History Headscratchers / HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone

** And beyond that, if the thing attacking the unicorns was a dark wizard (which it was), than exactly how were any of them supposed to defend themselves or each other? Hagrid's group, cower behind his legs while your escort shoots the guy with a crossbow. Fang's group, send up sparks and hope that Hagrid shows up quickly to shoot the guy with his crossbow. How was this detention ever approved? Shouldn't [=McGonagall=] have realised how ridiculously unsafe it was and stepped in? Shouldn't Snape? They're Harry's, Neville's, and Hermione's, as well as Malfoy's heads of houses respectively; they should have at least been told what the detention was, and I have a hard time believing that either wouldn't step in immediately.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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.

** Could be that Dumbledore had only just gotten his hands on the mirror and was like "Hey, we can use this to protect the Stone!" After all, "just sitting on the floor" was exactly what it was doing in the Gringott's vault Hagrid pulled it from.

** I think there's a bit of misunderstanding about banks here. Banks have never made loans by literally taking money out of a person's personal account to give to a debtor. Even hundreds of years ago, banks were writing checks to one another, backed by their reputations, to represent the exchange of balances in their accounts and credit extended. Gringott's being the premier wizarding bank could easily be facilitating investment by simply shuffling money between vaults as instructed by a never ending stream of paper checks and accounting ledgers. It would make sense seeing as it would suit the sort of Victorian aesthetic of the wealthy pureblood families banking on reputations. But that's kind of beyond the scope of HP's story.

** 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, [[spoiler:in the last book, Harry and company rob the place with vastly less difficulty (they didn't have to spend decades working there), for a reason that isn't nearly as good. It never says that people don't stop using Gringott's, but I certainly didn't get the impression they did.]]

I believe Mrs.Figg (the "cat lady" who we discover is a Squib)-might have consonantly been in touch with Dumbledore as soon as she was sort of made his baby-sitter ( my question is how?)

** In addition to that, Hagrid is the first staff member the students ever see at Hogwarts, so with sending Hagrid with whom Harry would likely form a friendship, Dumbledore could be pretty sure, that arriving at Hogwarts would be a good deal easier for Harry when a friend was bringing him to the castle. And in addition to that: While Hagrids look can easily get you wrong, he is the friendliest and most easygoing member of the staff. Dumbledore did not only send Harry a bodyguard and guide for his very first steps in the magical world, he send him a friend, actually the very first one in his life. It almost certain, that Dumbledore knew that Harry had no friends.

** Dumbledore had Hagrid get Harry presumably because Voldemort and his followers would underestimate Hagrid. Much like the plan with the 7 potters. As for when Harry goes to school for the first time, I presume that Dumbledore wanted Harry to befriend Hagrid, so that he could solve the puzzles for himself.

* 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?

** 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."

** She might have been seeing a bit of James in Harry, or reacting to the perception that Harry & Hermione are habitual rulebreakers in the making (what with the troll incident and all). This would, however, not reflect at all well on [=McGonagall=] if true, because allowing your past experiences with a child's parent to dictate your opinion of that child's behavior is one of the things Snape is most criticized for, and it doesn't look any better when someone else does it. It also would require [=McGonagall=] to be ''extremely'' unobservant of her student so far, as virtually every single moment of Harry's behavior up to this point has been the exact opposite of James Potter at a similar age.[[note]]Shy as opposed to extroverted, academically undistinguished as opposed to brilliant, moody as opposed to cheerful, dresesed in shabby hand-me-downs and skinny instead of prosperous-appearing and in the flush of health, and ''no pranks''.[[/note]] Plus, the only really James-esque thing Harry has done so far is catch the Remembrall (remember, coming to warn Hermione about the troll was something Minnie saw as a virtue, as she gave Harry & Ron points for it). So if this fragmentary and contradictory data is still enough to let her leap to the conclusion that Harry is the second coming of Marauder #1, then she might be a competent Transfiguration teacher but as a Head of House she's just not making the cut. Even Snape at least still has a reasonably accurate idea of what his Slytherins are really up to and how they really think.

