Here’s a theory regarding the open secret of the Philosopher’s Stone: in RL, alchemists often saw the stone as a metaphor, and talked about purifying one’s soul in order to “purify” metal into gold (which, as we all know, is the purest metal.) Thus the reason Flamel assured Dumbledore that Voldemort couldn’t create his own stone was that he’s evil. Anyone reasonably skilled in alchemy can pull off the stone-creation ritual; but only someone worthy enough will actually get a stone out of it. This might also ease Flamel’s conscience about not mass-producing immortality, I guess.
He might simply not qualify anymore—Maintaining the prerequisite spiritual purity over the course of six centuries, and however many attempts on his life is likely to have proven impossible. If this is the case, the rite will work for Hermione.. and a fair few of the other characters.
Good point, it could easily be a one-off thing. Kind of like he phoenix, only with goodness or purity instead of courage. And you need to be performing some alchemical process at the time, I guess.
Central Assumption: The Stone and whatever saved infant Harry from Voldemort are both based on Patronus magic.
I reckon Voldemort accidentally performed a ritual, sacrificing Lily Potter and granting Harry Boy-Who-Lived status. But … it’s certainly not worth rejecting out of hand.
We have already seen the True Patronus, which is powered by an absolute rejection of death and serves as an antithesis for the killing curse.
I’m not sure I would call the True Patronus “an antithesis for the killing curse.” It seems more of an antithesis for death!dementors.
Perhaps whatever saved Harry is caused by a terminal value in a specific person surviving (the mundane Patronus does not reach that level)
I’m not sure what you mean by “terminal value” here.
Perhaps the Stone is powered by a rejection of personal death in a non-universal, non-utilitarian way?
Wouldn’t that make Quirrelmort an ideal candidate for stonemaking?
I suspect that Harry will use the True Patronus to provide immortality.
Woah there. That thing is overpowered enough as it is. If it starts raising the dead then, well … let’s just say that sounds a little too easy. I thing EY is too good a writer to simply hand his protagonist a get-out-of-plot-free card like that. Harry is already powerful via rationality—he doesn’t need the author to hand him the solution to all his problems, and if he did, it would IMHO suck horribly.
I assumed that he blocked Quirrelmort’s curse due to their magical interference, not because the True Patronus is actually intended as a way of blocking Avada Kedavera
Also, the Patronus automatically moved to block the killing curse based on Harry’s preference, without his will or knowledge of the magical interference.
I reckon Voldemort accidentally performed a ritual, sacrificing Lily Potter and granting Harry Boy-Who-Lived status. But … it’s certainly not worth rejecting out of hand.
I reckon that was Dumbledore’s and Lily’s (and maybe James’) plan.
What’s the evidence that Voldemort actually cast a killing curse at Harry? That he tried to kill him in any way?
If what she said was true, we only know that she had the wand and hid it in a graveyard. We don’t know when or how she got it. If Dumbledore did find Harry, he should have found the wand as well, if it was there. Similarly, if Bellatrix had found the wand at Godric’s Hollow, she should have found Harry too, and killed him.
If they’re not lying, I conclude that Voldemort gave her his wand before he went to Godric’s Hollow. If he ever did go to Godric’s Hollow.
An aside on Bella—she is described in much the same terms as Hermione.
“My… Lord… I went where you said to await you, but you did not
come… I looked for you but I could not find you… you are alive...”
“Your wand,” murmured Bellatrix, “I hid it in the graveyard, my
lord, before I left… under the tombstone to the right of your father’s
grave… will you kill me, now, if that was all you wished of me… I think
I must have always wanted you to be the one to kill me… but I can’t
remember now, it must have been a happy thought...”
“It is not,” said Dumbledore, shaking his head and looking very serious. “I took this from the ruins of James and Lily’s home in Godric’s Hollow, where also I found you; and I have kept it from then until now, against the day when I could give it to you.”
“The Dark Lord came to Godric’s Hollow,” said McGonagall in a
whisper. “You should have been hidden, but you were betrayed. The
Dark Lord killed James, and he killed Lily, and he came in the end to
you, to your crib. He cast the Killing Curse at you. And that was where
it ended. The Killing Curse is formed of pure hate, and strikes directly
at the soul, severing it from the body. It cannot be blocked. The only
defense is not to be there. But you survived. You are the only person
ever to survive. The Killing Curse reflected and rebounded and struck
the Dark Lord, leaving only the burnt hulk of his body and a scar on
your forehead. That was the end of the terror, and we were free.”
As long as you’re working inconsistencies, the Pettigrew/Black encounter is obviously wacky too.
EDIT: Add another quote to the collection
“I had the strangest feeling that I knew him...” Harry rubbed his
forehead. “And that I shouldn’t ought to shake his hand.” Like someone
he’d known a long time ago, and then been separated from… an unhappy
feeling, a sense of loss.
Didn’t remember this one at all, but it looks significant. The “him” referred to is Quirrell. Harry had seen him at the bar on his first visit to the Leaky Cauldron, and had asked McGonagall about him. “Sense of loss” is from James and Lily getting killed, or some positive connection to Quirrell?
