GH re-re-revisited

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 115135


I started off this evening intending to write a post about 
possession, but it appears to have metamorphosed into something 
slightly different.  Begging forgiveness if it's a rehash of
others' ideas...

First, some background:

There's a theory that Voldy didn't try to AK Harry, that it
was some other kind of spell.  One that doesn't have a visible 
effect, so can't be seen in priori incantatem, and one that can
be blocked, unlike AK; and this is why Harry only remembers one 
green flash – the one that killed Lily – because there was
only
one. 

There is another theory (building upon the above), suggesting that 
the spell that rebounded was an attempt by Voldy to gain Harry's 
powers for himself. He heard the first part of the prophecy, so he 
knows that the one with the power to vanquish him was born to those 
who thrice deified him at the end of July. But he thinks that rather 
than just killing the kid(s), he'll give him(them) the once-over 
first, to find out if there are any powers that could have *really* 
made the brat(s) a serious threat: powers that he could nick. This 
is the spell that backfires.

Thus far `tis plausible, m'lud.  

If that is so, it would make far more sense that he heard the next 
bit of the prophecy too. `But he will have powers the Dark Lord 
knows not'.  Now *that* would give him a *very* credible
motivation for trying to suck the kid's(kids') mind(s) rather
than just bump him(them) off.  

Here's where I start to wonder. 

Dumbledore says that Harry survived because Lily died to save him.  
Now, if PuppetMaster!Dumbledore had the charm all worked out (with 
or without Lily) beforehand, then I wouldn't doubt that he'd
be right. He would know, after all.  But in PS he says `We may
never know', doesn't he?  (At least, I think so...) 
Why would he say that if *he'd* set the whole thing up? Surely he 
would be more certain, and pleased with himself – he's not
one for false modesty, is Albus.

Then again, if Dumbledore *didn't* set it all up before hand, how 
*could* he know what saved Harry at GH?  How could he even know that 
Lily sacrificed her life so that Harry would live? As far as we 
know, he didn't witness the attack at GH.  To assume that he
knows absolutely what he's talking about and is pretending not to be 
sure about it in front of Harry for some other nefarious reason, 
we'd have to assume that there's an eyewitness who told him how Lily 
died.  The only evidence we have for Lily dying to save Harry, is 
Harry's memories of her pleading with Voldy, the ones that start
to come back when he gets too close to a Dementor, and we have no 
evidence that Lily's dying did actually save him. (For that matter, 
I don't think we have any actual evidence that Harry's really safe 
at Privet Drive, either.) Perhaps, Dumbledore along with the rest of 
the WW, assumed that it was an AK, and the only way he could imagine 
Harry possibly survived was through this ancient magic that Voldy 
despises. 

A fair assumption, I suppose (not that I'm an expert on ancient 
magic).  If it really was an AK. Despite the fact that surely other 
mothers have been in this situation before, and yet none of them 
appeared to be able to discorporate a dark lord while saving their 
sprog.

Have I missed something, or can anyone else smell a scarlet Clupea?

But if it *wasn't* an AK, if the spell that backfired was Voldy 
trying to suck Harry's brain out through his nose (so to speak), 
then Voldy *could* have been vanquished because of `the power
that the Dark Lord knows not'.  The power that he does not 
understand, that power of which Harry is so full, of which Voldy has 
none, the power that Voldy can't bear, that he hates and despises so 
much it caused him to abort the possession in the MoM. If Voldy 
tried to pinch *that* power specifically... 

Now, I can see that backfiring in a major way.

So what happens when a spell backfires, anyway? I can think of two 
examples from canon (there may be more), and they're both from
CoS.  Firstly, there's the `Eat slugs, Malfoy!', and
secondly there's the `Obliviate' from Lockhart. Both due
to Ron's malfunctioning wand.  In both of these cases, backfiring
is exactly what happens.  The spell affects the caster, rather than 
the one for whom it was intended.

In this scenario, the power that Harry has and Voldy doesn't,
does *not* get redistributed in Voldy's favour as the evil git
intended, it works the other way around.  The powers that *Voldy* 
has and *Harry* doesn't get given to Harry.  Thus Harry speaks
Parseltongue (and possibly a number of other magical languages that 
we have not yet been introduced to).

"But wait!" I hear you cry.  "Voldy can still speak
Parseltongue too!  We heard him at the beginning of GoF!  If he was 
*pinching* Harry's powers, he would have cut and pasted them from 
Harry, not *copied* and pasted them! If that's the kind of spell 
that rebounded, then he and Nagini should be left with a couple of 
photo albums of fond memories, but no conversation..."

And that, I'm afraid, is where I give up and say, "It's
getting late. Sorry, I'm knackered.  Can someone else finish this 
off for me, please...?"

Dungrollin,
(Who managed to get her right hand stuck down the back of the 
radiator for five whole minutes this morning, and is sorry if this 
post is incomprehensible, but she's been in the pub all evening.)