Harry, Sirius Black, and the power of possession (Was: JKR and the boys)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161626

Carol earlier:

<snip> <As for Sirius Black's body coming back through the Veil,
that's part of my hypothesis that non-Horcrux! Harry will defeat
Voldemort through the power of possession (one of the powers that he
acquired at Godric's Hollow but doesn't know about yet). The idea is
that the pain caused by Harry's possessing him (Love and all that)
would drive Possessed!LV through the Veil, leaving Harry's body
outside. LV would have to stay there as Sirius does, being dead but
not murdered, but the spare soul inside him (Harry's) would not have
to stay there.  After Harry spoke, using Voldemort's voice, to reveal
his presence, Dead!Sirius would lend Soul!Harry his body so that Harry
could return through the Veil.  Harry would then reenter his own body,
and Black's body would be available for burial (he would not return
from the dead, nor would Harry, who was only possessing Voldemort and
not dead).
> 
> Okay, it's rather far-fetched and gruesome, but I like it better
than Horcrux!Harry because it would allow Harry to live and to destroy
Voldemort without committing murder and using Voldemort's own powers
against him. <snip>
 
>   
Melanie's replied:  

> Gosh that is just depressing to me.  To me the idea of Sirius's soul
hanging out with a live Voldemort just makes me want to cringe.  
>    
> I still say the most likely outcome of the books is Harry going to
"heaven" which in my mind is behind the veil and finally meeting his
parents and of course having Sirius introduce them.  I just think that
is the sweetest and most sincere way to end the books.  I can't
imagine Harry ever being happy after all of this and going on to live
this normal life with Ginny.  IT's just strange to me.  


Carol responds:

Sorry! I didn't mean to depress anybody, nor did I mean to imply that
Sirius Black's soul would "hang out" with Voldemort's after death. But
it's pretty clear that in JKR's Potterverse, the souls of the dead,
good or evil, do go "beyond the Veil," and even though JKR is a
Christian, her books don't seem to follow traditional Christian
metaphysics with regard to heaven and hell. Whether Voldemort will be
punished after death, or even have a complete soul once the parts
reassemble after his death, we don't know. We do know that Sirius
Black is dead and won't return, but I think it would be comforting to
Harry (and Lupin) if they could at least give his body a decent burial
and have a memorial service for him, however belated. And Harry would
also get his chance to see and speak to his beloved dead without
having to remain with them. That, to me, would be much better than
having him actually die. I don't expect him to be, Frodolike, so
wounded by his experiences that he can no longer live in Middle Earth,
erm, I mean the WW.

At any rate, *I* think Harry!Horcrux is depressing (not to mention
full of plot difficulties and inconsistencies that I've discussed in
numerous posts). As for having the hero and the villain simply kill
each other without the Harry!Horcrux complication, that the easy way
out for an author. Much easier to kill a hero off than figure out how
to make him overcome a villain more powerful and vastly more
knowledgeable than himself. That would be choosing what's easy over
what's right, IMO. Nor do I think, despite a somewhat misleading
response to an interview question about killing Harry off to prevent
unauthorized sequels (as if she could quell the flood of fanfic that
would result from such an unsatisfactory ending) that JKR has any such
intention.

Rather than having Harry die (and destroying her own future readership
because children won't want to read the books if they know that the
hero will end up dead), I expect (and hope) that JKR will reward her
hero for his triumph and recompense him for his sufferings by giving
him a normal "happily ever after until the end of his days" kind of
life, allowing him to be "just Harry" instead of the Chosen One for a
change. Sure, he'll be a celebrity for awhile, but celebrity cools
down after awhile, and with no more Voldemort, maybe he can just
finish Hogwarts, become an Auror (there won't be any shortage of Dark
wizards even if all the DEs are caught and killed or imprisoned, evil
being a commodity that doesn't run out), and eventually marry Ginny
("Well, if you must").

I also heartily dislike the idea of Harry murdering anyone or using an
Unforgiveable Curse (gotta stop trying to throw those Crucios,
Harry!). Now granted, possession could count as "the arts of the
enemy" (to borrow Tolkien's phrase), but I'm guessing that, like
Parseltongue, it's a power that Harry acquired at Godric's Hollow, and
why not use it to hoist Voldemort with his own petard? It would also
fit with the idea that Love is Harry's primary weapon. Voldemort could
not endure to be possessed by someone who loves the WW and his friends
enough to seemingly sacrifice himself by, in essence, forcing
Voldemort to go beyond the Veil.

My solution enables Harry to fulfill the mythical hero's journey into
the Underworld (a myth that has been enacted on some level in most of
the books: the third-floor corridor that leads to a passage below the
castle in SS/PS, the Chamber of Secrets, the battle in the DoM which
takes place deep underground, the cave in HBP) without actually dying.
 It enables him to fulfill the Prophecy without committing murder. It
eliminates all the problems inherent in Harry!Horcrux, chiefly in that
Harry doesn't have to die because he's a Horcrux yet somehow live
because he alone has to kill Voldemort. It seems to me that
Harry!Horcruxers want to have their cake and eat it, too.

I'm merely proposing an alternate solution that I find emotionally
satisfying and consistent both with the heroic quest as a genre and
with the Prophecy and other elements of the plot so far.

Carol, who would find Dead!Harry almost as depressing as Dead!Snape