To the Extreme

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 165072

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:
>

> 
> Carol responds:
> But the original poster was arguing that Merope deliberately passed
> her powers to Lily. Once she realized that Merope died some
> thirty-five years before Lily was born, she changed the speculation to
> passing the powers to Lily's mother. You seem to agree that Merope
> could not have passed her powers to Lily's mother because, as we know
> from canon and interviews, Lily's mother was a Muggle. 

Ken:

You do understand that I am changing the original poster's idea
somewhat, don't you? I find the idea has some charm to it. You and I
both agree that Merope did not pass her powers to Lily's mother
because, as you say, Lily's mother was not a witch. But could there
have been something else passed? The seed of magical power that
germinated in Lily? We don't know why Muggles sometimes have magical
offspring. It is quite likely that this is because it is unimportant
and the author wants us to assume it is a mutation or perhaps a
dormant gene that can be expressed under the right conditions. But
certainly it is possible that the reason is something she is saving to
reveal in the last book. I don't yet have the rigid view of the
Potterverse that some of you seem to have. I expect the final few
pieces to fall into place in DH and until then it remains a
quantum-mechanical kitty for me. Neither dead nor alive, both dead and
alive. As a result I don't exclude as many possibilities as you do.
What we "know" seems less certain to me than it appears to seem to you.

> Carol:
> 
> You mentioned genetics (hair color). A gene for black hair is
> dominant, 

Ken:

That's all we need to know, as I said I was not sure if black hair was
dominant. If that is the *only* resemblance that Tom saw between the
two then that cannot indicate a link between Merope and Lily, I agree.

> Carol:
> 
> The powers that Harry acquired from Voldemort were acquired under very
> special circumstances involving sacrificial love magic which caused an
> AK to be deflected onto a wizard who could not be killed because his
> soul was anchored to earth by Horcruxes. Merope Gaunt, who may have
> lost her powers or simply stopped using them, died in childbirth. Her
> own child was born with powers exponentially greater than hers, as if
> Salazar Slytherin's own powers (other than Parseltongue) had skipped
> fifty generations and accumulated in him. So if her powers went
> anywhere, they must have gone into him, which would make much more
> sense than giving them away to some unknown Muggle.
> 

Ken:

The literary analyst sees an exception and then strictly limits the
application of that exception to a single instance, because that is
CANON. The scientist sees an exception and immediately wonders if
there could be more, where she would look for them, and what they
might tell her about the Potterverse that the creator might be trying
to hide. The scientist agrees that if canon were complete the system
would be a closed system and the only things that could be known about
it would be found in CANON. But since canon has yet to become CANON,
the possibilities for the future are intriguing, for those willing to
consider them. 

It is interesting to this scientist, in the light of this discussion,
that the sorting hat saw something of Slytherin in young Harry. It is
true that the obvious reason is the powers that were transferred to
the boy who lives. Likewise the wand that chose Harry was the brother
of the one that chose Tom. That has the same obvious explanation. Too
obvious perhaps? Are wands and the sorting hat so easily fooled? Maybe
they are but there is no harm in considering a Potterverse where they
are not.

We do not need to consider that Merope "chose" to do anything of the
sort in her final days. There likely was no choosing involved if the
idea has any merit. It could have been just a random accident quite
beyond her control, possibly it happened at her death. These things
appear to be quite mysterious after all. Tom get his power from
Merope? Certainly not directly, and he certainly did not get his
intellect from any recent Gaunt! Whatever gave Tom his unusual ability
might never be explained. It would be quite ironic if the true source
of his power (but not his Slytherin connection of course) came from a
latent magical streak in the Riddles. It seems nearly certain that he
owes them his intelligence. We don't know enough to assert or refute
dictums on why Lily was a witch or why Tom was so powerful. All we can
do is float theories and wait to watch them sink, swim, or drift from
view in DH. 

> Carol:

> If JKR wanted us to suspect that Merope had given away her powers to a
> Muggle girl (and Lily's mother must have been very young at the time),
> the girl would have been mentioned. 

Ken:

And if she didn't want us to suspect? Does an author have to telegraph
*everything* to be respectable? I don't think so.

> 
> Carol, who can see no point in this particular bit of speculation even
> if it could hold up to canonical scrutiny
>

Ken:

The first step towards finding the point is the willingness to
consider the possibility. What could a link of some kind between Tom
and Harry mean? I confess that I do not know. How can you claim that
it means nothing when you are unwilling to consider the possibility?
Why is it that Tom seems to have no good side, seems never to have had
one? Why *did* he choose Harry instead of Neville? Is is *possible*
that there is a deeper link between them that no one has suspected
yet? Maybe it goes nowhere, yet there seems to be material here to
while away a few hours on.

Ken