I don't see Harry dying

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 69516

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "l3al3y_Doll_3"
<Kiss2Kiss1 at a...> wrote:
>
> ... My take is I don't see Harry being defeated. ... I mean, would the
> story truly be over if Voldemort killed Harry and not the other way 
> around? ... There has to be a finality between the two, and my vote is
> on Harry surviving. 
> 
> It could be he dies and comes back as a ghost or what have you,and 
> finds a way to bring Voldemort down, but I won't go there now.
> 
> -Maritza

bboy_mn:

This is another one of those things that is an incredibly tuff call.
Normally, the hero wins in the end, and they ride of into the sunset
and live happily ever after, but JKR is a little more unconventional
than that. So, even if the hero wins, there has to be some strange
twist to it.

I like the idea, of Neville stepping in at the last minute and being
the one to ultimately kill Voldemort. As suggested by, another poster
in this thread, Harry dies, and in a fit of rage, Neville destroys
Voldemort. Although, it could happen without Harry dying. 

In a sense, the theme would be that sometimes what we perceive to be
the least of us, turns out to be the best of us. Dobby could also, fit
this theme.

As suggested by others, it's possible that Harry will realize that to
truly kill Voldemort once and for all, Harry himself will have to die
in the process. An extension of this might be, using the Prior
Incantatum spell to bring Harry back out of the wand that killed him,
thereby, allowing him to have one last final farwell speech. "Don't
weep for me, I've gone to a better place. After all, to a well
organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." I could see
something like that happening. 

An idea I had was for a pseudo-death. Exactly what constitutes death
is a grey area. You hear about people dying on the operating table and
being brought back to life. If death is defined as no pulse and no
breathing, then resurrections happen all the time. 

So perhaps, by some devious arrangement of Dumbledore's, he allows
Harry to be killed, for in that moment of Harry's death (by some
definition), Voldemort becomes mortally vulnerable. Example; maybe
Dumbledore feeds Harry an elixer of Phoenix tears just before the
final battle with Voldemort, and this allows the Death Curse to kill
Harry, but before the life force leaves him, the Phoenix tears kick in
and bring Harry back. During that in-between twightlight between life
and death, some one gives Voldemort the final and total irredeemable
deathblow, and once Voldemort is gone, Dumbledore quickly revives Harry. 

Here is a revised version of what some one else suggested a week or so
ago. This will be a very abriviated version of events. In the final
battle, all Harry's friends stuggle to save him from Voldemort.
Finally, it's Voldemort and Harry face to face; kill or be killed. But
Ron steps in front of Harry and says, 'If you want to kill Harry,
you'll have to kill me first'. Then Hermione steps in front of Harry,
then the Weasley brothers, then Neville and Harry's other friends, and
they say, 'We will all die before we will let you kill Harry'. 

But Harry pushes his way through the crowd, then moves off to the side
so his friends are out of the line of fire. "If it will end the
killing," Harry says, "and save the lives of the people I love, then
kill me now and let it be done." 

Harry throws his wand on the ground, opens his arm wide, and invites
the curse that will take his life. So Voldemort throws the Death Curse
at Harry, and sheilded by the one thing that Voldemort never can and
never will understand, the curse bounces off of Harry and rebounds
onto Voldemort. In the face of so much overwhelming love and
self-sacrific, the rebounding curse will have the power to utterly
destroy Voldemort. 

Then there is the theory that in the final battle Harry and/or
Voldemort will be reduced to mere muggle. The cost of winning the war
will be the loss of all magic in their lives. For the greater good,
Harry will forsake friends, magic, and happiness, and accept his fate
as a muggle. A truly sad ending for our hero.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn