says a lot in a good way or bad way? i hope a good way. I would be embarassed to think that someone is sitting back laughing at what a doof I can be.)

1. Fluffy; music and book #1: the trio find fluffy and he is standing on a trap door guarding the stone. they would have to go down through several obstacles before getting the stone. Earlier in the book, Harry and Hagrid have to go into Gringotts to fetch the stone and bring back to hogwarts. The stone is way down in the vaults where they have to go deep into london underground to get it. This is honestly the hardest one. I am having a bit of trouble with it. Hagrid takes care of fluffy, fluffy is a dog, dogs are loyal to the ones that take care of them. in this book we learn how loyal hagrid is to dumbledore because of how he has taken care of hagrid and stood up for him in the past. This loyal thread though is not the theme of the book, nor is it the challenge. Other than it is start of a great adventure that takes them to places they did not expect to go.

The tie to Hagrid works, though, because Hagrid is also the one who slips (and slips, and slips) to get them the information they need to figure out what's going on and to put Fluffy to sleep. And Book One is laying the groundwork for Harry's quest, gathering information. (Not that he gets it all, of course.)

2. Devil's Snare, and book #2: Well first of all it is proffesor sprout's protection of the stone. It is hermionie that figures out what it is and how to save the boys. In the second book when everyone is becoming petrified by the snake, hermionie figures out that it is a baslisk and how it is getting around through the school, and why only harry can hear it. Professor Sprout saves those who have been petrified with her healthy crop of mandrakes that she has been growing.

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.

Another parallel is that the kids know which key is the one, because Quirrel has been there before them and the feathers of the correct key are ruffled. In the same way, the Marauders' Map has been used before, first by James et. al. and then by the Weasley twins.

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)

Good thinking on these!

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 viel.

This one seems the weakest to me, since Harry has never trusted Snape, and still doesn't at the end of OotP. I don't think that Dd would have asked Snape to help guard the stone unless Dd already trusted Snape. I don't think Snape could have done it as proof of his loyalty. A good question is whether the professors knew the solutions to the others' protective barriers? Perhaps having so many was to ensure that no one traitor could give away the whole thing.

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 peices 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.

Yeah, that makes sense.

7: Final confrontation with voldemort (on quirrel's head) and final confrontation with voldemort

Well, if we look at what we know of the first showdown with Voldemort, we could extrapolate a few things. One is that Voldemort had possessed Quirrel. Quirrel was a teacher at Hogwarts, the soul of the wizarding community in many ways. So in book seven, Voldemort will possess or assume some power/office/authority that is not rightfully his, and it will work for a time. (Maybe this is the "immortality" he has gained through the horcruxes? Maybe it's a power that the relics of the founders possess?) In book one, Harry defeats Voldemort because he sees what Voldemort cannot. This might tie in with the magic of love. LV simply doesn't understand it, so he cannot "see" how to use it. Also, Harry can see the location of the stone only because he doesn't want anything but to keep it from harm. Not only does Harry not see himself using the stone to get riches or whatever, but he doesn't see himself destroying LV, either. Harry doesn't wish for vengeance. So it will be important in book seven for Harry to keep a pure heart. If he has to destroy LV, and maybe there's a way that doesn't involve killing, he has to at least hate doing it.

I know this is long, and it needs work, but I wanted to know what you guys thought.

Good thinking! I think it works from a literature standpoint, but also because we know that JKR had the series planned out ahead of time, but didn't know for sure whether the first book would be popular enough to get a second one published. Therefore, the best strategy would be to get all the points into the first one, in abbreviated form.

"Lucky you pay attention in Herbology, Hermione," said Harry as he joined her by the wall, wiping sweat off his face.
"Yeah," said Ron, "and lucky Harry doesn't lose his head in a crisis - 'there's no wood,' honestly."