Case for HP blabbing and running away

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 74910

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dan Feeney" <darkthirty at s...> 
wrote:
> This won't be a thorough as I meant it to be, since I have to do 
some 
> work today.
> 
> First, the sterling example of Fred and George, with the added 
> strength of their business contact with him. They've "got style" 
and 
> they could be a rather useful extra-school contact.
> 
> HP wants "OUT." (The door at Dumbledore representing the school 
> itself - Dumbledore won't let him leave.)

Annemehr:
I didn't take it thay way.  I thought Harry wanted out of his very 
*life* (in the sense of all his circumstances, not in the sense of 
being suicidal).  After all, it is not because he is a Hogwarts 
student that he is thrust into the center of the conflict with 
Voldemort.

That being said, I do think it's quite valid to draw analogies 
between Fred and George's departure from Hogwarts and what Harry may 
do.

Dan:
> 
> HP *felt* like a pawn at the beginning of OOP. At the end of the 
> book, he *knows* he has been, and is, a chesspiece. 
> 
> HP thought he was a weapon at one point, and wanted to run away, 
to 
> protect his friends, and was relieved to think otherwise just a 
page 
> or two later. At the end of the book, he knows he is a weapon, as 
it 
> were. Both for Voldemort and for Dumbledore, as it were. (Death of 
> Sirius, retrieval of prophecy for DE, Dumbledore's abstemiousness 
> with truth, ostensibly for HP's own good.)

Annemehr:
That brings some things nicely into focus, including my feeling that 
Harry does seem to be being turned into an "object" (a weapon) by 
both sides.  Even Dumbledore seems to feel this must be so, for the 
sake of many innocent lives. (This could be a subject for discussion 
in itself, though I won't pursue it here)

Dan: 
> 
> The sit down by the lake until dark signals acceptance of his 
finally 
> understood role.
> 
> The presence of OOP members at the end, talking to the Dursleys, 
only 
> hardens this sense of his being a chesspiece. Will he want to live 
in 
> a place that is livable only because OOP enforces it?
> 
> Keeping the prophecy secret was not particularly constructive, 
aside 
> from forcing LV to reveal himself.
> 
> Thematically now -
> 
> As choosing not to talk about Umbridge's torture signalled his 
taking 
> the stigma as his own, steeling his resistance and sharpening his 
> defiance, so taking his role (fate, as it were) to himself would 
> signal an owned, chosen Potterhood. He will speak the prophecy, or 
> think it, to LV. This in conjunction with running away.
> 
> Questions -
> 
> How will he run away? Is he under house arrest? Any OOP members 
could 
> be tricked, some more easily than others, possibly.

Annemehr:
This idea of Harry running away is where you lose me; I would need 
you to expand on it.  After all, just above you cited Harry's time 
by the lake as his acceptance of newly understood role -- surely 
running away would be a rejection of it?

Unless you mean that he would be running away from Dumbledore's 
PLAN, in order to take matters into his own hands?  Harry would 
disclose the prophecy to Voldemort (would V believe him?) and then 
as much as say, "Okay, Voldemort, it's just you and me now."  If 
Harry is still on the chessboard then, it would be a board reduced 
to only the two kings, yes?

I guess this would be a scenario for book seven, when Harry is of 
age and will have made some sort of plan of his own for how he would 
defeat Voldemort then.  It also brings up the thematic question of 
whether Harry truly does it alone or with the support of friends.

Dan:
> 
> Where could he run to?
> 
> A cave?
> Fred and George?
> Sweden?
> 
> If you've any ideas where he could run to, please post them.
> 
> dan

Annemehr:
He doesn't really know anyplace, does he?  And this last bit you 
wrote really does sound like you think he will run away to *hide* 
which as I said, confuses me (and it's not what Fred and George did, 
is it?  They ran away from Hogwarts to get on with life).  I suppose 
all he could do is try to go somewhere remote where he could still 
scrounge Daily Prophets, and think.  Sorry, I'm no help there!

Annemehr