I completly agree with you WASPS except for one small thing... I understood there to be more than three moves in the chess game. pg#282 PS "A white pawn had moved foward two squares. Ron started to direct the black pieces. They moved silently wherever he sent them." To me this says there were several moves we are not specifically told about. then Ron tells harry to move, Hermione takes the bishop, then it says " He himself darted around the board taking almost as many white pieces as they had lost black ones." Then Ron has himself taken, then Harry checkmates the king.

GoF, ch 2
A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig, usually perched.

No, it's not new. But it always good to see how people interpret each task/professor in the light of the books. As I said, there are other groups of seven that are fun to look at as well. In CoS, Aunt Petunia gives Harry seven tasks to complete before the Masons arrive and in PoA, Harry endures seven days of Aunt Marge.

A thought hit me today. Fluffy had three heads (duh emily), and he is protecting/guarding something (the stone). Well Harry, Ron and Hermionie operate as one unit often enough for them to be called the trio. The trio is trying to protect the stone from falling into VM hands in PS/SS. The trio being defenders/guards/protectors of keeping things out of VM's hands and path is a theme that runs through the books. The idea of fine, if you want it, you will have to go through us comes to mind.

3. Flying keys and book #3. Okay not as obvious as #2. If you think though that the keys are partially transfigured from one thing to something else, in book 3 we see that scabbers is really peter pettigrew transfigured into a rat, we find out sirius is also an animagus, and that james was as well. we also are introduced to the map, a key if you will, of hogwarts and its secret passages.

4. chess and book 4: we have the chess game where the trio must play the game to get across to the next task. In GOF we see harry competing in the Triwizard Tournament a game of sorts. in the end of the chess game, a fellow teammate is sacrificed (although ron does it willingly, cedric does not have a choice)]

5. potions, logic OOTP: The potions were snape's way of defending the stone. In the 1st book, the trio think it is snape who is trying to steal the stone, and they are told several times that he is one of the teachers guarding the stone. Is he helping guard the stone to earn DD trust, or is he really good? We dont know. In OOTP, again the trio are not sure where his loyalities lie, so they must work out the puzzle and figure out why dumbledore trusts him to move on in their fight against dumbledore. In this level he loses hermionie because she goes and gets help for ron. In OOTP he loses Sirius to the veil.

6: mirror of erised, HBP. In this task Harry is alone. He has no one else in the trio to help him since Hermionie went back to help ron. In the mirror harry sees himself getting what voldemort wants to keep him from regaining power. In HBP Harry is using memories to reflect and learn about Voldemort's past to help him find and understand where voldemort stored all the pieces of his soul. He wants to find them, and keep voldemort from using them. (he who wanted to find the stone, and not use it......) In this level he loses quirrel (not that he was worth having anyway) and is left with just voldemort. In HBP well, we all know who is lost there, showing that the final task is between Harry and Voldemort.

I think the last task, the Mirror of Erised, might well reappear in the last book. The Mirror of Erised was Dumbledore's protection for the stone, and it was what he observed of Harry which mattered so much in how the Philosopher's Stone ended.