Death's own cloak

[sunnyskywalker]

The cloak has always seemed the odd Hallow out. It makes you invisible, but no more invisible than any other invisibility cloak. Dumbledore said vaguely that the cloak could "protect" anyone under it, but we see that you can easily be Petrified while under the cloak, and so presumably other curses won't have any trouble getting through either. Its

Comments

[annoni_no]

A second thought on what it means for the uniter of the Hallows to be The Master of Death, Death's Equal, and, by Albus' interpretation, Immortal

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh, I like this! The cloak > Grim Reaper connection is excellent!

If the Master of Death doesn't use the wand only for killing, he could probably cast some soul-sucking curses, and we'd get a kind of ur-dementor in there too. Or can the Stone not just return departed shades -- apparently -- but suck a shade right out of a living person, if you know how to use it? Maybe you can only unlock that feature once you have all three...

So many excellent possibilities could come from this.

[annoni_no]

Are we assuming the shades are real souls - who somehow are unanimous in their 'Yay! Let's all commit suicide!' philosophy - or are they some sort of demon disguising themselves as the dearly departed specifically to better tempt the user into suicide?

[oneandthetruth]

Maybe what they are is not either one, but a kind of holographic, interactive program designed to look like a given person's loved ones, but programmed to say things that will make death look attractive and/or encourage a person to die/commit suicide. After all, if the stone belonged to Death, of course whatever it produces is going to make death look good. Since Death is a supernatural being, it could have had access for centuries to technology humans have only recently invented.

[oryx_leucoryx]

In the legend the stone was a random pebble that Death picked up. Death didn't need the stone, nor did he ever have it for long. But he must have given it a power he had. Hmm, was the pre-Peverel Death more powerful than present-day Death?

[annoni_no]

This assumes that there was a real Death that created the Hallows and gave them to humans. Which is possible in Rowling!verse, but I find it a bit unsatisfactory. My current head!canon is that they were made by wizards - incredibly powerful, brilliant wizards, yes - but still mortal and fallible. The legend about meeting Death grew up around them later and was a corruption and romanticization of what had actually happened

[sunnyskywalker]

I love both your bridge/Veil Arch creation process and your wizarding naturalist :D

[sunnyskywalker]

Could be illusions or demons or maybe "echoes" (whatever came out of Voldemort's wand from Priori Incantatem), or possibly real souls who have been effectively Imperiused? Ugh, imagine real souls that can be yanked away from wherever they were and mind-controlled by anyone who happens to get their hands on the special rock.

I very much hope they aren't real.