Death's own cloak
Dec. 17th, 2013 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockThe cloak has always seemed the odd Hallow out. It makes you invisible, but no more invisible than any other invisibility cloak. Dumbledore said vaguely that the cloak could "protect" anyone under it, but we see that you can easily be Petrified while under the cloak, and so presumably other curses won't have any trouble getting through either. Its only other special power seems to be not getting weaker over time. How can that measure up next to a super-powerful, semi-sapient want and a stone that (seemingly) lets you talk to dead people?
I finally realized that there's one power the cloak might well have, which would fit in seamlessly with everything JKR set up for it. It's just that the characters never had occasion to test it.
While I have plenty of objections to the context of Harry walking up to commit suicide by dark lord, if he had ended up there by other means (like, having had the opportunity to try other means of getting the Horcrux out of his forehead and this actually being the last option, or at least realizing he'd been robbed of the chance to try other things and holding it against Dumbledore), it would be a powerful moment: with the fairy-tale resonance previously set up that one removes the cloak in order to face death not as a victim but an equal, Harry takes off the cloak that hides him from death and faces Voldemort's killing curse.
Metaphors are frequently literal in the Potterverse: depression is a spooky cloaked figure lurking about trying to suck your soul out, fear is a monster in the closet, luck comes in a bottle.
What about Death? Dumbledore's vague "protection" gets everyone thinking about a cloak that shields one from harm generally, but maybe that's stretching the tale too far. Beedle didn't say the cloak hid the youngest brother from Death, his brother Grievous Bodily Harm, and their cousin Ouch That Stings: it hid him from Death, and only Death.
What if the cloak can block Avada Kedavra?
That would mean that in taking off the cloak, Harry was literally removing his protection from death - and specifically, a means of death he'd faced and escaped before.
It might protect against other normally fatal actions, too. Perhaps if Harry had put his cloak on in the DoM, he could have walked through the Veil and then walked right back out again. Maybe even with Sirius, if he popped Sirius under the cloak first.
How the cloak manages to shield one from death but not injury, I can't say, though developing oddly specific magic doesn't seem out of character for wizards. Maybe the anti-death property, whatever it is, interferes with any shield charms.
Just for fun, though, here's one possibility: interwoven with the usual demiguise hair are threads from the Veil, or something like it. Being enveloped in something with just a little bit of whatever the Veil is removes your "death" (life force? soul? who knows?) from the world, at least in part; that is, your "death" is already behind the Veil (but anchored to your living body), and so anything that would ordinarily cause your death can't reach it. But since only your death is out of reach, not the rest of you, everything else still touches you as usual.
This could explain why the cloak's power never fades: the demiguise hair (being dead and so probably having some interesting reaction to Veil threads) is affected by being part here and part beyond the Veil, and so time doesn't pass for it as normal. It could also explain a property some here have speculated it also has, that of making a frequent wearer feel "cut off" from the world: you actually aren't all here. (It wasn't designed as a trap, but why would you expect Death's own cloak to have no side-effects for mortals for whom it was not designed, after all?)
If any of the characters had ever figured out this property of the cloak, we might have had some very interesting adventures behind the Veil, and who knows what else.
If I'm right, it would also mean that, had James had the cloak that Halloween night, there is a very slight chance he could have lived long enough, before Voldemort realized the problem and tried a different spell, to give Lily enough precious seconds to grab Harry and jump out the window while Apparating away. Oops. Dumbledore can console himself with the thought that if James was careless enough not to have his wand on him, he no doubt would not have had the cloak to hand either, surely...
I finally realized that there's one power the cloak might well have, which would fit in seamlessly with everything JKR set up for it. It's just that the characters never had occasion to test it.
While I have plenty of objections to the context of Harry walking up to commit suicide by dark lord, if he had ended up there by other means (like, having had the opportunity to try other means of getting the Horcrux out of his forehead and this actually being the last option, or at least realizing he'd been robbed of the chance to try other things and holding it against Dumbledore), it would be a powerful moment: with the fairy-tale resonance previously set up that one removes the cloak in order to face death not as a victim but an equal, Harry takes off the cloak that hides him from death and faces Voldemort's killing curse.
Metaphors are frequently literal in the Potterverse: depression is a spooky cloaked figure lurking about trying to suck your soul out, fear is a monster in the closet, luck comes in a bottle.
What about Death? Dumbledore's vague "protection" gets everyone thinking about a cloak that shields one from harm generally, but maybe that's stretching the tale too far. Beedle didn't say the cloak hid the youngest brother from Death, his brother Grievous Bodily Harm, and their cousin Ouch That Stings: it hid him from Death, and only Death.
