Why Harry Doesn't See His Parents Dying (WAS: Voices from the past)

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 47268

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "erisedstraeh2002" <erisedstraeh2002 at y...> 
wrote:
> Finwitch asked:
> 
> > Why didn't Harry *see* his parent's death in this, BTW? He says 
he 
> > *hears* them, but doesn't mention anything he saw except ever-so-
> > famous Green Light?
> 
> Now me:
> 
> How painful do we want to make this experience for the poor boy??

Dementors wouldn't care how much Harry hurts, do they?
  
> But even putting that aside, IMO, JKR is intentionally withholding 
> crucial information about the night Lily and James died.  We 
probably 
> won't know all of the answers about that night until Book 7.  We're 
> getting bits and pieces along the way, but we clearly don't have 
the 
> full picture, and there must be a good reason - it must be crucial 
to 
> the plot, and therefore crucial that we don't have all of the 
answers 
> just yet.  So when Harry comes face to face with the dementors, fog 
> conveniently obscures his senses, and all he can do is hear.

Thought it might be the answer why JKR made it that way, but it's not 
an in-story-explanation which may or may not become out... Maybe 
Harry was doing the kiddie-hiding: covering his eyes and thus 
believing he's not seen? When his Mom died, well-- he's just take his 
hands off... Or something else that Lily or Harry did.
 
> Harry also passes out after hearing the voices.  His experience 
right 
> before fainting is very similar to the pre-fainting experiences 
I've 
> had - where I can still hear what's going on, but everything starts 
> to go blurry.

Blurry? I've fainted a few times myself but nothing ever 
went /blurry/ first...

-- Finwitch