There is another point which wasn’t discussed much, but does trouble me : the “outpouring of magic” that happened in chapter 89 when Hermione died.
It’s the first time we heard about anything like that happening after a wizard death. It’s not canon. It wasn’t hinted to before, like Dumbledore didn’t speak about it in “pretending to be wise”, when he tries to convince Harry souls exist. Harry didn’t feel it when his parents were killed. Harry didn’t feel it when Rita Skeeter is killed by Quirrell. That’s a lot of evidence pointing to it not being the common thing that happens when someone dies.
And yet, Harry doesn’t ask any question about it, he doesn’t try to know if it happens rarely (and then in which circumstances ?) or frequently, or if it’s even an entirely new phenomena, it doesn’t ask around if it could be faked, …
Some possibles explanations :
It’s the Source of Magic recording the brain state of person when it dies, allowing for resurrection before. But then, why no hint about it before ? Why Harry didn’t feel it for Rita ?
It’s the Source of Magic recording the brain state of person when it dies, but the Source of Magic didn’t use to do it. Harry had to hack the Source of Magic to implement it. And he had to cleverly use Time Turners so he could hack it before Hermione’s death.
Someone made an Horcrux of Hermione, and it’s the Horcrux that gives the feeling.
It doesn’t occur usually, but it does occur because of a bond between Hermione and Harry, be it just “love magic” or be it with Hermione being bound to House Potter.
This is purely faked (either memory-charm, or a fake feeling) by either Dumbledore or Quirrell (maybe using a Time Turner) to try to convince Harry that Hermione is really dead so he doesn’t do any folly to try to save her (but then, it seemed to fail).
Three blasts of brilliance slammed into Susan at once, she had her wand raised as though she could counter them and there was a white flash as the hexes struck the magical wood, but then Susan’s legs convulsed and sent her flying into a corridor wall. Her head hit with a strange cracking sound, and then Susan fell down and lay motionless with her head at an odd-seeming angle, her wand still clutched in one outstretched hand.
There was a moment of frozen silence.
Parvati scrambled over to where Susan lay, pressed a thumb over the pulse point on Susan’s wrist, and then—then slowly, tremblingly, Parvati rose to her feet, her eyes huge -
“Vitalis revelio,” said Lee just as Parvati opened her mouth, and Susan’s body was surrounded by a warm red glow. Now the seventh-year boy really was grinning. “Probably just a broken collarbone, I’d say. Nice try, though.”
“Merlin, they are tricky,” said Jugson.
“You had me going for a second there, dearies.”
They wouldn’t have been fooled for an instant if the burst was standard in Hogwarts. Though this could be something as simple as it not being well known, given the miniscule fatality rate in Hogwarts.
Looking at this again—why didn’t Hermione become a ghost?
Even assuming it’s just a beta-fork of her consciousness, I find it hard to believe that she would be so willing to just move on, if she had the option. And violent death by troll is exactly the sort of thing that results in ghost formation in literature.
So… evidence that someone’s doing something finicky with her soul?
If dying violently was enough on its own, then there would be scads of ghosts floating around, left behind by the war, even if you also discount those brave or unafraid-of-death enough to fight.
Moreover, Hermione’s greatest fear (from the Dementor chapters) was dying alone, and Harry was there to assuage that fear. It’s possible that that was enough to allow her to pass on, and that Harry’s presence was the only reason that she didn’t actually become a ghost. Which could have interesting effects on him if he ever found out.
Which doesn’t mean that something extra isn’t going on.
And of course I forgot the mundane explanation, the one that I would use in the real world : it’s just the too vivid imagination of an overstressed 11-yo boy on the verge of emotional breakdown after seeing the most horrible scene of his life. Nothing actually happened, but Harry’s mind created the special effects that “should” come with such a tragic event as the death of Hermione.
Remember in chapter 6 : « I, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, do now claim this territory in the name of Science.
Lightning and thunder completely failed to flash and boom in the cloudless skies.
“What are you smiling about?” inquired Professor McGonagall, warily and wearily.
“I’m wondering if there’s a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution,” explained Harry. »
This clearly shows that part of his mind is thinking that dramatic events “should” get a dramatic special effects, and while in normal time he’s perfectly aware that’s not how the world works, when he’s crumbling under stress, guilt and pain, he could confuse it for reality.
But while that seems a plausible hypothesis in absolute, it just doesn’t feel right from a story-telling point of view.
I don’t think Rita Skeeter is good evidence. It would not do for Quirrell to have Harry notice an unexpected, strange burst of magic when he’s trying to quietly kill someone; Quirrell would have found a way to suppress it, if it had existed. (It’s also possible that her Animagi transformation suppressed the effect.) The absence of the burst of magic in Harry’s parents’ deaths, on the other hand, has led me to an inverse suspicion to yours...
Yes, I think so. Q has just been telling Harry at length how awful she is and how H has done a good thing by having her career ruined, and a chapter or two before Q said to her something like “I cannot deny myself the pleasure of simply crushing you”.
Is she particularly powerful, though? She’s extraordinarily talented, very knowledgeable for her age, and has more raw power than anyone in her year including Draco; but Rita is more experienced, and most importantly older—it has been repeatedly pointed out that HP lacks the raw power for something-or-other, and the twins are far stronger than he despite not being particularly talented. It seems that Rita should have an edge in the “raw power” department, and I’d expect this effect to key off raw power.
Note that it’s also sufficient to assume that Quirrel and/or Mary’s room can suppress this effect.
What about proximity? It could be that you have to be physically pretty close at the moment of death. That would explain why Harry didn’t feel it when Rita Skeeter died.
