HPDH Chapter Four: The Seven Potters (Spoiler)

- everyone raises good points but i think we have to remember that they knew the death eaters would expect harry to be with the most experience auror - mad eye, and then kingsley etc etc .
- ** the other important factor is that if harry was the one who took the polyjuice potion, he ran the risk of being killed - if death eaters thought he was ron, they would not care for his life- and dumbeldore had known this would not suffice in the destruction of voldemort, even if one of his horcruxes were destroyed (that being harry) we soon learnt he could not physically tell when one had been destroyed and would have continued to take over the wizarding world.
- the polyjuice potion i gather is made as a basic mixture, to which whoever's hair is added, the potion will take on unique characteristics for that person - harry's was gold... bellatrix lestrange's tasted foul hermione had said.

But he was an Auror and had stayed alive by being prepared. That was my conclusion anyway.

I was answering AHacker's question about the polyjuice potion. It just caught my eye.

As to your question. It probably would have been simpler, but less dramatic. Like if they'd all been on brooms. I was wondering why she didn't have them all traveling in identical fashions instead of this and that. Seems a bit clumsy and way too easy to weed them out.

Well, at least it was mostly comical. Although they lost Mad-Eye and perhaps that was the reason she needed so much activity - she needed to lose a main character.

I thought the book explained why they didn't all travel in a similar manner. not all 'harrys' were great flyers. I do not fancy hermione on a broom being able to outfly a death-eater.

although now that i think about it. given that harry's invisibility cloak was inpenetrable by any jinx/charm (please correct me if i'm wrong) as it was one of the Deathly Hallows.. (do you agree his cloak was the actual Hallow talked about?)

Harry really should have had that cloak on him the entire time. could the Deatheaters & Voldy have sensed a 'cloaked' Harry?

they wouldn't have been able to see him, or sense him, however it would not have fit over two of them travelling on a broom etc.
and if he had been wearing it, and his fellow traveller would have looked suspicious travelling alone, making it easier to corner harry.

but that just made me realise something.
this cloak is supposed to block off all curses..
why then is draco able to stun harry in his cabin on the hogwarts express at the beginning of book 6. he gets stunned and falls from the rack, onto the ground and unable to move... interesting

They had to make them all look like Harry. The Death Eaters knew that he was being transported. It would have looked really strange if everyone flew out of Privet Drive and then just 3 Fred/George's. Voldemort got the info from Snape, who was supposed to be acting like he was on the bad side, so it needed to Harry that they were transporting, and SNape told them they were only going to remove Harry. The surprise was when there were 7 of them. So Voldemort went after Mundungus and Mad-Eye because he felt Harry would be with the most experienced Auror, which we know was a set up. Curious though about the magic of the number 7, we were told all along that Voldemort had split his soul into 7: the diary, the ring, the locket, the cup, the diadem, Nagini, and himself. But then there's Harry. That makes 8. Voldemort did not intentionally make Harry a Horcrux, he planned on splitting his soul the way we had all been told, making himself, the 7th and final bit of his soul. But really his soul was in 8 peices, so kinda skeptical about the magic of the number...

The 8th Horcrux was Voldemort's screw up - and 7 Harrys flying away from Privet Drive - what could be better???!!!

I see what everyone means, I just don't think that was the way it had to be done. I think by people not visiting Harry normally during summer, except to leave, Rowling boxed herself into a corner with only a few choices. But there were other ways out.

Fred goes in with a group, Fred & "George" leave with the group. Invisibility cloak is another obvious. But these are not as dramatic.

Plus, the more I think about it, the more she needed to kill off a couple characters right from the beginning to set the tone. This way gave her that. But when I read it through for the very first time, I just wasn't satisfied. Second time through may be better

and... if Harry was, let's say Ron, when he left Privet, then the real Ron would have been killed when he left. And... if they hadn't all become Harry we wouldn't have got to chortle about the tattoo remark!!!