Similarly, if Bellatrix had found the wand at Godric’s Hollow, she should have found Harry too, and killed him.
I think this is unwarranted. We have no reason to doubt Bellatrix’s version, so on the fatal night she: arrived at location A, following direct orders from Voldemort, and waited for him to arrive; Voldemort failed to arrive within the expected period; she went looking for him, but could not find him; at some later period, she hid his wand in a graveyard.
This is consistent with Voldemort ordering her somewhere to wait for him to do something to the the Potters; Voldemort failing and dying; Bellatrix going to the Potters’ house; not finding him, finding his wand; and then hiding the wand.
Not finding Voldemort is far more important than killing a random baby who had no possible connection to anything that night—as everyone knows, the Killing Curse cannot be blocked, and certainly not cast by a baby, so something else must have happened to Voldemort.
By your theory, she knows enough to look for him at the Potter’s house. She sees known enemies, Lily and James, dead. She can’t find Voldemort. Instead, she finds his wand abandoned near to the crib of the Potter child. She possibly saw what looked like a burn out husk of a body near the wand.
Upon meeting a completely defenseless child of prominent known enemies, I think her impulse would be to kill him, particularly since the missed return and abandoned wand would seem to indicate that something went wrong for Voldemort in this attack. It’s not like it would take a long time to break a baby’s neck, or slit it’s throat, which would be her natural inclination anyway.
She expected to meet her at location A, not at the Potter’s residence. Where did she need to rush off to that she wouldn’t have taken a moment to kill Harry?
The Potter child is not some “random baby”—he is the son of the couple who effectively started the opposition against Voldemort, and that’s even if she knew nothing about the prophecy and potential schemes by Dumbledore and Voldemort based on the prophecy.
Also, I wonder where Dumbledore is during all this. By whatever theory, I’d expect him to monitor or check on the situation in some way.
Instead, she finds his wand abandoned near to the crib of the Potter child. She possibly saw what looked like a burn out husk of a body near the wand.
No, she finds what might be her lord’s body—unthinkable thought, how could he possibly die? - near the dead body of their enemy Lily Potter. There does happen to be a live baby somewhere, but that’s not important.
She expected to meet her at location A, not at the Potter’s residence. Where did she need to rush off to that she wouldn’t have taken a moment to kill Harry?
Anywhere she might find her lord. She is insane and brain-damaged into unyielding loyalty and fanatical devotion to her lord. Anything to do with him takes priority over casual mayhem and slaughter.
Also, I wonder where Dumbledore is during all this. By whatever theory, I’d expect him to monitor or check on the situation in some way.
Yeah, that’s always been a question in canon too. Perhaps the alarms went off but it just took him long enough to get there. From the description of the actions, it could all go down in under a minute: bust down the door, curse James Potter, fly upstairs, chat with Lily for 15 seconds, and curse her and then the baby.
No, she finds what might be her lord’s body—unthinkable thought, how could he possibly die? - near the dead body of their enemy Lily Potter. There does happen to be a live baby somewhere, but that’s not important.
Again, what she would find at the house is entirely conjecture. The only thing we know is what the house looked like after Albus showed it to others. So I don’t think she necessarily saw the burnt out husk.
But let’s assume that at least Harry is there. The child of two of the greatest enemies of her Lord, who now look like they might have participated in his death, lies in her grasp. For some reason, you think this would be an “unimportant”, “random baby” to Bellatrix. Would Lucius or Draco in similar circumstances find such a baby unimportant to them? I think you’re completely disregarding the human impulse to revenge, which seems to much much more pronounced in Death Eaters.
Anything to do with him takes priority over casual mayhem and slaughter.
Again, I don’t think Bellatrix’s attitude toward Harry would be casual at that point. Her Lord may be dead. Her desire to strike out at anything would be enormous at this point. But she doesn’t just have anything, she has a very particular and special something to strike at.
Taking vengeance against his enemies has everything to do with him. Imagine her regret if she had had The Boy Who Lived in her grasp, and did nothing.
On Dumbledore and a potential alarm—I’m fine with the idea that the encounter was too short for Dumbledore to make it there in time.
The window for Bellatrix to show up is after Voldemort is late enough for her to leave where she was told to wait, and before Dumbledore arrives. That appears to me to be an empty set if he has any kind of monitoring going on. EY gives little specifics about the setup of Godric’s Hollow. In canon, it’s a village with a decent population. I don’t remember all the secret keeper mumbo jumbo, but wouldn’t you expect a village of wizards to quickly notice a battle that leaves a home in “ruins”? That Dumbledore arrives first indicates that he must have had some kind of monitoring going on.
One amazing factoid from a Harry Potter Wiki:
James and Lily’s bodies were laid to rest in the Godric’s Hollow graveyard. Their tombstone reads, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
That is too funny. Much like how Death Eater seems more appropriate for Mr. Glowy Person than Malfoy.
Again, what she would find at the house is entirely conjecture. The only thing we know is what the house looked like after Albus showed it to others. So I don’t think she necessarily saw the burnt out husk.
Where did the husk go?
