Voldemort's animus toward the Potters/the prophecy (was Replay)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 85759

 "Diana" wrote:

Apologies for snipping so much of your post, but this paragraph jumped
out at me. 

Harry needs 
> time to learn and grow so he will be capable of taking on Voldemort 
> and killing him when the time comes (book 7, of course).  And 
> keeping the prophecy secret from Voldemort will give Harry that all-
> important time to become Voldemort's murderer.  
> 

I find this idea very disturbing. Yes, Harry needs time, but not to
learn to become a murderer. Not to become Tom Riddle III. Not to yield
the high moral ground that separates him from Tom Riddle, not to learn
to hate when what (presumably) makes him superior to Voldemort is his
capacity for love.

Other wizards, Snape for example, could hit Voldemort with an Avada
Kedavra, but that clearly isn't going to work. Harry has to be able to
do something only he has the ability to do, something related to the
spiritual kinship between him and Voldemort that is reflected in their
wands. Somehow he must figure out a way to make Voldemort destroy himself.

What no one seems to have noticed about the prophecy is the line,
"Neither can live while the other survives." The meaning in that line
is clear enough when it comes to Voldemort: He isn't really living and
hasn't been since he was vaporized. I'm not even sure he was really
living before that since, after becoming a murderer at seventeen, he
went through so many transformations that he was barely recognizable.
So if Voldemort could somehow manage to kill Harry, he would be able
to *live* as a human being again (evil but alive and real and human).
I can't see that happening.

If, on the other hand, Harry causes Voldemort to die (without casting
an unforgiveable curse or doing anything that will place him on
Voldemort's level, he also will be able to *live*--as, according to
the prophecy, he isn't doing now. ("Neither can live while the other
survives.") So that seems to me that he will not only survive the
encounter (no passing through the veil to join Sirius), but he will
find a meaningful, even joyful existence for the first time in his
life. If he becomes a junior version of Barty Crouch Sr., using the
Dark Lord's methods to fight Voldemort for personal gain (in his case,
revenge and possibly glory), where is the joy? Where is the victory?
What kind of lesson would the millions of children who idolize Harry
learn if he, too, became a murderer?

Whatever happens in the end, I think that Harry's physical *and moral*
victory over Voldemort will give new meaning to the words, "The Boy
Who Lived."

Carol