Blood magic (Was: Marietta, Magical Contracts, and that Damned Gleam of Triu

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 155722

> Carol wrote:
> 
> By the same token, if magic resides in the blood and not the soul,
> Harry could have acquired some of Voldemort's powers at Godric's
> Hollow through a drop of blood that entered the lightning-bolt shaped
> cut on his forehead. Makes at least as much sense as a soul bit
> entering by the same route--and soul bits encased in Horcruxes seem
> only to anchor the wizard to the earth, preventing him from dying,
> rather than reducing his powers. (We're not dealing here with Sauron's
> One Ring, into which he places "the best part" of the powers "native
> to him" in order to control the other rings.)
> 

Ken:

I recently started reading noted military historian John Keegan's *A
History of Warfare* on the train since I've been through HP three
times now and there seems little to be gained by a fourth reading at
this point. In this book Keegan mentions that since gunpowder became a
fixture on the battlefield injuries similar to the one you suggest
have been fairly common. Your notion has a basis in RW fact, not just
Potterverse theory.

LV describes the rebounding AK that hit him as tearing his soul
forcibly from his body. We are intended to believe that the incident
was accompanied by a blast that reduced the Potter's house to rubble.
If we are not mislead by that dratted narrator on this point the
effect on LV's body was not unlike that an artillery shell would
produce. Of course I now have to return this to another theory about
how Harry could have become a horcrux, forgive me. As soon as I read
Keegan's comment I had the notion that the pieces of LV's shattered
sould may have been flung everywhere and one of them could have
created that scar on Harry's forehead when it lodged there. There's
something in it for you too, a spray of LV's blood could have (we
could confidently say would have) followed it in.

With two recent murders to his credit LV's soul would have been in at
least three pieces. Who knows how many murders LV had committed
without making horcruxes and who knows how long it takes a torn soul
to mend, if it ever does? Exactly what would happen to what another
has called a confetti soul when it is forcibly expelled from its body?
It is a messy situation that begs for an explanation. I wonder if we
will get one?

Collectively we have a much bigger brain that the author does and we
have gone much farther down the road that plumbs the depths of the
Potterverse than she has. This is one of the things that SF authors
learn to love and hate about their fans.

Ken