Harry’s Memory of his Parents’ Death

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

How Harry maybe wasn’t a sociopathic infant

I think it was Mary_j_59 who pointed out that Riddle’s memories of Godric’s Hollow, if accurate, paint a remarkably disturbing picture of infant Harry. We’re told that when Tom approached the crib after killing a screaming Lily in front of her son, the boy looked up at him with “bright interest,” only starting to cry when he identified that Tom was a (scary-looking) stranger.

Yet any normal child, hearing his father shout in fear and then his mother start screaming, would have started screaming his lungs out too, in empathy with them. What sort of monstrous baby would not get even slightly upset at hearing his mother screaming and begging for mercy, followed by her falling down?




Well, one who didn’t hear it.

Once we accept the possibility that Harry’s eventual memories of high-pitched laughter and screaming might have come from Riddle’s soul-fragment, not Harry’s own subconscious, a very simple piece of magical technology might make sense of Harry’s reaction.

Consider how often parents of infants spend a sleepless night because something accidentally wakes the baby, and then they can’t get hir to settle again.

We know at least one muffling charm in the WW. It’s even one-way; the persons inside can hear perfectly what those outside are saying, just not vice-versa. If someone invented a crib with a one-way muffling charm on it, so the parents could hear if the baby cried but the baby wouldn’t be disturbed by noises from outside the crib…. Well, wouldn’t you buy it? Never again having to worry that every time you had a fight, or a loud bout of lovemaking, or a raucous party, or just knocked over something, you might wake the baby?

And such a charm would have to be set on the crib itself, not on, say, the baby’s whole bedroom, because if there were an emergency, a fire, or as it might be, a death eater attack, while one or both parents were in the bedroom with the baby, the parents would want to hear the alarm.

If that were the case… then if Lily had already put Harry in his crib when Tom broke down the door, Harry would have heard nothing. The crash of the door, his father’s shouts, his mother’s screams, her frantic scrabbling to barricade the door when she realizes she doesn’t have her wand—none of it. If he had shut his eyes after mummy’s nighty-night kiss or was playing with something, he might not have registered anything at all until Lily heard Voldemort at the nursery door and rushed over to the crib to pick Harry up. At which point he’d have had, perhaps, a bare moment to register the distress and fear on her face and in her body before she realized there was no way to flee and dropped him back “into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide.” In other words, she has her back to Harry, who promptly pulls himself up on the bars of the crib to watch. He can’t see her face, and he can’t hear her voice.

And then there’s a flash of pretty light and Mummy falls down. And then the man in the cloak comes over, and Harry sees it’s not Daddy who’s pointing his wand at him, or Unca Siri, or anyone he knows —and finally starts to cry in fear.

And then there’s another flash of light, and his head hurts, and the building falls down.

And that would make sense of why, when Harry lay in bed at 4 Privet straining his memory trying to remember the car crash that killed his parents, nothing would come but a soundless flash of green light and the pain. He hadn’t registered anything significant happening until that moment.

Comments

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Harry remembers a "high, cold, cruel laugh," though, after he hears Hagrid's story of how his parents died in chapter 4 of PS.

[sunnyskywalker]

I forget, did Voldemort laugh while or after killing Lily? Because if so, maybe the AK would have damaged any spell surrounding the crib, since Lily was standing right in front of it. Then Harry could have heard the laugh at any point from the point Lily died up to when the curse rebounded.

Curses, foiled again!

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

You're right, I'd overlooked that.

Of course, a crib ought to allow a parent leaning over it to talk with the child, so if Tom laughed while leaning over to shoot Harry in the face, it would still work.

Except, in DH, when Tom remembers the incident, the only time we're told he laughed out loud was immediately before killing James.

How would Harry even hear that, especially if his mom had already started screaming?

The aural sequence would be: Bang. Dad shouting. Laughter. Avada Kedavra. Thump. Mom screaming (which may have started the moment Dad shouted). Noises of Mom piling up boxes in front of the door. The "Not Harry!" "Stand aside!" exchange. Another flash of green light, and a thump (did Tom AK Lily nonverbally, or did Jo just not mention the words this time?) Harry starts crying--Avada Kedavra, the third flash of green light, and pain and terror beyond what Tom had ever felt....

