Said creature under the bench..

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 176105

> 
> Annemehr:
> 
> It seems to me you are trying to have it both ways.  What *was* Harry 
> trying to do in the Great Hall, goad Voldemort or rescue him?
> 

Ken:

I, or Harry actually, am trying to have it both ways. He was trying to
do both. This is not a situation that many of us are going to face.
Voldemort is an extremely dangerous threat and having just been given
his life back Harry is no longer willing to sacrifice it again. In
order to save his life he has to be able to know when Voldemort will
strike. And yet he also knows what that baby/creature was and he
understands that he has been shown it to give Voldemort a last
warning. The warning is given, and rejected, well before Voldemort has
been goaded into action. There was no chance to have an extended
theological discussion with Voledmort and no point really. Harry is
taking no little risk by trying to do two things at once. The method
he is using to judge when the attack will come is uncertain enough.
Offering Voldemort a warning is handing him a tool that he could have
used to turn the tables on Harry. All Voldemort had to do was pretend
to be interested in remorse to knock Harry off his game. The offer
Harry makes is a more dangerous and therefore a braver and nobler
gesture than it appears on the surface.


> Annemehr:

> When I read Harry's words in that scene from Voldemort's point of 
> view, there is no way I can see that LV could possibly understand 
> what Harry is talking about, let alone consider it as the better 
> option. Try for some remorse!  I've seen what you'll become!  What in 
> heaven's name is Voldemort supposed to make of that? Does that sound 
> like the voice of reconciliation?  

Ken:

I believe that Hermione read the same reference book on horcruxes as
Voldemort. That reference told her that only remorse can heal a
damaged soul. Voldemort would already have known this. Voldemort
apparently had the same kind of blackout after his attack on Harry in
the forest as Harry experienced. We cannot know if he too had a vision
of the afterlife or what it might have been. In any event Voldemort
had seen that he was on the cusp of something very serious. Harry
obviously knows something about what may happen to him. Harry's offer
was one of evident value which Voldemort had the ability to recognize.
Whether he understood it fully or not is immaterial. He was in a
position to understand its potential value and he could have learned
all he needed to know by surrendering his wand and asking questions. 

It isn't easy to reconcile with someone who is armed and intent on
killing you. I don't see what more Harry could have done in this
situation. He understood that he was supposed to warn Voldemort one
last time and he risked his life to offer that warning. Voldemort was
done for anyway. He had no horcruxes left and he was surrounded by
people who would have killed him the instant he killed Harry. He was
not going to walk out of that room a free man. He had nothing at all
to lose by stopping and listening to what Harry had to say. This was a
real offer of reconciliation and salvation.


> Annemehr:

> 
> The Tom Riddle I saw was no more capable of feeling empathy and 
> remorse than of conceiving of the fifth dimension, and it seems 
> awfully hard to say he'd *earned* eternal misery for himself for 
> failing to.
> 

Ken:

That is the Calvinist position and I reject it personally although
many hold it. Tom, Severus, and Harry were raised in similarly
unloving environments. Harry stands out as the most noble of the three
even though life handed him the worst deal. Tom's and Severus'
troubles as adults were mostly of their own making. Harry gets buried
under problems he never asked for. I have quite the opposite view as
you and the author too then if it comes to that. Tom Riddle had no
worse a deal from life than Harry. Tom chose one path, Harry chose
another. Tom was in an excellent position to prosper as a decent
wizard when he graduated from Hogwarts. Even as a murderer with one or
two horcurxes he was far from being unredeemable at that point. Merely
by stepping back from the brink he could have prospered materially and
spiritually. He was no more incapable of that than you or I. But he
chose to go on to greater and greater depths of evil. He chose to be
what he was. He earned what he got.

Ken