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.

Suppose the cloak does work by binding the soul to the physical body, but does nothing to protect that body from harm. Now add the other two items as described in Beedle. The all powerful Elder Wand, capable of killing any opponent. The Resurrection Stone, capable of calling shades of the dead back into the world of the living. And the master of the hallows under the Cloak. Their soul bound to their body by the Cloak long after that body had ceased to function naturally. Perhaps long after that body had rotted away to nothing but bone?

A familiar image, no? An invisible, living skeleton stalking the land, choosing who dies and who lives....

I believe it was Nietzsche who once warned that those who fight monsters must beware lest they become monsters themselves.

(In the interest of fairness, the Grim Reaper is traditionally a neutral figure (the true equalizer of society), not a malevolent one. In some fairy tales, like Godfather Death, he is even benevolent (within limits).)

[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.

The 'bridge' the brothers created that so angered Death was, in reality, the Veil we see in the DoM. I think they wove the Veil of Thestral hair treated in a potion consisting, at least in part, of Unicorn blood (willingly given) and Phoenix tears. The selection of the stones for the arch and the final construction were guided by the Darkest, most ancient arts, the Great Mysteries and Cthonic Rites, all taken to the utmost limits of possibility.

This was the first time that mortals had created a standing portal to the afterlife (or whatever dimension it connects to in reality), and the entities that lived on the other side were Not Pleased. Not. One. Bit. The brothers, unfortunately, didn't realize how angry the Denizens of the Other Side were, and instead sought their knowledge, assuming they would respond in good faith instead of seeking to wipe out the interlopers.

I have some ideas on how the Denizens managed to sabotage the two older brothers' requests so thoroughly, but we're focused on the cloak. I believe that the cloak is relatively benign specifically because the youngest brother didn't ask for help in designing it from whatever lay beyond the Veil. He wove leftover Thestral hair from the creation of the Veil into the cloak he was making, but his goal was never an Ur-Invisibility Cloak for this side of the Veil - his goal was to create something that would allow him to pass through the Veil and return safely. While he was on the other side, his goal was to observe the beings that existed there without disturbing them or alerting them to his presence - much like any naturalist might camouflage themselves and mask their scent while trying to observe creatures in their natural habitat. Thus, a Cloak that can 'hide one from Death.'

We know Peeves could perceive Harry's presence under the cloak, but he couldn't distinguish him from a ghost. Did we ever see a ghost notice Harry under the Cloak? Could Moody's Mad Eye also perceive ghosts when they had turned themselves invisible, or just humans? Dumbledore claimed a hominem revelum spell could detect Harry under the Cloak, but if someone cast a spell to detect ghosts, might that throw up a false positive for someone under the Cloak?

I think that the Cloak's apparent indestructibility was more a happy side-effect of the materials used in its crafting than the goal. If it is also capable of keeping its wearer alive (or at least their soul bound to their flesh) indefinitely, that effect is likely an incidental corollary to whatever spells were woven into it to allow safe passage through the Veil.

(Of course, I also think the Cloak didn't work as intended. You could indeed pass through the Veil safely, but because you were still bound to the mortal world you could never pass far beyond it - perhaps only as far as the cracks of mortal light creeping around the edges of the Veil might reach. Who said probing the Great Mysteries was easy?)

[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.