So it really makes little sense that Harry would remember the laugh and not his mother's screaming and pleading for mercy.

Three options: one, that Tom laughed again in the bedroom and it wasn't recorded.

Two, that, if the memory is leaking from the fragment, Harry's confabulating--translating Tom's feeling of triumph to the standard maniacal villain's laugh.

Three: as per my story "Liberacorpus," it might be that the sequence: "Bang. Dad yells. Mom screams or cries. A light flashes. Mom falls down," is a common one in the Potter household, normally followed by "Mom gets up and says, 'Don't worry, Harry, Daddy's just having a little joke.'"

Which would explain why Harry gloms onto the one alien sound to remember, and why he only started crying when he saw it was a stranger who'd done something to Mommy.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, the sequence of sounds that Harry remembers hearing in PoA is different from what Voldemort remembers hearing. From chapter 12 of PoA:

White fog obscured his senses… big, blurred shapes were moving around him… then came a new voice, a man’s voice, shouting, panicking —

“Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off —”

The sounds of someone stumbling from a room — a door bursting open — a cackle of high- pitched laughter —

So the aural sequence is: Dad shouting. Stumble. Bang. Laughter....

I don't know how we account for the fact that James shouts before the door bursts open in PoA but afterwards in DH.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

It works if Harry's sequence is incomplete (which we already know it is)


and if Tom did laugh again within the room (or if that sound is Harry's confabulation of the Tom-fragment's feeling of maniacal glee at that point).

Dad shouts (heard). Stumbling out (Lily) ... blank for a bit, then the door bursting open and the laugh.

Actually, I did wonder if this entire "memory" was Harry's confabulation, a construction written to account for what he knew had happened, but it is a little too close to Tom's (if we take Tom's to be a whole and complete memory) for that explanation to be account for.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Votes for the entire memory being confabulated by *Tom* from shredded fragments and then picked up through the mental link by Harry. We know that the link between the Horcrux and the original is still somehow "present" and active to varying degrees up through the final confrontation in DH. Voldie's body was shredded by the backfire, why can't we assume his soul, sanity, and memory were too, to some extent? The dementors then just pulled up the only fragments of genuine memory Tom had left of the incident through Harry, and Tommy-boy filled in the blanks later - after he'd taken a noticeable dive in mental competence./hates that flashback SO MUCH... and why did the *bleep* would he offer Harry a comforting lie about how well his father fought in PS instead of mocking Harry about how pathetic he remembered the twit being?

Consistent characterization? What consistent characterization?

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[oryx_leucoryx]

By the mirror Tom lied to Harry because he was trying to corrupt him. Tom's truest victory would have been Harry handing him the Stone voluntarily. Once Harry refused Tom resorted to the lesser victory of killing Harry who was still opposed to him. 1984.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

But how is *encouraging* Harry with tales of his parents' supposed bravery in any way conducive to that? Did Voldie somehow think he had time to build Harry up and then break him down again? He knew Harry was lying about having the Stone, presumably by legilimizing him, so why would he pursue such an obviously counterproductive course when he didn't even have the excuse of an obscured line of sight on Harry?

How would the chance to break Harry's spirit utterly by revealing the pathetic truth of his parents last stand not appeal to him more, especially when the end result was much more likely to be Harry giving him the Stone in despair, or at least not being able to resist his efforts in retrieving it. He was even on something of a deadline at the time since he couldn't be sure how long Dumbledore would be distracted! So, again, what purpose did that lie actually serve?

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[oryx_leucoryx]

Tom tried with claiming James died begging for his life - all he got was Harry's insistence that this wasn't so. So he tried the reverse tactic - your parents willingly sacrificed themselves for your life, clearly they'd want you to give up that silly stone so you'd live longer. To make this point he made James appear heroic to Harry. The only way the truth would have worked was if he could have made Harry actually see the scene so he'd know Tom was telling the truth.

A villain who tempts his enemies into doing his bidding is much creepier than one who uses brute force or even the direct threat of force.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

But the reverse tactic got pretty much the exact same response: defiance. He's also supposed to be one of the most talented Legilimens in the WW, so why is so clueless about how to get the reaction he's looking for? And again, he doesn't have unlimited time here like thought he did in the graveyard in GoF, so what is he actually trying to accomplish with this? It seems awfully half-hearted as a corruption attempt. It almost worked on the first read-through as an honest acknowledgement of a worthy opponent who truly did fight and die with enough skill to impress him, and maybe some regret that he hadn't been able recruit such an able fighter to his own forces, though I still thought something was missing. But given everything that we learned of Tom's character in the later books... I want to be convinced, but I just can't buy the 'corruption theory.' It just doesn't feel like Tom's style.

