Why did Dumbledore make it less difficult to get to the Sorcerer's Stone?

Question

The Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone was removed from Gringotts to be placed under the most impenetrable of protections at Hogwarts under Dumbledore's custody. But it seems clear Dumbledore took protections which could have been impenetrable, and deliberately made them less so, such that at best they would only slightly slow down anybody trying to access the Stone, rather than just plain block them.

For example, after the Devil's Snare, you have a locked door enchanted such that it cannot be opened by any charm or other means except its own assigned key. That's a great protection, potentially an impassable barrier if the key is not available.

But the key is then left right there in front of the door in the same room.

At least the key is flying around the ceiling. But there are broomsticks right there in the same room, too.

The room with the fires front and back—that could also have been a solid defense—deadly fires that cannot be passed through unless you drink very specific potions tailored to each particular fire's properties.

Except that those potions providing safety are put right there in the same room.

At least, perhaps, they're surrounded by other bottles, some of which contain poison. With no way to know which bottle is safe, that could still almost be a solid protection.

Except that a piece of paper with a logic puzzle detailing exactly which bottles are which is put on the table with them.

Dumbledore always had reasons, and those reasons were always virtuous. What was he up to, deliberately weakening the protections in this way?

Answer 1

I've always thought it was because he was using it as a test for Harry. It seemed very appropriate for his and his friends' specific talents and he didn't try very hard to keep kids out of there. Also, Gringotts may have been broken into a few times, but surely it's still far more secure than Hogwarts, which seems to be infiltrated constantly, as well as holding some of the children of Voldemort's supporters, who could have broken through.

Sure, you could only get it from Erised if you didn't want to use it yourself, but arguably, you would have been able to get it if you just wanted to obtain it for Voldemort. Also, given my personal theory that it was all a test to see Harry's abilities - bear in mind that Harry already knew about the Mirror of Erised, and Dumbledore and he had talked about it - it makes sense to use a final obstacle that Harry, with his already existing knowledge of the mirror could have worked out.

Answer 2

He arguably didn't make it easy.

The final protection (the Mirror of Erised) could have - should have - been insurmountable to Voldemort, or anyone working for Voldemort. This was only NOT the case because Harry (unforseeably, from Dumbledore's perspective) arrived on the scene.

Clarifications and further support for my answer, further to the comments below:-

The stone is meant to be difficult to retrieve, not impossible. Initially, Dumbledore is holding it in trust for his friend Nicolas Flamel. This is clarified at the end of the book when it is stated that it is only after the incident with Quirrell that the decision is taken (jointly with Flamel) to destroy the stone. They did not want to make the stone unreachable initially, only to keep it from Voldemort.

Ultimately the tasks are meant to preclude both a) incompetent wizards with good intentions, and b) competent wizards with bad intentions from obtaining the stone. If the stone ended up in the hands of either of these types of people, it would be a bad thing. The preceding tasks weed out the incompetent, and the final, most important task (the Mirror of Erised) weeds out the unworthy, those with bad intentions.

But it is not necessarily Dumbledore's goal to stop competent witches or wizards with good intentions from obtaining the stone, should they know where to go looking. E.g. in the event Dumbledore died, or was otherwise indisposed, and the stone would need to be obtained, this may not be possible if the instructions or key were hidden somewhere only Dumbledore knew about.

Finally, it is easy with hindsight to pick holes in every little thing that Dumbledore did wrong. In truth, the events in the book were extremely unlikely to play out the way they did. The stone's presence in Hogwarts itself was supposed to be a secret. An agent of Voldemort is not supposed to have access to Hogwarts. Voldemort/Quirrell was not supposed to get as close to the stone as he did at the final task. Only Harry's (unexpected) presence made that possible.

In an alternative scenario in which Harry does not show up, Voldemort/Quirrell is presented with an insurmountable obstacle by the Mirror, with limited time to resolve the problem before Dumbledore arrives on the scene and mops up. After which additional security measures and a new hiding place could be found - placing Voldemort, or any agent of Voldemort, right back at square one.

Answer 3

There was the whole "find it, but not use it" clause to getting it out of the Mirror. As other answers have said, only someone with pure intentions for the Stone could actually retrieve it. And in addition to @Lydia's answer, Dumbledore DID mean for Harry to at least know/understand how to get the Stone, if not rescue it if the time came outright. He gifted Harry his father's Invisibility Cloak, and right around the time he knew Harry would be curious to test it, had the Mirror of Erised placed in an empty classroom where any First Year could waltz into it.

