The Prophecy Again (Was:Re: Why were the sacrifices different?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95532

I (Carol) wrote:
<snip> Also, if Harry was *born with* the power to defeat Voldemort,
why was his mother's self-sacrifice necessary and why din't Voldemort 
just die? Harry himself didn't do anything. There was no "power" 
involved. He was simply on the receiving end of a spell that 
bounced off him (through the "ancient magic," which I still think 
is a charm). Somehow that spell also opened up a channel between 
him and Voldemort that was not there before Godric's Hollow and he 
received at least one power (Parseltongue) and perhaps others (the 
ability to resist an Imperius curse?) that he did not have before.
 
IMO, without the Prophecy and the events at Godric's Hollow, Harry
(assuming he and his parents had lived) would have been an 
ordinary, scarless wizard kid, raised by his parents, familiar 
with the WW, good at Quidditch like his father, but with no 
extraordinary talents and no special destiny. 
> 
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan responded:
> Ack!  We disagree yet again, Carol.  While we don't know enough 
> about Godric's Hollow *or* the prophecy for my liking--and so I'm 
> not sure about Annemehr's idea that The Power is Love--I *do* have 
> an opinion about whether all of Harry's specialness & talents were 
> transferred to him by Voldy and whether, without the Voldy transfer 
> & his mother's ancient magic he'd have been simply an ordinary 
> wizard.
> 
> I agree with your point that if Harry was born with *everything* he 
> needed to vanquish Voldy, his mother's sacrifice would not have been 
> necessary.  I believe, however, that it was a combination of what 
> his mother provided, what Voldy transferred, and what was ALREADY 
> INSIDE of Harry at birth that makes him who he is.  I believe Harry 
> is a truly special wizard.  I know, I know, he has problems in some 
> of his subjects, he doesn't work hard enough in some classes, not 
> everything comes naturally to him, he lets his emotions get in the 
> way at times.  But I think some things *do* come naturally to him, 
> and I like to believe that his ability to throw off an Imperius 
> Curse, his talent in flying, his strength in the wand duel w/ Voldy 
> in the graveyard are all manifestations of things which Harry had 
> *from the start*.  I do believe he was gifted with certain abilities 
> beyond the normal wizard or witch--not in ALL abilities, but in 
> many.  Some of those talents & gifts may well take time, practice & 
> focus to develop fully, but I believe he's ahead of most others.  
> 
> These are my beliefs; I've no canon to prove it any more than others 
> have canon to prove that *all* of Harry's abilities were transferred 
> to him by Voldy [not that you said that outright, Carol].  If JKR 
> tells us in the end that it all came from Voldy or from Voldy + 
> Lily's sacrifice, I'll eat my words, but for now I believe very 
> strongly that Harry would NOT have been an ordinary wizard even w/o 
> those two occurrences.  Harry gets trashed a fair bit around HPfGU, 
> imo, but I like to give him credit for some specialness that I 
> believe he's really got going for him--and that was truly "his" from 
> the beginning.

Carol responds:
First, I'm not so sure that Harry or you or I or anyone else should
get credit for talents we're born with. Credit that to our genes. What
we deserve credit for is what we do with our talents, whether we're
born with that potential or acquire them through extraordinary
circumstances, like a deflected curse. So, IMO, acquiring some of his
powers from LV doesn't make Harry any less "special." In fact, it
makes him *more* special, because he's one of a kind.

That aside, I certainly agree that Harry's talent for flying is
"his"--a talent he was born with (inherited from James). Harry himself
seems to sense this in SS/PS when he flies for the first time. He
doesn't have to learn how to handle his broom. He knows how to do it
instinctively. IIRC, he has no such natural instincts or abilities in
Charms or Transfiguration, despite his parents' known propensities for
these two subjects. He has to overcome his Muggle upbringing and learn
those subjects just as he has to learn Potions. (Contrast Hermione,
who clearly does have a natural aptitude for Charms and
Transfiguration, or at least for remembering what she reads and
concentrating on the desired results.) At the opposite extreme are
Parseltongue, a rare and ominous gift that we know to be the result of
the failed Avada Kedavra, and Harry's ability to sense what LV is
feeling and experiencing, which relates to the scar--again, not powers
that Harry was born with.

His survival at Godric's Hollow is obviously not due to his own
efforts as a helpless fifteen-month-old, nor to any or accidental
magic performed by Harry himself. It is, we are told, the result of
the "ancient magic" activated by Lily's self-sacrifice. And, as I've
said, repeatedly, that magic has to involve more than her dying to
save her son, or Barty Crouch's mother's self-sacrifice would have
given him similar protection.

I don't know whether Lily's protective charm gave Harry some sort of
immunity to Avada Kedavra in general and/or Voldemort in general or
whether it only saved his life in that instance. Something else is
going on that neither she nor Voldemort intended. It's as if her spell
clashing with Voldemort's gave Harry something he didn't have before
(other than the scar and its peculiar properties), something that
confirmed or sealed his destiny as "the one." One of those abilities
seems to be his very unusual resistance to the Imperius Curse. Could
that be, like Parseltongue, an ability transferred to him from
Voldemort? I doubt very much that it was inherited from Lily or James,
any more than they had the power to resist Avada Kedavra.

