A new Voldemort/Harry Theory based on a challenge post. on HPFF

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 159186

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "aceworker" <aceworker at ...> wrote:

DA Jones: 

> The following was a plot outline/challenge posted by one of the young
> writers on Harry Potter Fan Fiction, where I'm one of the prefects.
> 
> Reading through it I was struck by how right in felt. I have a feeling
> that this young kid might have hit on the plot for book 7. What do you
> think? 

Geoff:
My first reaction on reading this post was to go cold all over. I have always 
been of the opinion that Harry is not a Horcrux and this theory, that Harry 
would turn into Voldemort, absolutely horrifies me.

I believe that for JKR to do so would defeat certain plot lines which I believe 
have developed over the course of the books. In Voldemort and Harry, we 
have two people who share similarities. As Tom Riddle himself points out:

"So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that's a powerful counter-charm. 
I can see now – there is nothing special about you. I wondered, you see. 
Because there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you 
must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably 
the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin 
himself. We even look alike
 But after all, it was merely a lucky chance 
that saved you from me. That's all I wanted to know."
(COS "The Heir of Slytherin" p.233 UK edition)

In Riddle's comment, JKR makes him encapsulate the core link of similarities 
-  and differences – between them. We have two people who have been 
disadvantaged, have suffered abuse of one form or another and are of 
"mixed race". One of them has become embittered, self-centred, 
power-hungry and a megalomaniac. The other, so far, seems to be fairly 
outgoing, friendly, unselfish and unpresuming.

I think that JKR must be on the path to showing that these are the two 
routes which folk from such backgrounds can choose to take, as 
Dumbledore has indirectly pointed out. I cannot see what would be 
ultimately the point of a story dynamic where she allows Harry to go 
down the same route as Tom Riddle. It would leave all the problems 
of the Wizarding World totally unresolved.

This also throws up various questions raised by the scenario we have 
been shown. If Harry is becoming Voldemort by acquiring extra bits of 
his soul, surely these pieces of soul could communicate in some way 
so why does Voldemort  attempt on several occasions to kill Harry – 
as the possessed Quirrell, as the memory Tom Riddle, as the 
reincarnated Voldemort in the graveyard and at the Ministry?

Until I possibly see it in writing from the lady in question, I cannot 
subscribe to the ideas that Harry is a Horcrux or will die in Book 7 
because I feel that the effect it will have on so many of her readers 
who identify with Harry as an everyman would be devastating. The 
aim of a fantasy story, if I might use that term of the books, is not to 
parrot the real world, which we can simply follow by turning on our 
televisions, but to allow us to exercise the "willing suspension of disbelief" 
so that we may enter into the specific fantasy world, identify and interact 
with it in our imagination, hopefully to our satisfaction.