- Dumbledore in PS/SS

[rja.carnegie at excite.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19400

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., JamiDeise at a... wrote:
> was anyone else as disappointed as I to learn in GoF that
> the only reason baby Harry had defeated Voldemort the first
> time was due to Lily's sacrificial death? I'd always thought
> that it was Harry's kinetic wizarding powers that resulted in
> Voldy's defeat.

Not disappointed - because Dumbledore hinted at it at the end
of PS, and Tom Riddle realised it too in CS and kicked himself
(figuratively, I think).

When I get to see GOF presumably I'll understand better, but from
an idea of Roger Zelazny's later Amber novels - that powerful
wizards get lazy - my current idea is that Voldemort aimed a
simple killing stroke at Harry, which a baby wizard couldn't
possibly deflect but which Lily's sacrifice caused to disempower
him as well as killing her.  "If there is one thing Voldemort cannot
understand, it is love," said Dumbledore; so I'm figuring that it
never occurred to Voldemort that Lily would stand against him, a far
more powerful wizard, when he'd already offered to let her live and
only kill Harry.  Sort of the reverse of the famous wisdom of
Solomon.  And when they meet in PS, I think Voldemort _still_ hasn't
figured it out: it's been bugging him all that time.

Tom Riddle did understand (he understood Ginny too), but Voldemort
isn't Tom Riddle any more: isn't even that human.

Robert Carnegie
Glasgow, Scotland

"I read them all when I was seven and I hated them" - unnamed American
office worker on the Harry Potter books (www.dilbert.com, List of
Stupid Things Overheard)