Why did Harry have to think his death was real?

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 174136

Carol responds:
>It was important, however, that Snape not give Harry a possibly false
>hope of surviving. Harry could not know, and therefore neither could
>DD's messenger, Snape, that Harry wouldn't die from this sacrifice
>because of the shared drop of blood (the soul bit would die instead).

Bart:
I'm in agreement here, but the logic is so tortured that I have to take a step back to really get it. 

It's been pointed out that possibly a term other than "Horcrux" is needed, in that Harry was NOT the same as other horcruxes. Harry was the Horcrux equivalent of the ectopic pregnancy, in that the soul bit that attached itself to him was not really implanted; it was ON Harry more than IN Harry, which is why he was not Voldemort. Harry could access the soul bit, and vice versa, but he was protected from BECOMING the soul bit, unless he initiated the process. One might deduce that this was one fear that DD had of having Harry raised in a Wizarding family; that his treatment as The Boy Who Lived might lead to a symptom similar to Gildilocks' (now, THAT'S a nickname), where fame becomes an addiction. Being raised by the Dursley's, with oversight from a distance, gave Harry a sense of humility, and a hatred of bullies, which would cause him to be disgusted at the idea of being connected to Morty. 

I have stated before that I believe that Harry's choice of friends was NOT a coincidence (I prefer to think of it as DD's manipulations than JKR's close encounters of the most convenient kind). Certainly, Draco put out the hand of friendship at the beginning; it was upon seeing Draco as a bully that Harry firmly rejected the idea. 

[It's the subject for a new thread, and I'll probably repeat it if it gets "lost in the sauce", but I am STILL puzzled by the Dursleys' treatment of Harry. Considering their placing of importance on keeping up appearances, what did they THINK the neighbors would think about their clear lack of care of their nephew? I hope that England is not so different from the United States that this sort of behavior would be considered acceptable. As a matter of fact, when I was about 11, I knew a wealthy woman in England who had a daughter my age (she was a friend of my uncle's, who was a producer in London), who lacked playmates (which is why my uncle brought me over; I was living in Amsterdam at the time, and visited London frequently). The daughter had a hired companion; a young woman her own age from a poor family. Well, unless you were told which one was the daughter and which one was the companion, you wouldn't know. They were treated (and treated each other) like sisters. I would hope that this was the rule, and not the exception.]

Getting back to horcruxes, Dumbledore clearly expected Harry to have to die, probably AFTER "killing" Morty, as the last piece. But having gotten to actually KNOW Harry, DD found this to be a more difficult task than he had imagined (maybe he saw Ariana in Harry? There's even a similarity in the names, as pronounced). He was probably going over every possibility to figure out how to save the boy, when Morty did it for him, by using Harry's blood in his reincarnation (I think that's the best word, at least judging from the etymological roots). This created a second tether. (When I was about 19, I was at a party. I was wearing a 2 piece suit. As a joke, she tried to "pants" me. However, my belt was just for show; my pants were REALLY being held up by a pair of suspenders underneath the jacket. So, she pulled the pants down, and they popped right up again. I see the blood tether as sort of like the pair of suspenders). OK, so Harry and Morty were double-linked. Still, that wasn't enough; DD wanted Harry to learn Occlumancy. It turned out that Morty couldn't stand possessing Harry, but it would have made it much easier for Harry to separate himself from Morty's soul-piece. But Harry refused to learn it, and Snape refused to try teaching Harry. So Dumbledore had to come up with plan B, a plan which was complicated by the fact that he wasn't going to be around to orchestrate things. 

Now, here's where the logic gets torturous; I'm not sure even JKR understood it completely. But I suspect (and have mentioned) that it's the drunk driver syndrome. When you read reports of accidents involving drunk drivers, it is often the driver who suffers the fewest injuries. This is NOT coincidence; what happens is that the tensing of muscles due to fear during an accident increases the level of injury. The drunk driver doesn't have the reflexes to tense up his muscles, and is therefore relaxed, and goes with the momentum rather than fighting it. I suspect it was something similar with Harry. If Harry did not believe he was going to die, or did not sacrifice himself willingly, Voldemort would have broken both tethers. However, by voluntarily dropping all his defenses, he left the Mortysoul exposed. It took the brunt of the AK spell, while the blood tether kept the Harrysoul from departing, pulling him back to life like the suspenders pulled my pants back up. 

I have no doubt that, had Morty NOT created the blood tie, DD would have come up with another plan (perhaps showing Harry more disappointment as his failure to learn Occlumancy). But Morty's insistence on using Harry's blood was yet another fatal mistake on the part of Morty. 

Bart