Harry’s Memory of his Parents’ Death
Nov. 16th, 2011 03:06 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
terri-testing.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockHow 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.
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.
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Re: A RL Similar Situation
Date: 2011-11-19 11:16 pm (UTC)Yeah, that occurred to me after I'd posted that. I'm the youngest child in my family, and my parents' marriage was in the toilet several years before I was born. Although I don't remember it that way, things must have been pretty tense in our house, particularly since that house wasn't big enough for a family of six.
So here's my New, Unified Theory of Harry's Infantile Emotions, incorporating your observations, Mary's story about the Palestinian baby, my story, and a modified version of Terri's story.
I came from a rather tense family, and that Palestinian baby was probably used to a high level of tension, also. So when we were confronted with stressful situations, instead of getting upset, we just dismissed them as "more of the same," until they were proven to be worse than usual.
In the same way, things were probably pretty unpleasant in the GH cottage. Anyone would get tense being cooped up in a small house for months on end, especially if they were young, lively, extroverts like Lily and James. We know James was getting antsy about not being able to go out and have fun. Having a baby around just made things worse. Even if their marriage had not become physically abusive--and I don't think there's enough evidence to prove that--there were probably arguments that got increasingly nasty as time wore on and tensions rose. So Harry was probably used to hearing his parents yelling and slamming doors. He also would have been used to hearing occasional visitors, so he would not have associated a strange voice, yelling, and slamming doors with anything out of the ordinary. As I said above, even if he saw Mummy fall, he wouldn't necessarily have considered that a problem until she didn't get up or respond to his cries. People do fall down sometimes for perfectly ordinary, nonviolent reasons. This explains why Harry wasn't upset until he saw the weird-looking stranger looming over his crib. It's also possible, as Danny suggests below, that Harry was in shock.
While contemplating this, I couldn't help thinking how Severus would have responded if he'd been the one to marry Lily and go into seclusion. He'd probably have been delighted to have his wife and child all to himself. I can just imagine him saying to Lily, "But darling, why do you want to go out and see other people? I'm happy just being here alone with you and our adorable baby." (Accompanied by a sappy, puppy-dog look.)