Killing tears the soul apart redux. Luna and sacrifice

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 139503

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "vmonte" <vmonte at y...> wrote:

<SNIP>
> 
> It seems rather reasonable to assume that in the end, Harry's battle
> with Voldemort will be similar in nature. Voldemort will try to
> remove the horcrux from Harry's head, and it will kill him. At some 
> point in time during book 7 Harry will find out what his mother did 
> to protect him and he will understand what he carries inside his
> scar.
> 
> Poor Luna! I can see this girl dying midway through the book. Will 
> Harry remember her religious faith in the afterlife and find the 
> resolve to sacrifice himself for the greater good? Yes, I think so. 
> Harry will choose to sacrifice himself for the people he loves.
> 
> I hope Ginny's experience with DiaryTom has given her some 
knowledge 
> to save Harry. I hope she comes to his rescue.
> 

That is one scenario, and it may well come true.  However, it does 
not include one crucial piece of information, what was the "gleam of 
triumph" we saw in DD at the end of GoF about?  Surely not a 
realization that Harry is a Horcrux and will have to die.

Let me offer a modification of your scenario, simply as a thought 
experiment.  Let's say Harry IS a Horcrux, and that DD had suspected 
that for some time. Okay, but DD has said that putting a part of your 
soul in a living, thinking creature has great dangers.  Maybe in 
using Harry's blood to effect his return, Voldemort unwittingly 
created a "reverse conduit" between himself and Harry.  That is, he 
created a connection through which Harry might be able to force the 
soul shard out of his own body and back into Voldemort's, thus in 
effect "destroying" the final Horcrux without literally destroying 
himself.  This would explain the "gleam of triumph" remark from GoF 
AND the "in essence divided" remark from OOTP.  

Voldemort was counting on "those fools who love" to keep himself 
alive, as he was betting that even if Dumbledore figured out his plan 
and destroyed his other Horcruxes he would never kill Harry our allow 
him to be killed.  But he did not realize that in choosing Harry as 
the victim for his ritual of return, he was opening a route by which 
the the soul shard, "the divided essence" inside Harry, could be 
removed without actually killing Harry himself.  This fact is what 
Dumbledore suddenly realized at the end of GoF, and the "gleam of 
triumph" was his sudden flare of hope that, even if Harry were a 
Horcrux, all might yet be well.

Lupinlore