Book 6 question: Who will be the mentor for Harry ?

[marshbur at cs.unc.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 106552

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "paul_terzis" <paul_terzis at y...>
wrote:
>     At last I manage to rest from the shipping war and enter to the 
> other front, the wizard war. Lets start, shall we? We have HP in 
> OOTP learning from AD that he is destined to kill or to be killed. 
> My immediate thought was how on earth  HP will be trained to kill. 
> We know that killing curses are part of the dark arts. We also know 
> that only Aurors from the light side of magic can use killing curses 
> or at least that was the trend to the first Voldermort War. So who 
> will train HP? The new DADA teacher? Taking also into consideration 
> the fact that killing curses require from the caster a rather 
> evil "approach" (you have to mean it) I still can't  define who will 
> take the responsibility to intruduce HP ,who is emotionally 
> vulnerable at this moment, to the Dark arts or to a certain portion 
> of them. Will this happen with the approval of AD, who is 
> dogmaticaly against dark arts, or in spite of him? Any thoughts my 
> friends?

First, a clarifying point:  are we told specifically that the Aurors
can perform the killing curse, or merely that they are authorized to,
in effect, use extreme force when apprehending Death Eaters, force
sufficient to cause death?  I don't have the books here with me,
unfortunately, or I'd look it up.  (Gee, I guess I need to start
keeping a copy of the books here at work with me.  That wouldn't look
suspicious.)

Anyway, allow me to respectfully disagree with the premise that Harry
will be using the dark arts to defeat VM.

First, with a year or two of study of the dark arts, Harry cannot hope
to match VM's depth of knowledge and skill.  Other posters have
recently contemplated VM's CV or resume'.  These posters have noted a
large gap between when Tom Riddle was last seen at Hogwart's and when
VM began to make a terrifying appearance to the WW, a gap of 20 years
or more.  It seems most reasonable to think that VM spent much of this
time gathering his power by learning new dark spells and rituals.  I
assert that it cannot be expected or even hoped that Harry will beat
VM in a contest of dark arts.  I believe DD will realize this and so
will not set Harry up for a contest of dark arts.

Second, I imagine the dark arts are seductive and corrupting.  Much
like "the Dark Side" in the Star Wars series and the One Ring in The
Lord of the Rings, the ways of evil corrupt those who use them. 
Furthermore, the heros in those stories must not give into the
temptation to use the admittedly powerful evil means to their
otherwise worthy end.  To do so is to turn the hero himself into that
which he tries to defeat.  I believe DD will realize this and so will
not have Harry taught the dark arts.  Furthermore, if nothing else,
the books are moral, and I do not believe we would be presented the
idea that the ends justify the mean.  (aside #1:  It will be
interesting to see if Harry or someone else suggests using dark and
unforgiveable curses, and is rebuked by DD.)  (aside #2:  While
Rowling is surely writing her own story, it would be incongruous, at
best, to have Harry use evil to defeat evil and not be subsumed by
that very evil.)  (aside #3:  the urge to use the dark arts may be
something Harry has to actively fight.  We've already see him try to
use an unforgiveable curse in OotP.)

Finally, I believe that DD himself will take up Harry's tutelage in
the 6th and/or 7th books.  I believe this will partially be out of
contrition for ignoring Harry in book 5.  Also, I believe DD will take
a more active role because it must be Harry, in the end, who defeats
VM, and preparing Harry for that struggle is arguably the most
important thing to be done in all the WW.

So, having having argued against the "dark arts vanquish Voldemort"
theory, I am nearly at a loss to speculate how Harry will defeat VM. 
That will be the true delight of the remaining books, to see how this
can happen while not ruining Harry in the process.  I'm inclined to
say that some form of "love" will feature prominently in VM's defeat
this time, as it did when VM was temporarily vanquished before.  I
don't know that Harry will cause the outright death of VM in this way
or not, just as I don't know that defeating VM equates with killing
VM.  I would not be surprised if a good chunck of the 6th and 7th
books deals with how Harry can defeat VM without resorting to killing.

cheers,
-David