What if the cloak can block Avada Kedavra?
That would mean that in taking off the cloak, Harry was literally removing his protection from death - and specifically, a means of death he'd faced and escaped before.
It might protect against other normally fatal actions, too. Perhaps if Harry had put his cloak on in the DoM, he could have walked through the Veil and then walked right back out again. Maybe even with Sirius, if he popped Sirius under the cloak first.
How the cloak manages to shield one from death but not injury, I can't say, though developing oddly specific magic doesn't seem out of character for wizards. Maybe the anti-death property, whatever it is, interferes with any shield charms.
Just for fun, though, here's one possibility: interwoven with the usual demiguise hair are threads from the Veil, or something like it. Being enveloped in something with just a little bit of whatever the Veil is removes your "death" (life force? soul? who knows?) from the world, at least in part; that is, your "death" is already behind the Veil (but anchored to your living body), and so anything that would ordinarily cause your death can't reach it. But since only your death is out of reach, not the rest of you, everything else still touches you as usual.
This could explain why the cloak's power never fades: the demiguise hair (being dead and so probably having some interesting reaction to Veil threads) is affected by being part here and part beyond the Veil, and so time doesn't pass for it as normal. It could also explain a property some here have speculated it also has, that of making a frequent wearer feel "cut off" from the world: you actually aren't all here. (It wasn't designed as a trap, but why would you expect Death's own cloak to have no side-effects for mortals for whom it was not designed, after all?)
If any of the characters had ever figured out this property of the cloak, we might have had some very interesting adventures behind the Veil, and who knows what else.
If I'm right, it would also mean that, had James had the cloak that Halloween night, there is a very slight chance he could have lived long enough, before Voldemort realized the problem and tried a different spell, to give Lily enough precious seconds to grab Harry and jump out the window while Apparating away. Oops. Dumbledore can console himself with the thought that if James was careless enough not to have his wand on him, he no doubt would not have had the cloak to hand either, surely...
no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 11:08 pm (UTC)The 'bridge' the brothers created that so angered Death was, in reality, the Veil we see in the DoM. I think they wove the Veil of Thestral hair treated in a potion consisting, at least in part, of Unicorn blood (willingly given) and Phoenix tears. The selection of the stones for the arch and the final construction were guided by the Darkest, most ancient arts, the Great Mysteries and Cthonic Rites, all taken to the utmost limits of possibility.
This was the first time that mortals had created a standing portal to the afterlife (or whatever dimension it connects to in reality), and the entities that lived on the other side were Not Pleased. Not. One. Bit. The brothers, unfortunately, didn't realize how angry the Denizens of the Other Side were, and instead sought their knowledge, assuming they would respond in good faith instead of seeking to wipe out the interlopers.
I have some ideas on how the Denizens managed to sabotage the two older brothers' requests so thoroughly, but we're focused on the cloak. I believe that the cloak is relatively benign specifically because the youngest brother didn't ask for help in designing it from whatever lay beyond the Veil. He wove leftover Thestral hair from the creation of the Veil into the cloak he was making, but his goal was never an Ur-Invisibility Cloak for this side of the Veil - his goal was to create something that would allow him to pass through the Veil and return safely. While he was on the other side, his goal was to observe the beings that existed there without disturbing them or alerting them to his presence - much like any naturalist might camouflage themselves and mask their scent while trying to observe creatures in their natural habitat. Thus, a Cloak that can 'hide one from Death.'
We know Peeves could perceive Harry's presence under the cloak, but he couldn't distinguish him from a ghost. Did we ever see a ghost notice Harry under the Cloak? Could Moody's Mad Eye also perceive ghosts when they had turned themselves invisible, or just humans? Dumbledore claimed a hominem revelum spell could detect Harry under the Cloak, but if someone cast a spell to detect ghosts, might that throw up a false positive for someone under the Cloak?
I think that the Cloak's apparent indestructibility was more a happy side-effect of the materials used in its crafting than the goal. If it is also capable of keeping its wearer alive (or at least their soul bound to their flesh) indefinitely, that effect is likely an incidental corollary to whatever spells were woven into it to allow safe passage through the Veil.
(Of course, I also think the Cloak didn't work as intended. You could indeed pass through the Veil safely, but because you were still bound to the mortal world you could never pass far beyond it - perhaps only as far as the cracks of mortal light creeping around the edges of the Veil might reach. Who said probing the Great Mysteries was easy?)
no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 03:35 am (UTC)