Hearing Voices- NOT Imagined, With A Side Question About Dementors

[Juliet]

No: HPFGUIDX 53341

Nobody's Rib(who I am quoting throughout the post):
>>Here's what I'm (reluctantly) proposing: Harry's "worst experience" 
is not the actual living through witnessing his parents' death, but 
how he *imagines* that death to have taken place. ie He doesn't have 
a real/vivid memory of the death, but he does lie awake at night 
imagining how it all took place, and those thoughts are what haunt 
him.>>

All right... *settles in with some V8 Splash* Time to utterly refute 
this theory.  For one thing, if Harry were to spend so much time 
thinking and dwelling on their deaths, you'd think he'd recognize 
Voldemort murdering them the first time he hears it.  But no, it 
takes two, and then some alone time to himself before Harry realizes 
it's his parents death that he is hearing. To look at the canon you 
posted...


> 1) on the Quidditch field:
> "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry"
> "Stand aside, you silly little girl... stand aside now..."
> "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -"
> Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry's brain... What was 
> he doing? Why was he flying? 1) on the Quidditch field:
> "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry"
> "Stand aside, you silly little girl... stand aside now..."
> "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -"
> Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry's brain... What was 
> he doing? Why was he flying? He needed to help her but... She was 
> going to die... She was going to be murdered... He was falling 
> through the icy mist.
> "Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy..."
> A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming, and Harry 
> knew no more.
- US Hardcover PoA, page 179 

> "When they get near me, I can hear Voldemort murdering my mum," 
> Harry to Lupin, about the above incident. page 187

Now, yo can see that at first Harry didn't KNOW that was a voice-
inside-his-head.  Look at his reaction on the field.. "He needed to 
help her".  He doesn't realize it's Lily(not until later, in the 
Hospital Wing), nor does he realize it on the train, because when he 
comes to one of the first questions he asks is "Who was screaming?" 
Harry going by his instict- that is, someone in trouble, better help! 
But he can't, as it's just a memory, one of the things that make this 
so sad, IMO.


>>First of all, I find it difficult to believe that, of all the 
adults 
present at the Quidditch match, none have an experience in their past 
that is worse than Harry's.>>

Perhaps I can help you with this difficulty.  I don't think it's so 
much that Harry has the WORST experience of all the adults(I, myself, 
would be curious to know what Dumbledore thinks about when those 
Dementors get near him), but that he has the one that is the worst to 
bring up. This could be for two reasons: He has not resolved the 
death of his parents and thus this is the one that torments him most
(thus being his "worst experience"), or the fact that it was a memory 
that was previously unaccessable to him makes it hard to drag out of 
him..?  In any case, being around the Dementors and dragging that 
memory up physically drains Harry(whether or not this is because of a 
direct relation to the psychological torment...).  We know this 
becasue he faints.

Oh, and a knew thought has just jumped out at me!  Maybe it's not 
that the Dementors bring up the *worst* memory of your life, but what 
will torment you the most.  For Harry, it is his parent's murder.  
One of the worst things about the Dementors, IMO, is that they replay 
these horrible memories, and you can do nothing.  Harry has to sit 
and listen to his parents being murdered, and he can do *nothing* to 
stop it from happening.  And, by the looks of the effect it has on 
Harry, the Dementors have their desired effect.  Also, for Hagrid, 
the things the Dementors bring up for him are regretful things, 
things that will torment him.  His dad's death, the day he was 
expelled from Hogwarts, letting Norbert go..I mean, having to say 
goodbye to a pet(that you really haven't even had for all that 
long!), after living through Voldemort's Rein of Terror, wouldn't 
seem that bad, would it..?  But it's something that would 
psychologically torment Hagrid.  As would the circumstances of his 
expullsion, which, no doubt, would lead him to wonder if he *had* 
been the cause of that little girl's death.  As for his Father's 
death...we don't know the cicrumstances, but wild speculation could 
lead one to wonder if it played out in a way that would make Hagrid 
blame himself(thus, another psychologically tormenting moment).  

>>After all, some of them must have had V-
encounters... but there's no mention of anyone else having such an 
extreme reaction to the dementors.>>

Granted, some of them probably did.  But did the Dementors get so 
close to them as Harry?  Harry was right over them(and there were a 
lot of them), IIRC, when he fainted.  And, going with my theory 
above, they might have resolved most of the horrible memories in 
their past.  Like Hermione or Ron- they have no horrible, deep, nasty 
secret(AFAWK, and sorry to any Torment!Ron/Hermione theories..) that 
would give them such torture, so all they do is feel horrible.  
Ginny, on the other hand, when she faces a Dementor, begins to shake 
uncontrollably.  Why?  Well, she had just gone through a terrible 
ordeal the year before.  Thinking she was going mad, killing 
roosters, threatening the school.  That's some undealt with 
psychological baggage right there, just the kind of a thing a 
Dementor would cause to be pulled up to torment her.

>>I do know 
that my earliest memories do not go as far back as when I was one. >>

And neither do Harry's- until he's near a Dementor.  

>>Might Harry's voices be a red 
herring, and the real issue (in relation to the voices) will not be 
the *what* of the scene, but instead Harry needing to overcome his 
fear of Voldemort (initially planted in him by knowledge of V killing 
his parents and then growing as he imagined this taking place.)>>

I've never thought of Harry as having very much *fear* of Voldemort.  
He says the name, at first because he doesn't know any better(though, 
Hermione at first didn't know any better, but still she always calls 
him You-Know-Who. But, she did read up on Voldemort before coming to 
Hogwarts, so she knew all about him, and with her desperation to 
prove herself, she might've done so to blend in), and then later 
becuase he really doesn't fear him.  When they are forced to think of 
their worst fears in the Boggart Lesson, Harry thinks of the 
Dementor.  He does't think of having to hear his parent's death(b/c, 
he hasn't realized that's what it is yet), but of the Dementor's 
scabby, decaying hand.  Which, as Lupin points out, means he only 
fears fear itself.  Also, when Harry is told Sirius Black, supposedly 
Voldeort's Number Two Man and Biggest Supporter is coming after him, 
it really doesn't effect him.  He's not all that scared of Voldie, 
and not scared of his supporters.


Questions About Dementors:

I have something to add, that's on-topic but kinda not...there seems 
to be semi-conflicting descriptions of what the Dementor's do.  The 
most said one, is that they bring up the worst experiences of your 
life(which I have taken to mean the ones that have the worst effect 
on you).  But Lupin says, when Harry admits that he thought of the 
Dementor's, not Voldemort, that Harry is wise, becuase he fears only 
fear itself.  So, now Dementors bring out your worst fear's?  I 
thought that was a Boggart's job!  

This has troubled me with trying to present a logical explination for 
Harry's reaction to the Dementor's.  

~Aldrea, hoping no one has enough force to knock this theory flat, as 
it comforts her against the whole Harry Is Imagining It theory.