Life Debt

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 138105

Lealess;

> From the latest Mugglenet/TLC interviews, which have been making my
> life miserable:
> 
> "MA: Does she [Ginny] have a life debt to Harry from book two?
> JKR: No, not really. Wormtail is different.  You know, part of me
> would just love to explain the whole thing to you, plot of book seven,
> you know, I honestly would."
> 
> There is an essay on LiveJournal about this (user: safakus), but the
> essay is more about the proper path to redemption than the nature of a
> life debt.  I thought it was interesting that Wormtail owes a life
> debt, but Ginny does not.  The author of the LJ essay speculates that
> Harry had the right to retribution for the death of his parents, but
> he decided instead to let Wormtail live, and that created the life
> debt.  There was no such claim on Ginny's life, hence, no life debt.
> 
> Which has me thinking about Severus' life debt to James.  Even though
> Severus disavows it somewhat, Dumbledore and probably Voldemort
> recognize it, and it still seems to be operative and, moreover, to
> transfer to Harry.
> 
> I wonder if a similar dynamic to Wormtail's occurred when Severus'
> debt was incurred.  I wonder if James somehow had a right to make a
> claim against Severus for something, but decided instead to save his
> life, i.e., saving his life alone was not enough to create a life
> debt.  It sounds far-fetched; I can't think of any clues that would
> suggest what Snape might have owed James.  (There are clues, right?) 
> Or maybe the life debt is created through a totally different dynamic.
>  Or maybe Snape never really had a life debt; it was all a smokescreen.
> 
> Anyway, I thought I'd throw it out for speculation.  These questions
> intrigue me, but then my brain starts hurting.
> 
> lealess

Antosha--

I actually enjoyed the interviews, though, yes, they did rather make a hash of a number of 
assumptions that I had been fairly confident of--Ginny's life debt being the most obvious.

I've been thinking about the debt question a bit obsessively--to do with a fic that I started 
writing during the five days between the release of HBP and the appearance of the final 
chapter of the famous interview. I'd constructed the fic around the idea that a) Ginny might 
in fact be a Horcrux (oops) and that b) she owed a life debt to Harry (big double oops). I 
think your idea is definitely one way of looking at it, and it has some interesting 
implications. The idea that the life debt is actually sort of a geas or binding that is semi-
consciously laid on the person saved... It makes it a much less selfless act.

I don't think that JKR would necessarily back the idea that Harry had a RIGHT to kill Peter, 
however. I think that what she showed in the Shrieking Shack was that the desire was 
there, and that if, in hot blood, he had taken his revenge, as Remus and Sirius wanted to 
do, it would have been understandable and, perhaps, somewhat forgivable, but not 
necessarily justified.

There is another way of distinguishing among live-saving acts, I think, that might explain 
why, say, Snape owes James (and therefore Harry) but Ginny does not. If the act that 
triggers a debt requires that the life-saver actually risk his/her life by stepping between 
the person in debt and their doom, then that would mean that Harry, though he definitely 
saved Ginny, Arthur and Ron's lives, would not have incurred life debts on them. It would 
explain why Healers at St. Mungo's don't have retinues of bodyguards who are bound to 
them for saving their lives. 

Harry's father stepped between Snape and Wolf!Lupin. And Harry stepped between Peter 
and a Sirius who was closer to crazy than not, and a Remus who was within a half an hour. 
They are literally on the point of killing Peter when Harry steps in the way and stops them. 
Looking at that scene, Harry is not aware that his life is in danger--he's more worried 
about the moral dilemma--but it seems to me that he definitely saves Peter's life, and he 
definitely risks his own, even if the two men would never choose to kill him.

An interesting paradox arises from this scenario, of course: Harry would owe a life debt to 
his mother. And since, like his father, his mother has died, Harry owes this debt to her 
heir--himself.

Antosha