FAQ poll answered... (with spoilers for said FAQ poll)

[songbird3411]

 --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

 >> "Kibosh on other ideas" - Possession Theory you mean? I can't 
agree. The idea is - a stroll through Harry's mind picking up 
anything useful, then the quiet surcease. SFAIK you can't read the 
mind of a corpse.<<

Delurking for a minute here.  I haven't really been a strong believer 
in Posession Theory.  I mean, I personally like it, and I think it 
would be a fascinating turn of events.  However, I feel like in the 
context of these books, it would complicate a story that needs to be 
simplified.  (Still, it would be a welcome complication to me.)

However, I too don't see how JKR's answer would preclude Possession 
Theory.  I say this because I am still quite confused about the 
timline of events at Godric's Hollow.  Honestly, the more the 
books/JKR say about Godric's Hollow, the more confused I become.

Here is what I see in Godric's Hollow, as presented by a straight 
reading of the books/JKR interviews:

Voldy storms into the house, kills James, goes upstairs, argues with 
Lily, kills Lily, tries to AK Harry, AK deflects back on Voldemort 
vaporizing him and somehow creating a mind link with Harry.  And oh 
yeah, the house somehow explodes/collapses.

????  There appear to be some missing links here.  Some 
missing "hows" and "whys".    Ultimate Sacrifice deflects AK?  It 
wasn't the AK that caused the mind link, it was the deflection?  This 
deflection creates a mind link how?  Why?  (One for JKR) So, why 
didn't Voldemort die?

I guess the sequence of magic seems pretty straightforward, as 
presented in the books so far.  However, the results of that magic 
seem anything but straightforward.  So, what happened that produced 
such drastically different results than expected?

One idea is that what has been presented isn't all the magic that was 
attempted and used.  I guess I could see Possession Theory filling 
some blanks here.  

Of course, it could also be some as yet unknown reaction of 
this "blood protection".  Or even, perhaps, an unkown function of 
Voldemort's own powers and protections against death that produce 
some strange reactions when confronted with this ancient magic.

Shrug.  All I know is, this answer of JKR's didn't tell me much.  
Except that it implied the mind link is still open between Harry and 
Voldemort, unless I read it wrong.  Which makes me wonder, again, why 
no one seemed concerned about this at the end of OoTP. 

I also disagree with her/Dumbledore about Neville.  I think he very 
well could have been as successful as Harry has been.  Harry has 
relied on a lot of luck.  Neville's biggest drawback so far seems to 
be his lack of confidence in his own skills.  Something apparently 
reinforced by his family.  What would have happened if Neville had 
been raised as "The Boy Who Lived", the boy Voldemort marked as a 
threat?  Certainly Dumbledore would look at him differently.  I mean, 
according to the prophecy (seemingly) merely being marked by 
Voldemort as the threat is enough to make one the threat.  It would 
be hard to think of Neville as inferior to his parents if he was the 
boy destined to "vanquish" Voldemort.         


Mindy -who will probably go back to lurking until HBP comes out and 
is hoping to get that Godric's Hollow flashback soon