Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah??

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 151421

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, puduhepa98 at ... wrote:
> Nikkalmati:
> I tried to post this a while back but it got lost!  I finally found it  
> somewhere in the innards of my computer.  I have tried to update it, but I  may 
> have missed some pertinent comments.
>  
> Thanks for bringing this topic up.  I think many of us listees want  to give 
> Harry a pass and excuse or overlook his behavior because he is the hero  or 
> because we see events from his POV.  I am not sure JKR wants us to miss  that 
> Harry currently is going down the wrong path.
> That said, I would make a distinction between killing and murder.   Quirrel 
> is both accidental (Harry had no idea why he was burning Quirrel) and  
> self-defense.  Quirrel was trying to kill him.  As has been said  already, the diary 
> was not a person and the soul was not destroyed.  I do  not believe every 
> killing splits the soul.  It depends on intent. 


Geoff:
When the Rhinemaiden :-) first raised this topic in message 151051, I presented a fairly 
long analysis of Harry's actions in post 151065.

I begin by quoting a section of that reply:

<quote>
Laurel Lei:
> I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't
> arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that
> time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line).

> And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM
> during/post battle.

Geoff:
Here, I might be willing to agree with you. Although, I wonder if Remus hadn't
arrived,
Harry might have had a similar epiphany to Draco at the end of HBP and realised
that cold
bloodedly killing someone was perhaps not as easy as it first seemed.

'Harry raised the wand. Now was the moment to do it. now was the moment to
avenge his
mother and father. He was going to kill Black. He had to kill Black. this was
his chance...
The seconds lengthened and still Harry stood frozen there, wand poised, Black
staring up
at him, Crookshanks on his chest. Ron's ragged breathing came from near the bed;
Hermione was quite silent.
And then came a new sound -
Muffled footsteps were echoing up though the floor - someone was moving
downstairs.
"WE'RE UP HERE!" Hermione screamed suddenly. "WE'RE UP HERE - SIRIIUS BLACK -
QUICK!"
Black made a startled movement that almost dislodged Crookshanks; Harry gripped
his
wand convulsively - Do it now! said a voice in his head - but the footsteps were
thundering up the stairs and Harry still hadn't done it.'
(POA "Cat, Rat and Dog" pp.251-52 UK edition)

I had never realised before how the two confrontations - Harry's and Draco's -
echo each
other....

In the case of Bellatrix, Harry is beside himself with grief, fear and rage.

But....

Notice....

He does NOT try to cast an Avada Kedavra spell. He has a go at Crucio. That is
an attempt
to hurt - not murder. Even when canon tells us:
'Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before...'
(OOTP "The Only One He Ever Feared" p.715 UK edition)
Harry does NOT attempt to kill.

Laurel Lei:
> And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The
> spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not
> arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible
> author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had
> died? Isn't what he did attempted murder?

Geoff:
Draco raised the stakes in the duel. The fight began with a Levicorpus and a
Leg-Locker
Curse and then...
'Harry slipped over as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried, "Cruci-"
"SECTUMSEMPRA!" bellowed Hary from the floor, waving his wand wildly.'
(HBP "Sectumsempra" pp.488-89 UK edition)

Harry was being plain stupid in using an unknown spell and giving into
temptation:

'Harry was about to put his book away again when he noticed the corner of a page
folded
down; turning to it, he saw the Sectumsempra spell, captioned 'For Enemies',
that he had
marked a few weeks previously. He had still not found out what it did, mainly
because he
did not want to test it around Hermione but he was considering trying it out on
McLaggen
the next time he came up behind him unawares.'
(Ibid. p484)

It must be obvious that he doesn't realise that it could be a highly dangerous
spell at this
point.
</quote>

I do not accept that Harry harboured the intent of killing Malfoy at this time. He had 
suddenly been projected into a duel without any real prior warning. As I noted above, the 
Sectumsempra spell was obviously in the back of his mind; the fact that it was labelled as 
being for use with enemies doesn't necessarily suggest that it is life-threatening. After all, 
spells like Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus are obviously curses used against 
opponents but they are not inherently dangerous
..

As an aside, I get rather irritated with the extreme polarisation of attitudes which occurs in 
a thread like this. On the one hand we have some members who give Harry a halo, blue 
eyes and make him a first cousin of the angel Gabriel which there is a school of opinion 
which assumes that whenever Harry steps out of line and does something wrong, it is 
done with malice aforethought and is further evidence of Awful!Evil!Horrible!Harry.

I have always been a fan of Harry but do not see him as perfect. I relate to him because I 
can see myself at the same age. Teens are finding their feet as adults. They take advice, 
they ignore advice; they play safe, they take risks; they are extremely confident, they are 
racked with self-doubts. Harry is unusual that he has had more than his fair share of 
problems and threats but to suggest that every time something goes wrong is an indicator 
of an evil nature is rubbish. He had to protect himself in PS and COS which was a factor in 
the death of Quirrell and the destruction of Diary!Riddle. But I pointed out that he could 
not bring himself to attempt murder on Sirius and Bellatrix. Even when his rage was 
possibly at its highest - in the pursuit of Snape at the end of HBP - he is recorded as 
trying to cast nine spells. The only one with really lasting consequences is another 
Sectumsempra which Snape blocks and is possibly cast in desperation because the latter is 
so good at blocking anything thrown at him – and he also knows the counter-spell 
anyway.

I think we need to remember Harry is, like many others including Draco, feeling his feet as 
a young adult, he is someone with a huge expectation placed on him and hence feeling 
that pressure and who is also often expecting to come under attack from Voldemort and 
his minions who seek his death.