Reverse tactic

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Except that there was something else going on in the background.

When Tom claimed, "They died begging me for mercy," Harry screamed, "LIAR!"

But when Tom switched to saying, "How touching.... I always value bravery... Yes, boy, your parents were brave...."

... then Harry switched to listening motionless, sopping up comforting tales of his parents' heroics. Real and remembered bitterly by Tom, confabulated, outright falsehoods, it doesn't matter for the analysis of how those tales worked on HARRY.

What matters is that Harry allowed the body saying such things to approach him physically without objection or notice. To get close enough to cut off Harry's possible phyaical escape. By the time Harry thought to make a run for the door, Quirrel!mort was close enough to intercept him.

Do you really think Harry was stupid enough to stand there listening to his mortal enemy insult his parents, while watching that same enemy position himself between Harry and the only door?

Really do you think that?



Well, okay.


Perhaps JKR gave you cause.


But if you want to think a little better of Harry, if you'd like to think Harry not quite THAT stupid--then Voldie was snake-charming in this scene, singing whatever song would mesmerize his victim for the very little time needed to get close enough to strike.


And, note, had the Lily-protection not made Quirrell burn to cinders at Harry's touch, the stratagem would totally have worked.

Re: Reverse tactic

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Thank you. *That* I can buy. ;)

...Although the Harry-is-just-that-stupid theory runs a close second :p

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[oryx_leucoryx]

So whose memories are we seeing where? Either the Tom of PS was telling the truth as he remembered it or he was deliberately saying something different from how he remembered events or he had no memory whatsoever of the events and was making things up as he went along.

The memories Harry experienced while exposed to dementors in POA - could have been his own, belonging to the Tom-fragment or a combination thereof. (The same can be said of Harry's dreams of green light and high-cold laughter.) But as Terri pointed out, the fact that he *fainted* while he experienced those memories (while nobody else did, regardless of what memories they had) is suggestive that something different was going on.

The memory in DH is likely coming through the soul-link because Harry's scar hurts and he experiences himself being Tom, just like he did in those other soul-link scenes in OOTP and DH. So was the memory different from what Tom of PS remembered? If so when did Tom learn otherwise?

If Tom's PS version was the truth, why isn't it confirmed by the memory in POA and DH? If the PS version was not the truth, why did Tom choose that version? What does it serve?

If Tom's memory was damaged and is not a true depiction of events you still don't have an explanation for why he chose to tell Harry about James' fight.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Well, my main issue with the scene in PS was that I *couldn't* come up with any motivation for Tom's actions that felt coherent given his later characterization. Everything I came up with felt "off" given some later event. As things stand now, I'm inclined to accept Terri's snake-charmer motivation presented above, not least because it presents a villain with basic competence.

In terms of What We Know happened at Godric's Hollow the night Harry's parents were killed, my own personal theory is that the only facts we can consider trustworthy regarding the event are the memory fragments Dementor exposure pulled into Harry's consciousness, regardless of whether those fragments were pulled from Harry's memory or the Horcrux fragment. Voldie's later flashback was just his reconstruction of what happened using those fragments we saw earlier as a framework. If we accept Terri's theory of what Tom was trying to accomplish PS, it doesn't really make any difference *when* he sat down and tried to reconstruct what happened, just that we can't trust what was presented to us as the final truth of the matter. This would also explain the discrepancy pointed out somewhere above about the sequence of auditory events: Tommy just misremembered.

Re: Curses, foiled again!

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----Except, in DH, when Tom remembers the incident, the only time we're told he laughed out loud was immediately before killing James. How would Harry even hear that, especially if his mom had already started screaming?

Lily and Harry might not have even been all the way upstairs yet when Tom laughed. Even if they were already upstairs, the house wasn't especially large and Tom certainly wasn't trying to be quiet. His laughter could probably be heard from anywhere in the house. Also, Tom makes no observation about Lily screaming until after James is already dead.