Snape and the Life Debt

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 140513


> Neri:
> An additional plus about these terms is that they explain why, when
> asked if Ginny owes Harry a Life Debt, JKR said "not really" and 
then
> declined to explain further. Ginny would never try to kill Harry, 
and
> would never refrain from preventing somebody else from killing him.
> Therefore, although she nominally owes Harry a Life Debt, 
she "doesn't
> really". The terms of the Life Debt are simply irrelevant to her. 
And
> it's obvious why JKR couldn't explain this nuance without giving 
away
> too much. --
My proposition for the specifics of the procedure is as
> follows: Snape owed a Life Debt to James. By going to Dumbledore he
> tried to prevent James' death and thus saving his own life from the
> Life Debt terms. But this effort failed, and when James died (just
> before or just after) Snape was thus in mortal peril. Therefore
> Dumbledore proposed to him a very special transaction: transferring
> his Life Debt from James to *Harry*. So Snape survived but now owes
> the Debt to Harry. However, only the great wizard Dumbledore could
> perform such a magical transaction, and by doing so he had obviously
> saved Snape's life. Therefore Snape ended up owing a Life Debt to
> Dumbledore too.

Finwitch:

Interesting theory  - a magical life-debt working so that the person 
owing the debt cannot use magic to harm the person he owes the debt 
to, AND to die if he doesn't manage to prevent a plot against that 
person when he wills to -- and Snapes' Life-debt transferred to Harry-
yes, it does make interesting matters about Dumbledore's comment 
about Snape saving Harry. Perhaps the transfer *also*, in part at 
least, explains why Harry looks like James, why Snape sees James in 
Harry so thoroughly...
 
However, that limitation on harming the person - I think that's only 
about magical harm or Pettigrew couldn't have cut Harry's arm, but--

However, I think that a minor (under 17) cannot be magically 
indebted - bound to magical contract, yes, but not to a debt of that 
sort... Perticularly if this cannot kill the one I owe a life-debt to 
helds true, and if not, what IS it worth?

As to why: Dumbledore saved Harry's life (just in time) in the end of 
PS. Why would he have been worried about Harry killing him in OOP if 
there was a magically bonding debt preventing it? Which is also why 
Ginny isn't *really* under life-debt.

As for the theory of life-debt bonding "enemies" - well, the thing is 
that if a friend (or even a stranger) would owe a life-debt, people 
would hardly notice...

It's interesting, though - Arthur, I believe *does* owe a life-debt 
to Harry as well as Ron (Harry showing a bezoar into his mouth on his 
17th birthday)... Anyway, Hermione being so timid and insecure (as I 
interpret her stick-to-books-and-rules behaviour, both in PS and HBP) 
is IMO result of her having read of all sorts of magical bounds a 
witch (or wizard) of age can end up into.

Oh and BTW - Dumbledore, too, *did* warn against taking an 
unbreakable vow in CoS - "It seems that sometimes even the best of us 
must break our word" - but DID he break his word? You know, his 
wording when he gave that 'promise to expel them': "If you do 
anything like this again, I shall have no choice but to expel you" - 
I don't know if saving Ginny's life, killing a basilisk and proving 
Hagrid's innosence counts as anything like flying a car to 
Hogwarts... AND it was worded more in a manner of a prediction than a 
promise to me...

Finwitch