A reflection on Horcruces and Dumbledore

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I've argued before that Dumbledore knew from the start that Harry had become Tom's Horcrux.

But, if he were as smart as he thought he were, he should have realized that that fact alone proved that Riddle had others (or some other means of avoiding death when his body was destroyed, and Horcruces do seem to be the only known means).

He deduced that Riddle had planned to manufacture a Horcrux from the baby's death, right? Not either of the parents' deaths.

Therefore, the death that created the soul-fragment that landed in Harry, was Riddle's own from that reflected AK.

If he hadn't already been anchored to life by another Horcrux somewhere, he should have merely died.

So Dumbledore ought to have started looking for another Horcrux in 1981....

Comments

Lily's sacrifice

[oryx_leucoryx]

He also claims that Harry survived because his mother died to save him. How is he supposed to know that? He wasn't there.

I don't think he really knew immediately. I think when he realized the Fidelius Charm was broken he told Hagrid to bring Harry to his Muggle relatives initially for reasons not related to the supposed blood protection - to keep him away from Sirius (the believed traitor), to keep him away from the Ministry, to prepare him for grooming as prophesied savior etc. But he may have picked up clues during the missing 24 hours. If he investigated the crime scene himself or received a report from a member of the Magical Catastrophes cleanup team (there had to be one, or else Muggles might have found suspicious objects such as wands, a toy broomstick and other charmed toys and household items) he could verify the following: That James, and significantly, Lily, were dead (so Lily wasn't being kept hostage for Severus or anything). That James died by the front door, but his wand was on the couch. That Lily died by Harry's crib, her wand not on her person. That she attempted to barricade the room.

Additionally he knew of Severus' request to Tom and the fact that Severus' Dark Mark indicates that Tom is still in existence but much weakened.

So the evidence is that the last events before Tom disappeared involved a scene including Tom, Lily and Harry. And Lily was not using magic for defense. I think even without knowing the exact details it would be logical that Lily was somehow Harry's last protection. And knowing that Harry survived while Tom was hit allowed to reverse engineer the idea of sacrificial magic. This idea is based enough in magical principles that 16-year-old diary!Tom recognized it once presented to him. I think Albus had a very strong hypothesis once he saw or received a detailed description of the crime scene. Though it is possible the hypothesis only received its final confirmation when he saw Quirrellmort being burned from Harry's touch.

Re: Lily's sacrifice

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

It works well enough from the general outline of what we were given, but it still seems to conflict with the details. Are we really supposed to believe that a mother tearfully begging for her child's life was sufficient to create a magical shield that has *never* been seen before? And that a one year old baby, who at least in the early books was shown to have a normal, though not exceptional, amount of empathy as a boy wouldn't have been crying/screaming his head off if he was awake to hear his mother weeping and pleading like she was supposed to have been?

I think the best explanation from a Watsonian perspective is that Voldemort's memory is *not reliable.* Especially in regard to the events shortly preceding and following the complete disintegration of his body. Which makes sense. Humans are known to experience amnesia of the time surrounding traumatic injury. Humans are also exceptionally good at filling in the blanks of their perceptions, even creating memories whole-cloth.

If that's so, then what was presented to us may have been a mish-mash of memories (some belonging to different people) that Tom has incorporated into what he thinks is a cohesive whole. For example, it is my personal canon that the image we get of baby Harry in the crib expecting some kind of nice surprise/game is actually one of *Lily's* memories. She held it in her mind as a symbol of what she was fighting for while confronting him, and Voldemort gleaned it from her using Legilimancy. When he recalled it later though, he could pull up the image, but not the emotional resonance Lily attached to it. Which is how he overlayed it with his own contempt when thinking it was his.

The rest of the sequence is also called into question. However, if we want an end result that is consistent with the result shown in DH (Lily and James dead, neither with their wands on their persons) then there actually several ways to approach the situation.

It might be the case that James did initially have his wand when confronting Voldemort, but had it quickly blown out of his hand and onto the couch (possibly by Expelliarmus) since he had been caught so off-balance/V was actually just that good at the time. James might even have been able to get off a couple impressive rounds in even a short duel, which would tally with what V claimed to Harry in PS. (His later omission of even a short duel may have been due to further mental deterioration from creating the Nagini!crux or as an unforeseen side-effect of the resurrection potion.)

Or James was an idiot who left his wand on the sofa.