But let’s assume that at least Harry is there. The child of two of the greatest enemies of her Lord, who now look like they might have participated in his death, lies in her grasp. For some reason, you think this would be an “unimportant”, “random baby” to Bellatrix. Would Lucius or Draco in similar circumstances find such a baby unimportant to them? I think you’re completely disregarding the human impulse to revenge, which seems to much much more pronounced in Death Eaters.
The enemies are already dead, and revenge can be taken later now that the Fidelus charm is broken. Lucius and Draco are not insane and broken creatures like Bellatrix; Voldemort’s well-being and orders are not a lexicographic preference to them.
Taking vengeance against his enemies has everything to do with him. Imagine her regret if she had had The Boy Who Lived in her grasp, and did nothing.
He’s not The Boy Who Lived. He’s just an NPC laying around.
The window for Bellatrix to show up is after Voldemort is late enough for her to leave where she was told to wait, and before Dumbledore arrives. That appears to me to be an empty set if he has any kind of monitoring going on.
That’s a good point, but consider the alternative: Dumbledore shows up, he sees the mess and dead bodies, he disposes of the charred corpse of Voldemort but leaves the wand laying around, and then he… leaves? Fails to set up any sort of defenses or wards around the crime scene? So Bellatrix can, unknown minutes/hours later when her patience runs out, just waltz in, not find her lord, find his wand, and flee? (Although your specific scenario has him foreseeing everything and deliberately leaving his wand behind, I suppose.)
Hm, don’t we need to account for Sirius Black somehow? What with Hagrid and the motorcyle, I mean.
One amazing factoid from a Harry Potter Wiki:
Oh yes, I assure that that was pointed out to Eliezer many moons ago. I look forward to seeing it pop up somehow.
I question the official story line that the husk is the remains of Voldemort after his supposed attack on Harry. Was it a husk planted by Voldemort? Planted by Dumbledore? Planted when?
As I think I mentioned, I have a hard time squaring Dumbledore planting the husk; he’d have to have been pretty confident that Voldemort wouldn’t be returning soon to screw up his story. But I’m not ruling it out.
The enemies are already dead, and revenge can be taken later
The enemy is not dead—son of an enemy, is an enemy. And why put off revenge now? Why assume that with Voldemort possibly dead, that revenge would even be possible later?
That’s a good point, but consider the alternative
I think I’m losing track of our alternatives.
You give an alternative under the branch of possibilities where Bellatrix retrieved the wand from Godric’s Hollow. You’re alternative doesn’t look likely to me either.
I’ve been making the case that the whole branch of possibilities entailed by Bellatrix retrieving the wand at Godric’s Hollow is unlikely. I think he left the wand with her, and she was told to wait for him with it, so that he could eventually retrieve it from her. But then, why not just hide it? Why involve her at all? Just because he’d rather have someone protect it? Seems weak, but seems better than the alternatives I can come up with.
One of the problems we’re having is a lack of specification in the plot. If Dumbledore didn’t find his wand there, wouldn’t Dumbledore or others have pointed that out? If he did find a wand, but someone else’s wand, wouldn’t that have been noted?
It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t suspect a trap at Godric’s Hollow. It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t recognize ritual magic when he saw it. It seems unlikely that Bellatrix could have gotten the wand if it had been left at Godric’s Hollow.
Yet she had it.
My take:
I guess Voldemort left his wand with Bellatrix and told her to wait for him.
If he fell for “the trap”, then he did it on purpose, to set Harry up as a savior in magical Britain, and to make some alterations to Harry to make him more powerful.
Possibly, he’s doing this to eventually “upload” into Harry after Harry appears to defeat Voldemort yet again. Both Malfoy and Bellatrix now think Harry is Voldemort already. All of Britain will be united under Harrymort. Harrymort rules!
Further, the assumption is that he just cast Avada Kedavra against Lily and James. So that would have been the last spell if he cast no spells at Harry and just left. Or tried to throttle him with a pillow.
How do we know he cast any more spells? How do we know he cast any spells at Harry?
The Dumbeldore plan, to trick him into accepting a bargain by ritual magic and then violating that magic seems like something that would have been obvious to Voldemort.
I never thought it made sense for Voldemort to try to kill Harry, or at least try to kill him himself. But if he did try, maybe Dumbledore (with the Potters’ consent) booby trapped Harry in some other way? Maybe that’s where the magical resonance between them comes from.
Further, the assumption is that he just cast Avada Kedavra against Lily and James. So that would have been the last spell if he cast no spells at Harry and just left.
If we’re assuming a clever Voldemort, there’s any number of ways that ‘check his wand’s last recorded spell’ could fail to be conclusive evidence. He could’ve used someone else’s wand (a backup wand is a good idea for a ton of reasons). He could’ve brought someone else to do the actual deed (how else did Bellatrix get to the wand before anyone else showed up like Dumbledore or Aurors?). He could’ve used any of a billion Muggle methods, as you point out (plausible since we know about Pioneer and Dumbledore regards clever use of Muggle tech as pointing to Voldemort). He could’ve used an innocuous spell in a fatal way (a dark lord in hiding could be expected to use Apparating all the time, and Apparating seems like it could be quite fatal given ‘splinching’). He could simply have broken the detection spell and set up a false audit trail, as it were. And so on and so forth.
