The Resurrection Stone was one of the fabled Deathly Hallows. In The Tale of the Three Brothers, it was the second Hallow created, supposedly by Death himself. It was bestowed upon Cadmus Peverell after he requested, as his bounty, something with the power to recall loved ones from Death. According to legend, whoever reunited it with the other two Hallows (the Elder Wand and the Cloak of Invisibility) would become the Master of Death.
When Cadmus Peverell was first granted the stone by Death, he turned it thrice in hand and recalled his long-lost love from the grave. This established that turning the ring thrice in hand is the method of using the stone, and since the “Tale of the Three Brothers” is the source of Harry’s only knowledge about the stone, he turned it thrice in hand to recall his loved ones prior to sacrificing himself to Voldemort.
As one of the two Hallows known to have been successfully passed down from generation to generation since Cadmus’s time, it was passed to the possession of Tom Riddle in 1943, who unknowingly stole it while it was still concealed in Marvolo Gaunt’s Ring, which he turned into a Horcrux. The ring was destroyed in 1996 by Albus Dumbledore, but the stone was placed in Harry Potter’s first Golden Snitch until it passed into the possession of Harry Potter who used it to great success in the Second Wizarding War.
The real question here is, how did Dumbledore manage to put the Stone into The Golden Snitch in the first place? Let us find out. . .
How did Dumbledore put the Resurrection Stone into the Golden Snitch?
“I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and time again, and here was final proof.” – Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
After spending many months looking into Voldemort’s past, Albus Dumbledore was able to track down the location of the ring and retrieve it. Although he had long since abandoned his personal quest to find the Deathly Hallows, he immediately realised that this ring contained the Resurrection Stone. Completely forgetting that the ring was a Horcrux in his haste to see his sister Ariana once more, he put the ring on.
We have two theories that hold up water on the possibility of how Albus Dumbledore could have possibly placed the resurrection stone within the Golden Snitch and sealed it shut for Harry to open.
#1 He used the sword of Godric Gryffindor
At this point, a lethal curse activated, one that would have killed Dumbledore if not for the timely action of himself and Severus Snape. Still, it shortened Dumbledore’s life expectancy to a year and crippled his hand, and at this Dumbledore once again realized he was unfit to use the Stone. After using Godric Gryffindor’s Sword to destroy the Horcrux within the ring, Dumbledore sealed the Stone within the very first Golden Snitch Harry Potter had ever caught and made arrangements to have Harry inherit the Stone in his will.
#2 He used a charm to open and re-seal the stone
We can speculate that Dumbledore being the most gifted Wizard’s of his time might have used something of the likes of a severing charm such as Diffindo to split it open, stuffed the stone in it and then used a repairing charm such as Reparo. He then enchanted it so that it would only open when Harry admitted that he was ready to die, much like how Voldemort enchanted the cave to open only when blood is spilt on it.
We can even roughly determine when Dumbledore transferred the stone into the snitch.
“He turned away again and was almost at the door when he saw it. Sitting on one of the little spindle-legged tables that supported so many frail-looking silver instruments, was an ugly gold ring set with a large, cracked, black stone.”
‘The House of Gaunt’, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
So here we know that Dumbledore possessed the ring with him. The date is roughly between September 1 and September 7, 1996.
“Harry got to his feet. As he walked across the room, his eyes fell upon the little table upon which Marvolo Gaunt’s ring had rested the last time, but the ring was no longer there.”
‘The Secret Riddle,’ Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The date is roughly between October 14 and October 21, 1996.
So, it is evident that sometime between September and October of 1996, Dumbledore put the stone in the Snitch in the way mentioned above.
While J.K. Rowling never truly disclosed the method by which Dumbledore did manage to fit the stone into the snitch and then have it open specifically when Harry kissed it (through the Snitch’s natural flesh memory abilities), we do know that for the greater part of the Horcrux hunt, Harry Potter kept the Snitch containing the Stone in his moleskin pouch. He was unable to get to the stone inside, due to charms placed upon it by Albus Dumbledore.
“I open at the close.” – Inscription on the Snitch containing the Stone
We can also speculate that Harry dropped the Resurrection Stone in the Forbidden Forest before approaching Lord Voldemort, because he truly thought that there was no way out for him and he did not want Voldemort or his Death Eaters to get their hands on the stone. So, he hid the stone the best way he could in the short time he had: by dropping it amidst similar-looking ordinary stones.
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