Anyway, I don't think Harry needs to be *born with* the power to
defeat Voldemort to make him "special." I think that he was destined
to be "the one" who could defeat Voldemort, but that destiny only came
into effect when Voldemort himself *chose* and *marked* him. Whether
"the one" could ever have been Neville or not I don't know. I think
Neville's mother would have had to perform a similar charm to make him
the Boy Who Lived and we have no evidence that she did that, or even
went into hiding. Or, if Harry had died, maybe the role of "the one"
would have defaulted to Neville. Either that or Voldemort would have
been free to wreak havoc for all eternity. But Voldemort chose Harry
and "marked him as his equal," so might-have-beens no longer matter.

What else is "special" about Harry? His wand, which chose him somehow
sensing that he was "the one" who would need the "brother wand" to
Voldemort's. I don't think the choice of wands is any plan of
Dumbledore's and Ollivander's, as Kneasy has suggested. It's part of
Harry's destiny. But it has to do, IMO, with the powers that were
transferred to Harry at Godric's Hollow. The wand sensed powers in him
that were like those that its "brother" sensed in young Tom Riddle
forty-odd years before. (I'm not suggesting that the wands are good or
evil, only that they can sense an affinity to a particular wizard, as
Ollivander himself says. And these two very powerful wands are
attracted to a particular set of qualities--the potential to do what
Ollivander calls "great things.")

Harry's potential to do "great things," including the destruction of
Voldemort, is still in embryo when he that wand chooses him. He has to
learn how to use and control his powers, or rather his potential,
which is still latent and undeveloped at that point. He has managed so
far to cast a corporeal Patronus, but he was motivated to do that by
the effect the Dementors had on him--again, a result of the events at
Godric's Hollow unintended by Voldemort. I agree that James's death
fighting Voldemort gave him that particular Patronus, so in a sense
it's the spirit of his father joining him in battle, but I'm not sure
that his Patronus is any more powerful than any other Patronus
properly conjured. Harry just had the opportunity and the motivation
to learn to conjure it--and the luck to see himself conjuring it in
the future thanks to the Time Turner. But the fact that he can cast a
corporeal Patronus regardless of its form does seem to indicate
unusual power, a potential to "do great things" that goes beyond his
father's ability to transform himself into a stag and relates instead
(IMO) to the transfer of powers at Godric's Hollow. 

Nevertheless (I'm conceding to you here!), Harry does have traits not
acquired from Voldemort that make him a hero we can admire and root
for. The most important is his courage, his willingness to go into
great danger to do what he has to do (or thinks he has to do), whether
it's save Ginny from the Basilisk or attempt to rescue Sirius from
Voldemort. That, I think, is an inherited trait native to him, a
combination of James's reckless courage and Lily's capacity for love
and self-sacrifice. That's their contribution to who Harry is and why
he (and not Neville) is the chosen one.

So what do we have? A courageous, sometimes selfless boy with a
natural ability to fly but no other extraordinary natural talents,
saved by his mother from a curse that ought to have killed him, which
also reduced Voldemort to vapor through no effort of his own. A scar
and a wand that link him to Voldemort. The ability to speak
Parseltongue and resist the Imperius Curse, at least one and possibly
both of which are acquired from Voldemort through the deflected curse.
The motivation to learn and cast a corporeal Patronus. Add to that the
other spells he has learned to survive the Tri-Wizard Tournament but
would not have learned had not LV's faithful supporter put his name
into the Goblet of Fire--another instance of LV's desire to forestall
the Prophecy backfiring on him. Those abilities are not inborn. They
are learned--because he has to learn them as part of his destiny as
"the one." Add also the love and support of Dumbledore, who provided
him with Fawkes and the sword of Godric Gryffindor in CoS and rescued
him in both GoF and OoP (after he had demonstrated extraordinary
abilities, not to mention courage and luck, which nevertheless would
not have saved him from being murdered by Crouch or Voldemort had
Dumbledore not been present).

If Harry had been born with the ability to defeat Voldemort, he would
not need Dumbledore's help, or the help of Ron and Hermione, which
he's had at some point in nearly every book. Harry would have
destroyed LV on the first encounter in SS/PS. Instead, he has only
forestalled Voldemort in every case. He still has choices to make,
lessons to learn, skills to acquire before he can put his powers,
whether they are inborn or acquired, to use to defeat Voldemort (or
die in the attempt--which I don't think for a moment will happen).

Good heavens! I didn't mean to write a sermon or a lecture here, much
less to argue that I'm right and you're wrong. I was just inspired by
your post to state my views on the subject and clarify them for
myself. So here's what I currently think about Harry and his destiny.
Have at it! :-)

Carol