[HPforGrownups] Snakes and scars and stuff

[Patrick Jarrett]

No: HPFGUIDX 123812

Dungrollin:
> 2. The bit of Voldy inside Harry that wants to bite DD is also very
> very snakelike, and it is also this bit of Voldy in his head that
> makes Harry a parselmouth.
...
> 5. Although Harry has been a parselmouth since GH, the venomous
> reaction to DD only became active some time between the end of GoF
> and Christmas of OotP.

Patrick:
I always thought of it like a sleeper agent. It's there. It's causing
small things, unnoticeable until someone else says something, eg.
Parselmouthedness. But now that Voldy is returning to power, there is
a connection which is restoring and isn't to full strength yet but it
is growing.

Dungrollin:
> 3. It must be significant that Harry's scar has no reaction to Diary!
> Tom in CoS, but that it only reacts to present-day Voldy –
> significant in that at the age of 16 Tom had not yet conducted his
> experiments on immortality.

Patrick:
When Harry's scar is affected he seems to be temporarily disabled, the
searing pain through his head seems to cause him to lose focus and as
it gets worse to immobilize him and interfere with his activities. So
I tend to think that JKR might have simply made it this way to avoid
the obvious problems with any form of combat.

But we also know the scar is affected by Voldemort's emotions, anger
and happiness being the most prominent ones. We don't really see
Diary!Tom's emotions anywhere near what it could be for Voldemort.
 
Dungrollin:
> Moreover
> 
> There's one reference to snakes that has always puzzled me, and
> that's after the hearing in OotP, Lucius Malfoy says "Quite
> astonishing, the way you continue to wriggle out of very tight
> holes ... *snakelike*, in fact." (The Woes of Mrs. Weasley.)
> 
> One assumes that he's referring to Harry's escape from the
> graveyard; but why call Harry *snakelike*?  It's clearly a reference
> to Slytherin/Voldy matters, but what, exactly?  Lucius knows that
> Harry's a parselmouth, it was all over the school in CoS, and from
> Rita Skeeter's articles they know that he gets attacks of pain in
> his scar. From the context it sounds like a veiled threat, or a
> reference to something that Harry should know about, but doesn't
> pick up on. Could it be that Lucius knows about the connection with
> Voldy? Even though Voldy himself apparently doesn't know about it
> until around four months later during snake vs Weasley.

Patrick:
I always thought of this line as more of an insult. Malfoy insulting
the 'high Gryffindor' by comparing him to the arch-enemy house mascot,
and a mythically low creature, the snake.  I suppose it could be a
veiled threat, but I doubt Malfoy knows of the connection before
Voldemort does.

*shrugs*

Time will tell I suppose.

-- Patrick