Harry's Shell

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 7602

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Jim Flanagan" <jamesf at a...> wrote
about Harry deliberately avoiding intimate relationships because he 
doesn't want to hurt the person by his death (the quote is below).

I partly agree -- I feel sure that Harry is making the effort to 
avoid intimate relationships, not deliberately but by habit or 
reflex. I feel sure that his motive is not fear of the person 
being hurt if V kills him, but simply what he learned in Very Early 
Childhood: if you love someone, they vanish away forever (his Mum and 
Dad, his godfather....) and if you reach out lovingly to someone 
(little baby Harry to foster parent Dursleys), they punish you.

Thus, even the complete defeat and elimination of V will not end 
Harry's avoidance behavior.

Scott made the point that Harry didn't avoid asking Cho to the Ball 
in an effort to prevent her from being hurt by his death (as likely 
to occur in the Tournament, as we saw in Task I, as from V). To me, 
this is not a counter argument. To me, Harry does not *want* to have 
a personal relationship with Cho and would not have asked her to the 
Ball if he could have had his first choice, which was not to go to 
the Ball at all. To me, it seems very clear that Harry has only an 
aesthetic and distant interest in Cho: he likes to look at her 
because she's pretty; he doesn't want to talk to her or kiss  her; he 
doesn't even want to FANTASIZE about kissing her (still less would he 
want to fantasize about more than kissing!). I can relate to that: I 
am an entirely heterosexual woman, but I spent most of my bus ride 
home today gazing admiringly (i.e. ogling) two girls who appeared to 
be sisters, who appeared to be high school age....  

> Harry and everyone around must be aware at some level that he is 
> a "marked man," i.e., that he could be killed at any time.  I think 
> that this fact will continue to keep Harry from entering into deep 
> relationships or giving too much of himself to another person 
> emotionally. By not caring too much for another person, he doesn't 
> risk hurting that person by his death. 
(snip)
> The threat hanging over him will create sense of "unfinished 
> business" that will dominate Harry's life until Lord V is finally 
> dealt with. Harry won't be able to give himself completely to 
> anyone until he's able to stop looking out for what might be
> sneaking up behind him.