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

[dcgmck]

No: HPFGUIDX 106555

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "paul_terzis" 
<paul_terzis at y...> wrote:
< We have HP in OOTP learning from AD that he is destined to kill or 
to be killed. 

I guess whether or not Harry will actually have to take a life 
depends on how one interprets the prophecy.  He may be doomed to 
eternal struggle, an endless existence of nullification.  That would 
be an even greater sacrifice than the one his mother made.  (I'm 
thinking along the lines of Ben Bova's "Orion" series.)

> My immediate thought was how on earth  HP will be trained to kill. 
> Taking also into consideration the fact that killing curses require 
from the caster a rather evil "approach" (you have to mean it)
 
> Cheers,
> Paul

Well, Harry has already tried his first unforgivable curse and he's 
clearly building up an adequate "head of steam" as far as the 
necessary intent is concerned, if the summer between books 4 and 5 
are any indication.

If, in fact, Harry earns enough O.W.L.s to be accepted into the pre-
Auror track and enough N.E.W.T.s for post-graduate Auror training, 
surely there is already a system in place for such preparation.  

That said, Harry and his friends have never waited for any curriculum 
to provide them with the tools for which they have felt an immediate 
need.  Crouch, Jr. has already provided them with the knowledge; now 
the gang just needs the practice.

Still, JKR and Dumbledore say that living and maturing are about 
making choices.  Since neither has a strong belief in divination per 
se, I wouldn't be surprised to see Harry attempt to be the "master" 
of his own fate rather than an unwitting and unwilling pawn of the 
cold and distant stars that Firenze and his ilk study so diligently 
yet fruitlessly.  

     "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord 
approaches. . . . Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as 
the seventh month dies . . . and the Dark Lord will mark him as his 
equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and 
either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while 
the other survives. . . . The one with the power to vanquish the Dark 
Lord will be born as the seventh month dies. . . ."

We have not been offered much incentive to trust anything Sybil 
Trelawney affirms, even when she's in a trance, though the prophecy 
Harry heard proved accurate enough.  There's no reason to think that 
she'd doing a good job of controlling her pronoun use here either.  
There are just too many "he"'s wandering around this prophecy for me 
to feel comfortable with any assumptions about it at this point in 
time.  Besides, since when does having power mean that it gets used 
as intended?