Lily and James are dead. Harry has a scar. There is a burnt husk of something nearby.
In fact, not even so much. What the world sees are Dumbledore producing the dead bodies of Lily and James, a scarred Harry, and a burnt husk of something.
One point against a Dumbledore conspiracy theory—how would he know that Voldemort wouldn’t show up a week later and blow his story?
I reckon that was Dumbledore’s and Lily’s (and maybe James’) plan.
Are you saying that they tried and failed to do this? Or just that it was no accident?
What’s the evidence that Voldemort actually cast a killing curse at Harry? That he tried to kill him in any way?
Well … he does have the scar. And something happened. I mean, its conceivable that he just took the opportunity to fake his death, but it seems simpler to suppose that he was actually killed, survived via horcrux, and possessed Quirrel. And it happened roughly the same in canon, where he defenitely cast the curse.
Yeah, meeting the clear terms of ritual magic seems like quite a freakish coincidence unless that had been their plan. So I think they tried this, or at least tried to give the appearance to Voldemort of doing this, so that he would feel himself safe from other traps.
As for the scar, anyone involved could have given Harry the scar, in a myriad of ways.
Ha! Maybe Dumbledore gave it to Harry after finding him alive in his crib.
Evidence—unidentifiable burnt out husk of a body. Scar on Harry. Voldemort at the scene of the crime. Voldemort presumed to want Harry dead. That’s pretty weak tea.
The best bit of evidence I can see is the one no one talks about—the feeling of Doom and magic resonance between Harry and Quirrell. It seems credible to me that Voldemort might not have anticipated that, and it was Dumbledore so booby trapped Harry with that resonance.
First, is the True Patronus really that overpowered? We know that it can be used to destroy Dementors, but that is a very specific limited purpose and will have no value after The Great Dementor Hunt.
Do we know where Dementors come from? Could it be possible that the Killing Curse creates them?
I don’t think that the True Patronus is going to be an easy way to bring the end of death. It would not do it on its own and would probably be much harder than figuring out how to kill dementors.
It can be used to block the Killing Curse, but Quirrelmort probably is smart enough (and has been around Harry long enough) to make use of some transfigured depleted uranium slugs and a Mass Acceleration Charm. Or fire. Or lightning. Or anything, really. It merely neutralizes another seeming game-breaker. (While Mad-Eye Moody’s description makes it sound very powerful, but I don’t know if anybody has ever actually used it through all barriers or over intercontinental ranges, and the ability to dodge it indicates that it cannot be THAT good of a homing spell.
Here is an alternative interpretation of the prophecy:
THe one: Harry
With the power: The True Patronus
To vanquish the dark lord: The Dark Lord is not Voldemort, but rather a personification of death (maybe even a literal personification of death such as the grim reaper as a King Of Dementors.
approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him. :Heroism is often called ‘death defying’. Alternatively, it could be a wierd interpretation with Harry being born from his biological parents to his adoptive parents. His adoptive father is a biochemist (IIRC) who works in a field that is probably connected to medicine. Perhaps he has made three significant medical discoveries?
Although I am not sure about the whole thing with being marked as his equal or whatever.
Wouldn’t that make Quirrelmort an ideal candidate for stonemaking?
No, I was really, really unclear. The way I see it:
Mudane Patronus: A powerful but non-general preference for life rather than death embodied in a desire to protect.
True Patronus: A fully general preference for life over death
Avada Kedavra: A non-general preference that a specific person die
Hypothetical Apocalypse Spell: A fully general preference for death over life. It’s unlikely that anybody would ever cast this. Possibly connected to the ritual that will summon death itself?
Ritual to summon death itself: True Patronus may be the counterspell to dismiss death.
Horcrux: Requires a selfish preference for your life to exceed your acceptance of the sacrificial victim’s preference.
Philosopher’s Stone: Possibly requires very difficult magic and an explicit,non-general but non-selfish preference for life over death.
I think that using the True Patronus charm to end death might (some or all): A) not end death by itself, but open the door to a magical, Muggle, or combination immortality method B) lead to the discovery of a higher-level method of operating the Atlantis system, letting one use magic to directly fulfill any preference C) Re-activate a latent immortality function in the Atlantis system. It won’t be easy, or a plot-breaker.
Yeah, I thought I heard somebody say they are spontaneously generated in places of extreme rank immorality, death, or negative utility (in which case WWII probably generated many of them due both to city bombings and the Holocaust, for example).
Does anybody know what happens to Dementors re: Muggles? They cannot use the Patronus. Do wizards collect them all at Azkaban, or what?
Does anybody know what happens to Dementors re: Muggles?
In cannon, according to word of God, muggles cannot see dementors, but dementors can induce depression in muggles, and in extreme cases put them in a coma.
It seems to me that you need to do more than just prefer immortality for all. Harry’s happy thought is not just that he wants people to stop dying, but that he has a great deal of hope—confidence, even—that it will happen, one day.
First, the question remains: Why would anybody cast the apocalypse spell (Dumbledore mentioned omnicidal maniac Dark Lords, though).