Note that since Harry isn’t aware that Rita was killed in front of him, he wouldn’t be aware of that piece of evidence. It’s still an anomaly, and one that he should be noticing for all the other reasons, but that particular line of reasoning is not available (to Harry, anyway).
There is another point which wasn’t discussed much, but does trouble me : the “outpouring of magic” that happened in chapter 89 when Hermione died.
It’s the first time we heard about anything like that happening after a wizard death. It’s not canon. It wasn’t hinted to before, like Dumbledore didn’t speak about it in “pretending to be wise”, when he tries to convince Harry souls exist. Harry didn’t feel it when his parents were killed. Harry didn’t feel it when Rita Skeeter is killed by Quirrell. That’s a lot of evidence pointing to it not being the common thing that happens when someone dies.
And yet, Harry doesn’t ask any question about it, he doesn’t try to know if it happens rarely (and then in which circumstances ?) or frequently, or if it’s even an entirely new phenomena, it doesn’t ask around if it could be faked, …
Some possibles explanations :
It’s the Source of Magic recording the brain state of person when it dies, allowing for resurrection before. But then, why no hint about it before ? Why Harry didn’t feel it for Rita ?
It’s the Source of Magic recording the brain state of person when it dies, but the Source of Magic didn’t use to do it. Harry had to hack the Source of Magic to implement it. And he had to cleverly use Time Turners so he could hack it before Hermione’s death.
Someone made an Horcrux of Hermione, and it’s the Horcrux that gives the feeling.
It doesn’t occur usually, but it does occur because of a bond between Hermione and Harry, be it just “love magic” or be it with Hermione being bound to House Potter.
This is purely faked (either memory-charm, or a fake feeling) by either Dumbledore or Quirrell (maybe using a Time Turner) to try to convince Harry that Hermione is really dead so he doesn’t do any folly to try to save her (but then, it seemed to fail).
Hermione tried and failed to become a ghost.
It was, in fact, mentioned in chapter 39, Pretending to be Wise:
Hm.
This is the first time we’ve seen anyone die anywhere as magically “dense” as Hogwarts…
They wouldn’t have been fooled for an instant if the burst was standard in Hogwarts. Though this could be something as simple as it not being well known, given the miniscule fatality rate in Hogwarts.
Okay.
Looking at this again—why didn’t Hermione become a ghost?
Even assuming it’s just a beta-fork of her consciousness, I find it hard to believe that she would be so willing to just move on, if she had the option. And violent death by troll is exactly the sort of thing that results in ghost formation in literature.
So… evidence that someone’s doing something finicky with her soul?
I don’t think that’s necessarily true.
If dying violently was enough on its own, then there would be scads of ghosts floating around, left behind by the war, even if you also discount those brave or unafraid-of-death enough to fight.
Moreover, Hermione’s greatest fear (from the Dementor chapters) was dying alone, and Harry was there to assuage that fear. It’s possible that that was enough to allow her to pass on, and that Harry’s presence was the only reason that she didn’t actually become a ghost. Which could have interesting effects on him if he ever found out.
Which doesn’t mean that something extra isn’t going on.
Well, sure. Evidence for, not absurdly-strong-evidence that I’d call a proof. :P
And of course I forgot the mundane explanation, the one that I would use in the real world : it’s just the too vivid imagination of an overstressed 11-yo boy on the verge of emotional breakdown after seeing the most horrible scene of his life. Nothing actually happened, but Harry’s mind created the special effects that “should” come with such a tragic event as the death of Hermione.
Remember in chapter 6 : « I, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, do now claim this territory in the name of Science.
Lightning and thunder completely failed to flash and boom in the cloudless skies.
“What are you smiling about?” inquired Professor McGonagall, warily and wearily.
“I’m wondering if there’s a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution,” explained Harry. »
This clearly shows that part of his mind is thinking that dramatic events “should” get a dramatic special effects, and while in normal time he’s perfectly aware that’s not how the world works, when he’s crumbling under stress, guilt and pain, he could confuse it for reality.
But while that seems a plausible hypothesis in absolute, it just doesn’t feel right from a story-telling point of view.
Quite improbable, given that even a Dementor was unable to make him see things that were not there while he was concious.
I don’t think Rita Skeeter is good evidence. It would not do for Quirrell to have Harry notice an unexpected, strange burst of magic when he’s trying to quietly kill someone; Quirrell would have found a way to suppress it, if it had existed. (It’s also possible that her Animagi transformation suppressed the effect.) The absence of the burst of magic in Harry’s parents’ deaths, on the other hand, has led me to an inverse suspicion to yours...
Am I naive in that I thought it was ambiguous as to whether Rita’s death was intentional?
Yes, I think so. Q has just been telling Harry at length how awful she is and how H has done a good thing by having her career ruined, and a chapter or two before Q said to her something like “I cannot deny myself the pleasure of simply crushing you”.
\6. Hermione is a really extraordinary wizard.
Is she particularly powerful, though? She’s extraordinarily talented, very knowledgeable for her age, and has more raw power than anyone in her year including Draco; but Rita is more experienced, and most importantly older—it has been repeatedly pointed out that HP lacks the raw power for something-or-other, and the twins are far stronger than he despite not being particularly talented. It seems that Rita should have an edge in the “raw power” department, and I’d expect this effect to key off raw power.
Note that it’s also sufficient to assume that Quirrel and/or Mary’s room can suppress this effect.
What about proximity? It could be that you have to be physically pretty close at the moment of death. That would explain why Harry didn’t feel it when Rita Skeeter died.
Note that since Harry isn’t aware that Rita was killed in front of him, he wouldn’t be aware of that piece of evidence. It’s still an anomaly, and one that he should be noticing for all the other reasons, but that particular line of reasoning is not available (to Harry, anyway).
Its the process of someone trying to save hermione.