Adopted!Harry vs fanfic

Mon May 19 13:42:25 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 58189

The Admiring Skeptic wrote:

1. Harry, Dumbledore and all vanquish Voldemort

Me:

Do you mean when Harry does this at 18?  This is still a little 
unclear.  

2. Dumbledore tells Harry that when he was 1 yr old, his 18-yr-old 
self had appeared out of the future and saved his life, but died in 
the process.

Me:

You still haven't explained how Dumbledore knows this.  This was 
what I meant by fanfic writing forcing a person to flesh out 
everything; someone writing a fic that included this would be ripped 
apart by reviewers demanding to know how Dumbledore came by this 
information.

3. Harry has to decide whether to go back "again."

4. What happened "the first time" on the night James and Lily died 
was this: 18-yr-old Harry showed up, went to Dumbeldore and told him 
quite a bit about the "future," then went to Godric's Hollow, but 
did not save his parents for some reason (any reason will do, like 
he was too late). Then he jumped between infant!Harry and Voldemort 
just as V was AKing infant!Harry, and also attacked Voldemort at the 
same time. The result of both spells was probably some more
priori incatatum at first, but eventually, 18-yr-old Harry ended up 
dead, infant!Harry ended up scarred, and Voldemort ended up a wraith.

Me:

This still doesn't add up.  If infant!Harry was protected, he 
shouldn't have a scar of any sort.  According to Dumbledore it is a 
curse scar, and years later, it hurts when Voldemort is being  
particularly evil and also connects Harry to him so that he is 
essentially a witness to Frank Bryce's murder.  From GoF, we know 
that Harry and Voldemort attacking each other simultaneously results 
in their wands locking, not curses being delivered to either of 
them.  And why would the results be so different?  Why would Harry 
be dead-dead, but Voldemort end up as a wraith?  If Harry simply 
came between Voldemort and his infant self, assuming that Voldemort 
can kill the eighteen year old version of Harry, then Harry should 
simply be deadm nothing should happen to Voldemort, and infant!Harry 
should have no scar.  If Harry is attacking at the same time, their 
wands will lock and neither one's spell reaches the other.  This 
theory still throws everything we know in canon out the window.

TAS:

How to Time-Turn 18 years? I'll let JKR decide that. She has no 
constraints at all.  As for the rest of your complaints, Harry did 
not live till 35, and he blocked the AK exactly the way canon has 
already shown us he can. 

Me:

No, he doesn't.  Canon does not have him 'blocking' AK.  It has him 
acquiring a scar because of it and bouncing it back at Voldemort.  
This theory bears no resemblance whatsoever to canon.

TAS: 

As for Lily's sacrifice - Dumbledore did not say that her sacrifice 
saved Harry's life. 

Me:

Well, technically he does say that.  He says, "Your mother died to 
save you."  But I understand that you are saying that there isn't an 
explicit statement to the effect that her sacrifice caused the AK to 
rebound onto Voldemort.  It is, however IMPLICIT, especially in 
combination with the above statment from Dumbledore.

TAS:

Canon still has not told us what saved his life. All we have been 
told is that her sacrifice protected Harry at age 11 from being 
physically touched by Voldemort. We have no canon whatsoever that 
Harry can't be AKed, even by Voldemort, just the fact that Voldemort 
attempted one AK against Harry that failed. Why is still a mystery.

Me:

The rest of Dumbledore's speech is the implicit statement of 
protection:

"He didn't realise that love as powerful as your mother's for you 
leaves its own mark.  Not a scar, no visible sign...to have been 
loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will 
give us some protection for ever.  It is in your very skin.  
Quirrell, full of hatred, greed and ambition, sharing his soul with 
Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason.  It was agony to 
touch a person marked by something so good."

This strongly implies that this protection was present when 
Voldemort attempted to AK Harry, meaning that he could not be 
touched by Voldemort neither by his hand or a spell, especially a 
spell designed to kill Harry.

TAS:

I think that this sort of forum can deal with numerous speculative 
details in a much briefer format than fanfic, which I am not leery 
of, but generally have no patience for. Another nice feature of this 
kind of post rather than fanfic is that one can be honest about 
which details could go more than one way, and explore various 
options, whereas fanfic, to maintain a plot, must pick one route and 
ignore the rest.

Me:

While it is true that you have to pick one route and go with it in 
fanfic, you also have to fully flesh out things like how Dumbledore 
would know that Harry had traveled back in time, saved himself in 
infancy, caused Voldemort to become a wraith and died in the 
execution of all of this.

TAS:

For example, there is nothing in my theory that precludes Harry 
living till 35.

Me:

Um, yeah, there is.  The part about him dying at 18 sort of 
precludes his living until 35.

Kelly Grosskreutz wrote:

The one problem with that is that Hagrid (and whoever else came to 
the house) would have found the body. I believe that DD would have 
checked it out as well. I can see it now. "So who was the third guy? 
Funny, he looks a lot like James, only slightly younger." "What I 
find strange is that he has a scar on his forehead in the exact same 
place and in the exact same shape as baby Harry here. Most peculiar."

Me:

Good point, Kelly!  (Although I still think that there would be no 
reason for Harry to have a scar if he was protected in this way.)  
What would happen to the body?  If the older Harry had died at 
Godric's Hollow, there'd be some trace of him.  Even if Dumbledore 
had gone to Godric's Hollow first and disposed of it, which canon 
also does not suggest (it doesn't seem that he's been to GH at all), 
it's still unclear how he would know that it was 18-year-old Harry 
who'd traveled back through time (when dead it would probably be 
hard to pinpoint his age except to say that he would probably look 
like he was somewhere between 16 and 21) not to mention it would be 
impossible for Dumbledore to know that the reason he'd died was that 
he was protecting his younger self.  The level of omniscience 
necessary for Dumbledore to know all of these things borders on the 
god-like.  I like the guy, but I'm not yet ready to elevate him to 
this level. <g>

--Barb

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