Second, I still don’t think the True Patronus is all that powerful. It cannot be used offensively against anything other than dementors and it does not defend against any magical, technological, natural, or creative-use-of-magical (such as the Mass Accelerating Charm) other than the killing curse, including ones that are just as fatal and which are probably almost as hard to shield against. Moreover, in noncombat uses the True Patronus gives almost nothing that cannot be given by the mundane Patronus or other mundane magical or mundane technological means. (the only thing I have thought of is an unforgable signal of anti-deathism to people able to understand the philosophy of the Patronus or the True Patronus.
First, is the True Patronus really that overpowered?
Considering the protagonist got it simply for being the protagonist, it turns dementors from unstoppable soul-eating monsters to a trivial threat (they can’t even see you), and it may be able to stop the (unstoppable) killing curse … it’s pretty damn powerful. Not “winning-every-conflict” powerful, tipping-over-the board powerful.
Here is an alternative interpretation of the prophecy:
THe one: Harry With the power: The True Patronus To vanquish the dark lord: The Dark Lord is not Voldemort, but rather a personification of death (maybe even a literal personification of death such as the grim reaper as a King Of Dementors. approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him. :Heroism is often called ‘death defying’. Alternatively, it could be a wierd interpretation with Harry being born from his biological parents to his adoptive parents. His adoptive father is a biochemist (IIRC) who works in a field that is probably connected to medicine. Perhaps he has made three significant medical discoveries? Although I am not sure about the whole thing with being marked as his equal or whatever.
I have to admit, I find these alternaive interpretations … unlikely.
Hypothetical Apocalypse Spell: A fully general preference for death over life. It’s unlikely that anybody would ever cast this. Possibly connected to the ritual that will summon death itself? Ritual to summon death itself: True Patronus may be the counterspell to dismiss death.
I’m guessing that “Apocalypse Spell” is where dementors come from.
Here’s a theory regarding the open secret of the Philosopher’s Stone: in RL, alchemists often saw the stone as a metaphor, and talked about purifying one’s soul in order to “purify” metal into gold (which, as we all know, is the purest metal.) Thus the reason Flamel assured Dumbledore that Voldemort couldn’t create his own stone was that he’s evil. Anyone reasonably skilled in alchemy can pull off the stone-creation ritual; but only someone worthy enough will actually get a stone out of it. This might also ease Flamel’s conscience about not mass-producing immortality, I guess.
He might simply not qualify anymore—Maintaining the prerequisite spiritual purity over the course of six centuries, and however many attempts on his life is likely to have proven impossible. If this is the case, the rite will work for Hermione.. and a fair few of the other characters.
Good point, it could easily be a one-off thing. Kind of like he phoenix, only with goodness or purity instead of courage. And you need to be performing some alchemical process at the time, I guess.
Ok. Big analysis of Patronus magic coming up.
Central Assumption: The Stone and whatever saved infant Harry from Voldemort are both based on Patronus magic.
We have already seen the True Patronus, which is powered by an absolute rejection of death and serves as an antithesis for the killing curse.
Perhaps whatever saved Harry is caused by a terminal value in a specific person surviving (the mundane Patronus does not reach that level)
Perhaps the Stone is powered by a rejection of personal death in a non-universal, non-utilitarian way?
I suspect that Harry will use the True Patronus to provide immortality.
I reckon Voldemort accidentally performed a ritual, sacrificing Lily Potter and granting Harry Boy-Who-Lived status. But … it’s certainly not worth rejecting out of hand.
I’m not sure I would call the True Patronus “an antithesis for the killing curse.” It seems more of an antithesis for death!dementors.
I’m not sure what you mean by “terminal value” here.
Wouldn’t that make Quirrelmort an ideal candidate for stonemaking?
Woah there. That thing is overpowered enough as it is. If it starts raising the dead then, well … let’s just say that sounds a little too easy. I thing EY is too good a writer to simply hand his protagonist a get-out-of-plot-free card like that. Harry is already powerful via rationality—he doesn’t need the author to hand him the solution to all his problems, and if he did, it would IMHO suck horribly.
Um … no offence, or anything.
Immortality isn’t a solution to all problems—there’s still dealing with people to consider.
The Killing Curse is
Not only that but Harry says that wanting them dead needs to be a terminal value in your utility function. Thats what I meant.
I assumed that he blocked Quirrelmort’s curse due to their magical interference, not because the True Patronus is actually intended as a way of blocking Avada Kedavera
Whether or not the True Patronus can block anyone else’s Killing Curse, the way it’s described above sounds pretty antithetical to me.
Oh, I see. Because the True Patronus is a magically embodied preference for life over death … interesting.
Also, the Patronus automatically moved to block the killing curse based on Harry’s preference, without his will or knowledge of the magical interference.
I reckon that was Dumbledore’s and Lily’s (and maybe James’) plan.
What’s the evidence that Voldemort actually cast a killing curse at Harry? That he tried to kill him in any way?
It’s possible to determine the last spell cast by a wand.
In MoR, aren’t we told that Bellatrix took the wand from the scene of the crime?
Actually, not true that I can see.
If what she said was true, we only know that she had the wand and hid it in a graveyard. We don’t know when or how she got it. If Dumbledore did find Harry, he should have found the wand as well, if it was there. Similarly, if Bellatrix had found the wand at Godric’s Hollow, she should have found Harry too, and killed him.