* my point being, on october 30th of 1981 the war was still in full swing, with the light side losing, as Hagrid told. Now, on october the 31st, the first thing that is noticed by Vernon is large groups of wizards milling about in the streets, falling stars reported at Kent and later that evening Harry is already deposited with the Dursleys. First thing first. 1)The opening day of the first book is NOT Halloween its Nov.1st. Halloween was the night before. Harry is despoited sometime between 11pm Nov 1st and midmight on Nov 2. Shouldn't there still be other elements of Voldemort's army be fighting on? Not all of them are directly connected via the Dark Mark and several of them must operate independently from Death Eater coordination. Or would his forces constitute a KeystoneArmy?

** It's not uncommon in abuse victims to not be affected by their abuse until they hit puberty or adulthood. Like the poster above said, I think Harry's initial elation at being rescued (essentially) and given the opportunity to live a happy life at Hogwarts staved off any issues for several years but by the OOTP, clearly the PTSD and other signs of stress were showing in Harry, especially with the combined experiences of everything that happened at Hogwarts in the previous years.e

* Harry's lonely, he's been bullied, and he's got no friends, but he doesn't show any particular signs of trauma. No shyness, irritability, lack of social skills... the memories are there, yes, and they're awful ones, but after having been ''neglected by the Dursleys for nine years'', wouldn't you think he'd be a bit more, well, maladjusted? Instead he gets to Hogwarts and makes friends with Ron and Hermione and everything's just peachy, in terms of his social adjustment. Not that I wanted him to be sitting in a corner crying or antying, but he doesn't seem to ''struggle'' settling in at all. He seems perfectly happy, as if those nine years had never happened.

* Harry's lonely, he's been bullied, and he's got no friends, but he doesn't show any particular signs of trauma. No shyness, irritability, lack of scoial skills... the memories are there, yes, and they're awful ones, but after having been ''neglected by the Dursleys for nine years'', wouldn't you think he'd be a bit more, well, maladjusted? Instead he gets to Hogwarts and makes friends with Ron and Hermione and everything's just peachy, in terms of his social adjustment. Not that I wanted him to be sitting in a corner crying or antying, but he doesn't seem to ''struggle'' settling in at all. He seems perfectly happy, as if those nine years had never happened.

** Snape wasn't a teacher when Harry died. Slughorn was still the Potions Professor at the time.

** Hogwart's was not in great danger - at least, no greater than anywhere else. At that point the Death Eaters' principal opposition and biggest target was the Ministry of Magic. Note that when they did gain control of Hogwart's sixteen years later, the Death Eaters' impulse was to "reform" it rather than going on a rampage.

* In ''Crimes of Grindelwald'', we learn that Nicholas Flamel lives in France. (In the late 1920s, anywho.) If we assume he still lives there in the 90s, why did he send the Sorcerer’s Stone to be held in a bank in London, even one as reputably secure as Gringotts? Does Magical Paris not have its own financial institution? Alternatively, if he wanted to make sure it was truly secure, enough that he would send it to a different country, why not forgo Gringotts and send it directly to Hogwart’s, which is supposedly even safer? It’s already established that he and Dumbledore are friends.

** Err...what? We really don't. Head out onto the streets on Halloween and you MIGHT see the odd group of young kids or people heading to parties but no where close to American Halloween. As a Brit whose spent time in the US I can tell you honestly they're not the same. Also Vernon mostly saw adults, generally speaking adults don't dress up for Halloween except for parties.

[[folder: How Come Quirrell Couldn’t Understand Love?]]
It was said multiple times that Voldemort couldn’t understand love, one reason being that he was conceived under the effects of a Love Potion, but it’s said that Quirrell couldn’t understand love either, which was the result of his death. Why? If it was because he was sharing a body with Voldemort, could he understand love back before he met Voldemort? If not, it was said he was bullied because of his issues, so could THAT be why he couldn’t understand love?
[[/folder]]

Despite Quirrell apparently only teaching theory based spells, in the video games, he teaches Harry useful spells that were used against him in the climax. Why would he even teach them to defend themselves at all? If he was REALLY teaching them theory, he’d have done what Umbridge did 4 years later. Same goes for Barty Crouch Jr in Goblet of Fire.

** Hagrid could easily have learned how to apparate in the seventy years since he was expelled.