Re: Lily's sacrifice

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

The most interesting possibilities lie in why Lily didn't have *her* wand. It's possible that she was also disarmed quickly/didn't have it, but I think it's much more interesting to speculate that she deliberately threw it away or snapped it. This would tie in very powerfully with the idea that her sacrifice was a deliberate one, and might contribute toward why the effects that resulted from it were so unlike any that had been seen before.

If she deliberately snapped her own wand, particularly if it was the same wand that she had used since she was a little girl (we're ignoring the monstrosity of Troll Logic that is DH wand rules), than she was destroying something that was essentially an extension of herself and her magic, and *crippling* herself in doing so.

Why would she do this? She might have known that she couldn't defeat him in a full on duel, and Fidelius seems to come with built-in anti-apparation wards. Also, does anyone trust Albus to make sure that his followers know how to create a portkey (whose use is supposedly restricted by the ministry and thus the technique is theoretically known only to ministry workers)? Further, if they were in hiding it's likely that their house was not connected to/removed from the floo network. Relying on sacrificial magic might have seemed like her best option option at the time.

Barricading the door after snapping her wand was likely just set-dressing in this scenario. Either to try and get V into a proper state of mind concerning her position/sacrifice, or because she thought it was an appropriate piece of "ritual" lead-up we'll never know.

Which leads to the actual content of what she was pleading. I can believe that she was a nervous wreck when she came face to face with Voldemort. She knew he was there to kill her child, and her best plan to save her baby was little more than a desperate gamble. Lily might even have been aware enough of V's mental abilities, or at least heard enough rumours, to feel that thinking too clearly of her plan was a bad idea, thus her focus on happier memories of Harry. That doesn't mean she couldn't think of anything more concrete to offer in exchange for her son's life.

She might have offered the pleasure of her body (Voldemort almost certainly did take at least of moment of pleasure from seeing/creating her corpse)

She might have offered the use of her magic (It was Lily's sacrificial magic that created another horcrux for Voldemort, tying him more closely to life even though it did him physical harm. If we hypothesize that V had originally intended to create a horcrux that night but later forgot - possibly because it had been a last minute decision - than Lily's magic was even more immediately useful than it might originally have seemed)

She most certainly offered her life in place of her child's (Which was the exchange the magic most clearly enforced)

If Voldemort had explicitly turned down the first two offers, but didn't bother with the third, than the magic may have considered that one to have been implicitly accepted. Whether this was because he decided to just kill her already as in the book, or because he decided to deal with Harry around her as Jodel posited in her Changeling Hypothesis, and Lily sacrificed her life interfering, is impossible to say, though both seem plausible depending on how faulty you believe his memory to be.

Thinking of the scene this way is really the only thing that salvages Lily as a character for me, and seems to be the only way to close the gaping plot holes that Rowling opened up in her version.

(*sits back from rant. breathes. realizes that an extremely long reply has just been made for a thread that hasn't actually been read in its entirety. feels very sheepish while posting.*)

Re: Lily's sacrifice

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Humans are known to experience amnesia of the time surrounding traumatic injury. Humans are also exceptionally good at filling in the blanks of their perceptions, even creating memories whole-cloth.

I can personally attest to the above.

Back in 1991 I was hit by a car while crossing a street; for the longest time the only thing I could remember was seeing the vehicle as it was bearing down on me and thinking "It's going to hit me!", the next thing was I was flying thru the air and thinking "This isn't so bad..." (?????)

I had no memory of actually getting hit, just seeing the vehicle making a too-sharp turn onto the street I was crossing and then remembering flying thru the air.

About a year later I finally was able to remember a little bit more, but to this day -- and it will be its 20th anniversary on Feb. 13th -- all I can remember are what seem a series of still photographs of the vehicle getting closer to me. I still have no memory of actually getting hit by it.

So I have a "movie" of the memory of crossing the street and seeing the car turning onto the street and heading towards me. Then it turns into a series of "stills" of the vehicle getting closer but no memory image, either moving or still, of me actually getting hit. The memory then goes back to "movie" mode of me flying thru the air for about 40 feet while thinking "This isn't so bad", before crashing back down onto the pavement.

I definitely remember crashing onto the pavement, but have no memory of the vehicle actually hitting me.

Luckily there were witnesses who saw what happened who described it in detail.


Or James was an idiot who left his wand on the sofa.

Sadly I think that is the correct option. :-P