Life Debt

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 138148

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "antoshachekhonte"
<antoshachekhonte at y...> wrote:
> > a_svirn:
> > Even if you are right in your premise (personally I don't think
so, 
> > but let's say you are) I still can't agree with your conclusions. 
> > 
> > Because Harry did indeed willingly risked his life to save Ginny. 
> > Almost lost it, in point of fact. Whereas James Potter risked his 
> > in the Shack no more than he had risked it running wild with his 
> > werewolf friend on numerous occasions. 
> <snip>
> 
> Antosha--
> 
> True, both acts involved a person risking his own life and saving 
> someone else. What I'm 
> trying to say is that while Harry saved Ginny's life, and risked
> his own, he never stepped in 
> the way of a curse that Tom Riddle had cast at her,
> he simply destroyed the threat to her 
> life, while his father--who had, indeed done ridiculously risky
> things with his friends in 
> the name of comradeship and fun--DID step directly between
> Snape and an werewolf in 
> full fury. The risk is the same, the life saved has the same value,
> but the act is 
> fundamentally different. It is the only way that I can find a
> logical reason that Harry saving 
> the Weasleys lives did not invoke a life debt, while his stepping
> in front of Peter Pettigrew 
> did.
> 
> The only other distinction that occurs to me is that the wizards
> perhaps must be enemies. 
> I guess I could see that. Severus Snape was James's enemy.
> Peter Pettigrew had shown 
> himself to be Harry's enemy, yet James saved Snape and
> Harry saved Pettigrew. I'm not 
> sure that quite covers it, however.

lealess:

The latter sounds plausible to me.  If you save the life of someone
you hate, they owe you a life debt.  James hated Severus, and Harry
had every right to hate Peter.  How frustrating that must have been
for Severus, then, to have no say at all in the creation of the life
debt!  No wonder he was less than graceful about it, even though it
might have been grace that saved him.

The other part of life debt creation might be the debtor's culpability
for placing themselves in a situation where they needed to be saved. 
Ginny, Arthur, and Ron were "innocents" when they needed to be saved,
for the most part.  Peter, however, was hiding to save his own skin,
at the very least.  Severus might have had impure motives for going to
the Shrieking Shack.  So, the fact that they didn't "deserve" saving
(they were "sinners" maybe?) and yet were saved, might factor into the
life debt thing.  (Quotes intentional.)

I wonder if this factors into Voldemort/Lily at all?  Did she save his
life as well as Harry's by choosing to die?  Nah!

Thanks for helping me think this through.

lealess