A Twist on Stoned!Harry

[annemehr <annemehr@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51832

I've been mulling some things over lately, and the "Is Harry Potter 
the Savior of the Wizarding World" thread has put me in the mood to 
search the Stoned!Harry posts and hammer down my thoughts.

PHILOSOPHER'S STONE SYMBOLISM:

Back in post #38542, Caroline, in a stroke of brilliance, looked up 
the philosopher's stone in "The Dictionary of Symbols" (Penguin, 
1994), and came up with the following:

The  philosopher's stone, in RL alchemy, was considered to be made of 
Sulpher + Mercury, and they were symbolized thus:
Sulpher: stag, phoenix, lion, the color red.
Mercury: serpent, unicorn, the color green.
(The stone itself was called cinnabar and was symbolized by dragon's 
blood).

In art, the creation of the philosopher's stone was symbolized by the 
coming together of a stag and a unicorn.

CAROLINE'S INTERPRETATION:

Caroline and the people who replied, assumed that James was the stag 
and Lily was the (pure) unicorn (with green eyes, yet) who came 
together and produced Harry, the living embodiment of the 
philosopher's stone.  If you follow the thread, you see how the 
conclusion is reached that Harry is to die to save the wizarding world 
from Voldemort, much as the PS was destroyed in the first book.  Also, 
JKR's comment on reading the Bible telling us how the story would go 
was tied in very well.

MY NEW TAKE:

I have been pondering for a while now that James and Lily's roles in 
the symbolism may be different.  Perhaps James and Lily are *both* 
represented in the sulpher component, and it is Voldemort who is 
represented in the mercury component, thus:

Sulpher: red (Gryffindor, James and Lily's Hogwarts House)
         stag - James; phoenix - Lily (possibly to be better explained
         in OoP, and also maybe that in her death she gave Harry 
         life),  and of course, the lion (Gryffindor again).

Mercury: green (Slytherin, Voldemort's house), the serpent (slytherin 
         again), and the unicorn.

How do we reconcile a pure and innocent unicorn being part of 
Voldemort's role in this?  I propose that in his many magical 
experiments and transformations that Dumbledore refers to Tom Riddle 
undergoing after leaving Hogwarts, that one or more of them involved 
using unicorn blood to try to achieve immortality.

I think that Harry was not *born* as the living philosopher's stone.  
I think that he *became* one on the night that Voldemort tried to AK 
him but failed, *transferring some of his powers* -- and *essence* -- 
to Harry that night.

HOW MY NEW TAKE APPLIES TO THE SERIES:

I think that Harry may be *Voldemort's* personal philosopher's stone. 
 In the Graveyard scene, Voldemort used Harry's blood in a potion that 
reembodied him.  True, it did not make him immortal, so it breaks down 
here, but it is his first step back to power.  Also, I do not think 
that Voldemort has any idea of Stoned!Harry, or he may well have 
wanted to make more use of him rather than try to kill him. 
Furthermore, I think that if Voldemort had known, he could actually 
have used Harry to become truly immortal.  I think that Voldemort's 
survival, in ways that he and we do not know yet, is directly tied in 
with Harry's survival.

In fact, I think the Christian story symbolism may enter here, in the 
idea that Satan was working *to bring about* the crucifixion of Jesus, 
the very thing that proved Satan's downfall.  Satan knew that Jesus' 
presence in the world was in order to save the people that Satan 
wanted destroyed.  Satan thought that if he helped bring about Jesus' 
crucifixion (by his powers of influence and confusion), he could 
destry Jesus and foil the plan of salvation.  The very thing he helped 
bring about turned out to be his defeat as Jesus' death is what saved 
the world.

Now we have Voldemort who knows somehow (1st Trelawney predicion?) 
that Harry is to be his downfall.  A big foreshadowing happens when he 
tries to AK a fifteen month old Harry but is himself very nearly 
destroyed.  Voldemort does not read anything into this; he merely 
reembodies himself with a potion containing Harry's blood and then 
attempts to kill him again.  We do not see what the result would have 
been if he had been successful, because the priori incantatem effect 
intervenes.  However, we can be sure that Voldemort will keep trying.

If Harry is indeed the living philosopher's stone on whom Voldemort's 
life depends, I think that Voldemort, in destroying this "stone," will 
actually DESTROY HIMSELF, once and for all, analagous to what happened 
to Satan in the Christian story.

Does Harry have to die, then?  Well, not necessarily.  It may be that 
Harry will only have to be "de-coupled" from Voldemort -- that the 
qualities that Harry received from Voldemort at fifteen months old 
will somehow be removed from him.  Then, Harry would no longer be a 
living philosopher's stone but merely the Harry Potter who was born to 
Lily and James that 31 July.  I have to say that I like this idea, 
since for Harry to die is way too much of a victory for Voldemort who 
would certainly want to take Harry with him if he was defeated.  
Especially since Voldemort has been *trying* to kill Harry all of 
Harry's life.  And anyway, I love Harry too much.

MISCELLANEOUS:

In the original thread following post #38542, and also in the recent 
thread, the Christian symbolism discussion took the form of Harry as 
the Christ-figure who would die (and maybe rise again).  Personally, I 
do not like too-literal Christ-figures in literature, but in RL 
Christianity, everyone who follows Christ is to be another Christ, so 
Harry could represent someone who does this quite well (literally or 
figuratively).  As for Harry dying and rising again, well, when Christ 
did it, he rose body and soul, *stopped briefly on earth* to show 
himself to his friends and establish his church, and then went on to 
heaven -- what he *didn't* do was stay here on earth for what would 
have been his natural life-span.  So, I can't really relate this to 
Harry.  I think the only way this could come in at all would be 
through something like the sleeping potion Snape mentions in Harry's 
first potions class -- it puts one in a sleep so deep that one looks 
to be dead (but isn't).

My theory has the added attraction (to me, at least), that Voldemort 
defeats himself, without Harry, who has never killed anyone, having to 
kill Voldemort to save the WW.  There was a thread not so long ago 
where many of us expressed our distaste to the idea that Harry would 
ever kill.  And I just don't see him ever learning Avada Kedavra (not 
that that would be the only way one could kill someone).

Also, it's so classical.  It's like Oedipus Rex and many other 
stories, where the steps people take to *prevent* a prophecy coming 
true are *exactly* what bring it about.  

I don't know how the dragon's blood symbolism would apply, but I'll be 
reading for it in the future.

So, that's what's been on my mind lately.

Annemehr