If they’re not lying, I conclude that Voldemort gave her his wand before he went to Godric’s Hollow. If he ever did go to Godric’s Hollow.
An aside on Bella—she is described in much the same terms as Hermione.
As long as you’re working inconsistencies, the Pettigrew/Black encounter is obviously wacky too.
EDIT: Add another quote to the collection
Didn’t remember this one at all, but it looks significant. The “him” referred to is Quirrell. Harry had seen him at the bar on his first visit to the Leaky Cauldron, and had asked McGonagall about him. “Sense of loss” is from James and Lily getting killed, or some positive connection to Quirrell?
I think this is unwarranted. We have no reason to doubt Bellatrix’s version, so on the fatal night she: arrived at location A, following direct orders from Voldemort, and waited for him to arrive; Voldemort failed to arrive within the expected period; she went looking for him, but could not find him; at some later period, she hid his wand in a graveyard.
This is consistent with Voldemort ordering her somewhere to wait for him to do something to the the Potters; Voldemort failing and dying; Bellatrix going to the Potters’ house; not finding him, finding his wand; and then hiding the wand.
Not finding Voldemort is far more important than killing a random baby who had no possible connection to anything that night—as everyone knows, the Killing Curse cannot be blocked, and certainly not cast by a baby, so something else must have happened to Voldemort.
By your theory, she knows enough to look for him at the Potter’s house. She sees known enemies, Lily and James, dead. She can’t find Voldemort. Instead, she finds his wand abandoned near to the crib of the Potter child. She possibly saw what looked like a burn out husk of a body near the wand.
Upon meeting a completely defenseless child of prominent known enemies, I think her impulse would be to kill him, particularly since the missed return and abandoned wand would seem to indicate that something went wrong for Voldemort in this attack. It’s not like it would take a long time to break a baby’s neck, or slit it’s throat, which would be her natural inclination anyway.
She expected to meet her at location A, not at the Potter’s residence. Where did she need to rush off to that she wouldn’t have taken a moment to kill Harry?
The Potter child is not some “random baby”—he is the son of the couple who effectively started the opposition against Voldemort, and that’s even if she knew nothing about the prophecy and potential schemes by Dumbledore and Voldemort based on the prophecy.
Also, I wonder where Dumbledore is during all this. By whatever theory, I’d expect him to monitor or check on the situation in some way.
No, she finds what might be her lord’s body—unthinkable thought, how could he possibly die? - near the dead body of their enemy Lily Potter. There does happen to be a live baby somewhere, but that’s not important.
Anywhere she might find her lord. She is insane and brain-damaged into unyielding loyalty and fanatical devotion to her lord. Anything to do with him takes priority over casual mayhem and slaughter.
Yeah, that’s always been a question in canon too. Perhaps the alarms went off but it just took him long enough to get there. From the description of the actions, it could all go down in under a minute: bust down the door, curse James Potter, fly upstairs, chat with Lily for 15 seconds, and curse her and then the baby.
Again, what she would find at the house is entirely conjecture. The only thing we know is what the house looked like after Albus showed it to others. So I don’t think she necessarily saw the burnt out husk.
But let’s assume that at least Harry is there. The child of two of the greatest enemies of her Lord, who now look like they might have participated in his death, lies in her grasp. For some reason, you think this would be an “unimportant”, “random baby” to Bellatrix. Would Lucius or Draco in similar circumstances find such a baby unimportant to them? I think you’re completely disregarding the human impulse to revenge, which seems to much much more pronounced in Death Eaters.
Again, I don’t think Bellatrix’s attitude toward Harry would be casual at that point. Her Lord may be dead. Her desire to strike out at anything would be enormous at this point. But she doesn’t just have anything, she has a very particular and special something to strike at.
Taking vengeance against his enemies has everything to do with him. Imagine her regret if she had had The Boy Who Lived in her grasp, and did nothing.
On Dumbledore and a potential alarm—I’m fine with the idea that the encounter was too short for Dumbledore to make it there in time.
The window for Bellatrix to show up is after Voldemort is late enough for her to leave where she was told to wait, and before Dumbledore arrives. That appears to me to be an empty set if he has any kind of monitoring going on. EY gives little specifics about the setup of Godric’s Hollow. In canon, it’s a village with a decent population. I don’t remember all the secret keeper mumbo jumbo, but wouldn’t you expect a village of wizards to quickly notice a battle that leaves a home in “ruins”? That Dumbledore arrives first indicates that he must have had some kind of monitoring going on.
One amazing factoid from a Harry Potter Wiki:
That is too funny. Much like how Death Eater seems more appropriate for Mr. Glowy Person than Malfoy.
Where did the husk go?
The enemies are already dead, and revenge can be taken later now that the Fidelus charm is broken. Lucius and Draco are not insane and broken creatures like Bellatrix; Voldemort’s well-being and orders are not a lexicographic preference to them.
He’s not The Boy Who Lived. He’s just an NPC laying around.
