hardly a "caring" sort of person, and the only magical creatures he liked were snakes, whose needs he could just ask them about as necessary. Note that Diary-Tom doesn't recognize what weeping Fawkes is really doing until Harry's wound is healed entirely.
 * And it becomes retroactively sadder once book 2 came out, and you realize that he could have just opened up the Chamber of Secrets and siced Blinky the Basilisk on Fluffy.
 * I always assumed that because Voldemort didn't have a body he wasn't able to use all his powers and one of them would be how he controlled the basilisk or parseltounge. After all even with a host and Unicorn's blood Quirrel claims he's not strong enough to even talk to Harry.
 * The problem with that theory is that possessed!Ginny was entirely capable of opening the Chamber of Secrets, and that was with her just partially possessed by one of Tom's soul fragments, not fully possessed by Tom himself. And the basilisk didn't need any control beyond an order in Parseltongue saying 'I am the Heir of Slytherin; go forth and attack thus'.
 * That brings horcruxes into the discussion which is an entirely different ballgame. I could argue many ways with that (The Diary was designed that way, the diary has a bigger portion of Tom's soul, Voldemort's shade wasn't a horcrux and didn't even have the strength of one, etc.). Suffice to say that the canon statement by Voldemort himself was that "he was strong enough for this" (talking to Harry) meant he either didn't have the ability to get the Basilisk or didn't want to risk the attention from Dumbledore.
 * Um, all you've proven is that by canon, Quirrellmort was still able to speak with Voldemort's voice. Which is the only thing he'd need to go get the basilisk; the ability to talk.
 * The way he said it meant it was taxing on him I thought. I'd assume releasing the basilisk would be unnecessarily taxing on him when he found an easy work around and still had Dumbledore to get out of the castle before he could make his attempt on the stone.
 * Um, dealing with all of the death traps himself is an easier work-around than simply watching a reptilian eye-death-beam Godzilla smash through them all while he stands in the corner enjoying a cool butterbeer? How does that work?
 * Voldemort was trying to be as discreet as possible while stealing the stone. Remember in Order of the Pheonix when he could have taken the prophecy himself but was being ultra secretive? The diary, on the other hand, was designed to open the chamber again on top of the soul fragment comming from the first opening. It was going to release the basalisk regardless of what was going on while Voldemort himself is often (but certainly not always) a lot more careful.
 * The "discreet" part is the Idiot Ball here. Every minute Quirrellmort spends in Hogwarts is another minute he risks Dumbledore discovering that Quirrell is possessed, at which point Voldemort is stuck in a vastly weakened form and facing off against his strongest opponent. In the heart of that opponent's stronghold. Tom should have not wasted a second dithering around inside Hogwarts that he didn't absolutely need to, let alone an entire bloody year. And its an Idiot Plot both that he wasted that much time, and that Dumbledore was apparently oblivious the entire year long.
 * Dumbledore did know he was possessed though, hence him sending Snape to watch after him.
 * Dumbledore's own mind melting stupidity in knowingly letting Voldemort walk around his school all year is in another Headscratchers, and doesn't really do much to make the storyline look better overall. The point right now is that Voldemort did not know that he'd already been spotted, so its a plot hole that he'd stay low and act like he did.
 * There is the possible explanation that the ability to speak Parseltongue is linked to your very soul; which means Voldy would have lost it while making a horcrux of his diary, and could only use it again after it came back to him (once resurrected), the diary destroyed.
 * Although it doesn't explain why Harry got this ability when the killing curse bounced...
 * Quirrell wasn't a descendent of Slytherin, so the basilisk would have no cause to obey him, and might eat him on sight before Voldemort's face had a chance to speak. Diary-Tom was willing to try to control the creature through Ginny's possessed body, because he couldn't care less if she died in the attempt, but Voldemort certainly didn't want to gamble his tentative grip upon existence on a long-imprisoned monster's appetite.

Muggles can't know about wizards, I thought?

 * So, this was... probably mentioned in the movies, but I don't recall. I thought that muggles were to never know about magic even existing. Does this not apply to the family of wizards? Harry's guardians absolutely outright know all about Wizards and magic, to the point they fear Harry for it. In addition, it's implied that they knew about magic because of Harry's mother, before they were guardians of him. Hermione is muggle born, so I assume her parents must know about the school, magic and wizards as well, because how else would an 11 year old get to the train station and pay for all of their supplies?
 * If family IS excused from it, then why is it in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry's aunt has her memory erased because Harry accidently cast that balloon spell on her?
 * Well, Aunt Marge isn't very closely related to Harry. She's his uncle-by-marriage's sister. Technically, Harry's not related to her at all.
 * Furthermore, how do parents explain to the government/child services where their children are all year? Obviously, they can't just say "oh, they're learning to be a wizard." Maybe Europe is different, but in the US you can't just not register an 11 year old for some kind of school. Doing so would raise a lot of questions, and then further being unable to prove the kid is still around/alive would start a manhunt and trial to rival Casey Anthony.
 * The Ministry of Magic probably has agents in the Muggle government to handle that sort of thing.
 * I would assume that the magical child's immediate family would be allowed to know about magic considering a wizard lives under the same roof as them. Also there might be some sort of magical contract requiring them not to breath a word to anyone about magic. Although as it was put to the Prime Minister by Fudge in HBP, if they did know about magic who would they tell without looking crazy, that is who would believe them? Aunt Marge is probably excluded from having to know about magic seeing as she doesn't live with Harry. And how do parents tell the gov't where their child(ren) has been all year? There are probably wizards in the muggle ministry who take care of this stuff plus, y'know, it's magic.
 * Sure, but if it's only immediate family, why did the aunt and uncle Harry lives with now know about his deceased parents being a witch/wizard, but not the one he cast the balloon spell on? It's implied in the first movie that they have always known that Harry's parents were magically inclined, so are brothers and sisters allowed to know too? If so, why only some? Secondly, sure, maybe it's possible that every country in the world that has a school attending child wizard has a state employee able to doctor records to make things look innocent (though I doubt that), but what about neighbors? Live somewhere for 12 years, raising a child, then as soon as they turn 11, poof, gone for 9 months every year until they turn 18? Seems unlikely in the extreme that it would never be reported. And sure, a wizard did it... but what did they do?
 * I'm a bit confused at what you're asking but Vernon would know about wizardry because he lives with Harry, as Petunia lived with Lily. I always assumed that Vernon didn't know the extent as to which Harry's parents were wizards and before Harry was given to them because petunia just told him that her sister and her husband were really weird. Marge wouldn't be included in the magical loop because she doesn't live with any witch or wizard. And one could just easily tell their neighbors that their kid is off at some expensive boarding school, just not specify that it's one for magic. And who's to say that it's never reported a kid being gone nine months out of a year, but wizards in the muggle ministry could easily just gloss over this with magic or paper work and such.
 * Yes, but as I said, the first movie makes it very clear that Vernon and Petunia have known Harry's parents were a witch and wizard. She explains that is exactly why she had such a seething hatred for both of them, and for Harry, because she's known all along that when he turns 11 he will be going to magic school. But why were they allowed to know before he turned 11 and went to school? Does that not break the rule of muggles knowing about wizards and magic? And sure, lie about going to boarding school, but what happens when the kid tries to apply to go to real college or something? You can't fake going to a school on a job application. And again, sure, wizards in the "muggle ministry" could gloss over it with paper work, but I find it highly unlikely that every country in the entire world has a high ranking wizard in that country's respective child services department.
 * "And sure, lie about going to boarding school, but what happens when the kid tries to apply to go to real college or something?" - they fix all the neccessarry papers with magic and/or Confound the respective officials to accept them. That is of course if they do apply to non-wiz colleges or jobs at all, and why would they?
 * Someone has to be designing and building all the architecture for these massive castles. Must be at least one wizard running around with a degree in engineering.
 * Or maybe they just create them. With magic. IF magic cannot trump the strength of materials, it's shitty magic.
 * Well, even if you can manipulate materials with magic, someone still has to do design work. Just like if you create a building with CGI, which gives you unlimited materials and scale, you still have to design it.
 * "Yes, but as I said, the first movie makes it very clear that Vernon and Petunia have known Harry's parents were a witch and wizard. She explains that is exactly why she had such a seething hatred for both of them, and for Harry, because she's known all along that when he turns 11 he will be going to magic school. But why were they allowed to know before he turned 11 and went to school? Does that not break the rule of muggles knowing about wizards and magic?" Petunia knew Lily (Harry's mother) was a witch because Lily was her sister, so she's covered by the immediate family exception. And Vernon knows because Petunia told him.
 * Right, that's my point. If Petunia was allowed to know Lily was a witch, why was her other sister, the one turned into a balloon by Harry, NOT allowed to know?
 * Marge is Vernon's sister, not Petunia's sister. This is clearly explained in the books, and in the film she says, "Damn good of my brother to keep you. He'd have been straight to an orphanage if he'd been dumped on my doorstep, Vernon."
 * Has anyone considered the fact that Marge was likely mind-wiped because of the nature of the incident, not the fact that Harry's wizard? There's no point obliviating Petunia, Vernon and Dudley because they're already fully in the know but this is not the kind of ituation you want to be a muggle' first impression of the wizarding world.
 * This Troper was wondering about that also, until a sudden case of Fridge Logic: Why would Vernon even THINK about saying that to Marge, he is embarassed to death by the fact that Harry is a wizard. For him it would be like admitting that Harry is a gay delinquent going to art school except 10 times worse. Not to mention the fact that he is practically a reality warper that has every right to turn her into a bug and stomp on her for all the crap she put him through.
 * I'm not really sure what the issue is here. Wizards' and witches' immediate families are allowed to know about magic but they can't spread it around too much. (They're also allowed to marry muggles and tell them, viz. Seamus' parents.) No-one's going to report parents for child abuse if they send their kids to boarding school (especially if they don't notice the child's undernourished and doesn't get much sun...) and they come home for holidays (Hermione and other students go home for Christmas). The point about qualifications is an interesting one but presumably most of them will get jobs in the magical world where their Hogwarts qualifications are enough. Anything else they could probably use a confundus spell for and we've seen the Ministry slip wizards into positions where they can keep an eye on things in the past. By the last book, they've even got an agent in the post office, so muggles who know about magic can send letters to Hogwarts and get a reply.

