Although it’s possible that the dementors would not quickly report an intruder who gave the true invisibility cloak to a prisoner, if they have that degree of reasoning ability, I suspect they would take more notice of a person leaving one of the cells who they hadn’t seen coming in than someone entering.
Santa Claus gave him the true invisibility cloak knowing what it was, and Dumbledore had been searching for the deathly hallows for much of his life, and had good reason to suspect one was in Harry’s possession. Snape is the odd one out, being the only one whose awareness of it does not have a clear explanation other than chance. He might have heard about James’s possession of it through Dumbledore at some point, but he’s also a professor who has conducted considerable research in various areas of magic, so his knowledge is probably well above average, and a single such mention could probably be marked down to chance.
I don’t recall Snape mentioning it at all though. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Quirrel?
For true cloaks of invisibility to be more common to wizards per capita than jetpacks are to us, there would have to be fewer than three thousand jetpacks in the world. I can’t find any numbers on this online, but given that you can buy one for about $150,000 dollars, I’m inclined to doubt they’re anywhere near that rare. They’re still rare enough that I would not expect any number of FBI agents given a few hours to suggest one as a possibility in an apparently intractable but otherwise mundane mystery. All sorts of mysteries could be solved by applications of really rare and expensive technology, but much more often it comes down to a clever trick the detectives simply haven’t thought of.
Try reading reports of unsolved crimes, and imagine how you might have carried them out given an unlimited materials budget. I think you’ll find that the solutions you come up with are generally not ones put forward by the police.
Although it’s possible that the dementors would not quickly report an intruder who gave the true invisibility cloak to a prisoner, if they have that degree of reasoning ability, I suspect they would take more notice of a person leaving one of the cells who they hadn’t seen coming in than someone entering.
Why on earth would you expect them to wear it on the way in?
I don’t recall Snape mentioning it at all though. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Quirrel?
It’s in the chapter with Lesath. And it’s not just that they know, but that they so casually mention it to Harry.
Let me rephrase that: In a work of fiction where jet-pack use was dramatically appropriate I would be disappointed with the smarts of 20 FBI men who never considered jet-packs when they were the only to their knowledge even slightly possible solution to a mystery, and in fact the correct solution.
I don’t think we’ll get much further in this particular sub-thread. It doesn’t seem all that much anyway. Even if the cloak does not add all that much evidence to dementors = death it should at least cause Quirrel to generate that hypothesis, and we already know that even the commonly available knowledge was enough for Harry to correctly reach that conclusion. Considering that Quirrel has even more evidence beyond that he should as well, unless he has a mental blind spot.
Although it’s possible that the dementors would not quickly report an intruder who gave the true invisibility cloak to a prisoner, if they have that degree of reasoning ability, I suspect they would take more notice of a person leaving one of the cells who they hadn’t seen coming in than someone entering.
Santa Claus gave him the true invisibility cloak knowing what it was, and Dumbledore had been searching for the deathly hallows for much of his life, and had good reason to suspect one was in Harry’s possession. Snape is the odd one out, being the only one whose awareness of it does not have a clear explanation other than chance. He might have heard about James’s possession of it through Dumbledore at some point, but he’s also a professor who has conducted considerable research in various areas of magic, so his knowledge is probably well above average, and a single such mention could probably be marked down to chance.
I don’t recall Snape mentioning it at all though. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Quirrel?
For true cloaks of invisibility to be more common to wizards per capita than jetpacks are to us, there would have to be fewer than three thousand jetpacks in the world. I can’t find any numbers on this online, but given that you can buy one for about $150,000 dollars, I’m inclined to doubt they’re anywhere near that rare. They’re still rare enough that I would not expect any number of FBI agents given a few hours to suggest one as a possibility in an apparently intractable but otherwise mundane mystery. All sorts of mysteries could be solved by applications of really rare and expensive technology, but much more often it comes down to a clever trick the detectives simply haven’t thought of.
Try reading reports of unsolved crimes, and imagine how you might have carried them out given an unlimited materials budget. I think you’ll find that the solutions you come up with are generally not ones put forward by the police.
Why on earth would you expect them to wear it on the way in?
It’s in the chapter with Lesath. And it’s not just that they know, but that they so casually mention it to Harry.
Let me rephrase that: In a work of fiction where jet-pack use was dramatically appropriate I would be disappointed with the smarts of 20 FBI men who never considered jet-packs when they were the only to their knowledge even slightly possible solution to a mystery, and in fact the correct solution.
I don’t think we’ll get much further in this particular sub-thread. It doesn’t seem all that much anyway. Even if the cloak does not add all that much evidence to dementors = death it should at least cause Quirrel to generate that hypothesis, and we already know that even the commonly available knowledge was enough for Harry to correctly reach that conclusion. Considering that Quirrel has even more evidence beyond that he should as well, unless he has a mental blind spot.