That’s a good point, but consider the alternative: Dumbledore shows up, he sees the mess and dead bodies, he disposes of the charred corpse of Voldemort but leaves the wand laying around, and then he… leaves? Fails to set up any sort of defenses or wards around the crime scene? So Bellatrix can, unknown minutes/hours later when her patience runs out, just waltz in, not find her lord, find his wand, and flee? (Although your specific scenario has him foreseeing everything and deliberately leaving his wand behind, I suppose.)
Hm, don’t we need to account for Sirius Black somehow? What with Hagrid and the motorcyle, I mean.
Oh yes, I assure that that was pointed out to Eliezer many moons ago. I look forward to seeing it pop up somehow.
I question the official story line that the husk is the remains of Voldemort after his supposed attack on Harry. Was it a husk planted by Voldemort? Planted by Dumbledore? Planted when?
As I think I mentioned, I have a hard time squaring Dumbledore planting the husk; he’d have to have been pretty confident that Voldemort wouldn’t be returning soon to screw up his story. But I’m not ruling it out.
The enemy is not dead—son of an enemy, is an enemy. And why put off revenge now? Why assume that with Voldemort possibly dead, that revenge would even be possible later?
I think I’m losing track of our alternatives.
You give an alternative under the branch of possibilities where Bellatrix retrieved the wand from Godric’s Hollow. You’re alternative doesn’t look likely to me either.
I’ve been making the case that the whole branch of possibilities entailed by Bellatrix retrieving the wand at Godric’s Hollow is unlikely. I think he left the wand with her, and she was told to wait for him with it, so that he could eventually retrieve it from her. But then, why not just hide it? Why involve her at all? Just because he’d rather have someone protect it? Seems weak, but seems better than the alternatives I can come up with.
One of the problems we’re having is a lack of specification in the plot. If Dumbledore didn’t find his wand there, wouldn’t Dumbledore or others have pointed that out? If he did find a wand, but someone else’s wand, wouldn’t that have been noted?
It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t suspect a trap at Godric’s Hollow. It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t recognize ritual magic when he saw it. It seems unlikely that Bellatrix could have gotten the wand if it had been left at Godric’s Hollow.
Yet she had it.
My take: I guess Voldemort left his wand with Bellatrix and told her to wait for him.
If he fell for “the trap”, then he did it on purpose, to set Harry up as a savior in magical Britain, and to make some alterations to Harry to make him more powerful.
Possibly, he’s doing this to eventually “upload” into Harry after Harry appears to defeat Voldemort yet again. Both Malfoy and Bellatrix now think Harry is Voldemort already. All of Britain will be united under Harrymort. Harrymort rules!
I thought so too.
Further, the assumption is that he just cast Avada Kedavra against Lily and James. So that would have been the last spell if he cast no spells at Harry and just left. Or tried to throttle him with a pillow.
How do we know he cast any more spells? How do we know he cast any spells at Harry?
The Dumbeldore plan, to trick him into accepting a bargain by ritual magic and then violating that magic seems like something that would have been obvious to Voldemort.
I never thought it made sense for Voldemort to try to kill Harry, or at least try to kill him himself. But if he did try, maybe Dumbledore (with the Potters’ consent) booby trapped Harry in some other way? Maybe that’s where the magical resonance between them comes from.
If we’re assuming a clever Voldemort, there’s any number of ways that ‘check his wand’s last recorded spell’ could fail to be conclusive evidence. He could’ve used someone else’s wand (a backup wand is a good idea for a ton of reasons). He could’ve brought someone else to do the actual deed (how else did Bellatrix get to the wand before anyone else showed up like Dumbledore or Aurors?). He could’ve used any of a billion Muggle methods, as you point out (plausible since we know about Pioneer and Dumbledore regards clever use of Muggle tech as pointing to Voldemort). He could’ve used an innocuous spell in a fatal way (a dark lord in hiding could be expected to use Apparating all the time, and Apparating seems like it could be quite fatal given ‘splinching’). He could simply have broken the detection spell and set up a false audit trail, as it were. And so on and so forth.
The official story seems completely inferred.
Lily and James are dead. Harry has a scar. There is a burnt husk of something nearby.
In fact, not even so much. What the world sees are Dumbledore producing the dead bodies of Lily and James, a scarred Harry, and a burnt husk of something.
One point against a Dumbledore conspiracy theory—how would he know that Voldemort wouldn’t show up a week later and blow his story?
Are you saying that they tried and failed to do this? Or just that it was no accident?
Well … he does have the scar. And something happened. I mean, its conceivable that he just took the opportunity to fake his death, but it seems simpler to suppose that he was actually killed, survived via horcrux, and possessed Quirrel. And it happened roughly the same in canon, where he defenitely cast the curse.
Yeah, meeting the clear terms of ritual magic seems like quite a freakish coincidence unless that had been their plan. So I think they tried this, or at least tried to give the appearance to Voldemort of doing this, so that he would feel himself safe from other traps.
As for the scar, anyone involved could have given Harry the scar, in a myriad of ways.
Ha! Maybe Dumbledore gave it to Harry after finding him alive in his crib.
Evidence—unidentifiable burnt out husk of a body. Scar on Harry. Voldemort at the scene of the crime. Voldemort presumed to want Harry dead. That’s pretty weak tea.
