That’s more true of the Elder Wand; in canon HP, being known as the owner of the Elder Wand made you a target for everyone else who wanted to have its power, but no such stories were told about the Invisibility Cloak.
Owners of the Elder Wand have definitely died, that’s usually how it changes hands. It seems like Decius is suggesting that owners of the Cloak have never died until they pass it on, and usually die not long after, but I don’t recall any evidence for this.
Deathly Hallows strongly implies that the owners of the Cloak never died until they chose to:
But that night, another wizard stole the wand and slit the brother’s throat for good measure. And so Death took the first brother for his own. The second brother journeyed to his home when he took the stone in turn in thrice in hand. To his delight, the girl he once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared before him. Yet soon she turned sad and cold for she did not belong in the mortal world. Driven mad by hopeless longing, the second brother killed himself so as to join her. And so Death took the second brother. As for the third brother, Death searched for many years but was never able to find him only when he attained a great age that the youngest brother shed the Cloak of Invisibility and give it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend and went with him gladly, departing this life as equals.
(Of course, James didn’t choose to die at Voldemort’s hand, so it’s tempting to read this as “the Cloak defends against old age rather than dying period”—except in canon, James had lent the Cloak to Dumbledore before he was murdered, so for all we know, it really does grant effective immortality/invulnerability!)
This is somewhat likely, but in canon that’s a quotation from a fairy tale. Given the apparent attitude the Peverells had towards Death in MoR, I doubt things played out the same way in MoR as in The Tale of the Three Brothers, whether or not that’s how it happened in canon.
I don’t have the books handy to check this, but the Harry Potter Wiki claims that he faced Voldemort, wandless, while buying time for Harry and Lily to flee. Sounds like choosing death to me.
There’s only four known owners of the Cloak, three of them died after they had given up possession of the Cloak, and the fourth is alive and has not yet given up the cloak.
Dumbledore merely asked to borrow the cloak from James:
“You. You have guessed, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school! I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look. . . . It was a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect . . . and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!”
In canon, Harry has been without the Cloak, after taking possession of it, for much longer than three days: in Philosopher’s Stone, he left it at the top of the Astronomy Tower after giving Norbert to Charlie (I wonder if Norbert will appear in MoR...), and in Prizoner of Azkaban he left it in the Honeydukes secret passage. If being without the Cloak for a few days is enough to die, Harry should have died in his first or third year. If James hadn’t died, Dumbledore would only have been borrowing the Cloak, and he returned it to Harry at close to the first opportunity. It’s unclear, therefore, if he would have owned the Cloak for purposes of this theory, but if so I think he should have died well before he did.
Giving up the cloak is not enough to kill you for no reason. You die after giving it up if you’ve used it to live beyond your span. Dumbledore is old but not out of bounds for a wizard.
In that case we only know of one owner who may have lived longer than standard, and we don’t even know about them. James was in his 20s, Dumbledore was only around 150, and Harry is only 37 in the epilogue. It seems like people are privileging this theory beyond the little evidence it would get from the Cloak being related to the Wand and owners of the Wand tending to die.
The base rate is based on the legend that the Cloak hides the wearer from Death, works, and that the first wearer dies when he leaves the protection of the cloak.
Known canon owners: Ignotus Peverell, James Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter. Peverell is explicitly said to have died when he gave the cloak up, James died shortly after giving the cloak to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore died only a few years after giving it to Harry.
And the ownership of the Elder Wand is said to typically be the result of the death of the current owner; Draco does not have a short(er than everyone else in the same situation) expected lifespan despite losing ownership, for example.
That’s more true of the Elder Wand; in canon HP, being known as the owner of the Elder Wand made you a target for everyone else who wanted to have its power, but no such stories were told about the Invisibility Cloak.
(Or maybe I’m reading that wrong.)
Owners of the Elder Wand have definitely died, that’s usually how it changes hands. It seems like Decius is suggesting that owners of the Cloak have never died until they pass it on, and usually die not long after, but I don’t recall any evidence for this.
Deathly Hallows strongly implies that the owners of the Cloak never died until they chose to:
(Of course, James didn’t choose to die at Voldemort’s hand, so it’s tempting to read this as “the Cloak defends against old age rather than dying period”—except in canon, James had lent the Cloak to Dumbledore before he was murdered, so for all we know, it really does grant effective immortality/invulnerability!)
This is somewhat likely, but in canon that’s a quotation from a fairy tale. Given the apparent attitude the Peverells had towards Death in MoR, I doubt things played out the same way in MoR as in The Tale of the Three Brothers, whether or not that’s how it happened in canon.
I don’t have the books handy to check this, but the Harry Potter Wiki claims that he faced Voldemort, wandless, while buying time for Harry and Lily to flee. Sounds like choosing death to me.
Well, if you really wanted to argue that, I suppose you could.
There’s only four known owners of the Cloak, three of them died after they had given up possession of the Cloak, and the fourth is alive and has not yet given up the cloak.
Dumbledore merely asked to borrow the cloak from James:
In canon, Harry has been without the Cloak, after taking possession of it, for much longer than three days: in Philosopher’s Stone, he left it at the top of the Astronomy Tower after giving Norbert to Charlie (I wonder if Norbert will appear in MoR...), and in Prizoner of Azkaban he left it in the Honeydukes secret passage. If being without the Cloak for a few days is enough to die, Harry should have died in his first or third year. If James hadn’t died, Dumbledore would only have been borrowing the Cloak, and he returned it to Harry at close to the first opportunity. It’s unclear, therefore, if he would have owned the Cloak for purposes of this theory, but if so I think he should have died well before he did.
Giving up the cloak is not enough to kill you for no reason. You die after giving it up if you’ve used it to live beyond your span. Dumbledore is old but not out of bounds for a wizard.
One possibility: The Master of the cloak dies ‘shortly after’ someone else becomes the master.
Null hypothesis: Owning the Cloak which was intended to hide the wearer from death has no effect on the death of the wearer.
In that case we only know of one owner who may have lived longer than standard, and we don’t even know about them. James was in his 20s, Dumbledore was only around 150, and Harry is only 37 in the epilogue. It seems like people are privileging this theory beyond the little evidence it would get from the Cloak being related to the Wand and owners of the Wand tending to die.
The base rate is based on the legend that the Cloak hides the wearer from Death, works, and that the first wearer dies when he leaves the protection of the cloak.
Known canon owners: Ignotus Peverell, James Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter. Peverell is explicitly said to have died when he gave the cloak up, James died shortly after giving the cloak to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore died only a few years after giving it to Harry.
And the ownership of the Elder Wand is said to typically be the result of the death of the current owner; Draco does not have a short(er than everyone else in the same situation) expected lifespan despite losing ownership, for example.