At first I was going to ask if you'd come up with overly contrived explanations for every single contentious point in the series, but that's actually a really good one.

 

I realise this is hardly what you might call an 'original' plot hole, but I'm interested in potential explanations.

Halloween, 1981.

Potters die - Timestamp: Early evening? Potters are still awake at the time. Suggesting that the latest we can go would be around midnight.

Unknown duration.

Dumbledore turns up in Privet Drive - Timestamp: Fairly late evening? Dursleys are fast asleep by the time he arrives. Perhaps 11pm at the earliest.

Then Hagrid arrives, apparently Harry fell asleep over Bristol. Supposedly Godric's Hollow is in the West Country, combined with the Bristol flyover that means Somerset, Devon or Cornwall. Bristol isn't exactly on the direct path from anywhere in those counties to Surrey, but we can assume that Hagrid decided to follow the M5/M4 most of the way.

This puts the journey, had he driven, at around 3-5 hours depending on where Godric's Hollow actually is. When we consider that he's riding a flying motorcycle I think it's fairly reasonable to lean towards the lower end of this. Lets say 3 hours journey.

So we have a roughly 20 hour gap from latest reasonable Potter's dying to earliest reasonable Harry appearing at Privet Drive.

Also, Hagrid told McGonagall that Dumbledore would be going to Privet Drive. He told her this some time early in the morning (she arrived in Privet Drive at around 8am by my reckoning).

It was Hagrid that retrieved Harry from the ruins of the house. He did that 'before the muggles started swarming about', which would suggest it was very early indeed. Given the state of the house one wouldn't think it would take muggles long to get the emergency services involved, I reckon 8am is the latest possible time Harry could be retrieved.

The timeline now is:

12midnight : Potters die
7am ish : Hagrid tells McGonagall that he's to take Harry to Surrey.
8am latest : Hagrid picks up Harry
11pm earliest : Hagrid drops Harry at Surrey

Now Harry has to put up with possible exposure (destroyed house, Halloween isn't a warm night) for maybe 8 hours. You might say 'magic house therefor magic warming' but that feels like a copout to me. Then Hagrid... what? Takes Harry to Hogwarts for a checkup? That kinda fits the 'flying over Bristol' but not the falling asleep. Harry falling asleep 13 hours ago isn't likely to be an item of conversation.

St Mungos maybe? Again, why would Harry falling asleep 13 hours ago be an item of conversation? Surely him falling asleep 'after his checkup' would be a more reasonable line?

Then, of course, he's left on a doorstep for another 7-8 hours. This time I'm fine with magic being used, so that's not so important. But seriously, what was Hagrid doing for all that time?

 

Let's try to imitate Taure and find an easy explanation.

1) Potters die
2) Hagrid picks up Harry because Dumbledore is busy dealing with the aftermath, perhaps at the Ministry
3) Hagrid watches Harry until Dumbledore decides what to do next
4) Late afternoon of November 1st Hagrid is instructed to bring Harry to Surrey, happens to fly over Bristol (may not have been flying from Hogwarts, may have been a safehouse, or even Dumbledore's place)

This whole thing falls apart if canon says Hagrid went straight from GH to Surrey, so correct me if I'm wrong. However, if this is only based on the fact that Sirius gave Hagrid his bike in GH, then it' possible Hagrid took a detour.

 

It's a hole but it's easily filled. In my head-canon, Dumbledore detected the situation at the Potter's house in Godric's Hollow and sent Hagrid to his family house via the Floo and told him to sneak over and see what's what.

Hagrid did so, found Harry and then encountered Sirius, who had come when his own tricks revealed that his friends were exposed and/or dead. Sirius gives over his bike to Hagrid and then changes into Padfoot so he can track down Wormtail.

Hagrid returns to Dumbledore's house and floo-calls to tell him who survived, and he is directed to fly Harry to Madame Pomfrey's house in Swansea. Pomfrey is then sent home to check Harry over while Dumbledore goes to the scene to investigate. Barely an hour has passed since the Potters died.

Hagrid, bored at Pomfreys but ordered to stay at hand with the cycle starts chatting with other Order members via the Floo. Pomfrey is called by Dumbledore from his house, because he has detected an unusual protection from around the remains of Harry's crib. Pomfrey is ordered to keep him safe for the day while Dumbledore figures out how to leverage this.

