Possession

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 177965

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh <lwalsh@> 
> wrote:
> 
> > In HBP and earlier books, too, Harry and Ginny both
> > seem to think that when VM possesses you, you lose
> > all remembrance of self and what you are doing.  But
> > when VM possessed Harry in OotP, Harry did NOT
> > lose awareness.  In fact, he was quite aware and in
> > excruciating pain.  Why does Harry continue to assert
> > that possession = forgetting what you are doing?  Are
> > there different forms of possession?  Is Harry in denial
> > of other possible forms of possession?

zanooda: 
> I always thought that LV possessed Harry in OotP differently than he 
> (his Horcrux) possessed Ginny. I don't know if I understand it 
> correctly, but it seems to me that at the ministry LV not only 
> penetrated Harry's mind, but became one with him, body and soul.

Geoff:
Canon makes it clear that Ginny and Harry's experiences with 
Voldemort were different:

'"Oh, stop feeling all misunderstood," said Hermione sharply. "Look,
the others have told me what you overheard last night on the 
Extendable Ears -"
"Yeah?" growled Harry, his hands deep in  his pockets as he watched 
the snow now falling thickly outside. "All been talking about me, have 
you? Well, I'm getting used to it."
"We wanted to talk to you, Harry," said Ginny, "but as you've been 
hiding ever since we got back -"
"I didn't want anyone to talk to me," said Harry, who was feeling 
more and more nettled.
"Well, that was a bit stupid of you," said Ginny angrily, seeing as
you don't know anyone but me who's been possessed by You-Know
-Who and I can tell you how it feels."
Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then
he wheeled around.
"I forgot," he said.
"Lucky you," said Ginny coolly.
"I'm sorry," Harry said and he meant it. "So... so, do you think I'm
being possessed, then?"
"Well, can you remember everything you've been doing?" Ginny asked. 
"Are there big blank periods where you don't know what you've been 
up to?"
Harry racked his brains.
"No," he said.
"Then You-Know-Who hasn't ever possessed you," said Ginny simply.'
(HBP "Christmas on the Closed Ward" pp.441/42 UK edition)

'"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries," interrupted 
Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that 
is at once more wonderful and terrible than death, than human 
intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most 
mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the 
power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and 
which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius 
tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldermort,
because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force 
he detests."'
(HBP "The Lost Prophecy" pp.743 UK edition)

Dumbledore is not implying that Voldemort didn't possess Harry at 
all, but he was only able to achieve it for a few seconds before he 
was forced out of Harry's body and mind. So this underlines Ginny's 
assertion that Harry was not possessed in the snake incident but 
was merely seeing it through Voldemort's mind. In one sense, 
Harry was actually possessing him.