Why didn't Voldemort die? (long)

[mz_annethrope]

No: HPFGUIDX 110188

Why didn't Voldemort die when he tried to kill Harry, this was the 
first of the two important questions that JKR thought her fans might 
like to ponder. I've been pondering something like this ever since 
Carol sent post #105925 on the mind/body connection in HP. Here are 
some ideas.

I suspect the biggest clue is Fawkes, who has given a feather both 
to Voldemort and Harry. We have seen Fawkes die twice: once 
naturally and once when he swallowed the avada kedavra curse aimed 
at DD. Both times he burst into flames and reappeared as an ugly, 
baby bird. But when we see him soon after his first death he is a 
beautiful red phoenix. We don't know long it takes a phoenix to 
mature, but if he is like other birds he should be fully fledged and 
ready to fly four to six weeks after his rebirth.

My suspicion is that Voldemort bears some relation to a phoenix. He 
doesn't go on living for ever--that would require the philosopher's 
stone--but he can rebound, phoenix-like, albeit with quite a bit of 
help. We don't know what happened to Voldemort when the curse he 
aimed at Harry bounced back at him, whether he was vaporized or 
whether he became a corpse. I've always preferred vaporization, for 
there is no mention in the books about a corpse (though why anyone 
thinks he's dead, as Carol asks, is anyone's guess if he's 
vaporized). Here's my husband's suggestion: if the curse simply 
bounced back on a regular human, he'd be a corpse, but if it bounced 
back on Voldemort, he might be reduced to ashes, phoenix-like. The 
ashes would indicate that he was "dead."

Unlike a phoenix, post mortem Voldemort doesn't immediately have a 
body, but he seems to have some sort of molecular existence. He says 
of himself on p. 293 of the 1st Book (American Ed.): "See what I 
have become?" the face said. "Mere shadows and vapor...I have form 
only when I can share another's body..." At this point he has the 
face of Voldemort (whether reconstituted from actual molecules of 
Voldemort I don't know) sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head.

After Quirrell's death, Voldemort returns in Book IV, but now he has 
an actual, if not very useful body. He has been drinking Nagini 
venom (he probably already had some sort of form in order to drink). 
And Nagini, whether this is related or not, has already eaten at 
least one person--milk indeed!

In the beginning of the graveyard scene of GF, Voldemort looks 
something like a baby; after being dropped into a vat of a 
particularly nasty potion he has the body which everyone recognizes 
as Voldemort's (at least Fudge does in OP). Whether this body is 
substantively drawn from his old body, we don't know; what we do 
know is that he is transformed from the infantile figure into 
himself. Like a phoenix.

My hypothesis is that Voldemort's protection against death was 
somehow related to how a phoenix is reborn, only his protection was 
incomplete and though he was not fully dead (and perhaps not fully 
alive even before then)he was unable to reanimate himself completely 
without a lot of help. In this way he is unlike a phoenix, which is 
self generating. But then his protection was incomplete.

I have some related ideas regarding the use of time in the HP books 
as related to Voldemort's regeneration; also some thoughts about a 
phoenix (and perhaps Voldemort) being its own parents. But this is 
already too long, so they will wait.

Here's a final speculation, partly courtesy of my husband. What if 
Snape, being an expert at potions, had helped Voldemort become 
immortal, or at least knew the steps Voldemort had taken to protect 
himself from death? What if his telling DD about what Voldemort had 
done was the reason why DD trusts him? And finally, what if DD told 
Lily about this and her knowledge might have factored into her 
protection of Harry? In other words, if I may connect JKR's second 
question (why Dumbledore didn't kill Voldemort): if you kill a 
phoenix, it will rise again. If DD kills Voldemort, he will rise 
again. Harry does not seem to have the unique ability to kill 
Voldemort, rather, according to the prophecy, he has the power to 
vanquish him (i.e., destroy him for good). Could Voldemort have 
fullfilled part of the prophecy by marking Harry as his equal, while 
Lily fulfilled another part of the prophecy by conferring on Harry 
the power to vanquish Voldemort?

mz_annethrope