Sweeping the Chess Board - Literally

 * Another thing that bugged me about the chess match was that literally a minute before, the characters were flying around on broomsticks. No reason is given why they can't go back, grab the broomsticks, and just fly over the chessboard. Especially since it is assumed that Ron and Hermione used the broomsticks to get back up to where Fluffy was.
 * For the same reason that Mega Man doesn't keep his weapons between games. It's not allowed by the rules. Would you want to cheat and risk setting off whatever magical rules enforcement was in place?
 * It's also possible that by "we have to play to get through", they meant "we have to play or we can't get through the door due to locks/wards/it's not there". It's never stated that the chess pieces are physically blocking them.
 * Part of the problem could be that The Movie makes it look as though the chess pieces are the only things standing between them and the exit. This very discussion even comes up in the Rifftrax for the movie. One thing to remember is that the chess board was the defense set up by McGonnagal, who's [more than] a smart enough cookie to have foreseen the "why don't we just fly past the chessmen" thing and figured out a way to prevent it.

Wizarding Currency is Just Plain Knuts

 * Two things that just bug me about wizarding money: bronze Knuts, silver Sickles, and gold Galleons are the only currency mentioned. So what happens if you want to buy something that costs, say, a hundred Galleons. Do you dump a hundred gold coins down on the counter? Also, clearly there's no such thing as interest or loans in the wizarding world - the bank can't invest your money for profit, since it's just stuck in a vault all the time.
 * I always assumed that it was that the wizards just aren't very modern, so they stayed with gold instead of paper currency like a good portion of the world. Interest and loans would be hard to keep track of for all those people, since it's implied that Gringotts is the only bank.
 * Banks can't give customers interest if the gold must stay stashed in vaults. Banks make money by taking money saved in them and investing it elsewhere, keeping enough to cover some amount of withdraws. Gringotts may work more like a safe deposit service: they keep your valuables safe for you for a charge. They could also charge for other financial services.
 * We don't get to see a lot about how Gringotts is run. We see very few vaults over the books, and even then, not much is shown about the extent of them. The bag of holding that Hermione has in the seventh book leads me to believe that if you're going to make large purchases, you'll have one of them for money or have a way to transfer funds in the vaults for this purpose. We know that Harry has a trust set up for him, but we don't know if he has other vaults for him that have investments that he's too young to inherit.
 * Bill works for Gringotts as a treasure hunter. Presumably he's paid for his work, and the money has to come from somewhere. The goblins pay to finance treasure hunting expeditions, sell the treasure, give part of the proceeds to bank members as interest, and pocket the rest. Basically the same way that real banks do, except with a suitably fantasy feel rather than boring stocks and bonds and shit.
 * Bill's wages were probably a percentage of whatever treasure he brought it. "Treasure Hunter" sounds like it would be commission-based.
 * I thought Bill was a curse-breaker for Gringotts?
 * How about the whole division of the currencies? 29 Knuts to a Sickle, 17 Sickles to a Galleon. What's wrong with base 10?
 * It's not magical enough!
 * 29 and 17 are prime numbers, which (according to the Babylonians, whose obsession with seven is strikingly similar to Tom Riddle's) are magical enough. So... what they (^^^) said.
 * The author is from England. Their currency used to have 2 Ha'pennies to a Penny; 3 Pennies to a Thrupenny Bit; 2 Sixpences to a Shilling; 240 Pennies to a Pound; 1 Pound AND 1 Shilling to a Guinea. Wizarding currency is comparatively simple.
 * Basically, pounds, shillings, and pence (Lsd) - 1 pound = 20 shillings = 240 pence (1 shilling = 12 pence). There were also half penny (ha'penny) and quarter penny (farthing) coins. "3 pennies to a thrupenny bit" isn't an extra complication - it's about as straightforward as "five cents to a five-cent piece". "Sixpence" means exactly what it says. "Tanners" (a sixpence), "crowns" (5 shillings), "half-crowns" (2s 6d), and so on were just nicknames for coins, along the lines of "nickel" or "dime". Guineas are an added complication, but I believe they were a way of adding a standard commission on to prices - some trades worked in guineas and the extra shilling was for a specific purpose. Oh, and the older Imperial measures weren't in base 10 because they were based on having as many simple factors as you could, so that it was easy to calculate in your head. (240 divides by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 ...; 100 divides only by 2, 4, 5, 10 ...). The wizard standard might seem less complicated in some ways, but by choosing prime number multiples, it blatantly (deliberately?) fails that criterion.
 * Fridge Brilliance. Choosing prime number multiples makes the system ridiculously complicated. But if you know the old British currency system, the wizarding system is a hilarious parody.
 * Fridge Brilliance #2. That's how wizards learn math.
 * Fridge Brilliance #3. Wizards don't pay much heed to logic, what with magic being an antithesis to science and all.
 * As for your "hundred Galleons" complaint, what if you want to buy a 20,000 dollar car with cash? (Yes, I know you wouldn't do that, but there are no wizard credit cards.) I guess you would go to your local bank and take out a twenty thousand dollar bi- oh wait, those don't exist. Guess you're stuck with 200 hundred dollar bills.
 * What says wizards don't have some sort of check books?
 * I know it's petty, but just before Hagrid's explanation of the currency, a passerby complains that Dragon Liver is now 17 sickles an ounce; shouldn't she say a galleon? We don't say a hundred pence instead of a pound. (Or cents to a dollar, etc.)
 * Ever stop to think that maybe she was complaining because it said 17 sickles instead of a galleon?
 * To answer the second note, the tone indicates that she was complaining about the price. To the first, it's basically like saying something costs 99 cents instead of a dollar. It sounds cheaper, despite the fact that it really isn't. So the sign was marked 17 sickles rather than a galleon.
 * 99 cents instead of a dollar is cheaper. It's just by such an inconsequential margin that you'd have to buy a ludicrous number of items to see any significant savings from it.
 * In later editions of the book, it's changed to sixteen sickles.

Nice Job Breaking the Mirror, Harry!

