"Power the Dark Lord Knows Not" -- Attachment

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 137696

Mara: 
> We see a family pattern of poor attachments (Marvolo's 
> treatment of Merope as a glaring example) culminating in 
> abandonment of her newborn by Merope (abandonment as experienced
> by Tom, for sure, but possibly to be seen as a choice to abandon
> if we presume that she potentially *could have* prevented her own
> death and taken care of her child). 

Jen: Why did Merope die? I asked this question already today in 
another post, but will give it another go here :-). 

Young, relatively healthy Merope should not have died for no 
particular reason. I honestly found myself thinking of Padme in the 
recent Star Wars movie, dying in childbirth for no explicable reason 
other than heartbreak! Is that what we're supposed to believe, 
Merope died of a broken heart?!

Also, Dumbledore said Merope 'refused to raise her wand even to save 
her own life' (Secret Riddle chapter). I thought there was a limit 
to what magic could do and not do? Harry also says something to the 
effect of "she wouldn't stay alive even for her own son?" There it 
is again! Magic can keep you from dying. If this is true, than Tom 
Riddle wasn't wrong to think magic holds the power to immortality!

But back to your point Mara---sorry for straying, that scene just 
bothers me. I feel like there must be more to it, it's so oblique.

Originally Tom thought his mom couldn't have been a witch if she 
died. Besides that being the root of his obsession with defeating 
death, I do wonder if he ever found out more about his mom's 
*choice* to die in his search for his family history. Also, given 
how far down the road of evil he'd gone, even during his time at 
Hogwarts, you wonder if that realization of purposeful abandonment 
even fazed him.

Mara:
> This all makes me think more about LV's obsession with
> immortality, and the terror that he must feel about death -- when
> you consider that he is not really tied to anybody or anything --
> there is nobody with whom he has shared a close relationship,
> nobody who (as Harry does with his parents) will think of him,
> remember him, and be better b/c of having known him.  In short, he 
> would not live on after his death (might be infamous, but not live
> on in the way that James and Lily do for so many people).

Jen: Dumbledore remarks several times on Voldemort's fear of death, 
most notably in the cave surrounded by Inferi. His fear must be 
immense. The more he disconnects from people and delves into Dark 
Magic, the more intense this fear must grow and take on a life of 
its own. He's a slave to pursuing immortality by the time we meet 
him. His quest has become his master. 

Mara:
> Instead of feeling an intense longing for acceptance, approval or 
> admiration (which would not be surprising given the isolation and 
> rejection he has experienced), Harry withstands pressure to "go 
> with the program" and finally *belong* and be widely approved of,
> because he knows that "the program" is wrong (Umbridge,
> Scrimgeour).  He is able to know this and hold on to it, I think,
> because he holds on to his emotional memory of his parents which
> links up with the experience of the relationships he forms in the
> WW which reflect those relationships (they knew his parents and 
>loved them).....

Jen: I think it was incredibly important for Harry to hear his 
parents were good, loving people when he entered the WW, especially 
after getting absolutely no information about them from the 
Dursleys. Sending Hagrid to initiate Harry into the WW and being the 
one to tell Harry about his parents was no accident :). Hagrid loved 
James and Lily unconditionally, and already felt attached to Harry 
because he saved him from the ruins of Godric's Hollow. Hagrid was 
the perfect person for the job. No matter that he left out a few 
details about James <g>, it was better for Harry to hear the 
imperfections later on, after he learned about their goodness. 

Mara:
> Next, Harry feels real connection to other people, including an 
> attachment to his parents who he only vaguely remembers, but whose 
> love and caring for him has been *internalized* by him -- this 
> internalization is key, I think.  Someone (Del?) wrote beautifully 
> about the possibility that the "opposite of a Horcrux" would mean 
> magically adding something to your soul through an act of 
> (possibly sacrificial) love (or, I would posit, deep attachment).
>  I think that one way to think about this enhancing or adding to
>  your soul is in terms of the feeling you get when you are deeply 
> connected to someone else, and how this feels magical, and as if
> you are somehow better as a result.  When you are changed this way
> as a result of a relationship with another person, you have
> essentially taken in part of that person -- kept them alive inside
> of you.  This makes Harry immeasureably more powerful than LV.

