Harry's abilities/Hagrid as Reliable Source

[Becky Penar]

No: HPFGUIDX 10616

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer 
<pennylin at s...> wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> John Walton wrote:
> 
> > I have to disagree here, Penny. Canonically speaking, I can't see 
that
> > Hagrid's statement makes much difference, one way or the other. 
Essentially,
> > as much as we love him, poor old Hagrid has been kept out of the 
loop on
> > things -- we see this most particularly in PoA and GoF. My guess 
would be that
> > Hagrid (and most of the wizarding community) didn't know about 
the old
> > magic that Dumbledore knows about, and so assumed that it's 
something about
> > Harry.
> 
> I wasn't necessarily touting Hagrid as a reliable source per se -- 
he's not
> always reliable as we've seen.  But, my point is that the general 
perception
> amongst the wizarding community is that Harry is special.  
Voldemort couldn't
> kill him because of his mother's sacrifice.  But, there's a reason 
that the
> curse rebounded on Voldemort, and I still think it has something to 
do with
> Harry specifically.  And, he's showing more & more uniqueness and 
innate powers
> as the series progresses (resisting the Imperius Curse for example).
> 
> And, I still just don't buy the notion that Harry was the first 
innocent
> defenseless victim that Voldemort killed.  What about all those 
muggles that he
> supposedly killed?  They are surely just as or more defenseless in 
the face of a
> magical attack.  Harry also can't have been the only infant 
targeted by
> Voldemort.  If you say that, you definitely discount the slaughter 
of many
> amongst that generation of babies (King Herod arguments tossed 
around last week
> or so).  So, you'd be back to the Student Numbers problem.
> 
> As for the old magic that Dumbledore knows about -- that's just 
protecting Harry
> while he's at or under the care of the Dursleys though.  It had 
nothing whatever
> to do with what saved him or what caused the curse to rebound on 
Voldemort.
> Right?  At least as far as we know, it doesn't ....
> 
> Penny (who thinks she must be missing something fundamental about 
this debate
> ....)

I agree Penny, if this were just about Lily saving Harry, don't you 
think that someone like Lucius or Draco Malfoy, or someone else who 
doesn't like Harry, would have brought it up by now that it's really 
not Harry that is special, but all of this attention is because of 
his mother?? Did that make sense? What I mean is, this HAS to relate 
back to "there's something about Harry" because (1) chances are that 
Harry was not the first defenseless baby to be killed by Voldemort 
whose parent tried to protect them (although I guess we don't really 
know exactly how many people V killed - maybe he was just more into 
intimidation than actual killing?), and (2) if it was just that 
Harry's mother protected him, how is it that Harry could do the 
things that he can do (patronus, etc.)?

We have definately not seen all of the powers that V transferred to 
Harry that night, is it possible that what makes Harry different is 
that he has all of these skills/powers that V used (i.e. dark magic 
powers) and Harry instead uses them positively? For example, V can 
talk to snakes, and uses that power to intimidate people/kill people 
with basilus (sp); Harry, however, uses his ability to talk to snakes 
to call them away from attacking people (CoS when he called the snake 
away from Justin). I know this might seem a little too simple, but it 
also makes sense.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about the "Lily didn't have to die" 
statement, and I'm really beginning to subscribe to the theory that V 
was trying to get Lily to his side and she refused. Perhaps V knew 
that James would never go to him and assumed Harry wouldn't either, V 
wanted to test Lily, so he decides to kill James & Harry, hence, Lily 
didn't 'have' to die since she could have just gone with V and not 
tried to protect Harry.

Becky