 * If the stone could only be retrieved by someone who didn't want to use it, then it would have been perfectly safe if Harry hadn't done anything, and was only put within Voldemort's reach because Harry was trying to stop him.
 * Which was why Dumbledore had such horrible defenses set up before the final trap. He wanted whoever was after the stone to be trapped on the last protection and be stuck there for him to catch. He was only worried when he found out that the Trio had gone after the stone, knowing they might mess up his plan. In hindsight, Harry really screwed up, but had no way of knowing it.
 * Alternatively, I think Quirrell would've gotten the stone if Harry hadn't come along. He was a genius, after all, who'd beaten all the other challenges, and he was already working on this one, and Voldemort could have chimed in. He could have either found a way to steal the mirror (teleport it away, transmute it into something portable) and solve it at his leisure, or dispelled the enchantment, or figured out how it worked and beaten it using a Memory Gambit, or that super-powerful Confundus Charm that worked on the Goblet of Fire, or an animated statue programmed to desire the Stone.
 * You're giving Quirrell too much credit. He was a jackass plagued by cupidity. That's why he stubbornly clung to a guy who was charring him to death even after he knew it was killing him. Remember that his best solution up to that point, before Voldemort chimed in with a better one, had been to *break* the mirror, which would have nixed the whole game.
 * We're not really shown any of Quirrell's genius in the book. Getting to the mirror doesn't prove anything, as three first years can do it, too.
 * Quirrell is being advised at every step of the way by Lord Voldemort, one of the two most brilliant wizards extant. He could be a trained monkey and the Stone is still in genuine danger. If nothing else, Quirrell could simply have put the entire Mirror in one of those bigger-on-the-inside-than-the-outside containers (or shrank it down, or etc.), and hauled it off to Villainous Lair #212 to be safecracked at Voldemort's leisure.
 * Again, Quirrell was so deperate he was prepared to smash the mirror. That's it - he was out of options. There is no way out of it - the stone was safe, and Harry endangered it by going after it (if it was real, of course). And then got the House Cup for it.
 * Why? Harry may have been "brave" (aka reckless) but he was also just plain stupid. The Stone would've been fine if he hadn't done anything, so why the heck does Dumbledore reward him? If anything he should have gotten a severe talking-to.
 * The Trio didn't know that Harry would be necessary to get the Stone out of the mirror because they, get this, hadn't been exposed to that information. You see, there's this concept called "theory of mind" -- just because you know something doesn't mean everyone does. Incredible, no?
 * Quirrell might have been prepared to smash the mirror but Voldemort clearly knows the trick, since he immediately tells him to use Harry and realises it worked when Quirrell just throws him aside in disgust. It's possible that if Harry hadn't been there to turn the tables, they might have found someone else to get the stone out of the mirror for them, who wasn't as resourceful and didn't have a protective curse in their skin.
 * V clearly doesn't "know the trick", otherwise Quirrell would've known it as well. It was a flash of inspiration or, on the contrary, resignation: "hey, the kid is here anyway, why not try and use him before we kill him?" As for "founding someone else"... ... ... words fail me. Can you honestly tell me you can envision them getting out of the chamber, snatching some other kid, then repeating the whole obstacle course again, and all that without anyone noticing and in time before DD realises he'd been duped and returns, which, unlike the kids, V knows he could do instantly? Not to mention that whoever they might snatch will most likely just wish to escape alive, not extract the stone, meaning the mirror (that reacts you your innermost wish) will not work.
 * Why would Quirrell know it just because Voldemort does? He's hardly in Voldemort's league and if they know everything the other does, why would they be talking to each other (a)out loud or (b)at all? As someone mentioned earlier, they wouldn't need to drag anyone down to the chamber, they'd just need to get the mirror to a place of safety where they could kidnap a noble but useless wizard at their leisure. ("What's Hagrid doing today?") Harry surely can't be such a unique and extraordinary individual that he's the only wizard in existence who's greatest desire is "Stop Voldemort getting the stone" rather than "Please don't kill me, Mr You Know Who, sir..."

Hermione Can't Admit She Went to the Bathroom?

 * Why on Earth did Hermione tell Professor McGonagall that she had gone after the mountain troll? The idea, I take it, is that she lied to save Harry and Ron from getting into trouble, which shows Character Development. But, if she'd told the truth, then none of them would have gotten into trouble. Would it really be that humiliating to admit that she didn't know about the troll because she was crying in the bathroom?
 * It's possible that Ron may have gotten in trouble for having said what he did to Hermione.
 * Also, imagine you're a prideful eleven year old girl who worships your teachers, who has just been saved from certain death by two of your (up until that point) enemies because you were crying in the toilets over something mean they said to you. When it comes time to explain what happened, are you really all that inclined to jump up and say, "Yeah, I was sobbing like a little girl in the bathroom because someone said something mean to me, and I nearly died because I'm too sensitive." Hm... no, I can't blame Hermione for lying about why she was in there. Granted, just saying, "I was in the bathroom" without qualifiers might have worked better, but I doubt she thought of that.
 * She didn't know if McGonagall would take the truth as "one innocent bystander getting into trouble and two heroes saving her = 0 + 20 + 20 points", or as "three idiots got into trouble = -20 -20 -20 points". She portrayed herself as an idiot, and the other two as heroes, therefore balanced the chances.
 * It's also possible that she figured that Ron and Harry would have gotten in trouble for confronting the troll/going to rescue Hermione instead of going to a Prefect or Teacher for help. The way she told it, she implied that she was in much more immediate danger, and thus they had no choice but to go after her themselves.
 * I always took this as solidifying the new friendship between them -- she could have made herself an innocent bystander, but she took the route of "we're all in this together."
 * She didn't even need to say she was crying in the bathroom - all she has to say is that she was in the bathroom when the other students were told about the troll. Hardly any time elapses between the students finding out about the troll and Harry and Ron going to find Hermione in the bathroom, so it would have been a plausible story to say that she was in the bathroom all this time.
 * Genius or not, Hermione is twelve years old when she says that. Kids who lie tend to overembellish their stories.


 * have to make a point here. This is what happens: Ron says "She got no Friends", Hermione brushes past them and (according to I think Lavender/Partiv?)she (Hermione) is crying in a girls' washroom, Quirrel comes in and announces the troll, Percy (and other perfects) start leading the students away from the Great Hall, Harry and Ron stop...and go to try to find her, they lock the troll in what (they) thought was an empty room, and as they walk away, there is a scream (Hermione's), SO THE ROOM THEY JUST LOCKED UP WAS THE GIRL'S WASHROOM!. So they might have lost points for locking up the troll in the Girl's washroom (but then considering the washroom didn't have a Girl's sign on them supposedly how would they know? That's a good question HOW DO they know what's a girls' vs. a Boys' washroom? Since Ron says the washroom in the 2nd book 1st attack is a girl's washroom, but they don't know..??

You'll Never Catch My Magic Flying Key!
""D'you think he meant you to do it?" said Ron. "Sending you your father's cloak and everything?" "Well," Hermione exploded, "if he did — I mean to say that's terrible — you could have been killed." "No, it isn't," said Harry thoughtfully. "He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance.""
 * I don't quite get the idea behind having flying magical keys as a security feature. Granted, it may be tricky to spot the key you need, but wouldn't it be simpler for Dumbledore to keep the key in his possession? Similarly, the potion puzzle. Why actually have the necessary potion there at all? Why not make them all poison (or a knockout potion so you can capture and interrogate the person trying to steal the stone), and Dumbledore can just carry the required potion with him. Presumably, he's the only person who would ever need to retrieve the stone at any point, so why increase the chances of someone else being able to reach it?
 * Quirrell/Voldemort clearly didn't need the potion, since the potion was still there for Harry and Hermione to take. He might not have needed the key, either, but at that point was trying to be at least a little bit subtle and not just blast his way through. I don't think the challenges were there to stop someone getting in, they were there to only let someone through who could stand a reasonable chance of stopping the Stone thief.
 * I thought Quirrellmort had drunk the part of the potion he needed, and that was the reason there was so little of it left for Harry to take. Or else, the potion replenishes.
 * There is also the theory that Dumbledore set the whole challenge up as a trap for Voldemort, only wanting him to get to the final chamber, then arrive and talk or try to delay his return. Harry being there wasn't part of the plan and it came as a surprise. The reason why he didn't put a knockout potion would be because Voldemort, knowing as much as he does about magic, would probably recognize it and realize it's a trap and leave.
 * Since the above theory makes absolultely no sense on too many levels to even bother listing, I presume that the polar opposite took place. The only real protection was the mirror (and it worked perfectly). The rest was designed as a decoy and an obstacle course ("baptism by fire", so to say) for H&H&R. The challenges corresponded to the Trio's strengths: Harry's flying skill, Ron's mastery in chess, and Hermione's logic prowess - and they ensured that only Harry, who was invincible to V, would get to the end and face his nemesis in person.
 * This is almost canon. From the last chapter:


 * The "trap" theory actually does work well. Someone would get through all the obstacles, get the stone, but then they wouldn't be able to get back though the fire. Thus they'd be stuck in the Chamber and either starve to death, or have someone find them and arrest them.
 * It was a trap for Voldemort, but Harry going after him was not a screw up - it was the plan all along. All Dumbledore knows at this point is that the prophecy has Harry or Voldemort killing the other, and that Lily's sacrifice prevents the latter from winning. Dumbledore was trying to kill Voldemort right there, nothing else. By setting the game up so that both of them would end up in that chamber alone, he was trying to tempt Voldemort into attacking Harry and, via Lily's protection, kill himself. This had been his plan from the very beginning, and he only changed tactics when he realised that Voldemort had at least one Horcrux the following year.

