Chapter 35 -- King's Cross

[gehayi]

In which Harry is mostly dead, Voldemort's soul is ignored for no particular reason, and Albus Dumbledore Lies About It All To You.

Note: This is from the British edition. Readers of the American edition may notice some differences in the text.

Chapter Thirty-Five -- King’s Cross

Comments

[smurasaki]

Descartes! Harry: "Cubito ergo sum. I lie down often. Therefore, I am."

*laughs* Perfect.

I don't understand why Harry was afraid of the flayed baby soul. Repulsed, I can understand, or horrified, but afraid? Are we supposed to believe he senses it's Voldie's soul? (Though, if Voldie's soul is in that state, it makes him seem pitiable, not frightening. Furthermore, shouldn't having your soul in that state have some affect on you? I really don't get souls in the Wizarding World.)

It's not really a case of "giving his life to save others" if the mortal hero suddenly acquires a "get out of death free" card.

Good point. How is it that his temporary mostly-maybe-death worked to protect people? He didn't actually die for them, both in the sense that he didn't, you know, actually die, and in the sense that his focus was on carrying out Dumbles' plans for him, not protecting his comrades. Besides, if just being willing to die for others is good enough to protect them, why aren't a hell of a lot of people protected in any given battle? Judging from the fact that Harry could fail to die protecting them and protect them, any potentially lethal to yourself action taken to protect another should provide this magical protection. Shouldn't it?

Lily died for her son, not his blood. The spell should attach to him, not to various body parts.

Bwahahahahaha! Imagine if he accidentally splinched off the part she died for (whichever part that might be).

"The Resurrection Stone - to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi!"

Wait. What does the Resurrection Stone do again? Does it: A) pull a soul out of The Great Room of Requirement in the Sky and force it to be quasi-alive for the benefit of the stone's owner, B) cause hallucinations/give life to memories or C) create Inferi? I can buy a ghost maker or a zombie maker, but I have trouble with a ring that sometimes makes ghosts and sometimes makes zombies. (Never mind the greater question of why it could be Horcruxed and de-Horcruxed and still work. Why were the Resurrection Stone (if that is indeed what the stone was and it wasn't just a broken ring Harry used to hallucinate with) and Harry exempt from being destroyed?)

Never mind that this chapter proves that not only does Rowling not re-read previous books, she doesn't flip back through the one she's writing to make it consistent with itself. -_-

And Dumbledore. There are words for Dumbledore, but none of them are the ones Rowling thinks apply. I find him far more despicable than Voldie. Far more.

[smurasaki]

Yeah. And why exactly was it his mother's death? I mean, both his parents died trying to save him (well, okay, mostly they died from dropping the brain cell they shared between them, but we'll skip over that). It seems like Voldie should have risked decorporation whenever he faced a parent and children, a couple, or any two (or more) people who loved one another.
Think about it. If JKR had actually considered the ramifications of a magic system that included protection from death any time one person risked their life saving (or trying to save) another, she could have had a very interesting world. Granted, there'd be a lot more casualties like Neville's parents, since it would be safer to torture your enemy than try to kill them, but that would actually fit her "there are worse things than death" idea better.

[jodel_from_aol]

Because he made a promise (to Snape) *not* to kill Lily. And broke it. So far as I can see, he didn't blow himself up from killing her, he did it by not keeping his word.

Which renders the whole thing *even more stupid*.

Lily didn't have *any* reason to believe that he would spare her if she stepped aside. Nobody filled her in on Tom's promises to his followers. So where does the "sacrifice" come in?

My head hurts.

[smurasaki]

...
Did she think this thing through at all? I think we just caused the entire series to vanish in a puff of logic.

[minkhollow]

So long as we don't go on to prove that black is white and get ourselves killed at the next pedestrian crossing, I think we're all right.

[gehayi]

So this book is translated Vogon poetry? Because that would explain a lot.

[shyfoxling]

Are we about to be thrown out an airlock?

[gehayi]

I think that that would be infinitely improbable.

[shyfoxling]

And therefore almost certain to happen immediately.

[gehayi]

Well, million to one chances DO occur nine times out of ten.

[loopyloonyluna]

I much preferred the theory that Lily (who was so good at charms and apparently potions as well) found some obscure protective magic and had the ooompf to pull it off. It's a much more sensible, simple and easily described answer.

[jodel_from_aol]

Oh, yeah. My first theories utilized something very much like that. It *does* hang together reasonably well. Better than anything Rowling gave us, anyway.

After HBP with all its Lily adulation I got sidetracked into the possibility that Lily was actually worth saving for something other than sentimental reasons, and that Tom had an actual *use* for her. Not that he *told* her so, but that he really did intend to spare her, and that she quite literally threw herself into the path of a curse that he fired off at Harry.

Which, since it *wasn't* an "unblockable" AK, but the Horcrux creator curse instead -- and which absolutely HAS to be *grounded* -- totally destabilized it and all hell broke loose. I liked that iteration even better, but, then, I'm a rude mechanical and Rowling wouldn't recognize mechanics if she got her bum stuck in the gears.

My own last attempt is still over on the Red Hen site. It's the last iteration of the Changeling Hypothesis in the collection called the Potterverse "Unhallowed." I couldn't see any point in trying to make it DHs compliant. Be like sewing jewelery on a dirty dishrag. Even if the jewelery is fake, it doesn't belong there, and that's a damned fool use for it..