Prophecy (was: HBP chapters 24-26 Post DH look

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184473

Sarah wrote:
> This is the closest I can come to wrapping my mind around the whole
"live" thing too.  Harry is immortal, therefore he does not live?  But
(as you elaborated later and I snipped) he's not immortal in all
circumstances.  Which raises some interesting questions regarding what
would happen if Harry had been killed in another way.  If Harry is
destroyed by walking in front of a bus, I have to think the soul piece
wouldn't have died for him and sent him back to earth.  Would his
corpse then act as a Horcrux?  On the other hand, if Harry was bitten
by the basilisk in COS and Fawkes didn't show up, I have to think the
poison would have taken care of both Harry and the soul slice.

Carol responds:

The soul bit in Harry didn't keep Harry alive. It was one of seven
pieces of Voldemort's soul that kept *Voldemort* alive (or, at any
rate, anchored to earthly existence). As long as Harry lived/survived,
*Voldemort* couldn't die. Harry, however, could have been killed by
Quirrell's hex causing his broom to throw him off (if not for Snape's
countercurse) or by the Basilisk's bite (if not for Fawkes's tears) or
by Voldemort's AK (if not for the Priori Incantatem caused by the
conflict of the brother wands). He might also have been saved in GoF
by the same thing that enabled him to come back from King's Cross in
DH, the drop of his blood in Voldemort's veins. But that drop wasn't
there before GoF, and exactly what would have happened to Harry if it
weren't for the Priori Incantatem is unclear. (Imagine Harry going to
King's Cross with no Dumbledore to meet him. Would he have known that
he didn't have to go on to the next great adventure?)

at any rate, there's no accidental Horcrux in Voldemort anchoring
Harry's soul to earth. Only the dorp of Harry's blood in Voldemort's
veins gave them a shared life and made it possible for Harry to
survive as long as Harry did. Oddly, it also kept Voldemort's soul
trapped in the afterlife in mutilated form as long as Harry remained
there. He couldn't die until the last Horcrux (Nagini) was destroyed,
but he couldn't come back to himself till Harry did.

Until they share a drop of blood (which LV thinks will enable him to
share the Love magic in Harry's blood and which does enable him to
touch Harry, as Quirrell!mort could not), it's only Voldemort who
can't die till all the soul bits are destroyed. At that point, Harry
becomes unknowingly immortal--though the AK destroys his soul bit and
sends him to King's Cross, giving him a choice somewhat similar to
that of a ghost except that he retains his own body. Once all the soul
bits and Voldemort himself are destroyed, Harry is mortal again, and
clean and whole.

You've raised the question of whether the soul bit would die with
Harry if he died under normal circumstances. I think it would. All
that's necessary for the destruction of a Horcrux in normal
circumstances is for its container to be destroyed, and unlike the
deliberately created Horcruxes on which an encasement spell has been
cast, Harry's body can be destroyed without the aid of Basilisk venom
or Fiendfyre. If he dies, the soul bit dies, IMO, just as the stray
soul bit at Godric's Hollow would have done if it hadn't lodged itself
in the living Harry as opposed to the corpses of the adults. (LV would
not have been in such a hurry to kill him if he'd known about the soul
bit!) 

I'm also wondering whether the drop of shared blood protected Harry
from death at the hands of someone other than Voldemort. (Harry's wand
wouldn't protect him from AKs cast by anyone but Voldemort, or someone
using Voldemort's wand, but does the blood protection also apply only
to Voldemort? Quirrell, after all, was being possessed by Voldemort
when Harry's touch burned his skin.) Snape asks, "So the boy . . . the
boy must die?" and DD responds, "And Voldemort must do it himself,
Severus. that is essential." It sounds as if someone other than
Voldemort could kill Harry without enabling him to return. (and,
obviously, the Love magic wouldn't be triggered unless he voluntarily
sacrificed himself to destroy the soul bit.)

Not that any of this makes sense of "neither can live while the other
survives," which I've already attempted to explain in my response to
Catlady. Well, not explain, just answer Catlady's question about how I
interpreted it. I still think that the Prophecy is the single event
from which everything else springs. Without it, there would have been
only a single, ongoing Voldie war with no self-sacrifice by Lily or
Harry, no Vapormort, no Boy who Lived, no scar, no DDM!Snape, no
framework around which to structure the seven books. We might have had
"Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix," with all the adults
except Snape playing more satisfactory roles, but Harry Potter, if he
survived, would be just another Hogwarts student, of no more
importance than Justin Finch-Fletchley or, alas, Theodore Nott.

Carol, counting posts to make sure that this is only her fourth!