Skip to main content

harry potter - Why did Dumbledore say that the Ring (Hallow/Horcrux) "was sure to carry a curse"?



“When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts - the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons - I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. (Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35 - KING'S CROSS).



Why did Dumbledore say that it was "sure" to carry a curse, being a Horcrux?


As @Sheph noted in a comment, this seems less than "sure" if one were to look at other Horcruxes:




  • The Diary had no malevolent protective spell (and was the only Horcrux Dumbledore knew of before the Ring). It did have Tom's spirit inside but no curse.





  • The locket didn't carry a defensive curse. It was able to long-term corrupt the wearer ala The One Ring, but that was not what Dumbledore meant when referring to carrying a curse.




  • The cup had no curse. The trio handled it barehanded with no issues.




  • The diadem - IIRC was destroyed before anyone actually had a chance to touch it and check.





  • Nagini - had no curse aside from being an evil thinking snake (Harry touched her when fighting on Christmas in Bathilda's house).





Answer




"Why did you put on that ring? it carries a curse, surely you realised that. Why even touch it?" ... "


I... was a fool. Sorely tempted"


-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33 The Prince's Tale.



So Dumbledore had probably sensed the curse when he found it.



How? This is just speculation but I believe he was looking out for it, just like in the cave:



"Magic always leaves traces," ... "sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style."


-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 26 The Cave.



He knew it was a Horcrux and so he expected protections.


After all, he knew that:




  1. The Diary was entrusted to Lucius to be kept with the highest security possible and





  2. The Locket was stored in the middle of a lake in a cave and kept in a potion that would possibly cause serious harm to the drinker.




So he could hardly expect that Tom Riddle had just left the Horcrux under a floorboard without any protections.


To make it easy to understand I've made a narrative, as follows:


Albus Dumbledore finds out the location of the Gaunt house and goes there. After reaching the cottage he searches for the Horcrux, at which point he senses the enchantments (curse?) and finds the Horcrux under the floorboards. But then he sees that it's the ring has the Resurrection Stone on it; he gets excited (because he - unlike Voldemort - knows about the Hallows and that he can use it to bring back his lost family) and forgets that it might have a curse on it and puts it on.


So that's what I believe is what he means when he says "was sure to carry a curse".


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more