Harry Potter and The End

People have been conjecturing since the prophecy in OotP that the end of the Harry Potter series will mark the end of Harry's life as well — some even claim to have believed so since SS/PS. Others might not have believed it then, but are now convinced, thanks to HBP, that Harry will have to die because they believe he is a Horcrux. That may be true (though I don't personally think so), but even if he is a Horcrux of Voldemort, that does not mean we should write Harry off! Here I offer theories that deny his doom, as well as why I don't feel it would be preferable, story-wise, to kill him off, as others have suggested.

First, let's tackle the prophecy, shall we? The words "Neither can live while the other survives" seems to lead some to think that means both Voldemort and Harry must die. But let's take another look at the wording: neither Harry nor Voldemort can live WHILE the other survives. Which would infer that one of them CAN live when one of them is dead — it's just a matter of who is what. But this can't even be literal — obviously they've both been alive simultaneously! The word "'live" is used in a more metaphorical way here, suggesting neither one will have "much of a life" if the other is around, because they'll each be too obsessed with getting rid of the other — they won't rest until they've killed the other. If Harry goes against Voldemort, it's because, given Harry's character, he couldn't rest until the danger to everyone is gone; Hermione put it best when she said he had a "saving people thing." Dumbledore said as much in HBP, on pages 509-512 (US Cloth ed.), particularly with the lines "But not because of the Prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you've tried!" (pg 509, US Cloth ed.). And with Dumbledore saying that the prophecy can't be taken as a true prediction anyway, it seems we should put it out of our minds. But even if we think Albus is wrong, and the prophecy is true, that only suggests Harry will live — unless we believe Voldemort will be victorious!

So now let's get to the issue of the Horcrux, and whether Harry is one or not. We'll start with the evidence in support of believing Harry is not a Horcrux.

First of all, if creating a Horcrux were so simple, Voldemort would have been creating them left and right — surly he'd killed more than six people since learning about how to make them? He might want to have seven, but if he lost one it would be no big deal, he could just make another to replace it. The care Voldemort took in protecting the Horcruxes he made after the diary suggests that there's a level of difficulty involved, and that he would not intend to make another "throw-away" one — particularly not if it were the last he intended to make.

Secondly, we know he "died", and that his attempt to kill Harry was what did him in — he said as much in GoF: "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him." (pg 652, US Cloth ed., first printing). I could see him potentially wishing to used baby Harry's death to create a Horcrux, but if he used James or Lily's deaths instead to split his soul, why would he want to put the resulting Horcrux into a dead body? I think it far more likely her already had his final Horcrux before going there, and simply wanted to eliminate what the prophecy called a potential rival.

Not to mention that Voldemort has repeatedly tried to kill Harry, something I highly doubt he would do to something he knew to be a Horcrux.

Anyway, when Dumbledore said that Voldemort seemed to have accidentally transferred some of his power into Harry, I can see how people might come to the conclusion that Harry was made into a Horcrux, whether intentionally or not. The fact that they are bound together, so that Harry witnesses what Voldemort sees, certainly encourages that theory. But again, I say creating a Horcrux doesn't seem to be an easy task — for it to be an accident seems highly unlikely. Also, if Harry were a Horcrux, shouldn't Voldemort have been able to control him, the way the Tom Riddle of the diary was able to control Ginny? I mean, we're not talking the Imperious, here, we're talking possession.

So couldn't there be another explanations for their bond? Just as Lily's love became something tangible in Harry, a protection that Quirrell couldn't touch, couldn't Voldemort, in "death," have also somehow transferred something into Harry without it having anything to do with Horcruxes? Couldn't their connection simply be some quirk of the Curse Scar? For their bond is marked by the Scar, no question — but nothing we know Voldemort has made into a Horcrux has had any physical changes made to it. I don't recall reading that Nagini has any strange markings. The Gaunt family ring seemed to be the same up until Dumbledore "broke" it. And Tom Riddle's diary was repeatedly described as blank — wouldn't Harry have noticed any strange markings?

Then there's this little theory posed by Dumbledore: "The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body. That was the part of him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his exile; without that, he has no self at all. That seventh piece of soul will be the last piece that anybody wishing to kill Voldemort must attack — the piece that lives inside his body." (HBP, pg 530, US Cloth ed.) Harry certainly couldn't kill himself first, so it would have to be some sort of suicide attempt where he took Voldemort with him. That just sounds too iffy to even risk — if I were Harry, I'd worry that Voldemort might still survive somehow. Apparate at the last minute or something. But yes, I concede there's a small possibility of such a scenario — it just doesn't seem likely to me in light of the above evidence.

And personally, if we're going to say Harry is a Horcrux, I like the idea of him being the lone good part of Riddle that conquers the rest and lives on.

But if it's true that Harry is a Horcrux and must die, then where would that leave the story be? Lily would have sacrificed her life just so Harry could be used as a weapon later and die, after a short and harrowing life? Is that the message we want to see: Life sucks and then you die? Living a good life gains you nothing but heartache? Why bother, we're all going to die at some point anyway?

Rowling has said Harry is like a son to her, and that it broke her heart to kill Sirius. Don't you think killing Harry, after telling us his story for all these years, would just about shatter her? As a writer, from my own perspective, I know writing such a scenario would leave me weeping in a corner and feeling ill. And I suspect that Rowling is a muse-driven writer not so much unlike myself (call me arrogant for saying it if you like, but know that I'm talking technique/approach/mindset, not ability).

At least killing Sirius and Cedric and Dumbledore served purposes — the progression of both the story and Harry as a character. But Harry's death would not move the story, it would end it when it would already be ending. Of course, some would argue that that's the most appropriate ending, but to me "tragedy" has become the new cliche. I don't know about you, but I read fiction to get away from real life. I tend to see the act of killing off characters just to get an emotional reactions to be grossly-manipulative on the part of the writer (Women in Refrigerators, anyone?), and I don't think Rowling is like that. (I'm surprised I don't see people complaining left and right that Frodo went quietly into the west a number of years after the war, and Aragorn married Arwen, as opposed to them all getting killed in battle!) I don't see why letting Harry settle down with Ginny, as a reward for his long struggle, would be a less-than-desirable end, and having him die would somehow be preferable. And I can't see her as having set up all these relationships with the Weasleys only to have OBHWF become irrelevant by the end. Ron ends up with Hermione, Harry ends up with Ginny, end of story.

Sure, people die in war in real life — but people live too. Just ask someone who knows about Audie Murphy, a real-life hero who survived impossible scenarios again and again in World War II — if people like him can exist in real life, I don't see anything wrong with letting a well-loved fictional hero have a happy ending. I mean, we're already talking about a story that involves magic for Frith's sake — I don't see how letting Harry live would make the story harder to swallow! Quite the opposite!

But if that's how things turn out … well, there's always fanfiction! ^_~