Jen: Argh, the great mystery about Lily's sacrifice. I keep running 
in circles over this issue and may confuse myself yet again here.

I go back and forth over whether we know all there is to know about 
Lily's sacrifice & what that sacrifice did for Harry. We know her 
choice to sacrifice left a power in Harry's blood. We know 
Dumbledore decided to trust this power by asking Petunia to take 
Harry in, and thus sealing Harry's blood protection with an extra 
charm DD placed on Harry.

We think, or at least I do, that Voldemort taking Harry's blood 
weakened him rather than gave him the added power he was hoping for.

The missing part for me is, will Lily's sacrifice offer other 
benefits we haven't seen yet or will the weakening of Voldemort be 
the last part to Lily's sacrifice? I guess that's why I'm not sure 
whether Harry got another literal magical element from Lily's 
sacrifice, i.e. an addition to his soul, when we know its power is 
literally in his blood. Not to mention the beautiful symbolism of 
her sarcrifice.

I do think there's another related part to her sarifice, though--it 
strengthens every time Voldemort attmepts to kill, possess, or 
otherwise harm Harry in any way. I'm convinced Harry could die by 
anyone else's hand, but the more Voldemort pursues him, the more 
invincible Harry seems to become. That must be the blood sacrifice 
at work.

Mara:
> It was this basic appreciation for relationships (respect for what 
> the echo of Cedric asked of him, and a vague realization of what 
> this would mean for Cedric's parents) that led him to risk himself 
> to take Cedric's body back with him in GOF.  It allows him to 
> tolerate abuse and injustice at the hands of the ministry without 
> breaking because it anchors him.   This is reflected as well in 
his 
> feelings towards Dumbledore -- loyalty, love -- attachment to DD.  
> This is what, I believe, called Fawkes to Harry in the CoS.  It is 
> also, IMO, what caused Harry to smile and laugh at DD's funeral.  
> Even though DD was gone (won't get into what sort of gone or how 
> gone here ;-p), he is not *really* gone so long as others are
> still loyal to him, attached to him.  He lives on in those who
> love him.

Jen: Dumbledore's man through and through? Harry isn't the only one 
who needs to know Dumbledore will live on. :( But Dumbledore is the 
one who taught him about finding the ones we love inside ourselves 
when we truly need them. So far Harry has brought forth his mother's 
love when Quirrell couldn't touch him, and his father's love when he 
casts his Patronus that night on the lake. I hope to see 
Dumbledore's love express itself in some literal way in Book 7. 

Just as an aside, I think Sirius' literal love for Harry was 
expressed by sacrificing himself. I really felt after OOTP that his 
strong belief in 'dying for his friends' was not just symbolic in 
Harry's case, but something he vowed to do in the ceremony to make 
him Harry's godfather. The choice of Sirius was also not an 
accident. Two parents of a child born under a prophecy know that 
appointing a guardian is no easy decision. That person will be in 
great danger, and Sirius was the type of person who accepted that 
danger with no questions asked. Sure, it took him 15 years or so, 
but JKR has promised we will understand why he died.

Mara:
> It seems to me that the prophecy sets this up -- that LV in
> essence chose Harry and in so doing, set things in motion for
> Harry to develop these capacities in a more intense way than
> most.  Do others think that this is what makes Harry the "chosen
> one?"

Jen: Tying to the idea that Lily's sacrifice strengthens Harry every 
time Harry defies Voldemort, Dumbledore really made a case for 
Voldemort defeating *himself* in the Horcrux chapter:" He heard the 
prophecy and he leapt into action, with the result that he not only 
handpicked the man most likely to finish him, he handed him uniquely 
deadly weapons" (chap. 23, p. 510). 

I don't know how it will happen, but somehow Voldemort is making 
Harry impossible to kill by his own hands. And everything that came 
after Voldemort's decision about the prophecy,i.e, Lily's sacrifice, 
the blood charm, Sirius' sacrifice (?) etc. all make Harry even 
stronger. Voldemort hasn't got a chance ;).

Jen, thanking Mara for a really great post that got her brain in 
gear today.