Unforgivables - from a different angle

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174479

Leah wrote:  
<snip> Carol pointed out that after his near-death experience, Harry
did not use Unforgiveables, and, I think I am right in saying, she
attributed their use to the Voldesoul in Harry.  What is therefore
problematic for me is that we are presented with one view in six books
and then a volte face in the final book which is not satisfactorily
explained or dealt with, leaving the readership to come up with their
own justifications/explanations.  What the book appears to give us is
the wholly unsatisfactory justification that it's ok for the good guys
to use the Unforgiveables by the simple fact that they are the good guys.

Carol responds:
Close but not quite. I was not "attributing" Harry's use of the
Unforgiveables to the soul bit in his scar. I was putting that forward
as a possible explanation, which I'll return to in a minute. I agree
that JKR's explanation is extremely unsatisfactory. We already know
that Harry isn't perfect. How many times has he lied, sneaked,
eavesdropped, deliberately spoken words to hurt a friend's feelings,
procrastinated, cheated on his homework, lost his temper, ordered his
friends around, taken credit for ideas that weren't his, and so on. We
don't need Harry to use a Crucio to show us that he's human. I don't
think we'd have read past SS/Ps if he weren't humanly flawed like his
readers. Nope. If she's going to show me that he's humanly flawed, as
if I didn't already, have him turn Amycus Carrow into an incredible
bouncing polecat. I'd have laughed then. But Crucio? The torture
curse? I don't care in what sense Crucio is Unforgiveable or what else
Carrow has done besides spitting on McGonagall. I don't want the hero
doing it of his own accord. This is, after all, the same hero who
saved the equally scummy Wormtail from being murdered by his own
former friends (and he didn't even know he was preventing their souls
from being split).

I don't want to make excuses for JKR or for Harry, but I do want to
consider the possibility that the soul bit may be a factor. I am *not*
saying that "The soul bit made him do it." However, we do see the
malign influence of the locket Horcrux on all three main characters,
particularly Ron. And Harry's scar bit is also a Horcrux. We saw his
increased anger in OoP, when at times he felt a snake inside him
wanting to strike at Dumbledore. And DD tells Snape that "the
connection between [Harry and Voldemort] grows ever stronger, a
parasitic growth" (DH Am. ed. 687).

And as I pointed out before, once Harry enters Snape's memory and
understands that he has to "set out to die" (DD's words, 687), he
doesn't cast any more Unforgiveable Curses. The "King's Cross"
conversation increases his understanding of what has happened.

"'I let him kill me,' said Harry. 'Didn't I?'

"'You did,' said Dumbledore, nodding. 'Go on!'

"So the part of his soul that was in me.... has it gone?'

''Oh, yes!' said Dumbledore. 'Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is
whole, and completely your own, Harry'" (709).

Whole and completely Harry's own, as it has not been since he was
fifteen months old. And not only has Harry been exposed to a second
Horcrux (not counting the encounter with Nagini), Voldemort has been
present in his head much more in this book than in any other, and he
is an increasingly furious, murderous, out-of-control Voldemort.
Fortunately, Harry has at last learned to "close his mind, Snape's
last-minute advice, but he is not wholly free of the contamination of
that "parasitic" soul bit, as we see in his continued doubts and his
feeling, even after entering the Pensieve and forgiving Snape, that
Dumbledore had betrayed him.

Now, having talked to Dumbledore and being free of his soul bit, he
understands the truth. "Don't you get it?" he says to Voldemort. "I
was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people--"

"But you did not," says Voldemort.

"I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did.
They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells
you put on them are binding?" (738).

"The power that the Dark Lord knows not," Love, has vanquished him
(though he's not yet dead and we still have the mess with the Elder
wand to go through).

With three Horcruxes destroyed, maybe four (if RH have destroyed the
cup), Harry is still capable of vengeance, even sadism, enjoying
torturing the despicable Amycus Carrow. He enters the Shrieking Shack
hating Snape, watches him die, doesn't know what to feel, enters the
memory and leaves it understanding Snape and no longer wanting
vengeance on him but still feeling betrayed by Dumbledore. He has to
choose to die, setting aside any desire for vengeance, any desire to
kill Voldemort. Soul bit still intact, he has to choose to die, an act
of love and self-sacrifice very like his mother's. He opens the Snitch
with the words, "I am about to die." His loved ones give him strength
to sacrifice himself, overcoming any remaining evil influence in the
soul bit. And the act of love destroys the soul bit, killing it
instead of himself. After that, his soul is his own and whole, and
there is no more temptation to seek vengeance. A little taunting of
Voldemort, but Voldemort, has to be given a choice, remorse or murder.
And Harry defeats him using Expelliarmus, the spell that marked his
compassion for Stan Shunpike, who knew not what he did.

Carol, just working out a canon-based esplanation for Harry's Crucio
that I like better than "Harry's human," but not excusing him or
blaming the soul bit for a bad choice on Harry's part


and he realizes that LV's inability to cast a lasting curse