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When Harry's name came out of the Goblet, Dumbledore asked him if he had asked an older student to put his name in for him.

If such a thing could've worked

a. Why didn't any of the more adventurous students think of it?

b. Why didn't Dumbledore do something to prevent that from happening? It seems like such an obvious work-around...

The more obvious question, though, is could such a thing have happened?

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  • Thanks for the edit. I forgot to put in the extra linebreak to make it a new paragraph. Forgot that one wasn't enough...
    – chama
    Commented Feb 27, 2013 at 22:08
  • Weren't Fred and George tossing their names from beyond age line?
    – Doctor Doom
    Commented Dec 8, 2018 at 4:36

4 Answers 4

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“To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation,” said Dumbledore, “I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line.”

To answer your questions:

  • could such a thing have happened?

    Clearly, yes - in theory. The Goblet had no age protection, and the line - as evidenced by Crouch Jr putting in Harry's name - only checked the age of the carrier. NO checks were made to ensure the carrier was the same person as the name on paper.

    Obviously, none of the wizards ever taken a basic class in computer security.

  • a. Why didn't any of the more adventurous students think of it?

    No canon answer I'm aware of.

    Possibly because the only ones likely to try would have been Weasley Twins (or 2-3 others that Dumbledore mentioned to the Twins as having also grown beards :) and the twins had no older student friendly enough to want to risk this.

  • b. Why didn't Dumbledore do something to prevent that from happening?

    As the quote shows, he did take some steps.

    Also, the Goblet was picking a champion from among many entrants - the worthiest one; and therefore presumably there was very little chance that an under-educated kiddo from Year 2 would be chosen over a senior student as a champion, even if said Year 2 managed to get his name submitted by cheating:

    Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools.

    Why he didn't do more (e.g. match up the name on the slip to the person dropping it), there is no canon info I'm aware of.

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    This is mostly speculation, but I think Dumbledore was playing off both the ability of the Goblet to pick the worthiest champion and the students' common sense. I would assume that a 1st year would be hard-pressed to convince a 6th or 7th year to put their names in and the Goblet would be able to discern (as mentioned above). If I recall correctly, Harry was only selected as Crouch Jr. managed to Confund the Goblet into believing there were FOUR schools rather than three. Considering that Harry would then be the only entrant of that fourth school...
    – Steam
    Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 15:35
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    Point of order: not sure "catamite" is the word you were thinking of there. It seems a bit... lurid?
    – Adele- Nexus of Potlucks
    Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 20:44
  • @AdeleC - good point. I wasn't aware of all the implications of the term. I'm ESL, in my defense :)
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 21:49
  • There's also the fact taht Harry was the fourth candidate, something that should not have happened. If the Goblet were a secure server, Dumbledore would've lost his job over this.
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 19:12
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I don't think Dumbledore would have asked if he didn't think it was a possibility. Since Harry was required to compete even though he didn't put his name in the Goblet himself, I think that a younger student would have also been required to compete if they had managed to cheat their name into the Goblet.

Maybe there were younger students who got their names in, but the Goblet didn't choose them.

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It seems to rely, basically, on desire for personal glory.

I remember a distinct implication that the age line could only be crossed once (correct me if I made that up), and it stands to reason that a student would be stopped from dropping in more than one name....

So if you can only get to the Goblet once, and you can only put one slip of paper in it, whose name are you going to add- yours or some third-year's?

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    Actually it wouldn't matter how many times you entered the same name, the Goblet picks based off worthyness not number of entries.
    – Monty129
    Commented Feb 28, 2013 at 13:55
  • @Monty129 That is beside the point. The poster is pointing out that if an older student had a choice between putting in his or her own name and putting in the name of a younger student, the older student is not likely to put in the name of the younger student, wanting the opportunity for him/herself instead.
    – balanced mama
    Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 22:03
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It definitely could have happened.
It might have happened, in fact. However, the goblet would not necessarily have recognized the adventurous younger student as the most worthy candidate for the tournament.
I don't have an answer for Dumbledore not thinking of it. Maybe he was counting on students trying to find a way around the Age Line itself rather than asking an older student?

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