Nicolas Flamel, the Stingy Bastard!

 * Why did Flamel keep the recipe for the stone a secret? People hate Voldemort for killing a few people for what's admittedly a pretty good reason. Flamel killed everyone for no reason. It can't be that he's just against immortality. He used the stone.
 * It's doubtful that the Harry Potter version of the stone uses the same ingredients as the stones from Fullmetal Alchemist. It's never stated once in the series that the Philosopher Stone requires mass human sacrifice. And Voldemort killed a lot of people, not just the six he murdered to create his Horcruxes.
 * Say Flamel decided that the time wasn't right to share the Elixir when it was first created. That was 600 years ago. 600 years of life, not to mention living through industrialisation, multiple wars (including World War II and the horrors that came with it), revolutions, riots, unrest, religious fever and persecution of whatever minority happened to be out of favour, would likely bring him to the conclusion that humanity doesn't DESERVE eternal life. And before you say 'no one should have the right to make that judgement', a 600-year-old man/couple is certainly going to feel like they have the right.
 * One of the major themes of the books is that death is a natural part of life that must be accepted and not feared. Dumbledore believes this, Nick thinks his choice to hang around as a ghost was the wrong and cowardly one, the series's main villian is obsessed with becoming immortal, etc... so it would have gone against the books' message to use the Elixir like that. Mind you, from a non-meta perspective, Flamel really does come across as a jerk for not even giving people the choice to extend their lifespan for as long as they wanted to by spreading the knowledge behind the stone and Elixir far and wide, thus condemning them to an early death. Also, for the people who disagree with the idea that granting people immortality is a good thing, I'd recommend reading this essay advocating an alternative viewpoint.
 * While I'm at it, Dumbledore and at least one of the Goblins at Gringotts (possibly all of them) were capable of releasing, if not the recipe for the stone, at least the stone itself. How come none of them did? And nobody called any of them out on it, including Harry and Ron, who thought Flamel was crazy for wanting to die.
 * Let's say the goblins do steal that shit. The entire economy would collapse. The reason that people keep things in Gringotts is because it's mad secure. There's basically no way of getting in there, and the goblins are trustworthy and bound by contracts. Their opinions on how contracts work could use some fine tuning, but they don't break them. The second they start stealing shit from wizards is the second that people stop using that bank. Wizards don't like goblins as it is. More often than not, they're on opposite sides of a war. So basically what you're suggesting is that, for one little trinket, they should bring down the global wizarding economy and start up a war that is likely to take thousands of lives on either side, less than ten years after the end of the last war that did the same thing. Brilliant.
 * It's not a "little trinket". It's something that, if it could be reverse-engineered and distributed, could save thousands or millions of lives that end each year (depending on how many of those deaths are from old age and how many people would be willing to take the Elixir). It would change the world in far more noticeable a fashion than a little messing around with the wizard economy would.
 * I'm pretty sure the Elixir doesn't just work for old age. They listed ways to kill someone using it, which would be unnecessary if you could just kill them normally.
 * If it does, then it's pretty pointless, seeing as how death by old age is about as common as death by malevolent robots.
 * As has already been pointed out: everyone dies. Old age is a better way to go than starvation or being killed in a war over farmland. Most families I know have roughly three generations living. Generally the grandparents die around the time the grandkids grow up and start making a fourth generation. If everyone lives long enough to see their great-grandkids growing up, there are now four generations where there were once three. And still nobody has to die, so soon there are five generations. Six. Seven generations and hardly anybody's even 200 yet. This means we need to be growing over twice as much food, and extra labour's no problem but where's the extra land? And this is assuming people have the same number of kids! Does the elixir make you sterile? Does it not work before menopause? I hope so, because the stone was created around 1400 and reliable muggle contraception was invented rather later. Everybody dies. It's sad, but it's so. The philosopher's stone can't stop that, it can only make sure that resources are more stretched so people can stick around to experience more hardship and deprivation. Maybe Nicholas Flamel just didn't hate people enough to want to create that situation.
 * I don't think they'd start a war against the Goblins for giving them immortality. They're also unlikely to stop using the bank because it was robbed once. It's still safer than anywhere else. Especially if you're not putting something so insanely valuable in there.
 * Robbed once by goblins. If you had something in a safety deposit box of exceptional value and found out that the owners of the bank had just flat out stolen it behind your back, how popular do you think that bank would be? Regardless, how do you know that the Goblins are going to share that information with wizards? Why would they? They don't like wizards, and wizards don't like them.
 * The ex-owner of the bank. After he resigns/is fired, it will make you a little less trusting of goblins, but there's still no goblin there with a history of theft. If the only theft a bank had required the owner to steal it, it's a pretty safe bank. And it's stolen for a very, very good reason. Besides,
 * How many people do you think there are that use Gringotts to store things that they would consider to be of immense value? More than just the standard sack of gold, that is. If someone was willing to trust the Philosopher's Stone to Gringotts, it's safe to assume that other wizards put things in there of roughly equivalent value. Hell, Voldemort put part of his soul in there. Taking the Stone would send the message "If it's valuable enough, we're just gonna take it." It wouldn't matter if it was just one goblin, because goblins already don't get along with wizards. Racism doesn't have to make sense. Maybe people would still keep using the bank, but I'm betting no. All you'd need is a competing wizard bank with the motto, "We don't steal your shit!"
 * Would you use a bank that let the world die rather than release something they had? Heck, would you use a bank that was knowlingly supporting terrorists? They probably lost more customers to the knowledge that they stored Voldemort's soul than to the fact someone broke in and stole it.
 * Yes and yes. And I would be far from alone. Millions of non-criminals use numbered Swiss bank accounts, for example.
 * They are not letting anyone die. If you start having a heart attack and someone ignores you and walks out of the room, they are letting you die. But if they refuse to rob an organ bank so you can have a replacement heart, they're not responsible for your death.
 * No, but you still die. Say what you will about responsibility, I think being alive counts for something, and everyone's lives counts for six billion times as much. If you think one person's responsibility is more important than six billion lives, consider that they each had several responsibilities. They're not Gringotts' responsibilities, but it's still bad for them to be broken. Unless your idea of ethics is every man for himself, who the responsibility belongs to doesn't matter.
 * This whole discussion seems predicated on the idea that death is universally BAD and must be avoided at all costs. The whole point of the book series was that death is natural and not that terrible, that it's nothing to be feared. Not everyone wants to be alive, not everyone fears death, indeed in some places death is a celebration. Seems a bit "missing the point" to argue that Flamel was responsible for genocide just because he didn't share a recipe.
 * Flamel had no qualms against using it himself, so clearly he felt that it's perfectly okay to put off death for a few centuries. What's more, all the people who were capable of releasing the stone were also capable of destroying it, and stopping Flamel from using it. Also, it's not so much the idea that death is bad as much as being forced into it against your will. It was portrayed as bad for Voldemort to force people to die against their will. It would have undoubtedly been no different had he killed them by depriving them of food. Flamel killed them by depriving them of the Elixir of life. Finally, Hogwarts has on many occasions cured people from things that would have otherwise killed them. If living is important enough for them to dedicate a room to saving a few students, then it's important enough to release a recipe to save everyone.
 * No he did not "kill" anyone. It's not like he's deliberately withholding life-saving treatment from a cancer patient. Such treatment is intended to help the patient live a natural lifespan, not forever. Humans are not meant to live forever. Death is in our design. Flamel isn't forcing people to die early, he simply lets nature take its course. If death is bad, then nature is the ultimate evil, because everything dies. Not to mention that, uh, the planet can't support the SEVEN BILLION HUMANS living on it now; can you imagine the ecological catastrophe if NO ONE EVER DIED?
 * Isn't it possible that he DIDN'T simply decide to keep it a secret? We're not talking about a medication or some topical cream, we're talking about a powerful mythical artifact. Maybe the process for creating it is very complicated, or dangerous, or relies on very specific circumstances. Maybe only one stone can exist at a time. Maybe only a very powerful and skilled wizard can use it. Maybe the elixir doesn't last long enough on its own for the purposes of regular mass production. There are any number of possible reasons why it wasn't widely used other than Nick was just being a jerk about it.
 * And while we're at it, what would storing Voldemort's soul have to do with anything? They're a BANK. Their job is to safely hold your stuff. Their job is not policing the wizarding world, nor is it deciding whether or not your stuff should be distributed without your approval.
 * It's their job because Voldemort hired them. That doesn't make it okay to help a known terrorist.
 * Voldemort didn't hire Gringotts, to canonical knowledge. He gave his Horcrux to Bellatrix Lestrange, who, in turn, put it in her vault. Saying that they're responsible for that, you may as well say that no Dark pureblood family is allowed to have a vault. But it doesn't matter even if he did hire them, because it's not the bank's job to control that. Would you stop using a bank because some serial killer was using a safety deposit box at said bank to hold trophies from his victims?
 * Come to think of it, few people even knew the stone existed, let alone that it was at Gringotts. The goblins just say that they stole it from Flamel, using methods wizards don't know how to protect against. If Flamel says that they did so by owning the place it was being stored in, they just say that he's clearly slandering them as some petty form of racist revenge. Incidentally, considering even a 600 year-old wizard is apparently incapable of protecting his most prized possession from Goblins, you may want to use a Goblin bank.
 * For that matter, wizards can duplicate food...
 * This has been moved to Harry Potter Universe.
 * Who is to say the effect can be duplicated? Maybe the stone requires incredibly rare (say, the horn of a unicorn that voluntarily sacrificed its life to save a steamboat, just for the sake of something silly) materials and is only able to produce enough elixer for two people? Or maybe a little less rare, but still rare enough that you can't produce large quantities of them. We don't know how the stone works, perhaps it draws from a universal well that only produces elixer for 10 years every 5 years?
 * In this case, Nicholas Flamel didn't seem to mind dying at the end, so why didn't he give the stone to someone who did?
 * A simple variant on the above: The ingredients were rare enough that he could only make one stone. Maybe there can only be one stone at a time, or something, I don't know. Anyway, he couldn't share it, and he didn't tell anybody else that he had it for the same reason you don't tell people that you have the Elder Wand: Thieves.
 * Did none of you people read the book? Death is natural. Immortality is unnatural. Attempting to attain such is a bad freaking idea. Hell, the so-called Master of Death who wields all the Deathly Hallows must be one who truly accepts death's existence. So therefore, logically, in taking the Elixer, do you honestly think that anything good came out of it other than Flamel's lifespan being extended indefinitely? No. That is extremely doubtful. If nothing else, it made him appreciate the concept of death, of being able to go to sleep after a long day and just keep sleeping for the rest of eternity, and therefore not share the stupid curse with anyone else. I mean hell, for all we know he'd been planning to destroy the Stone for a while now, hence why it was in his vault and not in his cupboard.
 * How do you people keep missing this? Nicholas Flamel used the stone. He was clearly okay with immortality, so long as it belonged to him. Fair enough; maybe he's just selfish, except that several other people were in a position to either steal or destroy the stone, and did neither. The only possible explanation is that they all think that immortality was okay, so long as it belonged to Nicholas Flamel. It doesn't matter whether or not you consider immortality moral. What Nicholas Flamel did was immoral in either case, albeit for different reasons.
 * OMFG... saying that the man is commiting genocide is ridiculous. Yes, Nicholas Flamel used the stone, but as mentioned by the troper above ^ there were several people in position to get at the stone. Obviously, Voldemort's the only one who wanted it that bad. Also, the Stone was NOT a secret. Hermione found out all about it in a book she checked out of the library FOR FUN. We don't know all the things that Nicholas Flamel chose to do with that stone. He may have passed the Elixir around to those he deemed worthy. Hell, how old is Dumbledore, his good friend?? Whether he did or not, those tropers who mentioned all the ramifications that come with everyone living longer have an extremely valid point, especially if you consider the fact that they're trying to keep Muggles unaware of their existence. What happens when the Muggles finally get clued in to wizards and then on to the secret for immortality? That's when the genocide would probably start. As for Nick himself, yes, he may seem selfish for using the Stone, but to me, he just seems like the mad scientist type. Maybe he's been spending all those years trying to come up with cures for the diseases everyone keeps bringing up. We don't know what the hell he's been doing with that stone and we don't know what else he's made. This also brings up another factor. They're all wizards. They have all kinds of magic and potions for cures. They probably don't contract all of the same diseases Muggles do and I'm not sure, fandom might be mindscrewing me, but don't wizards already have a slightly extended life span? And another point. We don't know how the stone would have cured Voldemort, but as far as I see it... if you're already sick, the stone is not going to suddenly cure your cancer. You're just gonna live longer sitting there in agony with the disease ravaging your body while you keep on existing.
 * Nobody in a position to take the stone did. There are plenty of people who will do quite a lot to not die. Vodemort, obviously. It's implied that the people he killed agreed that they too would like to not die, at least for a little while (he'd hardly be a villain otherwise). Quite a few Muggles are willing to pay no small amount for cryonics, which isn't even gauranteed to work. In any case, my point was more that people should have reacted, but didn't. One of the people should have stolen it, or at least called someone out on it. While there are ramifications to people not dying, it's unlikely that they're that bad, and even if they are, they could just stop letting people use the stone after a certain amount of time, or stop using food if the ideal time is earlier than it currently is (the probability of it happening to be the ideal time is pretty low, especially considering how much a single person's lifetime varies). At the very least, they could give them the elixir until they're old enough to die of old age, and then let them die. At least this way it's consistent, and they don't have the problems associated with old age. Any cures Nick came up with are redundant, since he already found the cure. The stone explicitly could cure the curse the unicorns give (unless I misunderstood that part) so it could presumably cure cancer. In any case, it could cure the side effects of cancer treatment (cut out all the cancer, and cure the fact that they're now missing half their body mass). Wizards may have a longer life span than muggles, but that was never the point. I'd be saying the same thing if the average lifespan was a million years. It's still finite, and everyone would still die.
 * It's pretty clear that Flamel simply CAN'T make another stone, otherwise, after the first stone is destroyed at the end of the book, he could just have made another, and there would have been no need for that long, solemn talk with Dumbledore and the final decision to choose to allow himself to die for the greater good (there is no indication the Flamel wanted to die, if he did, he could have just stopped taking the Elixir at any time). And if Flamel could make another stone, Voldemort/Quirrell could have just tracked him down and imperiused him into making one, rather than go to all that trouble of tracking down the original stone. Most likely the creation of the stone in the first place involved some steps that were lucky accidents that Flamel can't reproduce.

