Possession: Taking it Further

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 119798


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> wrote:
> 
> Annemehr, before:
> > Possession seems to be Voldemort's ultimate weapon.  [...]  
> > Harry escaped it once only because Voldemort broached the idea of 
> > Harry's death, which evoked in Harry the emotion that cast him 
> > out.  I don't think we can rely on this to keep Harry safe from 
> > another attempt.
> 
> Jen:
<snip>
> Couldn't Harry's power be that LV can 
> never truly possess him, especially now that LV understands Harry is 
> full of love/life-force/courage? Because when Dumbledore talked 
> openly to Harry at the end of OOTP, he seemed to think Harry was 
> safe.

Annemehr:
IMO, we can't assume Dumbledore began talking openly because he
thought Harry was safe, because he was just admitting that it had been
a mistake to avoid Harry the whole time he thought it was unsafe.  The
fact that there was no flicker of LV in Harry's eyes at the time may
just have meant that LV had withdrawn to consider the new development
of having been ejected from a possession.

In other words, you may be right that Dumbledore thinks Harry is safe,
but I can't see any way of telling that from the text.

Annemehr before:
> > I think it's very likely that Harry already has the power of
> > possession, that he's had it since the attack at Godric's Hollow.  
<snip>
> 
> Jen: This is purely personal opinion, but I hope Harry doesn't have 
> the power of possession. He and Voldemort are slowly being fused 
> together over time, but to me that's not possession so much as the 
> powerful effect of whatever bonded them at GH, and LV's return to 
> mortality.

Annemehr:
Uh oh, we have opposing hopes then! ;)  I don't mind Harry having the
power of possession, which he can then choose to wield at will or
resolve never to use, or something in between.  The idea that bothers
me is that he is fusing with Voldemort, getting lost in this amalgam
with evil. Though if Jo uses it I'll go with the flow, and your
description of their struggle further on in the post makes it a more
attractive theory for me, especially this part:
 
> Jen:
<snip>
> This would still work with the idea that Dumbledore can safely talk 
> to Harry, because Harry will become very aware when Voldemort is 
> exerting control. Like a sixth sense. He'll learn to discriminate 
> which thoughts are his and which ones Voldemort is trying to insert 
> (i.e., Sirius at the DOM). And maybe Occlumency as well (finally)?

Annemehr:
I like this, because it has Harry really finding out who he is by
opposing what's alien to him in Voldemort, and it would also have the
effect of building Harry's strength for the final battle.

I actually don't see this as incompatible with my possession theories,
since I think they are two separate things.  The power of possession
was something Voldemort had since before Godric's Hollow, as he says
it was the only power that *remained* to him after he was vaporised,
and it was always a power Voldemort could use on victims other than
Harry.  The "scar" connection with Harry is something else again,
forged by the curse that failed, and unique to the two of them.  Its
only link to possession is my theory that the power, like
Parseltongue, was passed to Harry during the attack.

I guess it's reasonable to think of Voldemort beginning to possess
Harry from the time of the attack on Arthur (the speculations Harry
heard from Moody on the Extendable Ears), which would be the cause of
the flicker that Dumbledore saw in Harry's eyes.  Perhaps it was
fairly weak for so long because of the distance between them, and then
at the MoM Voldemort turned the full force of his power on Harry.
While I think "possession from afar" must have been facilitated by the
scar connection (else LV would do that to everybody) I still see it as
a separate thing from the scar connection, because I don't think it
had anything to do with possession when Harry's scar hurt in PS/SS or
when he had visions in dreams in GoF.

Ow. Now *my* head hurts!

> 
> Jen:
<snip>
> As to Annemehr's speculation about the logical end for this 
> connection the two have, maybe any and all of your suggestions?!? 
> I'm extremely curious to see if this issue is essentially over--LV 
> cannot reside in Harry given his great power of *whatever*--or if 
> the end of OOTP is merely the beginning of the possession theory.

Annemehr:
I'll second that.  I wrote my post because of my feeling that the
possession thread had really just begun.  Then again, I once had the
feeling that Harry would be perfectly happy to be a DADA teacher and
Jo shot that one down.

And while you're at it, anyone with a theory about how Dumbledore knew
what saved Harry from possession in the MoM, please feel free to
share.  If he knew Harry was thinking of Sirius and his heart filled
with emotion, how did DD find out, was Harry speaking out loud? If
it's merely that DD knows what "the power behind the locked door" is,
knows that Harry possesses it in vast quantities, and knows LV can't
stand to be around it, then why was he afraid of Harry being possessed
in the first place?

Annemehr