I have found myself nose deep into the Harry Potter books for the last few days. It has been a fantastic ride down the memory lane and no, I am not going to do a book review. I mean, does any of the installments of the series even need a review! They speak for themselves. So there's that elephant out of the way.

I have read the books multiple times, and my wife asked me why I read them so many times when I already know the story inside out. I didn't have a proper answer for that. But thinking deeper on the subject, I _don't_ think I know the story inside out, even after so many reads. There's always something more you discover every time you read, maybe a new angle of looking at how things are playing out now that I know the story and the endgame. As it turns out, and this is very odd, the second and third and the fourth reads are actually much more enjoyable and insightful than the first read _because_ we already know the story. 

What I am about to say next is going to be very very contradictory. Because we know the full story, we can look at the happenings in the earlier books from many different angles. But the reason we _can_ explore different angles  of the story is in fact because with the potterverse, we never really know the full story. There is always a new theory to think about. That's how well the universe and the storyline has been constructed.

## Spoilers ahead!

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When I first read the Philosopher's stone, the tasks in the final part of the book and they way the trio solved them gave goosebumps to the 11/12 year old me. Looking back at those tasks now raises a lot of questions. If the tasks could be solved by mere first year students, two of whom lived with muggles their entire lives up until a year ago....were the tasks really set up to _protect_ the philosopher's stone? 

It also seems the tasks were tailor made for specifically the three to solve. The broomstick and keys, that's a seekers task. Harry being the youngest seeker in a century...2+2 = 4 maybe?

The chess task was classic Ron and the logical potion riddle had Hermione written all over it.

To add cherry to the top of this theory, the final task had been set up by Dumbledore himself. And the way that final pice of the puzzle was set up, it rendered all the previous measures of protection unnecessary at best.

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By the time we know enough of the potterverse and spend some time thinking, it starts to seem like these tasks were in fact placed to test and prepare Harry...to see if Harry was on the right track in terms of his development as a young wizard.

This finally brings us to the Mirror of Erised, which was the final task Dumbledore had himself set in place. The mirror was allowed to lay wandering in an empty classroom, the same mirror that was hiding the philosopher's stone was left unguarded for Harry to just one night "stumble" upon! Umm, I don’t think so. I think it was left on purpose for harry to find and to understand how the mirror worked because it would be essential in the final part for harry to understand the mirror.

When Dumbledore finally confronted Harry and told him to stop spending time with the mirror, these was what he said, "Back _again_ Harry?"

Again? That's the important bit here. How did Dumbledore know it was _again?_

I'll stop here, maybe I'll have more angles next time _(yes, there will be a next time)_ I'm reading it after I have completed all seven this time.