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Killed?

 * So... Quirrell dies at the end. ...Yes, it's likely justified, being corrupted by Lord Voldemort and so forth, but this is the just bugs me section, so I'm going to come out and say that it kind of bugs me that the Boy Who Lived gets away with manslaughter. (Also, quick theory -- they mention a meeting he had with a Romanian vampire, which made him the nervous way he was. Could this have been a misconception? Was that the moment he met Voldemort and either thought it was a vampire (Nosferatu-ish) or was told by him to tell the world the story of the vampire? I don't know!)
 * I like to believe the theory that Quirrell was dead the moment he either let Voldemort possess him or drank the Unicorn Blood. The second Voldemort left Quirrell's body, he'd slowly deteriorate from either being possessed or the Unicorn Blood's curse. The fact that Harry helped dissolve his body only sped up the process rather than killing him. Harry's ability to harm Quirrell with the Power of Love seems to reinforce the idea that he couldn't be saved. At the worst, it was unintentional manslaughter, and he was defending himself, so self defense does come into play. On your other theory, I always thought the vampire was cover story for meeting Voldemort and never gave it much thought.
 * Uh, Harry didn't kill Quirrell. The book specifically says that Voldemort left Quirrell to die after Harry fainted. If we're going by the movie, its Quirrell's own damn fault for continuously touching Harry.
 * Dumbledore specifically says that Voldemort left Quirrell to die. I say he finished the wreck.
 * True - and I'm not saying it's Harry's fault, but it's unnatural and, frankly, creepy that Harry is not in the least affected by the fact that he was indirectly involved in the death of a person. I'm not saying he should be tearing his hair and beating his breast in remorse, but honestly, he doesn't even think about it! But then, Dumbledore kept reassuring him, and this could be an early sign of the blind acceptance Harry gives to everything that Dumbledore says (except for when, when he goes into CAPSLOCKS mode...)

What About a Unicorn Blood Drive?

