I KNOW WHAT SNAPE WANTS!

[Richard]

No: HPFGUIDX 138424

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "vmonte" <vmonte at y...> wrote:
> CathyD wrote:
> If Harry is a Horcrux, why is Voldemort so intent on having him 
dead?
> He wanted Quirrell to kill Harry to acquire the Philosopher's Stone.
> Diary!Riddle wanted Harry dead. GoF's graveyard scene speaks for
> itself. LV possessing Harry in the Atrium at the MoM so that
> Dumbledore would kill Harry in an attempt to kill LV, is also, LV
> wanting Harry dead. Dumbledore realized then that it wasn't his
> own destruction LV was after, but Harry's.
> 
> LV wouldn't want Harry dead if he is a Horcrux...that would be
> destroying himself and making himself that much more vulnerable, 
IMO,
> not stronger. If, in killing Harry, LV recovered the piece of his
> soul that was inside a Horcrux!Harry, he would still be "a mortal 
man
> with a maimed and diminished soul." LV knows that if he recovers
> those pieces of soul (if they can be recovered) he will no longer
> be 'immortal'...he doesn't want that, he's too
> afraid of death.
> 
> vmonte:
> Because Voldemort does not know that Harry is a horcrux. Something
> happened during GH that caused a "bit" of Voldemort to enter Harry--
> we know this. (If you can believe that talents are transferable, 
then 
> you must agree that a soul piece is also transferable, since it's 
> part of canon, no?)
> 
> So, either Lily's sacrifice caused this to happen, or someone else 
> was at GH and caused it--maybe even accidentally.
> 
> Let's say someone came with Voldemort. Lily's sacrifice turns
> Voldemort into Vapormort. This other person performs a ritual to
> absorb Voldemort's power but it backfires and goes into Harry.
> The house explodes.
> 
> This person cannot kill Harry without also giving up what he wants. 
> Maybe Snape doesn't yet know how to remove it? (I posted this 
theory 
> on another site and a fan mentioned that perhaps Harry was right 
> about the occlumeny lessons--that Snape was trying to make him 
> weaker. Maybe Snape was trying to figure a way to get to Harry's 
> powers.) 
>  
> See where I'm going?
> 
> Anyway, Voldemort may now actually suspect what Harry is, hence his 
> order to the DEs to not kill Harry. Notice how the target in this 
> book was Dumbledore and not Harry? Is it too hard to believe that 
> Snape told Voldemort, over the summer, that he was treating 
> Dumbledore for a curse related injury from a ring that had a snake 
on 
> it? A ring that Dumbledore didn't hide but left sitting in plain 
view 
> in his office. 
> 
> Vivian

Richard here:
I don't agree.  That isn't to say that your argument isn't a good 
one, and interesting, but you miss another important reason why 
Voldemort would want to be the one to kill Harry: Voldemort must 
prove that he can in fact kill Harry, and thus is as powerful, 
dangerous, etc., as he believes ... and wants everyone in the WW to 
believe.  Further, by killing Harry himself, he eliminates the 
likelihood that whoever does kill Harry (other than himself, of 
course) doens't become a rival.  It is thus a combination of personal 
necessity and political utility that Voldemort do the job himself.

This would not be the case, were it not for the fact that Harry has 
foiled Voldemort repeatedly, and with broad public knowledge of this 
fact.  In PS/SS, it was not really necessary, and the primary goal of 
obtaining the PS/SS superceded such a lesser consideration.  In CoS, 
it would have been Tom Riddle/Voldemort who killed him via his use of 
the basillisk (sp?).  TR/LV don't really directly play in PoA, but in 
GoF Harry survives Voldemort's attempt on his life, and does so with 
an audience of Death Eaters, thus making it more imperative that 
Voldemort do the deed himself.  By the time we get to the end of 
OotP, Harry and friends have foiled Voldemort's attempt to steal the 
prophecy, demonstrated (again before witnesses) that Voldemort cannot 
possess him, and survived Voldemort's indirect attempt on his life 
(via Voldemort's trying to get Dumbledore to do the deed for him as a 
means of killing Voldemort during the possession, and this also 
before said witnesses).

Given all this, it should not be surprising that now Voldemort is 
determined to kill Harry personally.  Harry is now too much of a 
symbol of the fallability and defeatability of Voldemort himself for 
Voldemort NOT to kill him, up close, personally and before as many 
witnesses as can be mustered for the event.

Were this NOT the case, I'd probably think your case good enough to 
win my support ... at least provisionally, and despite the issue that 
we are told that the creation of a horcrux entails the casting of a 
spell in order to effect the encasing of the soul fragment.  But, 
with all this history, I find the line I've presented much the more 
convincing.

Richard, who tries to keep an open mind because JKR is so very 
slippery.