The best bit of evidence I can see is the one no one talks about—the feeling of Doom and magic resonance between Harry and Quirrell. It seems credible to me that Voldemort might not have anticipated that, and it was Dumbledore so booby trapped Harry with that resonance.
First, is the True Patronus really that overpowered? We know that it can be used to destroy Dementors, but that is a very specific limited purpose and will have no value after The Great Dementor Hunt.
Do we know where Dementors come from? Could it be possible that the Killing Curse creates them?
I don’t think that the True Patronus is going to be an easy way to bring the end of death. It would not do it on its own and would probably be much harder than figuring out how to kill dementors.
It can be used to block the Killing Curse, but Quirrelmort probably is smart enough (and has been around Harry long enough) to make use of some transfigured depleted uranium slugs and a Mass Acceleration Charm. Or fire. Or lightning. Or anything, really. It merely neutralizes another seeming game-breaker. (While Mad-Eye Moody’s description makes it sound very powerful, but I don’t know if anybody has ever actually used it through all barriers or over intercontinental ranges, and the ability to dodge it indicates that it cannot be THAT good of a homing spell.
Here is an alternative interpretation of the prophecy:
THe one: Harry With the power: The True Patronus To vanquish the dark lord: The Dark Lord is not Voldemort, but rather a personification of death (maybe even a literal personification of death such as the grim reaper as a King Of Dementors. approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him. :Heroism is often called ‘death defying’. Alternatively, it could be a wierd interpretation with Harry being born from his biological parents to his adoptive parents. His adoptive father is a biochemist (IIRC) who works in a field that is probably connected to medicine. Perhaps he has made three significant medical discoveries? Although I am not sure about the whole thing with being marked as his equal or whatever.
No, I was really, really unclear. The way I see it: Mudane Patronus: A powerful but non-general preference for life rather than death embodied in a desire to protect. True Patronus: A fully general preference for life over death Avada Kedavra: A non-general preference that a specific person die Hypothetical Apocalypse Spell: A fully general preference for death over life. It’s unlikely that anybody would ever cast this. Possibly connected to the ritual that will summon death itself? Ritual to summon death itself: True Patronus may be the counterspell to dismiss death. Horcrux: Requires a selfish preference for your life to exceed your acceptance of the sacrificial victim’s preference. Philosopher’s Stone: Possibly requires very difficult magic and an explicit,non-general but non-selfish preference for life over death.
I think that using the True Patronus charm to end death might (some or all): A) not end death by itself, but open the door to a magical, Muggle, or combination immortality method B) lead to the discovery of a higher-level method of operating the Atlantis system, letting one use magic to directly fulfill any preference C) Re-activate a latent immortality function in the Atlantis system. It won’t be easy, or a plot-breaker.
Edit, this comment was redundant.
Yeah, I thought I heard somebody say they are spontaneously generated in places of extreme rank immorality, death, or negative utility (in which case WWII probably generated many of them due both to city bombings and the Holocaust, for example).
Does anybody know what happens to Dementors re: Muggles? They cannot use the Patronus. Do wizards collect them all at Azkaban, or what?
In cannon, according to word of God, muggles cannot see dementors, but dementors can induce depression in muggles, and in extreme cases put them in a coma.
It seems to me that you need to do more than just prefer immortality for all. Harry’s happy thought is not just that he wants people to stop dying, but that he has a great deal of hope—confidence, even—that it will happen, one day.
Re where Dementors come from, I assumed the “ritual to summon death”(rope that has hanged/sword that has slain) is where they come from.
First, the question remains: Why would anybody cast the apocalypse spell (Dumbledore mentioned omnicidal maniac Dark Lords, though).
Second, I still don’t think the True Patronus is all that powerful. It cannot be used offensively against anything other than dementors and it does not defend against any magical, technological, natural, or creative-use-of-magical (such as the Mass Accelerating Charm) other than the killing curse, including ones that are just as fatal and which are probably almost as hard to shield against. Moreover, in noncombat uses the True Patronus gives almost nothing that cannot be given by the mundane Patronus or other mundane magical or mundane technological means. (the only thing I have thought of is an unforgable signal of anti-deathism to people able to understand the philosophy of the Patronus or the True Patronus.
Considering the protagonist got it simply for being the protagonist, it turns dementors from unstoppable soul-eating monsters to a trivial threat (they can’t even see you), and it may be able to stop the (unstoppable) killing curse … it’s pretty damn powerful. Not “winning-every-conflict” powerful, tipping-over-the board powerful.
THe one: Harry With the power: The True Patronus To vanquish the dark lord: The Dark Lord is not Voldemort, but rather a personification of death (maybe even a literal personification of death such as the grim reaper as a King Of Dementors. approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him. :Heroism is often called ‘death defying’. Alternatively, it could be a wierd interpretation with Harry being born from his biological parents to his adoptive parents. His adoptive father is a biochemist (IIRC) who works in a field that is probably connected to medicine. Perhaps he has made three significant medical discoveries? Although I am not sure about the whole thing with being marked as his equal or whatever.
I have to admit, I find these alternaive interpretations … unlikely.
I’m guessing that “Apocalypse Spell” is where dementors come from.