Voldemort's "death"

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 119484


Carol earlier:
> > I also would like to see Harry have an "out" so that he destroys>
Voldemort without having to "murder" him (his own word) and the
Dementors might provide a way to do that (without, I hope, having >
Harry kissed by a Dementor in the process). The main problem I see
with this theory is that Harry is "the one with the power" and his
defeat of Voldemort is supposed to involve his unique ability to
master the mysterious power behind the door (sacrificial love?).
> 
> Kim asks Carol:
> Is that last part from Harry's conversation with DD in OotP where DD
mentions the locked room in the Dept. of Mysteries?  My sense is that
the power behind the locked door is even greater than sacrificial
love, at least if I remember correctly the description DD used.  But I
too think that mysterious power will play a key role in the ultimate
"defeat" of Voldemort.

Carol responds:
Yes. It seems to be a general consensus that the power behind the
locked door and the force that saved Harry from being possessed by
Voldemort are the same thing (although I remember a recent argument
about a distinction between the two that I confess to not reading
carefully enough to paraphrase). At any rate, sacrificial love seems
like the likeliest candidate of the forces or powers that have been
proposed so far though I don't see Harry as being any more loving than
a lot of other people. Altruism might come closer, but that certainly
isn't what motivated Harry when he wanted to die and be with Sirius
rather than be possessed by Voldemort. Willingness to die, maybe? I
don't mind that hypothesis as long as it doesn't result in his
*actual* death. But nothing has been resolved by JKR, much less agreed
upon by the members of this list.
> 
Carol earlier: 
> > I do think we are intended to see the Dementor's soul-sucking as a
fate worse than death. Barty Jr's body may still be walking around in
St. Mungo's, he may even still be eating and drinking, but he no
longer has a self or a soul and when his soulless body dies, that will
be the absolute end of him--no passing beyond the Veil, no reunion
with the mother who loved him and died for him, no chance for
redemption for the truly horrible things he did in life through his
own tragic wrong choices. His soul, separated from his body, is lost
in darkness and nothingness forever.<
> 
> Kim asks:
> Did the Dementors perform the "kiss" on Barty Jr.?  If so, I can't 
> recall it.  Not that I remember everything I read.  Or I might be 
> inferring something incorrectly from what you wrote.
>
Carol responds:
Yes. Fudge, in a less than stellar moment, brings in the Dementor as
"protection" and it descends on the bound Barty Jr. while McGonagall,
who was supposed to have been guarding him, watches in helpless horror:

"'The moment that--that thing entered the room,' she screamed,
pointing at Fudge and trembling all over, 'it swooped down on Crouch
and--and--' 

"Harry felt a chill in his stomach. . . . He knew what the Dementor
must have done. It had administered its fatal kiss to Barty Crouch. It
had sucked his soul out through his mouth. He was worse than dead"
(GoF Am. ed. 705).

Whether Fudge is ESE! or merely stupid, he has deprived the WW of a
witness to the return of Voldemort. But more to the point, Barty Jr.
is now a soulless body. What that means, whether he's like a zombie or
eats and drinks and sleeps but has no memories or human feelings, I
can't say. I'm guessing that he's in St. Mungo's, but it doesn't
really matter where his body is. His soul is inside a Dementor, gone
forever, dissolved into nothingness. At least that's how I understand
it. And that, to me, seems like an appropriate fate for Voldemort, but
only if it can be arranged without Harry having to be a Dementor's
victim himself.

Carol