Hagrid, still bored and listening in, calls back his gossip friends to update them about Dumbledore's findings- Harry killed Voldemort, uh huh!

Albus comes up with a possible solution, but there aren't many Evans' left alive for some reason. He orders McGonagall to Surrey to check out his best prospect.

About here is when Albus starts getting inundated with floo calls from various and sundry, asking for info on Harry vs. Voldemort. He spends what time he's not researching blood-based protections doing spin control over everything that Hagrid was heard to say (and given his accent, much misinterpretation was at play).

That evening he arranges for Hagrid to deliver Harry to the Dursleys, meeting McGonagall there to confirm that they are Lily's family and not cannibal serial-killers. The letter is the keystone of sustaining Harry's protection, and it relies on Petunia not being stupid.

 

JKR has also admitted to this being a legitimate hole. She calls it 'the lost day.'

 

Or if you're into Evil!Dumbledore: Perhaps he used this day to place binds on Harry's 'magical core'.

 

And invalidate the Last Will and Testament of Lily and James Potter of the Most Noblest and Ancientest House of Awesum Potter.

 

And use Harry's blood to sign over control of the 243 Potter Vaults to him, including the ones belonging to Merlin which nobody ever thought to visit before now.

 

And the portraits of the Founders. And the family collection of white weapons, ownership of the Potter estates in England, France, America and Carribean, Harry's 10% of Microsoft shares and let's not forget rare books, including 'A Guide To Overwhelming Firepower Via Reading'.

The only good thing Harry gets out of this is his marriage contracts being frozen. Unless, of course, they bind him to a hot Slytherin, in which case true love is sure to sprout anyway. Just give it a week or two.

 

Anything else we're forgetting? Oh yeah, DD steals all the Potter house elves and makes them work at Hogwarts, where they're forced to add malnutrition potions to Harry's food in order to keep him small and weak. Or susceptibility potions to make him easier to manipulate. Or straight out Amortentia to make him love Ginny...

The sad part is that I'm sure somebody wrote a fic like this and was actually serious. :facepalm

 

Guys- I'm all for romance, but you're freaking me out. Get a room.

 

^ I know, I know, I'm sorry! I just really feel that we click.

 

We need someone to repost BioPlague's epic evisceration of GoF, so we can see how many of them still hold true in this thread of explanations.

Is that responsibility going to fall to me or does someone have it on hand?

 

I did a 'BioPlague goblet of fire' Google search and found this.

Is that what you mentioned?

 

Nope, but I found it:

And later this:

And I wrote this:

Hermione also summons the book on Horcruxes out of the Headmaster's office.

 

You could make a weak argument that Sirius didn't have his wand and no means to purchase a new one and being wandless would have made an attempt to steal one more difficult.

But like said, it's a weak argument.

If we keep picking canon apart to the subatomic level, we'll all just get major headaches. Then again, it's a testament to how much we care about HP that we're still doing this seven years after the last book came out.

 

Have we ever seen a living, breathing object being summoned? That could be a limitation of the charm. If it wasn't, one of the death eaters might have been smart enough to try summoning Harry during the book 7 broomstick chase.

 

Good question. I don't think we have, but I don't have the books with me. Can anyone else confirm? Because that would be a really neat explanation.

 

Well, Harry tries to summon Hagrid during the broom chase, although it's inconclusive if there's any effect; it seems that it might have forced the bike towards Hagrid on the ground, which on itself seems like a rare occurrence of Newton's laws working with magic. Later there's Dean Thomas summoning fish from a river, so that's possible at least.

e-books with search function sure help in finding references...

edit: And in OotP Harry summons a frog during a lesson

 

This is just grasping at straws here, but in transfiguration, the more complex an animal is, the harder it is to vanish it, and thus, do spells on it. (OotP vanishing charm if I remember correctly). In one of the movies (not sure if it happened in the books), silencing a raven is harder than silencing less complex animals. Wormtail might have counted as a human, not a rat as far as the summoning charm is concerned.
That, or Sirius was too busy holding the insanity ball the dementors gave to him to remember the summoning charm.