Say it ain't so (was Harry a Squib?!?!)

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 17242

I'm finally going back over all the emails I left in my box because I
wanted to respond.....that sort of thing really piles up quickly! [easy
answer being, of course, *don't talk so much,* but we don't go
there....]

Scott wrote:

> Could Harry be a squib? Yes I know he can do magic quite well, he's
> obviously not a squib now, but could he have been, or at least a not
> very powerful wizard, before Voldy transfered some of his powers into
> Harry. (That has to be a run on sentence!)

I have a visceral reaction to this, the same reaction that I had when
someone wondered if Ginny had any augmented powers/special dementor
effect because maybe *she'd* picked up some of Voldemort's powers
because they "shared a soul" for a bit in CoS. I don't like this theory
at all. :::toes curl::::

It's always hard to chase down immediate emotional responses, but I
think it's because this makes Voldemort the source of the magic. If
Harry's a squib, then Voldemort's what's magic about him. Ginny might
have been magic to begin with, but Voldemort augmented her. Voldemort as
a primary source bothers me. It just don't seem *right.*

> See it would fit JKR's sense of irony quite well if Harry would never
> have been able to become a worthy adversary of Voldemort(')s had it
> not been for V's trying to kill him. Make sense?

Alas, yes. It would be deliciously ironic and very classical to have
Voldemort pull an Oedipus by creating his own downfall, by transferring
powers to a powerless infant. But to me, this doesn't gell with the
"feel" of the books. They seem to touch and borrow classical themes, but
tell their own story, and I don't know that JKR would come to such a
straightforwardly classical conclusion. Hope not.

The focus of the books is not Voldemort; character-wise, he's not
tremendously well-developed yet. Voldemort is, so far, almost in the
"plot device" category rather than a real player, and to have a plot
device as the generating mechanism of the magic of the main character
just seems, well, weird. But we *are* only just over halfway through the
series, and canon evidence *does* indicate Voldemort will be much, much
more of a presence....<g>

I think there's evidence, too, that some of Harry's magic is his own.
Unless Voldemort was very good at Quidditch (was he?), Harry's ability
to fly comes from James. And the form of his Patronus is clearly related
to his dad (although the argument could be made that the form is a
reflection of his essence only, and the ability to cast the spell stems
from V's power-transfer). But the wand he picks is the brother to
Voldemort's. We don't know what the cores to Lily's and James' wands
were, do we? Harry *did* manage to win the battle of wills with
Voldemort during the Priori Incantatem episode, but that can be chalked
up to strength of mind, not magical ability. Argh. Why is JKR so *good*
at this ambiguous stuff?

> So what would this have to do with the gleam in Dumbledore's eye. I'm
> erm not really sure. (Hey it wasn't THAT long of a walk!) But it does
> make sense that somehow, whether like this or not, Voldemort's fate is
> inexplicably tied to Harry.

I still think that by using Harry's blood to reanimate, Voldemort has
made himself vulnerable, at least to Harry. I've postulated that it may
be that their deaths as well as their lives are tied, a la Dragonheart,
so that in order for Voldemort to die Harry must. Whatever the tie is, I
think a bond is inarguable. I just don't *want* all the magic to be
one-sided, darn it!

--Amanda


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