Harry's Knowlege of Lord Voldemort - SS- post 1

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161087

Ellen wrote:
> I believe that when Voldemort used Harry's blood to come back, he
> became mortal again--hence Dumbledore's satisfaction that Harry's
> mother's blood, through Harry, now was part of Voldemort.
>
Carol responds:
We've all wondered about the gleam in Dumbledore's eye, and I wondered
what Voldemort meant in GoF about having his old body back (it must be
essentially a clone, magically restored by the potion, since the old
body was destroyed), but he seemed to imply that his body was mortal.
That should be no surprise: so was the first one. It was only his soul
that was "immortal," in the sense of being bound to earth, unable to
leave it because of the Horcruxes. As long as even one remains, he
can't die in the usual sense. But the soul, if I understand JKR's
conception of it correctly, is immortal and death is just "the next
great adventure," not the end of everything that Voldemort imagines it
as being.

Your post brings up an interesting question, one that has been
considered before on this list but not in as much depth as I would like:

Is the body Voldemort's fragmentary soul now inhabits mortal in the
sense that other bodies are, not in terms of being blown up by
deflected AKs and so forth, but in terms of aging and diseases? Was
his old body immune to, say, dragon pox? What about poisons? The mere
fact that he can be nourished by Nagini's venom, a component of his
rudimentary body and consequently of this one (Fetal!mort went into
the potion, along with the flesh, blood, and bone) may indicate that
he's immune to poison, or he may need to experiment with poisons and
antidotes to develop an immunity. (Maybe a bezoar was a component of
the base potion before Wormtail added the key components in the
graveyard, but I like to think that one of Snape's jobs as a young DE
had to do with developing potions that helped to give Voldemort
physical immunity to death, including possibly longevity potions.)

At any rate, I agree that his body is now mortal. Perhaps it always
was. Old age in particular would present tremendous problems for
Voldemort if his soul was bound to earth but his body kept dying like
the animals he possessed and he kept having to create a new one with
the aid of a loyal or fearful servant. (How many of them would be
willing to, erm, lend a hand if this process repeated itself too
often?) I think that once Voldemort rid himself of Harry and made
certain that his Horcruxes were safe, his next order of business, more
important to him than taking over the WW, which could wait a hundred
years or so, would be to make sure that his body was as protected as
his soul. Not being an ageless immortal like Sauron before the
drowning of Numenor, I'm not sure how he would do it.

Carol, again thinking of the myth of Tithonus, who was granted eternal
life but not eternal youth and ended up so shriveled and helpless that
he begged for death