 * If someone were to get ahold of unicorn blood without killing it (say, somehow manage to stick it with a syringe) and drink it, would they still be cursed?
 * Most methods of acquiring the blood, including this one, would cause the creature some degree of pain/discomfort. Maybe the curse is lessened, though. Huh, it seems like one of Beedle's tales should be about a unicorn that willingly sacrificed some blood, thus circumventing the "half-life" thing (which is vague, as pointed out above)…
 * They wouldn't even need to cause the unicorn pain to get its blood, surely they could just take some of its blood with magic without hurting it and then use more magic to make its blood cells divide faster or something to replenish its blood. If they just kept a bunch of unicorns on a farm or something, they could get all the blood anybody needed without ever hurting any of the unicorns.
 * You're assuming wizards have a better understanding of science/biology than they demonstrated at any previous point in the book.
 * Blood could be simply a media to drain life force.
 * I'd say yes. If you're drinking unicorn blood, you "have everything to gain, and nothing to lose." That doesn't sound like Mr. Nice Guy. Also, Mr. Nice Guy probably got this from the black market, that killed the unicorn just the same. He has, even if not directly, consciously killed a unicorn, or harmed it. I'd say the curse would apply, in full.
 * Why would he get it from the black market? Would wizards actually make causing a unicorn discomfort to save the life of a human illegal? Granted, they still get cursed, maybe, but it's substantially better than the alternative. And really, majestic as they are, do you actually value unicorns more than people?
 * Ehh, depends - it's heavily implied that unicorns are extremely intelligent and at least sentient, making most people value their lives. But honestly, it makes no sense that you can't just carefully and humanely take a few drops of blood.
 * No, but it makes some sense that those few drops would simply not do the trick. Or even magically multiplied blood. Just like in vampire stories, even when they are given an option to survive on animal or donor blood, it is usually regarded as surrogate, and it is pointed out that nothing can trully substitute for ripping a hot, pulsing jugular out and gorging on gushing stream of life juice of a wriggling, agonizing...sorry, got carried away. Anyway, perhaps, like with Horcrux, the key component of the magic is the actual murder, and the blood is just the "focus", a symbolic representation of life-consumption.

How dumb is Ron, really?

 * How on earth did Ron, a pureblood wizard who grew up with five older brothers, get fooled into thinking that Sunshine, Daisies, butter mellow... was an actual spell?
 * Rule of Funny? But, that bugs me too.
 * Rather easily. The twins are GENIUSES at making pranks and jokes, it's not unlikely they did a setup with non-verbal spells, or premade ones and turned stuff into other colors while saying silly spells. Hell, they could have gotten a Muggle's mood ring and did the trick with that
 * He's eleven. Also, just because the spells adults use are Canis Latinicus doesn't mean they all are. Perhaps they're just shorter, and thus easier to use if you don't have the memory of an eleven-year-old. Perhaps wizards just like to sound posh by using it. I've seen a fanfic to that effect.
 * Saying that "he's eleven" is an excuse is an offense to eleven-year-olds around the world. Ron grew up with this stuff, like modern-day kids grew up with computers. It would be like convincing a child today that they could control a computer by pressing their forehead to a USB port and thinking really, really hard. I might be able to fool a 3-year-old, but an 11-year-old kid should know better than that. As for the Latinesque spells -- it's what everyone uses, and proper pronunciation is important, and it is exactly how it is taught to all wizards in canon.
 * He's eleven, along with the rest of that. It's not like all the spells are even Latin. Alohamora is Hawaiian. Why can't there be one or two in English? Also, there could just be so many that you could make one that's English, sort of like the Justin Bailey and Narpa's Sword (Narpas' Sword? Narpas's Word? NAR Password?) passwords for Metroid. His brothers could have made any of these explanations, along with actually showing him as previously mentioned.
 * A case of Fridge Brilliance becuase Scabbers is not a real rat.
 * Again, there is more than a small difference between a Latin-esque (or even Hawaiian) 1-2 word incantation and a ten-word-long rhyming poem. Again, I might be able to fool an 11-year-old into thinking I can play an Xbox game on the PC (Hey, they're both made by Microsoft!), but tell them to stick a Super Nintendo cartridge into Wii and they'll know you're B Sing them. Especially when you know for a fact that the people who told you are pranksters. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me for years while growing up and still manage to pull an obvious one on me, shame doesn't even cover it, Ron.
 * Maybe it was a real spell and Ron just did it wrong.
 * Could be that as it would have been the first spell Ron ever cast, he really wanted it to be real, and rationalized away the obvious inconsistencies with what he knows about magic. Even adults will willingly ignore glaring flaws in something if they want it badly enough.
 * Keep in mind that many spells spoken by adults are nonverbal and the twins can't actually do magic during the school break, so Ron could have thought that as a beginner in magic, you have to say long phrases first, before getting down to two word phrases, then no words at all.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

 * OK, Voldemort is a name every wizard and witch is afraid to pronounce or even hear because of all the terror and murders he inflicted, etc. I get that. What I don't get, is why do all the Muggle-born wizards and witches have the same attitude? They are 11 years old, find out about the magical world and hear something about terrible, terrible magical Hitler... And that's enough for them to be so terrified, that they're afraid of his name? Come on... Why doesn't every Muggle-born act like Harry, as in "forget it is a taboo to pronounce "Voldemort"", and why does everyone consider Harry doing this something unbelievable? This would be the most logical thing.
 * Harry did try to remember to call him "You-Know-Who" until Dumbledore told him not to. He, and presumably the Muggle-born students, are just trying to fit in.
 * My point exactly. He tries it, but the name slips from his lips several times nonetheles. And it is considered as something unique, so that it seems he's the only one to pronounce the name by simply forgetting it's a taboo. I understand it wouldn't happen to those who grew up with the fear of that name, but to those who just learned about it? Not really.
 * No, Harry only tried to call him "You-Know-Who" during the first book. At the end, Dumbledore told him that he should be saying "Voldemort", and at this point Harry adopted his "I'm not afraid to say Voldie's name, deal with it" attitiude. But Dumbledore didn't have that conversation with any of the Muggle-born students, so they all eventually fell into the habit.
 * Yes, Harry only tried to call him "You-Know-Who" during the first book, and this is the Headscratchers about the first book. I understand the reason why the people act surprised when 13 or 14 year old Harry does that, because at that point it should be a habit to call him "You-Know-Who" already. But during the first year, it's only natural for the "Newcomers" to forget this, because it can't become a habit in 3 weeks. So, why is everybody surprised when Harry does it, as if he were the only one. Does every Muggle-born adopt this habit at once or what?
 * This might also be a case of Serious Business: Harry basically had to twist Hagrid's arm to get him to say the name, and every adult (barring D) avoids saying it at all cost. That alone might be enough to frighten an 11 year old into thinking something bad might happen if they say it.
 * Maybe they call him You-Know-Who simply because they never learned his real name. No adult except for Dumbledore is willing to say it. I'm pretty sure his name doesn't appear in publications, either. Heck, some Muggle-borns probably think that the wizard actually named himself "You Know Who."
 * Ron, at least, is en exception to that since he recognized the name when Harry used it on the train.
 * Ron isn't muggleborn.
 * I thought they were surprised because the most famous wizard of their time knows nothing about the wizarding world and the man who tried to kill him. One would assume that the child of two wizards would know about Voldemort, especially when the child is Harry Potter, so he would not be allowed the same "he-just-doesn't-know" courtesy the Muggle-borns get. Kind of like how you forgive an exchange student a basic lapse in grammar, especially if they are new to the language, but would not be so forgiving to someone you assume would be fluent in the language.

Hey, that's our boat!

 * This just occurred to me. Back on the island where Hagrid first met Harry (the first chapter notwithstanding) Hagrid takes Harry away with the boat that the Dursleys used to get there, since he didn't bring one. Okay, fair enough. But, looking back, I realized that this means that there is now no boat there for the Dursleys to take back to the mainland. How did they get back?
 * If Hagrid didn't bring his own boat, then how the hell was he supposed to arrive? He obviously couldn't Apparate, and if he had used the motorcycle, he'd use it to leave as well.
 * According to Hagrid himself, he flew. Though the bike isn't mentioned, it is implied. Though the Dursleys aren't likely to take the bike.
 * Here's your answer.
 * Less drastically, he simply charmed the boat to return to the island on its own.
 * "Expelled-in-3rd-year-pieces-of-his-broken-wand-hidden-in-a-pink-umbrella" Hagrid managed to charm a boat?
 * See below. Who said it was actually broken?
 * Hagrid has been shown to actually be quite proficient in magic (Aside from Transfiguration), considering he lit a fire, and charmed the boat move by magic on the way back to shore. Non-verbally (which isn't taught until 6th year, need I remind you). So yeah, "Expelled-in-3rd-year-pieces-of-his-broken-wand-hidden-in-a-pink-umbrella" Hagrid charmed a boat, entirely non-verbally, twice.

