Harry, life debts and the meaning of slytherin

jenny_ravenclaw meboriqua at aol.com
Sat Apr 26 16:06:11 UTC 2003


No: HPFGUIDX 56210

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "werebearloony" <Erthena at a...> 
wrote:

> 1) Does Voldemort now owe a life debt to Harry?  After all Harry did  
help (not voluntarily but he did help) restore V. to life.  So then V. 
is definitely in Harry's debt, (Wormtail's too but that's less 
important) and could this someday save Harry's life.  Dumbledore said 
that this life debt stuff was "
magic at it's deepest most 
impenitrible."(POA) So even V. who is playing around with life and 
death already shouldn't be able to get around the fact that he owes 
his life to Harry.>

Nah.  Life debts seem to be owed when the saver *chooses* to save the 
other's life.  Harry was kidnapped and then tortured by Voldemort.  He 
was tied, gagged and forced to give his blood.  This is very different 
than what happened in PoA with Wormtail.  Harry had the opportunity to 
take Wormtail's life, but he chose not to.  No one stood in Harry's 
way.  In fact, Sirius and Lupin were all but encouraging Harry to kill 
Wormtail.

The other thing to consider is the fact that Voldemort's life wasn't 
really at stake to begin with.  It was Voldemort's *body* he was 
planning to get back, not his life.  For that alone, I'd say there's 
no life debt.

Ah, and the last thing is that after Voldemort kidnapped Harry, had 
Cedric murdered in front of Harry, and tortured Harry, he was just 
about to kill Harry himself when Harry escaped.  If Harry had been 
able to, I am sure he would have destroyed Voldemort, but at the time, 
he needed to save his own life and get the hell out of there.  What 
I'm trying to say is that the entire situation was a set up and 
Voldemort's bidding.  It was orchestrated by Voldemort, carried out by 
Voldemort and then failed by Voldemort because after getting his body 
back, part of the plan was to take Harry's life as well.  

Maybe Harry should thank Voldemort for being too arrogant and wanting 
to duel instead of simply killing Harry, because that is what enabled 
Harry to get away.    

--jenny from ravenclaw, who of course doesn't think Harry should ever 
thank Voldemort for anything ever 
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