hearing voices<--imagined & text of the voices

[Jessica Iseman]

No: HPFGUIDX 53247

Nobody's Rib wrote,

I close with a fun project I took on.  I pieced together all of what Harry heard to see how the full conversation may have taken place.  (As I was typing the quotes out before, I saw minor discrepancies between some of them, leading me to believe that Harry is hearing different parts of the conversation with each Dementor encounter):  

... then came a new voice, a man's voice, shouting, panicking - M (male voice): "Lily, take Harry and go!  It's him! I'll hold him off -" The sounds of someone stumbling from a room - a door bursting open -  

a cackle of high-pitched laughter - F (female voice): "Not Harry!  Not Harry!  Please, I'll do anything -" H (high pitched voice): "Stand aside.  Stand aside, girl!" F: "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry" H: "Stand aside, you silly little girl... stand aside now..." F: "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -" F: "Not Harry!  Please... have mercy... have mercy..." A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming.  

- Nobody's Rib, who, despite her musings, really wants Harry to have heard what really happened that night  

Meg wrote:

"Well, when I read the scene all peiced together in my
mind like that, I too have come to the conclusion that
it must be Harry's imagination "
<snip>
"both of the adults seem awfully concerned about the
safety of Harry.  True, he is Lily's son and all but
Harry's name just seems to come up a little to often. 
I don't really know how to explain what I am thinking
here...Basically I think that if people were in such a
situation, they would be very concerned about their
own survial as well as their children. It also makes
it seem like Voldemort was going after Harry first, 
which, knowing Voldemort, doesn't seem like something
he would be very concerned about.  Anyway, what I am
getting at here is that perhaps Harry's imagination
makes him almost the most important person in the
scene because he wonders how he survived the whole 
ordeal. " 

Me:
I understand how this could be thought of as Harry's
imagination, but I tend to believe that this is
actually Harry's real memory of the event.  He has no
conscious memory of it because he was too young, but
the subconscious mind is much more able to retain the
details.  The dementors work like a Pensive to bring
out every detail of the memory.

As for his parents being too concerned for Harry, it
does seem like Voldemort came to purposefully kill
Harry and James only.  He seemed to have no business
with Lily until she got in his way.  It leads you to
wonder if there is something special about James's
family that makes Voldemort feel like he has to kill
them off.  Perhaps this lends creedence to the Heir of
Gryffindor theory.   

Just my two knuts worth--
Jessica (who should be doing research right now)