Who needs the stone?

 * Why didn't LV just use the same way to ressurect himself he used in Gof? He had the flesh of a servant, and apparently he wasn't that fixated on Harry Potter back then to not use some other enemy for the blood.
 * Perhaps he saw the stone as a more permanent and reliable method of returning. Plus with the stone he'd also get true immortality and all the gold he needs for wherever his lust for power goes. Sure he could have got the stone after returning but perhaps he was still hoping to remain under the radar to make retrieving the stone easier.
 * Voldemort himself answers this in Goblet: "There was no hope of stealing the Philosopher's Stone anymore, for I knew that Dumbledore would have seen to it that it was destroyed. But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortality. I set my sights lower... I would settle for my old body back again, and my old strength."
 * Oh, thanks for reminding of yet another Headscratcher (boy, do these things multiply like roaches!). What the hell is all that supposed to mean? What "mortal life", what "chasing immortality"? V was immortal, thanks to the Horcruxes. His body could still be destroyed, it turned out, but, the Stone was only supposed to expand his life-span (and give him back his body through some undefined mean), not render him invulneruble or even enhance his powers, so how was it any better, and what would it give him that he already didn't have? The gold? What for? Should he return, he'd have the funds of Malfoy and, possibly, other rich Death Eaters at his disposal and anyway, his prime instrument was terror, not gold. Hell, DD himself admits that the stone was not a permanent solution - you have to drink the Immortality Potion regularly, and if the stone is stolen, you're screwed. In his own words: "He [LV] would use the Stone to get back his body and then rely on Horcruxes to keep him alive". That makes sense. V's aforementioned words or his behavior in PS don't.
 * As we're shown in the series horcruxes can be destroyed and render the "immortality" they grant worthless. Having the stone would be another reliable method for him as he can always carry it on his person (having two methods of immortality are better than one after all). The gold is an additional source of revenue and not much more, but it is an added plus.
 * So can the Stone be destroyed. So can he carry a Horcrux with him, but he can also hide it in the most out-of-reach place ever, which he cannot do with the Stone. Besides, V clearly considered the possibility of loosing the Horcuxes all but non-existant (Hey, if others can use this shitty excuse, then so can I!)
 * Yes, the stone can be destroyed but like I said that's why you have back ups in the form of horcruxes for your immortality. We don't know how often you have to take the elixir of life so perhaps he could hide it in an out of reach spot and only visit it every month or so. I believe Tom thought that the idea of loosing his horcruxes to be non-existent because he thought no one knew about them. People know about the philosopher's stone so he can use his horcruxes as a back up for the stone in case someone intentionally sets out to destroy it. Besides if he boasts that he's immortal only because of the stone and it's destroyed people won't automatically assume he has a back-up source of immortality until it's too late.
 * Why. What's the point. Why bother with the stone that he needs to visit every month or so to expand his life-span, when it is already infinite thanks to the Horcruxes that DO NOT require visiting them every month or at all, that he already has several of, and that nobody is supposed to know about? It's just pointlessly redundant! Seriously, calling the Horcruxes back up to the Stone is like calling your battle tank a back up to your sword. "If he boasts...people won't automatically presume..." - yes, because the fact that he survived the destruction of his body even WITHOUT the stone will certainly not clue them, right? Not to mention, what the hell should he care? He's the (second) most powerful sorceror in the world, defeating him in a duel is all but impossible and even then the Stone wouldn't save him anyway, like the Horcruxes did. In all possible ways the Stone seems just inferior to what he already has. So why risk entering the domain of his arch-nemesis and risk loosing his only servant to obtain it, when he could use Quirrel to return into flesh quietly and inconspicouosly and maybe THEN send him after the Stone, if he still wanted it so badly.
 * Because it's quite clear that horcruxes do nothing to protect his body. He was stuck possessing rats and snakes and crappy DADA teachers for ten years. The horcruxes anchor his soul to the land of the living, but a philosopher's stone would give him an eternally-healthy, young, powerful body to, you know, actually do stuff. And if he had that stone hidden in a safe location, he'd presumably be able to make himself a new body as soon as he was killed again.
 * Neither would the Stone protect his body in such occasion . So it all boils down to the prospect of ressurection, which (surprise!) brings us back to my original point, i.e. he didn't need the Stone for that either. He had the much more convinient "Bone&Flesh&Blood" method available that didn't require him to break into high-security institutions, cross his arch-nemesis and risk being exposed and loosing his only servant. Sure, maybe the Stone could be used repeatedly, and mabye the BFB could only be used once, so maybe procuring the Stone in general was a good idea , but in the immediate circumstances of PS it doesn't make any sense.
 * It's never actually stated that the Stone wouldn't protect his body. Most concepts of immortality include regeneration, so it's not hard to assume that someone who drinks the Elixir regularly will have any wounds heal quickly and without any lasting damage.
 * It's stated by DD, that V would use the Stone only for ressurection, so apparently no. And again, it is already nearly impossible to wound him due to his sheer magical power and skill. DD himself didn't manage to.
 * As I've already said I don't object to the idea of procuring the Stone in general, but it's painfully obvious that V should have had Quirrel safely revive him through BFB, which didn't require him to break into high-security institutions, cross his arch-nemesis and risk being exposed and loosing his only servant, and then send him after the Stone. He didn't. Why.
 * It is generally not a good idea to advertise to your enemies that you have immortality jars, so the "mortal life/chasing immortality" bit might have been deliberate misdirection Also, the BFB ritual may not have existed before Harry's 4th year. Voldy might have had to come up with it on his own, or adapt another ritual that served a similar-but-different purpose, because how often do you think shades come back to life? Horcruxes are supposed to be super-rare.
 * Enemies, sure, but he's sputtering that gibberish in front of his cronies, who all know that he'd existed as the "meanest of ghosts" before Pettegrew revived him, so there was really no sense in "misdirection" at that point. As for the second part, V calls BFB "an old piece of Dark Magic" and doesn't say anything about adapting or changing it, so no.
 * Maybe the Bone Flesh Blood ritual only gives you a half functioning body; maybe Voldy would have remained in the form of a weird foetus, or a slightly improved but still Gollum-like version, had he not used Harry's blood. It's probably not that easy to come back from the afterlife. And maybe it took Voldemort that long to realize he needed the blood of that particular enemy, and the lily-power-of-love living inside, because he wasn't ready to acknowledge the importance of such a preposterous power. Word of God does imply that Lily's love played a great role in Voldemort's second lifeform and resurrection. So, the Stone would have been his only reasonable option in 1991.
 * If that was the case then Pettegrew wouldn't even bother suggesting it, because obviously V wouldn't go for it, if there was an altrenative. But from their argument in "Goblet" it incurs, that they could use a random enemy, and V only went after Harry, because (he thought) he needed to kill him, the Idiot Ball demanded that he does it personally and with AK, and therefore he needed a way to bypass the protection. But before the events of "Stone" he didn't know that the protection lingered and had no reason to use the kid.

Voldemort's NOT Broken Wand

 * So that fateful night the explosion annihilated V's body and demolished the roof, if not the whole house, and yet V's wand remained completely intact? How can this be?
 * Because magic. More seriously, wands tend to break in-series under physical pressure, not magical effects. They are canonically kinda-sorta-sapient, so the wand might have protected itself, and the explosion probably falls under magical effects anyway.
 * And it's different from Hermione blowing up Harry's wand (wow, did that sound wrong...) in DH...how exactly? Besides, the opposite would've make sense, but being impervious to the most terrible magical damage but not to mere snapping? I'm sorry, but that's kinda hard to believe.
 * Simple. It's Voldy's wand, so it's only natural for him to put some kind of protection charms, enhancements, bless-of-god etc to make sure it wouldn't break under all but the most powerful damage.
 * Also, it might be important that the spell that broke Harry's wand was specifically designed to damage physical objects. AK is supposedly the most powerful spell there is, but it doesn't kill by physical force.

Hagrid's Broken Wand

 * So in CoS when Ron's wand cracks, he's unable to do even the most basic spells correctly. When Harry's is broken in Deathly Hallows, it doesn't work at all. So how is Hagrid able to successfully perform magic (partial transfiguration on Dudley, light a fire, propel a boat) with the pink umbrella that contains the pieces of his wand that was snapped when he was expelled?
 * He says it only contains pieces. DD could've easily repaired it, since he more or less knows that Hagrid is innocent.
 * I've always believed that Hagrid's umbrella contains an intact wand that this could be serious foreshadowing that Dumbledore owns the only wand that can completely repair other wands (The Elder Wand).
 * Actually Ollivander says in Deathly Hallows that a wizard can channel his magic trough virtually anything so Hagrid's broken wand became the umbrella's core.

5 Beds?
So when Harry first goes into the boys dorm there's only 5 beds. Does each year get their own dorm? I got kind of confused on that
 * Yes. When Harry goes to his dorm for the first time in the second book, it's noted that it is now labeled "second years".

Ollivander Could Have Nuked Us All
So Ollivander (when selling Harry his wand) thought that giving a boy who destroyed Voldemort Voldemort's style of wand was a good idea. I would have thought putting these two opposing forces together would have been extraordinarily dangerous, or at the very least require some sort of precaution before asking Harry to "give it a flick".
 * The wand was apparently created specially for Harry on DD's request, so that, should the two someday have to duel, Harry would be able to capitalize on the Priory Incantatem effect. So obviously DD and Olie would've sit it through and discuss all the possible consequences.
 * Cite your sources, please. Where does it say that Dumbledore had the holly and phoenix feather wand specifically made for Harry? If that was the case, Ollivander wouldn't have needed to give Harry literally a pile of wands to try out before the holly/phoenix wand, nor would there have been any guarantee that that particular wand would have chosen Harry. Pretty sure it's just coincidence, or maybe Fawkes' feathers picking up on Voldemort and Harry's connection somehow.
 * Olli did it for appearence sake, obviously. Harry would likely discuss his wand purchase with others (or at least learn about the process), and if every wizard had to go through numerous wands to "be chosen" but him, it would've looked suspicious. Next, for all we know, all the other wands could've been fake (notice how none of them produces any effect and Oliwander snatches them from Harry before he can do as much as a flick) and who says you cannot attune the wand to a wizard beforehand? Hell, DD could've had the wand made even before leaving Harry with Dursleys (or even before he was born, after he'd heard the prophecy), so they had a chance to test it on him. Of course, if somebody prefers to believe in coincedences too contrived even for the Star Wars prequels, there's little that could be done with it.
 * Alternatively, you could argue that the Horcruxed soul of Voldy in Harry is part of what made him resonate with the same type of wand, much like how it made the hate see the Slytherin potential in him.

Keys: Birds or Bugs?
When Harry first sees the magic flying keys, he thinks they're birds, but wouldn't a flying key look more like a weird butterfly or a dragonfly than a bird?
 * He saw feathered wings, he thought birds. Seems fairly logical.

How did the order find Baby Harry?

 * So Harry parents make Pettigrew their secret keeper, Pettigrew tells Voldemort, voldemort kills the Potters and then dies attacking Harry. So, how did anyone else find the house? The secret keeper was still alive, one of the subjects of the secret was still alive, and Wormtail did not get Harry for Hagrid. It couldn't have been a dual-SK thing with Sirius either, because Hagrid beats him there.
 * A few guesses:
 * The same magic that kept Harry from being killed kept him from starving by stopping the spell.
 * Voldemort stopped the spell when he came in.
 * The order knew where the house was, and even though they couldn't find it, they could still walk up to were it should be and cast "Accio baby".
 * The fist two guesses are very unlikely, and while the third makes sense, that sort of thing being possible would render the spell nearly worthless.
 * Just about the only thing that works is that the fidelius charm only applied to James and Lily and once they were dead anyone could go in and get Harry. Which seems a bit convenient but maybe they were planning for that eventuality, that if the plan went wrong and the parents were killed they'd need to find the baby. After all, it seems like only Dumbledore and Snape knew Voldemort was after Harry, most people seemed to assume it was the parents he was after.

the DADA jinx
we know from book 6 that Voldmort asked for a teaching position at some point right? Well we also know that up until Harry came to Hogwarts Quirell had been teaching for awhile at school (from books) he took a year off to get some RLF experience. But to me it seems Harry actives the jinx..hence a new teacher every year. Since expect for the DADA teacher that was teaching DADA at the time Voldmort asked.
 * Word of God says Quirell previously taught Muggle Studies.


 * Yes but no one ever bothers in the books to ask Bill, Arthur and Molly, (Tonks and maybe Lupin/Sirus when they're alive). About if they had a different DA teachers (since we are unclear exactly when the Voldmort asked for the position). We know that Bill was born in 1970. Since unless Word of God tells us if the others had different DADA teachers.. its seems to be the "curse" didn't get actived until Harry started the school..and I think

The Hogwarts Express
This had bugged me for a while, and there's two parts to this. So the train leaves from London for Hogwarts every September 1, and the first term starts the next day. Well, it's not like September 1 is a floating holiday or anything, you know? Eventually, the first is going to end up on a Friday or Saturday. In fact, in 1995 (Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts) it first does fall on a Friday, yet they still have classes the next day (Saturday). But the characters have seemingly normal school weeks through the rest of the series.

The other part of this that Hogwarts serves the entirety of the UK and Ireland. Hogwarts is located in Scotland. So you're telling me that instead of having a parent drop their child off at school (which no one seems to do), they all take their children to London, which is at the bottom of England, so they can ride a train for over six hours when they live closer to the school than they do to King's Cross? The train never makes any additional stops. It just seems like it would be out of the way for students who live in Northern England to go all the way to London to ride a train all the way to Scotland.


 * First part: Assuming that it is explicitly stated that they have classes the very next day (which it very well might, I haven't read Oot P in a while), there is always the possibility that they had a simple "stop in, meet the teacher, learn about the class" day on Saturday, then gone straight ahead with the weekend, either just the Sunday or a two-day weekend and a four-day week, then back to normal.
 * Second part: Simple answer. Hogwarts students have two types of parents: wizards and Muggles. The wizards can just Side-Along Apparate the kids to King's Cross or use Floo Powder, problem solved. As for the Muggles, they would not be able to access Hogwarts anyway, since it presumably has the same diversion spells as the World Cup grounds in Go F. While it is an inconvenience to go to London, it is not some pilgrimage across the world. King's Cross is only about 400 miles from anywhere in Ireland and the UK, which is a couple day's drive at the most, or a quick flight. And since these are Muggles, they can use technology to get there quicker. Not convenient, but not a huge journey that is impossible to complete.

TROLL IN THE DUNGEON! Let's send 25% of the student population off to the dungeons!

 * After Quirrell busts in and alerts everyone to the troll's presence, Dumbledore orders the prefects to lead the students of their respective houses to the common rooms. Including the Slytherin students. Whose common room is in the dungeons. Did no one see the problem with this?
 * Explanation A: JK Rowling was laughing her ass of while writting that scene.
 * Explanation B: I don't really remember if we find out where the Slytherin common room is in the first book, but if it wasn't mentioned, then JK Rowling might not have decided exactly where in the school the Slytherin dorms were.
 * Explanation C: The Slytherin Dungeons are located in a different area of the school than the troll was (though how Dumbledore would have known that is unsure, as Quirrel never said).

Hagrid can fly?

 * When Harry and Hagrid are about to leave the island, Harry asks how Hagrid got there in the first place. Hagrid responds that he flew. How?
 * Side-along apparition or a Portkey, apparently.
 * Most likely, in my opinion, he used the flying motorcycle that he used in the first chapter. I know it says that he returned it, but it's possible that, after he "realized" that Sirius Black was a criminal about to go to Azkaban, he kept the motorcycle. He probably gave it back after he found out that Sirius was innocent, though.
 * Aaaand, after he arrived to the island this motorcycle dissappeared... where to, exactly?
 * Thestral.
 * He's to heavy for them.

Dudley Dursley's math skills

 * Sooo.... after counting his birthday presents, Dudley has no problems whatsoever calculating that his thirty-six birthday presents are "two less than last year." When Petunia points out that he's missed one, he corrects himself and says all right, he has thirty-seven presents. While this scene does highlight his greed, it at least proves that he has a basic grasp of elementary addition and subtraction. However, ten seconds later when Petunia says they'll get him two more presents, he's suddenly too stupid to work out what thirty-seven plus two is? Is Dudley somehow unable to grasp any number larger than thirty-eight (like the rabbits in Watership Down can't count past four), or is this a new world record in Took a Level In Dumbass?