One reason why he could have had all the 'answers' available is for the case that someone needs to retrieve the Stone. Such as if Flamel asked for it back, if he learned that Voldemort had actually died and no longer wanted to keep it in the school, or if something urgent came up and he needed to change hiding places. No run-of-the-mill clueless wizard/witch could go, but those who were meant to know of the Stone could go down without worrying about picking up a key from a hidden drawer or memorizing the order of potions. They could figure it out when they got down there (hopefully quickly because they knew of the challenges awaiting them). In this case, retrieving the Stone itself isn't a big deal, as they would only have to move the Mirror, and the Stone remains safe.

Answer 4

It's a plot hole and you are supposed to suspend disbelief pretty hard on that part of the book and attribute it to history development and, to a certain extent, Rowling inexperience as writer.

Yes, I know there's every attempt to come up with a viable in universe justification for this but not everything can be justified in universe and there's simply no plausible explanation for ANY security system that an 11 year's old kid can evade but "the greatest dark wizard of all times" can't. It simply makes not sense and any attempt to rationalise it (even from Rowling herself) will come out as a pretty forced attempt.

The analogy would be having a system that an expert bank robber with years of experience is unable to break into but my niece can. If a kid can go through, it was never safe to begin with.

Edit: The only extremely forced in universe reason I can think of would be Dumbledore wanting to have the stone under his personal surveillance, him being "the only wizard Voldemort has ever fear". That would make sense but we have to suspend disbelief as to why he doesn't simply carry it around on his pocket. The secret to security (in any scenario) is that it should be easy for the right person to get in but imposible (or almost imposible) for anyone else... In that sense, "ability" or "knowledge" are reallly crappy security systems as those are easy to aquire.

To further go into this, the "challenges" are specifically designed to cater for each and every ability of our young children. Fluffy is already gone (why that would be a good protection when you can just avada kedavra him is more suspension of desbelief), the second challenge requires Hermione wit, third Harry's flying ability and fourth Ron's chess skills, all traits that had already being introduced (how convenient).

We need to remember this was a children book before it became a mass selling success and children will not doubt this or question validity. As such, as I said, any attempt to reconcile rationality with facts will come sort. Not only because of the above but also because Voldemort himself didn't seem to find too much trouble getting through. We have to assume that, had Harry not interrupted he would have eventually managed to get the stone.

Answer 5

I always assumed that they outer defenses had to be passable, because they were set by different wizards and witches over a period of time, and possibly not in reverse order. Dumbledore's reasoning for this is unclear, but the implication from the book was that you had the "best of the best" setting the most cunning traps and enchantments from their areas of expertise. Even though Dumbledore was a very powerful wizard, there are certain powers he did not have (at least as far as we know), such as being an Animagus. We might assume then that the overall defenses were presumed more thorough with the benefits of a team effort - since no one wizard or witch would have the skill to defeat all of the defenses. In fact both Quirrell and the kids cheated with bits of inside information, and in the case of the kids it was a collaborative effort of 3 involving individual sacrifice at times. Layered enchantments seems to be the "go to" style of defense for all things Wizards/Witches want to protect - and I think Rowling is also emphasizing the exceptional nature of Dumbledore, Voldemort, and the kids by explaining how they break through these defenses.

Consider the same question about some of Voldemort's other Horcruxes. Why didn't Voldemort make them impossible to reach? I think the simple answer in both cases is: they tried to, but failed.

Answer 6

You are working from several false assumptions.

First of all, NO ONE KNEW Voldemort was after the Stone. Oh, Dumbledore always assumed he was just temporarily gone, but since no one had any sign of The Dark Lord, he just took precautions for that possibility, too. But they weren't specifically for the ex-Riddle himself.

Secondly, just like in Gringotts, there must be a way to recover the Stone for the rightful owner.

Third, you assume that everyone involved in protecting The Stone knew what exactly the other did. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but how do you know? In addition: no one expected Voldemort to be inside not only Hogwarts, much less on the protection team.

As far as the quality of the protection...

It seems the simplest part was the hardest (Fluffy), and the rest required excellent knowledge of all aspects of magic.

Next, you make the broom and key stage sound easy, but think about it: how do you catch a small, agile, fast and small object in a large columnaded room on a broom? Closest equivalent would be a catching bouncing ball while riding a motorcycle in your living room... Does it sound easy now? Read the description - Harry himself could not do it, he needed his friends to pass that stage...

The potions room sounds easy, too, once you realize magic has an inherent and huge flaw: if you can solve almost anything with it, you use it for almost anything. And cold logic is not easy in normal circumstances for a lot of people - if it did, world would be a much better place.

So, in conclusion: even if we assume you're right and those protections were deliberately weakened, they were orders of magnitude better than Gringotts...

Answer 7

Harry's touch turned Quirrell into stone. The protections were designed to let only Harry and Voldemort's henchman in so that Harry would kill him in a confrontation. Dumbledore likely predicted that there would be that type of outcome based upon setting the tasks to suit the skills of Harry and his friends.