A Gleam in the Darkness

Tue Dec 11 00:35:45 UTC 2001

No: HPFGUIDX 31243

I wonder, have any list members ever considered the meaning of the curious 'look of triumph' that appears in Dumbledore's eyes when he is debriefing Harry after Voldemort's rebirthing?  No?  Well, here is my tentative offering.

Before we can get to the gleam itself, we need to go back and establish what is the unfolding mystery at the heart of the series.

At the end of PS, it is apparent in the hospital scene that there are three questions that must be answered:

How did Harry survive Voldemort's attack?
Why did Voldemort lose his powers?
Why did Voldemort attack Harry in the first place?

Harry asks only one of these questions (the last), and Dumbledore answers none of them directly.  He does, however, say that Quirrell couldn't touch Harry because his mother's love expressed in her sacrifice protects him.  Significantly he says that love is the one thing Voldemort has never understood.

By the end of COS, Harry is able to say to Riddle (in summary): 'nobody knows why you lost your powers; however, I survived because of my mother's love'.  Riddle accepts this, agreeing that love is a powerful counter-charm.  It puzzles me whether Harry has deduced this from Dumbledore's statement a year earlier, or there is a missing conversation.  Likewise, it's not clear what is needed to activate the protection - it works against Quirrell, but, for example, would it work against any use of AK?  Any person who hates Harry touching him?  Apparently not, since Wormtail is able to do so later.  In any case, the two cases (Quirrell touching and Voldemort's original AK) do not seem completely parallel.  And could Harry (and Riddle) be wrong?  That is to say, the mother's-love protection was active in the case of Quirrell, but something else was responsible for protecting Harry when Voldemort originally attacked him.  If so, the older Voldemort is wrong too, as we shall see.  One final point about COS: Riddle understands that love is powerful, but his answer does indicate a mechanistic view of love: it works as a special form of magic, a 'countercharm'.

Fast forward to GOF and the rebirthing.  Here we get the fullest description yet, from the only known eyewitness, of the attack.  It's difficult to know whether to take Voldemort's account at face value, because of his known untrustworthiness.  However, it does corroborate the other accounts where it can be checked.  He affirms the love-sacrifice cause of Harry's protection, and furthermore states that he lost his powers because his AK rebounded off the protection onto him.  We therefore now, without any real fanfare, have the apparent answer to two of the three questions: Harry was protected by his mother's love; Voldemort was wrecked by the 'bounce'.  It is completely unclear to me whether this is all an elaborate set-up by JKR, or whether it should be taken at face value - I would value comments from listies.  Note that Harry's 'nobody knows' statement at the end of COS has now been overturned.  Does Dumbledore, for example, know why Voldemort lost his powers, and, if so, when does he find out?

This explanation does however create a new subsidiary mystery: how did Voldemort survive the 'bounce'?  He himself is uncertain (I will return to the significance of this in a moment) but thinks it is because of his own experiments with immortality.  His uncertainty lends a ring of veracity to his account, incidentally.

Voldemort also claims that his use of Harry's blood now protects him from the side effects of Harry's protection - again demonstrating his essentially mechanistic view of that protection.  We are left in the dark as to whether that protection is still effective for Harry in any sense.  If Voldemort is right, there must be considerable doubt about it (indeed Voldemort believes AK will now work against Harry); if Dumbledore's original statements about 'magic at it's deepest, most mysterious' apply, it may well still be effective.  Voldemort is right, however, in saying he is safe to touch Harry.

We still don't know why Voldemort attacked Harry in the first place.

Now, at last, we can consider the gleam of triumph.  The gleam, as we know too well, is triggered by the revelation of Voldemort's use of Harry's blood, and the reasoning behind it.  Most attempts to explain it turn on the idea that Voldemort took more than he bargained for with Harry's blood - either that Lily's love will work against his own hate, or that Harry's protection will still function to Harry's, not Voldemort's, benefit.  I find these theories dissatisfying because they fall into the same trap as Voldemort/Riddle: they treat love mechanistically.  They are the sort of thing Voldemort would have considered before embarking on his rebirthing.

I prefer to consider that the gleam is explained by a realisation on the part of Dumbledore about some aspect of Voldemort's understanding: either (probably) that Voldemort still misses the point about love in some way, or (possibly) that Voldemort is beginning to get the point, eventually paving the way for a change of heart. 'He said that, did he?'

So, here's one possibility.  Riddle's mother died when he was a baby, apparently in childbirth.  Could he *already* have a similar protection from her, his great tragedy being that he had nobody to tell him (or was unwilling to listen)?  He then went on a quest for something that, in essence, he already had (or at least could not improve upon), and at the end rejects it in favour of what he can get via Harry.  In this case, the rebirthing represents a decisive weakening, not because of any special qualities of Harry's blood, but because of the unconscious rejection of the last remaining good he has in his own heritage.  (It is an interesting sidelight that in order to rebirth, he must acknowledge his despised father.)  Enough to make the twinkliest eyes gleam.

If true, this theory has some interesting resonances.  Riddle in the chamber comes tantalisingly close: 'There are strange similarities between us' - and then rejects Harry's specialness, unknowingly rejecting his own at the same time.  Dumbledore's statement that he never understood love takes on special poignancy.  We get new possibilities for Trelawney's first prophecy, if that has anything to do with Voldemort's attack on Harry: instead of a-Potter-will-be-Voldemort's-downfall, how about a-Potter-will-be-a-better-Voldemort, meaning that Harry will fulfil the potential for good that was in Riddle, but interpreted by Voldemort to mean that Harry will be a more powerful Dark wizard, who should therefore be eliminated.  We have a potential explanation for Voldemort's hesitation in killing Lily - without understanding the significance, he still remembers his own mum.

An alternative explanation, which I have not tried to elaborate in any detail, is that Riddle's mother cursed him as she was dying, and both his power and his tragic career derive from this. The gleam would then be to do with the idea that every new power Voldemort acquires will ultimately further his own downfall - a bit like the way Harry's every success in the Triwizard Tournament furthers Voldemort's plan.

I recognise this is highly speculative - part of my rationale for posting is the belief that the gleam discussion is not dead, just tramlined.  (I have checked all the cross references in the Gleam bit of the Mysteries and Inconsistencies FAQ)  But I do believe it is difficult to put forward theories without some overarching understanding of what makes Harry special, and what is his relationship to Voldemort - hence the lengthy preamble. I personally feel there is something not quite right in the way JKR unfolds these things - they seem to slip out and remain unconfirmed, yet new revelations are built on them as if they are accepted.

If, despite my best efforts, this is a speculation that has been raised before, please don't just raise your eyebrows and sigh - e-mail me offlist.

I also commend message #27 to your attention, in case you missed it first time round:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/27

David
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