Thanks. I hadn't re-read back enough to see the date, apparently. Still no idea how I thought 2 weeks.

 

"Castles in Galloway range from iron grey to the fairly definite pink of Caerlaverock, but seem for the most part to be quite brown. Castles are more thinly scattered in the West Highlands and some survive only as a few tumbled ruins, but the two major still-standing castles in the Lochalsh area, the reconstructed-Mediaeval Eilean Donan and the Victorian Duncraig, are both a warm brownish-grey: although Eilean Donan can look almost as red as Caerlaverock in some lights. So we can guess that Hogwarts, too, is quite a warm brown-grey, probably with a red cast in some lights: the colour of the stonework is evidently one thing Warner Brothers did get perfectly right."

http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_whitehound/Fanfic/map_of_Hogwarts/castle.htm

Consider this resource, it's the best I have.

 

I think it's likely that if Hogwarts were founded in the early 1000s or 900s, it would have initially been built on an older Iron Age stone structure, or a new build of wood that was converted to stone during the late 1000s or 1100s.

 

When did Harry first have a memory of his parent's death? Was is on the train with the dementors before third year or did he have dreams or something earlier?

 

I would be inclined to think it was the first time he remembered them. When he looked into the Mirror of Erised, he had to figure out that they were his parents; he had no image in his mind of his parents except for everyone saying he looked just like his father. In PS he legitimately believed they died in a car crash, so between then and when the soul suckers showed up, I don't think he had any flashbacks.

 

He did have a distant memory of a flash of green light, but that's it until the dementors came around.

 

Do we know when Dumbledore began to suspect Voldemort had made multiple Horcruxes? He confirmed it when Harry got the memory from Slughorn (I think, correct me if I'm wrong), but do we know what put him on that path, why and when?

 

My understanding is that the Diary and it's destruction/use as a weapon is what twigged him to the multiple Horcruxes thing. After all, the diary was clearly a Horcrux, but if so, why would Voldemort, someone so terrified of death that he'd carve off a chunk of himself for immortality, risk that immortality so easily?

Alternatively, Harry's testimony about the Graveyard after 4th year, when Voldemort said that he'd gone further down the path to immortality than any other, could also have done it. I'd bet on the diary though.

 

He found the ring sometime in the summer of 1996, so I would think that means he had done some heavy research into it before then. This most likely entailed going around and collecting all of those memories, doing research to know which memories to collect, you get the idea. Voldemort's resurrection would have clued him into the horcrux idea if nothing else did, and since the diary was destroyed he would have had to have more than one, and he had a sufficient grasp of his personality to assume he split his soul into seven. The diary by itself didn't prove anything, since Voldemort made no appearances between that and 1994, and then only as a disfigured baby in Harry's dreams- for all Dumbledore knew for certain, he really could have been dead.

 

My logic for the diary is less "Voldemort isn't dead, therefore there must be other Horcruxes", and more "Voldemort is far too terrified of dying to risk his only Horcrux by turning it into a weapon like the diary was, therefore it must not be his only Horcrux".

I think Dumbledore has enough of a grasp of the way Riddle thinks, even back in book 2, that seeing a Horcrux weaponized would have at least made him suspect that there was more than one of the things.

 

About how big is Hogwarts on the inside?

 

Did Voldemort really turn it into a weapon or was Ginny being possessed just the logical conclusion to carrying a horcrux around for months and writing in it, allowing it to convince her it was a friend? However Malfoy senior got a hold of it, I doubted it was Voldemort's intention to be dropped into Ginny's cauldron; I honestly still have no idea why he did that other than out of meanness and an opportunity to be rid of a cursed book.

 

I'll fully admit I might be reading a bit too much into it, but the whole thing with the diary feels like something Voldemort orchestrated as a way to resurrect if the worst were to happen. Like, the whole thing with the diary at the end is that it was draining Ginny's life and giving it to Riddle, and it would have worked if not for that meddling kid.

I feel like the whole purpose of the diary was as a weapon of last resort, to ensnare the unwary and restore Voldemort to life, and Malfoy simply pre-empted that plan to fuck over the Weasleys.

 

Voldemort told Lucius the diary would open the Chamber (that's the only way would have known it). Plus this Horcrux was obviously made to be written in and talked to. And there's the fact that the diary did act as a weapon by possessing someone. Had Voldemort not wanted it to, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been able to communicate.

As to why Lucius did that, it was both to rid himself of a dark artifact and to discredit Arthur Weasley and his new pro-Muggle law.

 

As big as you want it to be, canon is very inconsistent.

For all of the imagery of a sprawling castle, we know there is only one professor per discipline. Harry doesnt change classrooms every year so there are what... six or so classrooms in use, plus the astronomy and divination towers, greenhouses.

Book two suggests the classrooms for several classes are on the same hall, the hall Harry gets "caught" on as the Heir of Slytherin.

Otoh, multiple towers, dungeons, staircases that go all over the place, at least seven stories, hidden rooms, etc etc...

 

Try looking at Silirt's post up-page(or quoted below). It links to a very in depth look at Hogwarts.

 

See the thing is we keep talking about the diary like it was literally Voldemort, the same as the one who appeared in PS, but I don't think it was. I think this was just Tom Riddle, a past version of Voldemort, left to his own devices. It's why he refers to himself as Riddle and his appearance is that of Riddle; he's stuck at the age when he made the diary. In this way the diary ties him to life, but as pieces of his soul go, it's a subpar one, it's not the big piece that floats around and possesses Quirrell. To me there's nothing different about the diary and the locket, the locket could talk as well, and if Ginny had the locket whispering in her ear all the time, the effect would have been the same.